I WAS paralyzed with horror at this scene, in which I every moment
expected to play an important part. The _Avenger of Humanity_ had gazed
on the struggle without a lineament of his features changing. When all
was over, he turned to his terrified pages. “More tobacco,” said he, and
began to chew calmly.
The Obi and Rigaud were equally impassible, but the negroes appeared
terrified at the horrible drama that their general had caused to be
enacted before them.
One white man, however, yet remained to be slaughtered—my turn had
come. I cast a glance upon the murderer who was about to become my
executioner, and a feeling of pity came over me. His lips were violet,
his teeth chattered, a convulsive tremor caused every limb to quiver. By
a mechanical movement his hand was continually passed over his forehead,
as if to obliterate the traces of the blood which had so liberally
sprinkled it; he looked with an air of terrified wonder at the bleeding
body which lay at his feet, as though he were unable to detach his
strained eyeballs from the spectacle of his victim.
I waited for the moment when he would resume his task of blood. The
position was a strange one: he had already tried to kill me and failed,
to prove that he was white, and now he was going to murder me to show
that he was black.
“Come,” said Biassou, addressing him, “this is good; I am pleased with
you, my friend.” Then glancing at me, he added. “You need not finish the
other one; and now I declare you one of us, and name you executioner to
the army.”
At these words a negro stepped out of the ranks, and bowing three times
to the general, cried out in his jargon—which I will spare you—
“And I, general?”
“Well, what do you want?” asked Biassou.
“Are you going to do nothing for me, general?” asked the negro. “Here
you give an important post to this dog of a white, who murders to save
his own skin, and to prove that he is one of ourselves. Have you no post
to give to me, who am a true black?”
This unexpected request seemed to embarrass Biassou, and Rigaud
whispered to him in French—
“You can’t satisfy him; try to elude his request.”
“You wish for promotion, then?” asked Biassou of the _true black_.
“Well, I am willing enough to grant it to you. What grade do you wish
for?”
“I wish to be an officer.”
“An officer, eh?—and what are your claims to the epaulet founded on?”
“It was I,” answered the negro, emphatically, “who set fire to the house
of Lagoscelte in the first days of August last. It was I who murdered M.
Clement the planter, and carried the head of his sugar refiner on my
pike. I killed ten white women and seven small children, one of whom on
the point of a spear served as a standard for Bouckmann’s brave blacks.
Later on I burnt alive the families of four colonists, whom I had locked
up in the strong room of Fort Galifet. My father was broken on the wheel
at Cap, my brother was hung at Rocrow, and I narrowly escaped being
shot. I have burnt three coffee plantations, six indigo estates, and two
hundred acres of sugar-cane; I murdered my master, M. Noé, and his
mother——”
“Spare us the recital of your services,” said Rigaud, whose feigned
benevolence was the mask for real cruelty, but who was ferocious with
decency, and could not listen to this cynical confession of deeds of
violence.
“I could quote many others,” continued the negro, proudly, “but you will
no doubt consider that these are sufficient to insure my promotion, and
to entitle me to wear a gold epaulet like my comrades there,” pointing
to the staff of Biassou.
The general affected to reflect for a few minutes, and then gravely
addressed the negro.
“I am satisfied with your services, and should be pleased to promote
you, but you must satisfy me on one point. Do you understand Latin?”
The astonished negro opened his eyes widely.
“Eh, general?” said he.
“Yes,” repeated Biassou, quickly; “do you understand Latin?”
“La—Latin?” stammered the astonished negro.
“Yes, yes, yes, Latin; do you understand Latin?” said the cunning chief,
and unfolding a banner upon which was embroidered the verse from the
Psalms, “_In exitu Israël de Egypto_,” he added, “Explain the meaning of
these words.”
The negro, in complete ignorance of what was meant, remained silent and
motionless, fumbling with the waistband of his trousers, whilst his
astonished eyes wandered from the banner to the general, and from the
general back again to the banner.
“Come, go on,” exclaimed Biassou, impatiently.
The negro opened and shut his mouth several times, scratched his head,
and at last said slowly—
“I don’t understand it, general.”
“How, scoundrel!” cried Biassou; “you wish to become an officer, and you
do not understand Latin!”
“But, general,” stammered the puzzled negro.
“Silence,” roared Biassou, whose anger appeared to increase; “I do not
know what prevents me from having you shot at once. Did you ever hear
such a thing, Rigaud? he wants to be an officer, and does not understand
Latin. Well then, idiot, as you do not understand, I will explain what
is written on this banner: _In exitu_—every soldier, _Israël_—who does
not understand Latin, _de Egypto_—cannot be made an officer. Is not
that the translation, reverend sir?”
The Obi bowed his head in the affirmative, and Biassou continued—
“This brother of whom you are jealous, and whom I have appointed
executioner, understands Latin!”
He turned to the new executioner—
“You know Latin, do you not? prove it to this blockhead. What is the
meaning of _Dominus vobiscum_?”
The unhappy half-caste, roused from his gloomy reverie by the dreaded
voice, raised his head, and though his brain was still troubled by the
cowardly murder that he had just committed, terror compelled him to be
obedient.
There was something pitiable in his manner, as his mind went back to his
schooldays, and in the midst of his terrible feelings and remorse he
repeated, in the tone of a child saying its lesson, “_Dominus
vobiscum_—that means, ‘May the Lord be with you.’”
“_Et cum spirito tuo_,” added the mysterious Obi, solemnly.
“Amen,” repeated Biassou; then resuming his angry manner, and mingling
with his reproaches some Latin phrases to impress the negroes with the
superior attainments of their chief, he cried, “Go to the rear rank,
_sursum corda_; never attempt to enter the places of those who know
Latin, _orate fratres_, or I will have you hung. _Bonus, bona, bonum!_”
The astonished and terrified negro slunk away, greeted by the hoots and
hisses of his comrades, who were indignant at his presumption, and
impressed with the deep learning of their general.
Burlesque though this scene was, it inspired me with a very high idea of
Biassou’s administrative capabilities. He had made ridicule the means of
repressing ambitious aspirations, which are always so dangerous to
authority in undisciplined bodies; and his cunning gave me a fuller idea
of his mental powers, and the crass ignorance of the negroes under his
command.