That same afternoon, Rosina Fleming met Isaac Pourtalès, hanging about idly below the shrubbery, and waiting to talk with her, by appointment, about some important business she had to discuss with him of urgent necessity.
‘Isaac, me fren’,’ Rosina began in her dawdling tone, as soon as they had interchanged the first endearments of negro lovers, ‘I send for you to-day to ax you what all dis talk mean about de naygur risin’? I want to know when dem gwine to rise, an’ what dem gwine to do when dem done gone risen?’
Isaac smiled a sardonic smile of superior intelligence. ‘Missy Rosie, sweetheart,’ he answered evasively, ‘le-ady doan’t understand dem ting same as men does. Dis is political business, I tell you. Le-ady doan’t nebber hab no call to go an’ mix himself up along wit politic an’ political business.’
‘But I tellin’ you, Isaac, what I want for to know is about de missy. Mistah Delgado, him tell me de odder ebenin’, when de great an’ terrible day come, de missy an’ all gwine to be murdered. So I come for to ax you, me fren’, what for dem want to go an’ kill de poor little missy? Him doan’t nebber do no harm to nobody. Him is good little le-ady, kind little le-ady. Why for you doan’t can keep him alive an’ let him go witout hurtin’ him, Isaac?’
Pourtalès smiled again, this time a more diabolical and sinister smile, as though he were concealing something from Rosina. ‘We doan’t gwine to kill her,’ he answered hastily, with that horrid light illumining once more his cold gray eyes. ‘We gwine to keep de women alive, accordin’ to de word ob de holy prophet: “Have dey not divided de prey? To ebbery man a damsel or two: to Sisera, a prey ob divers colours.” What dat mean, de divers colours, Rosie? Dat no mean you an’ de missy? Ha, ha, ha! you an’ de missy!’
Rosina started back a little surprised at this naive personal effort of exegetical research. ‘How dat, Isaac?’ she screamed out angrily. ‘You lub de missy! You doan’t satisfied wit your fren’ Rosie?’
Isaac laughed again. ‘Ho, ho!’ he said; ‘dat make you jealous, Missy Rosie? Ha, ha, dat good now! Pretty little gal for true, de missy! You tink me gwine to kill him when him is so pretty?’
Rosina gazed at him open-eyed in blank astonishment. ‘You doan’t must kill him,’ she answered stoutly. ‘I lub de missy well meself for true, Isaac. If you kill de missy, I doan’t nebber gwine to speak wit you no more. I gwine to tell de missy all about dis ting ob Delgado’s, I tink, to-morrow.’
Isaac stared her hard in the face. ‘You doan’t dare, Rosie,’ he said doggedly.
The girl trembled and shuddered slightly before his steady gaze. A negro, like an animal, can never bear to be stared at straight in the eyes. After a moment’s restless shrinking, she withdrew her glance uneasily from his, but still muttered to herself slowly: ‘I tell de missy—I tell de missy!’