Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

It is needless to observe this imputed violence was a fabrication for the especial benefit of Hippolyte, and the energy with which he pronounced the ejaculation, “Golly!” denoted that he placed implicit reliance on its truth.

“You are brave,” continued Célandine; “you are strong; you are the fine tall negro whom we call the Pride of the Plantation. You do not know what it is to hate like a poor weak woman. I would have no scruple, no mercy; I would spare none, neither Madame nor Mademoiselle.”

“Ma’amselle come into woods with me,” interrupted Hippolyte, with a horrible leer. “Good enough wife for Pride of Plantation. Lilly-face look best by um side of black man. Ma’amselle guess me come for marry her. When floggee Fleurette, look at me so, afore all de niggers, sweet as molasses!”

Again Célandine shivered. The wretch’s vanity would have been ludicrous, had he not been so formidable from his recklessness, and the authority he seemed to hold over his comrades. She prepared to learn the worst.

“They will both be in our power to-night, I suppose,” said she, repressing with a strong effort her disgust and fierce desire to snatch his long knife and stab him where he stood. “Tell me your plan of attack, my brave colonel, and trust me to help you to the utmost.”

The Coromantee looked about him suspiciously, rolling his eyes in obvious perplexity. The superstition inherent in his nature made him desirous of obtaining her assistance, while the Quadroon’s antecedents, and particularly her marriage with the overseer, seemed to infer that she would prove less zealous than she affected to be in the cause of insurrection. He made up his mind therefore to bind her by an oath, which he himself dictated, and made her swear by the mysterious power she served, and from which she derived her influence, to be true, silent, and merciless, till the great event had been accomplished, all the whites in authority massacred, and the whole estate in the power of the slaves. Every penalty, both horrible and ludicrous, that the grotesque imagination of a savage could devise, was called down upon her head in the event of treachery; and Célandine, who was a sufficiently good Catholic at heart, swallowed all these imprecations imperturbably enough, pledging herself, without the slightest hesitation, to the conspiracy.

Then Hippolyte was satisfied and unfolded his plans, while the others gathered round with fearful interest, wagging their heads, rolling their eyes, grinning, stamping, and ejaculating deep gutturals of applause.

His scheme was feasible enough; nor to one who knew no scruples of gratitude, no instincts of compassion, did it present any important obstacles. He was at the head of an organised body, comprising nearly all the male slaves on the plantation; a body prepared to rise at a moment’s notice, if only assured of success. The dozen negroes who accompanied him had constituted themselves his guards, and were pledged to strike the first blow, at his command. They were strong, able-bodied, sensual, idle, dissolute, unscrupulous, and well enough fitted for their enterprise, but that they were arrant cowards, one and all. As, however, little resistance could be anticipated, this poltroonery was the more to be dreaded by their victims, that in the hour of triumph it would surely turn to cruelty and excess.

Hippolyte, who was not deficient in energy, had also been in communication with the disaffected slaves on the adjoining estates; these too were sworn to rise at a given signal, and the Coromantee, feeling that his own enterprise could scarcely fail, entertained a fervent hope that in a few hours the whole of the little island, from sea to sea, would be in possession of the negroes, and he himself chosen as their chief. The sack and burning of Port Welcome, the massacre of the planters and abduction of their families, were exciting little incidents of the future, on which he could hardly trust himself to dwell; but the first step in the great enterprise was to be taken at Montmirail West, and to its details Célandine now listened with a horror that, while it curdled her blood, she was forced to veil under a pretence of zeal and enthusiasm in the cause.