A deep feeling of reverence for the girl crept into his sinful heart. There was something so innocent about her pose, and her every action. She had opened a tiny sandalwood box, and taking therefrom a small powder-puff had softly dabbed it on a pimple that looked as though a ladybird had flown through the open casement and had settled on the warm whiteness of her bosom. Certainly a peculiar impression to get on Clensy’s mind, but it was just like him!
“Why does she weep? I had thought to see her happy,” murmured Clensy as Sestrina placed the powder-puff on the toilet, and then gazed in the mirror on her own tearful eyes.
Clensy did not know that there had been misery in the palace for the last three days. First of all, Sestrina and Claircine and Gravelot’s valet, Zelong, had sat up all night talking about the rumours of a revolution. And then the President had arrived home at midnight in a fainting condition, a bullet wound in his shoulder. He had fallen down in the hall. His eyes had no longer looked cruel.
“Forgive me, Sestrina,” he had murmured as Claircine, Sestrina, and Zelong had helped carry him into his chamber.
When Sestrina had found herself alone with her parent, she had wished to send for a doctor. But, no, Gravelot would not hear of such a thing. And so, Sestrina carefully bathed and bound the shot-wound which had been inflicted by Biglow’s revolver. That same night the President had confessed to his daughter that he had been under the vile spell of the vaudoux worship.
Sestrina tried to soothe her father as he wept. His sobered senses made him realise the wickedness and cruelty of the papaloi and their fetish rites.
“Thank God, Sestrina, that you were strong enough to resist and keep true to your old Père Chaco,” he cried, as he thought of all that would have happened to the girl had she responded to his wishes and attended the vaudoux temples.
Then the President had told Sestrina of his fears, how the Cacaos were rising in great force. Sestrina was astonished when her father informed her that the palace might be stormed by the rebels if they once got into the town. Then he had said: “Sestrina, if anything happens to me, you must fly from the palace and seek safety on one of the Government steamers and so get away from Hayti as soon as possible. The insurgents would surely shoot all who are related to me.” And when the President, continuing, said, “You must not leave the palace on any account, for I have received information that several Cacaos chiefs are on watch to get my body dead or alive,” Sestrina had felt terribly upset. Consequently she had written to Clensy and begged him to come to her, and at the same time had kept her true reasons for taking this bold course to herself. It was not till Claircine had gone off with the note in hopes to see Clensy and give it him, that Sestrina, woman-like, had reflected on the matter and realised how dangerous it would be for Clensy, a white man, to be seen stealthily approaching the palace after dark.
“Mon Dieu! the sentinels will think he is an assassin, will think he is some Cacaos chief waiting in ambush to slay my father. O, mon Dieu! he will be shot, and all through me! It is I who have told him to come and climb the grape-vine to-morrow night!”
And as she sat there on the couch in her chamber, she once more bowed her head and wept bitterly.