I knew not what to say, for this woman's magnificent eyes were searchingly fixed on mine, and they bewildered, or fascinated me nearly as much as those of the serpent had done her.
"Monsieur was about to observe——"
"That I am only too happy in having been here in time to do madame a service."
"You call preserving my life a service—a mere service!"
"And now, madame, I must leave you."
"Leave me already? Oh no, no—this must not be; you cannot think of this, when I have scarcely known you, and owe you—oh, how much?"
"Madame must excuse me. I have wandered far from my quarters—farther than the orders of the general permit—and I must return to the garrison at Needham's Point, before the darkness sets in, for being a stranger in Barbadoes, I shall infallibly lose my way."
"My house is at hand, and ere you go, some wine—some refreshment shall be given you. Monsieur cannot refuse me—a lady—come."
She placed her arm through mine, and gazed so winningly in my face, that I could not refuse; moreover, for months I had not seen any other of the fair sex than "Mother Mahoney," nor since the period of my enlistment had been addressed as an equal by a lady; thus, the charm of this Frenchwoman's manner fascinated not less than her beauty dazzled me, the more perhaps that I was her junior by four or five years.
Shuddering as she passed the hewn fragments of her late source of terror, she led me along the cabbage-walk, as the avenue of magnificent trees (the smallest being forty feet in height) was named, and we soon found ourselves close to a small villa or cottage, surrounded by a broad verandah which was completely covered by luxuriant flowers. The garden was enclosed by lime-trees, which grow there like the holly-bush, full of leaves and fruit, and were wont to be used by the planters of old as a protecting hedge against runaway slaves and wild Carribs. Dusk now set in rapidly, for there is no twilight in these regions, and the cave-bat—the bird of darkness—which here is as large as a pigeon, was flitting among the great palm branches of the cabbage-trees, and the fireflies shot to and fro, like red sparks or tiny meteors.