Rosina laughed and showed her white teeth. ‘Yes, Mistah Delgado, him hab effeck, sah, same like you tell me. Isaac Pourtalès, him lub me well for true, nowadays.’
‘Him gwine to marry you, missy?’
Rosina shook her head. ‘No; him can’t done dat,’ she answered carelessly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘Him got anudder wife already.’
‘Ha! Him got wife ober in Barbadoes?’ Delgado muttered. ‘Him doan’t nebber tell me dat.—Well, Missy Rosy, I want you bring Isaac Pourtalès to me hut dis one day. I want Isaac to help me. De cup ob de Dupuys is full dis day; an’ if de new judge gib decision wrongfully agin me, de Lard will arise soon in all him glory, like him tell de prophets, an’ make de victory for him own people.’
‘But not hurt de missy?’ Rosina inquired anxiously.
‘Yah, yah! You is too chupid, Miss Rosy, I tellin’ you. You tink de Lard gwine to turn aside in de day ob vengeance for your missy? De Dupuys is de Lard’s enemy, le-ady, an’ he will destroy dem utterly, men and women.’
Before Rosina could find time to reply, there was a sudden stir in the body of the court, and Edward Hawthorn, entering from the private door behind, took his seat upon the judge’s bench in hushed silence.
‘Delgado versus Dupuy, an appeal from a magistrate’s order, referred to this court as being under twenty shillings in value.—Who heard the case in the first instance?’ Edward inquired.
‘Mr Dupuy of Orange Grove and Mr Henley,’ Tom Dupuy, the defendant, answered quietly.
Edward’s forehead puckered up a little. ‘You are the defendant, I believe, Mr Thomas Dupuy?’ he said to the young planter with a curious look.