‘Marian,’ Nora said decisively, ‘go back to your husband. You ought to be with him.—Martin, you come along with me, sir. Mr Noel’s dying. You’ve killed him, you people, as you’ve killed my father. I’ve got to go and fetch the doctor now to save him; and you’ve got to come with me and take care of me.’
‘Oh, darling,’ Marian interrupted nervously, ‘you mustn’t go alone amongst all these angry, excited negroes with nobody but him. Don’t, don’t; I’ll gladly go with you!’
‘Do as I tell you!’ Nora cried in a tone of authority, with a firm stamp of her petulant little foot. ‘You ought to be with him. You mustn’t leave him.—That’s right, dear.—Now, then, Martin!’
‘I ’fraid, missy.’
‘Afraid! Nonsense. You’re a pack of cowards. Am I afraid? and I’m a woman! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Come along with me at once, and do as I tell you.’
The terrified negro yielded grudgingly, and crept after her in the true crouching African fashion, compelled against his will to follow implicitly the mere bidding of the stronger and more imperious nature.
They wound down the zigzag path together, under the gaunt shadows of the overhanging bamboo clumps, waving weirdly to and fro with the breeze in the feeble moonlight—the strong man slouching along timorously, shaking and starting with terror at every rustle of Nora’s dress against the bracken and the tree ferns; the slight girl erect and fearless, walking a pace or two in front of her faint-hearted escort with proud self-reliance, and never pausing for a single second to cast a cautious glance to right or left among the tangled brushwood. The lights were now burning dimly in all the neighbouring negro cottages; and far away down in the distance, the long rows of gas lamps at Port-of-Spain gleamed double with elongated oblique reflections in the calm water of the sleepy harbour.
They had got half-way down the lonely gully without meeting or passing a single soul, when, at a turn of the road where the bridle-path swept aside to avoid a rainy-season torrent, a horse came quickly upon them from in front, and the rapid click of a cocked pistol warned Nora of approaching danger.
‘Who goes there?’ cried a sharp voice with a marked Scotch accent from the gloom before her. ‘Stop this minute, or I’ll fire at you, you nigger!’
With a thrill of delight, Nora recognised the longed-for voice—the very one she was seeking. It was Dr Macfarlane, from beyond the gully, roused, like half the island, by the red glare from the Orange Grove cane-houses, and spurring up as fast as his horse could carry him, armed and on the alert, to the scene of the supposed insurrection.