THE next day Clensy, Biglow, and Adams sat whispering together over a table in the small café chantant near Toujeaur. They all appeared calm enough after their adventure. Adams was the only one who had escaped from the vaudoux temple unscathed. Clensy had a swollen lip and Biglow had got out of the mêlée with nothing more than a large contusion over his left eyebrow. Biglow seemed in high spirits. He was delighted to think that he had been able to save the wretched mulatto girl from being slain on the vaudoux altars.
“What a fine missionary I am!” he said, as, smacking his leg with his hand, he gave a huge smile of approbation over his pleasure in the thought of all he had accomplished. “Nice little kid she was too!” he said as he referred to the maid he had rescued. “She’s as safe as houses now; I’ve placed her in the hands of an aged Haytian woman, a special friend of mine, one whom I can trust.”
“Wasn’t she thankful! and the way she clung to you and kissed you when she came to!” said Clensy, referring to the rescued girl’s hysterical delight when she found herself safe in the jungle, her brow being fanned by Biglow and Clensy when she regained consciousness.
For the moment the three men sat silent. Even Adams’s solitary eye looked dim as they sat there and thought of the mulatto girl’s delight when she, realising the whole position, had clung like a child at Biglow’s breast.
“Do you mean to inform the authorities about it all?” said Clensy.
“No lad, I’ve thought it over, it wouldn’t be much use. You see, Gravelot is in with the fanatics, and he would be sure to deny everything, and possibly turn the tables on us. By now they’ve wrapped their wounds up and buried the dead too.”
“But Gravelot got a shot in the shoulder, I saw him stumble and clap his hand to it; how would he explain that?” said Clensy.
“Oh, he’d say that we waylaid him, shot and robbed him while he was on his way to church, evening Mass, or something, and we’d get shot for that,” replied Biglow as he swallowed a tumbler full of whisky and water.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Clensy feeling much relieved. The fact is, that Clensy was trying to find out what Biglow’s intentions in the matter really were. The young Englishman didn’t want Sestrina’s father arrested by the British officials and shot. He knew that he would be called upon to give evidence in the courts, and that Sestrina would naturally look upon him as one who had helped put her father to death.
Biglow’s capacious mind had swiftly come to the conclusion that it would pay him better to have the president under his thumb than to attempt to claim the reward from the authorities.