A general clamour drowned the reply of the planter. “Muerte! Death! Mort! Touyé!” cried the negroes, grinding their teeth, and shaking their fists at the unhappy captive.
“General,” said a mulatto, making himself heard above the uproar, “he is a white man, and he must die.”
The miserable planter, by cries and gesticulations, managed to edge in some words. “No, general, no, my brothers, it is an infamous calumny, I am a mulatto like yourselves, of mixed blood; my mother was a negress, like your mothers and sisters.”
“He lies,” cried the infuriated negroes, “he is a white man, he has always detested the coloured people.”
“Never,” retorted the prisoner; “it is the whites that I detest; I have always said with you, ‘Negre cé blan, blan cé negre’ (‘The negroes are the masters, the whites are the slaves’).”
“Not at all,” cried the crowd, “not at all; kill the white man, kill him!”
Still the unhappy wretch kept repeating in heart-rending accents, “I am a mulatto, I am one of yourselves.”
“Give me a proof,” was Biassou’s sole reply.
“A proof,” answered the prisoner, wildly, “the proof is that the whites have always despised me.”
“That may be true,” returned Biassou, “but you are an insolent hound to tell us so.”