CHAPTER XXXII.

I was paralyzed with horror at this scene, in which I every moment expected to play an important part. The Avenger of Humanity had gazed on the struggle without a lineament of his features changing. When all was over, he turned to his terrified pages. “More tobacco,” said he, and began to chew calmly.

The Obi and Rigaud were equally impassible, but the negroes appeared terrified at the horrible drama that their general had caused to be enacted before them.

One white man, however, yet remained to be slaughtered—my turn had come. I cast a glance upon the murderer who was about to become my executioner, and a feeling of pity came over me. His lips were violet, his teeth chattered, a convulsive tremor caused every limb to quiver. By a mechanical movement his hand was continually passed over his forehead, as if to obliterate the traces of the blood which had so liberally sprinkled it; he looked with an air of terrified wonder at the bleeding body which lay at his feet, as though he were unable to detach his strained eyeballs from the spectacle of his victim.

I waited for the moment when he would resume his task of blood. The position was a strange one: he had already tried to kill me and failed, to prove that he was white, and now he was going to murder me to show that he was black.

“Come,” said Biassou, addressing him, “this is good; I am pleased with you, my friend.” Then glancing at me, he added. “You need not finish the other one; and now I declare you one of us, and name you executioner to the army.”

At these words a negro stepped out of the ranks, and bowing three times to the general, cried out in his jargon—which I will spare you—

“And I, general?”

“Well, what do you want?” asked Biassou.

“Are you going to do nothing for me, general?” asked the negro. “Here you give an important post to this dog of a white, who murders to save his own skin, and to prove that he is one of ourselves. Have you no post to give to me, who am a true black?”

This unexpected request seemed to embarrass Biassou, and Rigaud whispered to him in French—

“You can’t satisfy him; try to elude his request.”

“You wish for promotion, then?” asked Biassou of the true black. “Well, I am willing enough to grant it to you. What grade do you wish for?”

“I wish to be an officer.”

“An officer, eh?—and what are your claims to the epaulet founded on?”

“It was I,” answered the negro, emphatically, “who set fire to the house of Lagoscelte in the first days of August last. It was I who murdered M. Clement the planter, and carried the head of his sugar refiner on my pike. I killed ten white women and seven small children, one of whom on the point of a spear served as a standard for Bouckmann’s brave blacks. Later on I burnt alive the families of four colonists, whom I had locked up in the strong room of Fort Galifet. My father was broken on the wheel at Cap, my brother was hung at Rocrow, and I narrowly escaped being shot. I have burnt three coffee plantations, six indigo estates, and two hundred acres of sugar-cane; I murdered my master, M. Noé, and his mother——”

“Spare us the recital of your services,” said Rigaud, whose feigned benevolence was the mask for real cruelty, but who was ferocious with decency, and could not listen to this cynical confession of deeds of violence.

“I could quote many others,” continued the negro, proudly, “but you will no doubt consider that these are sufficient to insure my promotion, and to entitle me to wear a gold epaulet like my comrades there,” pointing to the staff of Biassou.

The general affected to reflect for a few minutes, and then gravely addressed the negro.

“I am satisfied with your services, and should be pleased to promote you, but you must satisfy me on one point. Do you understand Latin?”

The astonished negro opened his eyes widely.

“Eh, general?” said he.

“Yes,” repeated Biassou, quickly; “do you understand Latin?”

“La—Latin?” stammered the astonished negro.

“Yes, yes, yes, Latin; do you understand Latin?” said the cunning chief, and unfolding a banner upon which was embroidered the verse from the Psalms, “In exitu Israël de Egypto,” he added, “Explain the meaning of these words.”

The negro, in complete ignorance of what was meant, remained silent and motionless, fumbling with the waistband of his trousers, whilst his astonished eyes wandered from the banner to the general, and from the general back again to the banner.

“Come, go on,” exclaimed Biassou, impatiently.

The negro opened and shut his mouth several times, scratched his head, and at last said slowly—

“I don’t understand it, general.”

“How, scoundrel!” cried Biassou; “you wish to become an officer, and you do not understand Latin!”

“But, general,” stammered the puzzled negro.

“Silence,” roared Biassou, whose anger appeared to increase; “I do not know what prevents me from having you shot at once. Did you ever hear such a thing, Rigaud? he wants to be an officer, and does not understand Latin. Well then, idiot, as you do not understand, I will explain what is written on this banner: In exitu—every soldier, Israël—who does not understand Latin, de Egypto—cannot be made an officer. Is not that the translation, reverend sir?”

The Obi bowed his head in the affirmative, and Biassou continued—

“This brother of whom you are jealous, and whom I have appointed executioner, understands Latin!”

He turned to the new executioner—

“You know Latin, do you not? prove it to this blockhead. What is the meaning of Dominus vobiscum?”

The unhappy half-caste, roused from his gloomy reverie by the dreaded voice, raised his head, and though his brain was still troubled by the cowardly murder that he had just committed, terror compelled him to be obedient.

There was something pitiable in his manner, as his mind went back to his schooldays, and in the midst of his terrible feelings and remorse he repeated, in the tone of a child saying its lesson, “Dominus vobiscum—that means, ‘May the Lord be with you.’ ”

“Et cum spirito tuo,” added the mysterious Obi, solemnly.

“Amen,” repeated Biassou; then resuming his angry manner, and mingling with his reproaches some Latin phrases to impress the negroes with the superior attainments of their chief, he cried, “Go to the rear rank, sursum corda; never attempt to enter the places of those who know Latin, orate fratres, or I will have you hung. Bonus, bona, bonum!”

The astonished and terrified negro slunk away, greeted by the hoots and hisses of his comrades, who were indignant at his presumption, and impressed with the deep learning of their general.

Burlesque though this scene was, it inspired me with a very high idea of Biassou’s administrative capabilities. He had made ridicule the means of repressing ambitious aspirations, which are always so dangerous to authority in undisciplined bodies; and his cunning gave me a fuller idea of his mental powers, and the crass ignorance of the negroes under his command.