CHAPTER XXXIII
JACK AGROUND
Opening the door with a yawn, and stretching her arms like one lately roused from sleep, the Quadroon found herself face to face with the Coromantee, backed by nearly a score of negroes, the idlest and most dissolute slaves on the estate. All seemed more or less intoxicated, and Célandine, who knew the African character thoroughly, by no means liked their looks. She was aware that much disaffection existed in the plantation, and the absence of this disorderly gang from their work at so early an hour in the afternoon argued something like open revolt. It would have been madness, however, to show fear, and the Obi-woman possessed, moreover, a larger share of physical courage than is usual with her sex; assuming, therefore, an air of extreme dignity, she stationed herself in the doorway and demanded sternly what they wanted.
Hippolyte, who seemed to be leader of the party, doffed his cabbage-tree hat with ironical politeness, and pointing over his shoulder at two grinning negroes laden with plantains and other garden produce, came to business at once.
“We buy,—you sell, Missee Célandine. Same as storekeeper down Port Welcome. Fust ask gentlemen step in, sit down, take something to drink.”
There was that in his manner which made her afraid to refuse, and inviting the whole party to enter, she accommodated them with difficulty in the hut. Reviewing her assembled guests, the Quadroon’s heart sank within her; but she was conscious of possessing cunning and courage, so summoned both to her aid.
A negro, under excitement, from whatever cause, is a formidable-looking companion. Those animal points of head and countenance, by which he is distinguished from the white man, then assume an unseemly prominence. The lips thicken, the temples swell, the eyes roll, the brow seems to recede, and the whole face alters for the worse, like that of a vicious horse, when he lays his ears back, prepared to kick.
Célandine’s visitors displayed all these alarming signs, and several other disagreeable peculiarities, the result of partial intoxication. Some of them carried axes, she observed, and all had knives. Their attire too, though of the gaudiest colours, was extremely scanty, ragged, and unwashed. They jested with one another freely enough, as they sat huddled together on the floor of the hut, but showed little of the childish good-humour common among prosperous and well-ordered slaves; while she augured the worst from the absence of that politeness which, to do him justice, is a prominent characteristic of the negro. Nevertheless, she dissembled her misgivings, affected an air of dignified welcome, handed round the calabash, with its accompanying stone bottle, to all in turn, and felt but little reassured to find that the rum was nearly exhausted when it had completed the circle.
“Thirteen gentlemen, Missee Célandine,” observed the Coromantee, tossing off his measure of raw spirits with exceeding relish; “thirteen charms, best Obi-woman can furnish for the price, ’gainst evil eye, snake-bite, jumbo-stroke, fire, water, and cold steel, all ’counted for, honourable, in dem plantain baskets. Hi! you lazy nigger, pay out. Say, again, missee, what day this of the month?”
Célandine affected to consider.