about midnight
`` And these are slaves , '' thought I , `` and this is West Indian bondage ! Oh that some of my well-meaning anti-slavery friends were here , to judge from the evidence of their own senses ! '' The following night there was to be a grand play or wake in the negro houses , over the head cooper , who had died in the morning , and I determined to be present at it , although the overseer tried to dissuade me , saying that no white person ever broke in on these orgies , that the negroes were very averse to their doing so , and that neither he , nor any of the white people on the estate , had ever been present on such an occasion . This very interdict excited my curiosity still more ; so I rose about midnight , and let myself gently down through the window , and shaped my course in the direction of the negro houses , guided by a loud drumming , which , as I came nearer , every now and then sunk into a low murmuring roll , when a strong bass voice would burst forth into a wild recitative ; to which succeeded a loud piercing chorus of female voices , during which the drums were beaten with great vehemence ; this was succeeded by another solo , and so on . There was no moon , and I had to thread my way along one of the winding footpaths by starlight . When I arrived within a stone-cast of the hut before which the play was being held , I left the beaten track , and crept onwards , until I gained the shelter of the stem of a wild cotton-tree , behind which I skulked unseen . The scene was wild enough .