"Your father persists in lying," explained Laguerre.
"What do you—wish him to say?"
"A little thing. His money can be of no further use to him."
"Money?" Floréal voiced the word vacantly. He turned to his wife, saying, "Monsieur le Colonel asks for money. We have none."
The girl nodded, her lips moved, but no sound issued; she also was staring, horror-stricken, into the shadows of the tamarind-tree. Her arms, bound as they were, threw the outlines of her ripe young bosom into prominent relief and showed her to be round and supple; she was lighter in color even than Floréal. A little scar just below her left eye stood out, dull brown, upon her yellow cheek.
Laguerre now saw her plainly for the first time, and shook off his indolence. He swung his legs from the hammock and sat up. Something in the intensity of his regard brought her gaze away from the figure of Papa Rameau. She saw a large, thick-necked, full-bodied black, of bold and brutal feature, whose determined eyes had become bloodshot from staring through dust and sun. He wore a mustache, and a little pointed woolly patch beneath his lower lip. Involuntarily the girl recoiled.
"Um-m! So!" The barefoot colonel rose and, stepping forward, took her face in his harsh palm, turning it up for scrutiny. His roving glance appraised her fully. "Your name is—"
"Pierrine!"
"To be sure. Well then, my little Pierrine, you will tell me about this, eh?"
"I know nothing," she stammered. "Floréal speaks the truth, monsieur. What does it mean—all this? We are good people; we harm nobody. Every one here was happy until the—blacks rose. Then there was fighting and—this morning you came. It was terrible! Mamma Cleomélie is dead—the soldiers shot her. Why do you hang Papa Julien?"