Long ere the two stanch friends, however, had arrived at this intelligible conclusion, the object of their anxiety was half-way up the mountain, in fulfilment of the promise he had made Célandine to meet her at an appointed place.
In justice to Slap-Jack, it is but fair to admit that his sentiments in regard to the Quadroon were those of keen curiosity mingled with pity for the obvious agitation under which she seemed to labour in his presence. Fair Alice herself, far off in her humble home among the downs, need not have grudged the elder woman an hour of her young seaman’s society, although every minute of it seemed so strangely prized by this wild, energetic, and mysterious person, with her swarthy face, her scarlet head-dress, and her flashing eyes, gleaming with the fierce anxious tenderness of a leopardess separated from her whelps.
Slap-Jack’s sea legs had hardly time to become fatigued, ere at a turn in the mountain-path he found Célandine waiting for him, and somewhat to his disgust, peering about in every direction, as if loth to be observed; a clandestine interpretation of their harmless meeting which roused the young seaman’s ire, and against which he would have vehemently protested, had she not placed her hand over his mouth and implored him urgently, though in a whisper, to keep silence. Then she bade him follow, still below her breath, and so preceded him up the steep ascent with cautious, stealthy steps, but at a pace that made the foretopman’s unaccustomed knees shake and his breath come quick.
The sun was hot, the mountain high, the path overgrown with cactus and other prickly plants, tangled with creepers and not devoid of snakes. Monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, glittering insects quivered like tinsel in the sun, or darted like flashes of coloured light across the forest-shade. Vistas of beauty, such as he had never dreamed of, opened out on either side, and looking back more than once to take breath while he ascended, the deep blue sea lay spread out beneath him, rising broader and broader to meet the blue transparent sky.
But Slap-Jack, truth to tell, was sadly indifferent to it all. Uneasiness of the legs sadly counteracted pleasure of the eye. It was with considerable gratification that he observed his leader diverge from the upward path, and rounding the shoulder of the hill, take a direction somewhat on the downward slope. Then he wiped his brows, with a sigh of relief, and asked audibly enough for something to drink.
She seemed less afraid of observation now, although she did not comply with his request, but pointed downward to a dark hollow, from which ascended a thin, white, spiral line of smoke, the only sign denoting human habitation in the midst of this luxuriant wilderness of tropical growth and fragrance. Then, parting the branches with both hands, she dived into the thicket, to stop at the door of a hut, so artfully concealed amongst the dense luxuriant foliage that a man might have passed within five yards and never known it was there but for the smoke.
Célandine closed the door cautiously behind her visitor, handed him a calabash of water, into which she poured some rum from a goodly stone jar—holding at least a gallon—watched him eagerly while he drank, and when he set the measure down, flung both arms round his neck, and kissing him all over the eyes and face, murmured in fondest accents—
“Do you not know why I have brought you here? Do you not know who and what you are?”
“I could have told you half an hour back,” answered Slap-Jack, with a puzzled air, “but so many queer starts happen hereaway, mother, that I’m blessed if I can tell you now.”
Tears shone in the fierce black eyes that never left his face, but seemed to feast on its comeliness with the desire of a famished appetite for food.