Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/352

 black population were keeping high holiday, apparently masters of the situation, and its white residents 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 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 of 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 negro concerned really capable of directing such a movement; and when his leadership was disposed of by a rapid thrust from Captain 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 reassert themselves. In the meantime, the blacks had more congenial amusements in store than voluntary collision with an English boat's crew, 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