The Maroons by Louis Timagène Houat

Author:Louis Timagène Houat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Restless Books

III

Maroonage

AS WE HAVE SEEN, the Câpre held different intentions than his comrades, and did not feel the need to accompany them after their meeting at the great tamarisk. While the three Malagasies, who had agreed to go by the Amboilame’s plan, were walking back to the plantation, expecting to stay there for only one more day, the Câpre had embarked on a solitary journey toward the Salazes. He did not follow them, perhaps having foreseen the dreadful fate that awaited them. True to his word during their collusion, he had become a maroon.

Between their gathering point and the nearest foot of the Salazes lay a distance of approximately four to five kilometers, as the crow flies. At first glance, this initial stretch seemed relatively short. However, it took our fugitive two hours to cover it. It is not that he was in no hurry to leave the savannah, nor that he got distracted along the way; if anything, the place was too open for him to wish to stay there for longer than necessary. But the route was not straight, and became more and more crooked and difficult to tread, until soon there remained no path at all. He found himself surrounded by thick brushwood and thorny thickets that he had to navigate. Treacherous streams meandered around the hills, adding to the obstacles he faced. By the time he reached the daunting base of the mountains, dawn had already broken.

He had to tap into his last reserves of strength, summon all the courage within him because it was clear that the worst was yet to come. Despite his exhaustion, he didn’t retreat or shrink back at the sight of the towering giant before him. Instead, he grappled with this formidable mass of rock, which stood like a pointed pyramid, and began to climb using his hands and belly as much as his feet. To an onlooker, he would have appeared like an ant struggling upon a colossal sugarloaf, with the crucial difference being that for him, the slightest misstep could result in a horrifying death. His only means of ascending and maintaining balance above the abyss were patches of sparse grass and irregularly spaced fractures in the rock.

But there came a moment when even these fragile supports became elusive—an awful moment when the mountain abruptly curved, forming an elbow-like bend, and presented nothing but a sheer, vertical face looming above him! How could he possibly climb this? What could he grasp on to? He felt like going back down, retracing his steps. But to do so, without the fear, the certainty of falling, he would have needed eyes on his toes … How else could he find his way back? His hands dared not leave the places where they had hooked themselves, and his feet, desperate for crevices to step into, swam in vain against the cliff …

Thus suspended, unable to climb up or down, and supported by nothing but a proverbial strand of hair at such a terrifying height,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.