"I, Agricola Fusilier, stand as an interpreter to a negro? H-sir!"
"But I thought you might know of some person," said the weakening applicant, rubbing his ear with his hand.
"Ah!" replied Agricola, addressing the surrounding scenery, "if I did not--who would? You may take Palmyre."
The overseer softly smote his hands together at the happy thought.
"Yes," said Agricola, "take Palmyre; she has picked up as many negro dialects as I know European languages."
And she went to the don's plantation as interpreter, followed by Agricola's prayer to Fate that she might in some way be overtaken by disaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. He knew not only her pride, but her passion for the absent Honoré. He hated her, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stood with her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was more offensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chief object of her silent detestation.
It was Palmyre's habit to do nothing without painstaking. "When Mademoiselle comes to be Señora," thought she--she knew that her mistress and the don were affianced--"it will be well to have a Señor's esteem. I shall endeavor to succeed." It was from this motive, then, that with the aid of her mistress she attired herself in a resplendence of scarlet and beads and feathers that could not fail the double purpose of connecting her with the children of Ethiopia and commanding the captive's instant admiration.
Alas for those who succeed too well! No sooner did the African turn his tiger glance upon her than the fire of his eyes died out; and when she spoke to him in the dear accents of his native tongue, the matter of strife vanished from his mind. He loved.
He sat down tamely in his irons and listened to Palmyre's argument as a wrecked mariner would listen to ghostly church-bells. He would give a short assent, feast his eyes, again assent, and feast his ears; but when at length she made bold to approach the actual issue, and finally uttered the loathed word, Work, he rose up, six feet five, a statue of indignation in black marble.
And then Palmyre, too, rose up, glorying in him, and went to explain to master and overseer. Bras-Coupé understood, she said, that he was a slave--it was the fortune of war, and he was a warrior; but, according to a generally recognized principle in African international law, he could not reasonably be expected to work.