‘If you speak another word before six o’clock, to-night, Dupuy,’ Macfarlane put in with stern determination, ‘I’ll just clear every soul that knows ye out of the room at once, and leave you alone to the tender mercies of old Aunt Clemmy. Turn over on your side, man, when your doctor tells ye to, and try to get a little bit of refreshing sleep before the evening.’
Mr Dupuy obeyed in a feeble fashion; but he still muttered doggedly to himself as he turned over: ‘Catch him and hang him! Prove it to the governor!’
As he spoke, Edward beckoned Marian out into the drawing-room through the open door, to show her a note which had just been brought to him by a mounted orderly. It was a few hasty lines, written in pencil, that very morning by the governor himself, thanking Mr Hawthorn in his official capacity for his brave and conciliatory conduct on the preceding evening, whereby a formidable and organised insurrection had been nipped in the bud, and a door left open for future inquiry, and redress of any possible just grievances on the part of the rioters and discontented negroes. ‘It is to your firmness and address alone,’ the governor wrote, ‘that the white population of the island of Trinidad owes to-day its present security from fire and bloodshed.’
Meanwhile, preparations had been made for preventing any possible fresh outbreak of the riot that evening; and soldiers and policemen were arriving every moment at the smouldering site of the recent fire, and forming a regular plan of defence against the remote chance of a second rising. Not that any such precautions were really necessary; for the negroes, deprived of their head in Delgado, were left utterly without cohesion or organisation; and Edward’s promise to go to England and see that their grievances were properly ventilated had had far more effect upon their trustful and excitable natures than the display of ten regiments of soldiers in marching order could possibly have produced. The natural laziness of the negro mind, combining with their confidence in the young judge, and their fervent faith in the justice of Providence under the most apparently incongruous circumstances, had made them all settle down at once into their usual listless laissez-faire condition, as soon as the spur of Delgado’s fiery energy and exhortation had ceased to stimulate them. ‘It all right,’ they chattered passively among themselves. ‘Mistah Hawtorn gwine to ’peak to Missis Queen fur de poor naygur; an’ de Lard in hebben gwine to watch ober him, an’ see him doan’t suffer no more wrong at de heavy hand ob de proud buckra.’
When the time arrived to make preparations for the night’s watching and nursing, Nora came to Marian once more with her spirit vexed by a sore trouble. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘this is a dreadful thing about poor Mr Noel having to go on stopping here. It’s very unfortunate he couldn’t have been nursed through his illness at your house or at Captain Castello’s. He’ll be down in bed for at least a week or two, in all probability; and it won’t be possible to move him out of this until he’s better.’
‘Well, darling?’ Marian answered, with an inquiring smile.
‘Well, you see, Marian, it wouldn’t be so awkward, of course, if poor papa wasn’t ill too, because then, if I liked, I could go over and stop with you at Mulberry until Mr Noel was quite recovered. But as I shall have to stay here, naturally, to nurse papa, why’——
‘Why, what then, Nora?’
Nora hesitated. ‘Why, you see, darling,’ she went on timidly at last, ‘people will say that as I’ve helped to nurse Mr Noel through a serious illness’——
‘Yes, dear?’