"A-ha!" I thought, "trying to poison or drug me. Now, what for, I wonder? If Lacelle can always bring my food, I shall feel safe," Lacelle now handed me the dulces and the glass of water, and bade me eat and drink. This I did gratefully. Then she pointed to the empty glass. There were two dead flies in the bottom of the glass and another one was just tumbling in, and several were strewn around upon the table. I nodded comprehendingly. She then, by signs, made me understand that I should eat nothing but what she brought me. I responded understandingly, and she took her tray and departed. After she had left the room, I found a piece of paper on the table. I opened it. A few lines from Cynthia were there, written hurriedly, as if she had snatched a moment in secret. They ran thus:
"Do meet me in the garden, under the mahogany tree, at ten this evening. I have some thing to tell you."
Truth to tell, I had never seen Cynthia's handwriting, but I was sure that it was a lady's hand, and that neither of my friends could form the letters so well or so delicately. Also I flattered myself that Cynthia really wanted to see me at last. I put the paper in my mouth and reduced it to pulp. Not a very romantic thing to do with one's first approach to a love letter, but all things are fair in love or war, and this was a combination of both, I feared.
I now went out into the veranda and lay down in the hammock, preparatory to taking a short sleep. The breeze blew softly through the vines, and soon I became drowsy, but not so soon as my captors had imagined that I should. I was still quite wide awake, though in a few moments I should have succumbed to the soothing nature of my surroundings, when I heard a faint click. It was at my door; of that I was certain. I watched the door through my almost closed eyelids, but to no end. No one approached me from my room. I feigned sleep and began to breathe regularly, and had almost begun to think my idea but fancy. Still, my eyes were opened a tiny crack, and they happened, from my position, to rest upon the wire screen which separated mine from the veranda beyond. And as I looked, the netting separated, a square of it the size of a small door was pushed toward me, and through the opening thus made a short person entered. I had thought that a solid wall of wire inclosed and shut me in.
It was a boy who approached the hammock where I lay. He was darker than Lacelle, and was clothed as boys of the palace dressed, except that the body was much more covered than I remember to have noticed in the dress of the pages. The feet of the boy were covered with some sort of light shoe; the legs and arms were hidden from view, and only the head and the very woolly hair were visible. I caught a glimpse of this as he was turning to close the door as softly as might be. When he turned again, I was breathing as regularly as a little child. My hands were crossed upon my breast. I was at peace apparently with the world. The boy came near me and stood still and listened. Nothing but my regular breathing broke the silence, except now and then the note of a mocking bird, than which no music on earth is sweeter, always excepting your mother's voice, Adoniah. For a moment all was quiet, and then the boy stooped toward me. He took one of my hands in his and, removing it from my breast, laid it by my side. I suffered the hand to hang listless in his. Then he took the other hand and as slowly and quietly laid that also by my side. He then laid his hand on my chest, feeling here and there. Then I felt the button which closed my loose garment pulled gently, as if to detach it from the buttonhole, and—quick as thought I was out of my hammock and upon him! I seized him in my arms, and together we rolled over and over upon the floor. He was no match for me, and in a moment I had him between my knees. As I sat astride his helpless young body, I gazed and gazed, and then I began to laugh. I laughed long and heartily, for the black was rubbed off in streaks, and there was enough of the original colour showing forth for me to recognise the Minion. As I tore the mat of wool from his head, the Minion's well-shaved poll stood out red and shining.
"So it is you!" said I. "I thought you had been eaten cold long ago." The Minion grinned, but did not speak.
"I've a great mind to throttle you," said I. "On second thoughts, I will, unless you tell me the truth about how you came here and what you want of me." By way of emphasizing my words, I gave the Minion's thorax a vicious squeeze. He gagged and choked and struggled to get free.
"Not until you tell me how you came here and who sent you," said I threateningly. The Minion made me understand, in his laconic speech, that if I would allow him to rise he would explain his actions. I got up and stood, as a precautionary measure, against the door through which he had entered my part of the veranda. I did not trust the young villain in the very slightest degree, but he was helpless, and so I waited until he spoke. By urging and prodding and threatening to choke him, and partly succeeding, I discovered that he had escaped from the vaudoux sect on the night of the fight. That he, unlike the rest of us, had sought the court. That Christophe was so pleased with this that he took him into his service. That he had told Christophe's spies that he hated the Bo's'n and myself, and only wanted to get rid of us, and that he would aid our double taking off in any way most agreeable to the King. That he had always suspected the Bo's'n and myself of having some of his jewels about our persons, and that the King had told him that if he found that we had some of them he would believe his story of his discovery in the cave, and that he would send a platoon of soldiers down to the coast to find the jewels and restore them to him.
"I suppose you think he would give them to you," said I. "But your jewels are gone." And then I told him how the Bo's'n had hidden them, and how the Skipper and I had buried them in the sea. "And you will never see them again," said I. "But what enrages me against you is that you were willing to try to come upon me unawares. Did the King order that drink for me?" The Minion, by short and jerky sentences, conveyed to me the idea that he did not know that I had had a drink of anything, but that a grand officer had taken him aside and told him he would find me in a sound sleep, and that he could get the jewels that I wore concealed about me if he came in at once. The Minion also told me that the liquor had probably been given to me that I might be taken to another place, away from all my friends, and that he had heard the King say that unless I completed the ring within four or five days I was to be thrown from the Grand Boucan, that my bones might bleach with those of the other unfortunates who lay by the thousands in that valley of horror. Then I took the Minion in my two hands and I shook him. I shook him until I thought that I should shake the teeth out of his head.