CHAPTER LIII.

Bug-Jargal was waiting for me in the valley. I threw myself into his arms, but I had so many questions to put to him that I could not find words in which to express them.

“Listen to me,” said he. “Your wife, my sister, is in safety in the camp of the white men; I handed her over to a relation of yours who was in command of the outposts, and I wished to again constitute myself a prisoner, lest they should execute the ten prisoners whose lives were security for my reappearance. But your relative told me to return, and, if possible, to prevent your execution; and that the ten negroes should not be executed until Biassou should announce the fact by displaying a black flag on one of the highest peaks of the mountains. Then I returned to do my best. Rask led me to where you were—thanks be to heaven, I arrived in time. You will live, and so shall I.”

He extended his hand to me, adding—

“Brother, are you satisfied?”

I again clasped him to my breast; I entreated him not to leave me again, but to remain with the white troops, and I promised him to exert all my influence to procure him a commission in the colonial army. But he interrupted me with an angry air.

“Brother,” asked he, “do I propose to you to join my army?”

I kept silence, for I felt that I had been guilty of a folly; then he added in a tone of affected gaiety—

“Come, let us hurry to the camp to reassure your wife.”

This proposal was what I most ardently desired; we started at once. The negro knew the way, and took the lead; Rask followed us.

Here D’Auverney stopped suddenly, and cast a gloomy look around him; perspiration in large beads covered his forehead; he concealed his face with his hands. Rask looked at him with an air of uneasiness.

“Yes, you may well look at me like that,” murmured he.

An instant afterwards he rose from his seat in a state of violent agitation, and, followed by the sergeant and the dog, rushed hurriedly from the tent.