"None," said she, shaking her head almost sorrowfully, adding, "I am older than you by some years; thus I command you to stay."
My head swam, and my heart seemed to take fire. I felt the pressure of her little hand tightening upon mine.
"I must go," I faltered—yet stayed.
At that moment there was a terrific glare of lightning, and a peal of thunder overhead. I let fall the Venetian blind. We staggered, dazzled by the gleam, and, somehow my arm went round her. She did not altogether resist, for she was terrified, and I led her to a seat in our confusion.
On the sofa we sat in silence for some time, listening to the howl of the rising wind, which was tossing the vast palm branches of the cabbage-trees, causing them to shriek and groan; while some active negroes,—strong herculean fellows, in red osnaburg jackets and drawers,—were hurriedly closing the outer shutters of the house, but leaving the sash-window open; for the heat, even at that season of the year, was somewhat oppressive. Heavy, globular drops of rain, now plashed in fierce and rapid succession, till they descended like a sheet of water on the orange and lemon groves, and with a roaring sound on the broad fields of sugar-cane around the villa; and when I looked forth again, through a species of wicket or sliding panel in one of the shutters, the aspect of the night filled me with an emotion of awe.
"You see, monsieur, it can rain, when it pleases, here in the West Indies," said the lady playfully; "and in proportion as the rain falls, the wind rises."
The tempest seemed to come from every point of the compass at once. Enormous trees were swaying in every direction. Green forky lightning shot through the sky's gloomy vault tearing asunder the black masses of surcharged cloud, which the wind was also rending, sweeping, and twisting, with frightful rapidity, into an endless variety of forms; the ghastly glare revealing momentarily, and with wondrous distinctness, the tossing trees, the green leaves, broad branches, and gnarled trunks of the avenue, close by; and the fields of sugar-cane, afar off, waving forward and backward, like the billows of an inland sea. All this would be visible for an instant; and then, as the gleam passed away, was shrouded and lost in blinding rain and utter darkness.
"Now, Monsieur le Soldat, said I not true?" whispered the lady, as she shut the panel and we returned to the sofa; "where would you have been by this time, and what your fate, had I wickedly permitted you to leave me, and on such a night as this?"
"The debt of gratitude is now transferred from you to me," said I, smiling; "and now I am your willing captive."
"Then let us to supper; we shall talk after."