Even Hippolyte shrunk back, like some grotesque fiend rebuked. Bartoletti strove to expostulate, but somehow he was awed by the beauty of that holy wrath, so young, so fair, so terrible, and he dared not lift his eyes to meet those scorching looks. He cowered, he trembled, he signed to two negro women to obey Mademoiselle, and then slunk doggedly away.
Cerise passed her arm caressingly round Fleurette’s neck, she wiped the poor torn shoulders with her own laced handkerchief, she rested the dark woolly head on her bosom, and lifting the slave’s face to her own, kissed her, once, twice, tenderly and pitifully on the lips.
Then Fleurette’s tears gushed out: she sank to her young mistress’s knees, she grovelled at her very feet, she kissed them, she hugged them, she pressed them to her eyes and mouth; she vowed, she sobbed, she protested, and, at least while her passion of gratitude and affection lasted, she spoke no more than the truth when she declared that she asked no better than to consecrate every drop of blood in her body, her life, her heart, her soul, to the service of Mademoiselle de Montmirail.
CHAPTER XXXII
A WISE CHILD
‘The Bashful Maid’ was still lying peacefully at anchor in the harbour of Port Welcome, yards squared, sails furled, decks polished to a dazzling white, every article of gear and tackle denoting profound repose, even the very pennon from her truck drooping motionless in the heat. Captain George spent much of his time below, making up his accounts, with the invaluable assistance of Beaudésir, who, having landed soon after their arrival, remained an hour or two in the town, and returned to the brigantine, expressing no desire for further communication with the shore.
George himself postponed his visit to the island until he had completed the task on which he was engaged. In the meantime he gave plenty of liberty to the crew, an indulgence of which none availed themselves more freely than Slap-Jack and his two friends.
These last indeed seldom stirred beyond the town. Here they found all they wanted in the shape of luxury or amusement: strong tobacco, new rum, an occasional scrape of a fiddle with a thrumming accompaniment on the banjo, nothing to do, plenty to drink, and a large room to smoke in.
But the foretopman was not so easily satisfied. Much to the disgust of his comrades, he seemed to weary of their society, to have lost his relish for fiery drinks and sea stories; nay, to have acquired diverse tastes and habits foreign to his nature and derogatory to his profession.
“Gone cruisin’ thereaway,” observed Bottle-Jack, vaguely waving his pipe in the direction of the mountains. “Never taken no soundings, nor kept no dead reckoning, nor signalled for a pilot, but just up foresail, drive-ahead, stem on, happy-go-lucky, an’ who cares!” While Smoke-Jack, puffing out solemn clouds of fragrant Trinidado, enunciated sententiously that he “Warn’t a-goin’ to dispute but what every craft should hoist her own ensign, an’ lay her own course; but when he see a able seaman clearing out from such a berth as this here, leaving the stiffest of grog and the strongest of ‘bacca’ a-cause of a old yaller woman with a red burgee; why, he knowed the trim on ’em, that was where it was. See if it wasn’t. Here’s my service to you, mate—All ships at sea!”