Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/332

 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 mountain.

By this route he had probably intended to carry off Mademoiselle de Montmirail to some secure fastness of his own. Not satisfied with the personal 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 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 organiser. The execution 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 Coromantee'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 converging 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 When George had collected his men, surrounded the two ladies by a trusty escort of blue-jackets, and withdrawn his little company, consisting but