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 CHAPTER XXXV

BESIEGED

In the meantime poor Célandine found herself hurried down the mountain by Hippolyte and his band, in a state of anxiety and alarm that would have paralysed the energies of most women, but that roused all the savage qualities dormant in the character of the Quadroon. Not a word of her captors, not a look escaped her; and she soon discovered, greatly to her dismay, that she was regarded less as an auxiliary than a hostage. She was placed in the centre of the band, unbound indeed, and apparently at liberty; but no sooner did she betray, by the slightest independence of movement, that she considered herself a free agent, than four stalwart blacks closed in on her with brutal glee, attempting no concealment of a determination to retain her in their power till they had completed their merciless design.

"Once gone," said Hippolyte, politely affecting great reverence for the Obi-woman's supernatural powers, "never catchee no more!—Jumbo fly away with yaller woman, same as black. Dis nigger no 'fraid of Jumbo, so long as Missee Célandine at um back. Soon dark now. March on, you black villains, and keep your ranks, same as buckra musketeer!"

With such exhortations to discipline, and an occasional compliment to his own military talents, Hippolyte beguiled their journey down the mountain. It seemed to Célandine that far too short a space of time had elapsed ere they reached the skirts of the forest, and even in the deepening twilight could perceive clearly enough the long low building of Cash-a-crou, now called Montmirail West.