“It was lucky you brought me with you,” said she earnestly. “Brave as you are, I fancy you would have been scared had you acted on your own plan. You talk of firing Cash-a-crou, as you would of roasting a turtle in its shell. Do you know that madame keeps a dozen barrels of gunpowder stowed away about the house—nobody knows where but herself. You would have looked a little foolish, I think, my brave colonel, to find your long body blown clean over the Sulphur Mountain into the sea on the other side of the island. You and your guard here are as handsome a set of blacks as a yellow woman need wish to look on. Not a morsel would have been left of any one of you the size of my hand!”
“Golly!” exclaimed Hippolyte in consternation. “Missee Célandine, you go free for tanks, when this job clean done. Hi! you black fellows, keep under shadow of gum-tree dere—change um plan now,” he added, thoughtfully; and without taking his keen eyes off Célandine, walked from one to the other of his band, whispering fresh instructions to each.
The Quadroon counted the time by the beating of her heart. “Now,” she thought, “my boy must have gained the edge of the forest—ten minutes more to cross the new cane-pieces—another ten to reach the shore. He can swim of course—his father swam like a pilot-fish. In forty minutes he might be on board. Five to man a boat—and ten more to pull her in against the ebb. Then they have fully a league to march, and sailors are such bad walkers.” At this stage of her reflections something went through her heart like a knife. She thought of the grim ground-sharks, heaving and gaping in the warm translucent depths of the harbour at Port Welcome.
But meanwhile Hippolyte had gathered confidence from the bearing of his comrades. Their numbers and fierceness inspired him with courage, and he resolved to enter the house at the head of his chosen body-guard, whilst he surrounded it with a score of additional mutineers who had joined him according to previous agreement at the head of the forest. These, too, had brought with them a fresh supply of rum, and Célandine observed with horror its stimulating effects on the evil propensities of the band.
While he made his further dispositions, she found herself left for a few seconds comparatively unwatched, and at once stole into the open moonlight, where her white dress could be discerned plainly from the house. She knew her husband would be smoking his evening tobacco, according to custom, in the verandah. At little more than a hundred paces he could hardly fail to see her; and in an instant she had unbound the red turban and waved it round her head, in the desperate hope that he might accept that warning for a danger signal. The quick-witted Italian seemed to comprehend at once that something was wrong. He imitated her gesture, retired into the house, and the next minute his figure was seen in the sitting-room with the Marquise and her daughter. By this time Hippolyte had returned to her side, and she could only watch in agony for the result. Completely surrounded by the intoxicated and infuriated negroes, there seemed to be no escape for the besieged, while the looks and gestures of their leader, closely copied by his chosen band, denoted how little of courtesy or common humanity was to be expected from the Coromantee, excited to madness by all the worst passions of his savage nature bursting from the enforced restraints that had so long kept them down.
A bolder spirit than the Signor’s might have been excused for betraying considerable apprehension in such a crisis, and in good truth Bartoletti was fairly frightened out of his wits. In common with the rest of the whites on the island, he had long suspected a conspiracy amongst the negroes, and feared that such an insurrection would take place; but no great social misfortune is ever really believed in till it comes, and he had neither taken measures for its prevention, nor thoroughly realised the magnitude of the evil. Now that he felt it was upon him he knew not where to turn for aid. There was no time to make phrases or to stand on ceremony. He rushed into the sitting-room with a blanched cheek and a wild eye, that caused each of the ladies to drop her work on her lap, and gaze at him in consternation.
“Madame!” he exclaimed, and his jaw shook so that he could hardly form the syllables, “we must leave the house at once—we must save ourselves. There is an émeute, a revolt, a rebellion among the slaves. I know them—the monsters! They will not be appeased till they have drunk our blood. Oh! why did I ever come to this accursed country?”
Cerise turned as white as a sheet—her blue eyes were fixed, her lips apart. Even the Marquise grew pale, though her colour came back, and she held her head the more erect a moment afterwards. “Sit down,” she said, imperiously, yet kindly enough. “Take breath, my good man, and take courage also. Tell me exactly what you have seen;” and added, turning to Cerise, “don’t be frightened, child—these overseers are sad alarmists. I daresay it is only what the negroes call a ‘bobbery,’ after all!”
Then Bartoletti explained that he had seen his wife waving a red shawl from the edge of the jungle; that this was a preconcerted signal by which they had agreed to warn each other of imminent danger; that it was never to be used except on great emergencies; and that he was quite sure it was intended to convey to him that she was in the power of the slaves, and that the rising they had so often talked about had taken place at last.
The Marquise thought for a moment. She seemed to have no fear now that she realised her danger. Only once, when her eye rested on her daughter, she shuddered visibly. Otherwise, her bearing was less that of a tender woman in peril of her life, than of some wise commander, foiled and beset by the enemy, yet not altogether without hope of securing his retreat.