A CARIB’S REVENGE.

In a work recently published in London, by Captain Millman, are to be found some of the most thrilling scenes, from life in the tropics, it has ever been our fortune to meet with.  The following account of a Carib’s revenge on a sea captain, named Jack Diver, on one of the narrow mountain paths of Guadaloupe, is exceedingly graphic and forcible: 

While he was making up his mind, a dark figure had stolen unperceived close behind him, with a small basket in his hand of split reeds, out of which came a low buzzing, murmuring sound.  He lay down quietly across the path, at the point of the first angle of the elbow of the mountain spar, not many feet from the hind legs of the horse.  Jack Diver with a scowling look, turned his horse round with some difficulty.  It plunged and reared slightly, but went on.  Occupied with retaining his seat, the master of the transport scarcely perceived the figure lying in the path.  He could not see who it was, for the face of the man was toward the ground.  But the horse saw it at once.  The animal, accustomed to mountain roads from its birth, had often stepped over both men and animals which are sometimes forced in the narrowest parts to lie down to let the heavier and stronger pass, in that highly dangerous and disagreeable method, lifted his feet cautiously, one by one, so as not to tread on the prostrate figure.  As the horse was above him, the man lifted with one hand the lid of the basket, and a swarm of wasps flew suddenly out, buzzing and humming fiercely, and in a moment they began to settle on the moving object.  The horse commenced switching his tail to drive them away, pricking up his ears, and snorting with terror.

The man on the path lay quite still until they had thus moved on a few yards, and then he raised his head a little, and watched them with his keen black eyes.  The wasps, driven off for a moment, became only the more irritated, and returned with vigor and wonderful pertinacity to the attack,—­beginning to sting the poor animal furiously in all the tender parts.  They assailed the wretched master in his turn, darting their venomed barbs into his face and hands, and driving him nearly frantic.  The horse plunged furiously, and Jack Diver, losing his stirrups and his presence of mind together, twisted his hands into the horse’s mane, to keep his seat, letting the reins fall on his neck.  At last, with a rear and a bound into the air, the maddened animal darted off at a gallop; but the faster he went, the closer stuck the persevering wasps.  Jack Diver shut his eyes, screaming with fear and pain.  Then the Carib chief rose up, and again the hawk-like scream echoed along the valley.  The turn is to be made—­can the horse recover himself?  Yes, maddened as he is, he sees the danger instinctively.  His speed slackens—­he throws himself on his haunches, with his fore feet on the very brink of the precipice.