THE SLAVE SALE.
A moment after Montbarts rose, put on his cloak, which he had thrown on
a chair when he came in, and prepared to quit the house.
On the threshold he found himself face to face with Captain Drake.
"Ah," said the latter, "here you are."
"Yes! I have been breakfasting at your house."
"You did well."
"Will you accompany me to the sale?"
"I do not want any hired man."
"Nor I, but you know the enlistment will commence immediately
afterwards."
"That is true; let me say a word first to my engagé, and I will follow
you."
"He has gone out."
"Why! I ordered him not to leave the house."
"I have given him a commission."
"Oh! That is different."
"You do not ask me what the commission is I have given your engagé,"
Montbarts remarked a moment later.
"Why should I? It does not concern me, I suppose."
"More than you imagine, brother."
"Nonsense, how so?"
"You offered hospitality to a stranger, did you not?"
"Yes, but what of that?"
"You shall see. This stranger, whom you do not know, for of course you
do not--"
"No more than Adam; what do I care who he is? hospitality is one of
those things which cannot be refused."
"That is true, but I recognized the man."
"Ah, ah, and who is he then?"
"Nothing less than a Spanish spy, brother."
"My God!" the captain said, stopping dead short.
"What is the matter with you now?"
"Nothing, nothing, except that I will go and blow out his brains,
unless you have done so already."
"Pray, do nothing of the sort; this man, I feel convinced, brother,
will prove very useful to us."
"Nonsense, how so?"
"Leave me to act; if we manage properly, we may draw profit even from a
Spanish spy; in the meanwhile, I have had him taken on board the lugger
by your engagé, and a man of my own, where he will be watched so that
he cannot part company."
"I trust to you for that, and thank you, brother, for having freed me
from the scoundrel."
While talking thus, the two men arrived at the spot where the sale of
the engagés to the colonists was to take place.
On the right of the square was a spacious shed, built of clumsily
planed planks, and open to the wind and rain; in the centre of the shed
was a table for the officials and secretaries of the company, who had
to manage the sale and draw up the contracts; an easy chair had been
set apart for the governor, by the side of a rather lofty platform,
on which each engagé, male or female, mounted in turn, so that the
purchasers might examine them at their ease.
These wretches, deceived by the company's agents in Europe, had
contracted engagements, whose consequences they did not at all
understand, and were convinced that, on their arrival in America,
with the exception of a certain tax they had to pay the company for a
certain period, they would be completely free to earn their livelihood
as they thought proper. The majority were carpenters, masons and
bricklayers, but there were also among them ruined gentlemen and
libertines who detest work and who imagined that in America, the
country of gold, fortune would visit them while they slept.
A company's ship had arrived a few days previously and brought one
hundred and fifty engagés, among them were several young and pretty
women, thoroughly vitiated, however, and who, like the Manon Lescault
of the Abbé Prevost, had been picked up by the police in the streets of
Paris, and shipped off without further formality.
These women were also sold to the colonists, not apparently as slaves,
but as wives.
These unions contracted in the gipsy fashion, were only intended to
last a settled time which must not exceed seven years, unless with
the mutual consent of the couple, though the clause was hardly ever
appealed to by them; at the end of that time they separated, and each
was set at liberty to form a fresh union.
The engagés had been landed two days before; these two days had been
granted them, that they might slightly recover from the fatigue of a
long sea voyage, walk about and breathe the reviving land breeze, of
which they had so long been deprived.
At the moment when the two adventurers arrived, the sale had been going
on for half an hour; the shed was crowded with colonists who desired to
purchase slaves, for we are compelled to use that odious term, for the
poor creatures were nothing else.
At the sight of Montbarts, however, whose name was justly celebrated,
a passage was opened, and he thus succeeded in reaching the side of
the governor, Chevalier de Fontenay, round whom the most renowned
adventurers were collected, among them being Michael the Basque.
Monsieur de Fontenay received Montbarts with distinction; he even
rose from his chair and walked two or three steps to meet him, which
the filibusters considered in very good taste, and felt grateful to
him for it; this honour paid to the most celebrated among them cast a
reflection on them all.
After exchanging a few compliments with the governor, Montbarts bent
down to Michael's ear.
"Well, mate?" he said to him.
"The Spaniard is aboard," Michael replied, "and carefully watched by
Bowline."
"In that case I can be at my ease?"
"Perfectly."
During this aside, the sale had been going on.
All the male engagés had been sold, with the exception of one who was
standing at this moment on the platform, by the side of a company's
agent, who acted as auctioneer, and praised the qualities of the human
merchandise he offered.
This engagé was a short, stout, powerfully built man, from twenty-five
to twenty-six years of age, with harsh, energetic, but intelligent
features, whose grey eyes sparkled with audacity and good humour.
"Pierre Nau, native of the sands of Olonne," said the company's agent,
"twenty-five years of age, powerful and in good health, a sailor.
Who'll say forty crowns for the Olonnais, forty crowns for three years,
gentlemen."
"Come, come," said the engagé, "if the person who buys me is a man, he
will have a good bargain."
"Going for forty crowns," the company's agent repeated, "forty crowns,
gentlemen."
Montbarts turned to the engagé.
"What, you scoundrel," he said to him, "you a sailor and sell yourself
instead of joining us? You have no pluck."
The Olonnais began laughing.
"You know nothing about it. I have sold myself, because I must do so,"
he answered, "so that my mother may be able to live during my absence."
"How so?"
"How does it concern you? You are not my master, and even if you were,
you would have no right to inquire into my private affairs."
"You seem to me a bold fellow," Montbarts remarked.
"Indeed, I believe I am; besides, I wish to become an adventurer like
you fellows, and for that purpose I must serve my apprenticeship to the
trade."
"Going for forty crowns," cried the agent.
Montbarts examined with the most serious attention the engagé, whose
firm glance he could hardly manage to quell; then, doubtless satisfied
with his triumph, he turned to the agent.
"That will do," he said, "hold your row: I buy this man."
"The Olonnais is adjudged to Montbarts the exterminator, for forty
crowns," the agent said.
"Here they are," the adventurer answered as he threw a handful of
silver on the table; "now come," he ordered the Olonnais, "you are now
my engagé."
The latter leapt joyously off the platform and ran up to him.
"So you are Montbarts the exterminator?" he asked him curiously.
"I think you are questioning me," the adventurer said with a laugh,
"still, as your question appears to me very natural, I will answer it
this time; yes, I am Montbarts."
"In that case I thank you for buying me, Montbarts; with you I am
certain soon to become a man."
And at a sign from his new master, he respectfully placed himself
behind him.
The most curious part of the sale for the adventurers then began, that
is to say, the sale of the women.
The poor wretches, mostly young and pretty, mounted the platform
trembling, and in spite of their efforts to keep a good countenance,
they blushed with shame, and burning tears ran down their cheeks on
seeing themselves thus exposed before all these men, whose flashing
eyes were fixed upon them.
The company made its greatest profit by the women, and it was the more
easy to realise, because they were got for nothing, and sold at the
highest possible figure.
The men were generally knocked down at a price varying from thirty
to forty dollars, but never went beyond that; with the women it was
different, they were put up to auction, and the governor alone had the
right to stop the sale, when the price appeared to him sufficiently
high. These women were always sold amid cries, shouts and coarse jests,
generally addressed to the adventurers who did not fear running the
risk of venturing on the shoal-beset ocean of marriage.
Belle Tête, that furious adventurer to whom we have already referred,
and whom we saw at the meeting at the hatto, had, as he had resolved,
purchased two engagés to take the place of the two who had died, so he
said, of indolence, but, in reality of the blows he dealt them; then,
instead of returning home he had confided the engagés to his overseer;
for the adventurers, like the slave owners, had overseers, whose duty
it was to make the white slaves toil; and the adventurer remained in
the shed watching the sale of the women with the most lively interest.
His friends did not fail to cut jokes at his expense, but he contented
himself with shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, and stood with
his hands crossed on the muzzle of his long fusil, and with his eyes
obstinately fixed on the platform.
A young woman had just taken her place there in her turn; she was a
frail delicate girl, with light curling hair that fell on her white
rather thin chest. Her smooth and pensive forehead, her large blue
eyes full of tears, her fresh cheeks, her little mouth, made her appear
much younger than she in reality was; she was eighteen years of age,
and her delicate waist, her well-turned lips, her decent appearance,
in short everything about her delicious person had a seductive charm,
which formed a complete contrast with the decided air and vulgar
manners of the women who had preceded her on the platform, and those
who would follow her.
"Louise, born at Montmartre, aged eighteen years; who will marry her
for three years, at the price of fifteen crowns?" the company's agent
asked in his sarcastic voice.
The poor girl buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.
"Twenty crowns for Louise," an adventurer shouted, drawing nearer.
"Twenty-five," another said immediately.
"Make her hold her head up so that we can have a look at her," a third
cried brutally.
"Come, little one," the agent said, as he obliged her to remove her
hands from her face; "be polite and let them look at you, it is for
your own good, hang it all! Twenty-five crowns."
"Fifty," said Belle Tête, without moving from the spot.
All eyes were turned to him; up to this moment Belle Tête had professed
a profound hatred for marriage.
"Sixty," shouted an adventurer who did not desire to buy the girl, but
wished to annoy his comrade.
"Seventy," said another with the same charitable intention.
"One hundred," Belle Tête shouted angrily.
"One hundred crowns, gentlemen, one hundred for Louise for three
years," the stoical agent said.
"One hundred and fifty."
"Two hundred."
"Two hundred and fifty."
"Three hundred," several adventurers shouted, almost simultaneously, as
they drew nearer to the platform.
Belle Tête was pale with rage, for he feared lest she might escape him.
The adventurer had persuaded himself, rightly or wrongly, that he
wanted a wife to manage his household; now he had seen Louise, Louise
pleased him, she was for sale, and he resolved to buy her.
"Four hundred crowns!" he said with an air of defiance.
"Four hundred crowns," the company's agent repeated in his monotonous
voice.
There was a silence.
Four hundred crowns is a large sum; Belle Tête triumphed.
"Five hundred!" a sharp shrill voice suddenly shouted.
The contest was beginning again; the adversaries had only stopped to
regain their strength.
The company's agent rubbed his hands with a jubilant air, while
repeating,--
"Six hundred, seven, eight, nine hundred crowns!"
A species of frenzy had seized on the spectators, and all bid
furiously; the girl was still weeping.
Belle Tête was in a state of fury which approached to madness;
clutching his fusil frenziedly in his clinched hand, he felt a
wild temptation to send a bullet into the most determined of his
competitors. Only the presence of M. de Fontenay restrained him.
"A thousand," he shouted in a hoarse voice.
"One thousand two hundred!" the most obstinate competitor immediately
yelled.
Belle Tête stamped savagely, threw his fusil on his shoulder, drew his
cap on to his head with a blow of his fist, and then with a step as
slow and solemn as that of a statue would be, if a statue could walk,
he went to place himself by the side of his unendurable rival, and
letting the butt of his fusil fall heavily on the ground, scarce an
inch from the man's foot, he looked him in the face for a moment with a
defiant air, and shouted in a voice choked by emotion,--
"Fifteen hundred!"
The adventurer regarded him in his turn fiercely, fell back a step,
and, after renewing the powder in the pan of his fusil, said, in a calm
voice--
"Two thousand!"
Before these two obstinate adversaries the other bidders had prudently
withdrawn; the competition was turning into a quarrel, and threatened
to become sanguinary.
A deadly silence brooded over the shed; the over-excited passions of
these two men had spoiled all the pleasures of the spectators, and
silenced all their jokes.
The Governor followed with interest the different incidents of this
struggle, ready to interfere at any moment.
The adventurers had gradually fallen back, and left a large free space
between the two men.
Belle Tête recoiled a few paces in his turn, suddenly examined the
priming of his fusil, and then, pointing the latter at his adversary,
shouted--
"Three thousand!"
The other raised his fusil at the same moment to his shoulder.
"Three thousand five hundred crowns!" he shouted, as he pulled the
trigger--the fusil was discharged.
But the Governor, with a movement rapid as thought, threw up the barrel
with the end of his cane, and the ball lodged in the roof.
Belle Tête remained motionless, though, on hearing the shot, he lowered
his fusil.
"Sir," the Governor exclaimed, indignantly, addressing the adventurer
who had fired, "You have acted in a dishonourable way, and almost
committed a murder."
"Governor," the adventurer coolly replied, "when I fired he had his gun
pointed at me, and hence it is a duel."
The Governor hesitated, for the answer was specious.
"No matter, sir," he continued, a moment later, "the laws of duelling
were not respected; to punish you I put you out of the bidding. Sir,"
he said, addressing the company's agent, "I order that the woman, who
was the cause of this deplorable aggression, be knocked down to Señor
Belle Tête for three thousand crowns."
The agent bowed with rather an angry look, for the worthy man had
hoped, from the way things were going on, to reach a much higher
figure; but he dared not make any observations to Chevalier de
Fontenay; he must yield, and so he did.
"Louise is adjudged for three thousand crowns," he said, with a sigh of
regret--not for the woman, but for the money--"to M. Belle Tête."
"Very good, Governor," the baffled adventurer said, with an ugly smile,
"I must bow to your final sentence; but Belle Tête and I will meet
again."
"I hope so, too, Picard," Belle Tête answered, coldly; "there must be
bloodshed between us now." During this time Louise had come down from
the platform, when another woman took her place, and had stationed
herself, still weeping, by the side of Belle Tête, who was henceforth
her lord and master.
M. de Fontenay gave a commiserating glance at the poor girl, who was
about, in all probability, to endure such a cruel existence with so
harsh a man, and then gently said to her--
"Madame, from this day you are for three years the legitimate wife of
M. Belle Tête, and owe him obedience, affection, and fidelity; such are
the laws of the colony: in three years you will be your own mistress,
at liberty to leave him or to continue to live with him, if he desire
it; be good enough to sign this paper."
The unhappy woman, blinded by her tears, and crushed by despair,
signed, without looking at it, the paper which the Governor offered
her; then she cast a heart-broken glance at this silent and indifferent
crowd, in which she knew that she could not find a friend.
"Now, sir," she asked, in a gentle and trembling voice, "what must I
do?"
"You must follow this man, who will be your husband for three years,"
M. de Fontenay answered, with a touch of pity, which he could not
overcome.
At this moment Belle Tête laid his hand on the girl's shoulder; she
shuddered all over, and looked wildly at him.
"Yes," he said, "my girl, you must follow me; for, as the Governor has
told you, I am your husband for three years, and till the expiration of
that time, you will have no other master but me. Now, listen to this,
my darling, and engrave it carefully on your mind, so as to remember it
at the right moment: what you have done, what you have been, until now,
does not concern me, and I care little about it; but," he added, in a
hollow, ferocious voice, which chilled the poor girl with horror, "from
this day, from this moment, you belong to me--to me alone: I intrust
to you my honour, which becomes yours, and if you compromise that
honour--if you forget your duties," he said, as he dashed the butt end
of his musket on the ground, so harshly, that the hammer rattled with
an ill-omened sound, "this will remind you of them; now, follow me."
"Be gentle to her, Belle Tête," M. de Fontenay could not help
saying--"she is so young."
"I shall be just, Governor: now, thanks for your impartiality, it is
time for me to retire. Picard, my old friend, you know where to find
me."
"I shall not fail to come and see you, but I do not, wish to trouble
your honeymoon," Picard replied, with a growl.
Belle Tête withdrew, followed by his wife.
The sale henceforth offered nothing of interest; the few women
remaining were sold at prices far inferior to that which Louise had
fetched, to the great regret, we are bound to add, of the Company's
agent.
The adventurers were preparing to leave the shed where they imagined
there was nothing more to see; but at this moment Montbarts mounted the
platform, and addressed the crowd in a sonorous voice--
"Brothers," he said, "stay, I have an important communication to make
to you."
The adventurers remained motionless.