“Poor Thérèse!” cried he, patting her shoulder. “How we have frightened you! There is nobody here but friends. At least, so it seems. Where are all the people? And who did this mischief?”
The young creature trembled excessively; and her terror marred for the time a beauty which was celebrated all over the district—a beauty which was admitted as fully by the whites as by people of her own race. Her features were now convulsed by fear, as she told what had happened—that a body of negroes had come, three hours since, and had summoned Papalier’s people to meet at Latour’s estate, where all the force of the plain was to unite before morning—that Papalier’s people made no difficulty about going, only stopping to search the house for what arms and ammunition might be there, and to do the mischief which now appeared—that she believed the whites at the sugar-house must have escaped, as she had seen and heard nothing of bloodshed—and that this was all she knew, as she had hidden herself and her infant, first in one place, and then in another, as she fancied safest, hoping that nobody would remember her, which seemed to have been the case, as no one molested her till Toussaint saw her, and terrified her as they perceived. She had not looked in his face, but supposed that some of Latour’s people had come back for her.
“Now you will come with me,” said Bayou to Papalier, impatiently.
“I will, thank you. Toussaint, help her up behind me, and carry the child, will you? Hold fast, Thérèse, and leave off trembling as soon as you can.”
Thérèse would let no one carry the infant but herself. She kept her seat well behind her master, though still trembling when she alighted at the stables at Breda.
Placide and Denis were on the watch at the stables.
“Run, Denis!” said his brother. And Denis was off to tell his mother that Toussaint and Monsieur Bayou were safe home.
“Anything happened, Placide?” asked Bayou.
“Yes, sir. The people were sent for to Latour’s, and most of them are gone. Not all, sir. Saxe would not go till he saw father; nor Cassius, nor Antoine, nor—”
“Is there any mischief done? Anybody hurt?”