A Roving Commission Part 15

"Now, you stop here, like good childer, Aunt Dinah is agoing out. If you keep quiet she tell you story when she comes in."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS NOT LONG BEFORE HE CAME ACROSS THE FIGURE OF A PROSTRATE MAN."]

Then she went out with Nat without any appearance of haste. By long connection with the family she spoke French fairly well, whereas the negro patois, although mostly composed of French words, was almost unintelligible to him.

"Tank de Lord dat you hab come back, Ma.r.s.e Glober. Dinah fret terrible all day. Am de ladies well? Whar you hide dem?"

"They are up in the wood, Dinah. I am greatly afraid that Madame d.u.c.h.esne is going to have fever, and you are sorely wanted there. Myra said she was sure that you would come when you knew where they were."

"For suah me come, ma.s.sa," she said. "What madame and Mam'selle Myra do widout Dinah? So you black your face?"

"Yes, but I want some juice to make my face yellow like a mulatto.

Anyone could see that I was not a negro in the daylight."

"Dat so. Me bring 'tuff wid me. What you want beside?"

"We shall want a bottle or two of wine if you can get them, and a jug of fresh water, and anything you can get in the way of eatables, and I should say a cooking pot. Those are the princ.i.p.al things."

"Dere am plenty ob boxes of wine up near house. Dis black trash like rum better, leave wine for de mulattoes; dey bery bad man dose. Where you go now, Ma.r.s.e Glober? Me take some time to get de tings."

"It would be a good thing, too, if you could get hold of enough cotton cloth to make dresses for them."

The old woman nodded.

"Plenty ob dat, sah. Storehouses all broke open, eberyone take what him like. Dis dreadful day, almost break Dinah's heart."

"It has been a terrible day, Dinah, and I am afraid that the same bad work is going on everywhere."

"So dey say, ma.r.s.e, so dey say. Where you go now, sah?"

"I am going to the overseers' huts to hear what their plans are. Where shall I meet you, Dinah?"

"Me take tings to bush just where you and de ladies ran in. Me make two or tree journeys, but me be as quick as can."

"Do; it is anxious work for Myra there, and I want to get back as soon as I can. Her mother is asleep, and even if she wakes I do not think she will be able to talk much."

"Me hurry, sah, but can't get 'tuff to stain you skin to-night. Find berries up in de wood to-morrow."

"There is one other thing, Dinah. Can you tell me where to find a hand-barrow? I expect we shall have to carry your mistress."

"Me know de sort ob ting dat you want, sah, dey carry tobacco leabes on dem. Dere are a dozen ob dem lying outside de end store."

"All right, Dinah, I will take one as I go past. Now I will go."

So saying, he turned and made his way to the overseers' house. He crept softly along to a lighted window. When in a line with it he stood up for a minute, knowing that those inside would not be able to see him, there being a screen of trees just behind him. The three mulattoes whom he had seen talking together in the field on the previous day were seated round a table. On it were placed two or three wine-gla.s.ses. All were smoking.

"To-morrow we must get those drunken black hogs to work," one said, "and have a regular search through the woods. Everything has gone well except the escape of madame and her gal. Someone must have warned them. The house n.i.g.g.e.rs all agree that they were in the verandah behind just before we came up, talking with that English lad. Of course they will be found sooner or later, there is nowhere for them to run to. The thing is, we want to find them ourselves. If anyone else came upon them they would kill them at once."

"Yes, and you will have some trouble if you find them, Monti," one of the other men said. "These blacks have been told that every white must be killed. It is easy enough to work these fellows up into a frenzy, but it is not so easy to calm them down afterwards."

"No, I am quite aware of that, Christophe, and that is why I did not press the search to-day, and why I was not sorry to find that they had got away."

"You see, we have arranged that when the whites are all killed I am to marry madame, that Paul is to take the young one, and that we are to divide the place equally between the three of us."

"If the negroes will let us," the one called Monti said. "I expect they will want to have a say in the business."

"Yes, of course, that is understood. No doubt there will be trouble with them, and there is no saying how things will turn out yet. At any rate we will make sure of the women. I have gone into this more for the sake of getting the girl than for anything else."

"We have made a good beginning everywhere, as far as we have heard, but you must remember that it is only a beginning. Even suppose the whites of the town do nothing, and I fancy we shall hear of them presently, they will send over troops from France."

"They can do nothing against us up in the mountains," Christophe said scornfully.

"That may be," the other said quietly; "but at any rate there are the blacks to deal with. They have risen against the whites, but when they have done with them we need not suppose for a moment that they are going to work for us. Luckily, here it has been the order that no slave is to be flogged without d.u.c.h.esne's approving of it, and the result is that we are for the present masters of this plantation, but we have heard that at some of the other places the overseers as well as the whites have been killed. The order has gone through the island that all the whites, including women and children, are to be killed, and if we were to come across the women when we have forty or fifty of the blacks with us I don't think there would be a chance of our saving them. These negroes are demons when their blood is up. They know, too, that they have gone too far to be forgiven, and will believe that their safety depends upon carrying out the orders faithfully. It seems to me that we are in a rather awkward fix. If we don't take the blacks out to-morrow we sha'n't find them, if we do take them out they will be killed."

"We ourselves may find them," Paul said.

"Yes; and if you do, they will have that English lad with them."

"We can soon settle him," Christophe growled.

"Well, I don't say we couldn't; but you know how he fought that hound, and there was a report two days ago, from the town, that they have attacked the Red Pirate's stronghold, taken it, and destroyed his four s.h.i.+ps. I grant that as we are three to one we shall kill him, but one or two of us may go down before we do so. Now, I tell you frankly that as I have no personal interest in finding those two women, I have no idea of running the risk of getting myself shot in what is your affair altogether. Any reasonable help I am willing to give you, but when it comes to risking my life in the matter I say, 'No, thank you.'"

The others broke into a torrent of savage oaths.

"Well," he went on calmly, "I am by no means certain that the English boy would not be a match for the three of us. We should not know where he was, but he would see us, and he might shoot a couple of us down before we had time to draw our pistols. Then it will be man against man; and I know that girl has practised shooting, so that the odds would be the other way. Now, I ask you calmly, is it worth it?"

"What do you propose, then?" Paul asked sulkily, after a long silence.

"I say that we had better wait till we can get hold of some of these blacks; a little money and a little flattery will go a long way with them. We can tell them that we have private orders that, although most of the whites have to be put to death, a few are to be kept, among them these two. We shall elect a president and generals, and it is right that they should have white women to wait on them, just as the whites have been having blacks. That is just the sort of thing that will take with these ignorant fools. Then with, say, ten men we might search the woods thoroughly, find the women, and hide them up somewhere under your charge; but we must go quietly to work. A few days will make no difference. We know that they can't get away. The men of the plantations lower down have undertaken to see that no whites make their way into the town. But it will not do to hurry the negroes, they are sure to be either sullen or arrogant to-morrow. Some of them, when they get over their drink, will begin to fear the consequences, others will be so triumphant that for a time our influence will be gone."

"That is the best plan," Christophe said. "You have the longest head of us three, Monti. For a time it will be necessary to let the blacks have their own way."

Nat, while this conversation went on, had been fingering his pistol indecisively. His blood was so fired by the events of the day, and the certainty that hundreds of women and children must have been murdered, that he would have had no hesitation in shooting the three mulattoes down. Indeed he had quite intended to do so, in the case at any rate of Paul and Christophe, when he learned their plans; the advice, however, of the other, who was evidently the leading spirit, decided him against this course. It was unlikely that he would be able to shoot the three, for at the first shot they would doubtless knock the candle over; besides, it was better that they should live. Evidently they would in some way persuade the great ma.s.s of the negroes not to trouble themselves to search the wood, and some days must elapse before they could get a party together on whom they could rely to spare the women and take them as prisoners.

If they did so, and, as they proposed, put them in some hut in charge of Paul and Christophe, he would have a fair chance of rescuing them, if he succeeded in getting away at the time they were captured. At any rate, if they carried out their plans they would have some days' respite, and he could either take Madame d.u.c.h.esne and Myra a good deal further into the hills, or might even be able to get them into the town.

The mulattoes now began to talk of other matters--how quickly the insurrection would spread, the towns that were to be attacked, and the steps to be taken--and he therefore quietly made off, and waited for Dinah at the place agreed on. It was not long before she arrived with her first load.

"I am here," he said as she came up. "Now, what can I do? I had better come and help you back with the other things. We can carry them in the hand-barrow."

"Yes, sah. I'se got dem all together, de tings we talked of, and tree or four blankets, and a few tings for de ladies, and I'se taken two ob de best frocks I could find in de huts. I'se got de wine and de food in a big basket."

"All right, Dinah; let us start at once, I am anxious to be back again as soon as possible."

In ten minutes they returned with all the things. The basket of wine and provisions was the heaviest item. The clothes and blankets had been made up into a bundle.

"Me will carry dat on my head," Dinah said, "and de barrow."