Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

“Not a moment must be lost,” said she, “not a moment—not a moment,” and repeating her words, walked across the deck to gaze wistfully over the side on Port Welcome, with its white houses glistening in the morning sun. They were safe on board ‘The Bashful Maid,’ glad to escape with life from the successful revolt that had burned Montmirail West to the ground, and destroyed most of the white people’s property on the island. Partly owing to its distance from the original scene of outbreak, partly from its lying under the very guns of the brigantine, of which the tonnage and weight of metal had been greatly exaggerated by the negroes, Port Welcome was yet standing, but its black population were keeping high holiday, apparently masters of the situation, and its white residents crept about in fear and trembling, not knowing how much longer they might be allowed to call their very lives their own. It had been a memorable night, a night of murder and rapine, and horror and dismay. Few escaped so well as Madame de Montmirail and her daughter. None indeed had the advantage of such a rescue. The negroes who tracked them into the bush, and who had delayed their departure to appropriate such plunder as they could snatch from the burning house, or to drink from its cellars success to the revolt, only reached that defile through which the fugitives were guided by Fleurette after these had passed by. The disappointed pursuers were there received by a couple of shots from Slap-Jack and his shipmates, which drove them back in disorder, yelling, boasting, vowing vengeance, but without any thought of again placing themselves in danger of lead or steel. In the death of Hippolyte, the revolt had lost its chief, and became from that moment virtually a failure. The Coromantee was the only negro concerned really capable of directing such a movement; and when his leadership was disposed of by a rapid thrust from Captain George’s rapier, the whole scheme was destined to fall to pieces of itself, after the reaction which always follows such disorders had taken place, and the habits of every-day life began to reassert themselves. In the meantime, the blacks had more congenial amusements in store than voluntary collision with an English boat’s crew, and soon desisted from a search through the jungle, apparently as troublesome and hazardous as a hunt for a hornet’s nest.

By sunrise, therefore, Slap-Jack was able to draw off his party from their post, and fall back to where the Marquise sat watching by the dead seaman, on the brink of the lagoon. Nor was Bottle-Jack the only victim of their escape, for poor Fleurette had already paid the price of her fidelity with her life.

A strong reinforcement from ‘The Bashful Maid,’ led by her Captain in person, who had returned at once, after placing Cerise in safety, enabled Madame de Montmirail and her defenders to take the high road to Port Welcome in defiance of all opposition. They therefore rounded the lagoon at once, and proceeding by an easier route than that which her daughter followed, reached the quay at their leisure, thence to embark on board the brigantine unmolested by the crowds of rioters with whom the town was filled.

Therefore it was that Madame de Montmirail now found herself on the deck of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ urging with a strange persistency, unusual and even unbecoming in a mother, Captain George’s immediate marriage to her child, who was quietly sleeping off the night’s fatigues below.

“There is the chapel, madame,” said George, pointing to the little white edifice that stood between the lighthouse and the town, distinguished by a cross that surmounted its glistening roof, “and here is the bride, safe, happy, and I hope sound asleep beneath the very spot where we are standing. I know not why there should be an hour’s delay, if indeed the priest have not taken flight. There must have been a prospect of martyrdom last night, which he would scarce wish to inspect too closely. Ah! madame, I may seem cold and undemonstrative, but if you could look into my heart you would see how happy I am!”

His voice and manner carried with them a conviction not to be disputed. It probed the Marquise to the quick, and true to her character, she pressed the instrument deeper and deeper into the wound.

“You love her then, monsieur?” she said, speaking very clearly and distinctly through her set teeth. “You love her as a woman must be loved if she would be happy—unreservedly, with your whole heart?”

“I love her so well,” he answered, “that I only ask to pass my life in contributing to her happiness. Mine has been a rude wild career, in many scenes and many countries. I have lived in society and out of society, afloat and ashore, at bivouac fires and Court receptions, yet I have always carried the portrait of that one gentle loving face printed on my heart.”

“I compliment you on your constancy,” she answered, rather bitterly. “Such gallants have been very rare of late both at the old and new Courts. You must have seen other women too, as amiable, as beautiful, who could have loved you perhaps as well.”

Something like a sigh escaped her with the concluding sentence, but there is no egotist like a happy lover, and he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to perceive it. Smiling in his companion’s face, with the old honest expression that reminded her of what he had been as a boy, he took her hand and kissed it affectionately.