Long Odds by Harold Bindloss — Read

The black troops were coming home again when they halted at a coffee-planter's fazienda within easy march of the coast to allow the rear guard to come up. They had met with no resistance since they crossed the river. The rebels had melted away before them and vanished into the forests and marshes of the interior, and the troops had pushed on into a waste and empty country finding only a few deserted villages here and there. This was, however, very much what their leader had expected, for he knew that in an affair of this kind everything usually turns upon the first success, and he had made his plans with that fact in view. Dom Clemente Figuera was, at least, a capable soldier.

The fazienda was old and somewhat ruinous. Its prosperity had departed, though plantations of coffee and cocoa still stretched about the rambling white house and dusky laborers' sheds, and a little coarse sugar was made chiefly for the sake of the resultant rum. Cocoa could no longer be grown there by antiquated methods at a profit, and there had of late been trouble about the labor supply. Standing where it did within easy reach of the coast, the fazienda was open to inspection, and the rulers of that colony had of late been making inquiries as to the way in which the legislation that permitted the planters to engage the negroes brought down from the bush was carried out. Indeed, its owners realized with concern that there was likely to be a change in their ruler's views. Dom Clemente had, in fact, issued one or two proclamations which filled them with alarm, for they knew that what he said was usually done.