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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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CERISE

A TALE OF THE LAST CENTUKY.

G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE,

AUTHOR OF
THE GLADIATORS," " DIGBV GRAND," "THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE," ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY

1866.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

THE FOX AND FIDDLE . .1

CHAPTER II.

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN . . . .16

CHAPTER III.

THE TARLOUR LODGER " . . . . .31

CHAPTER IV.

A VOLUNTEER ....... 46

CHAPTER Y.

THREE PRESSED MEN 61

CHAPTER VI.

" TO-HEAYE-YO !" 78

CHAPTER VII.

'THE BASHFUL MAID ' 92

CHAPTER VIII.

DIRTY WEATHER ...... 108

CHAPTER IX.

PORT WELCOME . . . . . . .118

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

MONTMIRAIL WEST 133

CHAPTER XI.

BLACK, BUT COMELY 157

CHAPTER XII.

A WISE CHILD 166

CHAPTER XIII.

JACK AGROUND 183

CHAPTER XIV.

JACK AFLOAT 199

CHAPTER XY.

BESIEGED ........ 208

CHAPTER XVI.

AT BAY ■ . 225

CHAPTER XVII.

JUST IN TIME ....... 240

CHAPTER XVIII.

MERE AVANT TOUT 256

CHAPTER XIX.

ALL ADRIFT . . . . . . . 272

CHAPTER XX.

HOMEWARD BOUND . . . . . . 283

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CERISE:

A TALE OF THE LAST CENTUEY.

CHAPTER I.

THE FOX AND FIDDLE.

HREE dirty children with blue eyes,
fair locks, and round, chubby faces,
deepened by a warm, peach-like tint
beneath the skin, such as are to be seen
in plenty along our southern seaboard, were busily
engaged building a grotto of shells opposite their
home, at the exact spot where its construction
was most in the way of pedestrians passing through
the narrow, ill-paved street. Their shrill cries and
blooming looks denoted the salubrious influence of
sea-air, while their nationality was sufficiently
attested by the vigour with which the eldest, a
VOL. IL B

1 CERISE.

young lady less than ten years of age, called out
" Frenchie ! Frenchie ! Froggie ! Froggie !" after
a foreign-looking man with a pale face and dark
eyes, who stepped over the low half-door that
restrained her infant brothers and sisters from
rolling out into the gutter, as if he was habitually
a resident in the house. He appeared, indeed, a
favourite with the children, for while they recalled
him to assist their labours, which he did with a
good-nature and address peculiarly winning to
architects of that age, they chanted in his praise,
and obviously with intention of doing him high
honour, a ditty of no particular tune, detailing the
matrimonial adventures of an amphibious animal,
supposed in the last century to bear close affinity
to all Frenchmen, as related with a remarkable
chorus by one Anthony Rowley, and the obliging
foreigner, suspecting neither sarcasm nor insult,
but only suffering torture from an utter absence of
tune, hummed lustily in accompaniment.

Over the heads of these urchins hung their
paternal sign-board, creaking and swinging in the
breeze now freshening with an incoming tide. Its
representation of a fox playing the fiddle was
familiar to seafaring men as indicating a favourite
house of call for the consumption of beer, tobacco,

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 3

and that seductive compound known to several
generations by the popular name of punch.

The cheerful fire, the red curtains, the sanded
floor, the wooden chairs, and liberal measures of
their jovial haunt, had been present to the mind's
eye of many an honest tar clinging wet and cold
to a slippery yard, reefing topsails in a nor'-wester,
or eating maggoty biscuit and sipping six-water
grog, on half-rations, homeward-bound with a
head-wind, but probably none of them had ever
speculated on the origin of the sign they knew so
well and thought of so often. Why a fox and fiddle
should be found together in a seaport town, what
a fox had to do with a fiddle, or, however appro-
priate to their ideas of jollity the instrument might
appear, wherefore its player should be represented
as the cunning animal whom destiny had already
condemned to be hunted by English country
gentlemen, was a speculation on which they had no
wish to embark. Neither have I. It is enough
to know that the Fox and Fiddle sold loaded
beer, strong tobacco, and scalding punch, to an
extent not even limited by the consumer's purse ; for
when Jack had spent all his rhino, the landlord's
liberality enabled him to run up a score, hereafter
to be liquidated from the wages of a future

B 2

4 CERISE.

voyage. The infatuated debtor, paying something
like two hundred per cent, on every mouthful for
this accommodation, by a farther arrangement,
that he should engage with any skipper of the
landlord's providing, literally sold himself, body
and soul, for a nipperkin of rum and half a pound
of tobacco.

Nevertheless, several score of the boldest hearts
and readiest hands in England were to be
bought at this low price ; and Butter-faced Bob, as
his roughspoken customers called the owner of
the Fox and Fiddle, would furnish as many of
them at a reasonable tariff, merchant and man-of-
war's men, as the captain wanted or the owners
could afford to buy. It was no wonder his chil-
dren had strong lungs a ad round, well-fed cheeks.

"That's a good chap !" observed a deep hoarse
voice, which made the youngest grotto-builder start
and shrink behind its sister, while a broad elderly
figure rolled and lurched after the obliging foreigner
into the house. It would have been as impossible to
mistake the new comer for a landsman as Butter-
faced Bob, himself, for anything but a publican.
His gait on the pavement was that of one who had
so thoroughly got his sea-legs, that he was, to the
last degree, incommoded by the uneven though

THE FOX AND" FIDDLE. D

stable surface of the shore ; and while he trod the
passage, as being planked, with more confidence,
he nevertheless ran his hand, like a blind man,
along tables and other articles of furniture while
he passed them, seeming, in every gesture, to be
more ready with his arms than his legs.

Broad-faced, broad-shouldered, broad-handed,
he looked a powerful, and at the same time a
strong-constitutioned man, but grizzled hair and
shaggy eyebrows denoted he was past his prime ;
while a reddened neck and tanned face, with
innumerable little wrinkles round the eyes, sug-
gested constant watchfulness and exposure in hard
weather afloat, no less than swollen features and
marked lines told of deep drinking and riotous
living ashore.

The seamen of that period, though possessing an
undoubted claim to the title, were far more than
to-day a class distinct and apart from their fellow-
countrymen. The standing army, an institution of
which our parliaments had for generations shown
themselves so jealous, could boast, indeed, a con-
solidation and discipline under Marlborough which
made them, as the Musketeers of the French king
allowed, second to no troops in Europe. But their
triumphs, their organization, even their existence,

6 CERISE.

was comparatively of recent date. The navy, on
the other hand, had been a recognized and con-
stitutional force for more than a century, and had
enjoyed, from the dispersion of the Spanish Armada
downwards, a series of successes almost uninter-
rupted. It is true that the cannonade of a Dutch
fleet had been heard in the Thames, but few of the
lowest seamen were so ignorant as to attribute this
national disgrace to want of courage in their
officers or incapacity in themselves.

Their leaders, indeed, were usually more remark-
able for valour than discretion, nor was this sur-
prising under the system by which captains were
appointed to their ships.

A regiment and a three-decker were considered
by the Government equivalent and convertible
commands. The cavalry officer of to-day might
find himself directing the manoeuvres of a fleet
to-morrow. The relics of so untoward an arrange-
ment may be detected in certain technical phrases
not yet out of use. The word " squadron " is even
now applied alike to a handful of horse and a
powerful fleet, numbering perhaps a dozen sail of
the line. Raleigh, himself, began his fighting
career as a soldier, and Rupert finished his as
a sailor.

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 7

With such want of seamanship, therefore,
amongst its commanders, our navy must have
possessed in its construction some great preponde-
rating influence to account for its efficiency. This
compensating power was to be found in its masters,
its petty-officers, and its seamen.

The last were thoroughly impregnated with the
briny element on which they passed their lives.
They boasted themselves a race apart. " Land-
lubber " was for them a term conveying the utmost
amount of derision and contempt. To be an * old
salt " was the ideal perfection at which alone it
was -worth while for humanity to aim. The seaman,
exulting in his profession, was never more a seaman
than when rolling about on shore, swearing strange
oaths, using nautical phrases, consuming vast
quantities of beer and tobacco, above all, flinging
his money here and there with a profuse and
injudicious liberality especially distinctive of his
kind.

The popularity of such characters amongst the
lower classes may be readily imagined, for, with
the uneducated and unreflecting, a reckless bearing
very generally passes for courage ; a tendency to
dissipation for manliness ; and a boastful expendi-
ture for true generosity of heart. Perhaps, to the

b CERISE.

erroneous impressious thus disseminated amongst
the young should be attributed the inclination
shown towards a service of which the duties en-
tailed continual danger, excessive hardship, and
daily privation. Certainly at a period when the
worst provision was made, both physical and moral,
for the welfare of men before the mast, there never
seems to have been found a difficulty in keeping
up the full complement of the British navy.

They were, indeed, a race apart — not only in
their manners, their habits, their quaint expres-
sions, their simple modes of thought, but in their
superstitions and even their religious belief. They
cultivated a rough, honest kind of piety, well illus-
trated in later years by Dibdin, himself a lands-
man, when he sang of

" The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
Keeping watch for the life of poor Jack."

But it was overloaded and interspersed with a
thousand strange fancies not more incongruous than
unreasonable and far-fetched.

No power would induce them to clear out
of port, or, indeed, commence any important
undertaking, on a Friday. Mother Carey's
chickens were implicitly believed to be messengers
sent express from another world to warn the

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 9

mariner of impending storm, and bid him shorten
sail ere it began to blow. Carlmilhan, the famous
pirate, who, rather than be taken alive, had in
default of gunpowder scuttled his own ship and
gone down with it, all standing, was still to be
heard giving notice in deep unearthly tones from
under her very keel when the ship approached
shoal water, shifting sands, or treacherous coral-
reefs in the glittering seas beneath the tropics.
That phantom Dutchman, who had been provoked
by baffling winds about the Cape to speak " un-
advisedly with his lips," was still to be seen in those
tempestuous latitudes careering through the storm-
drift, under a press of sail, when the best craft that
-wain hardly dared show a stitch of canvas. The
speaking-trumpet was still to be heard from her
deck shouting her captain's despairing request to
take his letters home, and the magic ship still dis-
appeared at half a cable's length and melted into
air, while the wind blew fiercer and the sea rose
higher, and sheets of rain came flashing down from
the black squall lowering overhead.

Nor was it only in the wonders of this world
that the tar professed his unaccountable belief.
His credulity ran riot in regions beyond the grave,
or, to use his own words, after he had " gone to

10 CERISE.

Davy Jones." A mystical spot which he called
Fiddler's Green was for him both the Tartarus and
Elysium of the ancients — a land flowing, not in-
deed with milk and honey, but with rum and lime-
juice ; a land of perpetual music, mirth, dancing,
drinking, and tobacco ; a land in which his weary
soul was to find an intervening spell of enjoyment
and repose, ere she put out again for her final
voyage into eternity.

In the mean time, the new arrival at the Fox
and Fiddle, seating himself at a small table in the
public room, or tap as it would now be called,
ordered a quart of ale and half a pint of rum.
These fluids he mingled with great care, and sipped
his beverage in a succession of liberal mouthfuls,
dwelling on each with an approving smack as a
man drinks a good bottle of claret. Butter-faced
Bob, who waited on him, remarked that he pulled
out but one gold piece in payment, and knowing
the ways of his patrons, concluded it was his last,
or he would have selected it from a handful. The
landlord remembered he had a customer in the
parlour who wanted just such articles as this burly,
broad-shouldered seaman, with pockets at low
water.

The man did not, however, count his change

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 11

when it was brought him, but shovelled it into his
seal- skin tobacco pouch, a coin or two short, with-
out looking at it. He then filled carefully, drank,
and pondered with an air of grave and imposing
reflection. Long before his measure was finished
a second guest entered the taproom, whose man-
ners, gait, and gestures were an exact counterpart
of the first. He was taller, however, and thinner,
altogether less robust and prosperous - looking,
showing a sallow face and withered skin, that
denoted he had spent much of his life in hot cli-
mates. Though he looked younger than the other,
his bearing was more staid and solemn, nor did he
at once vociferate for something to drink. Beer
seemed his weakness less than 'bacca, for he placed a
small copper coin on a box ingeniously constructed
so that, opening only by such means, it produced
exactly the money's worth of the fragrant weed,
and loading a pipe with a much-tattooed hand, pro-
ceeded to puff volumes of smoke through the
apartment.

Butter-faced Bob, entering, cheerfully proffered
all kinds of liquids as a matter of course, but was
received with surly negatives, and retired to specu-
late on the extreme of wealth or poverty denoted
by this abstinence. A man, he thought, to be

12 CERISE.

proof against such temptations must be either so
rich, and consequently so full of liquor that he was
unable to drink any more, or so poor that he
couldn't afford to be thirsty.

So the last comer smoked in silence at a little
table of his own, which he had drawn into a corner,
and his predecessor drank at his table, looking
wiser and wiser, while each glanced furtively at the
other without opening his lips. Presently the eyes
of the elder man twinkled : he had got an idea —
nay, he actually launched it. Filling his glass,
and politely handing it to the smoker, but reserv-
ing the jug to drink from himself, he proposed the
following comprehensive toast —
" All ships at sea !"
They both drank it gravely and without farther
comment. It was a social challenge, and felt to be
such ; the smoker pondered, put out the glass he
had drained to be refilled, and holding it on a level
with his eyes, enunciated solemnly —

*' All ships in port !"
When equal justice had been done to this kindred
sentiment, and the navies of the world were thus
exhausted, they came to a dead-lock and relapsed
into silence once more.

This calm might have remained unbroken for a

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 13

considerable time but for the entrance of a third
seaman, much younger than either of the former,
whose appearance in the passage had been received
by a round of applause from the children, a hearty
greeting from the landlady — though that portly
woman, with her handsome face, would not have
left her arm-chair to welcome an admiral — and a
"good-morrow," louder, but not more sincere, from
Bob himself. It appeared that this guest was well
known and also trusted at the Fox and Fiddle, for,
entering the public room with a sea-bow and a
scrape of his foot on its sanded floor, he called
lustily for a quart of strong ale and a pipe, while he
produced an empty purse and shook it in the land-
lord's face with a laugh of derision that would
have become the wealthiest nobleman in Great
Britain.

"Ay, lad," said Bob, shaking his head, but
setting before his customer the beer and tobacco as
desired. " 'Tis well enough to begin a fresh score
when the old one's wiped out ; but I saw that
purse, with my own eyes, half full of broad pieces
at the ebb. See now ; you've gone and cleared it
out — not a blessed groat left — and it's scarce high-
water yet !"

" What o' that, old shiney ?" laughed the other,

14 CERISE.

" Isn't there plenty more to be yarned when them's
all gone ? Slack water be hanged ! I tell you I'll
have a doubloon for every one of these here rain-
drops afore a month's out. I know where they
grows, old man, I know where they grows. My
sarvice to ye, mates ! Here's ' Outward bound and
an even keel !' "

While he spoke he whirled the rain-drops off his
shining hat upon the floor, and nodding to the
others, took a long pull at his ale, which nearly
emptied the jug ; then he filled a pipe, winked at
the retiring landlord, and smoked in silence. The
others scanned him attentively. He was an active,
well-built young fellow of two or three-and-twenty,
with foretop-man written on every feature of his
reckless, saucy, good-looking face — in every gesture
of his wiry, loose, athletic limbs. He was very
good-looking ; his eyes sparkled with fun and his
teeth were as white as a lady's ; his hair too might
have been the envy of many a woman, clustering
as it did in a profusion of curls, over a pair of real
gold ear-rings — a fashion now beginning to find
considerable favour amongst the rising generation
of seamen, though regarded with horror by their
seniors as a new and monstrous affectation, proving,
if indeed proof were needed for so self-evident a

THE FOX AND FIDDLE. 15

fact, that, as in all previous and subsequent ages,
" the service was sroinof to the devil."

Even his joviality, however, seemed damped by
the taciturnity of his comrades. He too smoked in
silence and gave himself up to meditation. The
rain pattered outside, and gusts of wind dashed it
fitfully against the window-pane. The tide moaned
sullenly, and a house-dog, chained in the back-
yard, lifted up his voice to howl in unison. The
three seamen smoked and drank and brooded,
each occasionally removing his pipe from his
mouth as if about to break the silence, on which
the others looked in his face expectant, and for a
time this was the whole extent of the conversa-
tion.

CHAPTER II.

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN.

S in a council of war, the youngest
spoke first. " Mates !" said he, " here
be three of us, all run for the same
port and never a one sported bunting. I
ain't a chap, I ain't, as must be brought to afore
he'll show his number. When I drinks with a
man I likes to fit his name on him ship-shape, so
here's my sarvice to you, messmates both ! They
calls me Slap-Jack. That's about what they calls
me both ashore and afloat."

It was absolutely necessary after such an ex-
ordium that more liquor should be brought in, and
a generous contention immediately arose between
the three occupants of the taprOom as to who
should pay for it; at once producing increased

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 17

familiarity, besides a display of liberality on the
part of the eldest and first comer, who was indeed
the only one possessing ready money. Butter-
faced Bob being summoned, the jugs were re-
plenished and Slap-Jack continued his remarks.

" I've been cruising about a-shore," said he,
between the whiffs of his pipe, "and very bad
weather I made on it standing out over them
Downs, as they calls 'em, in these here latitudes.
Downs, says I, the Downs is mostly smooth water
and safe anchorage; but these here Ups and
Downs is a long leg and a short one, a head wind
and an ebb tide, all the voyage through. I made
my port though, d'ye mind me, my sons, at last,
and — and — well, we've all had our sweethearts in
our day, so we'll drink her health by your leave.
Here's to Alice, mates ! and next round it shall
be your call, and thank ye hearty/'

So gallant a toast could not but be graciously
accepted. The second comer, however, shook his
head while he did it justice, and drank, so to
speak, under protest, thereby in no measure abating
the narrator's enthusiasm.

" She's a trim-built craft is my Alice," continued
the latter reflectively. " On a wind or off a wind,
going large or close hauled, moored in dock or

VOL. II. C

'18 CERISE.

standing out in blue water, there's not many of 'em
can show alongside of she. And she's weatherly
besides, uncommon weatherly she is. When I
bids her good-bye at last, and gives her a bit of a
squeeze just for a reminder-like, she wipes her
eyes, and she smiles up in my face, and ' God bless
you, Jack,' says she ; ' you won't forget me,' says she,
i an' you'll think of me sometimes, when it's your
watch on deck, and as for me, Jack, I'll think of you
every hour of the day and night till you comes
back again ; it won't be so very long first.' She's
heart of oak, is that lass, mates, and I wouldn't be
here now, but that I'm about high and dry, and
that made me feel a bit lubberly, d'ye see, till
I got under weigh for the homeward trip ; an' you'll
never guess what it was as raised my spirits beat-
ing to windward across them Downs with a dry
mouth and my heart shrunk up to the size of a pea."

" A stiff glass of grog nor'-nor'-west ?" suggested
the oldest sailor with a grunt. "Another craft
on the same lines, with new sails bent, and a lick
of fresh paint on," snarled the second, whose
opinion of the fair sex, derived chiefly from sea-
port towns, was none of the highest.

" Neither one nor t'other," replied Slap-Jack,
triumphantly. "Scalding punch wouldn't have

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 10

warmed my heart up just then, and I wasn't
a-goia' to clear out from Alice like that, and give
chase to a fresh sail just because she cut a feather
across my fore-foot. It was neither more nor less
than a chap swinging in chains ; a chap as had
been swinging to all appearance so long, he must
have got used to it, though I doubt he was very
wet up there in nothing but his bones. He might
have been a good-looking blade enough when he
began, but I can't say much for his figure-head
when I passed under it for luck. It wanted paint-
ing, mates, let alone varnish, and he grinned awful
in the teeth of the wind. So I strikes my topmast
as I forges ahead, and I makes him a low bows
and, says I, thank ye kindly, mate, says I, for
putting it in my mind, says I ; you've been ' on the
account,' in all likelihood, and that's where I'll go
myself next trip, see if I won't ; and I ask your
pardon, my sons, for you're both older men than
me by a good spell, if that isn't the trade for a
lad as looks to a short voyage and good wages,
every man for himself, grab what you see an'
keep all you can ?'

Thus appealed to, the elder seaman felt bound
to give an opinion, so he cleared his throat and
asked huskily —

c 2

20 CERISE.

" Have you tried it, mate ? You seems like a
lad as has dipped both hands in the tar-bucket,
though you be but young and sarcy. Lookye, now,
you hoisted signals first, an' I ain't a-going to show
a false ensign, I ain't. You may call me Bottle-
Jack ; you won't be the first by a many, and I
ain't ashamed o' my name."

The next in seniority then removed the pipe
from his lips, and smiting the table with a heavy
fist, observed sententiously —

"And me, Smoke-Jack, young man. It's a
rum name, ain't it, for as smart a foretopman as
ever lay out upon a yard ? but I've yarned it,
that's what I sticks to. I've yarned it. Here's
your health, lad. I wish ye well."

The three having thus gone through all the
forms necessary to induce a long and stanch
friendship amongst men of their class, Slap-Jack
made a clean breast of it, as if he had known his
companions for years.

" I have tried it, mates," said he, " and a queer
game it is ; but I don't care how soon I try it
again. I suppose I must have been born a lands-
man somehow, d'ye see? though I can't make
much of that when I come to think it over. It
don't seem nat'ral like, but I suppose it was so.

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 21

Well, I remember as I rimned away from a old
bloke wot wanted to make me a sawbones — a saw-
bones! and I took and shipped myself, like a
young bear, aboard of the ' Sea-swallow,' cabin-boy
to Captain Delaval. None o' your merchantmen
was the ' Sea-swallow,' nor yet a man-o'-war,
though she carried a royal ensign at the gaff, and
six brass carronades on the main-deck. She was a
waspish craft as ever you'd wish to see, an' dipped
her nose in it as though she loved the taste of
blue water, the jade ! — wet, but weatherly, an' such
a picture as you never set eyes on, close-hauled
within five points of the wind ! First they gam-
moned me as she was a slaver, and then a sugar-
merchant's pleasure-boat, and sometimes they said
she was a privateer, with letters of marque from
the king ; but I didn't want to know much
about that ; King George, or King Louis, it
made no odds, bless ye; I warn't a goin' to
turn sawbones, an' Captaiu Delaval was my
master, that was enough for me ! Such a master
he was, too ! No seaman — not he. His hands
were as white as a lady's, an' I doubt if he
knew truck from tanrail ; but with old Blowhard,
the master, to sail her, and do what the skipper
called swabbing and dirty work, there wasn't a

22 CERISE.

king's officer as ever I've heard of could touch
him. Such a man to fight his ship was Captain
Delaval. I've seen him run her in under a
Spanish battery, with a table set on deck and a
awning spread, and him sitting with a glass of
wine in his hand, and give his orders as cool and
comfortable as you and me is now. 'Easy,
Blowhard,' he'd sing out, when old ' Blow ' was
sweating, and cursing, and stamping about to get
the duty done. 'Don't ye speak so sharp to the
men,' says he ; ' spoils their ear for music/ says he.
6 We'll be out o' this again afore the breeze falls,
and we'll turn the fiddles up and have a dance in
the cool of the evening.' Then he'd smile at me,
and say,. ' Slap-Jack, you little blackguard, run
below for another pineapple ; not so rotten-ripe as
the last ;' and by the time I was on deck again,
he'd be wiping his sword carefully, and drawing
on his gloves — that man couldn't so much as
whistle a hornpipe without his gloves ; and let
who would be second on board the prize, be she
bark, schooner, brig, galleon, or square-rigged ship,
Captain Delaval he would be first. Look ye
here, mates, I made two voyages with Captain
Delaval, and when I stepped on the quay at
Bristol off the second — there ! I was worth a

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 23

hundred doubloons, all in gold, besides as much
silk as would have lined the foresail, and a pair of
diamond ear-rings that I lost the first night I
slept ashore. I thought, then, as perhaps I wasn't
to see my dandy skipper again, but I was wrong.
I've never been in London town but once, an' I
don't care if I never goes no more. First man I
runs against in Thames Street is Captain Delaval,
ridin' in a cart with his hands tied ; and old Blow-
hard beside him, smelling at a nosegay as big as
the binnacle. I don't think as old ' Blow ' knowed
me again, not in long togs ; but the skipper he
smiles, and shows his beautiful white teeth as he
was never tired of swabbing and holy-stoning, and
1 There's Slap-Jack !' says he ; * Good-bye, Slap-
jack ; I'll be first man over the gunwale in this
here scrimmage, too,' says he, * for they'll hang me
first, and then Blowhard, when he's done with his
nosegay.' I wish I could find such another
skipper, now ; what say ye, mates ?"

Smoke- Jack, who was sitting next him, did not
immediately reply. He was obviously of a logical
and argumentative turn of mind, with a cavilling
disposition, somewhat inclined to speculative
philosophy ; such a character, in short, as naval
officers protest against under the title of a lawyer.

24 CERISE.

He turned the matter over deliberately ere he
replied, with a voluminous puff of smoke between
each sentence —

" Some likes a barky, and some wouldn't touch
a rope in any craft but a schooner ; and there's
others, again, swears a king's cutter will show her
heels to the liveliest of 'em, with a stiffish breeze
and a bobble of sea on. I ain't a goin' to dispute
it. Square-rigged, or fore-and-aft, if so be she's
well-found and answers her helm, I ain't a-goin' to
say but what she'll make good weather of it the
whole voyage through. Men thinks different,
young chap ; that's where it is. Now you asks
me my opinion, and I'll give it you, free. I'm a
old man-of-war's man, I am. I've eat the king's
biscuit and drank the king's allowance ever since
I were able to eat and drink at all. Now I'll tell
you, young man, a-cause you've asked me, free.
The king's sarvice is a good sarvice ; I ain't a-goin' to
say as it isn't, but for two things : there's too much
of one, and too little of the other. The fust is the
work, and the second is the pay. If they'd halve
the duty, and double the allowance, and send all
the officers before the mast, I ain't goin' to dispute
but the king's sarvice would be more to my fancy
than I've ever found it yet. You see the difference

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 25

atwixt one of our lads when lie gits ashore, and
the Dutch ! I won't say as the Dutchman is the
better seaman, far from it ; though as long as he's
got a plank as'll catch a nail, an' a rag as'll hold a
breeze, he'll weather it somehow ; nor I won't say-
but what Mynheer is as ugly a customer as a
king's ship can get alongside of, yard-arm to
yard-arm, and let the best man win ! But you
see him ashore ! Spree, young man ? Why, a
Dutchman never has his spree out! You take
and hail a man before the mast, able seaman or
what not, when he's paid off of a cruise — and mind
ye, he doesn't engage for a long spell, doesn't
Mynheer — and he'll tow you into dry dock, and
set you down to your grub, and blow you out with
schnaps as if he was a admiral. Such a berth as
he keeps ashore ! Pots and pans as bright as the
Eddystone ; deck scoured and holy-stoned, till
you'd like to eat your rations off of it. Why,
Black Sam, him as was boatswain's mate on board
of the ' Mary Rose,' setting with me in the tap of
the Golden Lion, at Amsterdam, he gets uneasy,
and he looks here and there an' everywhere, first
at the white floor, then at the bright stove, turning
his quid about and about, till at last he ups and
spits right in the landlord's face. There was a

26 CERISE.

breeze then ! I'm not a-goin' to deny it, but Sam
he asks pardon quite gentle and humble-like, for
' what could I do ?' says he ; ' it was the only dirty
place I could find in the house/ says he. Young
chap, I'm not a-goin' to say as you should take
and ship yourself on board a Dutchman, 'cause
why — maybe if he struck his colours and you was
found atween decks, you'd swing at the yard-arm ;
but if you be thinking of the king's sarvice and
you asks my advice, says I, think about it a little
longer, says I. Young chap, I gives you my
opinion, free. What say you, messmate ? Bear a
hand and lower away, for I've been payin' of it
out till my mouth's dry."

Bottle-Jack, who did not give his mouth a
chance of becoming dry, took a long pull at the
beer before he answered ; but as his style was some-
what involved, and obscured besides by the free use
of professional metaphors, applied in a sense
none but himself could thoroughly appreciate, I
will not venture to detail in his own words the
copious and illustrative exposition on which he
embarked.

It was obvious, however, that Bottle-Jack's
inclinations were adverse to the regular service ;
and although he would have scouted such a notion,

THREE STRANDS OF A TARN*. 27

and probably made himself extremely disagreeable
to the man who broached it, there was no
question the old sailor had been a pirate, and
deserved hanging as richly as any ghastly skeleton
now bleaching in its chains and waving to the
gusts of a sou'-wester on the exposed sky-line of
the Downs. By his own account he had sailed
with the notorious Captain Kidd, in the ' Adven-
ture' galley, originally fitted out by merchants
and traders of London as a scourge for those sea-
robbers who infested the Indian Ocean, and whose
enormities made honest men shudder at their bare
recital. The ' Adventure,' manned by some of
the most audacious spirits to be procured from the
banks of the Thames and the Hudson, seemed, like
her stont commander, especially qualified for such
a purpose. She carried heavy guns, was well
found in every respect, and possessed the reputa-
tion of a fast sailer and capital sea-boat. Kidd
himself was an experienced officer, and had served
with distinction. He was intimately acquainted
with the eastern seas, and seemed in all respects
adapted for an expedition in which coolness,
daring, and unswerving honesty of purpose were
indispensable qualifications.

Accordingly, Captain Kidd sailed for the Indian

28 CERISE.

coast, and Bottle- Jack, by his own account, was
boatswain's mate on board the ' Adventure/

There is an old proverb recommending the
selection of a "thief to catch a thief," which in
this instance received a new and singular inter-
pretation. Kidd was probably a thief, or at least
a pirate, at heart. No sooner had he reached
his destination off the coast of Malabar, than he
threw off his sheep's clothing, and appeared at
once the master-wolf in the predatory pack he
was sent to destroy. Probably the temptation
proved too much for him. With his seamanship,
his weight of metal, and his crew, he could outsail,
out-manceuvre, and out-fight, friends and foes
alike. It soon occurred to him that the former
were easy and lucrative prizes, the latter, bad to
capture, and often not worth the trouble when
subdued. It was quicker work to gain possession
at first hand of silk and spices, cinnamon and
sandal-wood, gold, silver, rum, coffee, and tobacco,
than to wait till the plunder had been actually
seized by another, and then, after fighting hard to
retake it, obtain but a jackal's share from the Home
Government. In a short space of time there was but
one pirate dreaded from the Cape of Good Hope
to the Straits of Malacca, and his name was Kidd.

THREE STRANDS OF A YARN. 29

From Surat down to the mouth of the Tap-tee.
Captain Kidd ruled like a petty sovereign ; Bottle-
Jack, if he was to be believed, like a grand
vizier. Not only did they take tax and toll from
every craft that swam, but they robbed, mur-
dered, and lorded it as unmercifully on dry land.
Native merchants, even men of rank and position,
were put to torture, for purposes of extortion, by
day; peasants burned alive in their huts to illu-
minate a seaman's frolic by night. Her crew-
behaved like devils broke loose ashore, and the
1 Adventure,' notwithstanding a certain discipline
exacted by her commander, was, doubtless, a hell
afloat. Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd,
with all his crimes, possessed the elements of
success in method, organization, and power ol
command. His sailors forgot the horrors they
had inflicted and their own degradation, when
they counted the pile of doubloons that consti-
tuted their share of plunder. Amongst the swarm
of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain Kidd
was considered the most successful, and even in a
certain sense, notwithstanding his enormities, the
most respectable of all.

Bottle-Jack did not appear to think the relation
of his adventures in any way derogatory to his own

30 CERISE.

credit. He concluded with the following peroration,
establishing his position in the confident tone of a
man who is himself convinced of its justice : —

" Wot I says, is this here — The sea was made for
them as sails upon it, and you ain't a goin' to tell
me as it can be portioned out into gardens an'
orchards, and tobacco plantations like the dirt
we calls land. Werry well, if the sea be free,
them as sails upon it can make free with wrot it
offers them. If in case now, as I'm look- out -man,
we'll say, in the maintop, and I makes a galleon
of her, for instance, deep in the water under easy
sail, you're not to tell me as because she shows
Spanish colours I'm not to take what I want out
of her. Stow that, mates, for it's clean nonsense !
The way old Kidd acted was this here; — First, he
got her weather-gage; then he brought her to
with a gun, civil and reasonable ; arter that, whether
she showed fight, or whether she showed friendly,
he boarded her, and when he'd taken all he wanted,
captain, crew, and passengers just walked the
plank, easy and quiet, and no words about it."

"And the craft?" asked Slap- Jack, breathless
with interest in the old pirate's reminiscences.

" Scuttled her !" answered the other conclusively.
" Talking's dry work. Let's have some more beer."

CHAPTEE III.

THE PARLOUR-LODGER.

HERE was a tolerably snug parlour
under the roof of the Fox and Fiddle,
notwithstanding that its dimensions
were small, its floor uneven, and its
ceiling so low that a solitary inmate could not
but feel enlivened by the company of the land-
lord's family, who inhabited the rooms overhead*
This apartment, which was usually occupied by
some skipper from beyond seas, put forward cer-
tain claims to magnificence as well as comfort;
and although the vaguest attempts at cleanliness
seemed to have been suppressed, there was no
little pretension apparent in the furniture, the
chimney ornaments, and the " History of the
Prodigal Son " on the walls. China shepherdesses

32 CERISE.

stood on the mantelpiece, surmounted by the
backbone of a shark. Two gilt chairs, with frayed
velvet cushions, supported an unframed repre-
sentation of a three-decker, with every available
sail set, and British colours flying at the main,
stemming a grass-green sea, under a sky of in-
tense blue. A contracted square of real Turkey
carpet covered a few feet in the middle, and the
rest of the floor, ornamented at regular intervals
by spittoons, stood inch-deep in dust. The hearth
could not have been swept for days, nor the
smouldering fire raked out for hours ; but on a
mahogany sideboard, that had obviously sustained
at least one sea-voyage, stood a dozen different
drinking-measures, surrounding a punch-bowl capa-
cious enough to have baptized a full-grown pirate.
The occupant of this chamber was sitting at
the table engrossed by a task that seemed to tax
all his energies and employ his whole attention.
He was apparently no adept at accounts, and
every time he added a column afresh, and found
its result differed from his previous calculation, he
swore a French oath in a whisper and began
again. It was nearly dusk before the landlord came
in with candles, when his guest looked up, as if
much relieved at a temporary interruption of work.

THE PARLOUR-LODGER. 33

Butter-faced Bob was a plausible fellow enough,
well fitted for the situation he filled, crimp, publi-
can, free-trader, and, on occasion, receiver of stolen
goods. From the seaman in the tap, to the
skipper in the parlour, he prided himself on his
facility in making conversation to his customers,
saying the right thing to each ; or, as he expressed
it, •* oiling the gear so as the crank should work
easy."

Setting down the candles, therefore, he pro-
ceeded to lubrication without delay.

" Sorry shall we be to lose ye, Captain ! and
indeed it will drive me out of the public line at
last, to see the way .as the best o' friends must
part. My dame, she says to me, it was but this
blessed day as I set down to my nooning, says-
she, Bob, says she, whatever we shall do when the
Captain's gone foreign, says she, I, for one, can't
tell no more than the dead. You step round to
the quay, says she, when you've a-taken a drink,
and see if ' The Bashful Maid ' han't histed her blue-
Peter at the fore, and the Captain he'll make a
fair wind o this here sou'-wester, see if he won't,
and may-be weigh at the ebb ; an' it '11 break my
heart, let alone the chil'en's, to wish him a good
voyage, it will. She's about ready for sea, Cap-

VOL. II. D

34 cerise. ;

tain, now ; I see them gettin' the fresh water
aboard myself."

The Captain, as his host called him, smiled
good-humouredly.

" Your clame will have many a better lodger
than I have been, Bob," said he, fixing his bold
eyes on the landlord, which the latter, who never
seemed comfortable under an honest man's
gaze, avoided by peering into every corner of the
room; "one that will stay longer with you,
and entertain more friends than I have done.
What of that ? The heaviest purse makes the
best lodger, and the highest score the merriest
landlord, at every hostelry in Europe. Well, I
shall be ready for sea now, when I've got my
complement ; but I'm not going to cruise in
the" — here the speaker stopped short and cor-
rected himself — "not going to cruise anyivhere,
short-handed."

Bob's eyes glistened, and he stole a look in the
Captain's face.

" How many would you be wanting ?" said he,
cautiously, " and where would they have to serve ?
First-class men is very bad to get here-away, just
now."

'fIf I had a gunner, a boats wain's-mate, and a

THE PARLOUR-LODGER. o'O

good captain of the foretop, I'd weigh next tide,
and chance it/' replied the other, cheerfully ; but
Lis chin fell while his eye rested on the pile of
accounts, and he wondered how he could ever
comb them into shape for inspection.

Bob thought of the seamen still drinking in his
taproom, and the obviously low state of their
finances. It would work, he decided, but it must
be done under three influences, viz., beer,
secrecy, and caution.

" Captain," said he, shutting the door carefully,
M I'd rather do you a turn than any lodger I've
had yet. If I can help you to a hand or two, I'm
the man as'll do it. You'll be willing to pay the
expenses, I suppose?"

The Captain did not appear totally inexpe-
rienced in such matters, for, on asking the amount
and receiving for answer a sum that would have
purchased all the stock of liquors in the house
and over again, he showed neither indigna-
nor surprise, but observed quietly —
'. ble seamen, of course ?"
"Of course!" repeated Bob. "Honour, you
know, Captain, honour !" If he had added "among
he would none the less clearly have
•he situation. Reflecting for a moment,

D 2

36 CERISE.

he approached his guest and whispered in his ear,
" For the account ?"

"Ask me no questions/' answered the Cap-
tain significantly. " You know as well as I
do that your price covers everything. Is it a
bargain ?

"That would make a difference, you see, Cap-
tain/' urged Bob, determined to get all he could.
" It's not what it used to be, and the Government
is uncommon hard upon a look-out-man now, if he
makes a mistake in the colours of a prize* In
King James' time, I've seen the gentlemen-rovers
drinking at this very table with the mayor and
the magistrates, ay, and sending up their compli-
ments and what not, may-be, to the Lord-Lieu-
tenant himself. Why, that very mug as you see
there was given me by poor Captain Delaval ; quite
the gentleman he was ! An' he made no secret
where he took it from, nor how they cut the
Portuguese chap's throat as was drinking from
it in the after-cabin. And now, it's as likely as
not the Whigs would hang a man in chains for
such a thing. I tell you, Captain, the hands
don't fancy it. They can't cruise a mile along-
shore without running foul of a gibbet with a
pi — I mean, with a skeleton on it, rattling and

THE PARLOUR-LODGER. 37

grinning as if ho was alive. It makes a difference,
Captain — it makes a difference !"

" Take it or leave it," replied the other, looking
like a man who had made his highest bid, which
no consideration would induce him to increase by
a shilling.

Bob evidently thought so. " A bargain be it,"
said he, with a villainous smile on his shining
face ; and muttering something about his wish to
oblige a customer and the high respect he enter-
tained for his guest's character, in all its relations,
public, private, and nautical, he shambled out of
the room, leaving the latter to tackle once more
with his accounts.

.V shade of melancholy crossed the Captain's
brow, deeper and darker than was to be attributed
to the unwelcome nature of his employment or
the sombre surroundings of his position. The
light of two tallow-candles, by which he worked,
was not indeed enlivening, bringing into indistinct
relief the unsightly furniture and the gloomy pic-
tures on the walls. The yard-dog, too, behind the
house, had not entirely discontinued his lamenta-
tions, and the dip and wash of a retiring tide
upon the shingle no farther off than the end of the
•street was like the voice from some unearthly

38 CERISE.

mourner in its solemn and continuous wail. It
told of lonely nights far out on the wild dark sea ;
of long shifting miles of surf thundering in pitiless
succession on the ocean shore ; of mighty cliffs
and slabs of dripping rock, flinging back their
defiance to the gale in the spray of countless
hungry, leaping waves, that toss and madden
round their prey ere she breaks up and goes to
pieces in the storm. More than all, it told of
desolation, and doubt, and danger, and death,
and the uncertainty beyond.

But to him, sitting there between the candles,
his head bent over his work, it seemed like the
voice of a counsellor and a friend. Each wave that,
fuller than ordinary, circled up with a fiercer lash,
to ebb with a louder, angrier, and more protracted
hiss, seemed to brighten the man's face, and he
listened like a prisoner who knows the step that
leads him out to life, and liberty, and love. At
such times he would glance round the room, con-
gratulating himself that his charts, his instruments,
his telescope, were all safe on board, and, perhaps,
would rise, take a turn or two, and open the
window-shutter for a consoling look at a certain
bright speck in the surrounding darkness, which
might be either in earth, or sea, or air, and was

THE PARLOUB-LODi 39

indeed the anchor-light in the foretop of his ship.
Then he would return, refreshed and comforted.,
to his accounts.

He was beginning to hope he had really got the
better of these, and had so far succeeded that two
consecutive columns permitted themselves to be
added up with an appearance of probability, when
an unusually long-drawn howl from the house-dog,
following the squeak of a fiddle, distracted him
from his occupation, and provoked him to swear
once more in a foreign tongue.

It was difficult to make calculations, involving a
thousand probabilities, with that miserable dog
howling at regular intervals. It was impossible to
speculate calmly on the value of his cargo,
the quantity of his powder, and the chances of
peace and war. While he sat there, he knew
well enough that his letters of marque would bear
him out in pouncing on any unfortunate merchant-
man he could come across under Spanish
colours, but there had been whispers of peace in
London, and the weekly news-letter (substitute
for our daily paper), read aloud that afternoon
in the coffee-house round the corner, indorsed the
probability of these rumours. By the time he
reached his c - ground, the treaty might have

40 CERISE.

been signed which would change a privateer into a
pirate, and the exploit that would earn a man his
knighthood this week might swing him at his
own yard-arm the next. In those times, however,
considerable latitude, if not allowed, was at least
claimed by these kindred professions, and the
calculator in the parlour of the Fox and Fiddle
seemed unlikely to be over-scrupulous in the
means by which he hoped to attain his end.

He had resolved on earning, or winning, or
taking, such a sum of money as would render him
independent of fortune for life. He had an
object in this which he deemed worthy of any
sacrifice he could offer. Therefore, he had fitted
out and freighted his brigantine partly at his
own expense, partly at that of certain confiding
merchants in Leadenhall Street, so as to combine
the certain gains of a peaceful trader with the
more hazardous venture of a licensed sea-robber
who takes by the strong hand. If the license
should expire before his rapacity was satisfied, he
would affect ignorance while he could, and when
that was no longer practicable, throw off all dis-
guise and hoist the black flag openly at the main.

To this end he had armed his brigantine with
the heaviest guns she could carry, had taken in

THE PABLOUR-LODGEB. 41

Store of provisions, water, spare tackle, gun-
powder, pistols, cutlasses, and musquetoons ; had
manned her with the best seamen and wildest
spirits he could lay hands on. These items had
run up a considerable bill. He was now preparing
a detailed statement of the cost, for the informa-
tion of his friends in Leadenhall Street.

And all this time, had he only known it, for-
tune was preparing for him, without effort on his
part, the independence he would risk life and cha-
racter to gain. That very sou'-wester wailing up the
narrow street was rattling the windows of a castle
on a hill hundreds of miles away, and disturbing
the last moments of a dying man in his lordly
bedchamber ; was driving before it, over a bleak,
barren moor, pelting storms of rain to drench the
cloaked and booted heir, riding post to reach that
death-bed ; sowing in a weak constitution the seeds
of an illness that would allow him but a brief en-
joyment of his inheritance ; and the next in suc-
cession, the far-off cousin, was making up his
account? in the humble parlour of a seaport pot-
house, because he was to sail for the Spanish main
with the next tide.

'• One, two, tree !" — thump — " one, two, tree !"
— thump — " Balancez ! Chassez, Vn, deux, trois /'

42 CERISE.

Thump after thump, louder and heavier than be-
fore. The rafters shook, the ceiling quivered. The
Captain rose, irritated and indignant, to call fiercely
for the landlord.

Butter-faced Bob, anticipating a storm, wisely
turned a deaf ear, ensconcing himself in the back
kitchen, whence he refused to emerge.

The Captain shouted again, and receiving no
answer, walked into the passage.

" Stow that noise !" he halloed from the foot of
the half-dozen wooden steps that led to the upper
floor. " Who is to get any business done with a
row like that going on aloft, as if the devil was
dead and the ship gone overboard ?" The Cap-
tain's voice was powerful and his language plain,
but the only reply he received was a squeak from
the fiddle, a wail from the dog, and a " One, two,
tree" — thump — louder than ever.

His patience began to fail.

" Zounds ! man," he broke out ; " will you leave
off that cursed noise, or must I come up and make
you?"

Then the fiddle stopped, the dog was silent, and
children's voices were heard laughing heartily.

The last sound would have appeased the Captain
had his wrath been ever so high, but a strange,

THE PAKLOUR-LODGEE, 43

puzzled expression overspread his features while
he received the following answer in an accent that
denoted the speaker was no Englishman.

'• You are a rude, gross man. I sail contiuue
my instructions to my respectable young friends in
the dance wizout your permission. Monsieur, you
are insolent. Tims /"

The last word carried with it such an amount of
anger, defiance, and contempt, as can only be con-
veyed in that monosyllable by a Frenchman. The
Captain's frown changed to a broad smile, but he
affected wrath none the less, while he exclaimed in
a coarse, sailor-like voice —

'•' Insolent ! you dancing dog of a Mounseer !
Insolent ! I'll teach you manners afore I've done
with you. If you don't drop it notv, this instant,
I'll come aloft in a pig's whisper, and pull you
down by the ears !"

" Ears ! Les oreilles /" repeated the voice above
stairs, in a tone of repressed passion, that seemed
to afford his antagonist intense amusement. " Soyez
tranquil, mes enfants. My children, do not derange
yourselves. Sir, you have insulted me ; you have
insulted my society. You shall answer me. Mon-
le r entire raisonT
ig, the dancing-master, for such was

44 CERISE.

"the foreign gentleman whose professional avoca-
tions the parlour-lodger had interrupted, made his
appearance at the head of the stairs, with a small
fiddle under his arm and a sheathed rapier in his
hand ; the passage below was quite dark, but the
light from an open door behind him brought his
figure into relief, whilst the skipper, on the con-
trary, remained unseen in the gloom. Notwith-
standing that the one was in a towering passion,
the other shook with suppressed laughter.

" Come on," he shouted roughly, though he
«could scarce command his voice, adding in a more
natural tone, and with a perfect French accent —
" On pretend, dans les Mousquetaires du Roi, que
.Monsieur est de la premiere force pour Vepee /"

The effect was instantaneous. With one spring
the dancing-master was upon him, kissing both his
cheeks, hugging him in his arms, and repeating,
with eyes full of tears —

" Captain George ! Captain George ! My com-
rade, my captain, my officer ; and I thought I was
without a friend in this miserable country ; without
.a friend and without a sou ! Now I have found
ihe one, I don't care about the other. Oh, what
happiness ! What fortune ! What luck !"

The former Captain of Musketeers seemed

THE PARLOUR-LODGER. 45

equally pleased, if in a less demonstrative manner,
at this unexpected meeting, though he had been
better prepared for so strange a termination of
their dispute by his recognition of the other's voice
before he caught sight of his figure. Now he
pulled him into the parlour, sent for Butter-faced
Bob to fill the capacious punch-bowl, pressed him
into a chair with both hands on his shoulders, and
looked gravely into his face, saying —

11 Eugene, I owe you my life, and I am a man
who never left a debt unpaid."

CHAPTER IV.

A VOLUNTEER.

16

Im

EAUDESIR, by the wretched light of
two tallow-candles, looked paler, thinner,
more dejected, than even that pale, thin,
anxious recruit who had joined the
Grey Musketeers with so formidable a character
as a master of defence some months before. No "
wonder. He was an enthusiast at heart, and an
enthusiast can seldom withstand the pressure of
continuous adversity. A temporary gleam of sun-
shine, indeed, warms him up to the highest pitch
of energy, daring, and intellectual resource ; nay,
he will battle nobly against the fiercest storm so
,.ong as the winds blow, the thunder peals overhead,
and less exalted spirits fly cowering to the nearest
shelter; but it is in a bitter, bleak, protracted

A VOLUNTBEK. 47

frost that he droops and fades away. Give him
excitement, even the excitement of pain, and he
becomes a hero. Put him to mere drudgery,
though it be the honest drudgery of duty, and he
almost ceases to be a man.

There is, nevertheless, something essentially
elastic in the French character, which even in such
a disposition as Beaudesir's preserved him from
giving way to utter despair. Though he might
well be excused for repining, when thus compelled
to gain his bread by teaching the landlord's chil-
dren to dance at a low pot-house, yet this young
man's natural temperament enabled him to take
interest even in so unworthy an occupation, and he
was jealous enough of their progress to resent that
rude interruption he experienced from the parlour
with a flash of the old spirit cherished in the King's
Musketeers.

Still he looked pale and wan, nor was it till
George had forced on him a beaker of steaming
punch that his eye recovered its brightness and
the blood mantled once more in his clear sallow
cheek.

"And you escaped them?" said the Captain,
reverting to the fatal night of their affray in the
Montmirail gardens. " Escaped them without a

48 CERISE.

scratch ! Well, it was ten to one against you, and I
cursed the Duke with all my heart as I galloped
on towards the coast when I thought of your pre-
dicament. Guard -room, court-martial, confession,
and a firing party was the best I could wish you ;
for on the reverse of the card I pictured a lettre de
cachet, and imprisonment for life in Vincennes or
the Bastile ! But how did you get away ? and
above all, how did you elude1 the search after-
wards ?"

Eugene wet his lips with the hot punch, which
he seemed to relish less than, his more robust
comrade, and looked distrustfully about him while
he replied —

"I had little difficulty in extricating myself
from the gardens, my Captain, for when I
had disposed of Bras-de-Fer, there was no real
swordsman left. The Musketeers fight well, no
doubt ; but they are yet far from true perfection
in the art, and their practice is more like our
fishermen's cudgel-play than scientific fencing.
I wounded two of them slightly, made a spring
at the wall, and was in the street at the moment
you entered the Prince-Marshal's carriage. My
difficulty then was, where to conceal myself. I do
not know Paris thoroughly, to begin with, and

A VOLUNTEER. 49

I confess I shuddered at the idea of skulking for
weeks in some squalid haunt of vice and misery.
I think I had rather have been taken and shot
down at once."

" You would not have been safe even in dens
like those," interrupted the other. " Our Debonnaire
is not so refined in his orgies but that I believe every
garret in the Faubourgs is frequented by himself
and his roue's. Bah! when we drew pay from
Louis le Grand at least we served a gentleman.
The Jesuits would have been your best chance.
Why did you not take refuge with them T}

Eugene shuddered, and the pale face turned
paler still, but he did not answer the question.

u When we used to bunt the hare in Normandy,"
he resumed, " I have observed that, if hard pressed,
she would return to her form, and often thus made
her escape, whereas the wolf and the stag, flying
straight away, were generally run down. Like the
hare, then, I doubled back and lay hid in the very
house where I habitually lodged. It was the first
place they searched, but they never came near it
again ; and the second day an old comrade found me
out. took me to his own home, and furnished me
with a disguise.1''

" An old comrade !" repeated the Captain.

VOL. IE E

50 CERISE.

"Bravo ! All ! we had always plenty of esprit de
corps in the Musketeers. It was Adolphe, I'll
wager a crown, or the . young Count de Guiches,
or Bellegarde !"

" None of these, my Captain," explained Eugene.
" It was no Musketeer ; Black, Bed, or Grey.
When I said comrade, I meant an old college
friend. It was an Abbe. I know not why I
should keep it secret; Abbe Malletort."

The Captain pondered. " Abbe Malletort !"
said he. " That is more than strange. The Regent's
confidant ; his chief adviser, men said ; his principal
favourite ! He must have had some reason — some
deep-laid scheme of double treachery. 1 know the
man. A smooth-spoken churchman ; a pleasant
fellow to drink with, and a good judge of drill.
But if it was his interest to betray the poor
thing, I wouldn't trust him with the life of a
dog!"

" You little know him," urged the other eagerly.
" Generous, kind, and secret — had it not been for
his advice and his exertions I should never have
got away alive. He kept me a fortnight in his
apartment, till the heat of the pursuit was over
and Paris had ceased to talk of our affray, which
everybody believed an organized conspiracy of

A VOLUNTEER. 51

the Huguenots — of the Jansenists — of the young
King's party — of the British Government. What
shall I say? — of the Great Mogul. I did not dare
show myself, of course. I could only hear the news
from my friend, and I saw him but seldom. I was
forced to leave Paris at last without knowing how
far the disturbance affected the ladies in whose
grounds it took place. I tried hard to find out,
but it was impossible."

The Captain glanced sharply in his face, and
took a strong gulp at the punch. Eugene con-
tinued : —

u I got through the barrier with an Italian

company of jugglers, disguised as a Pantaleone. It

was not too amusing to be obliged to perform antics

for the amusement of the Guard ; fortunately they

were of the Prince de Condi's regiment, which had

just marched into Paris. But the mountebanks

were good people, kindly, and perfectly trust-

worth}7. They were polite enough to say "that I

raight make an excellent livelihood if I would but

take in earnest to the business. I left them at

Rouen, and from that place reached the seaboard

on foot. My object was to take refuge in England.

Here alone I felt I should be safe for a time, and

when the storm should blow over I hoped to

E 2
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

52 CERISE.

return again. I little knew what a climate it is !
what a country ! what people ! They are some-
what better when you are used to them, and I own
I accustom myself more easily than I could have
believed to their beef, their beer, their barbarous
language, and their utter want of politeness. But
they have been kind to me, these rough islanders.
It was an English fishing-boat that landed me
from Havre, and the fisherman made me stay a
week in his house for nothing because he discovered
accidentally that I had exhausted my purse to
pay for my passage. Since then, my Captain, I
have supported myself by teaching these awk-
ward English to dance. It is a noble exercise
after all, were they not so stiff, so ungraceful !
And yet my pupils make progress ! These chil-
dren above stairs have already begun the minuet.
Egotist that I am ! Tell me, my Captain, how
you too come to find yourself in' this miserable
town, without gardens, without barriers, without
barracks, without Hotel de Yille, without a church,
even without an opera !"

The Captain smiled. "You have a good right
to ask," said he, " since, but for you, I should not
have been here at this moment. When I drew
on the Regent that night, as I would have drawn

A VOLUNTEER. 53

on the young- King himself, had I seen him guilty
of such an outrage, I was, as you know, surrounded
and attacked l>y an escort of my own men. I tell
you, Beaudcsir, I never expected to leave the
gardens alive, and I do not believe there is
another fencer in France who could have
helped me out of so awkward a scrape. I was
sorry to see our old Bras-de-Fer go down, I admit ;
but what would you have? When it's give and
take, thrust and parry, ten against two, one cannot
stand on these little delicacies of feeling. As I
vanished through the garden-gate I looked for
you everywhere, but there was no time to lose,
and I thought we could escape more easily
separate than in company. I knew you were
neither down nor taken, because there was no
shout of triumph from the men to announce the
fact. The Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, my old
general, was standing at the door of his coach
when I gained the street. How he came there I
am at a loss to guess, for you may believe I asked
no questions ; but that you and he should have
dropped from the clouds at the Hotel ?.[ontmirail,
in the moment of my need, is one of those happy
strokes of accident by which battles are won, and
which we call fortune of war. I thought him a

54 CERISE.

martinet when I was on his staff, with his ever-
lasting parades, and reports, and correspondence,
to say nothing of his interminable stories about
Turenne, but I always knew his heart was in the
right place. ' Jump in !' said he, catching me by
the arm. * Drive those English horses to death,
and take the coach where you will!' In five
minutes we were out of Paris, and half a league off
on our way to the coast.

" I hope the English horses may have survived the
journey ; but they brought me to my first relay as
fast as ever I went in the saddle, and I knew that
with half an hour's start of everything I was safe.
Who was to question a Captain of King's Muske-
teers riding post for England on the Regent's
business? The relays were even so good that I
had time to stop and breakfast comfortably, at
leisure, and to feed my horse, half way through the
longest stage.

"I had little delay when I reached the Channel.
The wind was easterly, and before my horse had
done shaking himself on the quay, an honest fellow
had put his two sons, a spare oar, and a keg of
brandy, on board a shallop about as weatherly as
an egg-shell, hoisted a sail the size of a pocket-
handkerchief, and stood out manfully with a follow-

A VOLUNTEER. 55

ing wind ana an ebb tide. I know the Channel
well, and I was as sure as he must have been that
the wind would change when the tide turned, and
we should bo boating about, perhaps in a stiffish
breeze, all night. It was not for me to baulk him,
however, and I only stipulated for a loaf or two of
bread and a beaker of water in the bows. I tell
you before they led my horse to the stable, we
were a cable's length off shore.

u A fair wind, Eugene, does not always make a
short voyage. At sundown it fell to a dead calm.
The lads and the old man, and I, who speak to

l, took our turns, and pulled like galley-slaves
at the oars. With the moon-rise, a light breeze
came up from the south-west, and it freshened by
degrees till at midnight it was blowing half a gale.
The egor-shell behaved nobly, and swam like a

•":, but it took all the old man's time to steer
her, and the sons said as many 'Aves' before
dawn as would have lasted a whole convent for a
month.

il At one time I feared we must put her head

about, and run for it, on the chance of making

Ambleteuse, or even Calais, but the old fellow who

ted her had a conscience, and to give him his

b-rate sailor. The wind moderated

56 CERISE.

at sunrise, drawing round by the south, and at
noon we had made Beachy Head, when it fell a
dead calm, with a ground swell that was no child's
play when we laid out on our oars. By dint of
hard pulling we ran her ashore on the English
coast about sundown, and my friend put off again
with his two sons, none the worse for the voyage,
and all the better for some twenty gold pieces with
which I paid my passage. He deserved it, for he-
earned it fairly. She was but an egg-shell, as I
said before, but she swam like a duck ; it's only fair
to allow that."

" And now, my Captain," asked Beaudesir, look-
ing round the strangely-furnished apartment y.
" you are living here ? you are settled ? you are a
householder? Are you reconciled to spend your
life in this dirty little town, ill-paved, ill-lighted,
smelling of salt water and tar, where it always-
rains, and they bring you nothing to drink but
black beer and hot punch ?"

Captain George laughed heartily. " Not such a.
bad thing that hot punch," said he, "when you
can get neither Chambertin, Burgundy, nor Bour-
deaux. But I understand you nevertheless,
comrade. It is not likely that a man who has
served Louis le Grand in the Musketeers would be-

A VOLUNTEER. 57

content to vegetate here like a wisp of sea-weed
left at high-water mark. It was lucky I met you
to-night In twenty-four hours, at most, I hope to
be off the Needles if the wind holds."

Beaudesir looked interrogatively at the pile of
accounts on the table.

" You have turned trader, my Captain ?" said he.
" You will make a fortune in two voyages. At
College they pretended I had some skill in reading
characters. Y^ou have luck written on your fore-
head. I wish I was going with you, were it only
as a clerk."

Captain George pondered for a while before he'
answered, nay, he filled and emptied his glass,
took two or three turns in the narrow apartment,
which admitted indeed but of what sailors call
"a fisherman's walk — two steps and overboard,"
and finally, loulling back the shutter, pointed to the-
light in the foretop of his brigantine.

u You won't catch me afloat again," said he, " in
a craft like a walnut-shell, with a scrap of paper
for a sail. No, no. There she rides, my lad, the
lady that would take me round the world, and
never wet a stitch on my back from head to heel.
Why, close-hauled, in a stiff breeze, there's not a
King's cutter in the Channel can hold her own

SS CERISE.

with her; and off a wind, she'd have the whole
fleet hull-down in six hours, making such good
weather of it, too, all the while ! I wish you could
see her by daylight, with her straight run, and her
raking masts, and bran new spars, and a fresh lick
of paint I gave her in dock before we came round.
She looks as trim as a pincushion, and as saucy
as a dancing-girl. She carries a few popguns too,
in case of accidents ; and when she shows her teeth,
she means to bite, you may take your oath ! I'll
tell you what, Eugene, you must come on board to-
morrow before I weigh. I should like to show you
over 'The Bashful Maid' myself, and I hope to
get my anchor up and shake out my fore-topsail
with the afternoon tide."

Landsman, Frenchman, though he was, Beau-
desir's eyes kindled, and he caught his friend's
enthusiasm like wild-fire.

f;I would give my right arm to be going
with you/' said he. "Excitement, adventure,
storms, seamanship, and all the wonders of
the tropics ! While for me, muddy beer, gloomy
fogs, dirty streets, and clumsy English children,
learning to dance ! Well ! every man to his
trade. Here's a good voyoge to you, and my best
wishes I"

A VOLUNTEER. 59

Again he wet his lips with the punch, now grown
cold and sticky in his glass. Captain George was
so preoccupied, he forgot to acknowledge the
courtesy.

• I !an you keep accounts?" he asked abruptly,
pointing to the papers on the table.

" Any schoolboy might keep such as these,"
answered Eugene, running his eye over one of the
columns, and adding, as he examined it. " Never-
theless, my Captain, here is an error that will
falsify the whole sum."

He pointed to a mistake in the numerals that
had repeatedly escaped the other's observation, and
from which much of his labour had arisen. In a
few minutes, he had gone through, and corrected
as many pages of calculation. The figures came
right now, as if by magic. Captain George had
found what he wanted.

" Where did you learn all this?" he inquired in
astonishment.

" At Avranches, in Normandy," was the answer

" Where they taught you to fence T

"Precisely; and to shoot with musquetoon or
pistol. I can pick the ace of diamonds off a card
at fifteen paces with either weapon."

He spoke modestly, as he always did of his

60 CERISE.

proficiency in such feats of skill. They came so
easily to him.

" Will you sail with me ?" asked George frankly.
" You can help me with my papers, and earn your

share of the plun 1 should say of the profits.

No, my friend ! you shall not leap blindfold.
Listen. I have letters of marque in my cabin, and
I mean them to hold good whether peace be pro-
claimed or not. It may be, we shall fight with a
rope round our necks. The gains are heavy, but
the risk is great."

" I never count risk !" was the reply.

" Then finish the punch !" said Captain George ;.
and thus the bargain was ratified, which added yet
one more to the role of characters Beaudesir waa
destined to enact on the stage of life.

CHAPTEE V.

THREE PRESSED MEN.

HILE the occupants of the parlour were
sipping punch, those of the taproom
had gone systematically through the dif-
ferent stages of inebriety — the friendly,
the argumentative, the captious, the communi-
cative, the sentimental, the quarrelsome, the
maudlin-affectionate, and the extremely drunk.
By nightfall, neither Smoke-Jack, Bottle-Jack,
nor Slap-Jack could handle a clay pipe without
breaking it, nor fix their eyes steadily on the
candle for five consecutive moments. Notwith-
standing, however, the many conflicting opinions
that had been broached during their sitting, there
were certain points on which they agreed enthu-
siastically— that they were the three finest fellows

62 CERISE.

under the sun, that there was no calling , like
seamanship, no element like salt-water, and no
craft in which any one of them had yet sailed so
lively in a sea-way as this, which seemed now to
roll and pitch and stagger beneath their besotted
senses. With a confirmed impression, varied only
by each man's own experience, that they were
weathering a gale under considerable difficulties,
in a low latitude, and that it was their watch on
deck, though they kept it somewhat unaccountably
below, all three had gone through the abortive
ceremony they called " pricking for the softest
plank," had pulled their rough sea-coats over their
heads, a,nd lain down on the floor among the
spittoons, to sleep out the dreamless sleep of in-
toxication.

Long before midnight, Butter-faced Bob, looking
in, well-satisfied, beheld his customers of the after-
noon now transformed into actual goods and
chattels, bales of bone and sinew and courage,
that he could sell, literally by weight, at an
enormous price, and for ready money. While he
turned the light of his candle from one sleeper to
another, he was running over a mental sum com-
prising all the elementary rules of arithmetic. He
added the several prices of the recumbent articles

THREE rilESSED MEN. (jo

in guineas. He subtracted the few shiUinss'-worth
of liquor they had consumed. He multiplied by
five the hush-money he expected, over and above,
from the purchaser, and finally, he divided the
total, in anticipation, between himself, his wife,
the tax-gatherer, and the most pressing of his
creditors.

When he had finished these calculations, he
returned to the parlour, where Captain George sat
brooding over the remains of his punch, the late
enlisted recruit having retired to pack up his
fiddle and the very small stock of clothes he
possessed.

Their bargain was soon concluded, although
there was some little difficulty about delivering the
goods. Notwithstanding, perhaps in consequence
of the many cases of oppression that had stained
the last half of the preceding century, a strong re-
action had set in against anything in the shape of
" kidnapping ;" and a press-gang, even for a king's
ship, was not likely to meet with toleration in the
streets of a seaport town. Moreover, suspicions
had already been aroused as to the character of
1 The Bashful Maid.' A stricter discipline seemed
to be observed on board that wicked -looking craft
than was customary even in the regular service,

64 CERISE.

and this unusual rigour was accounted for by the
lawless conduct of her " liberty-men " when they
did come ashore. Nobody knew better than her
Captain that, under the present aspect of political
affairs in London, it would be wise to avoid notice
by the authorities. The only thing he dreaded on
earth or sea was a vision, by which he was haunted
daily, till he could get all his stores shipped. It
represented a sloop-of-war detached from the
neighbouring squadron in the Downs, coming round
the Point, dropping her anchor in the harbour,
and sending a lieutenant and boat's crew on board
to overhaul his papers, and, may be, summarily
prevent his beautiful craft from standing out to
sea.

Neither was Butter-faced Bob rash or indiscreet
where his own interests were affected. Using a
metaphor he had picked up from his customers, it
was his boast that he could " keep a bright look-
out, and steer small " with the best of them ; and
he now impressed on CajDtain George, with great
earnestness, the necessity of secrecy and caution
in getting the three fresh hands down to the quay
and tumbling them up the side of the brigantine.

Had the Captain known their inclinations, he
might have made his own bargain, and saved three-

THREE PRESSED MEX. 65

fourths of the expense, but his landlord took care
that in such cases the principals should never
come together, telling the officers they could make
what terms they chose when the men found them-
selves fairly trapped and powerless in blue water,
while he kept the latter in a state of continuous
inebriety, so long as they dwelt in his house, which
rendered them utterly reckless of everything but
liquor and tobacco.

His shining face wore the well-satisfied expres-
sion of a man who has performed a good action,
while he motioned with his thumb to the adjoining
taproom.

" I've a cart ready in the back yard," said he,
" and a few empty casks to tumble in along with
our chaps. It will only look like the fresh water
going aboard, so as you may weigh with the
morning tide. Will they send a boat off if you
show a light ?"

Captain George nodded. The boatswain whom
he had left in charge, and on whom he could rely,
had directions for a certain code of signals,
amongst which, the waving of a la ntern thrice
from the end of the quay was to be answered by a
boat ashore.

" We'd best get them in at once, then," said

VOL. II. $

66 CERISE.

Bob, only anxious now to be rid of his guests.
" I'll go and put the horse to, and perhaps you and
me and the French gentleman, as he seems a
friend of yours, can manage it between us."

Accordingly, Bob betook himself to the back
yard and the stable, while Beaudesir was sum-
moned to assist the process of embarkation. In ten
minutes all was prepared, and it was only necessary
to lift the three drunken tars into the carriage pro-
vided for them.

With the two elder and heavier men there was
no difficulty. They grunted, indeed, impatiently,
though without opening their eyes, and seemed to
sleep as soundly, while being dragged along a
dusty passage and hoisted into a narrow cart
amongst empty water-casks, as if they took their
rest habitually under such disadvantages ; but
Slap-Jack's younger constitution had not been so
completely overcome, and it was necessary to soothe
him by a fiction which has possessed in all times
an indescribable charm for the seafaring imagi-
nation.

Bob whispered impressively in his ear that he
had been sent for, thus in the dead of night,
by the Admiral's daughter, who had conceived for
him a fatal and consuming passion, having . seen

THREE PRESSED MEN". 67

him in his "long togs" in the street. Muttering
inarticulately about "Alice," Slap-Jack at once
abandoned himself to the illusion, and dropped off
to sleep again, with delightful anticipations of
the romantic fate in store for him.

As the wheels rumbled over the rough streets,
through the rainy gusts and the dark night, fol-
lowed by Captain George and Beaudesir, the latter
could not but compare the vehicle to a dead-
cart, carrying away its burden through some
city stricken with the plague. This pleasing fancy
he communicated to his comrade, who made the
following inconsequent reply —

"I only hope the harbour-watch may be as
drunk as they are. It's our best chance to get
them on board without a row. There's her light,
Eugene. If the sky would lift a little, you might
make out her spars, the beauty ! but I'm almost
afraid now youll have to wait for dawn."

The harbour-watch was drunk, or at least fast
asleep in the sentry-box on wheels that afforded
him shelter, and the sky did not lift in the least
degree ; so very soon after the waving of the lan-
tern a boat from ' The Bashful Maid ' touched the
stone steps of the quay, having been cunningly
impelled thither by a screw-driving process, worked

F 2

68 CERISE.

with one oar at the stern, and which made far less
noise than the more powerful practice of pulling
her with even strokes.

Two swarthy, ill-looking fellows sat in the boat,
and a scowl passed over their features when they
saw their Captain's attitude of precaution with one
hand on the pistol he wore at his belt. Perhaps
they were disappointed not to be able to elude
his vigilance and have one more run on shore
before they sailed. It was no use trying to "gammon
the skipper," though. They had discovered that
already, and they lent their aid with a will, when
they found it must be so, to place their future com-
rades in the same predicament as themselves.

The whole affair was managed so quietly that,
even had the harbour-guard, a brandy-faced veteran
of sixty, remained wide-awake and perfectly sober,
he might have been excused for its escaping his
vigilance. Bob himself, standing with his empty
cart on the quay, could hardly hear the dip of the
oars as his late guests were pulled cautiously away.
He did not indeed remain there very long to listen.
He had done with them one and all — for was not
the score paid ? and it behoved him to return home
and prepare for fresh arrivals. He turned there-
fore with a well-satisfied glance towards the light

THREE PRESSED MEN. 69

in the foretop of the brigantine, and wished ' The
Bashful Maid ' a good voyage, while at the same
moment Beaudesir stumbled awkwardly up her
side. To the latter this was, indeed, a new and
startling phase of life, but it was full of excitement,
and consequently very much to his taste. Captain
George, taking him below, and pointing out a
couch in his cabin on which to pass the rest of the
night, thought he had seen a good deal of worse
material for a privateer's-man, or even a pirate,
than this pale gentle young adventurer, late of the
Grey Musketeers.

Covered by a boat-cloak, and accommodated with
two or three cushions, Eugene's bed was quite as
comfortable as that which he occupied at the Fox
and Fiddle. It was long past sunrise when he awoke,
and realizing his position he ran on deck with a
landsman's usual conviction that he was already
miles out at sea. It was startling, and a little dis-
appointing, to observe the quay, the straggling
buildings of the town, the light-house, and other
well-known objects within musket-shot, and to find
that the brigantine, in spite of her lively motions,
still rode at anchor, not half a cable's length from a
huge, smooth, red buoy, which was dancing and
dipping in the morning sun as if it was alive.

70 CERISE.

There was a fresh breeze off shore and a curl on
the green sparkling water that, far away down
Channel, beyond the point, swelled into a thousand
varying lines of white, while a schooner in the
offing might be observed standing out to sea with
a double reef in her topsails. One of the crew
sluicing the deck with a bucket of water, that eddied
round Eugene's feet, pointed her out to his mate
with an oath, and the mate, a tall strong negro,
grinning hideously, replied " Iss ! very well !"

' The Bashful Maid ' herself, rising buoyantly to
each succeeding wave, ere with a dip and toss of
her bows she sent the heavy spray-drops splashing
over her like a sea-bird, seemed chafing with eager-
ness to be off. There was but little of the bustle
and confusion on board usually produced by clear-
ing out of port. The deck, though wet and slippery,
was as clean as a dinner-plate, the yards were
squared, the ropes coiled, new sails had been bent,
and the last cask of fresh water was swinging over
the hold : trim and taut, every spar and every sheet
seemed to express " Outward bound," not to men-
tion a blue-Peter flying at the fore.

All this Eugene observing, began to suffer from
an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his sto-
mach, which parched his mouth, depressed his

THREE PRESSED MEN. 71

spirits, and destroyed his appetite. He was not,
however, so much affected by it but that he could
take note of his fellow-voyagers, an occupation
sufficiently interesting when he reflected on the
probable result of their preparations. In his
experience of life he had never yet seen such an
assemblage. The crew had indeed been got
together with considerable care, but with utter dis-
regard to nationality or uniformity of any kind.
The majority were Englishmen, but there were
also Swedes, Dutch, French, Portuguese, a negro,
and even a Spaniard on board. The brigantine was
strongly manned for her size, and the hands, with
scarcely an exception, were stout daring fellows,
capable of any exploit and a good many enormities,
but such as a bold commander, cool, judicious, and
determined, might bring into a very efficient state
of discipline. Eugene could not but remark, how-
ever, that on the face of each was expressed im-
patience of delay and an ardent desire to be in blue
water. The liberty to go on shore had been stopped,
and indeed the pockets of these gentlemen-adven-
turers, as the humblest of them called themselves,
were completely cleaned out. Obviously, there-
fore, it would be well to lose no time in refilling
them.

72 CERISE.

Leaning over the side, lazily watching the lap
and wash of the leaping water, Eugene was rapidly
losing himself in his own thoughts, when, rousing
up, he felt the Captain's hand on his shoulder and
heard the Captain's voice whisper in his ear : —

" Come below with me ; I shall want your
assistance by-and-by, and you have had no break-
fast yet."

His qualms took flight at the prospect of fresh
excitement, though the offer of breakfast was
received with little enthusiasm, and he followed
the Captain into his comfortable and well-furnished
cabin. Here he learned that, while he was sleeping,
George had hailed a fishing-boat returning warily
into harbour, and, under pretence of buying fresh
fish, boarded her with a bottle or two of spirits and
a roll of tobacco. In ten minutes he extracted all
the fisherman had to tell, and discovered that a
large King's ship was cruising in the offing, watch-
ing, as his informant opined, the very port in which
they lay. Under these circumstances, Captain
George considered it would be prudent to wait till
midnight, when they might run out of the harbour,
with wind and tide in their favour, and so showing
the man-of-war a clean pair of heels, be hull-down
and out of sight before sunrise.

THREE PRESSED MEN. 73

" There's nothing that swims can touch her in
squally weather like this," continued the Captain,
" if she can get an hour's start; and I wouldn't mind
running under his very bolt-sprit, in the dark, if this
wind holds. My chief difficulty is about the men.
There will be black looks, and something very like
mutiny, if I keep them twelve more hours in sight
of the beer-shops without liberty for shore. Those
drunken rascals too, that we hove aboard last
night, will have come to themselves by that time,
and we shall perhaps have some trouble iu persuad-
ing them they are here of their own free will. You
must help me, Eugene, all day. Between us we
must watch the crew, like a cat watches a mouse.
Once we're in blue water, you'll have nothing
to do but sit in my cabin and amuse your-
self."

The skipper understood the nature of those with
whom he had to deal. When the men saw no
disposition to get the anchor up, when noon
passed and they went to dinner as usual with the
brigantine's head pointing steadily to windward,
when another tide ebbed and flowed, but failed
to waft them away from the temptations of port.,
they began to growl freely, without however pro-
ceeding to any overt acts of insubordination, and

74 CERISE.

towards evening they became pacified with the
anticipation of weighing anchor before the follow-
ing day. The hours passed wearily to all on board,
excepting perhaps the three Jacks, who, waking
simultaneously at sunrise, turned round, perfectly
satisfied, to go to sleep again, and so recovered
complete possession of their faculties towards the
dusk of the evening.

They had been stowed away on some spare
bunting outside the door of the Captain's cabin.
Their conversation, therefore, though carried on in
a low tone, was distinctly audible both to him and
Beaudesir, as they sat waiting for midnight and
the turn of the tide.

After a few expressions of astonishment, and
vague inquiries how they got there, each sailor
seemed to realize his position pretty clearly and
without much dissatisfaction. Bottle-Jack shrewdly
suspected he was once more at the old trade.
Smoke-Jack was comforted by the prospect of re-
filling his empty pockets, and Slap-Jack, whilst
vowing eternal fidelity to Alice, seemed impressed
with the flattering notion that somehow his own
attractions and the good taste of the Admiral's
daughter were at the bottom of it all.

The craft, they agreed, was a likely one, the

THREE PRESSED MEN. O

fittings ship -shape Bristol-fashion, the cruise pro-
mised to be prosperous ; but such an unheard-of
solecism as to weigh without one more drinking-
bout in honour of the expedition was not to be
thought of ; therefore Bottle-Jack opined it was
indispensable they should immediately go ashore.

The others agreed without scruple. One diffi-
culty alone presented itself: the quay stood a
good quarter of a mile off, and even in harbour it
was rather a stormy night for a swim. As Slap- Jack
observed, " it couldn't be done comfortable with-
out a plank of some kind ; but most like, if they
waited till dark, they might make free with the
skipper's dingy hanging over the starn !"

"Tis but totting up another figure or two on
the score with old Shiney-face," argued Smoke-
Jack, who, considering his profession, was of a
frugal turn of mind, and who little knew how
completely the purchase-money of his own body
and bones had wiped off the chalk behind the
door. " Such a voyage as we're a-goin' to make
will square longer accounts than ours, though I am
uncommon dr}T, considerin'. Just one more spree
on the quiet, you know, my sons, and back to
duty again as steady as a sou' -wester. There's
no fear they'll weigh without us, a-course ?"

76 CERISE.

"A-course not," grunted old Bottle-Jack, who
could scarce have been half-sober yet, to hazard
such a suggestion. " The skipper is quite the gen-
tleman, no doubt, and most like when he misses
us he'll send the ship's pinnace ashore with his
compliments."

" Pinnace be blowed !" retorted Slap-Jack ; " any-
way you may be sure he won't sail without the
dingy;" and in this more reasonable conclusion
the others could not but acquiesce.

With a smile on his face, the Captain listened
to the further development of their plan. One
by one they would creep aft without their shoes,
unobserved by the anchor-watch, now sure to be
on the forecastle (none of the Jacks had a clear
idea of the craft in which they were plotting) ;
if any one could put his hand on a bit of grease
it would be useful to make the tackle work noise-
lessly. When they reached the stern, Slap-Jack
should seat himself in the dingy, as being the
lightest weight ; the others would lower away, and
as soon as she touched water, shin down after
him and shove off. There was no time to lose,
best set about it at once.

Captain George whispered in his companion's
ear, " Take my hat and cloak, and go forward to

THREE PRESSED MEN. 77

the hold with a lantern in your hand. Make
plenty of noise as you pass those lubbers, but
do not let them see your face/'

Eugene obeyed, and Captain George, blowing
out the lights, set himself to watch at the stern
windows.

CHAPTEE YI.

" YO-HEAVE-YO !"

T was pitch dark in the cabin, but
although under a cloudy sky there
was light enough to discern objects on
deck or alongside. As Smoke-Jack
observed, stealing aft with bare feet, and in a
louder whisper than was prudent, " A good pair
of eyes might see as far as a man could heave a
bull by the tail." George had determined to give
the crew a lesson, once for all, in the matter of
discipline, and felt well pleased to make example
of the new comers, who must be supposed as yet
ignorant of his system.

So he sat in the dark, pistol in hand, at the
stern window, which was open, and watched like
the hunter for his prey.

He heard the three Jacks creeping along the

" YO-HEAVE-YO !" 79

deck overhead, be heard low whispers and a
smothered laugh, followed by a few brief expos-
tulations as to priority of disembarkation, the lan-
guage far less polite than the intention; lastly,
he heard the tackle by which his boat was made
fast running gently over its blocks.

Then he cocked his pistol without noise, and
laughed to himself.

Gradually the cabin window was obscured. A
dark object passed smoothly down, and revealed in
its progress a human figure indistinctly visible above
its black horizontal mass, which was indeed the
slow-descending boat, containing no less a per-
sonage than the adventurous Slap- Jack ; also
two lines of tackle were dimly visible supporting
that boat's head. A turn of the body, as he covered
them steadily with his pistol, enabled the Captain
to bring these two lines into one.

Hand and eye were equally true. He was sure
of his mark before he pulled the trigger. With
a flash that lighted up the cabin, and an explosion
that filled it with smoke, the bullet cut clean
through the "falls" or ropes supporting the boat's
head, bringing her perpendicularly on end, and
shooting every article she contained — planks, bot-
tom-boards, stretchers, oars, boat-hook, an empty

80 CERISE.

hencoop, and the astonished occupant — plump
into seven fathom of water.

Nor was the consternation created by this alarm-
ing capsize confined to the unfortunate Slap-Jack.
His comrades, lowering away industriously from the
taffrail, started back in the utmost bewilderment,
the anchor-watch rushed aft, persuaded a mutiny
had broken out, and in grievous indecision
whether to take the skipper's part or assist in cut-
ting his throat. The crew tumbled up the hatch-
way, and blundered about the deck, asking each
other absurd questions, and offering wild sugges-
tions, if anything were really amiss, as to break-
ing open the spirit-room. Nay, the harbour-
guard himself awoke from his nap, emerged from
his sentry-box, took a turn on the quay, hailing
loudly, and receiving no answer, was satisfied he
had been dreaming, so swore and turned in again.

Captain George reloaded his pistol, and sang
out lustily, " Man overboard ! Show a light on
deck there, and heave a rope over the side.
Bear a hand to haul him. in, the lubber ! I
don't much think he'll want to try that game in
a hurry again !"

Meanwhile, hapless Slap-Jack was incapacitated
for the present from that, or indeed any other

" YO-HEAVE-YO !" 81

game involving physical effort. A plank, falling
with him out of the boat, had struck him on the
head and stunned him ; seventy fathom of water
would have floated him no better than seven, and
with the first plunge he went down like a stone.
Captain George had intended to give him a fright
and a ducking ; but now, while he stretched his
body out of the cabin window, peering over the
gloomy water and listening eagerly for the snort
and gasp of a swimmer who never came up, he
wished with all his heart that his hand had been
less steady on the pistol.

Fortunately however, Beaude'sir, after he had
fulfilled the Captain's orders by personating him at
the hold, remained studiously on watch. It was a
peculiarity of this man that his faculties seemed
always on the stretch, as is often to be observed
with those over whom some constant dread
impends, or who suffer from the tortures of remorse.
At the moment he heard the shot, he sprang to
the side, threw off hat and cloak, as if anticipating
danger, and kept his eyes eagerly fixed on the
water, ready, if need be, for a pounce. The tide
was still flowing, the brigantine's head lay to sea-
ward, where all was dark, and fortunately the little
light on the ruffled surface was towards the shore.

VOL. IT. G

82 CERISE.

Slap-Jack's inanimate form was carried inwards by
the flood, and crossed the moorings of that huge
red buoy which Eugene remembered gazing on
listlessly in the morning. Either the contact with
its rope woke an instinctive consciousness in the
drowning man, or some swirl of the water below
brought his body to the surface, but for a few
seconds Slap- Jack's form became dimly visible,
heaving like a wisp of sea-weed on a wave. In
those few seconds Eugene dashed overboard,
cleaving the water to reach him with the long
springing strokes of a powerful swimmer.

A drowning man is not to be saved, but at the
imminent risk of his life who goes in for the rescue,
and this gallant feat indeed can only be accom-
plished by a thorough proficient in the art ; so on
the present occasion it was well that Beaudesir felt
as much at home in the water as on dry land.

How the crew cheered the Frenchman while
he was hauled on board with his dripping burden ;
how the two Jacks who had remained in the
brigantine, and were now thoroughly sobered,
vowed eternal gratitude to the landsman who
had dived for their messmate; how the har-
bour-guard was once more disturbed by the
cheering, and cheered lustily in reply; how

" YO-HEAYE-YO !" 83

Captain George clapped his comrade on the
shoulder while he took him below to change his
wet garments, and vowed he was fit to be King of
France, adding, with a meaning smile, " If ever I
go to school again, I'll ask them to give me a berth
at Avranches in Normandy !" — all this it is un-
necessary to relate ; but if the Captain gained the
respect of the crew by the promptitude with which
he resented an attempt at insubordination, the
gallant self-devotion of his friend, clerk, super-
cargo, cabin-passenger, or whatever he was, won
their affection and good-will for the rest of the
voyage.

This was especially apparent about sunrise, when
Captain George beat to quarters and paraded his
whole crew on deck, preparatory to weighing
anchor and standing out down Channel with a
fair wind and a following tide. He calculated that
the King's ship, even if on watch, must be still
some distance from land, and he had such implicit
confidence in the sailing qualities of his brigantine
that if he could only get a fair start he feared a
chase from no craft that swam.

Owing to his early education and the experiences
of his boyhood, notwithstanding his late career in
the service of King Louis, he was a seaman at

G 2

84 CERISE.

heart. In nothing more so than a tendency to
idealize the craft he commanded as if it were a
living creature, endowed with feelings and even
reason. For him, ' The Bashful Maid,' with her
exquisite trim, her raking masts, her graceful spars,
her long fluttering pennon, and her elaborately-
carved figure-head, representing a brazen-faced
beauty baring her breast boastfully to the breeze,
was less a triumph of design and carpentering, of
beams, and blocks, and yarn, and varnish, and tar,
than a metaphorical mistress, to be cajoled, com-
manded, humoured, trusted, above all, admired.
He spoke of her as possessing affections, caprices,
impulses and self-will. When she answered her
helm steadily, and made good weather of it, in a
stiff breeze and a heavy sea, she was "behaving
admirably" — "she liked the job" — "a man had
only to trust her, and give her a new coat of paint
now and then, she'd never fail him — not she !"
While, on the other hand, she might dive, and
plunge, and dip her boltsprit in the brine, shipping
seas that swept her decks fore and aft, and she was
" only a trifle saucy, the beauty ! Carried a
weather-helm like the rest of her sex, and must be
humoured a bit, till she came round !"

As was the skipper, so were the crew. All these

" YO-HEAVE-YO !" 85

different natures, men of various nations, disposi-
tions, and characters, were equally childlike in their
infatuation about ' The Bashful Maid.' The densest
of them had imagination enough to invest her with
a thousand romantic qualities ; even the negro
would have furiously resented a word in her dispa-
ragement— nay, the three newly-shipped Jacks
themselves, men of weighty authority in such
matters, caught the infection, and were ready to
swear by the brigantine, while it was yet so dark
they could scarcely see whether she was a three-
masted merchantman or a King's cutter.

But when the breeze freshened towards sunrise,
and the tide was once more on the turn, the regard
thus freely accorded to their ship was largely shared
by their new shipmate. Beaudesir, passing for-
ward in the grey light of morning, truth to tell
moved only by the restlessness of a man not yet
accustomed to perpetual motion accompanied by
the odours of bilge-water and tar, was greeted with
admiring glances and kind words from all alike.
Dutchman, Swede, Spaniard, vied with each other
in expressions of good-will. Slap- Jack was still
below, swaddled in blankets, but his two comrades
had tumbled up with the first streaks of dawn, and
were loud in their praises; Bottle-Jack vowing

86 CERISE.

Captain Kidd would have made him first-lieutenant
on the spot for such a feat, and Smoke-Jack, with
more sincerity than politeness, declaring "he
couldn't have believed it of a Frenchman !" Nay,
the very negro, showing all his teeth as if he longed
to eat him, embarked on an elaborate oration in
his honour, couched partly in his native language
as spoken on the Gold Coast, partly in a dialect he
believed to be English, obscured by metaphor,
though sublime doubtless in conception, and
prematurely cut short by the shrill whistle of the
boatswain, warning all hands without delay to
their quarters.

It was an enlivening sight, possessing considerable
attractions for such a temperament as Beaudesir's.
The clear gap of morning low down on the horizon
was widening and spreading every moment over
the sky; the breeze, cold and bracing, not yet
tempered by the coming sun, freshened sensibly off
shore, driving out to sea a grand procession of dark
rolling clouds, moving steadily and continuously
westward before the day. The lighthouse
off the harbour showed like a column of chalk
against the dull back-ground of this embank-
ment, vanishing so imperceptibly into light;
while to landward, far beyond the low level line of

" YO-HEAVE-YO !" 87

coast, a faint quiver of purple already mingled
with the dim grey outline of the smooth and
swelling downs.

In harbour, human life had not yet woke up,
but the white sea-birds were soaring and dipping,
and wheeling joyously on the wing. The breeze
whistled through the tackle, the waves leaped and
lashed merrily against her sides, and the crew of
the brigantine took their places, clean, well-dressed,
brown-faced and bare-footed, on her deck. While
the boatswain, who from sheer habit cast an eye
continually aloft, observed her truck catch the
first gleams of the morning sun, Captain George,
carefully attired, issued from his cabin with a
telescope under his arm, and made his first and
last oration to the crew.

"My lads!" said he, "I've beat to quarters,
this fine morning, before I get my anchor up,
because I want to say a few words to you, and
the sooner we understand each other the better !
You've heard I'm a soldier. So I am! That's
right enough ; but, mark you ! I dipped my hand
in the tar-bucket before I was old enough to carry
a sword ; so don't you ever think to come over me
with skulking, for I've seen that game played out
before. Hind you, I don't believe I've got a

S8 CERISE.

skulker on board ; if I have, let him step forward
and show himself. Over the side he goes, and I
sail without him ! Now, my lads, I know my
duty and I know yours. I'll take care both are
done. I'll have no grumbling, and no quarrelling.
If any man has a complaint to make, let him come
to me, and out with it. A quarrelsome chap with
his messmates is generally a shy cock when you
put him down to fight. I'll have man-of-war's
discipline aboard. You all know what that is, and
those that don't like it must lump it. Last night
there were three of you tried to take French leave
and to steal my boat ; I stopped that game with
a little friend I keep in my belt. Look ye, my
sons, next bout I'll cover the man instead of the
tackles ! I know who they are, well enough,
but I mean to forget as soon as ever the anchor's
up. I'll have a clean bill of health to take out
into blue water. Now, my lads, attend to me!
We've a long cruise before us, but we've a craft
well-provisioned, well-found, and, I heartily believe,
well-manned. Whatever prizes we take, whatever
profit we make on the cargo, from skipper to ship's-
boy, every one shall have his share according to
the articles hung up in my cabin. We may have
to fight and we may not ; it's the last job you're

" YO-HEAVE-YO !" 89

likely'to shirk ; but mind this — one skipper's enough
for one ship. I'll have no lawyer sail with me,
and no opinions ' whether or no ' before the mast.
If you think of disobeying orders, just remember
it's a short walk from my berth to the powder-
room, and the clink of a flint will square all
accounts between captain and crew. If I'm not
to be skipper, nobody else shall, and what I say
I mean. Lastly, no man is to get drunk except
in port. And now, my lads ! Here's a fair wind
and a following tide ! Before we get the fiddle up
for a * Stamp and go, cheerily ho !' we'll give
three cheers for ' The Bashful Maid,' and. then
shake out every rag of canvas and make a good
run while the breeze holds !"

The men cheered with a will. The Captain's
notions of sea-oratory were founded on a know-
ledge of his audience, and answered his purpose
better than the most finished style of rhetoric.
As the shouting died out, a strong voice was heard,
demanding " one cheer more for the skipper." It
was given enthusiastically — Slap-Jack, who had
sneaked on deck with his head bandaged, having
taken this sailor-like method of showing he bore
no malice for a ducking, and was indeed only
desirous that his late prank should be overlooked.

90 CERISE.

Nevertheless, in the hurry and confusion of getting
the anchor up, he contrived to place himself at
Beaudesir's side and to grasp him cordially by the
hand.

" You be a good chap," said this honest seaman,
with a touch of feeling that he hid under an affec-
tation of exceeding roughness ; " as good a chap
as ever broke a biscuit! Look ye, mate; my
name's Slap-Jack ; so long as I can show my
number, when anything's up, you sings out ' Slap-
jack !' and if I don't answer Slap-Jack it is !
why "

The imprecation with which this peculiar ac-
knowledgment concluded did not render it one
whit more intelligible to Beaudesirj who gathered
enough, however, from the speaker's vehemence
to feel that he had made at least one stanch
friend among the crew. By the time he had
realized this consoling fact, the brigantine's head,
released from the restraint of her cable, swung
round to leeward, her strong new sails filled steadily
with the breeze, and while the ripple gurgled
louder and louder round her bows, already tossing
and plunging through the increasing swell, the
quay, the lighthouse, the long low spit of land,
the town, the downs themselves seemed to glide

M YO-HEAVE-YO !" 91

quietly away; and Beaudesir, despite the beauty
of the scene and the excitement of his position,
became uncomfortably conscious of a strange
desire to retire into a corner, lay himself down
at full length, and die, if need be, unobserved.

A waft of savoury odours from the cook's galley,
where the men's breakfasts were prepared, did
nothing towards allaying this untimely despond-
ency, and after a short struggle he yielded, as
people always do yield in such cases, and stagger-
ing into the cabin, pillowed his head on a couch,
and gave himself over to despair.

Ere he raised it again * The Bashful Maid/
making an excellent rundown Channel in a south-
westerly course, was already a dozen leagues out
at sea.

CHAPTER VII.

'THE BASHFUL MAID.'

F Captain George kept a log, as is pro-
bable, or Eugene Beaudesir a diary, as
is possible, I have no intention of copying
it. In the history of individuals, as of
nations, the exception is Stir, the rule Stagnation.
There are long links in the Silver Cord, smooth,
polished, uniform, one exactly like the other, ere
its sameness is varied by the carving of a boss dr
the flash of a gem. It is only here and there
that lifelike figures and spirit-stirring scenes start
from the dead surface of the Golden Bowl. Per-
haps, when both are broken, neither brilliancy nor
workmanship, but sterling worth of metal, shall
constitute the true value of each.

' The Bashful Maid ' found her share of favouring

'THE BASHFUL MAID.' 93

winds and baffling breezes; trim and weatherly,
she made the best of them all. Her crew, as
they gained confidence in their skipper and became
well acquainted amongst themselves, worked her
to perfection. In squally weather, she had the
great advantage of being over-manned, and could
therefore carry the broadest surface of canvas it
was possible to show. After a few stormy nights
all shook into their places, and every man found
himself told off to the duty he was best able to
perform. The late Captain of Musketeers had the
knack of selecting men, and of making them obey
him. His last joined hands were perhaps the best
of his whole ship's company. Bottle-Jack became
boatswain's mate, Smoke-Jack, gunner, and Slap-
Jack, captain of the foretop. These three
were still fast friends and sworn adherents of
Beaudesir. The latter, though he had no osten-
sible rank or office, seemed, next to the skipper
himself, the most influential and the most useful
person on board. He soon picked up enough
knowledge of navigation to bring his mathematical
acquirements into play. He kept the accounts of
stores and cargo. He possessed a slight knowledge
of medicine and surgery. He played the violin
with a taste and feeling that enchanted the

94 CERISE.

Spaniard, his only rival in this accomplishment,
and caused many a stout heart to thrill with
unaccustomed thoughts of green nooks and leafy
copses, of laughing children and cottage-gardens,
and summer evenings at home ; lastly, the three
Jacks, his fast friends, found him an apt pupil in
lessons relating to sheets and tacks, blocks and
braces, yards and spars, in fine, all the practical
mysteries of seamanship.

During stirring times, such as the first half of
the eighteenth century, a brigantine like 'The
Bashful Maid,' well-armed, well-manned, com-
manded by a young adventurous Captain having
letters of marque in his cabin, and no certain
knowledge that peace had yet been proclaimed
with Spain, was not likely long to preserve her
sails unbleached by use nor the paint and varnish
undimmed on her hull. Not many months elapsed
ere she was very different in appearance from the
yacht-like craft that ran past the Needles, carrying
Eugene Beaudesir prone and helpless as a log in
her after-cabin. He could scarcely believe himself
the same man when, bronzed, robust, and vigorous,
feeling every inch a sailor, he paced her deck
under the glowing stars and the mellow moonlight
of the tropics. Gales had been weathered since

'THE BASHFUL MAID.' 95

then, shots fired, prizes taken, and that career of
adventure embarked on which possesses so strange
a fascination for the majority of mankind, partly,
I think, from its permanent uncertainty, partly
from its pandering to their self-esteem. A few more
swoops, another prize or two taken, pillaged, but
suffered to proceed if not worth towing into port,
and the cruise would have been so successful, that
already the men were calculating their share of
profit and talking as if their eventual return to
Britain was no longer a wild impossibility. Every-
thing, too, had as yet been done according to fair
usage of war. No piracy, no cruelty, nothing that
could justify a British three-decker in capturing
the brigantine, to impress her crew and hang her
captain at his own yard-arm. Eugene's counsels
had so far prevailed with George that he had
resolved on confining himself to the legitimate
profits of a privateer, and not overstepping the
narrow line of demarcation that distinguished him
from a pirate.

While, however, some of her crew had been
killed and some wounded, ' The Bashful Maid '
herself had by no means emerged scatheless from
her encounters. Eugene was foolish enough to
experience a thrill of pride while he marked the

96 CERISE.

grim holes, planked and caulked, in her sides ;
the workmanlike splicing of such yards and spars
as had not suffered too severely for repair, and
the carefully-mended foresail, now white and
weather-bleached, save where the breadths of
darker, newer canvas betrayed it had been
riddled by round-shot.

But soon his impressionable temperament, catch-
ing the influence of the hour, threw off its warlike
thoughts and abandoned itself to those gentler
associations that could hardly fail to be in the
ascendant.

The night was such as is only to be seen in the
tropics. Above, like golden lamps, the stars were
flaming rather than twinkling in the sky; while
low down on the horizon a broad moon, rising
from the sea, spread a lustrous path along the
gently-heaving waves to the very ship's side; a
path on which myriads of glittering fairies seemed
to dance and revel, and disappear in changing
sparkles of light.

Through all this blaze of beauty, the brigantine
glided smoothly and steadily on her course. For
several days and nights not a sail had been altered,
not a rope shifted, before that soft and balmy
breeze. The men had nothing to do but tell each

'THE BASHFUL MAID.' 97

other interminable yarns and smoke. It was the
fair side of the medal, the bloom on the fruit,
the smooth of the profession, this enchanted
voyage over an enchanted sea.

Eugene revelled in its charm, but with his en-
joyment was mingled that quiet melancholy so
intimately associated with all beauty in those
hearts (and how many of them are there \) which
treasure up an impossible longing, a dream that
can never come to pass. It is a morbid sentiment,
no doubt, which can thus extract from the loveliest
scenes of nature, and even from the brightest
triumphs of art, a strange wild ecstasy of pain,
possessing a fascination of its own; but it is a
sentiment to which the most generous and the
most noble minds are peculiarly susceptible ; a
sentiment that in itself denotes excessive capability
for the happiness denied or withheld. Were it
better for them to be of duller spirit and coarser
fibre, callous to the spur, unequal to the effort?
AVho knows? I think Beaudesir would not will-
ingly have parted with the sensibility from which
he experienced so much pain, from the memories
on which, at moments like these, under a moonlit
sky, he brooded and dwelt so fondly, yet so de-
spondently, to have obtained in exchange the inex*

VOL. IT. H

98 CERISE.

haustible good-humour of Slap- Jack or the imper-
turbable self-command of Captain George.

Immersed in his own thoughts, he did not
observe the latter leave his cabin, walk from sheer
habit to the binnacle in order to satisfy himself the
brigantine was lying her course, and glance over
the side to measure her speed through the water,
and he started when the Captain placed his hand
familiarly on his shoulder, and jeered him good-
humouredly for his preoccupation. These men,
whose acquaintance had commenced with impor-
tant benefits conferred and received on both sides,
were now thrown together by circumstances which
brought out the finer qualities of both. They had
learned thoroughly to depend on each other, and
had become fast friends. Perhaps their strongest
link was the dissimilarity of their characters. To
Beaudesir's romantic and impressionable tempera-
ment there had been, from the first, something
very imposing in the vigorous and manly nature of
Captain George ; and the influence of the latter
became stronger day by day, when he proved
himself as calm, courageous, and capable, on the
deck of a privateer as he had appeared in his
quarters at Paris commanding a company of the
*Royal Guards.

'THE BASHFUL MAID.' 99

For George, again, with his frank, soldier-like
manner and somewhat abrupt address, which
seemed impatient of anything like delicacy or over-
refinement, there was, nevertheless, an unspeakable
charm in his friend's half-languid, half-fiery, and
wholly romantic disposition, redeemed by a courage
no danger could shake, and an address with his
weapons few men could withstand. The Captain
was not demonstrative, far from it, and would
have been ashamed to confess how much he valued
the society of that pale, studious, effeminate youth,
in looks, in manner, in simplicity of habits so
much younger than his actual years ; who was so
often lost in vague day-dreams, and loved to follow
up such wild and speculative trains of thought ;
but who could point the brigantine's bow-chasers
more accurately than the gunner himself; who
had learned how to hand, reef, and steer before he
had been six weeks on board.

Their alliance was the natural consequence of
companionship between two natures of the same
material, so to speak, but of different fabric. Their
respective intellects represented the masculine and
feminine types. Each supplying that which the
other wanted, they amalgamated accordingly.
Beaudesir looked up to the Musketeer as his ideal

11 2

100 CERISE.

of perfection in manhood ; Captain George loved
Eugene like a brother, and trusted him without
reserve.

It was pleasant after the turmoil and excitement
of the last few weeks to walk the deck in that
balmy region under a serene and moonlit sky,
letting their thoughts wander freely to scenes so
different on far-distant shores, while they talked of
France, and Paris, arid Versailles, and a thousand
topics all connected with dry land. But Eugene,
though he listened with interest, and never seemed
tired of confidences relating to his companion's own
family and previous life, frankly and freely im-
parted, refrained from such confessions in return ;
and George was still as ignorant of his friend's
antecedents as on that memorable day when the
pale, dark youth accompanied Bras-de-Fer to their
Captain's quarters, to be entered on the roll of the
Grey Musketeers, after running poor Flanconnade
through the body. That they had once belonged
to this famous corps $ elite neither of them seemed
likely to forget. Its merits and its services formed
the one staple subject of discourse when all else
failed. As in his quarters at Paris he had kept
the model of a similar brigantine for his own pri-
vate solace, so now, in the cabin of ' The Bashful

• THE BASHFUL MAID.' 101

Maul/ the skipper treasured up with the greatest
care, in a stout sea-chest, a handsome full-dress
uniform, covered with velvet and embroidery,
flaunting with grey ribbons, and having a coating
of thin paper over its silver lace.

There was one topic of conversation, however,
on which these young men had never yet em-
barked, and this is the more surprising, considering
their age and the habits of those warriors amongst
whom they were so proud to have been numbered.
This forbidden subject was the charm of the other
sex, and it was perhaps because each felt himself
so constituted as to be keenly alive to its power
that neither ventured an allusion to the great influ-
ence by which, during the first half of life, men's
fortunes, characters, happiness, and eventual destiny
are more or less affected. It required a fair breeze,
a summer sea, and a moonlight night in the tropics
to elicit their opinions on such matters, and the
manly, roughspoken skipper was the first to broach
a theme that had been already well-nigh ex-
hausted by the watch on deck — gathered on the
forecastle in tranquil enjoyment of a cool, serene
air and a welcome interval of repose.

Old Turenne's system of tactics had been
declared exrjloded ; the Duke of Marlborough's

102 CERISE.

character criticised ; Cavalli's last opera can-
vassed and condemned. Captain George took
two turns of the deck in silence, stopped short at
the taflrail, and looked thoughtfully over the
stern —

" What is to be the end of it ?" he asked
abruptly. " More fighting, of course ! More prizes,
more doubloons, and then? After all, I believe
there are things to make a man's life happier than
even such a brigantine as this."

" There is heaven on earth, and there is heaven
above," answered the other, in his dreamy, half-
earnest, half-speculative way ; " and some men,
not always the hardest-hearted nor the most vicious,
are to be shut out from both. Calvin is a dis-
heartening casuist, but I believe Calvin is right !"

" Steady there I" replied George. " Nothing
shall make me believe but that a brave man can
sail what course he will, provided his charts are
trustworthy and he steers by them. Nothing is
impossible, Eugene. If I had thought that, I should
have lost heart long ago."

" And then ?" asked Beaudesir, sadly.

" And then," repeated the Captain, with a shud-
der, " I might have become a brute rather than
a man. Do you remember the British schooner

'THE BASHFUL MAID.' 103

we retook from those Portuguese rovers, and the
mustee * who commanded them ? I tell you I hate to
think it possible, and yet I believe a man utterly with-
out hope might come to be such a wretch as that !"

" You never would/' said Beaude'sir, "and I
never should ; 1 know it. Even hope may be dis-
pensed with if memory remains. My pity is for
those who have neither."

" I could not live without hope," resumed the
Captain, cheerily. " I own I do hope most sin-
cerely, at some future time, for a calmer and hap-
pier lot than this ; a lot that would also make the
happiness of another ; and that other so gentle,
so trusting, and so true I"

Eugene looked in his face surprised. Then he
smiled brightly, and laid his hand on his friend's
shoulder.

" It will come !" he exclaimed ; " never doubt it
for a moment. It will come ! Do you remember
what I said to you of my skill in fortune-telling ?
I repeat, success is written in your face. What
you really wish and strive to attain is as sure to
arrive at last as a fair wind in the trades or a flood-
tide at full moon."

* The progeny of a white and a Quadroon, sometimes called an
Octoroon.

104 CERISE.

" I hope so," returned the Captain ; " I believe
it. I suppose I am as bold as my neighbours, and
luckily it never comes across me, when there's any-
thing to do ; but sometimes my heart fails when I
think, if I should go down and lose my number, how
she'll sit and wonder, poor thing, why I never
come back !"

" Courage, my Captain !" said Eugene, cheerily
affecting the tone and manner of their old corps.
f] Courage. JEn avant ! a la Mousquetaire ! You
will lose nothing, not even the cargo ; we shall
return with both pockets full of money. You will
buy a chateau. There will be a fete at your wed-
ding : I shall bring there my violin, and, believe
me, I shall rejoice in your happiness as if it were
my own."

" She is so young, so beautiful, so gentle," con-
tinued the Captain ; " I could not bear that her
life should be darkened, whatever comes of me.
If, at last, the great happiness does arrive, Eugene,
I shall not forget my friend. Chateau or cottage,
you will be welcome with your violin. You would
admire her as I do ; we both think alike on so
many subjects. So young, so fresh, so beautiful ! I
wish you could see her. I am not sure but that you
have seen her. Do you remember the day ?"

'the bashful maid.' 105

What further confidences the skipper was about
to impart were here cut short by a round of ap-
plause from the forecastle, apparently arising from
some proposal much approved by the whole assem-
blage. The Captain, with his friend, paused to
listen. It was a request that Bottle-Jack should
sing, and seemed not unfavourably received by
that veteran. After many excuses and much of a
mock modesty, to be observed under similar condi-
tions in the most refined societies, he took his quid
from his cheek, and cleared his voice with great
pomp ere he embarked on a ditty of which the
subject conveyed a delicate compliment to the pro-
clivities of his friend Smoke-Jack, who had origi-
nated the call, and which he sang in that flat,
monotonous, and dispiriting key, only to be ac-
complished, I firmly believe, by an able seaman in
the daily exercise of his profession. He designated
it " The Real Trinidado," and it ran as follows : —

" Oh ! when I was a lad,

Says my crusty old dud,
Says he, — ' Jack ! you must stick to the spade, oh !'

But he grudged me my prog,

And lie grudged me my grog,
And my pipe of the real Trinidado.

my Syousan to me, —

1 Jack, if you goes to sea,

106 CERISE.

I'll be left but a desolate maid, oh !'

Then I answers her — ' Sue !

Can't I come back to you
When I'm done with the old Trinidado ?*

" So to sea we clears out,

And the ship's head, no doubt,
Sou'-we3t and by sou' it was laid, oh !

For the isles of the sun,

Where there's fiddlers and fun,
And no end of the real Trinidado.

" Says our skipper, says he,

' Be she close-hauled or free,
She'd behave herself in a tornado !'

So he handles the ship

With a canful of flip,
And a pipe of the real Trinidado.

" She's a weatherly craft,

Werry wet, fore-and-aft,
And she rolls like a liquorish jade, oh !

But she steers werry kind,

On a course to her mind,
When she's bound for the isle Trinidado.

" Soon a sail we espies,

Says the skipper — ' My eyes !
That's the stuff for us lads of the trade, oh !

Bales of silk in his hold,

Casks of rum — maybe gold —
Not forgetting the real Trinidado !'

" Then it's ' Stand by ! My sons !

Steady ! Kun out your guns —
We've the Don's weather-gage. Who's afraid, oh

So we takes him aback,

He is ours in a crack,
And we scuttles him off Trinidado !

1 THE BASHFUL MAID.' 107

■' Now, here's to the crew !

And the skipper ! and Sue !
And here's • Lnck to the boys of the blade, oh !

May they ne'er want a glass,

A fair wind, a fair lasfi !
Nor a pipe of the real Triuidado !' '

The applause elicited by this effort was loud and
long. Ere it subsided, George looked more than
once anxiously to windward. Then he went to his
cabin and consulted the barometer, after which he
reappeared on deck and whispered in Eugene's
ear —

"I am going to caulk it for an hour or two.
Hold on, unless there's any change in the weather,
and be sure you come below and rouse me out at
eight bells."

CHAPTER VIII.

DIRTY WEATHER.

T eight bells, the Captain came on deck
again, glancing once more somewhat
anxiously astern. Not a cloud was to be
seen in the moonlit sky, and the breeze
that had blown so steadily, though so softly, for
weeks, was sinking gradually, dying out, as it were,
in a succession of gentle, peaceful sighs. Eugene,
with the weather-wisdom of a man who had been
but a few months at sea, rather inclined to think
they might be becalmed. The crew did not
trouble themselves about the matter. Every rag
the brigantine could show was already set, and if
a sail flapped idly against the mast, it soon drew
again as before, to propel them smoothly on their

course.

DIRTY WEATHER. 109

Moreover, a topic had been lately broached on
the forecastle, of engrossing interest to every man
before the mast. It affected no less delicate a
subject than the beauty of 'The Bashful Maid' her-
self, as typified by her figure-head. This work of
art had unfortunately suffered a slight defacement
in one of their late exploits, nearly the whole of
its nose having been carried away by an untoward
musket-shot. Such a loss had been replaced
forthwith by the ship's carpenter, who supplied his
idol with a far straighter, severer, and more clas-
sical feature than was ever yet beheld on the
human countenance. Its proportions were pro-
claimed perfect by the whole crew ; but though the
artist's execution was universally approved, his
florid style of colouring originated many conflict-
ing opinions and much loud discussion on the
first principles of imitative art. The carpenter
was a man of decided ideas, and made large use of
a certain red paint nearly approaching vermilion
in his flesh tints. ' The Bashful Maid's I nose,
therefore, bloomed with a hue as rosy as her
cheeks, and these, until toned down by wind and
weather, had been an honest scarlet. None of the
critics ventured to dispute the position that the
carpenter's theory was sound. Slap- Jack, indeed,

110 CERISE.

with a lively recollection of her wan face when he
took leave of his Alice, suggested that for his part
he liked them "a little less gaudy about the gills;"
but this heresy was ignominiously coughed down at
once. It was merely a question as to whether the
paint was, or was not, laid on too thick, and each
man argued according to his own experience of the
real human subject.

All the older hands (particularly Bottle- Jack,
who protested vehemently that the figure-head of
4 The Bashful Maid,' so far from being a representa-
tion of feminine beauty, was in fact an elevated
ideal of that seductive quality, a veiy model, to
be imitated, though hardly possible to be ap-
proached) were in favour of red noses, as adding
warmth and expression to the female face. Their
wives, their sweethearts, their sisters, their
mothers, their grandmothers, all had red noses,
and were careful to keep up the colouring by the
use of comforting stimulants. " What," said their
principal speaker, " was the pints of a figur'-head,
as laid down in the song? and no man on this
deck was a-goin' to set up his opinion again that,
he should think ! Wasn't 'em this here ? — >

" ' Eyes as black as sloes,
Cheeks like any rose/

DIRTY WEATHER. Ill

And if the song was payed-out further, which it
might or it might not, d'ye see, wouldn't the poet
have naturally added —

" With a corresponding nose ?"

It was a telling argument, and although two or
three of the foretop-men, smart young fellows,
whose sweethearts had not yet taken to drinking,
seemed disinclined to side with Slap-Jack, it
insured a triumphant majority, which ought to
have set the question at rest, even without the
conclusive opinion delivered by the negro.

<c Snowball," said Bottle- Jack, " you've not told
us your taste. Now you're impartial, you are,
a-cause you can't belong to either side. What say
ye, man ? Red or white ? Sing out and hoist
your ensign !"

The black nodded, grinned, and voted —

" Iss ! berry well," said he ; " like 'em white berry
well ; like 'em red berry better !"

At this interesting juncture, the men were a
good deal surprised by an order from the Captain
to " turn all hands up and shorten sail." They
rose from the deck, wondering and grumbling.
Two or three, who had been sleeping below, came
tumbling up with astonished faces and less
willing steps than usual. All seemed more or less

112 CERISE.

discontented, and muttered to each other that
" the skipper must be mad to shorten sail at mid-
night with a bright moon, and in a light breeze,
falling every moment to a calm !"

They went about the job somewhat unwillingly,
and indeed were so much less ready than usual as
to draw a good deal of animadversion from the
deck, something in this style —

"wNow, my lads, bear a hand, and look smart.
Foretop there! What are you about with that
foretopsail? Lower away on your after-haul-
yards ! Easy ! Hoist on those fore-haulyards, ye
lubbers ! Away with it, men ! Altogether, and
with a will! Why, you are going to sleep over it !
I'd have done it smarter with the crew of a
collier !"

To all which remonstrances, it is needless to say,
the well-disciplined Slap- Jack made no reply ; only
once, finding a moment to look to windward
from his elevated position as captain of the fore-
top, and observing a white mist-like scud low
down on the horizon, he whispered quietly to his
mate, then busied w7ith a reef-knot —

" Bio wed if he bain't right, arter all, Jem !
We'll be under courses afore the sun's up. If we
don't strike topmasts, they'll be struck for us, I

DIRTT WEATHER. 118

shouldn't -wonder. I see him once afore," ex-
plained Slap- Jack, jerking his head in the direc-
tion of the coming squall ; " and he's a Snorter,
mate, that's about wot he is !"

The Captain's precautions were not taken too
soon. The topsails were hardly close reefed, all
the canvas not absolutely required to steer the
brigantine had been hardly taken in, ere the
sky was darkened as if the moon had been sud-
denly snuffed out, and the squall was upon them.
1 The Bashful Maid ' lay over, gunwale under,
driving fiercely through the seething water, which
had not yet risen to the heavy sea that was too
surely coming. She plunged, she dived, she strained,
she quivered like some living thing striving
earnestly and patiently for its life. The rain hissed
down in sheets, the lightning lit up the slippery
deck, the dripping pale-faced men, the bending
spars, the straining tackle, and the few feet of
canvas that must be carried at any price. In the
quick-succeeding flashes every man on board could,
see that the others did their duty. From the
Captain, holding on by one hand, composed and
cheerful, with his speaking-trumpet in the other,
to the ship's boy. with his little bare feet and curl-
ing yellow hair, there was not a skulker amongst

VOL. II. I

114 CERISE.

them ! They remembered it long afterwards with
honest pride, and ' The Bashful Maid ' behaved
beautifully ! Yes, in defiance of the tempestuous
squall, blowing as it seemed from all points of the
compass at once ; in defiance of crackling lightning,
and thunder crashing overhead ere it rolled away
all round the horizon, reverberating over the ocean
for miles ; in defiance of black darkness and ]urid
gleams, and drenching rain, and the cruel raging
sea rising every moment and running like a mill-
race, Captain and crew were alike confident they
would weather it, and they did.

But it was a sadly worn and strained and
shattered craft that lay upon the fast subsiding
water, some six hours after the squall, under the
glowing sun of a" morning in the tropics ; a sun
that glinted on the sea till its heaving surface
looked all one sheet of burnished gold ; a sun that
was truly comforting to the drenched and wearied
crew, although its glare exposed pitilessly the
whole amount of damage the brigantine had sus-
tained. That poor s Bashful Maid ' was as different
now from the trim yacht-like craft that sailed past
the Needles, gaudy with paint and gleaming with
varnish, as is the dead sea-bird, lying helpless and
draggled on the wave, from the same creature

DIRTY WEATHER. 115

soaring white and beautiful, in all its pride of
power and plumage, against the summer-sky.

There was but one opinion, however, amongst
the crew as to the merits of the craft, and the way-
she had been handled. Not one of them, and it
was a great acknowledgment for sailors to make,
who never think their present berth the best — not
one of them had ever before sailed in any descrip-
tion of vessel which answered her helm so readily
or could lay her head so near the wind's eye —
not one of them had ever seen a furious tropical
squall weathered so scientifically and so success-
fully, nor could call to mind a Captain who seemed
so completely master of his trade. The three
Jacks compared notes" on the subject before turn-
ing in about sunrise, when the worst was indeed
over, but the situation, to a landsman at least,
would have yet appeared sufficiently precarious.
The brigantine was still driving before a heavy sea,
showing just so much canvas as should save her
from being becalmed in its trough, overtaken and
buried under the pursuing enemy. The gale was
still blowing with a fury that offered the best
chance of its force soon becoming exhausted, and
two men were at the helm under the immediate
supervision of the skipper himself.

12

116 CERISE.

Nevertheless, the three stout tars betook them-
selves to their berth without the slightest anxiety,
well aware that each would be sleeping like a
child almost before he could clamber into his
hammock.

But while he took off and wrung his dripping
sea-coat, Bottle-Jack observed sententiously to his
mates —

" Captain Kidd could fight a ship, my sons, and
Captain Kidd could sail a ship. Now if you asks
my opinion, it's this here — In such a squall as
we've a-weathered, or pretty nigh a-weathered,
Captain Kidd, he'd a-run afore it at once, an' he'd
a bin in it now. This here young skipper, he
laid to, so long as she could lay to, an' he never
run till he couldn't fight no more. That's why he'll
be out on it afore the middle watch. Belay now,
I'm a-goin' to caulk it for a spell."

Neither Smoke-Jack nor Slap-Jack were in a
humour for discussion, and each cheerfully con-
ceded the Captain's judicious seamanship ; the
former expressing his opinion that nothing in the
King's navy could touch the brigantine, and the
latter, recurring to his previous experience, rejoic-
ing that he no longer sailed under the gallant but
unseamanlike Captain Delaval.

DIRTY WEATHER. 117

The honest fellows, thoroughly wearied, were
soon in the land of dreams. Haunted no more
by visions of dancing spars, wet slippery ropes,
yards dipping in the waves, and flapping sails
strufr^linix wildly for the freedom that must be
their own destruction, and the whole ship's com-
pany's doom. No, their thoughts were of warm
sanded parlours, cheerful coal-fires, endless pipes
of tobacco, messmates singing, women dancing,
the unrestrained festivities and flowing ale-jugs of
the Fox and Fiddle. Perhaps, to the imagination
of the youngest, a fair pale face, loving and tearful,
stood out from all these jovial surroundings, and
Slap-Jack felt a purer and a better man while,
though but in imagination, he clasped his true and
tender Alice to his heart once more.

CHAPTER IX.

PORT WELCOME.

T -was a refreshing sight to behold Slap-
Jack, " rigged," as he was pleased to term
it, " to the nines," in the extreme of sea-
dandyism, enacting the favourite part of
a " liberty-man" ashore.

Nothing had been left undone for the brilliancy
of his exterior that could be achieved by scrub-
bing, white linen, and robust health. The smart
young captain of the foretop seemed to glow and
sparkle in the vertical sun, as he stood on the quay
of Port Welcome, and cast a final glance of pro-
fessional approval on. the yards he had lately squared
to a nicety and the trim of such gear and tackle
aloft as seemed his own especial pride and care.
'The Bashful Maid,' after all the butTetings she

PORT WELCOME. 119

had sustained, particularly from the late squall,
having made her port in one of the smallest and
most beautiful of the West India islands, now lay
at anchor, fair and motionless, like a living thing
sleeping on the glistening sea. It yet wanted some
hours of noon, nevertheless the sun had attained a
power that seemed to bake the very stones on the
quay, and warmed the clear limpid water fathom
deep. Even Slap-Jack protested against the heat,
as he lounged and rolled into the town, to find it
swarming with negroes of both sexes, sparingly
clothed, but with such garments as they did wear
glowing in the gaudiest colours, and carrying on
their hard, woolly heads baskets containing eggs,
kids, poultry, fruit, vegetables, and every kind of
market produce in the island. That island was
indeed one of those jewels of the Caribbean Sea to
which no description can do justice.

For the men left on board ' The Bashful Maid,'
now heaving drowsily at her anchor, it realized, with
its vivid and varied hues, its fantastic outlines, its
massive brakes, its feathery palms, its luxuriant
redundancy of vegetation, trailing and drooping to
the sparkling water's-edge, a sailor's idea of Para-
dise ; while for the three Jacks rolling into the
little town of Port Welcome, with its white houses

120 r CERISE.

straggling streets, frequent drinking-shops, and
swarming population — black, white, and coloured,
it represented the desirable haven of Fiddler's
Green, where they felt, no doubt, they had arrived
before their time. Slap-Jack made a remark to
that effect, which was cordially endorsed by his
comrades as they turned into the main thorough-
fare of the town, and agreed that, in order to enjoy
their holiday to the utmost, it was essential to com-
mence with something to drink all round.

Now, ' The Bashful Maid' having been already a
few days in port, had in that time disposed of a
considerable portion of her cargo, and such an
event as the arrival of a saucy brigantine, com-
bining the attractions of a man-of-war with the
advantages of a free-trader, not being an every-day
occurrence among the population of Port Welcome,
much stir, excitement, and increase of business was
the result. The French store -keepers bid eagerly
for wares of European manufacture, the French
planters sent their slaves down in dozens to pur-
chase luxuries only attainable from beyond sea,
while the negroes, grinning from ear to ear, jostled
and scolded each other in their desire to barter
yams, plantains, fruit, poultry, and even, on occa-
sion, pieces of actual money, for scarfs, gloves, per-

PORT WELCOME. 121

fumes, and ornaments — the tawdrier the better,
which they thought might add to the gloss of their
black skins, and set off their quaint, honest, ugly,
black faces to advantage.

Here and there, too, a Carib, one of the aborigi-
nal lords of the island, distinguished by his bronze
colour, his grave demeanour — so unlike the African,
and his disfigured nose, artificially flattened from
infancy, would stalk solemnly away, rich in the
possession of a few glass beads or a bit of tinsel, for
which he had bartered all his worldly wealth, and
which, like more civilized people, he valued, not
at its intrinsic worth, but at its cost price. The
three Jacks observed the novelties which surrounded
them from different points of view according to
their different characters, yet with a cool imperturb-
able demeanour essentially professional. To men
of their calling, nothing ever appears extraordinary.
They see so many strange sights in different coun-
tries, and have so little time to become acquainted
with the wonders they behold, that they soon
acquire a profound and philosophical indifference
to everything beyond their ordinary range of ex-
perience, persuaded that the astonishment of to-day
is pretty sure to be exceeded by the astonishment
of to-morrow. Neither can they easily discover any-

122 CERISE.

thing perfectly and entirely new, having usually wit-
nessed something of the same kind before, or heard
it circumstantially described at considerable length
by a messmate ; so that a seaman is but little
impressed with the sight of a foreign town, of which,
indeed, he acquires in an hour or two a knowledge
not much more superficial than he has of his native
village.

Bottle- Jack was in the habit of giving his opinion,
as he expressed it, " free." That it was compli-
mentary to Port Welcome, his comrades gathered
from the following sentiment : —

" I'm a' gettin' strained and weather-worn," ob-
served the old seaman, impressively, "and uncom-
mon dry besides. Tell ye what it is, mates — one
more cruise, and blowed if I won't just drop my
anchor here, and ride out the rest of my time all
snug at my moorings."

Smoke-Jack turned his quid with an expression
of intense disgust.

"And get spliced to a nigger, old man !" said he,
argumentatively. "Never go for to say it ! I'm
not a-goin' to dispute as this here's a tidy bit of a
island enough, and safe anchorage. Likewise, as
I've been told by them as tried it, plenty to drink,
and good. Nor I won't say but what a craft might

PORT WELCOME. 123

put in here for a spell to refit, do a bit of caulking,
and what not. But for dry-dock, mate, never go for to
say it. Why you couldn't get anything like a decent
missis, man, hereaway ; an' think o' the price o' beer !"

"Begardin' a missis," returned the other, reflec-
tively, '•'tain'tthe craft wot crowds the most canvas
as makes the best weather, mate, and at my years
a man looks less to raking masts an' a gay figur'-
head than to srood tonnage and wholesome breadth
of beam. Now, look ye here, mates — wot say ye
to this here craft ? — her with the red ensign at the
main, as is layin' to, like, with her fore-sheet to
windward and her helm one turn down ?"

"While he spoke, he pointed to our old acquaint-
ance, Celandine, who was cheapening fancy articles
at a store that spread its goods out under an
awning far into the middle of the modest street.
The Quadroon was, as usual, gorgeously dressed,
wearing the scarlet turban that covered her still
black hair majestically, as a queen carries her
diadem. Like the coloured race in general, she
seemed to have renewed her youth under a tropical
sun, and at a short distance, particularly in the eyes
of Bottle- Jack, appeared a fine-looking woman, with
pretensions to the remains of beauty still.

The three seamen, of course, ranged up alongside

124 CERISE.

for careful criticism, but Celandine's attention was
by no means to be distracted from the delightful
business of shopping she had on hand. Shawls,
scarfs, fans, gloves, tawdry jewels, and perfumery,
lay heaped in dazzling profusion on a shelf before
her, and the African blood danced in her veins with
childish glee at the tempting sight. The store-
keeper, a French Creole, with sharp features, sallow
complexion, and restless, down-looking black eyes,
taking advantage of her eagerness, asked three
times its value for every article he pointed out ; but
Celandine, though profuse, was not inexperienced,
and dearly loved, moreover, the feminine amuse-
ment of driving a bargain. Much expostulation
therefore, contradiction, wrangling, and confusion
of tongues was the result.

The encounter seemed at the warmest, and the
French Creole, notwithstanding his villainous coun-
tenance and unscrupulous assertions, was decidedly
getting the worst of it, when Slap-Jack's quick eye
detected amongst the wares exposed for sale certain
silks and other stuffs which had formed part of ' The
Bashful Maid's' cargo, and had, indeed, been wrested
by the strong hand from a Portuguese trader, after
a brisk chase and a running fight, which cost the
brigantine a portion of her bolt-sprit and two of

PORT WELCOME. 125

her smartest hands. The chest containing these
articles had been started in unloading, so that its
contents had sustained much damage from sea-
water. It was a breadth of stained satin out of
this very consignment that the Creole storekeeper
now endeavoured to persuade Celandine she would
do well to purchase at an exorbitant valuation.

Slap-Jack, like many of his calling, had picked
lip a smattering of negro-French, and could under-
stand the subject of dispute sufficiently to interfere,
a course from which he was not to be dissuaded by
his less impressionable companions.

"Let her be !" growled Smoke- Jack. "Wot call
have you now to come athwart-hawse of that there
jabbering mounseer, as a man might say, dredging
in his own fishing-ground ? It's no use hailing her,
I tell ye, mate, I knows the trim on 'em ; may-be
she'll lay her foresail aback, and stand ofT-and-on
till sun-down, then just when a man least expects it,
she'll up stick, shake out every rag of canvas, and
run for port. Bless ye, young and old, fair and foul,
black, white, and coloured, nigger, quadroon, and
mustee — I knows 'em all, and not one on 'em but
carries a weather-helm in a fresh breeze, and steers
wild and wilful in a sea-wTay."

But Slap-Jack was not to be diverted from his

12 G CERISE.

purpose. With considerable impudence, and an
impressive sea-bow, he walked up to Celandine
under the eyes of his admiring shipmates, and,
mustering the best negro-French at his command,
warned her in somewhat incomprehensible jargon
of the imposition intended to be practised. Now
it happened that Port Welcome, and the island in
which it was situated, had been occupied in its
varying fortunes by French, Spaniards, and English
so equally, that these languages, much corrupted
by negro pronunciation, were spoken indiscrimi-
nately, and often altogether. It was a great relief,
therefore, to Slap- Jack that Celandine thanked him
politely for his interposition in his native tongue,
and when she looked into the young foretop-man's
comely brown face, she found herself so fascinated
with something she detected there as to continue
the conversation in tolerably correct English, for the
purpose of improving their acquaintance. The sea-
man congratulated himself on having made so
happy a discovery, while his friends looked on in
mute admiration of the celerity with which he had
completed his conquest.

'•'He's a smart chap, mate," enunciated Bottle-
Jack, with a glance of intense approval at the two
figures receding up the sunny street, as Celandine

rOET WELCOME. 127

marched their companion off, avowedly for the
purpose of refreshing him with cooling drinks in
return for his good-nature — "a smart young chap,
and can hold his own with the best of 'em as ever
hoisted a petticoat, silk or dowlas. See now, that's
the way to do it in these here latitudes ! First he
hails 'em, speaking up like a man, then he ranges
alongside, and gets the grap piers out, and so tows
his prize into port in a pig's whisper. He's a smart
young chap, I tell ye, and a match for the sauciest
craft as ever sailed under false colours, and hoisted
a red pennant at the main."

But Smoke-Jack shook his head, and led his
shipmate, nothing loth, into a tempting store-house,
redolent with the fragrance of limes, tobacco, de-
caying melons, and Jamaica rum. He said nothing,
however, until he had quenched his thirst; then
after a vigorous pull at a tall beaker, filled with a
fragrant compound in which neither ice nor alcohol
had been forgotten, observed, as if the subject still
occupied his thoughts —

* I knows the trim on 'em, I tell ye ; I knows
the trim on 'em. As I says to the young chap
now, I never found one yet as would steer kind in a
sea-way."

Meanwhile, Celandine, moved by an impulse for

128 CERISE.

which she could not account, or perhaps dreading
to analyse a sentiment that might after all be
founded on a fallacy, led the young seaman into
a cool, quiet room in a wooden house, on the shady
side of the street, of which the apparent mistress
was a large bustling negress, with a numerous family
of jet-black children, swarming and crawling about
the floor like garden-snails after a shower. This
proprietress seemed to hold the Quadroon in con-
siderable awe, and was delighted to bring the best
her house afforded for the entertainment of such
visitors. Slap- Jack, accommodated with a deep
measure of iced rum-and-water, lit his pipe, played
with -the children, stared at his black hostess in
mmitigated astonishment, and prepared himself
to answer the questions it was obvious the Quad-
roon was burning to put.

Celandine hovered restlessly about the room,
fixing her bright black eyes upon the seaman
with an eager, inquiring glance, that she withdrew
hastily when she thought herself observed, and
thereby driving into a state of abject terror the
large sable hostess, whose pity for the victim, as
she believed him, at last overcame her fear of the
Quadroon, and impelled her to whisper in Slap-
Jack's ear —

PORT WELCOME. 129

u Obi-woman ! bruxa* buckra-massa, bruxa !
Mefi i-vous ! — Ojo-)nalo.f No drinkee for drunkee!
Look out! GarcT A warning utterly incom-
prehensible to its object, who winked at her
calmly over his tumbler, while he drank with
exceeding relish the friendly mother's health, and
that of her thriving black progeny.

There is nothing like a woman's tact to wind
the secrets out of a man's bosom, gradually, in-
sensibly, and by much the same smooth, delicate
process as the spinning of flax off a distaff. With
a few observations rather than questions, a few
allusions artfully put, Celandine drew from Slap-
jack an account of his early years, and an explana-
tion, offered with a certain pride, of the manner in
which he became a seaman. When he told her
how he had made his escape while a mere child
from his protector, whom he described as " the
chap wot wanted to bind him 'prentice to a saw-
bones," he was startled to see the Quadroon's
shining black eyes full of tears. He consoled her
in his own rough, good-humoured way.

" What odds did it make after all," argued
Slap-Jack, helping himself liberally to the rum-
and-water, " when I was out of my bed by

* A witch. t Evil oyo.

VOL. II. K

130 CERISE.

sunrise and down to the waterside to get aboard-
sliip in the British Channel, hours afore he was up,
and so Westward-ho ! and away ?• Don't ye take
on about it. A sailor I would be, and a sailor I
am. You ask the skipper if I'm not. He knows
my rating I should think, and whether I'm worth
my salt or no. Don't ye take on so, mother,
I say!"

But the Quadroon was weeping without conceal-
ment now.

" Call me that again V she exclaimed, sobbing
convulsively. u Call me that again ! I have not
been called mother for so long. Hush !" she
added, starting up, and laying her hand forcibly
on his lips. " Not another word. Fool ! Idiot
that I am ! Not another word. She can hear us.
She can understand;" and Celandine darted a
furious glance at the busy negress, which caused
that poor woman to shake like a jelly down to her
misshapen black heels.

Slap- Jack felt considerably puzzled. His pri-
vate opinion, as he afterwards confided to his
messmates, was, that the old lady not being drunk,
must be mad — a cheerful view, which was indeed
confirmed by what occurred immediately after-
wards.

PORT WELCOME. 131

In struggling to keep her hand upon his mouth,
she had turned back the deep, open collar of his
blue shirt till his brawny neck was exposed nearly
to the shoulder. Espying on that neck a certain
white mark, contrasting with the ruddy weather-
browned skin, she gave a half-stifled shriek, like
that with which a dumb animal expresses its rap-
ture of recognition ; and taking the man's head in
her arms, pressed it to her bosom, rocking herself
to and fro, while she wept and murmured over
him with an inexplicable tenderness, by which he
was at once astonished and alarmed.

For a few moments, and while the negress's
back was turned, she held him tight, but released
him when the other re-entered the room, exacting
from him a solemn promise that he would meet
her again at an indicated place, and adding that
she would then confide to him matters in which,
like herself, he was deeply interested, but which
must be kept religiously secret so long as he
remained in the island.

Slap- Jack, after he had finished his rum-and-

water, rejoined his comrades, a more thoughtful

man than he had left them. To their jests and

inquiries he returned vague and inconclusive

answers, causing Bottle- Jack to stare at him in

solemn wonder, and affording Smoke- Jack another

K 2

132 CERISE.

illustration of his theory as to the wilfulness of
feminine steerage in a °ea-way.

Celandine, on the contrary, walked through the
town with the jaunty step and bright vigilant eye
of one who has discovered some treasure that must
be guarded with a care proportioned to its value.
She bought no more trinkets from the store-
keepers now, she loitered no more to gossip with
sallow white, or shining negro, or dandy coloured-
man. At intervals her brow indeed clouded over,
and the scowl of which it was so capable deepened
ominously, while she clenched her hands and set
her teeth ; but the frown soon cleared away, and
she smiled bright and comely once more.

She had found her boy at last. Her first-born,
the image of her first love. Her heart warmed to
him from the very moment he came near her at
the store. She was sure of it long 'before she
recognized the mark on his neck — the same white
mark she had kissed a thousand times, when he
danced and crowed on her knees. It was joy, it
was triumph. But she must be very silent, very
cautious. If it was hard that a mother might not
openly claim her son, it would be harder still that
such acknowledgment should rivet on him the
yoke of a slavery to which he was born by that
mother, herself a slave.

CHAPTER X.

MONTMIEAIL WEST.

a distance of less than a league from
Port "Welcome stood the large and
flourishing plantation of Cash-a-erou,
known to the European population, and,
indeed, to many of the negroes, by the more
civilized appellation of Montmirail "West. It was
the richest and most important establishment on
the island, covering a large extent of cultivation,
reclaimed at no small cost of labour from the bush,
and worked by a numerous gang of slaves. Not a
negro wTas purchased for these grounds till he had
undergone a close inspection by the shrewd and
pitiless overseer, who never missed a good invest-
ment, be it Coromantee, Guinea-man, or Congo,
and never bought a hand, of however plausible an

134 CERISE.

appearance, in whom his quick eye could detect a
flaw ; consequently, no such cheerful faces, fresh
lips, sound teeth, strong necks, open chests, sinewy
arms, dry, large hands, flat stomachs, powerful
loins, round thighs, muscular calves, lean ankles,
high feet, and similar physical points of servile
symmetry, were to be found in any other gang as
in that which worked the wide clearings on the
Cash-a-crou estate, which, for convenience, we will
call by its more civilized name. It was said, how-
ever, that in the purchase of female negroes this
overseer was not so particular ; that a saucy eye,
a nimble tongue, and such an amount of good looks
as is compatible with African colouring and fea-
tures, found more favour in his judgment than
size, strength, substance, vigorous health, or the
prolific qualities so desirable in these investments.
The overseer, indeed, was a married man, living, it
was thought, in wholesome dread of his Quadroon
wife, and so completely did he identify himself
with the new character he had assumed, that even
Celandine could hardly believe her present husband
was the same Stefano Bartoletti who had wooed
her unsuccessfully in her girlhood, had met her
again under such strange circumstances in France,
eventually to follow her fortunes and those of her

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. loO

mistress, the Marquise, and obtain from the latter
the supervision of her negroes on the estate she
had inherited by her mother's will, which she
chose to call Montmirail West.

Bartoletti had intended to settle down for the
rest of his life in a state of dignified indolence
with Celandine. He had even offered to purchase
the Quadroon's freedom, which was generously
m to' her by the Marquise with that view, but
he had accustomed himself through the whole ot
his early life to the engrossing occupation of
money-making, and like many others he- found it
impossible to leave off. He and his wife now
devoted themselves entirely to the acquisition of
wealth ; she with the object of discovering her
long-lost son, he, partly from inborn covetousness,
and yet more from the force of habit. Quick,
shrewd, and indeed enterprising, where there was
no personal risk, he had been but a short time
in the service of the Marquise ere he became an
excellent overseer, by no means neglecting her
interests, while he was scrupulously attentive to
his own. The large dealings in human merchan-
dize which now occupied his attention afforded
scope for his peculiar qualities, and Signor Barto-
letti found few competitors in the slave-market

136 CERISE.

who, in caution, cupidity, and knowledge of busi-
ness, could pretend to be his equals. Moreover, he
dearly loved the constant speculation, amount-
ing to actual gambling, inseparable from such
transactions, nor was he averse, besides, to
that pleasing sensation of superiority experienced
by all but the noblest natures from absolute
authority, however unjustifiable, over their fellow-
creatures.

The Signor was a great man in the plantation,
a great man in Port Welcome, a great man on the
deck of. a trader just arrived with her swarthy
cargo from the Bight of Benin or the Gold Coast ;
but his proportions seemed to shrink and his step
to falter when he crossed the threshold of his
own home. The older negroes who knew he had
married an Obi-woman, and respected him for his
daring, were persuaded that he had been quelled
and brought into subjection through some charm
put upon him by Celandine. To the same magical
influence they attributed the Quadroon's favour
with her mistress, and this superstitious dread had
indeed been of service to both ; for a strong feel-
ing of dissatisfaction was gaining ground rapidly
amongst the blacks, and then, as now, notwith-
standing all that has been said and written in their

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 137

favour, they were less easily ruled by love than
fear.

It is not that they are naturally savage, inhuman,
brutal. Centuries of Christianity and cultivation
might probably have done for the black man what
they have done for the white ; but those centuries
have been denied him ; and if he is to be taken at
once from a state of utter ignorance and degrada-
tion to be placed on a footing of social equality
with those who have hitherto been his masters —
a race that has passed gradually through the
successive stages he is expected to compass in one
stride — surely it must be necessary to restrain him
from the excesses peculiar to the lusty adolescence
of nations, as of individuals, by some stronger
repressive influence than need be applied to the
staid and sober demeanour of a people arrived
long ago at maturity, if not already past theii
prime.

Signor Bartoletti did not trouble himself with
such speculations. Intimidation he found answered
his purpose tolerably, corporal punishment ex-
tremely well.

Passing from the supervision of some five-score
picking their labour out with great delibera-
tion amongst the clefts and ridges of a half-

133 CERISE.

cleared mountain, clothed to its summit in a tangle
of luxuriant beauty, he threaded a line of wattled
mud cottages, cool with thick heavy thatch, daz-
zling in whitewash, and interspersed with
fragrant almond-trees, breaking the scorching
sunlight into a thousand shimmering rays,
as they rustled and quivered to the whisper
of the land-breeze, not yet exhausted by the
heat.

At the door of one of these huts he spied a
comely negro girl, whose duties should have kept
her in the kitchen of the great house. He also ob-
served that she concealed something bulky under
her snowy apron, and looked stealthily about as if
afraid of being seen.

He had a step noiseless and sure as a cat ; she
never heard him coming, but started with a loud
scream when she felt his hand on her shoulder, and
incontinently began to cry.

" What have you got there, Fleurette ?" asked
the overseer, sternly. " Bring it out at once, and
show it up !"

" Nothing, Massa," answered Fleurette, of course,
though she was sobbing all the time. "It only
Aunt Rosalie's piccaninny. I take him in please,
just now, to his mammy, out of the wind."

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 139

There was but such a light breath of air as kept
die temperature below actual suffocation.

" Wind ! nonsense !" exclaimed Bartoletti, per-
spiring and exasperated. '"'Aunt Rosalie's child was
in the baby-yard half an hour ago ; here, let me
look at him !" and the overseer snatched up Fleu-
rette's apron to discover a pair of plump black
hands, clasped over a well-fattened turkey, cleaned,
plucked, and ready for the pot.

The girl laughed through her tears. " You funny
man, Signor '" said she archly, yet with a gleam
of alarm in her wild black eyes ; " you no believe
only when you see. Piccaninny gone in wash-tub
long since ; Fleurette talkee trash, trash ; dis lilly
turkey fed on plantation at Maria Galante ; good
father give um to Fleurette a-cause dis nigger
say •' Ave ' right through, and spit so at Mumbo-
Jumbo."

This story was less credible than the last, inas-
much as the adjoining plantation of Maria Galante,
cultivated by a few Jesuit priests, although in a
thriving condition and capable of producing the
finest poultry reared, was more than an hour's walk
from where they stood, and it was impossible that
Fleurette could have been absent so long from her
duties at that period of the day. So Bartoletti,

140 CERISE,

placing his hand in his waistcoat, pulled out a cer-
tain roll, which the slaves called his " black book,"
and inserted Fleurette's name therein for corporal
punishment to the amount of stripes awarded for
the crime of theft.

It was a common action enoEgh ; scarce a day
passed, scarce even an hour, without the production
of this black book by the overseer, and a torrent
of entreaties, couched in the mingled jargon of
French, Spanish, and British, I have endeavoured
to render through the conventional negro- English,
which indeed formed its basis, from the unfortunate
culprit whose name was thus inscribed ; but on this
occasion Fleurette seemed to entertain a morbid
terror of the ordeal quite out of proportion to its
frequency, and, indeed, its severity — for though
sufficiently brutal, the lash was not dangerous to
life or limb. She screamed, she wept, she prayed,
she caught the overseer by his knees and clasped
them to her bosom, entreating him, with a frantic
earnestness that became almost sublime, to spare
her this degradation ! to forgive her only this once !
to bid her work night and day till crop-time, and
then to send her into the field-gang for the hardest
labour they could devise — nay, to sell her to the
first trader that touched at Port Welcome never to

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 141

look on her home at Cash-a-erou again — anything,
anything, rather than tie her to a stake and flog
her like a disobedient hound !

But Bartoletti was far too practised an overseer
to be in the slightest degree moved by such en-
treaties. Replacing the black book in his waist-
coat, he walked coolly away, without deigning to
look back at his despairing suppliant, writhing
under such a mixture of grief and shame as soon
maddened into rage. Perhaps, had he done so, he
would have been frightened into mercy, for a bolder
man than the Italian might have been cowed by the
glare of that girl's eyes, when she drew up her slen-
der figure, and clenching her hands till the nails
pierced them, spat after him with an intensity of
hatred that wanted only opportunity to slake its
fierce desire in blood.

The Signer, however, wiping his brow, uncon-
scious, passed quietly on, to report his morning's
work to the Marquise, and obtain her sanction for
Fleurette's punishment, because the mistress never
permitted any slave on her estate to be chastised
but by her own express command.

Long years ago, when his heart ~was fresh and
high, the Italian had spent a few months in this
very island, a period to which he still looked back

142 CERISE

as to the one bright ray that gilded his dreary, wan-
dering, selfish life. It was here he met Celandine
while both were young, and wooed her with little
encouragement indeed, for she confessed honestly
enough that he was too late, yet not entirely
without hope. And now in gleams between the
cane-pieces he could catch a glimpse of that silver-
spread lagoon by which they had walked more than
once in the glowing evenings, till darkness, closing
without warning like a curtain, found them together
still.

He had conceived for himself then an ideal of
Paradise which had never in after years faded com-
pletely away. To win the Quadroon for his own
— to make himself a peaceful home in easy circum-
stances, somewhere amidst this tangled wilderness
of beauty from which Port Welcome peeped out on
the Caribbean Sea — to sit in his own porch and watch
the tropical sunset dying off through its blended
hues of gold, and crimson, and orange, into the
pale, serene depths of opal, lost ere he could look
again, amongst the gathering shades of night — such
were his dreams, and at last he had realized them
to the letter; but he never watched the sunset now,
nor walked by the cool glistening lagoon with the
woman whom in his own selfish way he had loved

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 143

for half a lifetime. She was his wife, you see, and
a very imperious wife she proved. When he had
leisure to speculate on such matters,! which was
seldom, he could not but allow that he was dis-
appointed ; that the ideal was a fallacy, the romance
a fiction, the investment a failure ; practically, the
home was dull, the lagoon damp, and the sunset
moonshine !

Therefore, as he walked on, though the material
Paradise was there, as it had always been, he never
wasted a look or thought on its glowing beauties,
intent only on the dust that covered his shoes, the
thirst that fired his throat, and the perspiration
that streamed from his brow. Yet palm, cocoa,
orange, and lime tree were waving overhead ;
while the wild vine, pink, purple, and delicate
creamy-white, winding here about his path, ran fifty
feet aloft round some bare stem to which it clung
in a succession of convolvulus-like blossoms from
the same plant he trod beneath his very feet. Birds
of gaudy feather — purple, green, and flaming scar-
let, flashed from tree to tree with harsh, discordant
cries, and a Louis d'or flitted round him in its
bright, golden plumage, looking, as its name implies,
.ike a guinea upon wings.

The cn-ass-^rown road he followed was indeed an

144: CERISE.

avenue to the great house, and as he neared his
destination he passed another glimpse of tropical
scenery without a glance. It was the same view
that delighted the eyes of the Marquise daily from
her sitting-room, and that Cerise would look at
in quiet enjoyment for hours.

A slope of vivid green, dotted with almond-trees,
stretched away from the long, low, white building
to a broad, clear river, shining between the plan-
tains and bananas that clothed its banks ; beyond
these, cattle pasture and cane-pieces shot upward
in variegated stripes through the tangled jungle of
the steep ascent, while at short intervals hog-plum,
or other tall trees of the forest, reared their heads
-against the cloudless sky, to break the dark thick
mass that clothed the mountain to its very summit
— save where some open, natural savannah, with
its crop of tall, rank, feathering grass, relieved the
eye from the vivid colouring and gaudy exuberance
of beauty in which nature dresses these West Indian
slands.

Bartoletti knew well that he should find the
Marquise in her sitting-room, for the sun was still
high and the heat intense; none therefore but
slaves, slave-drivers, or overseers would be abroad
for hours. The Sisrnor had however been reduced

MONTMIRAIL WEST. 1 45

to such proper subjection by Celandine that he
never ventured to approach the Marquise without
making a previous report to his wife, and as the
Quadroon had not yet returned from the visit to
Port Welcome, in which she made acquaintance
with Slap-Jack, some considerable delay took
place before the enormity of Fleurette's pecula-
tions could be communicated to her mistress.

3 [other and daughter were inseparable here, in
the glowing tropical heat, as under the cool
breezes and smilins: skies of their own beautiful

o

France, a land to which they constantly reverted
with a longing that seemed only to grow more and
more intense as every hour of their unwelcome
banishment dragged by.

They were sitting in a large low room, with the
smallest possible amount of furniture and the
greatest attainable of air. To insure a thorough
draught, the apartment occupied the whole breadth
of the house, and the windows, scarcely closed
from year's-end to year's-end, were placed opposite
each other, so that there was free ingress on all
sides for the breeze that, notwithstanding the
burning heat of the climate, blows pretty regularly
in these islands from morning till night and from
night till morning. It wafted through the whole

vol. ir. L

146 CERISE.

apartment the fragrance of a large granadilla, cut
in half for the purpose, that stood surrounded by a
few shaddocks, limes, and pomegranates, heaped
together like a cornucopia on a small table in the
corner ; it fluttered the leaves of a book that lay-
on Mademoiselle de Montmirail's knee, who was
pretending to read with her eyes resting wearily
on a streak of blue sea, far off between the
mountains, and it lifted the dark hair from the
temples of the Marquise, fanning with grateful
breath, yet scarce cooling, the rich crimson of
her cheek.

The resemblance between these two grew closer
day by day. While the mother remained stationary
at that point of womanly beauty to which the
daughter was approaching, figure and face, in each,
became more and more alike ; and though the
type of the elder was still the richer and more
glowing, of the younger, the more delicate and
classical, Cerise seemed unaccountably to have
gained some of that spirit and vitality which the
Marquise seemed as unaccountably to have lost.

Also on the countenance of each might be
traced the same expression, the longing, wistful
look of those who live in some world of their own,
out of and far beyond the present, saddened in the

M0NTMIRA1L WEST. 147

woman's face with memory as it was brightened in
the girl's by hope.

"It is suffocating !" exclaimed the former, rising
restlessly from her seat, and pushing the hair off
her temples with a gesture of impatience. '' Cerise,
my darling, are you made of stone that you do not
cry out at this insupportable heat ? It irritates me
to see you sit reading there as calmly as if you
could feel the wind blowing off the heights of
Montrnartre in January. It seems as if the sun
would never go down in this oven that they call an
island."

Cerise shut her book and collected her scattered
ideas with an obvious effort. "I read, mamma,"
she answered smiling, " because it is less fatiguing
than to think, but I obtain as little result from the
one process as the other. Do you know, I begin to
believe the stories we used to hear in Paris about
the West Indies, and I am persuaded that we shall
not only be shrivelled up to mummies in a few
more weeks, but that our tongues will be so dry
and cracked as to be incapable of expressing our
thoughts, even if our poor addled brains could
form them. Look at Pierrot even, who is a
native ; he has not said a syllable since breakfast."
Pierrot however, like the historical parrot of all

L L>

148 CERISE.

ages, though silent on the present occasion, doubt-
less thought the more, for the attitude in which he
held his head on one side, peering at his young
mistress with shrewd unwinking eye, implied
perceptions more than human, nay, even diabolical
in their malignant sagacity.

"What can I do?" said the Marquise vehe-
mently, pacing the long room with quick steps ill
suited to the temperature and the occasion. "While
the Regent lives I can never return to Paris. For
myself, I sometimes fancy I could risk it ; but when
I think of you, Cerise — I dare not — I dare not ;
that's the truth. An insult, an injury, he might
iorgive, or at least forget ; but a scene in which he
enacted the part of the Pantaleone, whom every-
body kicks and cuffs ; in which he was discovered
as a coxcomb, an intruder, and a polisson, and
through the whole of which he is conscious, more-
over, that he was intensely ridiculous — I protest
to you I cannot conceive any outrage so horrible
as to satisfy his revenge. No, my child, for
generations my family have served the Bourbons,
and we should know what they are : with all their
good qualities there are certain offences they can
never forgive, and this Eegent is the worst of the
line."

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 149

"Then, mamma," observed Cerise cheerfully,
though she smothered a sigh, ''we must have
patience and live where we are. It might be
worse/' she added, pointing to the streak of deep-
blue sea that belted the horizon. "This is a
wider view and a fairer than the dead wall of
Yincennes or the gratings of the Bastile, and
some day, perhaps, some of our friends from France
may drop in quite unexpectedly to offer their
homage to Madame la Marquise. How the dear
old Prince-Marshal would gasp in this climate,
and how dreadfully he would swear at the lizards,
centipedes, galley-wasps, red ants, and cockroaches !
He who, brave as he is, never dared face a spider
or an earwig ! Mamma, I think if I could see his
face over a borer-worm, I should have one more
good laugh, even in such a heat as this."

"You might laugh, my dear,'' answered her
mother, " but I think I should be more inclined to
cry — yes, to cry for sheer joy at seeing him again.
I grant you he was a little ridiculous ; but what
courage ! what sincerity ! what a true gentleman !
I hear that he too is out of favour at the Palais
Royal, and has returned to his estates at Chateau-
Guerrand. His coach was seen near the Hotel
Montinirail the night of Monsieur le Due's

150 CERISE.

creditable escapade, and that is crime enough, I
conclude, to balance a dozen battles and forty
years of loyal service to the throne. No, Cerise, I
tell you while the monster lives we must remain
exiled in this purgatory of fire. But my friends
keep me well informed of passing events. I hear
his health is failing. They tell me his face is
purple now in the mornings when he comes to
Council, and he drinks harder than ever with his
roues at night. Of course, my child, it would be
wicked to wish for the death of a fellow-creature,
but while there is a Kegent in France you and I
must be content with the lizards and the cock-
roaches for society, and for amusement, the super-
vision of these miserable, brutalized negro slaves."

" Poor things !" said the younger lady tenderly. " I
am sure they have kind hearts under their black
skins. I cannot but think that if they were taught
and encouraged, and treated less like beasts of
burden, they would show as much intelligence as
our own peasants at La Fierte or the real M ont-
mirail. Why, Fleurette brought me a bouquet of
jessamines and tuberoses yesterday, with a compli-
ment to the paleness of my complexion that could
not] have been outdone by Count Point d'Appui
himself. Oh ! mamma, I wish you would let me

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 151

establish my civil code for the municipal govern-
ment of the blacks."

"You had better let it alone, my child,"
answered the Marquise gravely. " Wiser brains
than yours have puzzled over the problem, and
failed to solve it. I have obtained all the informa-
tion in my power from those whose experience is
reliable, and considered it for myself besides, till my
head ached. It seems to me that young colonists,
and all who know nothing about negroes, are for
encouragement and indulgence ; old planters, and
those who are well acquainted with their nature,
for severity and repression. I would not be cruel ;
far from it. But as for treating them like white
people, Cerise, in my opinion all such liberality is
sheer nonsense. Jaques and Pierre, at home, are
ill-fed, ill -clothed (I wish it were -not so), up early,
down late, and working often without intermis-
sion from sunrise till sunset ; nevertheless, Jaques
or Pierre will doff his red cap, tuck up his blouse,
and run a league bareheaded, after a hard day's
work, if you or I lift up a finger; and why? —
because we are La Fiertes or Montmirails. But
Hippolyte or Achille, fat J strong, lazy, well-fed,
grumbles if he is bid to carry a message to the
boiling-house after his eight hours' labour, and only

152 CERISE.

obeys because he knows that Bartoletti can order
him a hundred lashes by my authority at his
discretion."

" I do not like the Italian, mamma ! I am sure
that man is not to be trusted," observed Cerise in-
consequently, being a young lady. " What could
make my dear old bonne marry him, I have never
been able to discover. He is an alchemist, you
know, and a conjuror, and worse. I shudder to
think of the stories they told about him at home,
and I believe he bewitched her !"

Here Mademoiselle de Montmirail crossed her-
self devoutly, and her mother laughed.

"He is a very good overseer," said she, "and
as for his necromancy, even if he learned it from
the Prince of Darkness, which you seem to believe,
I fancy Celandine would prove a match for his
master. Between them, the Signor, as he calls
himself, and his wife, manage my people wonder-
fully well, and this is no easy matter at present,
for I am sorry to say they show a good deal of
insubordination and ill-will. There is a spirit of
disaffection amongst them," added the Marquise,
setting her red lips firmly together, "that must
be kept down with the strong hand. I do not
mind your going about amongst the house negroes,

MOXTMIRAIL WEST. 153

Cerise, or noticing the little children, though
taking anything black on your lap is, in my
opinion, an injudicious piece of condescension ; but
I would not have you be seen near the field-
gang at jDresent, men or women, and above all,
never trust them. Not one is to be depended on
except Celandine, for I believe they hate her as
much as her husband, and fear her a great deal
more."

The Marquise had indeed cause for uneasiness
as to the condition of her plantation, although she
had never before hinted so much to her daughter,
and indeed, like the generality of people who live
on the crust of a volcano, she forced herself to
ignore the danger of which she was yet uncomfort-
ably conscious. For some time, perhaps ever since
the arrival of the Italian overseer, there had been
symptoms of discontent and disaffection among
the slaves. The work indeed went on as usual,
for Bartoletti was unsparing of the lash, but
scarce a week passed without a runaway betak-
ing himself to the bush, and vague threats, fore-
runners of some serious outbreak, had been heard
from the idlest and most mutinous of the gang
when under punishment. It would not have been
well in such difficulties to relax the bonds of

154 CERISE.

discipline, yet it was scarcely wise to draw them
tighter than before. The Marquise, however, came
of a race that had never yet learned to yield, and
to which, for generations, the assertion of his rights
by an inferior had seemed an intolerable presump-
tion that must be resisted to the death. As her
slaves, therefore, grew more defiant, she became
more severe, and of late the slightest offences had
been visited with the utmost rigour, and under no
circumstances passed over without punishment.
It was an unfortunate time therefore that poor
Meurette had chosen to be detected in the ab-
straction of a turkey ready plucked for cooking,
and she could not have fallen into worse hands
than those of the pitiless Italian overseer.

The Marquise had scarce concluded her warn-
ing, ere Bartoletti entered the sitting-room with
his daily report.' His manner was extremely
obsequious to Madame de Montrnirail, and polite
beyond expression to mademoiselle. The former
scarcely noticed his demeanour at any time ; the
latter observed him narrowly, with the air of a
child who watches a toad or any such object for
which it feels an unaccountable dislike.

Cerise usually left the room soon after the
Signor entered it, but something in her mother's

MONTMIRAIL WEST. 155

face on the present occasion, as she ran her eye
over the black book, induced her to remain.

The Marquise read the punishment list twice ;
frowned, hesitated, and looked discomposed.

"It is her first offence?" said she, inquiringly.
'• And the girl is generally active and well-behaved
enough."

"Pardon, Madame la Marquise," answered
Bartoletti. " Madame forgave her only last week
when she lost half a dozen of mademoiselle's
handkerchiefs, that she had taken to wash; or
said she lost them," he added pointedly.

u Oh ! mamma !" interposed Cerise, but the
Marquise checked her with a sign, and Bartoletti
proceeded.

a One of her brothers is at the head of a gang
of Maroons* who infest the very mountains above
our cane-pieces, and another ran away to join him
last week. They say at the plantation we dare
not punish any of the family, and I am pledged to
make an example of the first that comes into my
hands."

"Very well," said the Marquise, decidedly,
returning his black book to her overseer, and

* Runaway negroes who join in bands and live by plunder in
the wood*.

156 CERISE.

observing to Cerise, who was by this time in tears,
M A case, my dear, that it would be most injudi-
cious to pardon. After all, the pain is not much,
and the disgrace, you know, to this sort of people
is nothing !"

CHAPTER XL

BLACK, BUT COMELY.

RANSPLANTED like some delicate
flower from her native soil to this
glowing West-Indian island, Mademoi-
selle cle Montmirail had lost but little of
the freshness that bloomed in the Norman con-
vent, and had gained a more decided colouring
and a deeper expression, which added the one
womanly grace hitherto wanting in her beauty.
Even the negroes, chattering to one another as
they hoed between the cane-rows, grinned out their
approval of her beauty, and Hippolyte, a gigantic
and hideous Coromantee, imported from Africa,
had been good enough to express his opinion that
she only wanted a little more colour, as he called
it, meaning a shade of yellow in her skin, to be

158 CERISE.

handsome enough for his wife; whereat his
audience shouted and showed their white teeth,
wagging their woolly heads applauding, while the
savage shook his great black shoulders, and looked
as if he thought more unlikely events might come
to pass.

Had it not been for these very slaves, who gave
their opinions so freely on her personal appearance,
Cerise would have been tolerably happy. She
was, indeed, far from the scenes that were most
endeared to her by memory and association. She
was very uncertain when or how she should return
to France, and until she returned, there was
apparently no hope, however remote, that she
could realize a certain dream which now con-
stituted the charm of her whole life. Still the
dream had been dreamed, vague, romantic, wild,
and visionary ; yet the girl dwelt upon it day by
day, with a tenderness and a constancy the deeper
and the more enduring that they seemed so
hopeless and so thrown away.

I would not have it supposed, however, that
Mademoiselle de Montmirail was a foolish love-
sick maiden, who allowed her fancies to become
the daily business of her life. On the contrary,
she went through her duties scrupulously, making

BLACK, BUT COMELY. 159

for herself occupation where she did not find it,
helping her mother, working, reading, playing,
improving her mind, and doing all she could for
the negroes on the estate, but tinging everything
unconsciously, whether of joy or sorrow, trouble or
pleasure, with the rosy light of a love she had
conceived without reason, cherished without re-
flection, and now brooded over without hope, in
the depths of her own heart.

But although the welfare of the slaves afforded
her continual occupation, and probably prevented
her becoming utterly wearied and overpowered by
the sameness of her daily life, their wilfulness,
their obstinacy, their petulant opposition to every
experiment she was disposed to try for their
moral and physical benefit, occasioned her mairy an
hour of vexation and depression. Above all, the
frequency of corporal punishment, a necessity of
which she was dimly conscious, but would by no
means permit herself to acknowledge, cut her to
the heart. Silently and earnestly she would think
over the problem, to leave it unsolved at last,
because she could not but admit that the dictates
of her feelings were opposed to the conclusions of
her reason. Then she would wish she had abso-
lute power on the plantation, would form vague

160 CERISE.

schemes for the enlightenment of their own people
and the enfranchisement of every negro as he
landed, till, having once entered on the region of
romance, she would pursue her journey to its usual
termination, and see herself making the happiness
of every one about her, none the less earnestly
that the desire of her own heart was granted, her
schemes, her labours, all her thoughts and feelings
shared by the Grey Musketeer, whom yet it
seemed so improbable she was ever to see again.

It wanted an hour of sunset. The evening
breeze had set in with a refreshing breath that
fluttered the skirt of her white muslin dress and
the pink ribbons on her wide straw hat, as Made-
moiselle de Montmirail strolled towards the negro-
houses, carrying a tisane she had herself prepared
for Aunt Rosalie's sick child. The slaves were
already trooping down from the cane-pieces,
laughing, jesting, singing, carrying their tools over
their shoulders and their baskets or calabashes on
their heads. A fat little negro of some eight years
old, who reminded Cerise of certain bronze casts
that held wax-lights in the Hotel Montmirail, and
who was indeed little less sparingly clad than
those works of art, came running by, his saucy-
features shining with a merry excitement, in such

BLACK, BUT COMELY. 161

haste that he could only pull himself up to make
her a droll little reverence when he was almost
under her feet. She recognized him as an elder
brother of the very infant she was about to visit,
and asked if baby was any better, but the child
seemed so intent on some proceeding of his own
that she could not extort an answer.

w What is it, Hercule ?" said she, laying her
white hand on the little knotted woolly head.
""Where are you off to in such a hurry? Is it a
dance at the negro-houses, or a merry-making in
the Square ?"

The Square was a clear space, outside the huts of
the field negroes, devoted to occasions of unusual
display, and Hercule's thoughts were as obviously
turned in that direction as his corpulent little
person.

" Better bobbery nor dance," answered the imp,
looking up earnestly in her face. "M'amselle
Fleurette tied safe to howling-tree ! Massa
Hippolyte, him tall black nigger, floggee criss-cross.
So ! Make dis good little nigger laugh, why for, I
go see !" and away scampered Hercule as fast as
his short legs would carry him, followed by Cerise,
who felt her cheek paling and her blood tingling
to her fingers'-ends.

VOL. II. M

162 CERISE.

But Aunt Rosalie's baby never got the tisane, for
Mademoiselle de Montmirail spilt it all as she
hurried on.

Coming beyond the rows of negro-houses, she
found a large assemblage of slaves, both men and
women, ranged in a circle, many of the latter
being seated on the ground, with their children
crawling about their feet, while the fathers looked
over the heads of their families, grinning in
curiosity and delight.

They were all eager to enjoy one of those
spectacles to which the Square, as they chose to
call it, was especially devoted.

In the centre of this open space, with the saffron
light of a setting sun full upon her closed eyes and
contracted features, cowered poor Fleurette, naked
to the waist, secured hand and foot to a strong
upright post which prevented her from falling,
with her wrists tied together and drawn to a level
somewhat higher than her head, so that she was
unable even to contract her shoulders for protection
from the lash. Though her shapely dark form
and bosom were thus exposed, she seemed to feel
less shame than fear ; but the reason was now
obvious why she had shrunk with such unusual
terror from her odious and degrading punishment.

BLACK, BUT COMELY. 163

Looking on with callous indifference, and hold-
ing his black book in his hand, stood Bartoletti,
austerely satisfied with this public recognition of his
authority, but little interested in the result, save
as it affected the length of time, more or less,
during which the victim would be incapacitated
from service.

Behind the girl, and careful to remain at such a
distance as allowed room for the sweep of his right
arm. was stationed the most hideous figure in the
scene : a tall powerful Coromantee negro, African-
born, with all his savage propensities intensified by
food, servitude, and the love of rum. He bran-
dished a long-lashed, knotted whip in his broad
hand, and eyeing the pliant shrinking figure
before him, grinned like a demon in sheer desire
of blood.

He was to take his cue from the overseer. At
the moment Cerise rounded the last of the ne°ro-
houses and came into full view of this revolting
spectacle, Bartoletti's harsh Italian voice grated on
the silence — " One !"

Hippolyte, such was the Coroman tee's inappro-
priate name, drew himself back, raised his brawny
arm, and the lash fell with a dull jerk, deadened
by the flesh into which it cut.

m 2

164 CERISE.

There was a faint moan, and the poor back
quivered in helpless agony.

Cerise, in her white dress, burst through the
sable circle like a flash.

" Two !" grated that harsh voice, and again the
cruel lash came down, but it was dripping now
with blood, and a long wailing shriek arose that
would not be suppressed.

" Halte Id /" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Mont-
mirail, standing in the midst, pale, trembling,
dilated, and with fire flashing from her blue
eyes. " Take that girl down ! this instant ! I
command it! Let me see who will dare to
disobey !"

Even Hippolyte shrunk back, like some grotesque
fiend rebuked. -Bartoletti strove to expostulate,
but somehow he was awed by the beauty of that
holy wrath, so young, so fair, so terrible, and he
dared not lift his eyes to meet those scorching
looks. He cowered, he trembled, he signed to two
negro women to obey mademoiselle, and then
slunk doggedly away.

Cerise passed her arm caressingly round
Fleurette's neck, she wiped the poor torn shoul-
ders with her own laced handkerchief, she rested
the dark woolly head on her bosom, and lifting

BLACK, BUT COMELY. 165

the slave's face to her own, kissed her, once, twice,
tenderly and pitifully on the lips.

Then Fleurette's tears gushed out : she sank to
her young mistress's knees, she grovelled at her
very feet, she kissed them, she hugged them, she
pressed them to her eyes and mouth ; she vowed,
she sobbed, she protested, and, at least while her
passion of gratitude and affection lasted, she spoke
no more than the truth when she declared that
she asked no better than to consecrate every drop
of blood in her body, her life, her heart, her soul,
to the service of Mademoiselle de Montmirail.

CHAPTER XII.

A WISE CHILD.

HE < Bashful Maid ' was still lying
peacefully at anchor in the harbour
of Port Welcome, yards squared, sails
furled, decks polished to a dazzling
white, every article of gear and tackle denoting
profound repose, even the very pennon from her
truck drooping motionless in the heat. Captain
George spent much of his time below, making up
his accounts, with the invaluable assistance of
Beaudesir, who, having landed soon after their
arrival, remained an hour or two in the town, and
returned to the brigantine, expressing no desire for
further communication with the shore.

George himself postponed his visit to the island
until he had completed the task on which he was

A WISE CHILD. 167

engaged. In the meantime he gave plenty of
liberty to the crew, an indulgence of which none
availed themselves more freely than Slap- Jack and
his two friends.

These last indeed seldom stirred beyond the
town. Here they found all they wanted in the
shape of luxury or amusement: strong tobacco,
new rum, an occasional scrape of a fiddle with a
thrumming accompaniment on the banjo, nothing
to do, plenty to drink, and a large room to smoke in.
But the foretop-man was not so easily satisfied.
Much to the disgust of his comrades, he seemed to
weary of their society, to have lost his relish for
fiery drinks and sea stories ; nay, to have acquired
diverse tastes and ha~bits, foreign to his nature and
derogatory to his profession.

" Gone cruisin' thereaway," observed BottlS- Jack,
vaguely waving his pipe in the direction of the
mountains. " Never taken no soundings, nor kept
no dead reckoning, nor signalled for a pilot, but
just up foresail, drive-a-head, stem on, happy-go-
lucky, an' who cares !" While Smoke- Jack, puffing
out solemn clouds of fragrant Trinidado, enunciated
sententiously that he " Warn't a goin' to dispute
but what every craft should hoist her own ensign
an' lay her own course ; but when he see a able

168 CERISE.

seaman clearing out from such a berth as this
here, leaving the stiffest of grog and the strongest
of ' bacca ' a-cause of a old yaller woman with a
red burgee, why, he knowed the trim on 'em, that
was where it was. See if it wasn't. Here's my
service to you, mate — All ships at sea !"

Long ere the two stanch friends, however, had
arrived at this intelligible conclusion, the object of
their anxiety was half-way up the mountain, in
fulfilment of the promise he had made Celandine
to meet her at an appointed place.

In justice to Slap-Jack, it is but fair to admit
that his sentiments in regard to the Quadroon were
those of keen curiosity mingled with pity for the
obvious agitation under which she seemed to labour
in his presence. Fair Alice herself, far off in her
humble home among the downs, need not have
grudged the elder woman an hour of her young
seaman's society, although every minute of it
seemed so strangely prized by this wild, energetic,
and mysterious person, with her swarthy face, her
scarlet head-dress, and her flashing eyes, gleaming
with the fierce anxious tenderness of a leopardess
separated from her whelps.

Slap-Jack's sea legs had hardly time to become
fatigued, ere at a turn in the mountain-path he

A WISE CHILD. 169

found Celandine waiting for him, and somewhat to
his disgust, peering about in every direction, as if
loth to be observed ; a clandestine interpretation of
their harmless meeting which roused the young
seaman's ire, and against which he would have
vehemently protested, had she not placed her hand
over his mouth and implored him urgently, though
in a whisper, to keep silence. Then she bade him
follow, still below her breath, and so preceded him
up the steep ascent with cautious, stealthy steps,
but at a pace that made the foretop-man's un-
accustomed knees shake and his breath come
quick.

The sun was hot, the mountain high, the path
overgrown with cactus and other prickly plants,
tangled with creepers and not devoid of snakes.
Monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, glittering
insects quivered like tinsel in the sun, or darted
like flashes of coloured light across the forest-
shade. Vistas of beauty, such as he had never
dreamed of, opened out on either side, and looking
back more than once to take breath while he
ascended, the deep blue sea lay spread out beneath
him, rising broader and broader to meet the blue
transparent sky.

But Slap-Jack, truth to tell, was sadly indifferent

170 CERISE.

to it all. Uneasiness of the legs sadly counteracted
pleasure of the eye. It was with considerable
gratification that he observed his leader diverge
from the upward path, and rounding the shoulder
of the hill, take a direction .somewhat on the
downward slope. Then he wiped his brows, with
a sigh of relief, and asked audibly enough for
something to drink.

She seemed less afraid of observation now,
although she did not comply with his request, but
pointed downward to a dark hollow, from which
ascended a thin, white, spiral line of smoke, the
only sign denoting human habitation in the midst
of this luxuriant wilderness of tropical growth aud
fragrance. Then, parting the branches with both
hands, she dived into the thicket, to stop at the
door of a hut, so artfully concealed amongst the
dense luxuriant foliage that a man might have
passed within five yards and never known it was
there but for the smoke.

Celandine closed the door cautiously behind her
visitor, handed him a calabash of water, into which
she poured some rum from a goodly stone jar —
holding at least a gallon — watched him eagerly
while he drank, and when he set the measure
down, flung both arms round his neck, and kissing

A WISE CHILD. 171

him all over the eyes and face, murmured in
fondest accents —

" Do you not know why I have brought you
here ? Do you not know who and what you are ?"

" I could have told you half an hour back,"
answered Slap-Jack, with a puzzled air, " but so
many queer starts happen hereaway, mother, that
I'm blessed if I can tell you now."

Tears shone in the fierce black eyes that never
left his face, but seemed to feast on its comeliness
with the desire of a famished appetite for food.

" Call me mother again !" exclaimed the Qua-
droon. " You called me mother down yonder at
the store, and my heart leaped to hear the word.
Sit ye down, my darling, there in the light, where
I can see your innocent face. How like you are
to your father, my boy ! You've got his own bold
eyes, and broad shoulders, and large, strong hands.
I could not be deceived. I knew you from the
first. Tell me true ; you guessed who I was. You
would never have gone up to a stranger as you did
to me !"

Slap-Jack looked completely mystified. Wisely
reflecting, however, that if a woman be left
uninterrupted she will never " belay," as he
subsequently observed, "till she has payed out the

1 72 CERISE.

whole of her yarn," he took another pull at the
rum-and -water, and held his peace.

" Look about you, boy," continued Celandine,
" and mark the wild, mysterious retreat I have
made myself, on your account alone. No other
white man has ever entered the Obi-woman's hut.
Not a negro in the island but shakes with fear
when he approaches that low doorway; not one
but leaves a gift behind when he departs. And
now, chance has done for the Obi-woman that
which all her perseverance and all her cunning
had failed to effect. Influence I have always had
amongst the blacks, for I am of their kindred, and
they believe that I possess supernatural powers.
You need not smile, boy. I can sometimes foretel
the future so far as it affects others, though blindly
ignorant where it regards myself; just as a man
reads his neighbour's face clearly, though he can-
not see his own. All my influence I have devoted
to the one great object of making money. For
that, I left my sunny home to live years in the
bleak, cold plains of France; for that, I sold
myself in my old age to one whom I could not
care for, even in my youth ; for that, I have been
tampering of late with the most desperate and
dangerous characters in the island; and money I

;

A WISE CHILD. 173

only valued because, without it, I feared I could
never find my boy. Listen, my darling, and learn
how a mother's love outlives the fancy of youth,
the devotion of womanhood, and the covetousness
of old age. Look at me now, child. It is not so
long since men have told me — even in France,
where they profess to understand such matters —
that I retained my attractions still. You may
believe that thirty years ago the Quadroon of
Cash-a-crou, as they called her, had suitors, lovers
and admirers by the score. Somehow, I laughed
at them all. It seemed to me that a man's affec-
tion for a girl only lasted while she despised him,
and I resolved that no weakness of my own
should ever bring me down a single step from the
vantage-ground I held. Planters, overseers, coun-
cillors, judges, all were at my feet ; not a white
man in the island but would have given three
months' pay for a smile from the yellow girl at
Cash-a-crou ; and the yellow girl — slave though she
was — carried her head high above them all.

'• Well, one bright morning, a week before crop-
time, a fine large ship, twice the size of that
brigantine in the harbour, came and dropped her
anchor off the town. The same night her sailors
gave a dance at one of the negro-houses in Port

174 CERISE.

Welcome. I never hear a banjo in the still, calm
evenings but it thrills to my very marrow still,
though it will be five-and-twenty long years, when
the canes are cut, since I went into that dancing-
room a haughty, wilful beauty, and came out a
humble, love-stricken maid. Turn a bit more to
the light, my boy, that I may look into your blue
eyes; they shine like his, when he came across
the floor and asked me to dance. I've heard the
Frenchwomen say that it takes a long time for a
man to win his way into a girl's heart. Theirs is
a cold country, and they have no African blood in
their veins. All I know is, that your father had
not spoken half-a-dozen words ere I felt for him
as I never felt for any creature on earth before.
I'd have jumped off the Sulphur Mountain, and
never thought twice about it, if he had asked me.
When we walked home together in the moonlight —
for he begged hard to see me safe to my own door,
and you may think I wasn't very difficult to persuade
— I told him honestly that I had never loved any
man but him, and never would love another, come
what might. He looked down into my eyes for a
moment astonished, just as you look now, and
then he smiled — no face ever I saw had such a
smile as your father's — and wound his great strong

A WISE CHILD. 175

arm round my waist, and pressed me to his heart.
I was happy then. If I might live over just one
minute of my life again, it should be that first
minute when I felt I belonged no more to myself,
but to him.

"So we were married by an old Spanish priest i
the little white chapel between the lighthouse and
the town — yes, married right enough, my boy, never
doubt it, though I was but a slave.

" I do not know how a great lady like our Marquise
feels who can give herself and all her possessions,
proudly and in public, to the man she loves, but
she ought to be very happy. I was very happy,
though I might only meet your father by stealth,
and with the fear of a punishment I shuddered to
think of before my eyes. I thought of it very often
too, yet not without pride and pleasure, to risk it
all for his sake. What I dreaded far worse than
punishment— worse than death, was the day his
ship would sail, and though she lay weeks and
months refitting in the harbour, that day arrived
too soon. Never tell me people die of grief, my
boy, since I came off the hill alive when I had
seen the last of those white sails. I could have
cursed the ship for taking him away, and yet I
blessed her for his sake.

" There was consolation for me too. I had his

176 CERTSE.

solemn promise to come back again, and I'll never
believe but he would have kept it had he been
alive. Nothing shall persuade me that my brave,
blue-eyed Englishman has not been sleeping many
a long year, rolled in his hammock, under the deep,
dark sea. It was well the conviction came on me
by degrees that I was never to see him again. I
should have gone mad if I had known it that last
night when he bade me keep my heart up, and
trust him to the end. After a while I fretted less,
for my time was near, and my beautiful boy was
born. Such an angel never lay on a mother's knees.
My son, my son, you have the same eyes, and the
same sweet smile still. I knew you that day in the
street, long before I turned your collar down, and
saw the little white mark like an anchor on your
neck. How proud I was of you, and how I longed
to show my sturdy, blue-eyed boy, who began to
speak at eleven months, to every mother in the
island, but I dared not — I dared not, for your sake
more than for my own. I was cunning then — ay,
cunning, and brave, and enduring as a panther.
They never found me out — they never so much as
suspected me. I had money, plenty of it, and in-
fluence too, with one man at least, who would have
put his hand in the fire, coward as I think he is, if
I had only made him a sign. With his help, I

A WISE CHILD. 177

concealed the existence of ray boy from every crea-
ture on the plantation — black or white. In his
house I used to come and nurse you, dear, and play
with you by the hour together. That man is my
husband now, and I think he deserves a better
fate.

"At last he was forced to leave the island, and
then came another parting, worse than the first.
It was only for myself I grieved when I lost your
father, but when I was forced to trust my beautiful
boy to the care of another, to cross the sea, to sleep
in strange beds, to be washed and dressed by other
hands, perhaps to meet with hard words and angry
looks, or worse still, to clasp his pretty arms about a
nurse's neck, and to forget the mother that bore him,
I thought my heart would break. My boy, there
is no such thing — I tell you again, these are fables
— grief does not kill.

"For a long time I heard regularly of your wel-
fare, and paid liberally for the good news. I was
sure the man to whom I had intrusted you looked
upon me as his future wife, and though I hated him
for the thought, I — who loved that bold, strong, out-
spoken sailor — I permitted it, I encouraged it, for
I believed it would make him kinder to my boy.
When you were a little older, I meant to buy my

VOL. II. N

178 CERISE.

own freedom, and take you with me to live in Europe
— wherever you could be safe.

" At last a ship sailed into Port Welcome, and
brought no letter for me, no news of my child.
Another, and yet another, till months of longing,
sickening anxiety had grown to years, and I was
nearly mad with fear and pain. The father I had
long despaired of, but I thought I was never to be
used so hardly as to lose the child.

"I tell you again, my boy, grief does not kill. I
lived on, but I was a different creature now. My
youth was gone, my beauty became terrible rather
than attractive. I possessed certain powers. that
rendered me an object of dread more than love, and
here, in this very hut, I devoted myself to the prac-
tice of Obi, and the study of that magic which has
made the name of Celandine a word of fear to
every negro in the island.

iC One only aim, one only hope, kept me from
going mad. Money I was resolved to possess, the
more the better, for by the help of money alone, I
thought, could I ever gain tidings of my boy. The
slaves paid well in produce for the amulets and
charms I sold them. That produce I converted into
coin, but it came in too slow. In Europe I might
calculate on better opportunities for gain, and to

A WISE CHILD. 179

Europe I took the first opportunity of sailing, that
I might join the mistress I had never seen, as at-
tendant on her and her child. In their service I
have remained to this day. The mother I have
always respected for her indomitable courage ; the
daughter I loved from the first for her blue eyes,
that reminded me of my boy.

" And now look at me once more, my child — my
darling. I have found you when I had almost left
off hoping ; I have got you when I never expected
to see you again ; and I am rewarded at last !"

Slap-Jack, whose sentiments of filial affection
came out the mellower for rum-and-water, accepted
the Quadroon's endearments with sufficient affa-
bility, and being naturally a good-hearted, easy-
going fellow, gladly enacted the part of dutiful son
to a mother who had suffered such long anxiety on
his account.

"A-course," said he, returning her embrace,
" now you've got a son, you ain't a-goin' to keep
him in this here round-house, laid up in lavender
like, as precious as a Blue Mountain monkey
pickled in rum. We'll just wait here a bit, you and
me, safe and snug, while the land-breeze holds, and
then drop easily down into the town, rouse out my
shipmates, able seamen every man of them, and

N 2

180 CERISE.

go in for a regular spree. 'Tain't every day as a
chap finds his mother, you know, and such a start
as this here didn't ought to be passed over without
a bobbery."

She listened to him delighted. His queer
phrases were sweet in her ears ; to her they were
no vulgar sea-slang, but the echo of a love-
music that had charmed her heart, and drowned
her senses half a lifetime ago ; that rang with
something of the old thrilling vibration still;
but the wild look of terror that had scared him
more than once gleamed again in her eyes, and
she laid her hand on his shoulder as if to keep him
down by force, while she whispered — " My child,
not so ! How rash, how reckless ! Just like your
father ; but he, at least, had not your fate to fear.
Do you not see your danger ? Can you not guess
why I concealed your birth, hid you up in your
babyhood, and smuggled you out of the island as
soon as you could run ? Born of a slave, on a slave
estate, do you not know, my boy, that you, too, are
a slave ?"

" Gammon ! mother," exclaimed Slap- Jack, no-
thing daunted. " What me f — captain of the foretop
aboard 'The Bashful Maid'— six guns on the main-
deck, besides carronades — master and owner, Cap-

A WISE CHILD. 181

tain George ! and talk to me as if I was one of
them darkies wot does mule's«work with monkey's
allowance ! Who's to come and take me, I should
like to know ? Let 'em heave a-head an' do it,
that's all — a score at a spell if they can muster 'em.
I'll show 'em pretty quick what sort of a slave they
can make out of an able seaman !"

" Hush, hush !" she exclaimed, listening earnestly,
and with an expression of intense fear contracting
her worn features ; " I can hear them coming
— negroes by the footfall, and a dozen at least.
They will be at the door in five minutes. They
have turned by the old hog-plum now. As
you love your life, my boy ; nay, as you love your
mother, who has pined and longed for you
all these years, let me hide you away in there.
You will be safe. Trust me, you will be safe
enough ; the}7 will never think of looking for
you there !"

So speaking, and notwithstanding much good-
humoured expostulation and resistance from Slap-
jack, who, treating the whole affair as a jest, was
yet inclined to fight it out all the same, Celandine
succeeded in pushing her son into an inner division
of the hut, containing only a bed-place, shut off by

182 CERISE.

a strong wooden door. This she closed hurriedly
at the very moment a dozen pattering footsteps
halted outside, and a rough negro voice, in accents
more imperative than respectful, demanded instant
admission.

CHAPTER XIII.

JACK A-GROUND.

PENING the door with a yawn, and
stretching her arms like one lately
roused from sleep, the Quadroon
found herself face to face with the
Coromantee, backed by nearly a score of negroes,
the idlest and most dissolute slaves on the estate.
All seemed more or less intoxicated, and Celandine,
who knew the African character thoroughly, by no
means liked their looks. She was aware that
much disaffection existed in the plantation, and
the absence of this disorderly gang from their
work at so early an hour in the afternoon argued
something like open revolt. It would have been
madness, however, to show fear, and the Obi-
woman possessed, moreover, a larger share of

184 CERISE.

physical courage than is usual with her sex :
assuming, therefore, an air of extreme dignity, she
stationed herself in the doorway and demanded
sternly what they wanted.

Hippolyte, who seemed to be leader of the
party, doffed his cabbage-tree hat with ironical
politeness, and pointing over his shoulder at
two grinning negroes laden with plantains and
other garden produce, came to business at
once.

" We buy, — you sell, Missee Celandine. Same
as storekeeper down Port Welcome. Fust ask
gentlemen step in, sit down, take something to
drink."

There was that in his manner which made her
afraid to refuse, and inviting the whole party
to enter, she accommodated them with difficulty in
the hut. Reviewing her assembled guests, the
Quadroon's heart sank within her; but she was
conscious of possessing cunning and courage, so
summoned both to her aid.

A negro, under excitement from whatever cause,
is a formidable-looking companion. Those animal
points of head and countenance, by which he is
distinguished from the white man, then assume an
unseemly prominence. The lips thicken, the temples

JACK A-GROUND. 185

swell, the eves roll, the brow seems to recede, and
the whole face alters for the worse, like that of a
vicious horse, when he lays his ears back, prepared
to kick.

Celandine's visitors displayed all these alarming
signs, and several other disagreeable peculiarities,
the result of partial intoxication. Some of them
carried axes, she observed, and all had knives.
Their attire too, though of the gaudiest colours,
was extremely scanty, ragged, and unwashed.
They jested with one another freely enough, as
they sat huddled together on the floor of the hut,
but showed little of the childish good-humour
common among prosperous and well-ordered slaves ;
while she augured the worst, from the absence of
that politeness which, to do him justice, is a
prominent characteristic of the negro. Neverthe-
less, she dissembled her misgivings, affected an air
of dignified welcome, handed round the calabash,
with its accompanying stone bottle, to all in turn,
and felt but little reassured to find that the rum
was nearly exhausted when it had completed the
circle.

" Thirteen gentlemen, Missee Celandine," ob-
served the Coromantee, tossing off his measure of
raw spirits with exceeding relish ; " thirteen charms,

186 CERISE.

best Obi-woman can furnish for the price, 'gainst evil
eye, snake-bite, jumbo-stroke, fire, water, and cold
steel, all 'counted for, honourable, in dem plantain
baskets. Hi ! you lazy nigger, pay out. Say, again,
missee, what day this of the month ?"

Celandine affected to consider.

" The thirteenth," she answered gravely ; " the
most unlucky day in the whole year."

Hippolyte's black face fell. "Golly !" said he.
" Unlucky ! for why ? for what ? Dis nigger laugh at
luck," he added, brightening up and turning what
liquor was left in the stone bottle down his own
throat. " Lookee here, missee ; you Obi-woman,
right enough ; you nigger too, yaller all same as
black : you go pray Jumbo for luck. All paid for
in dat basket. Pray Jumbo no rain to-night, put
um fire out. Our work, make bobbery; your
work, stay up mountain where spirit can hear, and
pray Jumbo till monkeys wake."

A suspicion that had already dawned on the
Quadroon's mind was now growing horribly distinct.
It was obvious some important movement must be
intended by the gang that filled her hut, and there
was every fear a general rising might take place of
all the slaves on the plantation, if indeed the
insurrection spread no further than the Mont-

JACK A-G ROUND. 187

mirail estate. She knew, none better, the nature
of the half-reclaimed savage. She thought of her
courageous, high-souled mistress, of her delicate,
beautiful nursling, and shivered while she pictured
them in the power of this huge black monster who
sat grinning at her over the empty calabash. She
even forgot for the moment her own long-lost son,
hidden up within six feet of her, and the double
danger he would run in the event of detection.
She could only turn her mind in one direction, and
that was, where madame and mademoiselle were
sitting, placid and unconscious, in the rich white
dresses her own fingers had helped to make.

Their possible fate was too horrible to contem-
plate. She forced it from her thoughts, and with
all her power of self-concentration, addressed her-
self to the means of saving them at any cost. In
such an emergency as the present, surrounded,
and perhaps suspected, by the mutineers, dissimula-
tion seemed her only weapon left, and to dissimula-
tion she betook herself without delay.

"Hippolyte," said she, "you are a good soldier.
You command all these black fellows ; I can see it
in your walk. I always said you had the air of an
officer of France."

The Coromantee seemed not insensible to flattery.

188 CERISE.

He grinned, wagged his head, rolled his eyes, and
was obviously well pleased.

" Dese niggers make me deir colonel," said he,
springing from the floor to an attitude of military
attention. " Hab words of command like buckra
musketeer. Par file a droite — Marche ! Volte-
face ! Run for your lives !"

" I knew it," she replied, " and you ought to
have learned already to trust your comrades. Are
we not in the same ranks ? You say yourself,
yellow and black are all one. You and I are near
akin ; your people are the people of my mother's
mother ; whom you trust, I trust ; whom you hate,
I hate, but far more bitterly, because my injuries
are older and deeper than yours."

He opened his eyes wondering, but the rum had
taken effect, and nothing, not even the Quadroon's
disloyalty to her mistress, seemed improbable now.
An Obi-woman too, if really in earnest, he con-
sidered a valuable auxiliary ; so signed his ap-
proval by another grin and a grunt of acquiescence.

"I live but for one object now," continued
Celandine, in a tone of repressed fury that did credit
to her power of acting. " I have been waiting all my
life for my revenge, and it seems to have come at
last. The Marquise should have given me my

JACK A -GROUND. ISO

freedom long ago if she wished me to forgive.
Ay, they may call me 3Iustee, but I am black, black
as yourself, my brave Hippolyte, at heart. She
struck me once, — I tell you, struck me with her
riding-whip, far away yonder in France, and I will
have her blood."

It is needless to observe this imputed violence
was a fabrication for the especial benefit of
Hippolyte, and the energy with which he pro-
nounced the ejaculation, " Golly ! " denoted that
he placed implicit reliance on its truth.

" You are brave," continued Celandine ; " you
are strong ; you are the fine tall negro whom we call
the Pride of the Plantation. You do not know what
it is to hate like a poor weak woman. I would have
no scruple, no mercy ; I would spare none, neither
madame nor mademoiselle."

•' Ma'amselle come into woods with me," inter-
rupted Hippolyte, with a horrible leer. "Good
enough wife for Pride of Plantation. Lilly face
look best by um side of black man. Ma'amselle
guess me come for marry her. When floggee
Fleurette, look at me so, afore all de niggers, sweet
as molasses !"

Again Celandine shivered. The wretch's vanity
would have been ludicrous, had he not been so

190 CEKISE.

formidable from his recklessness, and the authority-
he seemed to hold over his comrades. She pre-
pared to learn the worst.

" They will both be in our power to-night, I
suppose," said she, repressing with a strong effort
her disgust and fierce desire to snatch his long
knife and stab him where he stood. " Tell me
your plan of attack, my brave colonel, and trust
me to help you to the utmost."

The Coromantee looked about him suspiciously,
rolling his eyes in obvious perplexity. The super-
stition inherent in his nature made him desirous of
obtaining her assistance, while the Quadroon's
antecedents, and particularly her marriage with
the overseer, seemed to infer that she would prove
less zealous than she affected to be in the cause of
insurrection. He made up his mind therefore to
bind her by an oath, which he himself dictated,
and made her swear by the mysterious power she
served, and from which she derived her influence,
to be true, silent, and merciless, till the great event
had been accomplished, all the whites in authority-
massacred, and the whole estate in the power of
the slaves. Every penalty, both horrible and
ludicrous, that the grotesque imagination of a
savage could devise, was called down upon her

JACK A-GROUND. 191

head in the event of treachery ; and Celandine,
who was a sufficiently good Catholic at heart,
swallowed all these imprecations imperturbably
enough, pledging herself without the slightest
hesitation to the conspiracy.

Then Hippolyte was satisfied and unfolded his
plans, while the others gathered round with fearful
interest, wagging their heads, rolling their eyes,
grinning, stamping, and ejaculating deep gutturals
of applause.

His scheme was feasible enough ; nor to one who
knew no scruples of gratitude, no instincts of com-
mon, did it present any important obstacles.
He was at the head of an organized body, com-
prising nearly all the male slaves on the plantation ;
a body prepared to rise at a moment's notice, if
only assured of success. The dozen negroes who
accompanied him had constituted themselves his
guards, and were pledged to strike the first
blow, at his command. They were strong, able-
bodied, sensual, idle, dissolute, unscrupulous,
and well enough fitted for their enterprise,
but that they were arrant cowards, one and
all. As, however, little resistance could be
anticipated, this poltroonery was the more to
be dreaded by their victims, that in the hour

192 CERISE.

of triumph it would surely turn to cruelty and
excess.

Hippolyte, who was not deficient in energy, had
also been in communication with the disaffected
slaves on the adjoining estates ; these too were
sworn to rise at a given signal, and the Coromantee,
feeling that his own enterprise could scarcely fail,
entertained a fervent hope that in a few hours the
whole of the little island, from sea to sea, would be
in possession of the negroes, and he himself
chosen as their chief. The sack and burning of
Port Welcome, the massacre of the planters and
abduction of their families, were exciting little
incidents of the future, on which he could hardly
trust himself to dwell ; but the first step in the
great enterprise was to be taken at Montmirail
West, and to its details Celandine now listened
with a horror that, while it curdled her blood, she
was forced to veil under a pretence of zeal and
enthusiasm in the cause.

Her only hope was n the brigantine. Her
early associations had taught her to place implicit
reliance on a boat's-crew of English sailors, and if
she could but delay the attack until she had
communicated with the privateer, mademoiselle,
for it was of mademoiselle she chiefly thought,

JACK A-GROUND. [93

might be rescued even yet. If she could but
speak to her son, lying within three feet of her !
If she could but make him understand the emer-
gency ! How she trusted he overheard their con-
versation ! How she prayed he might not have
been asleep the whole time !

Hippolyte's plan of attack was simple enough.
It would be dark in a couple of hours. Long-
before then, he and his little band meant to ad-
vance as far as the skirts of the bush, from whence
they could reconnoitre the house. Doors and
windows would all be open. There was but one
white man in the place, and he unarmed.
Nothing could be easier than to overpower the
overseer, and perhaps, for Celandine's sake, his life
might be spared. Then, it was the Coromantee's
intention to secure the Marquise and her daughter,
which he opined might be done with little risk,
and at the expense of a shriek or two ; to collect in
the storeroom any of the domestic slaves, male or
female, who showed signs of resistance, and there
lock them up; to break open the cellar, serve out a
plentiful allowance of wine to his guards, and then,
setting fire to the house, carry the Marquise and
her daughter into the mountains. The former,
to be kept as a hostage, slain, or otherwise dis-

VOL. II. 0

191 CERISE.

posed of, according to circumstances ; the latter, as
the African expressed it with hideous glee, "for
make lilly-face chief wife to dis here handsome
nigger !"

Celandine affected to accept his views with
great enthusiasm, but objected to the time ap-
pointed.

" The moon," said she gravely, " is yet in her
first quarter. Her spirit is gone a journey to the
mountains of Africa to bless the bones of our fore-
fathers. It will be back to-morrow. Jumbo has
not been sufficiently propitiated. Let us sacrifice
to him for one night more with jar and calabash.
I will send down for rum to the stores. Brave
colonel, you and your guards shall bivouac here
outside her hut, while the Obi-woman remains
within to spend the night in singing and making
charms. Jumbo will thus be pleased, and to-
morrow the whole island may be ours without
opposition."

But Hippolyte was not to be deceived so easily.
His plans admitted of no delay, and the flames
ascending from the roof of Montmirail West, that
same night, were to be the signal for a general
rising from sea to sea. His short period of influ-
ence had already taught him that such a blow as

JACK A-GROUND. 195

he meditated, to be effectual, must be struck at
once. Moreover, the quality of cunning in the
age seems strong in proportion to his degrada-
tion : the Coromantee was a very fox for vigilance
and suspicion, nor did he fail to attribute Celan-
dine's desire for procrastination to its true motive.

" To-night, Obi-woman !" said he resolutely.
" To-night, or no night at all. Dis nigger no leave
yaller woman here, fear of accidents. Perhaps to-
morrow free blacks kill you same as white. You
come with us down mountain-side into clearing.
"We keep you safe. You make prayer and sing
whole time."

"With a mischievous leer at a couple of his
stalwart followers, he" pointed to the Quadroon.
They sprang from the ground and secured her,
one on each side. The unfortunate Obi-woman
strove hard to disarm suspicion by an affectation
of ready compliance, but it was obvious they mis-
trusted her fidelity and had no intention of
letting her out of their sight. It was with
difficulty that she obtained a few moments' respite,
on the plea that night was about to fall, for the
purpose of winding her shawl more carefully round
her head, and in that brief space she endeavoured
to warn her son of the coming outbreak, with a

02

196 CERISE.

maddening doubt the while that he might not
understand their purport, even if he could hear
her words. Turning towards the door, behind
which he was concealed, under pretence of arrang-
ing her head-gear at a bit of broken looking-glass
against the panel, she sang, with as marked an
emphasis as she dared, a scrap of some doggrel
sea-ditty, which she had picked up from her first
love in the old happy days long ago : —

"The boatswain looked upon the land,
And shrill his whistle blew,
The oars were out, the boat was manned,
Says he, ' My gallant crew,

" ' Our captain in a dungeon lies,
The sharks have got him flat,
But if we fire the town, my boys,
We'll have him out of that !

" ' We'll stop their jaw, we'll spike their guns !
We'll larn 'em what they're at —
You bend your backs, and pull, my sons,
We'll have him out of that !' "

This she sang twice, and then professed her readi-
ness to accompany Hippolyte and his band down
the mountain, delaying theirdeparture, however,
by all the means she could think of, including
profuse offers of hospitality, which had but little
effect, possibly because the guests were personally
satisfied that there was nothing left to drink.

JACK A-G ROUND. 197

Nay, even on the very threshold of the hut she
turned back once more, affecting to have forgotten
the most important of the amulets she carried
about her person, and, crossing the floor with a step
that must have awakened the soundest sleeper,
repeated, iu clear loud tones, the boatswain's in-
junction to his men —

M You bend your Lacks, and pull, my sons,
We'll have him out of that !"

CHAPTER XIV.

JACK A-FLOAT.

£|UT Slap -Jack was not asleep, far from it.
His narrow hiding-place offered but
little temptation to repose, and almost
the first sentence uttered by Hippolyte
aroused the suspicions of a man accustomed to
anticipate, without fearing, danger, or, as he ex-
pressed it, " to look out for squalls."

He listened therefore intently the whole time,
and although the Coromantee's jargon was often
unintelligible, managed to gather quite enough of
its meaning to assure him that some gross outrage
was in preparation, of which a white lady and her
daughter were to be the victims. Now it is not
only on the boards of a seaport theatre that the
British sailor vindicates his character for generous

JACK A-FLOAT. 199

courage on behalf of the conventional " female in
distress." The stage is, after all, a representation,
however extravagant, of real life, and the carica-
ture must not be exaggerated out of all likeness to
its original. Coarse in his language, rough in his
bearing, reckless and riotous from the very nature
of his calling, there is yet in the thorough-going
English seaman a leavening of tenderness, sim-
plicity, and self-sacrifice, which, combined with his
dauntless bravery, affords no ignoble type of man-
hood. He is a child in his fancies, his credulity,
his affections; a lion in his defiance of peril and
his sovereign contempt for pain.

AVith regard to woman, whatever may be his
practice, his creed is pure, exalted, and utterly
opposed to his own experience ; while his instincts
prompt him on all occasions, and against any odds,
to take part with the weaker side. Compared
with the landsman, he is always a little behind the
times in worldly knowledge, possessing the faults
and virtues of an earlier age. With both of these
in some excess, his chivalry is unimpeachable,
and a sense of honour that would not disgrace the
noblest chapters of knighthood is to be found
nerving the blue- streaked arms and swelling the
brawny chests that man the forecastle.

200 CERISE.

Slap-Jack knew enough of his late-discovered
mother's position to be familiar with the name of
the Marquise and the situation of Montmirail
West. As he was the only seaman belonging to
1 The Bashful Maid' who had been tempted beyond
the precincts of the port, this knowledge was shared
by none of his shipmates. Captain George himself
postponing his shore-going from hour to hour, while
he had work in hand, little dreamed he was within
two leagues of Cerise. Beaudesir had never re-
peated his visit to the town ; and every other man
in the brigantine was too much occupied by duty
or pleasure — meaning anchor-watch on board, alter-
nated by rum and fiddlers ashore — to think of ex-
tending his cruise a yard further inland than the
nearest drinking-house.

On Slap-Jack, therefore, devolved the task of
rescuing the Marquise and her daughter from the
grasp of " that big black swab," as the foretop-man
mentally denominated him, whom he longed ar-
dently to "pitch into" on the spot. He under-
stood the position. His mother's sea-song was
addressed to no inattentive nor unwilling ears. He
saw the difficulties and, indeed, the dangers of his
undertaking ; but the latter he despised, while the
former he resolved to overcome ; and he never lay

JACK A-FLOAT. 201

out upon a yard to reef topsails in the fiercest
squall with a clearer brain or a stouter heart than
he now summoned to his aid on behalf of the
ladies whom his mother loved so well.

Creeping from his hiding-place, he listened
anxiously to the retreating foot-fall of the blacks,
and even waited several minutes after it had died
away to assure himself the coast was clear. Dis-
covery would have been fatal ; for armed though
he was with a cutlass and pistols, thirteen to one,
as he sagely reflected, was long odds ; and " if I
should be scuttled," thought he, '•' before I can make
signals, why, what's to become of the whole con-
voy?" Therefore he was very cautious and re-
flective. He pondered, he calculated, he reckoned
his time, he enumerated his obstacles, he laid out
his plans before he proceeded to action. His only
chance was to reach the brigantine without delay,
and report the whole matter to the skipper forth-
with, who he was convinced would at once furnish
a boat's crew to defend the ladies, and probably
put himself at their head.

Emerging from the hut, he observed to his
consternation that it was already dusk. There
is but a short twilight in these low latitudes,
where the evening hour — sweetest of the whole

202 CERISE.

twenty-four — is gone almost as soon as it
arrives —

" The sun's rim dips,
The stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark."

And that dark, in the jungle of a "West Indian
island, is black as midnight.

It was well for Slap-Jack that a seaman's in-
stincts had prompted him to take his bearings
before he came up the mountain. These, from
time to time, he corrected during his ascent, at the
many places where he paused for breath. He
knew, therefore, the exact direction of the town
and harbour. Steering by the stars, he was under
no apprehension of losing his way, and could make
for the brigantine where she lay. Tightening his
belt, then, he commenced the descent at a run, re-
solving to keep the path as long as he could see it,
and when it was lost in the bush at last, to plunge
boldly through till he reached the shore.

The misadventure he foresaw soon came to pass.
A path which he could hardly have followed by
daylight, without Celandine to pilot him, soon dis-
appeared from beneath his feet in the deepening
gloom. He had not left the hut many minutes
ere he was struggling, breast-high, amongst the wild
vines and other creepers that twined and festooned

JACK A-FLOAT. 203

in a tangle of vegetable network from tree to
tree.

The scene was novel and picturesque, yet I
am afraid he cursed and swore a good deal, less
impressed with its beauty than alive to its incon-
veniences. Overhead, indeed, he caught a glimpse
of the stars, by which he guided his course through
the interlacing boughs of the tall forest trees, and
underfoot, the steady lamp of the glow-worm, and
the sparks of a thousand wheeling fire-flies, shed a
light about his jDath ; but these advantages only
served to point out the dangers and difficulties of
his progress. With their dubious help, every creeper
thicker than ordinary assumed the appearance of
some glistening snake, swinging from the branch in a
grim repose that it was death to disturb ; every rotten
stump leaning forward in its decay, draped with its
garment of trailing parasites, took the form of a
watchful savage, poising his gigantic form in act to
strike ; while a wild boar, disturbed from his lair
between the roots of an enormous gum-tree to sham-
ble off at a jog-trot, grumbling in search of thicker
covert, with burning eye, gnashing tusks, and most
discordant grunt, swelled to the size of a rhinoceros.
Slap-Jack's instincts prompted him to salute the
monster with a shot from one of the pistols that

204 CERISE.

»

hung at his belt, but reflecting on the necessity of
caution, he refrained with difficulty, consoling him-
self by the anticipation of several days' leave ashore,
and a regular shooting party with his mates, in
consideration of his services to-night.

Thus he struggled on, breathless, exhausted, in-
defatigable— now losing himself altogether, till a
more open space in the branches, through which
he could see the stars, assured him that he was in
a right direction — now obtaining a glimpse of
some cane-piece, or other clearing, white in the
tender light of the young moon, which had already
risen, and thus satisfying himself that he was
gradually emerging from the bush, and conse-
quently nearing the shore — now tripping over a
fallen tree — now held fast in a knot of creepers —
now pierced to the bone by a prickly cactus, torn,
bleeding, tired, sore, and drenched with perspira-
tion, but never losing heart for a moment, nor de-
viating, notwithstanding his enforced windings, one
cable's length from the direct way.

Thus at last he emerged on a clearing already
trenched and hoed for the reception of sugar-canes,
and, to his infinite joy, beheld his own shadow,
black and distinct, in the trembling moonlight.
The bush was now behind him, the slope of the

JACK A-FLOAT. 205

hill in his favour, and lie could run down, uninter-
rupted, towards the pale sea lying spread out like
a sheet of silver at his feet. He crossed a road here
that he knew must lead him into the town, but it
would have taken him somewhat out of his course
for the brigantine, and he had resolved to lose no
time, even for the chance of obtaining a boat.

He made, therefore, direct for the shore, and in
a few minutes he was standing on a strip of sand,
with the retiring tide plashing gratefully on his
ear, while his eyes were fixed on the tapering spars
of ' The Bashful Maid,' and the light glimmering in
her foretop.

He stepped back a few paces to lay his arms
and some of his garments behind a rock, a little
above high-water mark. There was small chance
he would ever find them again, but he belonged to
a profession of which the science is essentially pre-
cautionary, and the habit of foresight was a se-
cond nature to Slap-Jack. In a few more seconds
he was up to his knees, his middle, his breast -bone,
in the cooling waters, till a receding wave lifted
him off his feet, and he struck out boldly for the
brigantine.

How delightful to his heated skin was the con-
tact of the pure fresh buoyant element ! JSJotwith-

206 CERISE.

standing his fatigue, his hurry, his anxiety, he
could have shouted aloud in joy and triumph as he
felt himself wafted on those long, regular, and
powerful strokes nearer and nearer to his object.
It was the exultation of human strength and skill
and daring, dominant over nature, unassisted by
mechanical art.

Yet was there one frightful drawback ; a con-
tingency which had been present to his mind from
the very beginning, even while he was beating la-
boriously through the jungle, but which he had
never permitted himself to realize, and on which
it would now be maddening to dwell : Port Wel-
come was infested with sharks ! He forced himself
to ignore the danger, and swam gallantly on, till
the wash and ripple of the tide upon the shore
was far behind him, and he heard only his own
deep measured breathing, and the monotonous
plash of those springing, regulated strokes that
drove him steadily out to sea. He was already
tired, and had turned on his back more than once
for relief, ere the hull of the brigantine rose black
and steep out of the water half a cable's length
ahead. He counted that after fifty more strokes
he would summon breath to hail the watch on
deck. He had scarce completed them, ere a chill

JACK A-FLOAT. 207

went curdling through his veins from head to heel,
and if ever Slap-jack lost heart it was then. The
water surged beneath him, and lifted his whole
body, like a wave, though the surrounding surface
was smooth as a mill-pond. One desperate kick,
that shot him two fathoms at a stroke, and his
passing foot grazed some slimy, scaly substance,
while from the comer of his eye he caught a
glimpse the moment after of the back-fin of a
shark. Then he hailed in good earnest, swimming
his wickedest the while, and ere the voracious sea-
scourge, or its consort, could turn over for a
leisurely snap at him, Slap-Jack was safe in the
bight of a rope, and the anchor-watch, not a little
astonished, were hauling their exhausted shipmate
over the side.

" Come on board, sir !" exclaimed the new ar-
rival, scrambling breathless to his feet, after
tumbling head-foremost over the gunwale, and
pulling with ludicrous courtesy at his wet hair.
" Come on board, sir. Hands wanted immediate. Ax
your honour's pardon. So blown I can hardly speak.
First-class row among the niggers. Bobbery all
over the island. Devil to pay, and no pitch hot !"
Captain George was on deck, which perhaps
accounted for the rapidity of the foretop-man's

208 CERISE.

rescue, and although justly affronted by so un-
ceremonious a return on the part of a liberty-man
who had outstayed his leave, he saw at a glance
that some great emergency was imminent, and
prepared to meet it with habitual coolness.

"Silence, you fool!" said he, pointing to a
negro amongst the crew. "Lend him a jacket,
some of you. Come below at once to my cabin,
and make your report. You can be punished
afterwards/'

Slap- Jack followed his commander nothing loth.
The after-punishment, as being postponed for
twenty-four hours at least, was a matter of no
moment, but a visit to the Captain's cabin entailed,
according to the etiquette of the service, a measure
of grog, mixed on certain liberal principles, that
from time immemorial have regulated the strength
of that complimentary refreshment.

In all such interviews it is customary for the
skipper to produce his spirit-case, a tumbler, and a
jug of water. The visitor helps himself from the
former, and esteems it only good breeding that he
should charge his glass to the depth of three
fingers with alcohol, filling it up with the weaker
fluid. When the thickness of a seaman's fingers is
considered, and the breadth to which he can spread

JACK A-FLOAT. 209

them out on such occasions, it is easy to conceive
how little space is left near the rim of the vessel
for that insipid element, every additional drop of
which is considered by competent judges to spoil
the beverage. Slap-Jack mixed as liberally as
another. Ere his draught, however, was half-
finished, or his report nearly concluded, the Cap-
tain had turned the hands up, and ordered a boat
to be manned forthwith, leaving Beaudesir to
command in his absence; but true to his usual
system, informing no one, not even the latter, of
his intentions or his destination.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER XV.

BESIEGED.

N the mean time poor Celandine 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,

BESIEGED. 211

with brutal glee, attempting no concealment of a
determination to retain her in their power till they
had completed their merciless design.

w 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 'ftaid of Jumbo, so long as Missee
Celandine 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 moun-
tain. It seemed to Celandine 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
ow building of Cash-a-crou, now called Mont-
mirail 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

p 2

212 CERISE.

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
but of 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. Celandine, 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

BESIEGED. '213

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.

M 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-erou 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, 1 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 r

" Golly !" exclaimed Hippolyte in consternation.
il Missee Celandine, you go free for tanks, when
dis 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 Celandine, walked from one to

214 CERISE.

the other of his band, whispering fresh instructions
to each.

The Quadroon counted the time by the beating
of her heart. " Now," she thought, (i 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 confi-
dence 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
edge of the* forest. These, too, had brought with
them a fresh supply of rum, and Celandine

BESIEGED. ' 215

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
un watched, and at once stole into the open moon-
light, 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 com-
prehend 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, de-
noted how little of courtesy or common humanity
was to be expected from the Coromantee, excited to

216 ' CERISE.

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 appre-
hension 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 realized 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 emeute, a revolt, a rebellion among the
slaves. I know them — the monsters ! They will
not be appeased till they have drunk our blood.

BESIEGED. 217

Oli ! 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 after-
wards. " 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, my child — these overseers are sad
alarmists. I dare say 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 realized her
danger. Only once, when her eye rested on her
daughter, she shuddered visibly. Otherwise, her

218 CERISE.

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

BESIEGED. 219

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 Celandine sent you down to the
negro-houses for eggs. Quick, and come back
here like lightning. Bartoletti — have you any
fire-arms? 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 temporize, we
will supplicate, we will make terms with them ;
we will offer freedom, and rum, and plunder ;

220 CEKISE.

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 foot-
steps returning, and was herself busied with an
oblong wooden case, brass-bound, and carefully
locked up, that she lifted from the recess of a cup-
board 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 moon -lit
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

BESIEGED. 221

than pain. Tt was succeeded, as before, by a
moment of deep reflection, and then her eye kin-
dled, 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-Fiertes,
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 bed -room 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

222 CERISE.

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 bedchamber they jointly occupied,
a plainly furnished room, of which the only orna-
ment was the Prince-Marshal's portrait, already
mentioned as having occupied the place of honour
in madame's boudoir at the Hotel 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 oV elite. 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 cham-
pions 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

BESIEGED. 223

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 with-
out 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

224 CERISE.

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 em-
brace, 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.

CHAPTER XVI.

AT BAY.

N obedience to his mistress, Bartoletti
had endeavoured to secure the few weak
fastenings of the house, but his hands
" shook so,- that without Fleurette's aid
not a bolt would have been pushed nor a key
turned. The black girl, however, seconded his
efforts with skill and coolness, so that Hippolyte's
summons to surrender was addressed to locked
doors and closed windows. The Coromantee was
now so inflamed with rum as to be capable of any
outrage, and since neither his band nor himself
were possessed of fire-arms, nothing but Celandine's
happy suggestion about the concealed powder
restrained him from ordering a few faggots to be
cut, and the building set in a blaze. Advancing
VOL. ii. Q

226 CERISE.

with an air of dignity, that would at any other
time have been ludicrous, and which he would
certainly have abandoned had he known that the
Marquise covered his body with her pistol the while,
he thumped the door angrily, and demanded to
know why "dis here gentleman comin' to pay
compliment to buckra miss," was not immediately
admitted ; but receiving no answer, proceeded at
once to batter the panels with an iron crowbar,
undeterred by the expostulations of Fleurette, who
protested vehemently, first, that her mistress was
engaged with a large party of French officers,;
secondly, that she lay sick in bed, on no account
to be disturbed ; and lastly, that neither she nor
ma'amselle were in the house at all.

The Coromantee of course knew better. Shout-
ing a horrible oath, and a yet more hideous threat,
he applied his burly shoulders to the entrance, and
the whole wood- work giving way with a crash,
precipitated himself into the passage, followed by
the rest of the band, to be confronted by Fleurette
alone, Bartoletti having fled ignominiously to the
kitchen.

" I could have hit him through the neck," ob-
served the Marquise, withdrawing from her post
behind the shutter, " but I was too directly above

AT BAY. 227

him to make sure, and every charge is so valuable
I would not waste one on a mere wound. My
darling, I still hope that two or three deadly shots
may intimidate them, and we shall escape after all."

Cerise answered nothing, though her lips moved.
The two ladies listened, with every faculty sharp-
ened, every nerve strung to the utmost.

A scream from Fleurette thrilled through them
like a blow. Hippolyte, though willing enough to
dally with the comely black girl for a minute or
two, lost patience with her pertinacity in clinging
about him to delay his entrance, and struck her
brutally to the ground. Turning fiercely on him
where she lay, she made her sharp teeth meet in
the fleshy part of his leg, an injury the savage
returned with a kick, that after the first shriek it
elicited left poor Fleurette stunned and moaning
in the corner of the passage, to be crushed and
trampled by the blacks, who now poured in behind
their leader, elated with the success of this, their
first step in open rebellion.

Presently, loud shouts, or rather howls of tri-
umph, announced that the overseer's place of con-
cealment was discovered. Bartoletti, pale or
rather yellow, limp, stammering, and beside him-
self with terror, was dragged out of the house and

Q 2

228 CERISE.

consigned to sundry ferocious looking negroes, who
proceeded to amuse themselves by alternately
kicking, cuffing, and threatening him with instan-
taneous death.

The Marquise listened eagerly ; horror, pity,
and disgust succeeding each other on her haughty,
resolute face. Once, something like contempt
swept over it, while she caught the tone of Barto-
letti's abject entreaties for mercy. He only asked
for life — bare life, nothing more ; they might make
a slave of him then and there. He was their pro-
perty, he and his wife, and all that he had, to do
what they liked with. Only let him live, he said,
and he would join them heart and hand ; show
them where the rum was kept, the money ,^the
jewels; nay, help them cheerfully to cut every
white throat on the island. The man was con-
vulsed with terror, and the negroes danced round
like fiends, mocking, jeering, flouting him, exult-
ing in the spectacle of a buckra overseer brought
so low.

" There is something in race after all," observed
the Marquise, as if discussing an abstract pro-
position. " I suppose it is only the canaille that
can thus degrade themselves from mere dread
of death. Though our families have not always

AT BAY. 229

lived very decently, I am glad to think that there
was never yet a Montmirail or La Fierte who did
not know how to die. My child, it is the pure old
blood that carries us through such moments as
these ; neither of us are likely to disgrace it now."

Again her daughter's lips moved, although no
sound escaped them. Cerise was prepared to die,
but she could not bring herself to reason on the
advantages of noble birth at such a moment, like
the Marquise ; and indeed the girl's weaker frame
and softer heart quailed in terror at the prospect
of the ordeal they had to go through.

From their chamber of refuge the two ladies
could hear the insulting jests and ribald gibberish
of the slaves, now bursting into the sitting room,
breaking the furniture, shivering the mirrors, and
wantonly destroying all the delicate articles of use
and ornament, of which they could neither un-
derstand the purpose nor appreciate the value.
Presently a discordant scream from Pierrot an-
nounced that the parrot had protested against the
intrusion of these riotous visitors, while a shout of
pain, followed by loud bursts of laughter, proclaimed
the manner in which he had resented the familiarity
of one more daring than the rest. Taking the bird
roughly off its perch, a stout young negro named

230 CERISE.

Achille had been bitten to the bone, and the cross-
cut wound inflicted by the parrot's beak so roused
his savage nature, that twisting its neck round with
a vindictive howl, he slew poor Pierrot on the
spot.

The Marquise in her chamber above could hear
the brutal acclamations that greeted this exploit,
and distinguished the smothered thump of her
favourite's feathered body as it was dashed into a
corner of the room.

Then her lips set tight, her brows knit, and the
white hand clenched itself round her pistol, firm,
rigid, and pitiless as marble.

Heavy footsteps were now heard hurrying on
the stairs, and whispered voices urging contrary
directions, but all with the same purport. There
seemed to be no thought of compassion, no talk of
mercy. Even within hearing of their victims,
Hippolyte and Achille, who was his second in com-
mand, scrupled not to discuss the fate of the ladies
when they should have gained possession of their
persons — a fate which turned the daughter's blood
to ice, the mother's to fire. It was no time now
to think of compromise or capitulation, or aught
but selling life at the dearest, and gaining every
moment possible by the sacrifice of an enemy.

AT BAY. 231

Even in this last extremity, however, the genius
of system, so remarkable in all French minds, did
not desert the Marquise. She counted the charges
in her pistol-case, and calculated the resources of
her foes with a cool, methodical appreciation of
the chances for and against her, totally unaffected
by the enormous disproportion of the odds. She
was good, she argued, for a dozen shots in all. She
would allow for two misses ; sagely reflecting that
in a chance medley like the present she could
hardly preserve a steadiness of hand and eye that
had heretofore so discomfited Madame de Sabran
in the shooting galleries of Marly and Versailles.
Eight shots would then be left, exclusive of two that
she determined at all risks to reserve for the last.
The dead bodies of eight negroes she considered,
slain by the hand of one white woman, ought to
put the whole black population of the island to the
rout ; but supposing that the rum they had drunk
should have rendered them so reckless as to dis-
regard even such a warning, and that, with her
defences broke down, she found herself and daugh-
ter at their mercy, then — and while the Marquise
reasoned thus, the blood mounted to her eyes, and
a hand of ice seemed to close round her heart
— the two reserve shots should be directed with

232 CERISE.

unerring hand, the one into her daughter's bosom,
the other through her own.

And Cerise, now that the crisis had arrived at
last, in so far as they were to be substantiated by
the enforced composure of a passive endurance,
fully vindicated her claims to noble blood. She
muttered many a prayer indeed, that arose straight
from her heart, but her eyes were fixed on her
mother the while, and she had disposed the ammu-
nition on a chair beside her in such a manner as to
reload for the Marquise with rapidity and precision.
" We are like a front and rear rank of the Grey
Musketeers," said the latter, with a wild attempt at
hilarity, in which a strong hysterical tendency, born
of overwrought feelings, was with difficulty kept
down. " The affair will soon commence now, and,
my child, if worst comes to worst, remember there
is no surrender. I hear them advancing to the
assault. Courage ! my darling. Steady ! and Vive
la France /"

The words were still upon her lips, when a
swarm of negroes, crowding and shouldering up the
narrow passage, halted at her door. Hippolyte
commenced his summons to the besieged by a
smashing blow with the crowbar, that splintered
one of the panels and set the whole wood-work

AT BAY. 233

quivering to its hinges. Then he applied his thick
lips to the keyhole, and shouted in brutal glee —

" Time to wake up now, missee ! You play
'possum no longer, else cut down gum-tree at one
stroke. Wot you say to dis nigger for buckra
bridegroom ? Time to come out now and dance
jigs at una wedding."

There was not a quiver in her voice while the
Marquise answered in cold imperious tones —

'•'You are running up a heavy reckoning for
this night's work. I know your ringleaders, and
refuse to treat with them. Nevertheless, I am
not a severe mistress. If the rest of the negroes
will go quietly home, and resume their duties with
to-morrow's sunrise, I will not be hard upon them.
You know me, and can trust my word."

Cheers of derision answered this haughty ap-
peal, and loud suggestions for every kind of cruelty
and insult, to be inflicted on the two ladies, were
heard bandied about amongst the slaves. Hip-
polyte replied fiercely —

" Give in at once ! Open this minute, or
neither of you shall leave the house alive ! For
the Marquise — Achille ! I give her to you ! For
lily ma'amselle — I marry her this very night.
See ! before the moon goes down !"

234 CERISE.

Cerise raised her head in scornful defiance.
Her face was livid, but it was stamped with the
same expression as her mother's now. There
could be no question both were prepared to die
game to the last.

The blows of Hippolyte's crowbar resounded
against the strong oaken panels of the door, but
the massive wood-work, though it shook and
groaned, resisted stoutly for a time. It was well
for the inmates that Celandine's imaginative
powers had suggested the concealed gunpowder.
Had it not been for their fears of an explosion the
negroes would ere this have set fire to the build-
ing, when no amount of resistance could have
longer delayed the fate of the two ladies. Barto-
letti, intimidated by the threats of his captors, and
preoccupied only with the preservation of his own
life, had shown the insurgents where the rum was
kept, and many of these were rapidly passing from
the reckless to the stupefied stage of intoxication.
The Italian, who was not deficient in cunning,
encouraged their potations with all his might.
He thus hoped to elude them before morning, and
leaving his employers to their fate, reach Port
Welcome in safety; where he doubted not he
should be met by Celandine, whose influence as an

AT BAY. 235

Obi-woman, he rightly conjectured, would be
sufficient to insure her safety. A coward rarely
meets with the fate he deserves, and Bartoletti did
indeed make his eventual escape in the manner he
had proposed.

Plying his crowbar with vigorous strokes, Hip-
polyte succeeded at length in breaking through
one of the door panels, a measure to be succeeded
by the insertion of hand and arm for withdrawal
of the bolts fastened on the inside. The Coro-
mantee possessed, however, a considerable share of
cunning mixed with the fierce cruelty of a savage.
When he had torn away enough woodwork to
make a considerable aperture, he turned to his
lieutenant and desired him to introduce his body
and unbar the door from within. It is difficult to
say what he feared, since even had he been aware
that his mistress possessed firearms, he could not
have conceived the possibility of her using them, so
recklessly in a house that he had reason to believe
was stored with powder. It was probably some
latent dread of the white race that prompted his
command to his subordinate. " You peep in, you
black nigger. Ladies all in full dress now. Bow-
'ticks rosined and fiddlers dry. Open um door,
and ask polite company to walk in."

236 CERISE.

Thus adjured, Achille thrust his woolly head and
half his shining black body through the aperture.
Madame de Montmirail, standing before her
daughter, was not five paces off. She raised her
white arm slowly, and covered him with steady
aim. Ere his large thick hand had closed round
the bolt for which it groped, there was a flash, a
loud report, a cloud of smoke curling round the
toilet accessories of a lady's bedchamber, and
Achille, shot through the brain, fell back stone
dead into the passage.

" A little lighter charge of powder, my dear,"
said the Marquise, giving the smoking weapon to
her daughter to be reloaded, while she poised its
fellow carefully in her hand. "I sighted him
very fine, and was a trifle over my mark even
then. These pistols always throw high at so short
a distance."

Then she placed herself in readiness for another
enemy, and during a short space waited in vain.

The report of her pistol had been followed by a
general scramble of the negroes, who tumbled pre-
cipitately downstairs, and in some cases even out of
the house, under the impression that every suc-
ceeding moment might find them all blown into
the air. But the very cause of the besiegers' panic

AT BAY. 237

proved, when their alarm subsided, of the utmost
detriment to the garrison. Hippolyte, finding
himself still in possession of his limbs and faculties,
on the same side of the Sulphur Mountain as
before, argued, reasonably enough, that the con-
cealed powder was a delusion, and with consider-
able promptitude at once set fire to the lower
part of the house ; after which, once more muster-
ing his followers, and encouraging them by his
example, he ascended the staircase, and betaking
himself to the crowbar with a will, soon battered
in the weak defence that alone stood between the
ladies and their savage enemies.

Cerise had loaded her mother's pistol to per-
fection ; that mother; roused out of all thought of
self by her child's danger, was even now reckoning
the last frail chance by which her daughter might
escape. During the short respite afforded by the
panic of the negroes they had dragged with
desperate strength a heavy chest of drawers, and
placed it across the doorway. Even when the
latter was forced, this slight breastwork afforded
an additional impediment to the assailants.

" You must drop from the window, m}T child,"
whispered the Marquise, when the shattered door
fell in at length across this last obstruction, reveal-

238 CERISE.

ing a hideous confusion of black forms, and
rolling eyes, and grinning fiendish faces. "It is
not a dozen feet, but mind you turn round so as to
light on your hands and knees. Celandine must
be outside. If you can reach her you are safe.
Adieu, darling ! I can keep the two foremost
from following you, still !"

The Marquise grasped a pistol in each hand,
but she bent her brow — the haughty white brow
that had never been carried more proudly than
now — towards her child, and the girl's pale lips
clung to it lovingly, while she vowed that neither
life nor death should part her from her mother.

" It is all over, dear," she said, calmly. ■' We
can but die together as we have lived."

Their case was indeed desperate. The room
was already darkening with smoke, and the wood-
work on the floor below crackling in the flames
that began to light up the lawn outside, and tip
with saffron the sleeping woods beyond. The
door was broken in ; the chest of drawers gave
way with a loud crash, and brandishing his crow-
bar, Hippolyte leaped into the apartment like a
fiend, but stood for an instant aghast, rigid, like
that fiend turned to bronze, because the white lady,
shielding her daughter with her body, neither

AT BAY. 239

quailed nor flinched. Her eye was bright, her colour
raised, her lips set, her hand steady, her whole
attitude resolute and defiant. All this he took in
at a glance, and the Coromantee felt his craven
heart shrink up to nothing in his breast, thus
covered by the deadly pistol of the Marquise.

CHAPTER XVII.

JUST IN TIME.

J^O^OMENTS are precious at such a time.

The negro, goaded by shame, rage, and

alcohol, had drawn his breath for a

spring, when a loud cheer was heard

outside, followed by two or three dropping shots, and

the ring of a hearty English voice exclaiming —

" Hold on, mates ! Don't ye shoot wild a'cause
of the ladies. It's yardarm to yardarm, this
spell, and we'll give these here black devils a taste
of the naked steel !"

In another moment Slap-Jack was in the pas-
sage, leaving a couple of wounded ruffians on the
stairs to be finished by his comrades, and cutting
another down across the very door-sill of the
Marquise's bedchamber. Ere he could enter it,

JUST IN TIME. 241

however, his captain had dashed past him,
leaping like a panther over the dead negroes under
foot, and flashing his glittering rapier in the
astonished eyes of the Coromantee, who turned
round bewildered from his prey to fight with the
mad energy of despair.

In vain. Of what avail was the massive iron
crowbar, wielded even by the strength of a
Hercules, against the deadliest blade but one in
the Great Monarch's body-guard ?

A couple of dazzling passes, that seemed to go
over, under, all round the clumsier weapon — a
stamp — a muttered oath, shut in by clenched, de-
termined teeth, and the elastic steel shot through
Hippolyte's very heart, and out on the other
side.

Spurning the huge black body with his foot,
Captain George withdrew his sword, wiped it
grimly on the dead man's woolly head, and,
uncovering, turned to the ladies with a polite
apology for thus intruding under the pressure of so
disagreeable a necessity.

He had scarcely framed a sentence ere he be-
came deadly pale, and began to stammer, as if he,
too, was under the influence of some engrossing
and incontrollable emotion.

VOL. II. R

242 CERISE.

The two women had shrunk into the farthest
corner of the room. With the prospect of a rescue,
Madame de Montmirail's nerves, strung to their
utmost tension, had completely given way. In a
state of mental and bodily prostration, she had
laid her head in the lap of Cerise, whose courage,
being of a more passive nature, did not now fail
her so entirely.

The girl, indeed, pushing her hair back from
her temples, looked wildly in George's face for
an instant, like one who wakes from a dream ;
but the next, her whole countenance lit up with
delight, and holding out both hands to him, she
exclaimed, in accents of irrepressible tenderness
and self-abandonment, " (Test toil" Then the
pale face flushed crimson, and the loving eyes
drooped beneath his own. To him she had alwaj's
been beautiful — most beautiful, perhaps, in his
dreams — but never in dreams nor in waking
reality so beautiful as now.

He gazed on her entranced, motionless, forgetful
of everything in the world but that one loved
being restored, as it seemed, by a miracle, at the
very time when she had been most lost to him.
His stout heart, thrilling to its core from her
glance, quailed to think of what must have be-

JUST IN TIME. 243

fallen had he arrived a minute too late, and a
prayer went up from it of hearty humble thanks-
giving that he was in time. He saw nothing but
that drooping form in its delicate white dress, with
its gentle feminine gestures and rich dishevelled
hair ; heard nothing but the accents of that well-
remembered voice vibrating with the love that he
felt was deep and tender as his own. He was
unconscious of the cheers of his victorious boat's
crew, of the groans and shrieks uttered by wounded
or routed negroes, of the dead beneath his feet,
the blazing rafters overhead, the showers of sparks
and rolling clouds of smoke that already rilled the
house ; unconscious even of Madame de Montmi-
rail's recovery from" her stupor, as she too recog-
nized him, and raising herself with an effort from
her daughter's embrace, muttered in deep pas-
sionate tones, " (Test lui!"

But it was no time for the exchanges of ceremo-
nious politeness, or the indulgence of softer emo-
tions. The house was fairly on fire, the negroes
were up in arms all over the island. A boat's
crew, however sturdy, is but a handful of men,
and courage becomes foolhardy when it opposes
itself voluntarily at odds of one against a score.
Slap-Jack was the first to speak. "Askin' your

R 2

244 CERISE.

pardon, ladies," said he, with seamanlike de-
ference to the sex ; " the sooner we can clear out
of this here the better. If you'll have the kind-
ness to point out your sea-chests, and possibles,
and such like, Bottle- Jack here, he'll be answerable
for their safety, and me an' my mates we'll run
you both down to the beach and have you aboard
in a pig's whisper. The island's getting hot, miss/'
he added confidentially to Cerise, who did not the
least understand him. " In these low latitudes, a
house afire and a hundred of blacks means a
bobbery, just as sure as at home four old women
and a goose makes a market !"

" He is right," observed the Captain, who had
now recovered his presence of mind. "From
what I saw as I came along, I fear there is a
general rising of the slaves through the whole
island. My brigantine, I need not say, is at the
disposal of madame and mademoiselle (Cerise
thanked him with a look), and I believe that for a
time at least it will be the only safe place of
refuge."

Thus speaking, he offered his hand to conduct
the Marquise from the apartment, with as much
courtliness and ceremony as though they had been
about to dance a minuet at Versailles, under the

JUST IN TIME. 245

critical eye of the late king. Hers trembled
violently as she yielded it. That hand, so steady
but a few minutes ago, while levelling its deadly
weapon against the leader of a hundred enemies,
now shook as if palsied. How little men under-
stand women. He attributed her discomposure
entirely to fright.

There is a second nature, an acquired instinct in
the habits of good-breeding, irrepressible even by
the gravest emergency. Captain George, conduct-
ing Madame de Montmirail down her own blazing
staircase, behaved with as ceremonious a politeness
as if they had been descending in accordance with
etiquette to a formal dinner-party. Cerise, follow-
ing close, hung no doubt on every word that came
from his lips, but it must be confessed the conver-
sation was somewhat frivolous for so important a
juncture.

M I little thought," said the Captain, performing
another courtly bow, " that it was Madame la
Marquise whom I should have the honour of es-
corting to-night out of this unpleasant little fracas.
Had I known madame was on the island, she will
believe that I should have come ashore and paid
my respects to her much sooner."

" You could not have arrived at a more oppor-

246 CERISE.

tune moment, monsieur," answered the lady,
whose strong physical energy and habitual pre-
sence of mind were now rapidly reasserting them-
selves. "You have always been welcome to my
receptions ; never more so than to-night. You
found it a little hot, I fear, and a good deal
crowded. The latter disadvantage I was remedy-
ing, to the best of my abilities, when you an-
nounced yourself. The society, too, was hardly so
polite as I could have wished. Oh, monsieur !" she
added, in a changed and trembling voice, suddenly
discarding the tone of banter she had assumed,
" where should we have been now, and what
must have become of us, but for you? 'You, to
whom we had rather owe our lives than to any
man in the world !"

He was thinking of Cerise. He accepted the
kind words gratefully, happily ; but, like all gene-
rous minds, he made light of the service he had
rendered.

" You are too good to say so, madame," was his
answer. " lb seemed to me you were making a
gallant defence enough -when I came in. One
man had already fallen before your aim, and I
would not have given much for the life of that
ugly giant whom I took the liberty of running

JUST IN TIME. 247

through the body without asking permission, al-
though he is probably, like myself, a slave of your
own."

The Marquise laughed. " Confess, monsieur,"
said she, * that I have a steady hand on the pistol.
Do you know, I never shot at anything but a
playing-card till to-night. It is horrible to kill a
man, too. It makes me shudder when I think of
it. And yet, at the moment, I had no pity, no
scruples — I can even imagine that I experienced
something of the wild excitement which makes a
soldier's trade so fascinating. I hope it is not so ;
I trust I may not be so cruel — so unwomanly.
But you talk of slaves. Are we not yours?
Yours by every right of conquest ; to serve and
tend you, and follow you all over the world. Ah !
it would be a happy lot for her who knew its
value !"

The last sentence she spoke in a low whisper and
an altered tone, as if to herself. It either escaped
him or he affected not to hear.

By this time they were out of the house, and
standing on the lawn to windward of the flames,
which leaped and flickered from every quarter of
the building ; nor, in escaping from the conflagra-
tion, had they by any means yet placed themselves

248 CERISE.

in safety. Captain George and the three trusty
Jacks, with half a dozen more stout seamen, con-
stituting a boat's crew, had indeed rescued the
ladies, for the moment, from a hideous alternative ;
but it was more than doubtful, if even protected
by so brave an escort, they could reach the shore
unmolested. Bands of negroes, ready to commit
every enormity, were ere now patrolling all parts
of the island. It was too probable that the few
white inhabitants had been already massacred, or,
if still alive, would have enough to do to make
terms for themselves with the infuriated slaves.

A slender garrison occupied a solitary fort on the
other side of the mountains, but so small a force
might easily be overmastered, and even if they had
started on the march it was impossible they could
arrive for several hours in the vicinity of Port
Welcome. By that time the town might well be
burned to the ground, and George, who was accus-
tomed to reason with rapidity on the chances and
combinations of warfare, thought it by no means
unlikely that the ruddy glare, fleeting and wavering
on the night-sky over the blazing roof of Mont-
mirail West, might be accepted as a signal for
immediate action by the whole of the insurgents.

Hippolyte had laid his plans with considerable

JUST IN TIME. 249

forethought, i he result, perhaps, of many a crafty war-
path— many a savage foray in his own wild home.
He had so disposed the negroes under his imme-
diate orders, that Madame* de Montmirail's house
was completely surrounded in every direction by
which escape seemed possible. The different egresses
leading to the huts, the mills, the cane-pieces, were
all occupied, and a strong force was posted on the
high road to Port Welcome, chiefly with a view to
prevent the arrival of assistance from that quarter.
One only path was left unguarded ; it was narrow,
tangled, difficult to find, and wound up through
the jungle, across the wildest part of the moun-
tain.

By this route he had probably intended to carry
off Mademoiselle de Montmirail to some secure
fastness of his own. Not satisfied with the per-
sonal arrangements he had made for burning the
house and capturing the inmates, he had also
warned his confederates, men equally fierce and
turbulent, if of less intelligence than his own, that
they should hold themselves in readiness to take
up arms the instant they beheld a glare upon the
sky above Cash-a-crou ; that each should then
despatch a chosen band of twenty stout negroes to
himself for orders ; and that the rest of their forces

250 CERISE.

should at once commence the work of devastation
on their own account, burning, plundering, rioting,
and cutting all white throats, without distinction
of age or sex.

That this wholesale butchery failed in its details
was owing to no fault of conception, no scruples of
humanity on the part of its organizer. The execu-
tion fell short of the original design simply because
confided to several different heads, acted on by
various interests, and all more or less bemused with
rum. The ringleader had every reason to believe
that if his directions were carried out he would find
himself, ere sunrise, at the head of a general and
successful revolt — a black emperor, perhaps, with a
black population offering him a crown.

But this delusion had been dispelled by one
thrust of Captain George's rapier, and the Coro-
mantee's dark body lay charring amongst the
glowing timbers of Madame de Montmirail's bed-
chamber.

The dispositions that he had made, however,
accounted for the large force of negroes now con-
verging on the burning house. Their shouts
might be heard echoing through the woods in all
directions. When George had collected his men,
surrounded the two ladies by a trusty escort of

JUST IN TIME. 251

blue-jackets, and withdrawn his little company,
consisting but of a dozen persons, under cover of
the trees, he held a council of war as to the
best means for securing a rapid retreat. Truth
to tell, the skipper would willingly have given
the whole worth of her cargo to be once more
on her deck, or even under the guns of ' The Bash-
ful 3 [aid.'

Slap-Jack gave his opinion unasked.

n Up foresail," said he, with characteristic im-
petuosity ; " run out the guns — double-shotted
and depressed ; sport every rag of bunting ; close
in round the convoy ; get plenty of way on, and
run clean through, exchanging broadsides as we go
ahead!"

But Smoke-Jack treated the su££estion with
contempt.

" That's wot I call rough-and-tumble fighting,
your honour," he grumbled, with a sheepish glance
at the ladies ; for with all his boasted knowledge of
their sex, he was unaccustomed to such specimens
as these, and discomfited, as he admitted to himself,
by the " trim on 'em." " Them's not games as is
fitting for such a company as this here, if I may
make so bold. No, no, your honour, it's good
advice to keep to windward of a nigger, and it's

252 CERISE.

my opinion as we should weather them on this
here tack ; get down to the beach with a long leg
and a short one — half a mile and more below the
town — fire three shots, as agreed on, for the boat,
and so pull the ladies aboard on the quiet. After
that, we might come ashore again, d'ye see, and
have it out comfortable. What say you, Bottle-
Jack ?"

That worthy turned his quid, and looked preter-
naturally wise ; the more so that the question was
somewhat unexpected. He was all for keeping the
ladies safe, he decided, now they had got them.
Captain Kidd always did so, he remembered, and
Captain Kidd could sail a ship and fight a ship,
&c. ; but Bottle- Jack was more incoherent than
usual — utterly adrift under the novelty of his
situation, and gasping like a gudgeon at the Mar-
quise and her daughter, whose beauty seemed
literally to take away his breath.

George soon made up his mind.

" Is there any way to the beach," said he, ad-
dressing himself rather to Cerise than her mother,
" without touching the road to Port Welcome ?
It seemed to me, as we marched up, that the
high road made a considerable bend. If we could
take the string instead of the bow we might save

JUST IN TIME. 253

a good deal of time, and perhaps escape observa-
tion altogether."

The Marquise and her daughter looked at each
other helplessly. Had they been Englishwomen,
indeed, even in that hot climate, they would pro-
bably have known every by-road and mountain
path within three leagues of their home ; but
the ladies of France, though they dance exqui-
sitely, are not strong walkers, and neither of
these, during the months they had spent at Cash-
a-erou, had yet acquired such a knowledge of the
locality as might now have proved the salvation of
the whole party.

In this extremity a groan was heard to proceed
out of the darkness at a few paces distance. Slap-
jack, guided by the sound, and parting some
shrubs that concealed her, discovered poor Fleu-
rette, more dead than alive, bruised, exhausted,
terrified, scarcely able to stand, and shot through
the ankle by a chance bullet from the blue-
jackets, yet conscious enough still to drag herself
to the feet of Cerise and cover them with kisses,
forgetting everything else in her joy to find her
young mistress still alive.

" You would serve me, Fleurette, I know," said
Mademoiselle de Montmirail, in a cautious whisper ;

254 CERISE.

for, to her excited imagination, every shrub that
glistened in the moonlight held a savage. "I can
trust you ; I feel it. Tell me, is there no way to
the sea but through our enemies ? Must we wit-
ness more cruelties — more bloodshed ? Oh ! have
we not had righting and horrors enough ?"

The black girl twined herself upwards, like a
creeper, till her head was laid against the other's
bosom ; then she wept in silence for a few seconds
ere she could command her voice to reply.

" Trust me, lily ma'amselle," said she, in a tone
of intense feeling that vouched for her truth.
" Trust poor Fleurette ; give last drop of blood to
help young missee safe. Go to Jumbo for lily
ma'amselle now. Show um path safe across Sul-
phur Mountain down to sea-shore. Fleurette walk
pretty well tank you, now, if only buckra blue-
jacket offer um hand. Not so, sar ! Impudent
tief!" she added, indignantly, as Slap-Jack, tho-
roughly equal to the occasion, at once put his arm
round her waist. " Keep your distance, sar !
You only poor fore-topman. Dis good daddy help
me alon^ fust."

Thus speaking, she clung stoutly to Bottle-Jack,
and proceeded to guide the party up the mountain
along a path that she assured them was known but

JUST IN TIME. 255

to few of the negroes themselves, and avoided even
by these, as being the resort of Jumbo and several
other evil spirits much dreaded by the slaves. Of
such supernatural terrors, she was good enough to
inform them, they need have no fear, for that
Jumbo and his satellites were fully occupied to-
night in assisting the " bobbery " taking place all
over the island ; and that even were they at leisure
they would never approach a party in the centre of
which was walking such an angel of light as
Ma'amselle Cerise.

CHAPTEK XVIII.

MfcRE AVANT TOUT.

HE path was steep and narrow, leading
them, moreover, through the most
tangled and inaccessible parts of the
jungle. Their progress was necessarily
tardy and laborious. Fleurette took the lead, sup-
ported by Bottle-Jack, whose sea-legs seemed to
carry him up-hill with difficulty, and who stopped
to take breath more than once. The black girl's
wound was painful enough, but she possessed that
savage spirit of endurance which successfully resists
mere bodily suffering, and walked with an active
and elastic, though limping step. Blood, however,
was still oozing from her wound, and a sense of
faintness, resisted by sheer force of will, threatened
at every moment to overpower her. She might

MERE A VAST TOUT. 257

just reach the crest of the hill, she thought, and
then it would be all over with poor Fleurette ; but
the rest would need no guide after that point was
gained, and the faithful girl struggled on.
^Next came Smoke-Jack, in attendance on the
ladies, much exhilarated by the dignity of his
position, yet ludicrously on his good behaviour, and
afraid of committing himself, on the score of man-
ners, by word or deed. The Marquise and her
daughter walked hand in hand, wasting few words,
and busied each with her own thoughts. They
seemed to have exchanged characters with the
events of the last few hours. Cerise, ever since
her rescue, had displayed an amount of energy and
resolution scarcely to-be expected from her usual
demeanour, making light of present fatigue and
coming peril in a true military spirit of gaiety and
good-humour ; while her mother, on the contrary,
betrayed in every word and gesture the languor
of subdued emotion, and a certain softened, sad-
dened preoccupation of manner, seldom to be
remarked in the self-possessed and brilliant Mar-
quise.

Captain George, with Slap-Jack and the rest of
the blue-jackets, brought up the rear. His fighting
experience warned him that in no previous cam-

VOL. II. s

258 CERISE.

paign had he ever found himself in so critical a
position as at present. He was completely sur-
rounded by the enemy. His own force, though
well-armed and full of confidence, was ridiculously
weak in numbers. He was encumbered with bag-
gage (not to speak it disrespectfully) that must be
protected at any sacrifice, and he had to make
a forced march, through ground of which he was
ignorant, dependent on the guidance of a half-
savage girl, who might after all turn out to be a
traitress.

Under so many disadvantages, the former cap-
tain of Musketeers showed that he had not for-
gotten his early training. All eyes and ears, he
seemed to be everywhere at once, anticipating
emergencies, multiplying precautions, yet finding a
moment every now and then for a word of polite-
ness and encouragement to the ladies, to regret the
roughness of the path, to excuse the prospective
discomforts of the brigantine, or to assure them of
their speedy arrival in a place of safety. On these
occasions he invariably directed his speech to the
Marquise and his looks to her daughter.

Presently, as they continued to wind up the
hill, the ascent grew more precipitous. At length,
having crossed the bed of a rivulet that they

MERE AVANT TOUT. 259

could bear tumbling into a cascade many hun-
dred feet below, they reached a pass on the moun-
tain side where the path became level, but
seemed so narrow as to preclude farther pro-
gress. It turned at a sharp angle round the
bare face of a cliff, which rose on one side sheer
and perpendicular several fathoms above their
heads, and on the other shelved as abruptly into
a dark abyss, the depth of which, not one even of
the seamen, accustomed as they were to giddy
heights, dared measure with his eye. Fleurette
alone, standing on the brink, peered into it with-
out wavering, and pointing downwards, looked
back on the little party with triumph.

" See down there," said she, in a voice that
grew fainter with every syllable. "No road
round up above ; no road round down below.
Once past here all safe, same as in bed at home.
Come by, you ! take hands one by one — so —
small piece more — find white lagoon. All done
then. Good-night !"

Holding each other by the hand, the whole
party, to use Slap-Jack's expression, "rounded
the point" in safety. They now found them-
selves in an open and nearly flat space, encircled
but unshadowed by the jungle. Below them,

s 2

260 CERISE.

over a level of black tree 'tops, the friendly
sea was shining in the moonlight ; and nearer
yet, a gleam through the dark mass of forest de-
noted that white lagoon of which Fleurette had
spoken.

On any other night it would have been a
peaceful and a lovely sight ; but now a flickering
glare on the sky showed them where the roof-tree
of Montmirail West was burning into ashes, and
the 'yells of the rioters could be heard, plainer
and plainer, as they scoured the mountain in pur-
suit of the fugitives, encouraging each other in
their search.

Some of these shouts sounded so near in the
clear still night, that Captain George was of opinion
their track had been already discovered and fol-
lowed up. If this were indeed the case, no
stand could be made so effectually as at the
defile they had lately threaded, and he deter-
mined to defend it to the last. For this pur-
pose he halted his party and gave them their
directions.

" Slap-Jack," said he, " I've got a bit of sol-
dier's work for you to do. It's play to a sailor,
but you attend to my orders all the same. If
these black devils overhaul us, they can only

MERE AVANT TOUT. 261

round that corner one at a time. I'll leave you with
a couple of your own foretopmen here to stop that
game. But we soldiers never want to fight with-
out a support. Smoke- Jack and the rest of the
boat's crew will remain at your back. What say
ye, my lads ? It will be something queer if you
can't hold a hundred darkies and more in such
a post as this, say, for three-quarters of an hour.
I don't ask ye for a minute longer j but mind
ye, I expect that, if not a man of you ever
comes on board again. When you've killed all
the niggers, make sail straight away to the beach,
fire three shots, and I'll send a boat off. You
won't want to break your leave after to-night's
work. At ail events, I wouldn't advise you
to try, and I shall get the anchor up soon after
sunrise. Bottle- Jack comes with me, in case
the ladies should want more assistance, and
this dark girl — what d'ye call her? — Fleurette,
to show us the way. God bless ye, my lads !
Keep steady, level low, and don't pull till you
see the whites of their eyes !"

Bottle-Jack, slewing his body about with more
than customary oscillation, declared his willingness
to accompany the captain, but pointing to Fleu-
rette, expressed a fear that " this here gal had got

262 CERISE.

a megrim or something, and wanted caulkin' very
bad, if not refittin' altogether in dry dock."

The moon shed a strong light upon the little
party, and it was obvious that Fleurette, who had
now sunk to the ground, with her head supported
by Bottle-Jack as tenderly and carefully as if the
honest tar had been an experienced nurse of her
own sex, was seriously, if not mortally wounded,
and certainly unable to proceed. The Marquise
and her daughter were at her side in an instant,
but she took no heed of the former, fixing her
filmy eyes on Cerise, and pressing her young
mistress's hand to her heart.

" You kiss me once again," said she, faintly, and
with a sad smile on her swarthy face, now turning
to that wan leaden hue which makes a pale negro
so ghastly an object. " Once again, so sweet !
ma'amselle, same as before. You go straight on
to white lagoon — see ! Find canoe tied up. Stop
here berry well, missee — Fleurette camp ' out all
night. ISTo fear Jumbo now. Sleep on long after
monkeys wake. Good-night !"

It was with difficulty that Cerise could be
prevailed on to leave the faithful girl who had
sacrificed herself so willingly, and whom, indeed,
she could hardly expect to see again ; but the

MfeRE AVANT TOUT. 2Go

emergency admitted of no delay, even on the score
of gratitude and womanly compassion. George
hurried the ladies forward in the direction of the
lagoon, leaving Fleurette, now prostrate and un-
conscious, to the care of Slap- Jack,, who pitied her
from the depths of his honest heart.

"It's a bad job," said he, taking off his jacket
and folding it into a pillow for the poor girl's head,
with as much tender care as if she had been his
own Alice, of whom indeed he was thinking at the
moment. "A real bad job, if ever there was one.
Such a heart of oak as this here ; an' a likely lass
too, though as black as a nor'-easter. Well,
somebody '11 have to pay for this night's work, that's
sartin. Ay ! yell away, you black beggars. We'll
give you something to sing out for presently — an'
you shall have it hot and heavy when you do get
it, as sure as my name's Slap-Jack !"

Captain George in the mean time led the two
ladies swiftly down the open space before them, in
the direction of the lagoon, which was now in sight.
They had but to thread one more belt of lofty
forest trees, from which the wild vines hung in a
profusion of graceful festoons, and they were on the
brink of the cool, peaceful water, spread like a
sheet of silver at their feet.

264 CERISE.

" Five minutes more," said he, " and we are
safe. Once across, and if that girl speaks truth,
less than a quarter of a league will bring us to the
beach. All seems quiet, too, on this side, and there
is little chance of our being intercepted from the
town. The boat will be in waiting within a cable's
length off shore, and my signal will bring her in at
once. Then I shall hope to conduct you safe on
board, but both madame and mademoiselle 'must
excuse a sailor's rough accommodation and a sailor's
unceremonious welcome."

The Marquise did not immediately answer. She
was looking far ahead into the distance, as though
she heard not, or at least heeded not, and yet
every tone of his voice was music to her ears, every
syllable he spoke curdled like some sweet and
subtle poison in her blood. Notwithstanding the
severe fatigue and fierce excitement of the night,
she walked with head erect, and proud imperious
step, like a queen amongst her courtiers, or an
enchantress in the circle she has drawn. There
was a wild brilliancy in her eyes, there was a fixed
red spot on either cheek ; but for all her assumption
of pride, for all her courage and all her self-
command, her hand trembled, her breath came
quick, and the Marquise knew that she had never

MfcRE AVANT TOUT. 265

yet felt so thoroughly a weak and dependent
woman as now, when she turned at last to thank
her preserver for his noble efforts, and dared not
even raise her eyes to meet his own.

'• You have saved us, monsieur," was all she
could stammer out, " and how can we show our
gratitude enough ? We shall never forget ^ the
moment of supreme danger, nor the brave man
who came between those ruffians and their prey.
Shall we, Cerise ?"

But Cerise made no answer, though she managed
to convey her thanks in some hidden manner that
afforded Captain George a satisfaction quite out of
proportion to their value.

They had now reached the edge of the lagoon,
to find, as Fleurette had indicated, a shallow
rickety canoe, moored to a post half-buried in the
water, worm-eaten, rotten, and crumbling to decay.
The bark itself was in little better preservation,
and on a near inspection they discovered, much to
their discomfiture, that it would hold at best but
one passenger at a time. It had evidently not been
used for a considerable period, and after months of
exposure and ill-usage, without repair, was indeed,
as a means of crossing the lagoon, little better than
so much brown paper. George's heart sank while

266 CERISE.

he inspected it. There was no paddle, and
although such a want might easily be remedied
with a knife and the branch of a tree, every
moment of delay seemed so dangerous, that the
captain made up his mind to use another method
of propulsion, and cross over at once.

" Madame," said he to the Marquise, " our
only safety is on the other side of this lagoon.
Fifty strokes of a strong swimmer would take him
there. No paddle has been left in that rickety
little craft, nor dare I waste the few minutes it
would take to fashion one. Moreover, neither
mademoiselle nor yourself could use it, and you
need only look at your shallop to be sure that it
would never carry two. This, then, is what I
propose. I will place one of you in the canoe, and
swim across, pushing it before me. Bottle-Jack
will remain here to guard the other. For that
purpose I will leave him my pistols in addition to
his own. When my first trip is safely accomplished,
I will return with the canoe and repeat the experi-
ment. The whole can be done in a short quarter
of an hour. Excuse me, mad am e, but for this
work I must divest myself of coat, cravat, and
waistcoat."

Thus speaking, Captain George disencumbered

M&RE AVANT TOUT. 267

himself rapidly of these garments, and assisted by
Bottle-Jack, tilted the light vessel on its side, to
get rid of its superfluous weight of water. Then
standing waist-deep in the lagoon, he prepared it
for the reception of its freight ; no easy matter with
a craft of this description, little more roomy and
substantial than a cockle-shell, without the ad-
vantage of being water-tight. Spreading his laced
coat along the bottom of the canoe, he steadied it
carefully against the bank, and signed to the ladies
that all was now in readiness for embarkation.

They exchanged wistful looks. Neither seemed
disposed to grasp at her own safety and leave the
other in danger. Bottle- Jack, leaning over the
canoe, continued baling the water out with his
hand. Notwithstanding the captain's precautions
it leaked fast, and seemed even now little calculated
to land a passenger dry on the farther shore.

"Mamma, I will not leave you," said Cerise,
" you shall go first with George. With monsieur,
I mean ." She corrected herself, blushing violently.
" Monsieur can then return for me, and I shall be
quite safe with this good old man, who is, you
perceive, armed to the teeth, and as brave as a
lion besides."

" That is why I do not fear to remain," returned

268 CERISE.

the Marquise. " Child, I could not bear to see
this sheet of water between us, and you on the
dangerous side. We can neither fly nor swim, alas !
though the latter art we might have learned long
ago. Cerise, I insist on your crossing first. It may
be the last command I shall ever lay upon you."

But Cerise was still obstinate, and the canoe
meanwhile filled fast, in spite of Bottle-Jack's
exertions. That worthy, whose very nose was
growing pale, though not with fear, took no heed
of their dilemma, but continued his task with a
mechanical, half-stupefied persistency, like a man
under the influence of opium. The quick eye of
the Marquise had detected this peculiarity of
manner, and it made her the more determined not
to leave her daughter under the old seaman's
charge. Their dispute might have been protracted
till even Captain George's courtesy would have
given way; but a loud yell from the defile they
had lately quitted, followed by a couple of shots
and a round of British cheers, warned them all
that not a moment was to be lost, for that their
retreat was even now dependent on the handful of
brave men left behind to guard the pass.

" My daughter shall go first, monsieur ? Is it
not so7" exclaimed the Marquise, with an eager-

MfeRE AVANT TOUT. 269

ness of eye and excitement of manner she had not
betrayed in all the previous horrors of the night.

"It is better," answered George. "Mademoi-
selle is perhaps somewhat the lightest." And
although he strove to make his voice utterly
unmoved and indifferent, there was in its tone a
something of intense relief, of deep, heartfelt joy,
that told its own tale.

The Marquise knew it all at last. She saw the
past now, not piece by piece, in broken detail as
it had gone by, but all at once, as the mariner,
sailing out of a fogbank, beholds the sunny sky,
and the blue sea, and the purple outlines of the
shore. It came upon her as a shot goes through a
wild deer. The creature turns sick and faint, and
knowing all is over, yet would fain ignore its hurt
and keep its place, erect, stately, and uncom-
plaining, amongst the herd ; not the less surely
has it got its death-wound.

How carefully he placed Cerese in the frail
bark of which she was to be the sole occupant.
How tenderly he drew the laced coat between the
skirt of her delicate white dress and the flimsy
shattered wood-work, worn, splintered, and drip-
ping wet even now. Notwithstanding the haste
required, notwithstanding that every moment was

270 CERISE.

of such importance in this life-and-death voyage,
how he seemed to linger over the preparations
that brought him into contact with his precious
freight. At last they were ready. A farewell
embrace between mother and daughter ; a husky
cheer delivered in a whisper from Bottle-Jack ;
a hurried thanksgiving for perils left behind ; an
anxious glance at the opposite shore, and the
canoe floated off with its burden, guided by
George, who in a few yards was out of his depth
and swimming onward in long measured strokes
that pushed it steadily before him.

The Marquise, watching their progress with
eager restless glance, that betrayed strong passions
and feelings kept down by a stronger will, observed
that when within a pistol-shot of the opposite
shore the bark was propelled swiftly through the
water, as if the swimmer exerted himself to the
utmost — so much so as to drive it violently against
the bank. George's voice, while his dripping
figure emerged into sight, warned her that all was
well ; but straining her eyes in the uncertain light,
the Marquise, though she discerned her daughter's
white dress plainly enough, could see nothing of
the boat. Again George shouted, but she failed
to make out the purport of what he said ; though

MfcRE AVANT TOUT. 271

a gleam of intelligence on the old seaman's face
made her turn to Bottle-Jack. " What is it ?" she
asked, anxiously. " Why does he not come back
to us with the canoe ?"

"The canoe will make no more voyages, my
lady," answered the old man, with a grim leer that
had in it less of mirth than pain. " She's foun-
dered, that's wot she's been an' done. They'll send
back for us, never fear ; so you an' me will keep
watch and watch till they come ; an' if you please,
my lady, askin' your pardon, I'll keep my watch
first."

CHAPTER XIX.

ALL ADEIFT.

HE Marquise scarcely heard him. She
was intent on those two figures
scrambling up the opposite shore, and
fast disappearing into the darkness
beyond. It seemed that the darkness was closing
in around herself, never again to be dispelled.
When those were gone what was there left on
earth for her? She had lost Cerise, she told
herself, the treasure she had guarded so carefully ;
the darling for whom she would have sacrificed
her life a thousand times, as the events of the last
few hours proved ; the one aim and object of her
whole existence, without which she was alone in the
world. And now this man had come and taken
her child away, and it would never be the same

ALL ADRIFT. 273

thing again. Cerise loved him, she was sure of
that. Ah! they could not deceive her; and he
loved Cerise. She knew it by his voice in those
few words when he suggested that the girl should
cross the water first. The Marquise twined her
fingers together, as if she was in pain.

They must be safe now. Walking side by side
on the peaceful beach, waiting for the boat that
should bear them away, would they forget all
about her in the selfishness of their new-found
happiness, and leave her to perish here? She
wished they would. She wished the rioters,
coming on in overwhelming numbers, might force
the pass and drive these honest blue-jackets in
before them to make. a last desperate stand at the
water's edge. She could welcome death then,
offering herself willingly to insure the safety of
those two.

And what was this man to her that she should
give him up her daughter, that she should be
ready to give up her life rather than endanger
his happiness? She winced, she quivered with
pain and shame because of the feelings her own
question called up. What was he to her? The
noblest, the dearest, the bravest, the best-beloved ;
the realization of her girl's dreams, of her woman's

VOL. II. T

274 CERISE.

passions, the type of all that she had ever
honoured and admired and longed for to make her
happiness complete! She remembered so well
the boy's gentle brow, the frank kind ejes that
smiled and danced with delight to be noticed by
her, a young and beautiful widow, flattered and
coveted of all the Great King's Court. She
recalled, as if it were but yesterday, the stag-hunt
at Fontainebleau ; the manly figure and the
daring horsemanship of the Grey Musketeer ; her
own mad joy in that wild gallop, and the strange
keen zest life seemed to have acquired when she
rode home through those sleeping woods, under
the dusky purple of that soft autumnal night.
How she used to watch for him afterwards, amidst
all the turmoil of feasts and pleasures that con-
stituted the routine of the new Court. How well
she knew his place of ceremony, his turn of duty,
and loved the very sentries at the palace-gate for
his sake. Often had she longed to hint by a look,
a gesture, the flirt of a fan, the dropping of a
flower, that he had not far to seek for one who
would care for him as he deserved ; but even the
Marquise shrank, and feared, and hesitated, woman-
like, where she really loved. Then came that
ever-memorable night at the Masked Ball, when

ALL ADRIFT. '275

cried out loud, in her longing and her loneli-
ness, and never knew afterwards whether she was
glad or sorry for what she had done.

It was soon to be over then, for ere a few more
Jays had elapsed the Kegent ventured on his
ueless outrage at the Hotel Montmirail, and
lo ! in the height of her indignation and her need,
who should drop down, as it seemed, from the
skies, to be her champion, but the man of all
others whom most she could have loved and
trusted in the world !

Since then, had she not thought of him by day
and dreamt of him by night, dwelling on his image
with a fond persistency none the less cherished be-
cause saddened and desponding — content, if better
might not be, to worship it in secret to the last,
though she might never look on its original again ?

The real and the ideal had so acted on each
other, that while he seemed to her the perfection of
all manhood should be, that very type was un-
consciously but a faithful copy of himself. In
short, she loved him ; and when such a man is
loved by such a woman it is usually but little
conducive to his happiness, and thoroughly destruc-
tive of her own.

If I have mistaken the originator of so beautiful

T 2

276 CERISE.

and touching an illustration, I humbly beg his
pardon, but I think it is Alphonse Karr who teaches,
in his remarks on the great idolatry of all times and
nations, that it is well to sow plenty of flowers in
that prolific soil which is fertilized by the heart's sun-
shine and watered by its tears — plenty of flowers,
the brighter, the sweeter, the more fragile, perhaps,
the better. Winter may cut them down indeed to
the cold earth, yet spring-time brings another crop
as fair, as fresh, as fragile, and as easily replaced
as those that bloomed before. But it is unwise to
plant a tree ; because, if that tree be once torn up by
the roots, the flowers will never grow over the barren
place again!

The Marquise had not indeed planted the tree,
but she had allowed it unwittingly to grow. Perhaps
she would never have confessed its existence to
herself had it not thus been forcibly torn away by
roots that had for years twined deeper and deeper
among all its gentlest and all its strongest feelings,
till they had become as the very fibres of her
heart.

It is needless to say that the Marquise was
a woman elevated both by disposition and educa-
tion above the meaner and pettier weaknesses of
her sex. If she was masculine in her physical

ALL ADRIFT. 277

courage and moral recklessness of consequences*
she was masculine a) so in a certain generosity of
spirit and noble disdain for anything like malice or
foul play. Jealousy with her — and, like all strong
natures, she could feel jealousy very keenly — would
never be visited on the object that had caused it.
She would hate and punish herself under the
torture ; she might even be goaded to hate and
punish the man at whose hands she was suffering ;
but she would never have injured the woman
whom he preferred, and, indeed, supported by
a scornful pride, would have taken a strange
morbid pleasure in enhancing her own pain by
ministering to that woman's happiness.

Therefore she was saved a keen pang now. A
pang that might have rendered her agony too
terrible to endure. She had not concealed from
herself to-night that the thrill of delight she
experienced from the arrival of succour was due
rather to the person who brought it than to the
stance itself; but almost ere she had time to
realize its charm the illusion had been dispelled,
and she felt that, dream as it all was, she had been
wakened ere she had time to dream it out.

And now it seemed to her that nothing would
be so good as the excitement of another skirmish,

278 CERISE.

another struggle, and a sudden death, with the
cheers of these brave Englishmen ringing in her
ears. A death that Cerise would never forget had
been encountered for her safety, that he would
sometimes remember, and remembering, accord a
smile and a sigh to the beauty he had neglected,
and the devotion he had never known till too late.

Engrossed with such thoughts, the Marquise was
less alive than usual to surrounding impressions.
Presently a deep groan, forced from her companion
by combined pain and weakness, against which the
sufferer could no longer hold out, roused her to a
sense of her situation, which was indeed sufficiently
precarious to have warranted much anxiety and
alarm.

Hastening to his side, she was shocked to
perceive that Bottle- Jack had sunk to the ground,
and was now endeavouring ineffectually to support
himself on his knees in an attitude of vigilance
and defence. The Captain's pistols lay beside
him, and he carried his own in each hand, but his
glazing eye and fading colour showed that the
weapons could be but of little service, and the
time seemed fast approaching when the old sailor
should be relieved from his duty by an order
against which there was no appeal.

ALL ADRIKT. 279

The Marquise had scarcely listened to the words
while he spoke them, but they came back now, and
she understood what he meant when he told her
that, if she pleased, " he would keep his watch first."

She looked around and shuddered. It was,
indeed, a cheerless position enough. The moon
was sinking, and that darkest hour of the night
approached which is followed by dawn, just as
sorrow is succeeded by consolation, and death
by immortality. The breeze struck damp and
chill on her unprotected neck and bosom, for there
had been no time to think of cloaks or shawls
when she escaped, nor was the air sufficiently cold
before midnight to remind her of such precautions.
The surrounding jungle stirred and sighed faintly,
yet sadly, in the night air. The waters of the deep
lagoon, now darkening with a darkening sky,
lapped drearily against their bank. Other noises
were there none, for the rioters seemed to have
turned back from the resistance offered by Slap-
jack with his comrades, and to have abandoned
for the present their search in that direction. The
seamen who guarded the defile were peering
stealthily into the gloom, not a man relaxing in
his vigilance, not a man stirring on his post. The
only sounds that broke her solitude were the rest-

280 CERISE.

less movements of Bottle- Jack, and the groans
that would not be suppressed. It was no wonder
the Marquise shuddered.

She stooped over the old seaman, and took his
coarse, heavy hand in hers. Even at such an
extremity, Bottle-Jack seemed conscious of the
contrast, and touched it delicately, like some
precious and fragile piece of porcelain. " I fear
you are hurt," said she, in his own language, which
she spoke with the measured accent of her country-
women. "Tell me what it is ; I am not a bad
doctor myself."

Bottle-Jack tried to laugh. " It's a fleabite, my
lady," said he, setting his teeth to conceal the pain
he suffered. " Tis but a poke in the side after all,
though them black beggars does grind their spear-
heads to an edge like a razor. It's betwixt wind
and water, d'ye see, marm, if I may be so bold, and
past caulking, in my opinion. I'm a fillin' fast,
that's where it is, askin' your pardon again for
naming it to a lady like you."

She partly understood him, and for the first time
to-night the tears came into her eyes. They did
her good. They seemed to clear her faculties and
cool her brain. She examined the old man's hurt,
after no small resistance on his part, and found a

ALL ADRIFT. 281

deep wound between his ribs, which even her
experience warned her must be mortal. She
staunched it as well as she could, tearing up the
lace and other trimmings of her dress to form a
temporary bandage. Then she bent down to the
lagoon to dip her coroneted handkerchief in water
and lay it across his brow, while she supported his
sinking frame upon her knees. He looked in her
face with a puzzled, wandering gaze, like a man in
a dream. The vision seemed so unreal, so im-
possible, so unlike anything he had ever seen
before, Bottle- Jack began to think he had reached
Fiddlers-Green at last.

The minutes dragged slowly on. The sky
became darker, the breeze colder, and the strangely
matched pair continued in the same position on the
brink of the white lagoon, the Marquise dipping
her handkerchief at short intervals, and moistening
the sailor's mouth. It was all she could do for
him, and like a faithful old dog, wounded to the
death, he could only thank her with his eyes.
More than once she thought he was gone, but as
moment after moment crept by, so sad, so slow,
she knew he was still alive.

Would it never be day ? She could scarcely see
him now, though his heavy head rested on her

282 CERISE.

knees, though her hand with the moistened hand-
kerchief was laid on his very lips. At last the
breeze freshened, sighing audibly through the tree-
tops, which were soon dimly seen swaying to and
fro against a pale streak of sky on the horizon.
Bottle-Jack started and sat up.

" Stand by !" he exclaimed, looking wildly round.
" You in the fore-chains ! Keep your axe ready to
cut away when she rounds to. Easy, lads ! She'll
weather it now, and I'll go below and turn in."

Then he laid his head once more on Madame de
Montmirail's knees, like a child who turns round
to go to sleep.

The grey streak had grown to a wide rent of
pale green, now broadening and brightening into
day. Ere the sky was yet flecked with crimson,
or the distant tree-tops tinged with golden fire, the
life of the whole jungle was astir, waking the
discords of innumerable menageries. Cockatoos
whistled, monkeys chattered, parrots screamed,
mocking-birds reproduced these and a thousand
other sounds a thousand-fold. All nature seemed
renewed, exulting in the freshened energies of
another day, but still the Marquise sat by the
lagoon, pale, exhausted, worn out, motionless, with
the dead seaman's head in her lap;

CHAPTER XX.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

UT, madame, I am as anxious as
you can be ! Independent of my
own feelings — and judge if they be
not strong — the brigan tine should not
lie here another hour. After last night's work, it
will not be long before a Spanish man-of-war
shows herself in the offing, and I have no desire
that our papers should be overhauled, now when
my cruise is so nearly finished. I tell you, my
dearest wish is to have it settled, and weigh with
the next tide."

Captain George spoke from his heart, yet the
Marquise seemed scarcely satisfied. Her move-
ments were abrupt and restless, her eyes glittered,
and a fire as of fever burned in her cheeks, some-

284 CERISE.

what wasted with all her late excitement and
suspense. For the first time, too, he detected
silver lines about the temples, under those heavy-
black locks that had always seemed to Jbim only
less beautiful than her child's.

"Not a moment must be lost," said she, "not a
moment — not a moment," and repeating her
words, walked across the deck to gaze wistfully
over the side on Port Welcome, with its white
houses glistening in the morning sun. They were
safe on board ' The Bashful Maid,' glad to escape
with life from the successful revolt that had burned
Montmiraii West to the ground, and destroyed
most of the white people's property on the island.
Partly owing to its distance from the original scene
of outbreak, partly from its lying under the very
guns of the brigantine, of which the tonnage and
weight of metal had been greatly exaggerated by
the negroes, Port Welcome was yet standing, but its
black population were keeping high holiday, appa-
rently masters of the situation, and its white resi-
dents crept about in fear and trembling, not
knowing how much longer they might be allowed
to call their very lives their own. It had been a
memorable night, a night of murder and rapine,
and horror and dismay. Few escaped so well as

HOMEWARD BOUND. 285

Madame de Montmirail and her daughter. None
indeed had the advantage of such a rescue. The
negroes who tracked them into the bush, and who
had delayed their departure to appropriate such
plunder as they could snatch from the burning
house, or to drink from its cellars success to the
revolt, only reached that defile through which the
fugitives were guided by Fleurette after these had
passed by. The disappointed pursuers were there
received by a couple of shots from Slap-Jack and
his shipmates, which drove them back in disorder,
yelling, boasting, vowing vengeance, but without
any thought of again placing themselves in danger
from lead or steel. In the death of Hippolyte,
the revolt had lost its chief, and became from that
moment virtually a failure. The Coromantee
was the only uegro concerned really capable of
directing such a movement, and when his leader-
ship was disposed of by a rapid thrust from Cap-
tain George's rapier, the whole scheme was
destined to fall to pieces of itself, after the reaction
which always follows such disorders had taken
place, and the habits of every-day life began to re-
assert themselves. In the mean time, the blacks
had more congenial amusements in store than
voluntary collision with an English boat's crew,

286 CERISE.

and soon desisted from a search, through, the
jungle, apparently as troublesome and hazardous
as a hunt for a hornet's nest.

By sunrise, therefore, Slap- Jack was able to draw
off his party from their post, and fall back to where
the Marquise sat watching by the dead seaman, on
the brink of the lagoon. Nor was Bottle-Jack
the only victim of their escape, for poor Fleurette
had already paid the price of her fidelity with her
life.

A strong reinforcement from 'The Bashful
Maid,' led by her Captain in person, who had
returned at once, after placing Cerise in safety,
enabled Madame de Montmirail and her defenders
to take the high road to Port Welcome in defiance
of all opposition. They therefore rounded the
lagoon at once, and proceeding by an easier
route than that which her daughter followed,
reached the quay at their leisure, thence to em-
bark on board the brigantine unmolested by the
crowds of rioters with whom the town was filled.

Therefore it was that Madame de Montmirail
now found herself on the deck of 'The Bashful
Maid,' urging with a strange persistency, unusual
and even unbecoming in a mother, Captain
George's immediate marriage to her child, who

HOMEWARD BOUND. 287

was quietly sleeping off the night's fatigues
below.

" There is the chapel, madame," said George,
pointing to the little white edifice that stood
between the lighthouse and the town, distin-
guished by a cross that surmounted its glistening
roof, ''and here is the bride, safe, happy, and I
hope sound asleep beneath the very spot where we
are standing. I know not why there should be
an hour's delay, if indeed the priest have not taken
flight. There must have been a prospect of
martyrdom last night, which he would scarce wish
to inspect too closely. Ah! madame, I may
seem cold and undemonstrative, but if you could
look into my heart. you would see how happy I
am!"

His voice and manner carried with them a con-
viction not to be disputed. It probed the
Marquise to the quick, and true to her character,
she pressed the instrument deeper and deeper into
the wound.

"You love her then, monsieur?" she said,
speaking very clearly and distinctly through her
set teeth. "You love her as a woman must be
loved if she would be happy — unreservedly, with
your whole heart ?"

288 CERISE.

" I love her so well," he answered, " that I only
ask to pass my life in contributing to her happi-
ness. Mine has been a rude, wild career, in many
scenes and many countries. I have lived in
society and out of society, afloat and ashore, at
bivouac fires and Court receptions, yet I have
always carried the portrait of that one gentle
loving face printed on my heart."

"I compliment you on your constancy," she
answered rather bitterly. M Such gallants have
been very rare of late both at the old and new
Courts. You . must have seen other women too,
as amiable, as beautiful, who could have loved you
perhaps as well."

Something like a sigh escaped her with the con-
cluding sentence, but there is no egotist like a
happy lover, and he was too preoccupied with his
own thoughts to perceive it. Smiling in his
companion's face, with the old honest expression
that reminded her of what he had been as a boy,
he took her hand and kissed it affection ately.

". Madame," said he, " shall I make you a
frank avowal ? Ever since I was a wild page at
Versailles, and you were so kind to me, I have
believed in Madame de Montmirail as my ideal of
all that woman should be, and perhaps might

HOMEWARD BOUND. 289

never have loved Cerise so well had slie not
resembled her mother."

The Marquise was not without plenty of self-
command, but she wanted it all now. Under
pretence of adjusting her glove, she snatched away
the hand he held, that he might not feel it
tremble, and forced herself to laugh while she
replied lightly — '

" You are complimentary, monsieur, but your
compliments are somewhat out of date. An
old woman, you know, does not like to be re-
minded of her age, and you were, yes, I honestly
confess you were, a dear, mischievous, good-look-
ing, good-for-nothing boy in that far-off time so
long ago. But all this is nothing to the purpose.
Let us send ashore at once to the priest. The
ceremony may take place at noon, and I can give
the young couple my blessing before wishing them
good-bye."

■ How, madame ?" replied he, astonished. " You
will surely accompany us ? You will return with
us to Europe ? You will never trust yourself '
amongst these savages again, after once escaping
out of their hands?"

" I shall be safe enough when the garrison has
crossed the mountain," she answered, " and that

VOL. II. U

290 CERISE.

must be in a few hours, for they are probably even
now on the march. Till then I will take refuge
with the Jesuits on their plantation at Maria-
Galante. I do not think all my people can have
rebelled. Some of them will escort me faithfully
as far as that. No, monsieur, the La Fiertes have
never been accustomed to abandon a - post of
danger, and I shall not leave the island until this
rising has been completely put down."

She spoke carelessly, almost contemptuously, but
she scarcely knew what she said. Her actual
thoughts, had she allowed herself to utter them,
would have thus framed themselves : " Can there
be anything so blind, so heartless, so self-engrossed
— shall I say it ? — so entirely and hopelessly stupid
as a man ?"

It was not for George to dispute her wishes.
Though little given to illusions, he could scarcely
believe that he was not dreaming now, so strange
did it seem to have achieved in the last twelve
nours that which had hitherto formed the one
engrossing object of his life, prized, coveted, dwelt
on the more that it looked almost impossible of
fulfilment. There was but one drawback to his
joy, one difficulty left, perplexing indeed, although
simple, and doubly annoying because others of

HOMEWARD BOUND. 291

apparently far greater moment had been sur-
mounted. There was no priest to be found in
Port Welcome! The good old Portuguese Cure
who took spiritual charge of the white inhabitants,
and such negroes as could be induced to pay atten-
tion to his ministering, had been nearly frightened
out of his wits by the outbreak. This quiet meek
old man, who, since he left his college forty years
before, had never known an excitement or anxiety
greater than a visit from his bishop or a blight in
his plantain-ground, now found himself surrounded
by swarms of drunken and infuriated slaves, yell-
ing for his life. It was owing to the presence of
mind shown by an old coloured woman who lived
with him as housekeeper, and to no energy or
activity of his own, that he made his escape. She
smuggled him out of the town through a bye-
street, and when he had once got his mule into
an amble he never drew rein till he reached the
Jesuits' establishment at Maria-Galante, where he
found a qualified welcome and a precarious refuge.
From this shelter, defenceless and uncertain as it
was, nothing would induce him to depart till the
colours of a Spanish three-decker were flying in
the harbour, and ere such an arrival could restore
confidence to the colony it would behove 'The

u2

292 CERISE.

Bashful Maid' to spread her wings and flee
away.

Captain George was at his wits' end. In such a
dilemma he bethought him of consulting his second
in command. For this purpose he went below to
seek Beaudesir, and found him keeping guard at
the cabin-door within which Mademoiselle de
Montmirail was reposing, a post he had held with-
out stirring since she came on board before dawn,
and was confided by the Captain to his care. He
had not spoken to her, he had not even seen her
face ; but from that moment he had exchanged no
words with his comrades, standing as pale, as
silent, and almost as motionless as a statue. He
started violently when the Captain spoke, and
collected his faculties with an obvious effort.
George could not but observe his preoccupa-
tion.

" I am in a difficulty," said the latter, " as 1
have already told you more than once. Try and
comprehend me. I do not often ask for advice,
but I want yours now."

"You shall have it at any cost," replied the
other. " Do not I owe everything in the world to

you?"

"Listen," continued George. "The young lady

HOMEWARD BOUND. 293

whom my honest fellows rescued last night, and
whom I brought on board, is — is — Mademoiselle
de Montmirail herself."

"I know — I know," answered Beaude'sir, im-
patiently. "At least, I mean you mentioned it
before."

" Very likely," returned the Captain, " though
I do not remember it. Well, it so happens, you
see, that this is the same young lady — the person —
the individual — in short, I have saved the woman
of all others who is most precious to me in the
world."

" Of course — of course," repeated Beaudesir, im-
patiently, "she cannot go back — she shall not
go back amongst those wretches. She must stay
on board. You must take her to Europe. There
should be no delay. You must be married — now —
immediately — within two hours — before we get
the anchor up."

He seemed strangely eager, restless, excited.
Without actually acknowledging it, George felt
instinctively that something in his friend's manner
reminded him of the Marquise.

"There is a grave difficulty," said the Captain.
"Where can we find a priest? That fat little
Portuguese who looked like a guinea-pig is sure

294 CERISE.

to have run away, if the negroes have not cut his
throat."

The other reflected, his pale face turning paler
every moment. Then he spoke, in a low deter-
mined voice —

"My Captain, there is a Society of Jesuits on
the island : I know it for certain ; do not ask me
why. I have never failed you, have I ? Trust me
yet this once. Order a boat to be manned ; I will
go ashore instantly ; follow in an hour's time with
a strong guard ; bring your bride with you ; I will
undertake that everything shall be ready at the
chapel, and a priest in waiting to perform the
ceremony."

George looked him straight in the face. " You
are a true friend," said he, and gave him his
hand. The other bent over it as if he would
have put it to his lips, and when he raised
his head again his eyes were full of tears. He
turned away hastily, sprang on deck, and in five
minutes the boat was lowered and Beaudesir over
the side.

George tapped humbly at the cabin door, and a
gentle face, pale but lovely, peeped out to greet
him. After his whisper the face was anything but
pale, and although the little monosyllabe 'No'

HOMEWARD BOUND. 295

was repeated again and again in that pleading,
yielding tone which robs the negative of all its
harshness, the boon he begged must have been
already nearly accorded if there be any truth in
the old Scottish proverb which affirms that " Nine-
teen nay-says make half a grant."

In less than two hours the bridal procession was
formed upon the quay, guarded by some score of
stalwart, weatherbeaten tars, and presenting an
exceedingly formidable front to the crowds of
grinning negroes who were idling in the sun,
talking over the events of the past night, and
congratulating; themselves that no such infliction
as field-work was ever to be heard of in the island
again.

It was a strange and picturesque wedding,
romantic enough in appearance and reality to have
satisfied the wildest imagination. Smoke-Jack
and certain athletic able seamen marched in front ;
Slap-Jack and his foretop-men brought up the
rear. In the centre walked the Marquise and her
daughter, accompanied by the bridegroom. Four
deep on each side were the special attendants of
the bride, reckless in gait, free in manner, bronzed,
bearded, broad-shouldered, and armed to the teeth,
vet cherishing perhaps as deep a devotion for her

296 CERISE.

whom they attended to the altar as could have
been entertained by the fairest bevy of bride's-
maids that ever belonged to her own sex.

Cerise was very grave and very silent ; happy
indeed beyond expression, yet a little frightened
at the extent as at the suddenness of her own
happiness.

It seemed so strange to be besieged, rescued,
carried off by a lover, and married to him, all
within twenty-four hours. The Marquise, on the
contrary, was gay, talkative, brilliant, full of life
and spirits ; more beautiful too than usual, in the
bright light of that noonday sun. Slap-Jack, who
considered himself no mean judge of such matters,
was much distracted by the conflict in his own
mind as to whether, under similar circumstances,
he would have chosen the mother or the child.

Taking little notice of the crowd who followed
at a respectful distance, having received from the
free-handed sailors several very intelligible hints
not to come too near, the bridal procession moved
steadily through the outskirts of the town and
ascended the hill on which the chapel stood.

Halting at its door, the crew formed a strong
guard to prevent interruption, and the principal
performers, accompanied only by Smoke-Jasck,

HOMEWARD BOUND. 297

Slap-Jack, and the Marquise, entered the building.
There were flowers on the altar, with wax tapers
already lighted, and every thing seemed prepared for
the ceremony. A priest, standing with his back to
them, was apparently engaged in putting a finish-
ing touch to the decorations when they advanced.
Cerise, bewildered, frightened, agitated, clung to
her mother's arm. " Courage, my child," said the
Marquise, " it will soon be over, and you need
never do this again !"

There was something in the voice so hard, so
measured, so different from its usual tone, that the
girl glanced anxiously in her face. It betrayed no
s}mptoms of emotion, not even the little flutter of
maternal pride and anxiety natural to the occasion.
It was flushed, imperious, defiant, and strangely
beautiful. Slap- Jack entertained no longer the
slightest doubt of its superiority to any face he had
ever seen. And yet no knightly visor, no Eastern
yashmak ever concealed its real wearer more
effectually than that lovely mask which she forced
to do her bidding, though every muscle beneath
was quivering in pain the while.

Nor was the Marquise the only person under
this consecrated roof who curbed unruly feelings
with a strong and merciless hand. That priest,

298 CERISE.

with his back to the little congregation, adjusting
with trembling gestures the sacred symbols of his
faith, had fought during the last hour or two such
a battle as a man can only fight once in a life-
time ; a battle that, if lost, yields him a prey to
evil without hope of rescue ; if won, leaves him
faint, exhausted, bleeding, a maimed and shattered
champion for the rest of his earthly life. Since
sunrise he had wrestled fiercely with sin and self.
They had helped each other lustily to pull him
down, but he had prevailed at last. Though one
insuperable barrier already existed between him-
self and the woman he loved so madly at the cost
of his very soul, it was hard to rear another equally
insurmountable, with his own hand ; but it would
insure her happiness — he resolved to do it, and
therefore he was here.

So when Cerise and her lover advanced to the
altar, and the Jesuit priest whom they had imagined
to be a stranger from Maria-Galante turned round
to confront them, in spite of its contracted features,
in spite of its wan, death-like hue, they recognized
him at once, and exclaimed simultaneously, in
accents of intense surprise, " Brother Ambrose !"
and " Beaudesir !"

The sailors, too much taken aback to speak,

HOMEWARD BOUND. 299

gasped at each other in mute astonishment, nor did
Slap- Jack., who had constituted himself in a manner
director of the proceedings, recover his presence of
mind till the conclusion of the ceremony.

If a corpse could be galvanized and set up in
priest's robes to bless a loving couple whom Heaven
has joined together, its benediction could scarcely
be more passionless and mechanical than was that
which Florian de St. Croix— the Brother Ambrose
who had been the bride's confessor, the Beaudesir
who had been the bridegroom's lieutenant — now
pronounced over George Hamilton and Cerise de
Montmirail. Not an eyelash quivered, not a
muscle trembled, not a tone of emotion could be
detected in his voice. Still young, still enthusi-
astic, still, though it was wild and warped and
wilful, possessing a human heart, he believed
honestly that he then bade farewell at once and
for ever to earth and earthly things.

When they left the chapel, he was gone ; gone
back, so said some negroes lounging in the neigh-
bourhood, to the other Jesuits at Maria-Galante.
They believed him to be a priest of that order, resi-
dent at their plantation, who had simply come
across the island, and returned in the regular per-
formance of his duty. They cheered him when he

300 CERISE.

emerged from a side door and departed swiftly
through their ranks. They cheered the bridal
party a few minutes later, leaving the chapel to
re-embark. They even cheered the Marquise,
when, after bidding them farewell, she separated
from the others, and sought a house in the town,
where Celandine had already collected several faith-
ful slaves who could be trusted to defend her, and
in the cellars of which refuge the Italian overseer
was even then concealed. They cheered Slap-jack
more than any one, turning round to curse them,
not without blows, for crowding in too close.
Lighthearted and impressionable, they were de-
lighted with the glitter, the bustle, the parade of
the whole business, and thought it little inferior to
the " bobbery " of the preceding night.

So Cerise and her husband embarked on board
the brigantine without delay. In less than an
hour the anchor was up, and with a follow-
ing tide and a wind off-shore, ' The Bashful Maid '
stood out to sea, carrying at least two happy
hearts along with her, whatever she may have
left behind.

Before sunset, she was hull-down on the hori-
zon, but long after her white sails vanished their
last gleam seemed yet to linger on the eyes of two

HOMEWARD BOUND. 301

sad, wistful watchers, for whom, henceforth, it was
to be a gloomier world.

They knew not each other's faces, they never
guessed each other's feelings, nor imagined how
close a link between the two existed in that sunny
speck, fading to leeward on the deep blue sea.

None the less longingly did they gaze east-
ward; none the less keenly did the Marquise de
Montmirail and Florian de St. Croix feel that
their loves, their hopes, their better selves — all that
brightened the future, that enhanced the past, that
made life endurable — was gone from them in the
Homeward Bound.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON :

TRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFOKD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

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