“The Cushtos is one, the other ish that scamp son of Cubina, the Maroon—the young Cubina. You knowsh him?”
“Dat same a know well ’nuf.”
“Ah! the proud Cushtos don’t know—though he hash his sushpicions—that hish wife Quasheba wash the mishtress of a Maroon. Ha! ha! ha! And she luffed the mulatto better as ever she luffed Vanities Vochan! Ha! ha! ha!”
“Dat am berry near de troof,” observed the negro, with a thoughtful air.
“Little dosh the Cushtos think,” continued Jessuron, without heeding the interpolation, “that thish young fellow, whosh a-helpin’ him to conshpire againsht me, is a sort of a son to hish consheited worship. Ha! ha! ha!”
It was startling intelligence for the listener outside the door. It was the first intimation the young Maroon ever had as to who was his mother.
Some vague hints had been conveyed to him in early childhood; but his memory recalled them only as dreams; and he himself had never allowed them expression. His father he had known well—called, as himself, Cubina, the Maroon. But his mother, who or what she had been, he had never known.
Was it possible, then, that the quadroon, Quasheba—of whose fame he, too, had heard—was it true she was his own mother? That “Lilly Quasheba,” the beautiful, the accomplished daughter of the Custos Vaughan, was his half-sister?
He could not doubt it. The conversation that followed put him in possession of further details, and more ample proofs. Besides, such relationships were too common in the Island of Jamaica, to make them matter either of singularity or surprise.
Notwithstanding, the listener was filled with astonishment—far more than that—for the revelation was one to stir his soul to emotions of the strangest and strongest kind. New thoughts sprang up at the announcement; new vistas opened before the horoscope of his future; new ties were established within his heart, hitherto unfelt and unknown.