Spurning the huge black body with his foot, Captain George withdrew his sword, wiped it grimly on the dead man’s woolly head, and, uncovering, turned to the ladies with a polite apology for thus intruding under the pressure of so disagreeable a necessity.
He had scarcely framed a sentence ere he became deadly pale, and began to stammer, as if he, too, was under the influence of some engrossing and incontrollable emotion.
The two women had shrunk into the farthest corner of the room. With the prospect of a rescue, Madame de Montmirail’s nerves, strung to their utmost tension, had completely given way. In a state of mental and bodily prostration, she had laid her head in the lap of Cerise, whose courage, being of a more passive nature, did not now fail her so entirely.
The girl, indeed, pushing her hair back from her temples, looked wildly in George’s face for an instant, like one who wakes from a dream; but the next, her whole countenance lit up with delight, and holding out both hands to him, she exclaimed, in accents of irrepressible tenderness and self-abandonment, “C’est toi!” then the pale face flushed crimson, and the loving eyes drooped beneath his own. To him she had always been beautiful—most beautiful, perhaps, in his dreams—but never in dreams nor in waking reality so beautiful as now.
He gazed on her entranced, motionless, forgetful of everything in the world but that one loved being restored, as it seemed, by a miracle, at the very time when she had been most lost to him. His stout heart, thrilling to its core from her glance, quailed to think of what must have befallen had he arrived a minute too late, and a prayer went up from it of hearty humble thanksgiving that he was in time. He saw nothing but that drooping form in its delicate white dress, with its gentle feminine gestures and rich dishevelled hair; heard nothing but the accents of that well-remembered voice vibrating with the love that he felt was deep and tender as his own. He was unconscious of the cheers of his victorious boat’s crew, of the groans and shrieks uttered by wounded or routed negroes, of the dead beneath his feet, the blazing rafters overhead, the showers of sparks and rolling clouds of smoke that already filled the house; unconscious even of Madame de Montmirail’s recovery from her stupor, as she too recognised him, and raising herself with an effort from her daughter’s embrace, muttered in deep passionate tones, “C’est lui!”
But it was no time for the exchanges of ceremonious politeness, or the indulgence of softer emotions. The house was fairly on fire, the negroes were up in arms all over the island. A boat’s crew, however sturdy, is but a handful of men, and courage becomes foolhardy when it opposes itself voluntarily at odds of one against a score. Slap-Jack was the first to speak. “Askin’ your pardon, ladies,” said he, with seamanlike deference to the sex; “the sooner we can clear out of this here the better. If you’ll have the kindness to point out your sea-chests, and possibles, and such like, Bottle-Jack here, he’ll be answerable for their safety, and me an’ my mates we’ll run you both down to the beach and have you aboard in a pig’s whisper. The island’s getting hot, miss,” he added confidentially to Cerise, who did not the least understand him. “In these low latitudes, a house afire and a hundred of blacks means a bobbery, just as sure as at home four old women and a goose makes a market!”
“He is right,” observed the Captain, who had now recovered his presence of mind. “From what I saw as I came along, I fear there is a general rising of the slaves through the whole island. My brigantine, I need not say, is at the disposal of madame and mademoiselle (Cerise thanked him with a look), and I believe that for a time at least it will be the only safe place of refuge.”
Thus speaking, he offered his hand to conduct the Marquise from the apartment, with as much courtliness and ceremony as though they had been about to dance a minuet at Versailles, under the critical eye of the late king. Hers trembled violently as she yielded it. That hand, so steady but a few minutes ago, while levelling its deadly weapon against the leader of a hundred enemies, now shook as if palsied. How little men understand women. He attributed her discomposure entirely to fright.
There is a second nature, an acquired instinct in the habits of good-breeding, irrepressible even by the gravest emergency. Captain George, conducting Madame de Montmirail down her own blazing staircase, behaved with as ceremonious a politeness as if they had been descending in accordance with etiquette to a formal dinner-party. Cerise, following close, hung no doubt on every word that came from his lips, but it must be confessed the conversation was somewhat frivolous for so important a juncture.
“I little thought,” said the Captain, performing another courtly bow, “that it was Madame la Marquise whom I should have the honour of escorting to-night out of this unpleasant little fracas. Had I known madame was on the island, she will believe that I should have come ashore and paid my respects to her much sooner.”