The villa was entered through a trellised porch of very ornamental form. It was constructed of the wild cane split, intertwisted and arched in a Gothic style, but covered by the dark and sharp-pointed leaves of the passion-flower or lemon-water-vine, named by some, "love in a mist." Like other West-Indian houses, it was not tiled, but shingled, and was without chimneys. The walls were painted pure white.
Black female servants clad in striped cotton stuffs, with strings of beads and palm-oil nuts about their necks, received us with deep respect, and ushered us into a low-ceiled room paved with square tiles, and having four glazed windows, which opened to the floor. These were unclosed, and the warm night-air—for the tropical night had now set in—was admitted through green Venetian blinds.
Lamps were lighted, and then I could perceive that the apartment was neatly—almost handsomely—furnished in the style of a Barbadian drawing-room of those days; a piano, music, flowers, pictures, books, and a few articles of bijouterie were there, with those pretty trifles which we usually find in such an apartment in all countries.
"Pray be seated, monsieur," said the young lady, "and be assured you are most welcome to my abode."
I bowed, and at that moment a clock struck nine. I thought of the roll call, from which I would be absent; but the Frenchwoman's eyes seem to read the alarming thought, and laying her pretty hand upon my arm, she said—
"Hark—do you hear that?"
"It is artillery!" said I, starting.
"Yes, monsieur—the artillery of heaven. 'Tis thunder. The beauty of the past day, and the closeness of the evening, foretold we should have a storm; so be assured you are safer here, than on the road to Needham's Point to-night."
Even while she spoke, we could hear the roar of the thunder hurtling in the distance, while red lines of horizontal light were seen for an instant, as the fierce electric fires of the Antilles flashed through the green spars of the Venetian blinds.