BESIEGED
In the meantime poor Célandine found herself hurried down the mountain
by Hippolyte and his band, in a state of anxiety and alarm that would
have paralysed the energies of most women, but that roused all the savage
qualities dormant in the character of the Quadroon. Not a word of her
captors, not a look escaped her; and she soon discovered, greatly to her
dismay, that she was regarded less as an auxiliary than a hostage. She
was placed in the centre of the band, unbound indeed, and apparently at
liberty; but no sooner did she betray, by the slightest independence of
movement, that she considered herself a free agent, than four stalwart
blacks closed in on her with brutal glee, attempting no concealment of a
determination to retain her in their power till they had completed their
merciless design.
“Once gone,” said Hippolyte, politely affecting great reverence for the
Obi-woman’s supernatural powers, “never catchee no more!—Jumbo fly away
with yaller woman, same as black. Dis nigger no ’fraid of Jumbo, so
long as Missee Célandine at um back. Soon dark now. March on, you black
villains, and keep your ranks, same as buckra musketeer!”
With such exhortations to discipline, and an occasional compliment to his
own military talents, Hippolyte beguiled their journey down the mountain.
It seemed to Célandine that far too short a space of time had elapsed ere
they reached the skirts of the forest, and even in the deepening twilight
could perceive clearly enough the long low building of _Cash-a-crou_, now
called Montmirail West.
The lamps were already lit in the sitting-room on the ground floor. From
where she stood, in the midst of the band, outwardly stern and collected,
quivering with rage and fear within, the Quadroon could distinguish the
figures of Madame la Marquise and her daughter, moving here and there
in the apartment, or leaning out at window for a breath of the cool,
refreshing evening air.
Their commander kept his men under covert of the woods, waiting till it
should be quite dark. There was little to fear from a garrison consisting
of but two ladies, backed by Fleurette and Bartoletti, for the other
domestic slaves were either involved in the conspiracy or had been
inveigled out of the way by its chief promoters; yet notwithstanding the
weakness of the besieged, some dread of their ascendancy made the negroes
loth to encounter by daylight even such weak champions of the white race
as two helpless women and a cowardly Italian overseer.
Nevertheless, every moment gained was worth a purse of gold. Célandine,
affecting to identify herself with the conspirators, urged on them the
prudence of delay. Hippolyte, somewhat deceived by her enthusiasm,
offered an additional reason for postponing the attack, in the brilliancy
of a conflagration under a night sky. He intended, he said, to begin by
setting fire to the house—there could then be no resistance from within.
There would be plenty of time, he opined, for drink and plunder before
the flames gained a complete ascendancy, and he seemed to cherish some
vague half-formed notion that it would be a fine thing to appear before
Cerise in the character of a hero, who should rescue her from a frightful
death.
A happy thought struck the Quadroon.
“It was lucky you brought me with you,” said she earnestly. “Brave as you
are, I fancy you would have been scared had you acted on your own plan.
You talk of firing _Cash-a-crou_, as you would of roasting a turtle in
its shell. Do you know that madame keeps a dozen barrels of gunpowder
stowed away about the house—nobody knows where but herself. You would
have looked a little foolish, I think, my brave colonel, to find your
long body blown clean over the Sulphur Mountain into the sea on the
other side of the island. You and your guard here are as handsome a set
of blacks as a yellow woman need wish to look on. Not a morsel would have
been left of any one of you the size of my hand!”
“Golly!” exclaimed Hippolyte in consternation. “Missee Célandine, you
go free for tanks, when this job clean done. Hi! you black fellows,
keep under shadow of gum-tree dere—change um plan now,” he added,
thoughtfully; and without taking his keen eyes off Célandine, walked from
one to the other of his band, whispering fresh instructions to each.
The Quadroon counted the time by the beating of her heart. “Now,” she
thought, “my boy must have gained the edge of the forest—ten minutes more
to cross the new cane-pieces—another ten to reach the shore. He can swim
of course—his father swam like a pilot-fish. In forty minutes he might
be on board. Five to man a boat—and ten more to pull her in against the
ebb. Then they have fully a league to march, and sailors are such bad
walkers.” At this stage of her reflections something went through her
heart like a knife. She thought of the grim ground-sharks, heaving and
gaping in the warm translucent depths of the harbour at Port Welcome.
But meanwhile Hippolyte had gathered confidence from the bearing of his
comrades. Their numbers and fierceness inspired him with courage, and he
resolved to enter the house at the head of his chosen body-guard, whilst
he surrounded it with a score of additional mutineers who had joined him
according to previous agreement at the head of the forest. These, too,
had brought with them a fresh supply of rum, and Célandine observed with
horror its stimulating effects on the evil propensities of the band.
While he made his further dispositions, she found herself left for a
few seconds comparatively unwatched, and at once stole into the open
moonlight, where her white dress could be discerned plainly from the
house. She knew her husband would be smoking his evening tobacco,
according to custom, in the verandah. At little more than a hundred paces
he could hardly fail to see her; and in an instant she had unbound the
red turban and waved it round her head, in the desperate hope that he
might accept that warning for a danger signal. The quick-witted Italian
seemed to comprehend at once that something was wrong. He imitated her
gesture, retired into the house, and the next minute his figure was seen
in the sitting-room with the Marquise and her daughter. By this time
Hippolyte had returned to her side, and she could only watch in agony
for the result. Completely surrounded by the intoxicated and infuriated
negroes, there seemed to be no escape for the besieged, while the looks
and gestures of their leader, closely copied by his chosen band, denoted
how little of courtesy or common humanity was to be expected from the
Coromantee, excited to madness by all the worst passions of his savage
nature bursting from the enforced restraints that had so long kept them
down.
A bolder spirit than the Signor’s might have been excused for betraying
considerable apprehension in such a crisis, and in good truth Bartoletti
was fairly frightened out of his wits. In common with the rest of the
whites on the island, he had long suspected a conspiracy amongst the
negroes, and feared that such an insurrection would take place; but no
great social misfortune is ever really believed in till it comes, and he
had neither taken measures for its prevention, nor thoroughly realised
the magnitude of the evil. Now that he felt it was upon him he knew not
where to turn for aid. There was no time to make phrases or to stand on
ceremony. He rushed into the sitting-room with a blanched cheek and a
wild eye, that caused each of the ladies to drop her work on her lap, and
gaze at him in consternation.
“Madame!” he exclaimed, and his jaw shook so that he could hardly form
the syllables, “we must leave the house at once—we must save ourselves.
There is an _émeute_, a revolt, a rebellion among the slaves. I know
them—the monsters! They will not be appeased till they have drunk our
blood. Oh! why did I ever come to this accursed country?”
Cerise turned as white as a sheet—her blue eyes were fixed, her lips
apart. Even the Marquise grew pale, though her colour came back, and she
held her head the more erect a moment afterwards. “Sit down,” she said,
imperiously, yet kindly enough. “Take breath, my good man, and take
courage also. Tell me exactly what you have seen;” and added, turning to
Cerise, “don’t be frightened, child—these overseers are sad alarmists. I
daresay it is only what the negroes call a ‘bobbery,’ after all!”
Then Bartoletti explained that he had seen his wife waving a red shawl
from the edge of the jungle; that this was a preconcerted signal by which
they had agreed to warn each other of imminent danger; that it was never
to be used except on great emergencies; and that he was quite sure it was
intended to convey to him that she was in the power of the slaves, and
that the rising they had so often talked about had taken place at last.
The Marquise thought for a moment. She seemed to have no fear now that
she realised her danger. Only once, when her eye rested on her daughter,
she shuddered visibly. Otherwise, her bearing was less that of a tender
woman in peril of her life, than of some wise commander, foiled and beset
by the enemy, yet not altogether without hope of securing his retreat.
So might have looked one of her warlike ancestors when the besiegers set
fire to his castle by the Garonne, and he resolved to betake himself,
with his stout veterans, to the square stone keep where the well was
dug—a maiden fortress, that had never yet succumbed to famine nor been
forced by escalade.
“Is there any one in the house whom we can trust?” said the Marquise; and
even while she spoke a comely black girl came crawling to her feet, and
seized her hand to cover it with tears and kisses.
“Iss, missis!” exclaimed Fleurette, for Fleurette it was, who had indeed
been listening at the door for the last five minutes. “You trust _me_!
Life for life! Blood for blood! No fear Jumbo, so lilly ma’amselle go out
safe. Trust Fleurette, missis. Trust Fleurette, ma’amselle. Fleurette die
at um house-door, so! better than ugly black floggee-man come in.” The
Marquise listened calmly.
“Attend to me, Fleurette,” said she, with an authoritative gesture. “Go
at once through the kitchen into the dark path that leads to the old
summer-house. See if the road to Port Welcome is clear. There is no
bush on that side within five hundred paces, and if they mean to stop
us, they must post a guard between the house and the gum-trees. Do not
show yourself, girl, but if they take you, say Célandine sent you down
to the negro-houses for eggs. Quick, and come back here like lightning.
Bartoletti—have you any firearms? Do not be afraid, my darling,” she
repeated, turning to her daughter, “I know these wretched people well.
You need but show a bold front, and they would turn away from a lady’s
fan if you only shook it hard at them.”
“I am not afraid, mamma,” answered Cerise, valiantly, though her face
was very pale, and her knees shook. “I—I don’t _like_ it, of course, but
I can do anything you tell me. Oh, mamma! do you—do you think they will
kill us?” she added, with rather a sudden breakdown of the courage she
tried so gallantly to rally.
“Kill us, mademoiselle!” exclaimed the overseer, quaking in every limb.
“Oh, no! never! They cannot be so bad as that. We will temporise, we will
supplicate, we will make terms with them; we will offer freedom, and rum,
and plunder; we will go on our knees to their chief, and entreat his
mercy!”
The girl looked at him contemptuously. Strange to say, her courage rose
as his fell, and she seemed to gather strength and energy from the abject
selfishness of his despair. The Marquise did not heed him, for she heard
Fleurette’s footsteps returning, and was herself busied with an oblong
wooden case, brass-bound, and carefully locked up, that she lifted from
the recess of a cupboard in the room.
Fleurette’s black feet could carry her swiftly and lightly as a bird.
She had followed her instructions implicitly, had crept noiselessly
through the kitchen, and advanced unseen to the old summer-house. Peering
from that concealment on the moonlit surface of the lawn, she was
horrorstruck to observe nearly a score of slaves intently watching the
house. She hurried back panting to her mistress’s presence, and made her
discouraging report.
Madame de Montmirail was very grave now. The affair had become more than
serious. It was, in truth, desperate. Once again, as she looked at her
daughter, came that strange quiver over her features, that shudder of
repressed horror rather than pain. It was succeeded, as before, by a
moment of deep reflection, and then her eye kindled, her lips tightened,
and all her soft voluptuous beauty hardened into the obstinate courage of
despair.
Cerise sank on her knees to pray, and rose with a pale, serene, undaunted
face. Hers was the passive endurance of the martyr. Her mother’s the
tameless valour of the champion, inherited through a long line of the
turbulent La Fiertés, not one of whom had ever blenched from death nor
yielded an inch before the face of man.
“Bartoletti!” said the Marquise. “Bar the doors and windows; they can be
forced with half-a-dozen strokes, but in war every minute is of value.
Hold this rabble in parley as long as you can. I dare not trust you with
my pistols, for a weak heart makes a shaking hand, and I think fighting
seems less your trade than mine. When you can delay them no longer,
arrange your own terms with the villains. It is possible they may spare
you for your wife’s sake. Quick, man! I hear them coming now. Cerise, our
bedroom has a strong oaken door, and they cannot reach the window without
a ladder, which leaves us but one enemy to deal with at a time. Courage,
my darling! Kiss me! Again, again! my own! And now. A woman dies but
once! Here goes for France, and the lilies on the White Flag!”
Thus encouraging her child, the Marquise led the way to the bed-chamber
they jointly occupied, a plainly-furnished room, of which the only
ornament was the Prince-Marshal’s portrait, already mentioned as
having occupied the place of honour in Madame’s _boudoir_ at the Hôtel
Montmirail. Both women glanced at it as they entered the apartment. Then
the Marquise, laying down the oblong box she carried, carefully shaded
the night-lamp that burned by her bedside, and peered stealthily from the
window to reconnoitre.
“Four, six, ten,” said she, calmly, “besides their leader, a tall, big
negro, very like Hippolyte. It _is_ Hippolyte. _You_ at least, my friend,
will not leave this house alive! I can hardly miss so fair a mark as
those broad black shoulders. This of course is the _corps d’élite_. Those
at the back of the house I do not regard so much. The kitchen door is
strong, and they will do nothing if their champions are repulsed. Courage
again, my child! All is not lost yet. Open that box and help me to load
my pistols. Strange, that I should have practised with them for years,
only to beat Madame de Sabran, and now to-night we must both trust our
safety to a true eye and a steady hand!”
Pale, tearless, and collected, Cerise obeyed. Her mother, drawing the
weapons from their case, wiped them with her delicate handkerchief, and
proceeded to charge them carefully, and with a preoccupied air, like a
mother preparing medicine for a child. Holding the ramrod between her
beautiful white teeth, while her delicate and jewelled fingers shook the
powder into the pan, she explained to Cerise the whole mystery of loading
and priming the deadly weapons. She would thus, as she observed, always
have one barrel in reserve. The younger woman listened attentively. Her
lip was steady, though her hand shook, and now that the worst was come
she showed that peculiar quality of race which is superior to the common
fighting courage possessed indiscriminately by all classes—the passive
concentrated firmness, which can take every advantage so long as a chance
is left, and die without a word at last, when hope gives place to the
resignation of despair.
She even pointed out to her mother, that by half closing the shutter, the
Marquise, herself unseen, could command the approach to the front door.
Then taking a crucifix from her bosom, she pressed it to her lips, and
said, “I am ready now, mamma. I am calm. I can do anything you tell me.
Kiss me once more, dear, as you used when I was a child. And if we _must_
die, it will not seem so hard to die together.”
The Marquise answered by a long clinging embrace, and then the two women
sat them down in the gloomy shadows of their chamber, haggard, tearless,
silent, watching for the near approach of a merciless enemy armed with
horrors worse than death.