CHAPTER XXXIX.

We left the camp of the negroes of Morne-Rouge. I could not help thinking it strange to find myself at perfect liberty amongst a horde of savages, in a spot where the evening before each man had seemed only too ready to shed my blood. Far from seeking to bar our progress, both the negroes and the mulattoes prostrated themselves on all sides, with exclamations of surprise, joy, and respect. I was ignorant what rank Pierrot held in the army of the insurgents, but I remembered the influence that he used to exercise over his companions in slavery, and this appeared to me to account for the respect with which he was now treated.

On our arrival at the guard before the grotto, the mulatto Candi advanced before us with threatening gestures, demanding how we dared approach so near the general’s quarters; but when he came near enough to recognize my conductor, he hurriedly removed his gold-laced cap, as though terrified at his own audacity, bowed to the ground, and at once introduced us into Biassou’s presence, with a thousand apologies of which Pierrot took no heed.

The respect with which the simple negro soldiers had treated Pierrot excited my surprise very little, but seeing Candi, one of the principal officers of the army, humiliate himself thus before my uncle’s slave, made me ask myself who this man could be whose power was illimitable. How much more astonished was I, then, upon being introduced into the presence of Biassou, who was alone when we entered, and was quietly enjoying his calalou. He started to his feet, concealing disappointment and surprise under the appearance of profound respect, bowed humbly to my companion, and offered him his mahogany throne.

Pierrot declined it. “No, Jean Biassou,” said he, “I have not come to take your place, but simply to ask a favour at your hands.”

“Your Highness,” answered Biassou, redoubling his obeisances, “you know well that all Jean Biassou has is yours, and that you can dispose as freely of all as you can of Jean Biassou himself.”

“I do not ask for so much,” replied Pierrot, quickly; “all I ask is the life and liberty of this prisoner,” and he pointed to me.

For a moment Biassou appeared embarrassed, but he speedily recovered himself.

“Your servant is in despair, your Highness, for you ask of him, to his great regret, more than he can grant; he is not Jean Biassou’s prisoner, does not belong to Jean Biassou, and has nothing to do with Jean Biassou.”

“What do you mean?” asked Pierrot, in severe tones, “by saying that he does not belong to you? Does any one else hold authority here except you?”

“Alas, yes, your Highness.”

“Who is it?”

“My army.”

The sly and obsequious manner in which Biassou eluded the frank and haughty questions of Pierrot, showed, had it depended solely upon himself, he would gladly have treated his visitor with far less respect than he felt himself now compelled to do.

“What!” exclaimed Pierrot, “your army; and do not you command it?”

Biassou, with every appearance of sincerity, replied—

“Does your Highness really think that we can command men who are in insurrection because they will not obey?”

I cared too little for my life to break the silence that I had imposed upon myself, else, having seen the day before the despotic authority that Biassou exercised over his men, I could have contradicted his assertions, and laid bare his duplicity to Pierrot.

“Well, if you have no authority over your men, and if they are your masters, what reason can they have for hating your prisoner?”

“Bouckmann has been killed by the white troops,” answered Biassou, endeavouring to conceal his sardonic smile under a mask of sorrow, “and my men are determined to avenge upon this white the death of the chief of the Jamaica negroes. They wish to show trophy against trophy, and desire that the head of this young officer should serve as a counterpoise to the head of Bouckmann in the scales in which the good Giu weighs both parties.”

“Do you still continue to carry on this horrible system of reprisals. Listen to me, Jean Biassou: it is these cruelties that are the ruin of our just cause. Prisoner as I was in the camp of the whites (from which I have managed to escape), I had not heard of the death of Bouckmann until you told me. It is the just punishment of heaven for his crimes. I will tell you another piece of news: Jeannot, the negro chief who served as a guide to draw the white troops into the ambush of Dompté-Mulâtre, Jeannot also is dead. You know—do not interrupt me, Biassou—that he rivalled you and Bouckmann in his atrocities; and pay attention to this, it was not the thunderbolt of heaven, nor the bullets of the whites, that struck him—it was Jean François himself who ordered this act of justice to be performed.”

Biassou, who had listened with an air of gloomy respect, uttered an exclamation of surprise. At this moment Rigaud entered, bowed respectfully to Pierrot, and whispered in Biassou’s ear.

The murmur of many voices was heard in the camp.

“Yes,” continued Pierrot, “Jean François, who has no fault except a preposterous love of luxury and show, whose carriage with its six horses takes him every day to hear mass at the Grande-Riviere, Jean François himself has put a stop to the crimes of Jeannot. In spite of the cowardly entreaties of the brigand, who clung in despair to the knees of the Priest of Marmalade, who attended him in his last moments, he was shot beneath the very tree upon which he used to hang his living victims upon iron hooks. Think upon this, Biassou. Why these massacres which provoke the whites to reprisals? Why all these juggleries which only tend to excite the passions of our unhappy comrades, already too much exasperated? There is at Trou-Coffi a mulatto impostor, called Romaine the Prophet, who is in command of a fanatical band of negroes; he profanes the holy sacrament of the mass, he pretends that he is in direct communication with the Virgin, and he urges on his men to murder and pillage in the name of Marie.”

There was a more tender inflection in the voice of Pierrot as he uttered this name than even religious respect would have warranted, and I felt annoyed and irritated at it.

“And you,” continued he, “you have in your camp some Obi, I hear—some impostor like this Romaine the Prophet. I well know that having to lead an army composed of so many heterogeneous materials, a common bond is necessary; but can it be found nowhere save in ferocious fanaticism and ridiculous superstition? Believe me, Biassou, the white men are not so cruel as we are. I have seen many planters protect the lives of their slaves. I am not ignorant that in some cases it was not the life of a man, but a sum of money that they desired to save, but at any rate their interest gave them the appearance of a virtue. Do not let us be less merciful than they are, for it is our interest to be so. Will our cause be more holy and more just because we exterminate the women, slaughter the children, and burn the colonists in their own houses? These, however, are every-day occurrences. Answer me, Biassou: must the traces of our progress be always marked by a line of blood and fire?”

He ceased; the fire of his glance, the accent of his voice, gave to his words a force of conviction and authority which it is impossible for me to imitate. Like a fox in the clutches of a lion, Biassou seemed to seek for some means of escape from the power that constrained him. Whilst he vainly sought for a pretext, the chief of the negroes of Cayer, Rigaud, who the evening before had calmly watched the horrors that had been perpetrated in his presence, seemed to be shocked at the picture that Pierrot had drawn, and exclaimed with a hypocritical affectation of grief—

“Great heavens! how terrible is a nation when roused to fury.”