"Why should I lie? There is none."
"Bah! It seems you are stubborn. Congo, bring the boy!" Laguerre spoke gruffly.
A man emerged from the shadows at the base of the tree and slouched forward. He was a negro soldier, and, with musket and machete, shuffled past the corner of the hut in the direction of the other houses, pausing as the colonel said:
"But wait! There is a girl, too, I believe."
"Yes, monsieur. The wife of Floréal."
"Good! Bring them both."
Some moments later imploring voices rose, a shrill entreaty in a woman's tones, then Congo and another tirailleur appeared; driving ahead of them a youth and a girl. The prisoners' arms were bound behind them, and although the girl was weeping, the boy said little. He stepped forward into the candle-light and stared defiantly at the blue-and-gold officer.
Floréal Rameau was a slim mulatto, perhaps twenty years old; his lips were thin and sensitive, his nose prominent, his eyes brilliant and fearless. They gleamed now with all the vindictiveness of a serpent, until that hanging figure in the shadows just outside turned slowly and a straying moonbeam lit the face of his father; then a new expression leaped into them. Floréal's chin fell, he swayed uncertainly upon his legs.
"Monsieur—what is this?" he said, faintly.
The girl cowered at his back.