Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/294

 made the name of Célandine a word of fear to every negro in the island.

"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 Europe I took the first opportunity of sailing, that I might join the mistress I had never seen, as attendant 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 affability, 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 ship-*mates, able seamen every man of them, and 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