This unforeseen catastrophe filled us with pity for him, and caused me some alarm for myself in having thus trifled with the life of a prisoner of war.
"Morbleu!" said the Chevalier Dutriel; "you meant to let him taste the bitterness of death; but I fear he has found your potion a little too bitter. Do not waste compassion on him, mon ami; he felt none when he hewed off the heads of St. Julian and De la Bourdonaye, two of the most brilliant officers in the Régiment de Turenne. He had no respect for the white hairs of the Sieur de Mazancy when he tore the cross of St. Louis from his breast, and shot him in cold blood; no compassion for the youth or beauty of his daughter. Bah! away with this six feet of carrion, and cover it up."
These words somewhat restored me, and, on ascertaining that Rouvigny was really dead, we rolled him up in an old mat that lay in the mill, while I ordered some negroes who were loitering near to dig a deeper tomb for him.
Perceiving that after digging a little way they relinquished that grave and proceeded to dig another, I inquired the reason, on which an old Angola negro, whose white woolly head seemed to have been snowed on, pointed to a large stone in the hole, and said, in broken English,—
"White man no wish to be bury there."
"Why so, Quashi?" (All negroes are named Quashi.)
"Big stone there, massa—dam big stone—dig other place."
Then another old Obeah negro—a species of physician or conjuror, of whom the others stood much in awe—informed us in bad French that whenever a stone was found in a grave the place was deemed unpropitious. In short, they dug so many holes, and found so many unlucky stones, that the whole place was likely to be uprooted without the unfortunate Rouvigny finding a resting-place, till two of the Fusiliers threw off their belts and jackets, assumed the shovel, and acted the part of sextons.
By the time this melancholy episode was over, and we had reached the regiment, the enemy had abandoned their redoubt at Le Morne Rouge, leaving two fieldpieces in possession of the 65th Regiment, with many military stores.
I feared much that I was in a scrape on reporting that the French colonel had died in our hands; but no inquiry followed, for a life more or less mattered little, when we had such work in hand as the conquest of the French Antilles.