A crown of shame, volume 3 (of 3)
Date: 2025-02-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Illegitimate children -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; West Indies -- Fiction; Plantation life -- Fiction

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Title: A crown of shame, volume 3 (of 3)

Author: Florence Marryat

Release date: February 2, 2025 [eBook #75276]

Language: English

Original publication: London: F. V. White & Co, 1888

Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, Chris Corrigan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CROWN OF SHAME, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***

A CROWN OF SHAME.

VOL. III.

A CROWN OF SHAME.

A NOVEL.

BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF
‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘MY SISTER THE ACTRESS,’
ETC. ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1888.

[All rights reserved.]

EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND COMPANY
PRINTERS

CONTENTS.

PAGE
CHAPTER I. | 1
CHAPTER II. | 19
CHAPTER III. | 57
CHAPTER IV. | 94
CHAPTER V. | 129
CHAPTER VI. | 165
CHAPTER VII. | 201

A CROWN OF SHAME.

POPULAR NEW NOVELS.

Now ready, in One Vol., the Seventh Edition of

ARMY SOCIETY; or, Life in a Garrison Town. By John Strange Winter. Author of ‘Bootles’ Baby.’ Cloth gilt, 6s.; also picture boards, 2s.

Also now ready, in cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each.

GARRISON GOSSIP, Gathered in Blankhampton. By John Strange Winter. Also picture boards, 2s.

IN THE SHIRES. By Sir Randal H. Roberts, Bart.

THE OUTSIDER. By Hawley Smart.

THE GIRL IN THE BROWN HABIT. By Mrs Edward Kennard.

STRAIGHT AS A DIE. By the same Author.

BY WOMAN’S WIT. By Mrs Alexander. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’

KILLED IN THE OPEN. By Mrs Edward Kennard.

IN A GRASS COUNTRY. By Mrs H. Lovett-Cameron.

A DEVOUT LOVER. By the same Author.

TWILIGHT TALES. By Mrs Edward Kennard. Illustrated.

SHE CAME BETWEEN. By Mrs Alexander Fraser.

THE CRUSADE OF ‘THE EXCELSIOR.’ By Bret Harte.

A REAL GOOD THING. By Mrs Edward Kennard.

CURB AND SNAFFLE. By Sir Randal H. Roberts, Bart.

DREAM FACES. By the Hon. Mrs Fetherstonhaugh.

A SIEGE BABY. By John Strange Winter.

MONA’S CHOICE. By Mrs Alexander. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’

F. V. WHITE & Co., 31 Southampton Street, Strand,
London, W.C.

A CROWN OF SHAME.

CHAPTER I.

ROSA, the yellow girl, was sauntering up and down the avenue of tulip trees which formed an approach of a quarter of a mile to the plantation of Beauregard, in a very discontented and sullen humour. She was holding Maraquita’s baby in her arms, and she was dressed in her very best. Her cotton gown was of the deepest rose colour; on her feet she wore white stockings and prunella shoes with sandals; her long black curls—in which she prided herself there was no trace of negro crispness—were surmounted by a handkerchief of bright orange silk, which Miss Lizzie had given her as a reward for her kindness to her little charge. But what was the good of it all? thought Rosa; what was the use of wearing her gilt earrings and her string of coral beads, when there was no one to see them—not even a coolie boy left on the plantation? For this was a general holiday. Not a hand was to work, either in the coffee or sugar fields, for it was Miss Maraquita’s wedding-day, and all the coloured people were off to the Fort Church to witness the ceremony. All, that is to say, except poor Rosa. But Miss Lizzie had refused to give her leave. She had promised the yellow girl that she would take charge of the baby in the afternoon, and let her join the big dinner that was to be given to all the hands at sunset, and the dance that would follow it, but she would not consent to let her go to the church. Lizzie had her own reasons for the denial—Rosa might have been sure that she would never have been unjust or unkind to any one—but she did not choose to tell them to her servant.

She thought it would scarcely be delicate to let Rosa, who had the care of the poor outcast baby, and was like a second mother to it, form one of the gaping crowd to see Maraquita married to the Governor. It was something too terrible to Lizzie to think that her adopted sister could do this thing, and she decided that herself and all who had any part to bear in her sinful secret were much better out of the way. So she had condemned Rosa to remain in the plantation with the infant, who was growing quite a big child, and the yellow girl was proportionately discontented.

There was a certain young Creole called Juan who had been paying her great attention lately, and whom she entertained serious thoughts of marrying. The silk handkerchief, the earrings, and the coral beads had all been donned for Juan’s benefit, and now he was off to the Fort with some other girl maybe—with Chloe, or Celeste, or Marie—and she had to walk up and down this stupid avenue with the baby in her arms. Rosa could have shaken the baby for keeping her from the much-coveted spectacle.

As she was thinking over her disappointment, Judy—Mammy Lila’s granddaughter—walked from behind a tall bush, and confronted her.

‘Hillo, Rosa!’ she cried. ‘Is dat Missy Liz’s baby? My! how dat grown; she’s pretty heavy now, I guess.’

Judy was an ugly, cunning-looking young negress, of perhaps fifteen—tall and lanky and large-boned, with a propensity for lying and thieving and everything that was wrong.

‘Heavy?’ echoed Rosa; ‘you may say dat. She breaks my arm pretty well carrying her all day long. But ain’t you going to the wedding, Judy? It’s most time to be off. Don’t I wish I’se going too.’

‘Why ain’t you going, Rosa, gal? Uncle Mose say dat will be de finest sight ebber seen in San Diego. And you got your Sunday gown on too! Why you not go?’

‘’Cause Missy Liz say no; and I nebber go back to her if I disobey! But you’se going, Judy, sure?’

‘No, Rosa! I’se got bad head dis morning,’ replied Judy, with a cunning look, and her lean hand to her woolly hair, ‘and I’se can’t stand long walk. I’se better stay here till de dinner-bell sound.’

‘Dere now!’ cried Rosa, with vexation. ‘Ain’t dat a muddle? Why, I’d gib my best earrings to be able to go. I shall nebber forgive myself dat I not see Miss Quita’s wedding.’

‘You can see de carriages coming down de drive; and Miss Quita in her white dress—all lace,’ said Judy.

‘Dat ain’t de ting! But what you low niggers know about grand folk’s ways? I want to be one of de church company, and hear de wedding ceremony,’ replied Rosa, mouthing the long word.

‘So you can, den, Rosa. Jes’ gib de chile to me, and I’ll hold it till you come back. Don’t take no time to marry, you know; jest a few words, and it’s all over; and I won’t leave dis place while you’re gone.’

‘Is dat a fac’, Judy?’ exclaimed the yellow girl, with a brightening face. ‘Will you hold the baby whiles I gone? Den I’ll keep my word, and you shall hab de earrings, for you’re the berry pusson as I wanted to meet—dat’s so;’ and placing the infant in Judy’s arms, she disengaged the gilt trinkets from her ears, and laid them in her hand. ‘Judy, you’se a real good gal, and you won’t stir from dis avenue till I come back; and if you sees Miss Lizzie a-coming, you’ll bolt in bushes like rattlesnake? Is dat so?’

‘Dat is so, Rosa. I’ll keep her safe, nebber fear. I likes nussing de babies, and my head ain’t good for nuffin else dis morning.’

‘I’ll hurry back quick as I can directly dat’s over!’ cried Rosa, as she darted down the tulip tree avenue, in order to reach the Fort before the carriages from Beauregard.

As soon as she was out of sight, Judy gave one look around to make sure she was unobserved, and then dived with the child into the thick bushes that skirted the drive on either side. She had not gone far before she was met by Henri de Courcelles. He was dressed much as usual, but he was looking very pale and dissipated, and there was a dark look about his eyes that seemed as though he had been drinking hard, or going without his natural rest. As he encountered Judy, he accosted her roughly.

‘So you’ve got the child?’

‘Oh, yes, Massa Courcelles, and wid berry little trouble. Rosa jes’ mad to go to wedding. She jump wid joy when I tell her I’d hold de baby, and gib me her best earrings into de bargain; but I promise I be back here when she return from church, so massa won’t be long after her, eh?’

‘You shall be back as soon as ever it is possible: I promise you so much; but you must come with me to San Diego. You don’t suppose I’m going to carry that?’

‘Massa please,’ replied the coolie, shrugging her shoulders; ‘all same to me. I can tell Rosa anyting,—dat I’se too bad to walk, and took de baby to my hut, eh?’

‘I’ve no doubt you are equal to inventing any number of lies to suit your purpose; but now you must follow me.’

De Courcelles led the way as he spoke by many a devious path through the thicket, until they reached the outer boundary of the plantation, where he hustled Judy and the child into a close carriage which he had in waiting, and ordered the driver to take them to the Fort.

Meanwhile, Maraquita, dressed in her bridal robes of lace and orange blossoms, and with a costly veil covering her to the ground, stepped into the carriage which was to convey her to church. The vehicle had been re-painted for the auspicious occasion, and re-lined with a delicate silver grey brocade. The horses were caparisoned in silver harness, with large cockades of white ribbon at their ears, and the coloured coachman and footman in brand new liveries wore large bouquets of white flowers in their button-holes. Four or five other vehicles followed that in which sat the bride between her adoring parents, and contained relations of the family, and intimate friends who were staying in the house. It was a trying ordeal for Mr and Mrs Courtney, who were about to part with the one blossom of their marriage-tree; but though the father was nervous and agitated, and the mother could not prevent the tears rising to her eyes, the brilliant position their daughter had attained for herself was the greatest consideration in their minds, and outbalanced any pain they may have felt at the impending separation. Quita herself felt overwhelmed at the knowledge of her good fortune. She had so dreaded lest something might occur to mar her prospects, that she was almost hysterical at the idea that they were about to be consummated. She turned from one parent to the other in a glow of expectation and triumph, which flushed her usually pale cheeks, and lent a fire to her eye, that made her truly beautiful. As the carriage approached the Fort, in which the English Church was situated, they found the road lined with eager faces, both white and coloured, and a shout of welcome and congratulation went up as soon as they appeared. Sir Russell Johnstone was in the church porch waiting to receive his bride, and it would have been difficult to find a more lovely creature than stepped from the carriage and stood before him, trembling (as it appeared) with modesty and maiden shame. The church was crowded, every pew was filled with friends and acquaintances carrying nosegays, the aisles were lined with darkies grinning from ear to ear, the pillars and rails were wreathed with flowers and ferns. Never was there a prettier wedding, nor a more auspicious one. As Maraquita was led to the altar by her father and mother, the organist commenced to play, and the choir, who had been practising for the last month, sang a marriage hymn. Quita felt, for the time being, as if she were about to wed the man of her choice, and had no regrets to spare for a mistaken past. The flowers, the melody, the congratulatory looks by which she was surrounded, appealed to her senses, until she was ready to believe that she was worthy of them. Henri de Courcelles had no place whatever in her thoughts that morning. Out of sight, was truly out of mind with her shallow soul, and she remembered nothing but that she was about to become Lady Johnstone, and all the unmarried girls in San Diego were envying her good luck. She went through the service as calmly as possible. Mrs Courtney sobbed like a school-girl, her husband blew his nose and changed his feet every minute, and Sir Russell was visibly agitated. Only the beautiful young bride made her responses in an unfaltering voice, and held up her face as soon as the ceremony was over, to receive her bridegroom’s kiss, as quietly as if she had been married for ten years. It was over then, and there was nothing more to do but to sign her name in the register, and go forth to take her place in a world which seemed strewn with roses, and in which no inconvenient memories should rise up to trouble her. The organ pealed forth the wedding march. Sir Russell extended his arm for her acceptance, and Maraquita realised that at last she really was his wife, and no one could deprive her of the position he had bestowed upon her. She beamed with smiles of satisfaction as she walked down the aisle on her husband’s arm, returning the bows on either side, and treading on the roses, and lilies, and myrtle strewn by the children in her path. Sir Russell’s carriage, with its four horses and outriders, and its stately guard of honour, was waiting to receive her, and take her back to her father’s house for breakfast, and her heart swelled with pride as she caught sight of it, beyond the crowd that clustered round the church door and steps, and threatened to impede her way. But she had hardly placed her foot on the red carpet that had been laid down for her accommodation, when her eye fell on a group that riveted her to the spot, and almost made her breath stop,—a group that seemed to rise up as it were from the very earth itself, like a Nemesis, to rob her of her joy. Maraquita stared at it as if she were turning to stone, while her face grew deadly pale, and her limbs tottered under her. Her first impulse had been to scream, but the strong instinct of self-preservation inherent in every nature prevented her, and the effort to restrain herself resulted in her falling suddenly from Sir Russell’s support, and sinking to the ground in a dead faint. A dozen people were round her in a moment. Some declared it must be the heat—others, the excitement and fatigue—only one person amongst them all, and that was her mother, Mrs Courtney, discovered the real cause of her daughter’s emotion. She had come upon the scene in time to see the dark handsome face of Henri de Courcelles glaring like that of an avenging angel above the crowd, whilst in his arms he held up high on view his infant. She had cowered herself beneath the sight—no wonder it had affected her poor Maraquita. In a commanding voice she had desired the church peons to disperse the crowd, and when the bride was sufficiently recovered to be taken to her carriage, no one was left to molest her. One anxious despairing look passed between her mother and herself, but a hurried whisper from Mrs Courtney somewhat reassured her, and by the time they reached Beauregard, Maraquita was to all appearances herself again. But only to the view of strangers, for long after she had left San Diego, and the Government steamer was conveying Sir Russell and Lady Johnstone to a sister island to spend their honeymoon, she sat with her large dark eyes staring out into the star-bespangled night, in which she saw nothing but the picture of a man’s face, full of hate and frenzy and revenge,—of a man who held a little infant in his arms. And as she thought of it, Lady Johnstone felt the tears roll down her face (as they should not have rolled down the face of a newly-wedded woman), in memory of a past which she hated and loved, and longed-for and dreaded, all at the same time.

CHAPTER II.

HUGH NORRIS had not been slow to avail himself of Lizzie’s permission to visit her. He had knocked about a good deal in the world, and he had seen all sorts and conditions of women, but he had never met any one to interest him, and hold his sympathies, like the Doctor’s daughter. It was not only that she was firm and sweet in temper, and strong in mind, and clever and energetic—there was a more binding tie between them than that. They thought together; and if men and women would realise that kindred tastes and ideas form the only lasting bond between friends, there would be fewer unhappy marriages than there are. There is a great deal of talk heard on occasions about the happiness of surrendering one’s opinions in deference to those of the person one loves, but that notion is only believed in by the men who wish to be master, and ride roughshod over their household gods. To surrender is to give up one’s mental and moral liberty, and there may be duty in bondage, but there can be no pleasure. Marriage should be the cementing of a friendship between the sexes, and it is the only safe light by which to regard it. There should be plenty of giving in it, but no giving up! And Captain Norris felt that if Lizzie Fellows could learn to regard him as he did her, there would be very few jars in their domestic ménage. He had been detained in San Diego much longer than he had anticipated. Just as he got his cargo on board, and was ready to start, a serious damage had been discovered in the Trevelyan, and he had been compelled to send her into dock for repairs. Although the delay meant a considerable loss of money to him, Captain Norris did not regret it. He did not feel easy, in common with many of the residents, with regard to the safety of the island; and to leave Lizzie in possible danger, surrounded by a horde of mutinous coolies, and without the possibility of obtaining news of her for months together, would have been a sore trial to him. He would have taken her with him gladly as his wife, or as an ordinary passenger, but he knew her character too well to propose it. Had she been affianced to him, and danger threatened her benefactor and his family, she would have died with them, sooner than desert them in the time of uncertainty. And uncertainty seemed to prevail in San Diego. Grave mutterings were heard on every side of averted rebellions and suppressed mutinies, and the planters knew that it needed but the necessary boldness on the part of one set of hands to rise, to set the whole negro population aflame with the lust for rapine and murder. Sir Russell Johnstone was not a favourite amongst them, for he disliked the coloured people, and had passed some very harsh sentences on the prisoners brought up to him for judgment, and his name was seldom mentioned without an execration attached to it. The hands on Beauregard had not shown discontent beyond the ordinary grumblings and small impertinences common amongst the coolies; but Hugh Norris knew the character of the people well, and he distrusted them. He remembered how in former mutinies, both in the East and West Indies, the actual fight for the supremacy had been preceded for a long time by half-suppressed murmurs and complaints, like the muttering of the elements before a tempest, and that, when the storm broke, it came like a clap of thunder, suddenly and unexpectedly, and overwhelmed its victims before they were hardly aware of the danger they incurred. So he was glad than otherwise to be detained in San Diego, though what he heard and saw there did not tend to reassure him. He was present at Maraquita’s wedding, being a friend both of Sir Russell Johnstone and the Courtneys; but he declined the invitation to the breakfast, both because he disliked such festivities, and that Lizzie Fellows, he knew, would not be there. But on the evening of the same day he strolled into her bungalow, and seated himself without ceremony like an old friend.

‘So, Lizzie,’ he commenced, ‘you were not present at the grand wedding this morning?’

‘No. I asked them to excuse me, Captain Norris. My dear father’s recent death renders it very unfit that I should mix in any gaiety.’

‘But your adopted sister’s marriage, Lizzie! Surely that was an occasion on which you might have relaxed your strict seclusion?’

He had marked the coolness which had separated Lizzie of late from Mrs Courtney and her daughter, and he had his own suspicions on the subject; but he had not presumed to put them into words.

‘They didn’t think so. They were quite satisfied to let me follow my own wishes,’ replied the girl quietly.

‘And how is your nurse-child? Thriving?’

Lizzie’s eyes sparkled.

‘Beautifully, thank you. She is growing such a dear little creature, and knows me as well as possible.’

‘Have you had her baptised?’

‘How strange you should ask me that question,’ remarked Lizzie thoughtfully, looking up from her work. ‘It is the very thing I was about to consult you on! How often we seem to have the same ideas at the same moment! I think you must be a wizard, and read my thoughts!’

‘It is because we are so much in sympathy with each other, Lizzie. But what about the mysterious baby? Have you decided on the name you will call her?’

‘No; I have never troubled my head about it. Any name will do.’

‘Oh, poor little lady! let us give her a pretty one whilst we are about it. Why not call her after yourself?’

Lizzie shrank from the idea.

‘Oh, no! She has nothing to do with me. Please suggest something else.’

‘Poor mite! she seems to have nothing to do with any one. She is a little blot upon the universe. But she is God’s own child. Suppose we call her after His mother.’

‘Mary! Yes, I like that idea. What is your mother’s name, Captain Norris?’

‘The same. I was thinking partly of her when I spoke.’

‘Then I shall like the name doubly for her sake. I am sure she must be a good woman, to have borne such a son as you are.’

‘I am afraid that is not much recommendation for her, Lizzie,’ returned Hugh Norris, laughing. ‘But she is a good woman—the best woman I have ever known—for all that. And how she would love you! How I wish you knew her: you would get on so well together.’

‘How can you tell that?’

‘Because you have the same tastes. My mother is quite a doctor in her way; and all the country people believe in her immensely. Only she is a herbalist, and does not approve of strong drugs. Since my father died, and her sons have gone out into the world, she has lived alone in a cottage in the sweetest spot of Kent you have ever seen; and she is beloved of the whole country-side. But I wish there was some one to live with her, now she is getting old. She has never had a daughter, my dear old mother! How she would love and cherish one!’

‘How many brothers have you?’ asked Lizzie, trying to run away from the dangerous subject.

‘Two, George and Frederick. George is in the Indian Army, and has been out in Bengal for the last five years; and Fred is in business in London. He goes down to see mother every now and then; but they are only flying visits, and she must feel very lonely at times.’

‘Yes, very! How often do you see her?’

‘Every few months, as a rule; but my time in England is necessarily short. If I had a wife—’ said Captain Norris, and there stopped.

‘Well,’ remarked Lizzie encouragingly, ‘what then?’

‘I was going to say that (with her permission, of course) I shouldn’t be entirely selfish: I should leave her behind me some voyages, that she might keep my mother company. It wouldn’t be for long, perhaps, for I hope to get work on shore some day—I shouldn’t like to spend all my life roving about like this, without any settled home.’

‘But it must be glorious to sail about all over the world, and see so many new countries!’ cried Lizzie, with kindling eyes.

‘It is, whilst a man is young and independent, and has no ties to pull at his heart-strings. You would enjoy it, Lizzie, I am sure. Your free and energetic spirit would be quite in accord with the unfettered elements, and you would glory in seeing them circumvented (for mastered they can never be) by the ingenuity or prevision of men.’

‘Yes, I should like it, I am sure. It is the sort of life that would carry one out of oneself, and make one almost forget how much falsehood and wickedness and ingratitude hold their place amongst men. To be out on the open sea from morning to night, and to know for certain that no one who has injured or disappointed you can follow you there, and that you are alone with God and your own thoughts—it must be a kind of little heaven in itself, if—if—’

‘If what, Lizzie?’ demanded Hugh Norris eagerly.

‘If one went with the person one loved,’ she replied, with a slight increase of colour.

‘Let us talk of the baby—of little Mary,’ he said impatiently. ‘When shall we have her christened?’

‘Any day, if you will be her godfather, and share the responsibility of her with me.’

‘Willingly. As she is to bear my mother’s name, I consider it incumbent on me to do so. But, Lizzie, have you taken my advice about this child? Have you appealed to her parents to lift the burden they have laid upon you, by at least a partial confession of their error?’

‘I have,’ she answered, in a low voice.

‘And they refused?’

‘I only saw the mother, and she denied all knowledge of her child. The—the—other parent I could not speak to.’

‘You know the names of both of them then.’

She bowed her head in silence.

‘Lizzie, I think I have guessed your secret, or at least part of it. The father of this infant is Henri de Courcelles.’

‘What should make you say that, Captain Norris?’ she exclaimed, in a tone of alarm.

‘The hesitation in your voice when you alluded to him; but I have had my suspicions of it before now. And shall I tell you the name of the mother who has left you to bear the burden of her shameful secret?’

‘No, no, Captain Norris,’ cried Lizzie, springing from her chair; ‘you must not say it! I will not hear it! You are mistaken! It is not true! Oh, my dear friend,’ she continued, laying her hand upon his arm, ‘think—think what you are doing. The honour of a whole family is involved in your discovery. Be silent. Keep the secret sacred, as I do, for God’s sake.’

‘And what about the honour of the woman I love?’ he asked tenderly, as he looked into her face; ‘am I not to think of that?’

‘If you love her,’ replied Lizzie, blushing, ‘you must know that her honour is safe. But for the other—so young—so weak—’

‘So unprincipled—so false, you mean!’ said Hugh Norris indignantly. ‘Well, it will come home to her some day, see if it does not.’

‘But never through my means,’ said Lizzie.

‘No, not through you, my angel, but God will take care of His own. You will not always live under this cloud. You would leave it behind you to-morrow, if you would but consent to be my honoured wife.’

‘Not while it hangs over me,’ she whispered.

‘And afterwards—’

‘Ah, Captain Norris, do not ask me! You are my best and truest friend, and the man who would make me happier than any one else in the world. I quite believe that. I say it after calm deliberation, and a careful investigation of your character. But I am not in a position to marry any one, and I never may be. Leave it to the future. If I am ever free, and you are still of the same mind, I will answer the question you ask me to-day.’

‘And I will live on that promise, Lizzie,’ replied Hugh Norris, ‘for I feel the time of your release is not far off. If you persist in sacrificing yourself for the sake of your oath, your friends are not bound to see you do it, without making an effort in your behalf. But I have something to say to you before I go. Will you be very careful of yourself, for my sake?’

‘In what way?’ she asked, with open eyes. ‘The fever is nearly passed; and if it had not done so, I am fever-proof.’

‘There is a worse pestilence abroad than the fever, Lizzie,—a lust for murder, and rapine, and insubordination. The negroes are ripe for rebellion, and if there should be an insurrection, there may be fire and bloodshed.’

‘Oh, they will never hurt me!’ replied Lizzie, with a confident smile.

‘My dear, when the thirst for blood gets possession of a mob, infuriated by a sense of wrong, they do not stay to distinguish friends from foes. I feel uneasy that you should stay in this bungalow alone, Lizzie, with no better protection than Rosa. It is not safe. Do you bar your doors and windows at night?’

‘Bar my doors and windows?’ repeated Lizzie, with a smile. ‘Why, Captain Norris, they stand open night and day; and I don’t believe there is a fastening to any one of them. The coolies would indeed think I had gone out of my mind, if they saw me bolting myself in from fear of them.’

‘But I don’t like it,’ said Hugh Norris, with a sigh. ‘I have witnessed several mutinies, Lizzie; and if there should be a grudge borne against you by one person only, it may be sufficient to incense the entire mob. Suppose they were to fire your bungalow, and destroy all your property?’

‘Captain Norris, do you really think it is so likely to occur?’ demanded Lizzie, struck by the portentous gravity of her friend.

‘I do indeed, or I should not caution you.’

‘Then they may injure the White House, or do some harm to Mr and Mrs Courtney!’ she exclaimed in alarm. ‘Should you not warn them? They are of far more importance than myself.’

‘I won’t allow that; but Mr Courtney, at least, is aware of the danger. The planters have held a meeting on the subject, with a view to inquiring into the coolies’ fancied wrongs, but not, I understand, with any satisfactory results. In fact, they can’t make out what it is they do want, and I don’t think the darkies know themselves. Only the demons of distrust and discontent are stalking abroad, and it behoves every white man to be extra careful.’

‘Suppose they were to hurt Maraquita,’ suggested Lizzie, with a shudder. ‘She is not a favourite amongst them, poor child, I know.’

‘And will be none the more for having married the Governor; for the coloured population have taken a strong dislike to Sir Russell Johnstone, as the discovered plots against Government House plainly show. However, she will have every protection that the military forces can give her, and you have none. It is of you that I am thinking, Lizzie. I wish I could persuade you to leave this bungalow, and go and stay in the Fort till the danger is over.’

‘Oh, dear no! That is quite impossible. What, run away from my patients, and leave them to die, for fear lest some of the men amongst whom I have grown up might turn against me? Captain Norris, you cannot think what you are asking me. Indeed, I have no fear—not the slightest. These coolies love me—I know they do—and would die for me sooner than harm a hair of my head.’

‘Perhaps so, Lizzie; though I have not much faith in any coloured people. But you have the coolies of other plantations to guard against. They do not confine their attacks to their employers’ property. If the hands on Miners’ Gulch or Sans Souci, or any other estate, were to rise, they might make a raid on Beauregard. Now, do you understand the danger you may be in?’

‘Yes,’ replied Lizzie thoughtfully; ‘I had not considered that. I will ask Mr Courtney if old Peter or William Hall may sleep at the bungalow for the future, though I do not think they will be much protection. But I am not afraid,—indeed I am not.’

‘You are the most courageous woman I have ever met,’ replied Captain Norris. ‘I don’t believe you are afraid of anything.’

‘Except of injuring those who have been good to me,’ she said, somewhat timidly. ‘Captain Norris, there is something on my mind that I feel bound to mention to you. My name is not Fellows, and I don’t know what my real name is.’

‘Are you not the Doctor’s daughter, then?’ he demanded, in surprise.

‘Oh, yes, and though it may astonish you hereafter to remember I said so, I would not give up the knowledge that I am his daughter for all the world. Poor father! He was so unhappy, so unfortunate, so erring. His soul was purified like that of an angel by the suffering he passed through.’

‘Pardon me, Lizzie, but did I hear aright when you said your father was erring?’

‘Yes, Captain Norris, erring beyond the generality of men. I should not have mentioned it to you, except for the kind sentiments you have expressed towards me this evening, and which make me feel that, before they go further, you have a right to know all. The week before he died, my father made a communication to me which I had never heard before, and which he forbade me to repeat during his lifetime. His death has, of course, released me from that duty, and I am sure that he would have wished you, of all men, to be acquainted with the truth. But I am afraid that it will shock you terribly, Captain Norris, to hear that my poor father was a criminal in hiding from the law, and, except for the goodness of Mr Courtney, he would have suffered the penalty of transportation. This was the secret of the great friendship between them, and why my father changed his name, to prevent his retreat from being discovered.’

‘And yet Mr Courtney remained his friend to his life’s end. How good a man your father must have been, Lizzie (but for this youthful error), that his conduct had no power to separate him from the person who knew and loved him best.’

‘Ah, that is how I look at it!’ cried Lizzie, seizing his hand, and bursting into tears; ‘but I hardly expected to hear so generous a judgment from your lips. If suffering, and repentance, and a desire to make amendment, can atone for a man’s sin, I believe my poor father fully expiated his. He was an exile from all his relations, and lived under an assumed name, with no one but myself for a companion, and his profession for occupation. I am not aware if I sprung from the gutter, or came of a decent family. All I know is that I am called Elizabeth Fellows, and that, although guiltless myself, I am not a fit wife for any honest or honourable man.’

‘You shall not speak to me like that,’ exclaimed Hugh Norris indignantly, ‘for it is not true! You are fit, in your own sweet self, to mate with the best man that ever lived; and I consider you as far above me as the stars are above the earth. But I think you should ascertain your real name, and who your relations are. Your father is gone, Lizzie. The discovery can never hurt him now, and there is no saying how much benefit it may prove to you. Cannot Mr Courtney give you the necessary information?’

‘I believe he can, but I have shrunk from asking him. This terrible scandal about me—’

‘Don’t let that prevent you. Be your own brave self, and meet the calumny as it deserves. Take my advice, Lizzie, and demand an explanation from Mr Courtney as soon as possible. Life is uncertain, you know, and he might die before you have ascertained the truth about yourself. Then you might never hear it.’

‘He will be surprised to find me asking questions about which I have shown no curiosity for so many years. He will wonder what can have put it into my head.’

Hugh Norris drew nearer to her, and seized her hand.

‘Say you are engaged to be married to me, and that you consider I have a right to know everything concerning yourself.’

‘But that would not be true.’

‘Make it true, then. It lies with you to do so.’

‘No, Captain Norris,’ she replied gently, withdrawing her hand from his. ‘I cannot—at least just yet. Give me a little time to recover myself. Remember that but a few weeks back I considered myself betrothed to Monsieur de Courcelles.’

‘And you love him still,’ he answered roughly, in his disappointment.

‘No, no, I do not! I despise him for his falsehood and treachery, and for his despicable conduct in trying to evade the consequences of his own fault, at the expense of the character of the woman he once professed to love. If there were not another man in all the world, I would never place myself again under the yoke of Henri de Courcelles. But to engage myself so soon to you—it would be hardly decent.’

‘Have your own way then,’ replied Hugh Norris, as he rose from his seat, and took his cap in his hand. ‘I have asked you for the third time, and failed. I shall begin to disbelieve in my good luck. It evidently doesn’t lie in an uneven number.’

‘There are such slight intervals between your askings,’ said Lizzie, laughing. But she ceased to laugh when she found herself alone.

The honest, disinterested love of Hugh Norris was beginning to work its way into her heart, and heal the wounds made by the other’s defalcation. She would have liked to call him back and tell him that she would follow the dictates of her feelings, and give him his answer at once, without any regard to the dictum of the world; but womanly pride prevented her doing so. She was terribly afraid, also, of being deceived a second time. The scalded dog fears cold water, and though her sense told her that Hugh Norris’s character and disposition were utterly different from those of Henri de Courcelles, she dreaded making another mistake, and finding out, when too late, that they were unsuited to each other. His summary departure had the effect, however, of causing her a sleepless night, and as soon as the sun was up the following morning, she found her way to Mr Courtney’s office.

‘Well, Lizzie,’ said the planter kindly, ‘and so you wouldn’t join our festivities yesterday. It was a grand sight, though, and you would have enjoyed it; and I missed you several times during the breakfast, I can tell you.’

‘You have always been too kind to me, Mr Courtney; but you know my reasons for not being with you. No one wishes Quita health and happiness more than I do, and every sort of prosperity; but I was better at home. Besides, I don’t think I could have come, under any circumstances,’ continued Lizzie, smiling, ‘for do you know we had two new arrivals on the plantation yesterday? Chloe, the mulatto, and Aunt Jane, William Hall’s wife, both had daughters during the forenoon, and both are determined to call them “Maraquita,” in honour of the wedding. I did laugh so to see the two black woolly-headed little Maraquitas; but the proud mothers saw nothing incongruous in the idea.’

‘Naturally,’ replied Mr Courtney, joining in the smile. ‘And what is the plantation health report to-day?’

‘Very good! I have only two cases of fever left, and they are both convalescent. The negro boy, Dickey, broke his arm whilst climbing trees to see the fireworks last night—but it’s a simple fracture; and I have a few children down with infantile cholera, but nothing dangerous.’

‘That’s well. And can I do anything for you, Lizzie? Any orders wanted for medicines, or other necessaries?’

‘No, sir; I have everything I require. But I came up this morning chiefly to ask you a favour, Mr Courtney. I want you to tell me everything you may know concerning my father and his family.’

The planter pushed his chair back, and regarded her with surprise.

‘About your father’s family?’ he echoed. ‘But why should you imagine that I know more than yourself?’

‘Oh, you need attempt no concealment with me, sir. I appreciate the generosity of your motive, but my father himself has rendered it unnecessary. A few days before he was taken from us, he related to me the history of his life, and the reason why he lived a pensioner on your goodness at Beauregard, instead of taking his place in the world and society, like other men. Also that he passed under an assumed name, from fear of the law; but he did not tell me what my real name is, and I wish to know.’

‘But to what purpose, Lizzie? What good will it do?’

‘I have not even thought of that, sir; but if it brought evil in its train, I should still ask for the information. For since my father told me that Fellows is not my own name, I seem to have lost my individuality, and to be some one else. When I hear it spoken, I don’t feel as if I had the right to answer; and in fact, Mr Courtney, I beg of you to satisfy my curiosity in this particular.’

‘Well, Lizzie, you are a woman, and if you have made up your mind on this subject, you shall be gratified; but I would ask you to think again first. I don’t believe the information will make you happier. What is the use of belonging to a family who will not own you? Your poor father’s relations all turned against him, and will do the same by his daughter. It was that they might never have the power to insult him again, that he took the name of Fellows.’

‘So he told me, sir; and also of the crime he committed against you, and of the generosity with which you forgave it. I feel (and I told him so) that after that, my life and all I hold dearest in the world should be at your disposal; and I will sink my personality in the future, as I have done in the past, if you wish me to do so.’

‘No, no! my dear girl, I don’t consider I have any right to dictate to you on the subject; and since you desire to know your name, I will tell it you. You are Elizabeth Ruthin, the granddaughter of General Sir William and Lady Ruthin of Aberdare in Scotland. Your dear father’s name was Herbert Ruthin. He was the second son, the eldest, I believe, is in the army. He has already told you (you say) of the sad event which brought us together. He was my dearest friend in youth, and to the day of his death; but he was extravagant and thoughtless, and hardly thought of the gravity of the act he was committing.’

‘That is your kind way of putting it,’ said Lizzie. ‘My father did not exonerate himself after that fashion, sir. He saw his fault in its true light. But my mother’s name—what was that?’

‘Alice Stevens. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and a very sweet woman, I believe; but she died so early, that I saw but little of her. Have you any more questions to ask me, Lizzie?’

‘Only, have you any papers to prove what you tell me, Mr Courtney?’

‘What a practical young woman you are. Yes, I have. I loved your dear father with almost a romantic attachment, and I have kept all the letters that passed between us as young men, that is, when he was practically living at home on Sir William Ruthin’s estate of Aberdare, but going backward and forward to pursue his studies at Edinburgh. His frequent mention of his home life, and every one connected with it, is sufficient proof of his identity.’

‘And may I have those letters, sir?’

‘Certainly, if you wish it; and, now I come to think of it, they should be in your possession, in case of anything happening unexpectedly to me.’

Mr Courtney rose as he spoke, and unlocking an iron safe, placed a packet of letters, endorsed ‘Correspondence with my friend H. Ruthin,’ in her hand.

‘And now, Lizzie, what will you do with them?’ he added. ‘Shall you go post-haste to England by the next steamer, and lay claim to your father’s property?’

‘Oh, sir, don’t laugh at me! Remember that a felon’s daughter has no rights.’

‘Lizzie, you shall not use that term of your late father in my presence!’

‘It is what he called himself, sir,—what, doubtless, his people call him to this day, if ever they mention his name. Are my grandparents living, Mr Courtney?’

‘I believe so, my dear, and a very nice couple they were, though I have heard this trouble was an awful blow to their pride. Scotch pride too. There’s nothing like it. But Lady Ruthin loved her son Herbert dearly in the olden days. I wonder if she ever mourns for him now?’

‘Can time wear out a mother’s love?’ said Lizzie. ‘And my poor father was so loveable and affectionate. I cannot believe sometimes that he was capable of so base a sin as ingratitude.’

‘Don’t believe it, my dear! It is all over and past now. Think only of him as one of God’s regenerated children. And if he erred in that respect, his mantle has not fallen on his daughter, for you have repaid any kindnesses we may have shown you, twofold.’

‘I have tried to do so,’ replied Lizzie, in a faltering voice, as, with the packet of letters in her hand, she passed quickly from the office on her way home.

CHAPTER III.

A FEW days later, Hugh Norris rushed unexpectedly into Lizzie’s presence.

‘I have come to wish you good-bye!’ he exclaimed, in a voice of distress. ‘I have received orders this morning which compel me to sail at once; and as the Trevelyan’s repairs are complete, I have no possible excuse for disobedience.’

Lizzie changed colour slightly as she heard the news, but she answered quietly,—

‘And I am sure that, under any circumstances, you would make none. Have you not often told me that a sailor’s first duty is towards his ship?’

‘Ah, yes; that is all very well in theory,’ he said, with a rueful look, ‘but you cannot know what I feel at leaving you alone, Lizzie, at this anxious time.’

‘I shall be safe enough, my dear friend, so have no fears for me. When do you sail?’

‘With the tide this evening, and hardly know how I shall get through all my work by that time. I didn’t expect to get off for another week.’

‘Then I mustn’t detain you, Captain Norris; though it was good of you to think of me at the last.’

‘Of whom else should I think? I shall not be away long this time, Lizzie. I only go to England and back. A couple of months may see me here again. What can I do for you there?’

‘Nothing, thanks. I have no commissions for you.’

‘Have you spoken to Mr Courtney yet on the subject of your family?’

Lizzie started.

‘Oh, yes; and that reminds me that I have some letters I want to show you. Wait a moment Captain Norris, whilst I fetch them—’

‘Missy Liz! Missy Liz!’ piped a shrill little voice at the open door.

‘What is it, Pete?’ she asked of a negro boy, whose dusky face was anxiously peering in upon them.

‘Oh, Missy Liz, please come quick to Mammy Chloe’s baby! That’s kinder sick; taken drefful, with its eyes turned up so, and its body quite stiff like a piece of wood!’

‘Convulsions!’ exclaimed Lizzie, as she threw the packet of letters she had just taken from her desk across the table, and put her hat upon her head. ‘Captain Norris, I must go. Read those whilst I am gone.’

‘But I cannot stay till you come back, Lizzie. Each moment is precious to me. Give me five minutes more.’

‘I dare not. This is a new-born infant, and a matter of life and death. God bless you, and good-bye!’

He had only time to wring her hand, when she darted from the house. He watched her figure running swiftly towards the negroes’ quarters, and then returned to the shaded apartment, with a deep sigh. What interest had he then in the packet of letters she had left him to peruse? Lizzie was gone. He should not see her again, perhaps for months, and the world seemed to be a blank without her. In the hope of her speedy return, he sat down for a few minutes more, and mechanically drew the letters towards him. But as his eye fell upon the written words his countenance changed, and his expression became one of the deepest interest. He hastily scanned through the letters, making sundry notes as he did so, and then, with a long low whistle, he tied the envelopes together again, and, laying them upon Lizzie’s desk, walked to the window to watch for some token of her return. None came. The Indian sun was blazing in all its splendour on the tropical leaves and flowers, the pathway to the coolies’ huts was one long line of white dust glittering like golden sand; but not a sound could be heard but the far-off hum of the workers in the cotton fields, not a living creature to be seen but Rosa in the shaded verandah, with Maraquita’s child slumbering on her knees, and an aged negro, long past work, who was warming his stiffened limbs in the sunshine. Hugh Norris watched impatiently for a few minutes from the open door, and then, with a rapid glance at his watch, and a deep sigh, he unwillingly prepared to leave the bungalow.

‘Be a good girl to your mistress, Rosa,’ he said, as he passed the yellow girl; ‘take great care of her and the baby, and I’ll bring you a beautiful string of beads when I come back from England.’

‘Tank you, sar,’ replied Rosa. ‘I’ll be berry good all time you away; and I’d like a nice shawl too, sar.’

‘Well, you’re not bashful, Rosa,’ replied Hugh Norris, laughing; ‘but you shall have the shawl too, if you’ll keep your promise. And if there should be any trouble on the plantation—you know what I mean—take Missy Lizzie up to the White House at once, and don’t mind what she says about staying here.’

‘I understand, sar; but nebber you fear. De niggers on dis plantation too good for dat. They lub Massa and Missus Courtney; and as for Missy Liz, they die for her—dat’s jes’ so.’

Captain Norris gave a sigh of relief.

‘I hope so, Rosa, and it makes me happier to hear you say it; but still I am not easy. But take this and buy yourself a new gown; and remember, when you wear it, that you have promised me to be faithful.’

He thrust a five-dollar note into her hand as he spoke, and with one yearning look in the direction of the negro quarters, walked rapidly away towards the town. Rosa rolled her eyes with delight at the feel of the five-dollar note.

‘He gone ’coon too,’ she thought, with a sapient air; ‘dar’s another what Missy Liz have done for. And she’s so quiet all de time. Dat’s what beats me. ’Pears as if she didn’t care if they was “gone” or not. Wall, if dey all gib me five-dollar notes, I wish there was a thousand of them.’

Meanwhile, Lizzie was kneeling down beside Mammy Chloe’s straw mattress, putting the poor little black baby into hot baths, and watching by it as tenderly as if it had been a princess of the blood royal, until the attack of convulsions had ceased, and it was sleeping peacefully on its mother’s breast again.

‘Dar now, dat’s jes’ wonderful!’ exclaimed the crowd of dusky mortals, who had anxiously watched her proceedings, ‘dat babby jes’ dyin’, ’pears as though death was in its face, and its body cold and stiff a’ready, and Missy Liz comes ’long and touches it, and it’s as well as ever in half an hour. Missy Liz, you too clever! You like de Lord, Who touches with little finger, and ebberybody well again. You jes’ white angel, Missy Liz—no mistake about dat.’

‘My dear friends, you make too much of my poor services for you. You could all do nearly as much for yourselves, if you would only let me teach you. Mammy Chloe made her baby sick. She says she gave it some sweet potato yesterday.’

‘Only tiny leetel bit, Missy Liz, out ob my own mouth!’ cried the mother.

‘However little it was, Chloe, it was too much for a baby of three days old. How often must I tell you to give your little infants nothing but the breast? Your baby is safe again now, but if you feed her with potatoes, and rice, and bread, she will have another fit, and next time I may be able to do nothing for her.’

Hereupon rose a chorus of dissentient voices.

‘Oh, Missy Liz, how you saying dat? You can cure ebberyting, Missy Liz. You mended Dicky’s arm, and cured old Jake’s rheumatiz, and bringed de life back to Clairey, when she fell into de water, and was dead.’

‘No, no!’ disclaimed Lizzie, laughing, ‘she wasn’t dead, Betsy. I can’t go as far as to bring the dead to life again.’

‘B’lieve you could, Missy Liz, if you tried, for you’se jes’ wonderful all round; and de niggers nebber had a better friend—dat’s so.’

‘Ay, Massa Courcelles say dat last night, Auntie Bell. He say Massa Courtney and de other planters dam bad trash, and better out ob de way; but nobody must hurt Missy Liz, because she’s de niggers’ friend, and lub ’em jes’ like herself.’

‘Monsieur de Courcelles!’ echoed Lizzie, thinking the negress had made some mistake. ‘How could he have said that last night? He is not in San Diego.’

‘Massa Courcelles not in San Diego?’ repeated the shrill voice of Betsy. ‘Oh, Missy Liz, who tell you dat ar lie? Massa Courcelles nebber leave de plantation yet. He’s living up at old Josh’s shanty, t’other side of de avenue, and he comes along of evenings, and talks to us all of our troubles.’

Lizzie’s brow flushed darkly. What could be the meaning of Henri de Courcelles hiding himself on Beauregard? For what reason was he hanging about the plantation, and mixing familiarly with the people whom he professed to abhor?

‘And what troubles have you that you can confide to a gentleman’s ears, Betsy?’ she demanded reprovingly. ‘Monsieur de Courcelles was not so kind to you whilst he was your overseer, that you should expect to find a friend in him now. There is some deeper meaning, I am afraid, in his pretended interest in you, than that of making your life more comfortable.’

‘You may well say that, Miss Lizzie!’ cried Jerusha, who was standing in the crowd, with her baby in her arms. ‘Dat man nebber sorry for nobody but himself. What he care if our work is hard, or our backs ache wid de sun, or our huts is dark, or de food common? Did he care when my back was bowed wid pain, and my head wid shame, and I couldn’t hardly stand upon my legs? Didn’t he strike me and my poor leetle boy, and say, “D—n you! Go hell! I make you work like a dog”?’

‘Hush, hush, Jerusha!’ exclaimed Lizzie, as she rose and placed her hand kindly on the shoulder of the excited coolie. ‘I know you have had your troubles, my poor girl. I know Monsieur de Courcelles has wronged you terribly, but you must try to be patient, and forgive, as—as—we all have to do sometimes.’

But Jerusha shook the compassionating touch off her.

‘No, Missy Liz,’ she said loudly, ‘I can’t forgive. If he had given me one kind word, I’se have worked for him to my last day, and been glad only to see him well and happy; but he’s bad all through, to de very core. He wrong more dan me. Ah, I know plenty tings people not thinking! and now he come and ’cite dese niggers to revenge demselves, and send all de planters out of de island, and keep de fields for dere own use. Dat his way of “paying out” somebody, Missy Liz. But I know him and his dark ways, and if dese people rise ’gainst de planters, Massa Courcelles shall be de first to go, if I kill him with my own hand.’

‘Rise!’ cried Lizzie indignantly. ‘Surely, after all the kindness they have experienced from Mr and Mrs Courtney, there is no one on this plantation so wicked as to dream of rising. What should they do it for? What more can they desire than they already possess? There are no hands on the island more looked after and cared for than those on Beauregard.’

‘I dunno dat,’ chimed in a discontented voice. ‘San Souci niggers gets a tot of rum ebery night, and a quarter of a pound more meat than we do.’

‘Who said that?’ exclaimed Lizzie quickly, turning round. ‘Ah, it was you, Aunt Sally! That’s a nice grateful thing to say, when you were down with fever three weeks this year, and received your wages all the same, though you couldn’t do a stroke of work. That’s the best return you can make, is it? And you know why the San Souci hands get extra rations well enough,—because the plantation is so near the swamp, and so unhealthy in consequence, that they are half their time down with fever and ague. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, to set such a bad example to the others.’

‘I only repeating what Massa Courcelles say,’ replied Aunt Sally sulkily.

‘Then Monsieur de Courcelles should be ashamed of himself. I have no hesitation in saying it,’ continued Lizzie warmly. ‘I have been brought up amongst you all since I was a little child, and I am a witness to the kind and indulgent treatment you have received from your employers. Mr Courtney has never spared money or trouble to make his hands comfortable and happy, and if you have ever had any cause of complaint, it has been against this very man who is inciting you now to feel rebellious and ungrateful!’

‘De oberseer only act on de Massa’s orders,’ grumbled Aunt Sally again.

‘It is not true!’ cried Lizzie indignantly. ‘Mr Courtney never ordered Monsieur de Courcelles to do anything that was cruel or unjust. He left a great deal of power in his hands, because he believed him to be a good man, and worthy of his trust; but he found out his mistake, and that is why he has been sent away.’

‘Missy Liz speaks God’s truth,’ exclaimed Jerusha, ‘and you niggers know she do! What hasn’t dat man done to us? Didn’t he starve old Jakes for three days ’cause he not clean horse proper? and didn’t he strike Aunt Hannah ’cross de face with his whip, and make de ’sypelas come out? Didn’t he take me up to his bungalow, and tell me I lib dere all my life, and den kick me out like a dog ’cause I got a poor leetel baby? Haven’t you niggers said, times out of mind, you’d like to kill him for all he done, and that it was only ’cause Missy Liz like him dat he wasn’t dead long ago? If you says “No” now, den you’se all liars, and a lot of trash dat is afraid to stick to your own words.’

‘Jerusha is right,’ said Lizzie. ‘You were all afraid of Monsieur de Courcelles, and spoke against him, whilst he was your overseer; but now that he has no authority over you, you allow his specious tongue to lead your minds astray. My dear friends, be warned in time. Monsieur de Courcelles has no right to be on this plantation at all, and he only comes here for a bad purpose. You mustn’t listen to him. I am sorry to say it before you, but he is not a good man. I loved him once very dearly,’ continued Lizzie, with a great effort, and her cheeks dyed crimson, ‘and believed him to be all that was upright and honourable, but I found out I was wrong, as you will find out you are wrong, when it may be too late. Do you know that I have but to go to Mr Courtney, and inform him of the mutinous ideas you are openly expressing, to have you put into prison? And the new Governor is very strict, as you may have heard, and makes an example of all rebels. He is determined to crush the feeling of mutiny out of San Diego, whatever it may cost.’

‘Perhaps Gubnor get crushed hisself,’ suggested Betsy sullenly.

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ cried Lizzie sharply. ‘What could a handful of coloured people do against the military forces? You would all be shot down and killed, before you knew where you were.’

She spoke boldly and decisively, but her heart was sinking all the while. If the negro population of the island rose en masse, the slaughter might be terrible before peace could be restored amongst them. She thought of her benefactors the Courtneys, of poor heedless Maraquita and the kind-hearted Governor,—a little too of herself, and shuddered. And Henri de Courcelles also. Would he not be overwhelmed by the storm he was taking such pains to raise? At all risks, she said to herself, she would see him, and warn him of the danger he ran in turning against his late employers.

‘Which of you has been listening to Monsieur de Courcelles’ inflammatory talk?’ she asked presently, as she looked round upon the women.

‘All of us,’ answered Aunt Sally. ‘He come down to our huts of evenings, and sit dere, and tell us how Massa Courtney treat him wuss den nigger, and how we’se free coloured people, and should stan’ no nonsense.’

‘He is worse than I thought him,’ said Lizzie. ‘He must stop it at once, or I shall inform Mr Courtney, and have him turned off the premises.’

‘Kill him, Missy Liz, kill him!’ hissed Jerusha, between her clenched teeth; ‘dat is de only way to crush de rattlesnake.’

‘Don’t speak like that, Jerusha. It is wicked, and you do not mean it.’

But the Indian girl did mean it all the same.

‘Where did you say that Monsieur de Courcelles was staying, Betsy?’ inquired Lizzie, a few moments after.

‘At Uncle Josh’s shanty, t’other side of avenue. He mayn’t be dere now, Missy Liz, but he sleeps dere ob nights.’

‘If de door would fasten, I’d set fire to dat rotten shanty, before anoder moon,’ remarked Jerusha.

‘Well, I must leave you now,’ said the Doctor’s daughter, with a deep sigh; ‘but remember what I say. The next time I hear any talk like this of to-day, I shall go straight to Mr Courtney, and ask him to dismiss the whole lot of you. Then you will starve without any work to do, and will be sorry you left your comfortable huts, and kind employers, at the instigation of a villain.’

‘Massa Courtney starve too when he got no coolies to pick cotton and rice for him,’ muttered some one in the crowd.

Lizzie saw plainly that the disaffection had spread too effectually to be quenched by her single arguments, and so she left them, and, wrapped in thought, walked leisurely away from the coolie quarters. Her first step, she felt, must be to see Henri de Courcelles, and with that intention she directed her feet towards Uncle Josh’s shanty, which stood somewhat apart from the rest. The sun was now high in the heavens, and no European was abroad who could rest at home. Lizzie’s broad-brimmed hat and white umbrella sheltered her sufficiently in the shady plantation, but she would not have ventured out, except at the call of duty, at so late an hour in the morning, and so she firmly calculated on finding Monsieur de Courcelles within the hut. She was not disappointed. Old Uncle Josh, who was an aged negro almost past work, and only kept to do light jobs about the garden and stables, came to the door with much caution to answer Lizzie’s knock for admittance, and was about to declare that he knew nothing of Monsieur de Courcelles, when a voice from within called out to him to admit the lady, and not make a d—d fool of himself. So Lizzie passed in, and found herself face to face with the man she had believed to be hundreds of miles away.

‘Monsieur,’ she commenced hurriedly, ‘I should not be here, except that I have something of the utmost importance to say to you. You must send this man away, so that he may not hear us.’

‘Go up to the plantation, Uncle Josh, or anywhere you like, and don’t come back for an hour,’ said De Courcelles, in a voice of authority; and the old negro nodded in acquiescence, and shambled off.

‘Are you sure he is safe?’ demanded Lizzie, as the man disappeared.

‘Safe as death! I have him under my thumb,’ was the confident reply. ‘And now, what can you have to say to me, Lizzie? After our last parting, I hardly expected you would seek me out of your own accord.’

‘Neither should I have done so, except that the welfare of those I love more than myself is at stake. Monsieur, why are you still on the plantation of Beauregard?’

‘I think that is my business sooner than yours.’

‘Indeed it is my business,—the business of every one who regards the Courtneys as benefactors. Your presence here can be for no good purpose. It spells ruin and devastation for them. By your false arguments you are inciting these ignorant coloured people to rebel; you are making them discontented—not to say bloodthirsty; and the upshot of your evil counsel will be a mutiny, that will involve their own downfall with those of their employers, and, perhaps, lead to murder and rapine.’

‘And what do I care if it does? It will be no more than they deserve.’

‘Oh, Henri, you cannot think what you are saying! Surely you would never be so wicked! What have the Courtneys done to make you so revengeful? They were always the kindest of patrons to you, until this unhappy business occurred with Maraquita. And even to the last they were both just and generous. How can you find it in your heart to injure them?’

‘They are Maraquita’s parents,’ he answered gloomily.

‘And would you avenge her falsehood—her broken faith—upon them? Monsieur, that is not like yourself! It is unworthy of any one calling himself a man.’

‘What right had they to turn me off Beauregard, then? It was only done to shield her, because they suspect the truth, and are afraid I might prove a dangerous rival. She marries the Governor of San Diego, and is lapped in luxury and comfort, whilst I (who am morally her husband) am sent adrift, like a rudderless boat, to toss anywhere on the sea of life. But I’ll be even with her yet, and her bald-headed old ape of a partner too.’

‘Henri, you must not speak like that,’ said Lizzie firmly. ‘I feel for your disappointment—indeed I do; it must be a bitterly hard one; but to try and revenge yourself in this manner is a cowardly and wicked thing. The feeling of disaffection is rife enough in the island, without your adding to it. I beg—I pray of you to leave the plantation, and not return. You have no right here, and if you remain, I shall consider it my duty to inform Mr Courtney; and you know how painful it would be for me to say anything to him against you. Henri, for the sake of old times, do as I ask you.’

‘You are a good woman, Lizzie—I have always maintained that—and, if you wish it, I will go. But, mind you, my departure will not stop the rising mutiny, any more than my remaining here hatched it into life. The native population is ripe for rebellion, and it is only now a question of weeks—perhaps days—before they burst into open revolt. I am glad I have seen you, to warn you against it. The coolies will not harm you, I am sure—they love and reverence you too much—but they may frighten you, and I should wish to prevent even that. But as for the rest—well! I shall not be satisfied till I see the White House and Government House in ashes, and their owners weltering in their blood!’

The expression of his face was so murderous as he spoke, that Lizzie fairly screamed,—

‘Oh, Henri, Henri, surely you are not in earnest! You would never countenance nor encourage so horrible an idea! You would save those who have been good to you—whom you once believed you loved—at the risk of your own life! Tell me it is the truth, for I will never leave you till you acknowledge it.’

Henri de Courcelles seized her two hands in a grip of iron, and drew her towards him, until their faces nearly touched each other.

‘Lizzie Fellows,’ he exclaimed roughly, to hide his emotion, ‘if I could have gone on loving you, if that heartless jade had not come between us with her mock innocence and her fatal beauty and blinded my eyes to your superior virtues, I should have been a happier and better man to-day. But now, I know it is too late. You have ceased to love me, and I shall never again be able to lay any claim to your hand.’

‘But I have not ceased to care if you are a good man or a bad one, Henri,’ she answered, through her tears; ‘and I entreat you now, by your memory of the past, to do what I ask you, and leave Beauregard.’

‘I will, because you ask me; but, as I have already told you, it will not make the difference you imagine. I could no more stay the progress of this mutiny now, than I could single-handed quench the fire of a burning city. It has gone too far for that. Besides, I have no desire to do so. My heart thirsts for revenge, and I shall only quit Beauregard to join another set of rebels, and perhaps a more dangerous one.’

‘Henri, cannot I persuade you to give up that madness also?’

‘No, Lizzie, the time is past. Maraquita’s falsehood has made me reckless, and I only live now to one end,—to see her punished as she deserves.’

‘Leave her to Heaven, Henri. Do you think her infidelity will not be its own punishment? How many nights will she lie awake, poor child, wanting your love, wanting mine, which used, at one time, to make all her happiness? How often will her heart yearn—for Quita has a heart, Henri, though it is choked up with vanity and love of self—for the days she spent with us,—for the poor little innocent she has left behind her? Ah, neither you nor I can measure the pain which remorse will bring her!’

‘Don’t you believe it. You judge her by yourself, and your sex is the only likeness between you. She is all bad, Lizzie, false from head to foot, and the sooner the world is rid of her, the better.’

‘And are you the one who should be her judge?’ replied Lizzie mournfully; ‘can you bring clean hands into court, Henri, with which to condemn her? No, I am not alluding to myself. It was not your fault, perhaps, if you found upon a closer acquaintance that you could not love me as you once imagined; but what of Jerusha—the poor little coolie girl with whom you were carrying on a pretension of affection at the same time that you were deceiving Maraquita? How can you find it in your heart to contemplate revenge on her for an error of which you were guilty yourself?’

‘You women don’t understand these things, Lizzie. No one but a little fool like Jerusha would have believed for a moment that I was in earnest, or that such an irregular business could possibly last more than a few months.’

‘Yet Jerusha vows to have her revenge on you, as warmly as you do to have yours on Maraquita.’

At this piece of intelligence, Henri de Courcelles changed colour.

‘If that is the case, your advice has not come too soon. These coolies are the very devil to stick to an idea if they once get it in their head, and I shall wake up some night, perhaps, to find Miss Jerusha’s fingers at my throat, if I don’t clear out. Curse the little jade! She’s been more trouble to me than she’s worth.’

‘And may be the occasion of more yet,’ replied Lizzie, who saw the way, by taking advantage of his fear, to make him hold to his purpose. ‘She is dead set against you, Henri—I am witness to that—and constantly speaking of her wrongs to the rest. She swears she will have your life some way or other; and for that reason only, I think it would be much wiser of you to leave the plantation. She is quite capable indeed of betraying you to Mr Courtney; and such a proceeding might lead to your arrest, on a suspicion of felonious purposes. Now, do you see the danger you are in?’

‘Indeed I do, and I shall not sleep another night on Beauregard: you may take my word for that. Indeed, when I come to think of it, I cannot imagine how I can have been such a fool as to run the risk for so long. There are plenty of places in San Diego where I can be safer, and bide my time for my revenge.’

‘Do more, whilst you are about it, Henri. Leave San Diego altogether, and your idea of revenge behind you. It will never make you any happier, and it may cast a haunting regret over all your future. And you are still young. There is perhaps a happy life looming for you in the distance, if you will try and forget the failure of your youth.’

‘No, Lizzie; you speak to deaf ears. I will fulfil your wish, and leave this place. Be satisfied with that, and when I am gone, forget all about me. I was never worthy to kiss even the hem of your garment, and my darkest shame will ever be that I permitted you to waste a single thought upon me. Goodbye, my dear. Don’t stay here any longer, for your presence, and the memories it brings with it, unman and make a coward of me. By this time to-morrow I shall have left Beauregard for ever.’

‘Thank Heaven for that,’ replied Lizzie, as she obeyed his request, and left the hut.

Her mind was not wholly at ease concerning him, because she saw that he was doggedly bent upon having his own way; but she had, at all events, succeeded in scaring him off the property of her benefactors, and trusted that when his evil influence was removed from them, the hands of Beauregard would return to their former condition of obedience and contentment.

CHAPTER IV.

LIZZIE had guessed correctly when she said that Maraquita’s infidelity would prove its own punishment. The honeymoon at Santa Lucia was not a very satisfactory one, at least for the bride. So long as the day endured, and Quita’s frivolous soul could be gorged on flattery, and the servile congratulations paid her by her husband’s guests, she was contented with her lot, and disposed to believe it would turn out all she had prognosticated for herself. To feel she was the woman of most importance in the island, and that she had horses and carriages, and servants at her command, and that a military guard accompanied her wherever she went, and everybody turned to gaze after her, and said to one another, ‘There goes the Governor’s bride,’ was quite sufficient to inflate her foolish little heart with pride, and make her forget, for the time being, the penalty attached to it all. But one cannot pass one’s entire life in public, and when the hours of domestic happiness arrived, they were very trying. Then, if she had had a handsome young husband suited to herself in age and disposition waiting on her every look and smile while he whispered words of love in her ear, how delighted would Maraquita have been to fly to the sacred recesses of her own apartments, and shut the world and its hollow compliments outside. But now such moments became torture. Sir Russell had been sufficiently trying as a lover, but as a husband he became simply unendurable. His middle-aged ecstasies over his new possession, his fussy attentions, his twaddling conversation about things and people of which she had never heard, soon bored his young wife to extinction. And he was not slow to find out that he did not interest her. He noted the vacant look, the wandering attention, the deep sighs that occasionally interrupted their intercourse, and commenced to feel the first twinges of jealousy, and to wonder if there had been any other admirer in the background whom Lady Johnstone had not entirely forgotten.

If he could only have read her thoughts as she sat by his side when they were alone together, or lay for hours during the silent watches of the night gazing open-eyed at the dark blue heaven with its myriad clusters of stars, how unpleasantly satisfied he would have been. It was at those times that the newly-made Lady Johnstone’s thoughts returned to the past which she had so pertinaciously thrust from her, and that she longed (with the contradiction of human nature) to be able to take back again to her heart the fate which she had held in her hand, without the moral courage to grasp it. It was then that the glorious dark eyes of Henri de Courcelles seemed to gaze into her own like twin stars, just as they used to look at those heavenly moments when they sat together on the bench in the Oleander Thicket, and her lover’s arms were folded closely round her, as though to shield her from all harm.

Henri de Courcelles had innumerable faults, but he had loved this girl with all his heart, and, now that it was too late, Maraquita seemed to realise it for the first time. There was another regret, too, that intruded itself into her married life, a regret that seemed to grow with the days, and assume such inconceivable proportions that she was tempted to cry out that she could bear it no longer, but must at all risks rush back to San Diego and see her child. Sometimes the unhappy young mother would dream that the infant was dying, and wake up with the tears upon her cheek; sometimes that it really belonged to Lizzie, and she had lost the right to call it hers; and sometimes that she held it to her heart, and was proud and fond of it like other mothers, until she discovered it was a poisonous asp, stinging the bosom on which it lay. Such thoughts and dreams were not good for the young bride to indulge in, and she grew paler and thinner every day. Sir Russell called in a doctor, who declared Lady Johnstone’s condition to be due to weakness, consequent on her late attack of fever, and advised her immediate return to San Diego, as possessing a higher and more bracing air than Santa Lucia. Sir Russell sought his wife’s rooms, all fuss and anxiety on account of her low spirits, and communicated the medical man’s opinion to her. They had been married now for three weeks, and the Governor had already come to the conclusion that a domestic life was not all roses. He found his beautiful Maraquita rather petulant at times, and disposed to have her own way. She was not very affectionate either, and flouted his attempts at love-making in a manner sufficient to cure the most ardent lover. He was disappointed certainly; he had imagined women were more open to their husbands’ advances; but, after all, he knew very little about the sex, and was quite ready, as yet, to lay the failure at his own door. He was not fit, he told himself, to be the companion of such an innocent, guileless creature; she felt the difference between his society and that she had left behind her. The position was new and strange to her. She would be her own sweet self again when they returned to San Diego and she was restored to her parents’ arms. The alacrity with which Maraquita assented to his proposal to go home, confirmed his sentiments upon the subject. It would have been somewhat of a shock to him could he have read her thoughts on the occasion; but how few of us could afford to read the mind of our dearest friend, without fear. Maraquita’s face glowed, and her heart beat faster, as she pictured herself settled at Government House. She would have a chance then of seeing Lizzie again—perhaps of seeing Henri de Courcelles. Whilst it lay in his power to deprive her of her promised dignity, she had dreaded his presence, and hoped he was far away from San Diego; but now that her position as Lady Johnstone was secure, and no one could dethrone her, she began to crave for the excitement of seeing her lover again. Weak and vacillating as she had been as Maraquita Courtney, she was even worse as Lady Johnstone, for now her weakness threatened to become a crime. Her depression of spirits and her feverish anxiety were so patent, that the first time Mrs Courtney was alone with her daughter, she taxed her with the change.

‘Whatever is the matter with you, my dear child?’ she exclaimed; ‘you don’t seem half so happy as I expected to see you. Here you are, the Governor’s wife, and the lady of highest rank in San Diego, and yet you seem quite melancholy. You don’t mean to tell me that you are disappointed, or that your marriage has not proved all you expected it to be?’

‘Oh, no, mamma! I suppose it’s all right! I’ve got the position and the money, and no one can have been such a fool as to think I married a bald-headed stupid old man like Sir Russell for anything else.’

Mrs Courtney lifted her hands and eyebrows in surprise.

‘My dear! my dear! remember he’s the Governor!’

‘How can I forget it? Isn’t it dinned into my ears from sunrise to sunset! Of course he’s the Governor! I am sure he need be, for he’s very little else! But I’m afraid that fact is not sufficient for one’s happiness.’

‘My darling, what more can you possibly want? A splendid house, and number of servants, equipages, and horses, jewels, dresses, ornaments, and the whole island at your feet! Why, I think you are the luckiest girl I ever heard of.’

But her eloquence was interrupted by Maraquita flinging herself headlong on a couch, and sobbing out,—

‘I’m not! I’m not! I’m as unhappy as I can be! I wish I had never consented to give up my poor Henri! I dream of him every night!’

But at that confession, her mother’s attempt at consolation changed to righteous scorn.

‘Then you must be the wickedest girl alive, Maraquita! Dreaming of any man but your husband, and not married a month yet! You ought to be ashamed to mention such a thing, even to your mother! And that wretched low-born overseer too—a half-caste Spaniard, with neither birth nor money. I am utterly surprised at you!’

‘Mamma, you sha’n’t abuse him! He may be everything you say, but he’s gloriously handsome; and he loved me, and I ought to have married him! Why didn’t you manage it some way? You knew all about us, and you could have persuaded papa to settle something on him, and let us live with you at Beauregard, and then it would have been all right, and I should have been much happier there with him and my poor little baby—’

‘Maraquita! are you mad?’ cried her mother, clapping her hand before her daughter’s mouth; ‘or do you want every official in Government House to hear your shameful secret? Good heavens, it is enough to make me regret I ever interfered to save you from your own folly! If you confess the truth now, you will make matters a thousand times worse than if you had made the low marriage you seem to hanker after. It would be a nice scandal for the island, to hear that the Governor had repudiated you on account of your former light conduct! Then you would lose everything—reputation, position, and wealth, and gain nothing in exchange.’

‘I could go to Henri,’ said Maraquita doggedly, for she possessed one of those persistent natures that can work themselves up into a belief, and she was working herself up to believe that she was still passionately in love with De Courcelles, and ready to sacrifice everything for him.

‘That you certainly could not,’ returned Mrs Courtney, determined to cut her folly in the bud, ‘for he is not in San Diego.’

‘Where is he then?’ exclaimed Quita, raising herself from the sofa cushion.

‘He has gone to America,’ replied her mother, ignoring her regard for truth so long as she drove this nonsense out of Maraquita’s mind.

‘To America!’ repeated the girl. ‘Oh, why did he go there? What is he going to do?’

‘That is his business, not ours; but I believe his family live in the States. However, he will never return to San Diego, and so you see how little you will gain, and how much you may lose, by indulging in this sentimental folly. Indeed, I cannot understand you, Quita! Your one desire last month was to hear that this most objectionable young man had left the island, and now you are moaning after him as if he had been your dearest friend instead of your worst enemy.’

‘He loved me!’ sobbed Maraquita.

‘I don’t think he did love you,’ rejoined Mrs Courtney. ‘No man who loved you would have treated you in so dishonourable a manner. However, he has been ready enough to run away from you, and now the best thing you can do is to forget all about him. Indeed, you must compel yourself to do so, my dear. You owe it not only to your husband, but to your father and mother. And just think what a wicked thing you are doing too—crying after another man when you are Sir Russell’s wife. You horrify and grieve me beyond measure!’

Yes, Mrs Courtney was perfectly right!

It was both weak and wicked of Lady Johnstone to let old memories obtrude themselves upon her wedded life, but she had been far weaker and wickeder when she gave them up against her inclination. An eligible marriage is no cure for an ill-placed love, and the laws neither of God nor man have any power to quench passion in the human heart. They may help the victim to keep it under, but it is the one feeling that refuses to be silent until it has died a natural death. Whilst poor faulty Maraquita believed that Henri de Courcelles was lying in ambush somewhere ready to appear before her at any moment, holding the pledge of their love in his arms, as he did upon her wedding-day, she had had a great fear mingled with her insane desire to see him again; but now that her mother assured her he had left San Diego for ever, and she should never be able to ask his forgiveness, her dread of him vanished, to give place to a morbid regret. She wept so much and ate so little during the first days of her installation at Government House, that Mrs Courtney (who had been invited by Sir Russell to stay with her daughter) became quite seriously alarmed for the consequences of her grief, and tried all she could to rouse her by a description of the splendid preparations which were being made for the ball to be given in honour of their return.

‘My dear girl, I never saw anything like it! Sir Russell is certainly the most generous of men, and the whole island is talking of him. He has given a carte blanche order for all the white flowers procurable, and the ballroom will be decorated with nothing else. It will look like a huge bridal bouquet.’

‘Or a funeral shroud,’ suggested Quita, with a disagreeable laugh.

‘My darling! what a strange thing to say. We won’t have it too white, if you have such unpleasant comparisons to make. I will suggest to Sir Russell to have the wreaths tied with blue ribbons; or pink roses interspersed with the white ones, would look very pretty.’

‘I’m sure I shouldn’t take the trouble, if I were you, mamma! Let him have his own way. What does it signify what it looks like?’

‘I think it signifies a great deal,’ returned Mrs Courtney warmly; ‘and when I come to consider the matter, white will not set off the dresses as a little colour would do. For most of the ladies will be in white; and you will wear your wedding-dress, of course, Maraquita.’

‘I suppose so, mamma.’

‘You will have to open the ball with Colonel Symonds, being the next gentleman in rank to the Governor on the island, and Sir Russell must lead out Mrs Symonds. It will be a magnificent sight, with all the officers in full uniform, and the military bands in the orchestra. The supper-tables are to be laid for three hundred, though I don’t know where they are all to come from; but Sir Russell is so generous. It will be the proudest day of my life—next to your wedding-day, Maraquita.’

‘I shall be very glad if you enjoy it, mamma.’

‘Come, come, my dear girl, I won’t have you speak of it in that uninterested tone, as if you were an old woman of eighty, past all thoughts of dancing and admiration. Why, there’s not a girl in the island that dances better than you do, Quita; and think how every eye will be fixed upon you, and how the women will envy your dress and your beautiful jewels, and wish they had your luck. Why, there’s not a girl in San Diego but would give her eyes to stand in your shoes.’

‘I daresay! but they pinch sometimes,’ said Quita, with a yawn.

‘My darling, all wives’ shoes pinch sometimes,’ replied her mother. ‘Marriage is not a bed of roses, any more than any other condition. But it is necessary to a woman’s well-doing, and you have drawn a splendid prize in the matrimonial lottery. And now what time will your ladyship please to drive this afternoon?’

Quita smiled. She liked to be called ‘your ladyship.’ If there was one thing above another that reconciled her to the step she had taken, it was to hear herself addressed by that much-coveted title. What children most women are, after all, and how easily caught with glittering baubles. Jewels and a title make up the sum total of domestic happiness for the majority of the sex. Maraquita believed herself to be wretched for the loss of Henri de Courcelles, but had she been put to the test, she would not have given up her newly-acquired dignity, nor one of her sets of ornaments, to bring him to her feet again. She would sit for hours with her jewel cases in her lap, fingering the bracelets, and rings, and necklaces that Sir Russell had given her, and holding up the blood-red rubies, and the grass-green emeralds, and the deep blue sapphires, and the pure white diamonds to the light, laughing to see them catch the sun’s rays, and shoot out a thousand little stars of fire to meet them. And as the day for the grand ball drew near, she seemed to recover her cheerfulness. Mrs Courtney was delighted to see the interest she suddenly evinced about her dress, and the ornaments she was to wear with it, and the manner in which she should arrange her hair; and when the evening arrived, she was as flushed with excitement, and as eager for the festivities to be a success, as any one could have wished to see her. It was a proud moment for Mr and Mrs Courtney when they stood by the side of the dais which had been erected for the convenience of the newly-married pair to receive their numerous guests. Sir Russell, in his Governor’s uniform, looked imposing if not handsome; and Maraquita, arrayed in her wedding garments, stood by his side like a dainty fairy. All San Diego—that is, all the respectable portion of it—passed before them in single file, to offer their congratulations before the ball commenced, and there was but one opinion of the appearance of the bride—that she was the handsomest woman on the island. Mr and Mrs Courtney swelled with pride as they overheard the various comments on her appearance, and felt rewarded at last for all the trouble and anxiety their wayward daughter had given them. The ballroom at Government House was a long apartment, with five or six windows on either side, all open on account of the heat. The spaces between these windows were hidden with trophies of flags, and flowers, so that it looked like a vast bower of leaves and blossoms, open at intervals to the outer air. Six large chandeliers pendant from the ceiling, and laden with wax candles, made the ballroom a blaze of light, and rendered it a conspicuous object from the outside. That the poorer part of the population should not consider themselves entirely shut out from the wedding festivities, Sir Russell had ordered a handsome display of fireworks to be sent up from the Fort at ten o’clock, and hundreds of coloured people were waiting around, in anticipation of the display. The supper, which had taken many days to prepare, was laid in another room on the same floor, on a series of tables, which were glittering with knives, and forks, and glass, and silver; and everything promised to go as merrily as the proverbial marriage bell. As soon as they had received their guests, Sir Russell and Lady Johnstone opened the ball with the two people of highest rank present, and dancing became general.

Maraquita, who was passionately fond of the exercise, did not miss a single turn. Her card was naturally soon filled up, for every man present tried to secure a waltz with the bride, and she flew all over the room like a beautiful Bacchante, flushed and smiling, whilst her parents looked on with admiring complacency, and one at least thanked Heaven secretly that the threatened danger was at an end, and her child had begun at last to properly appreciate the benefits of her high position. The evening had waxed towards midnight, and though the dancers gave no signs of fatigue, Sir Russell had just made his way towards Mr and Mrs Courtney to consult them whether it would not be wise to give the signal for supper, when a loud cry of alarm and sounds of confusion were heard to proceed from the apartment where it was laid. Sir Russell turned pale. He had heard something of the sort before, and guessed its import; but he had no time to communicate his fears to his friends, when a crowd of natives rushed into the room, armed with pistols and knives, and every open window was simultaneously blocked with dusky faces, ready to bar all egress, or to leap inside at a moment’s notice. The band stopped playing at once—the dancers screamed with alarm—all the men felt their hearts stop, and many of the women fainted without warning. But Sir Russell was English bred, and rose to the occasion at once. He looked almost majestic as he met the oncoming horde of mutineers with an uplifted hand, as though he challenged them to advance one step further, and demanded in a voice of thunder what they required in his private apartments.

‘Your life!’ shrieked one of the mob, ‘and de lives ob all dese d—d white trash. And we’ll hab them too! On wid you, darkies! Cut ’em down like de dogs what dey are.’

‘I’ll shoot the first man who tries to pass me!’ shouted Sir Russell, as he drew a revolver from his pocket; and then turning to his father-in-law, he exclaimed quickly,—‘Mrs Courtney—Maraquita, get them away, for God’s sake!’

Maraquita had already flown to her parents for protection, and was clinging to her mother in an agony of tears.

‘Mamma! mamma! what will they do to us? Oh, we shall all be killed! Why did I ever leave Beauregard!’

‘Hush! hush! my darling! it will be all right. There must be some mistake,’ replied her mother, although she was shaking so violently that she could hardly stand.

But if it was a mistake, it was a very terrible one, for the next moment the sound of several shots, and a piercing scream, proved that the rebels had already commenced their murderous work.

‘This way, Nita,’ said Mr Courtney hurriedly, pushing his wife and daughter before him. ‘Keep close to the wall, and escape by the door into the library. It is your best chance.’

But before they had gone many paces, elbowing their way frantically through the crowd that pressed on them from every side, the dark faces that had guarded the open windows perceived their means of exit, and with a cry of fiendish delight, leapt into the room to prevent it.

‘We are lost!’ cried Mrs Courtney. ‘Oh, Mr Courtney, in Heaven’s name, what are we to do?’

‘Stand before Quita. Conceal her at all risks, and I will help you,’ replied the father, as he ranged himself by the side of his trembling wife, and in front of his daughter; and then he whispered, ‘Have no fear, Nita; they can have no object in wounding us. Their malice is against Sir Russell and our poor child. Spread your skirts over her, for Heaven’s sake.’

Meanwhile the slaughter became general. The rebels rushed hither and thither in search of Maraquita, wounding or killing every girl they thought to be the bride, with, in most instances, the men who resented the murder, until the ballroom reeked with blood, and the screams of the unhappy victims were appalling. But the alarm had been given at once, and in a few minutes the opposition shots of the military forces were heard, and scores of the rebels bit the dust, whilst many more were taken prisoners. Amongst the latter was a young and handsome Spanish half-caste, whose dark eyes were on fire with the lust for revenge, but who made no effort to free himself from his captors.

‘The danger is past! Thank God that you are both safe!’ exclaimed Mr Courtney, as he turned to embrace his wife and daughter.

Sir Russell had been wounded in the wrist by a slash from one of his own dinner knives; but the Fort physician had bound it up, and, now that the first alarm was over, he was able to go in search of his bride.

‘Maraquita, my dearest!’ he exclaimed fervently, as he saw the pale little figure which Mr Courtney was supporting, ‘this is a terrible affair, but, thank God, the brutes have not injured you, nor your parents! You must come away from here at once, my love. Take her, Mr Courtney, I beg of you, to her own apartments. This is no sight for her.’

Quita closed her eyes, and shuddered as her glance fell on the prostrate corpses, both black and white, that lay on the ballroom floor, and heard the moans of those to whom the surgeon was already attending; and she was quite willing to go away with her parents, and try and forget the terrible business in sleep.

‘Yes, yes,’ she murmured, clinging to her father; ‘take me away at once, papa—I cannot bear it.’

But when she had advanced a few paces into the room, her eyes opened again from sheer horror, and fell on a sight which paralysed her. There, standing before her, though held back by the pinioning arms of his captors, was Henri de Courcelles, whom she believed to be in America, with such hatred and fury in his glance as she had never seen before.

‘Henri!’ she shrieked involuntarily, before she could prevent herself.

‘So you have escaped!—curse you?’ he answered, glaring at her like a fiend. ‘Then what am I doing here? I must be free, to live to avenge myself on you.’ And without another word, and a sudden effort that took the men who held him completely by surprise, Henri de Courcelles wrenched himself away, and rushed to the open window, leapt into the darkness and was gone.

‘He must have killed himself!’ exclaimed one of the soldiers, looking out upon the night. ‘There is a fall here of about twenty feet.’

‘Order the guard round to take him prisoner!’ shouted Sir Russell. ‘The wall beneath the window is sixteen feet high. They will take him like a rat in a trap. And if not, tell them to shoot him like a dog.’

‘No, no!’ cried Maraquita wildly. ‘They must not—they shall not—he—he—’

But there she fainted, and fell in a heap at her husband’s feet.

‘He is the ringleader of the whole mutiny,—the greatest rascal of them all! What can she know of him?’ demanded Sir Russell, with a frown.

‘Nothing; she never saw him before,’ replied Mrs Courtney boldly, though she was shaking with fear lest Maraquita should betray herself.

‘But she called him “Henri.” I heard her,’ said the Governor.

‘He was a servant on Beauregard once, Sir Russell. I forgot that when I said Maraquita had never seen him. But really this terrible business has shaken me so that I don’t know what I’m saying. But my poor darling must be carried to her room. She is not fit to walk. I hope this shocking affair may not unsettle her reason.’

‘It seems as if it had done so already, when one hears her pleading for the life of a murderer,’ said Sir Russell, as he assisted Mrs Courtney to carry the unconscious girl to her own apartments. ‘And now, Mrs Courtney, I will leave my wife in your charge. This is a very serious matter, and may necessitate my sitting up all night. The rebellion is quelled for the moment, but I must not rest until measures have been taken to prevent its recurrence. My guests murdered before my very eyes! It is incredible that such a thing should happen in Her Majesty’s dominions. And we must crush the mutiny, if we string them all up to the Fort gates. And this ringleader, this old servant (as you say) of yours, shall be the first to suffer. I will give him lynch law as soon as ever the dawn rises. I will teach him what the penalty is of addressing the Governor’s wife as he has dared to do.’

And with this threat upon his lips, Sir Russell stalked gloomily away.

CHAPTER V.

AS soon as the Governor had disappeared, Mrs Courtney tried hard to get her husband out of the room; but he was obstinately bent on remaining until his daughter had recovered her consciousness, and so, when Maraquita opened her eyes, both her father and mother were bending over her.

‘Where am I?’ she exclaimed, as the world broke indistinctly upon her again.

‘In your own room, my darling. Lie down, Quita. Don’t attempt to rise. You are quite safe. No one can hurt you here.’

‘Safe!’ repeated the girl, in a bewildered tone. ‘Ah, I remember now! The ballroom—the blood—those dreadful cries! Oh, mamma, mamma,’ she continued, clinging to her mother, ‘I shall never forget it! And Julie Latreille too. I saw her murdered at my side. It is too, too horrible!’

‘No, no, my dearest. You are mistaken. Julie is not dead. She was wounded, and they have taken her to the hospital. But don’t think of it any more to-night. Let me undress you, that you may try and get some sleep.’

‘Not think of it!’ said Maraquita, with staring bloodshot eyes, as she sat up on the couch in her white lace dress, all crumpled and spattered with blood, ‘not think of it. Why, I shall never cease to think of it. And there was something else too. What was it? Ah, Henri! and he cursed me!’

‘Mr Courtney, I must request you to leave us!’ exclaimed his wife hurriedly. ‘You see the excitable condition she is in, and I can do nothing with her whilst you are hanging over her like this. The less people she has with her the better! You must positively go, and leave her to Jessica and me.’

‘Well, my dear, if you think it necessary, of course I will go; but you will lose no time, I hope, in getting the poor child into bed.’

‘Do you suppose I don’t know what is best for her, Mr Courtney? I am only waiting till you are gone, to undress her.’

‘And you will send me word how she goes on—I shall not retire till I hear she has recovered her composure, and is in a fair way to sleep.’

‘I will send Jessica to you in half an hour. By that time, I hope we shall both have somewhat overcome this terrible shock. I shall stay with her all night, and you had better go and tell Sir Russell so.’

And Mrs Courtney, who had been carrying on this colloquy just inside the bedroom door, opened it, and gently pushing her husband into the passage, reclosed and locked it, with a sigh of relief.

‘Thank Heaven!’ she said to old Jessica, ‘we are safe! I trembled for what she might say next.’

‘Allays dat cussed oberseer,’ observed the old negress, who stood by Quita’s head.

The girl herself was still sitting up on the couch when her mother returned to her, staring into vacancy, and repeating the word ‘Henri’ in a low voice.

‘Maraquita!’ said Mrs Courtney firmly, as she shook the girl to rouse her to a sense of her position, ‘who are you talking to? There is no one here! You are quite alone with Jessica and me. You are perfectly safe. All the danger is over, and Government House is guarded by the soldiery on every side. Come to bed now, like a good child, and try to sleep.’

‘But he—where is he?’ asked Maraquita wildly. ‘Did they fire on him? Is he hurt?’

‘Sir Russell, my darling? Well, nothing to signify! The brutes slashed at him with their knives, and caught him on the wrist, but the doctor says it will be all right again in a few days, and he will come and see you by-and-by, dear.’

‘Not him! I don’t want him!’ returned Maraquita fretfully, ‘but Henri—where is my Henri? He jumped out of the window, and Sir Russell ordered them to kill him. Oh, tell me, in Heaven’s name, is he dead?’

Mrs Courtney did not know what to answer, but Jessica was ready with the information.

‘No, Missy Quita, he not dead. Governor’s Sambo tell me all de news just now. De guard go after him, and take him prisoner, and shut him up in Fort cell, where he can’t come out. And so my missy quite safe, and can go to sleep comfortable.’

‘There, my darling, you hear what old Jessica says,’ interposed Mrs Courtney soothingly. ‘They have got him in prison. It was like his insolence to speak to you as he did; but you have given him so much encouragement, that the creature is beside himself. But he has overleapt the mark this time, and will never trouble you again.’

‘Will they—kill him?’ said Quita, with a shiver.

‘I hope so, I’m sure. It would be the best thing for all of us, and drive this romantic nonsense out of your head, Maraquita. Why, what is this, my dear? You are surely not weeping for the fate of this murderer, who has instigated his fellows to kill half your friends, and would have killed you, and your husband, and your parents, if he had had the opportunity? I shall begin to think you have very little love for your father or myself, if you can prefer his life to ours.’

‘Oh, no, mamma, it isn’t that! I am very thankful to think you are all safe. Only—only—Henri, who used to love me so—to die! Oh, it must not be! It is too shocking!’

‘If a man sets all the laws of his country at naught, he must pay the penalty of his wrong-doing,’ said Mrs Courtney sententiously.

‘Yes; but there is some excuse for him, mamma. Think of his grief for my loss, his jealousy, his revenge. It was I who drove him to it. I should have been true to him at all hazards, and then this terrible business would never have happened. Oh, mamma, he must not die, or his spirit will haunt me all my days,’ said Quita, trembling, with closed eyes.

‘Maraquita, you are exaggerating the blame that is due to you in this matter. In the first place, we don’t know that the mutiny was organised on your account at all. The negroes are disaffected, I am sorry to say, all over San Diego. And if it were, it is an outrage which should call forth nothing but resentment on your part. You have been foolishly weak in former times with regard to this man; but he must have been insane if he ever believed you would marry him. You followed your parents’ wishes in accepting Sir Russell Johnstone, and have nothing to reproach yourself with in regard to it. Now, leave the rest of the matter to him, and don’t worry your head about it. You may depend upon it, the Governor will do what is just and right, and such a dreadful affair will never be allowed to happen again.’

‘But Henri—what will they do to Henri?’ moaned Maraquita.

‘Oh, this is unbearable! You are past all reason!’ cried Mrs Courtney impatiently. ‘Here, Jessica, help me off with her ladyship’s things, and let us put her into bed.’

She pulled off the various garments of cambric and lace, almost roughly, in her indignation at her daughter’s weakness; and having seen Maraquita laid in bed, she left her in her old nurse’s care, whilst she went to ask the doctor for a sleeping draught.

Jessica had been installed at Government House as she had desired, and her wages had been raised to nearly double their former sum. Lady Russell had felt uncomfortable at first to remember that there was some one beside her who knew all about her maiden life, but in her present extremity she turned to her old servant with a feeling of security that she need hide nothing from her. As her mother left the room, she moved on her pillow with a heavy sigh, and laid her little white hand in Jessica’s dark palm. The negro nature, if vindictive and revengeful under injustice, is also very affectionate and easily conciliated. This caressing action on Maraquita’s part touched her old nurse’s heart. It was some time since her little missy had shown any token of love for her, and it won her over on the instant to her side.

‘Jessica,’ sighed Quita, ‘I’m very unhappy.’

‘I know you is, poor missy,’ responded the negress. ‘You’se feelin’ berry bad to-night. And, sakes! it’s no wonder. But it’ll be all right bime-by, missy.’

‘I loved him, Jessica, very much,’ continued her young mistress. ‘You knew all about us, and how I used to slip out when everybody was asleep, and go to meet him in the Oleander thicket.’

‘Ah, yes, missy, Jessica knew. Many’s the night I’ve sot up, and watched and waited for you to come back; but it was generally daylight before you came. Ah! you used to love de oberseer in dose days, Missy Quita, pretty strong.’

‘And I love him still, Nurse! I can’t help it!’ cried Quita feverishly, as she sat up in bed, with her dark hair floating about her, and stared at the negress with dilated eyes. ‘I have loved him all along; and if they kill him, they will kill me too.’

‘No, no, missy; Governor not killing Massa Courcelles. Only keep him in prison little while, and den let him go free. Lie down, missy, and go sleep. All right bime-by.’

‘But I want to see him!’ exclaimed Quita excitedly. ‘I want to hear everything they are going to do to him; and I want to ask his forgiveness for having married Sir Russell. I must see him, Jessica. I shall go mad if I don’t.’

‘Den missy shall see him,’ replied the servant soothingly.

‘Will you manage it for me, Jessica?’ asked the girl eagerly; ‘and without saying a word to mamma. Will you find out where Monsieur de Courcelles has been taken, and if I can possibly get permission to visit him, and if there will be a trial, and when? Find out everything, Jessica, and let me know to-morrow morning, and you shall have the pair of gold bangles papa gave me last birthday. Stay! you shall have them now,’ continued Quita, as she sprang from her bed and took the ornaments off her dressing-table. ‘Put them on your wrists, Jessica, and remember you are to find out everything!’

‘Missy berry good to ole Jessica,’ said the negress, as she clasped the glittering circlets on her dusky arms, and feasted her eyes on them; ‘and I’ll know de whole truth by to-morrow morning. Only missy must lie down again now, and keep all dis berry dark, or de ole missus nebber let me tell nuffin.’

The entrance of Mrs Courtney at this juncture with the opiate draught put a stop to further confidence, and Maraquita, having obediently swallowed it, soon lost sight of her troubles in sleep. Mrs Courtney dismissed Jessica for the night, and lay down by her daughter’s side; but it was long before she followed her example. She trembled not only for the fright she had gone through, but for the influence she feared it might have upon Maraquita’s future.

‘Poor child!’ she thought, as she contemplated the lovely face, now tranquil in slumber on the pillow beside her, ‘she is passing through a terrible ordeal. I only trust it may not cause a rupture between Sir Russell and herself. I am certain he suspects something. I did not half like the look with which he received my explanation of the matter. It was the most unfortunate thing in the world that that fellow should have been planted right in Maraquita’s way as she left the room. Two minutes sooner or later, and she would not have seen him. Now, I hardly dare to think how it may end. If he is condemned to death, she certainly must not hear of it: I must invent some reason to Sir Russell for taking her away. Her emotional nature would break down altogether under such a strain. What an awful thing it is that she should ever have fallen into his clutches!’ And Mrs Courtney sighed over it until she fell asleep.

As soon as the morning broke, Maraquita having passed a good night, and everything being tranquil at Government House, she accompanied her husband to Beauregard for the day, for all the planters were entertaining grave fears for the continued submission of their coolie hands, and it was not thought advisable to leave the estates for long at a time without a ruling eye. Her departure was the signal for a long conference between Lady Russell and old Jessica. The negress had ascertained that it was possible for the friends of the prisoners to obtain access to them through a written order from the Governor, but that the privilege would only be extended in the case of relations.

‘That renders it impossible!’ exclaimed Quita despairingly, for she was not a woman with the wit to overcome difficulties.

‘How so, missy?’ demanded Jessica. ‘Why impossible? I can get order quick enough.’

‘You, Jessica? But Sir Russell knows you. Besides, he would never believe you were related to Monsieur de Courcelles.’

‘Oh, missy, I not going work dat way at all. Course he not gib it to me; but if missy gib me five-dollar note, dat half-caste woman Rosita will go swaer she’s de oberseer’s aunt, or his moder, and want speak to him with her daughter—dat’s you, missy. Den you put veil over your face, and big cloak, and go with Rosita and see de oberseer.’

‘But Rosita may tell,’ said Maraquita, shrinking from the idea.

Jessica shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

‘Rosita not tell—what good her telling? but if missy ’fraid, gib her ten dollars ’stead of five! den I swear she not tell.’

‘And what else did you hear, Jessica?’

‘Sambo say de Governor would hab hung all de mutineers dis morning, same like dogs, only de Colonel ob de forces tell him dat berry bad plan, and make big fight, and he better have proper martials. So dat am fixed for to-morrow, and den dey will be hung at sunset fire—dat what Sambo says.’

‘And—and—what more, Jessica?’

‘Dat’s pretty well all, missy, only de corpses hab been cleared away, and will be buried dis evening. And Missy Latreille berry bad in hospital, and both de Missy Burns dead, and dere fader hab sworn if Governor don’t hang de rebels, he will.’

‘Oh, it is terrible!’ sighed Maraquita. ‘I shall never have the courage to visit the cells. I am so afraid of being found out.’

‘Den missy better not go.’

‘But, Jessica, he will die without my seeing him, and I shall never forgive myself. I don’t know what to do.’

She vacillated, like the weak creature she was, between two opinions, until it was almost too late for Jessica to arrange the matter for her; but finally, under the dread of her mother’s speedy return from Beauregard, she made up her mind to visit De Courcelles, and Jessica was despatched with a ten dollar note to make the necessary preparations.

When the afternoon sun was somewhat on the wane, and Sir Russell Johnstone, having passed a sleepless night, and believing his wife to be safe in her own apartments, had thrown himself down on a couch to obtain some rest, Maraquita, effectually disguised with veil and cloak, stole down the back staircase of Government House, in company with the negress, and sought the abode of the half-caste woman Rosita, who had been fully instructed in the part she had to play. Leaving Jessica behind them, the two women immediately set out for the Fort, where they were received by the officer commanding the prison guard. He threw one glance on the Governor’s signature, and gave them immediate admittance.

‘Friends to see the prisoner No. 14, by the Governor’s permission,’ he shouted to the warder, who, unlocking a heavy iron-clamped door, ushered the visitors into a stone passage, from which there seemed to be no possibility of egress. Maraquita’s feeble courage was fast failing her, and had it not been for the cool nerve and determination of Rosita, she would have probably betrayed herself. But the half-caste woman was quite equal to the emergency.

‘Ah, sir, tell me!’ she exclaimed, as soon as they were alone with the warder, ‘will they really kill my poor nephew? Is there no chance of a reprieve?’

‘Don’t think so, ma’am,’ was the official’s answer; ‘but no one can tell for certain till after the court-martial to-morrow. Your nephew, you say?’

‘Yes! and this poor girl, my daughter, was to have been married to him before long. It’s a terrible trial for her! I don’t know how she’ll stand the interview.’

‘She’d better not see him. ’Twon’t do no good,’ said the warder roughly; ‘though she’s had a lucky escape from such a rascal.’

‘But I’ve come on her account alone. She can’t rest till she’s seen her cousin. Now, Clara, my dear, you’d better go in by yourself first, and then when the time’s up, the warder will let you know.’

All this had been pre-arranged between them, but Rosita played her part much better than Maraquita had the power to do. Her large eyes glanced up almost appealingly when No. 14 was reached, and the gaoler’s keys rattled in the door, and had not her companion pushed her into the cell, she would have turned round and run away. But it was done, and her retreat was cut off. She stood in the same room as Henri de Courcelles.

‘Friends for No. 14,’ sung out the warder, as he opened the door; ‘only fifteen minutes allowed, so make the most of them.’

Henri de Courcelles looked up in amazement as the order sounded on his ear. He knew of no friends to visit him in his trouble. He was sitting in a small whitewashed room, which contained a pallet, a table, and a couple of wooden chairs. His day’s rations were before him, but he had not touched them. He was still in his usual attire, for it had not been thought worth while to put him into prison clothes, and notwithstanding an unshorn face and unkempt hair, he was looking as handsome—perhaps handsomer, than ever, for disorder suited his gipsy style of beauty. As he caught sight of Maraquita’s shrouded and veiled figure, he started a little, but he never supposed for a moment it could be she, until she lifted her veil, and gazed at him with scared and mournful eyes.

‘Henri,’ she exclaimed, in a piteous voice, ‘I have come to see you!’

In her vanity, she had believed she had only to stand before him, and look miserable, to bring him to her feet again. She had forgotten the deadly insult she had put upon the man by marrying Sir Russell Johnstone; the lies with which she had attempted to deceive him to the very end; the treachery by which she and her mother had procured his dismissal from Beauregard. She trusted, like many another of her sex, too much to the power of her beauty to sway the minds of men. But mere loveliness cannot supply the place of truth and fidelity, and she had become nothing in the eyes of her former lover but a whited sepulchre, and was the last person upon earth he desired to see. He sprang to his feet as her voice fell on his ear, and looked at her with ineffable scorn.

‘You have come to see me, and why?’

‘Oh, Henri, how can you ask? Do you think I am made of stone, that I have entirely forgotten? When I saw you amongst those terrible mutineers last night, it nearly killed me.’

‘It’s a pity it didn’t quite kill you,’ he replied, ‘for women such as you are not fit to live! Do you know why I was there,—why I headed their numbers, and incited them on to rebellion and slaughter?—in order that I might kill you,—in order that you should not live to deceive other men, and drive them to desperation, as you have driven me.’

‘Oh, Henri, Henri,’ she exclaimed, panting with fear, ‘you are raving! You would not injure me! Think, Henri, think of the hours I have lain with my head on your breast and my lips to yours; think how you have loved me,—of the tie between us, and I am sure that you would die sooner than hurt a hair of my head.’

‘Think of it!’ he repeated, with a bitter laugh; ‘haven’t I thought of it until it has turned my brain, and made me lust for your blood? To think of all your professions of love, and how they have ended, is to hate and despise you. The tie between us! It had better die, and rot where it lies, than grow up with one tithe of its mother’s falsehood. No, Maraquita, the time for my belief in you is past. If you came here to hear compliments, you have wasted your time, for I have nothing but loathing and hatred to give you.’

‘Oh, Henri!’ she said, shivering, with her face hidden in her hands, ‘don’t speak to me like that! I will go away, and never attempt to cross your path again, only promise me that neither you nor your friends shall hurt me. It was not my fault, indeed it wasn’t. I married at the command of my parents, and I have been so miserable since, Henri. I have dreamt of you almost every night, and longed to see you again. Oh, don’t look at me like that! Kiss me, and say you forgive me, or I shall never know another happy moment.’

‘Kiss you! Forgive you!’ he repeated witheringly. ‘Never! Neither in this life, nor the life to come. You escaped me last night, Maraquita, but you shall not escape me for ever. I have sworn to have your life, in return for all that was precious to me in mine, and I will have it yet. I only bide my time.’

Then her fancied passion died out beneath his threats and blazing eyes, and she turned and taunted him with his inability to carry out his intentions.

‘You will have my life? What are you thinking of, to talk in so absurd a manner? Do you forget where you are? Are you aware that you will be brought up for trial to-morrow morning, and that if I give the Governor one hint of this conversation, sunset will see your execution. How will you be able to carry out your threats against me then?’

‘And so this is the woman who will never know another happy moment without my forgiveness!’ he returned sarcastically,—‘who can calmly contemplate my possible execution as the means of her own deliverance, and hint that she may expedite it! I thank you, madam, for showing me your true nature so openly, else I might have been weak enough, in these last moments, to believe you had really preserved some little feeling for the man who should have been your husband. But I have a word to say to you in return. I shall not die to-morrow—I shall live until I have the weapon in my hand wherewith to strike you down. And then I shall not care how soon I go too. But in hell, Maraquita—even in hell—I shall be beside you, to haunt you with the treachery which sent us both there?’

‘Oh, have pity!—have pity on me!’ she cried, upon her knees.

‘I have no pity,’ he answered, in a low voice; ‘and I shall have none. You have left me only one feeling with regard to you,—determination to carry out my revenge. When I think of it, I feel as if I had the strength of ten thousand devils in me, and could tear these walls asunder with my bare hands, and set myself free, only to be revenged on you.’

‘Time’s up,’ called the warder from outside the door.

‘Henri, will you not speak one word to me?—give me one look before I go?’ wailed Maraquita.

He advanced upon her with the eyes of a demoniac.

‘Speak to you? Look at you?’ he exclaimed. ‘What have I to say to you that I have not already said? Leave this cell, as you value a few more days’ existence, or I shall tear you to pieces where you stand.’

And at the sight of his uplifted hands and glowering eyes, Maraquita gave a low cry, and hastened through the open doorway.

‘Not a very pleasant interview, I guess,’ observed the warder, as Quita walked down the stone passage again, sobbing as if her heart would break, and clinging to Rosita’s arm. ‘I told you you’d better not see him. He’s more mad than sane, and I was half afraid he might do you some harm.’

‘Is there,’ demanded Maraquita, as soon as she could command her voice sufficiently to speak, ‘is there any chance of his being able to escape from prison?’

The gaoler laughed.

‘Escape? Well, no. I wouldn’t set my heart on that, if I was you, miss. ’Twould take a better man than he—though he’s a powerful fellow, too—to break through these walls, when he’s once inside them. He’ll never leave them again, unless it’s by the Governor’s orders—you may take your oath of that.’

At Rosita’s house, Jessica received her weeping young mistress again, and conducted her safely back to her own apartments; but it was long before Maraquita could make up her mind whether she should speak to Sir Russell on the subject of De Courcelles or not. Some suspicion might attach to her doing so, though she trusted to her native cunning to make a good story of it. But if she said nothing, and the court took a lenient view of the part he had maintained in the mutiny, Henri de Courcelles might be set at large again, and accomplish his wicked designs upon her life. The love of living, so strong in every human breast, finally outweighed all other considerations, and Maraquita, after a night of painful deliberation, asked Jessica to summon Sir Russell to her side.

The Governor, unused to such amenities on the part of his bride, came with alacrity, and full of tender solicitude for the apprehension and terror she had passed through.

‘You must try and dismiss it all from your mind now, my darling, for the danger is really past. We try the mutineers to-day, and I have very little doubt of the sentence which will be passed upon them.’

‘There is one—the man who spoke to me the other night,’ said Maraquita, trembling; ‘what will they do to him?’

The Governor frowned.

‘You mean the ringleader? I cannot tell; but if I had to decide, I should say that hanging was too good for him. Why do you ask, my dear? Surely you are not interested in his fate.’

‘Oh, no, no! I am afraid of him,’ replied his wife. ‘He was papa’s overseer once, and he—he—presumed to fall in love with me; and because—because I married you instead, he has sworn to kill me; and he will, Sir Russell, I am sure he will, if they let him go free!’

‘He shall not go free!’ exclaimed her husband indignantly. ‘Such outrages from the half-caste population against European settlers are not to be tolerated. I am glad you have told me this, Quita; it will go greatly against him, if the court should be disposed to show him any favour.’

‘Oh, do send him away—get rid of him at all risks. He frightens me. I shall die of fear,’ she whispered, clinging to Sir Russell’s arm.

‘He shall never frighten you again, my darling. I will take care of that,’ replied the Governor decidedly, as he pressed her to him. But as he was embracing her, Jessica entered the bedroom, with an official paper.

‘Orderly from Fort bring for Governor,’ she ejaculated.

Sir Russell glanced over its contents.

‘Good heavens!’ he cried, ‘he has escaped us!’

‘Who—who?’ demanded Maraquita.

‘The very man you were speaking of—Henri de Courcelles. He has broken, by some miraculous means, out of his prison cell, and is missing. I must order out the mounted police at once to follow him. Don’t be afraid, Maraquita. It is impossible that he can escape the vigilance of the law, in such a little place as San Diego.’

‘He will—he will!’ exclaimed the unhappy girl, as her husband rushed out of the room. ‘He will live, as he said, to murder me.’ And with that she fell back unconscious on her pillows.

CHAPTER VI.

THE account of the attempted massacre at Government House reached Lizzie through Mr Courtney; but he did not tell her that Henri de Courcelles had been arrested as one of the mutineers. He knew that she had regarded his late overseer with affection, and he wanted to spare her the pain of the suspense of learning his fate. It would be time enough, he thought, for her to mourn when her friend had been tried and condemned. But his kind consideration was wasted, for the news came to her by means of the yellow girl, Rosa, who burst into her presence on the day of De Courcelles’ escape from the Fort prison, brim full of the intelligence.

‘Oh, Missy Liz! dar’s grand news come from Government House. De Fort prison doors is bust open, and dey’s all gone—ebbery one of dem mutineers, and Massa Courcelles, he gone wid them.’

‘Monsieur de Courcelles!’ exclaimed Lizzie, hardly believing her ears. ‘What are you talking of, Rosa?’

‘Jes’ God’s truth, Missy Liz. Massa Courcelles de ringleader ob all de mutiny—dat’s what William Hall, dat hab jes’ come from de Fort, say; and dey take him prisoner ob Tuesday night, and put him in cell, and dis morning he was to be tried by ’martial; but he’s clean gone, and de mounted police am scouring San Diego for him.’

‘De Courcelles amongst the rebels!’ repeated Lizzie. ‘This, then, is what he meant by his revenge. Oh, that it had been in my power to save him from falling so low!’

‘But dat ain’t all, Missy Liz; dere’s more to come. William Hall say de police catch sight of Massa Courcelles ober de gully, close by Shanty Hill, and he ’scape them again, and run straight for de Alligator Swamp.’

‘He did not enter it?’ cried Lizzie, turning pale.

‘Oh, didn’t he, though? De police gallop after him, and he run same like deer, and jump de fences, and go squash right in de swamp, where de hosses couldn’t follow him, ’cause of de morass. And William say when Massa Courcelles get on edge of swamp, he turn and wave his hand, and hollo, and dive in bushes. And den de police see no more of him; but dey is waiting dere now, horses and all, till he come out again. But Massa Courcelles nebber come out again, Missy Liz. Dat what all de niggers say; alligator and swamp take him pretty quick, and got him now, maybe, de bad fellow!’

Lizzie did not answer her chattering handmaid, except by asking,—

‘What time is it, Rosa?’

‘Jes’ gone tree, Missy Liz.’

‘And when did this happen? I mean when did the police lose sight of Monsieur de Courcelles in the Alligator Swamp?’

‘Eleben o’clock, missy.’

‘Four hours,’ said Lizzie to herself. ‘God help him! What can I do?’

She began turning over the contents of a medicine-chest as she thought thus, and pouring the liquid from one bottle into the other, in an apparently mechanical manner.

‘Rosa!’ she said suddenly, turning to her open-eyed attendant, ‘I am going out presently, and I may be detained longer than I anticipate. Take great care of baby whilst I am away, and put her to sleep in your own room to-night. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, yes, Missy Liz.’

She watched her mistress array herself in her walking things, and take down a broad sombrero hat, and a long cloak, which had belonged to her father, from the cupboard where they hung, and place brandy and a bottle of quinine, and strong smelling-salts and camphor in the basket she hung upon her arm. These proceedings only excited Rosa’s curiosity; but when Lizzie went on to load a revolver and place it in her belt, and take a huge staff in her hand, the yellow girl could contain herself no longer, but cried out,—

‘Oh, Missy Liz, Missy Liz! what you going to do with all dem things?’

‘Dare I trust you?’ said Lizzie, turning her grave, pale face towards her. ‘Will you be faithful and keep my secret if I tell you what I am going to do?’

‘Missy Liz, I will!’ replied Rosa solemnly. ‘I knows I’se berry bad gal to you once. I said drefful things what I didn’t mean; but I’se only ignorant yellow gal, Mis Liz, and I didn’t think how bad I was. But Massa Norris, he make me promise when he go ’way that I’d be good faithful servant to you, and take great care of you, and he’d bring me lubly dress from England next time he come; and I would do it, Missy Liz, without de dress, and only because I love you for all you done for me.’

‘I believe you, and I will confide in you, for I must have a friend to help me. Rosa, I am going to the Alligator Swamp to try and find Monsieur de Courcelles.’

‘De Alligator Swamp! Oh, Missy Liz! you nebber going there? You can’t walk dere for de swamp, nor de thorn bushes; and de green slime hab a smell what chokes you. Missy,’ continued Rosa earnestly, ‘even a nigger can’t stay dere. You will lose your way d’reckly—dere’s no path to guide you; and de alligators is awful. Dey kill you d’reckly dey see you. Oh, Missy Liz, for God’s sake, don’t try to go!’

‘Listen to me, dear Rosa. I must go! It is of no use to try and stop me. Monsieur de Courcelles has been very wicked, no doubt—I don’t defend his conduct—but once I loved him Rosa, and a woman can never quite forget the man she has loved.’

‘No, dat’s true, missy. Juan want me to marry him, but I keep thinking too much ob that rascal sailor boy what was de fader of my poor leetel Carlo—Dat’s truth,’ answered Rosa, shaking her black curls.

‘Well then, perhaps you can understand a little what I feel now, Rosa. Monsieur de Courcelles is in fearful danger. I know his spirit. He will never come out of the swamp to be taken prisoner again. He will faint from the fumes of the fearful miasma first, and sink for ever in the morass, or he will cast himself before the first cayman in his path. I may not find him, or I may be too late to give him any assistance, but I must try. I have the proper medicines here to counteract the effect of the swamp, for him and myself; and if I find him, I think with this disguise I may get him safely out again without attracting the notice of the police. I shall not go by Shanty Hill, Rosa. I shall make my way round by the Miners’ Gulch. There is an entrance there at the back of the Sans Souci plantation.’

‘And if you find him, Missy Liz—what den?’ inquired the yellow girl.

‘Ah, Rosa! that is where I shall want your assistance and your fidelity,’ replied her mistress. ‘If I find him, I must bring him here, and hide him from the police until I can get him safely away from the island.’

‘Dat berry dangerous work, Missy Liz.’

‘I know it, but how can I do otherwise? Could I let the man whom I once believed would be my husband, perish in the Alligator Swamp, without an attempt to rescue him; or deliver him up to die a murderer’s death upon the gallows, as long as I can keep him from it? Oh, Rosa, Rosa!’ cried Lizzie, weeping, ‘it is the same with all of us, white and black alike. Love—although a love that is dead and over—sanctifies everything, and claims a certain duty even for its ashes.’

The yellow girl did not understand her mistress’s words, but her tears appealed to her heart, and she cried with her.

‘Yes, Missy Liz, I understand. Dat’s jes’ same like me and de sailor fellow. But you must take great care of yourself, Missy Liz. You must be berry ’ticular where you step, and how you go, and keep a sharp look-out for de alligators. Dey berry cowardly, Missy Liz. Dey frightened of noise, and dey can’t run no ways; so if you don’t tread right on dem, you’se all right.’

‘Yes, yes, Rosa! I know that, and I will take every possible caution,’ replied Lizzie. And then she kissed the baby, and kissed Rosa, and walked bravely off, as though she had been going on her daily rounds.

The Alligator Swamp was situated in a deep gorge or valley between two high hills, and was simply a stagnant bog, thickly clothed with poisonous vegetation—indeed no healthy trees or bushes could have existed in such an atmosphere. The fatal upas tree spread its thick branches over the morass, sheltering deadly fungi of orange, and red, and white. Thorny bushes were matted and interlaced about it, so that had there been a solid foundation to the Alligator’s Swamp, it would have been impossible to force one’s way through, or find a path whereon to tread. The only resting-place for one’s feet consisted of the logs and trunks of decayed trees, which had dropped, rolling into the slime, and choked it up. But they were treacherous paths, as may be well imagined, and it was difficult, in the semi-darkness, to distinguish them from the caymen—the largest and fiercest breed of alligators—from which the swamp derived its name. These creatures lay on the top of the slimy deposit, just like rugged brown logs in appearance, until a sound or a touch caused the apparently inert mass to move, and a ferocious head, with two diamond bright eyes, and an enormous mouth, with cruel fangs, rose up suddenly and snapt its jaws over its unsuspecting prey. For there was no real daylight in the Alligator Swamp. The branches of the trees were so thickly interlaced overhead that the sun had no chance to penetrate them and cleanse the Augean Stable with his health-giving rays; and so the decaying vegetation and the slime had festered on together for years past, and the caymen had bred and flourished there, until the boldest negro of them all considered it certain death to breathe the air which they inhaled. If the foolhardy creature who attempted to traverse the swamp were not immersed in the stinking mud, or seized by the hungry alligators, he was bound after a little while to sink down, giddy and intoxicated from inhaling the various poisons around him, and so fall a prey to either one or the other. Lizzie Fellows was perfectly conscious of the terrible risk she ran,—more so, perhaps, than most women would have been, for her father had fully explained the dangers of the swamp to her, and warned her off its precincts. She knew that the reason runaway negroes and escaped prisoners took refuge in the Alligator Swamp was not because they sought safety in it, but because they preferred death by its horrors to giving themselves up to the law. They knew they went to their grave when they entered it, but they knew also that the police would refuse to follow them there, and that they would be left to die alone and unmolested. She had a long walk to take before she reached it. She was anxious to meet no one who should inquire her errand, or try to prevent it, and so she took a circuitous route to Sans Souci, and crept round the back of the plantation until she came to a clump of dense underwood, through which she knew a path led to the fatal spot. She tied a handkerchief steeped in some disinfectant across her mouth and nostrils as she entered it, and then, with a short prayer to God for protection and success, went bravely on. She carried a knife in her hand, with which she sliced the bark of the trees as she walked along, for she was afraid of losing her way altogether, and perhaps never finding the sunlight again; but for the first few minutes the Alligator Swamp seemed to be a harmless place enough. The grass beneath her feet was bright and green, from the humidity of the atmosphere and the shade of the trees, but the first indication of danger was given by her foot suddenly sinking in wet soil up to her ankle. She drew it back quickly, and commenced to walk more slowly, and tapping the ground before her with the stout stick she held in her hand, before she ventured to tread on it. Her heart beat fast at times as a rustle in the bushes betrayed the presence of a rattlesnake—about the only living thing that shared the swamp with the alligators—or a splash in the surrounding vegetation proved she was approaching the haunts of the caymen. Still she went on, picking her way over the morass, or skirting it by means of the rotten trunks that lay across it, and swayed and rolled as she mounted them, as if they would give way beneath her weight, and let her fall into the slimy pool they floated on. Soon she began to feel the effects of the mephitic vapours with which the place abounded, and had recourse to her smelling-salts, to prevent her becoming giddy. All this time Lizzie had kept up a continual note from a whistle she had hung about her neck, and at intervals she had called upon Henri de Courcelles by name. As she advanced to the centre of the swamp the daylight seemed to be entirely excluded, and she lighted a lantern which was tied at her girdle. With her staff in one hand and her revolver in the other she now began to pick her way step by step, her heart sinking with fear and disappointment as she went. For not a sound came in answer to her whistle or her call. The profoundest silence reigned in the Alligator Swamp. The stench of the decaying vegetation was more and more apparent, and the only light by which she walked was the feeble glimmer thrown in advance from the little lantern at her waist. It was a situation to appal the bravest spirit. Once she stepped forward almost confidently, and placed her foot on a broad bridge, formed, as she believed, of the corrugated trunk of a fallen tree, but as she touched it it sank beneath the slime, and rose again immediately with two fierce twinkling eyes and an open jaw full of pointed teeth, to confront her.

Lizzie flew backward with a scream of terror, and, clinging with one arm to the branch of a tree, discharged her revolver full in the reptile’s face. The bullet was probably battered against its impervious hide, but the shot had the desired effect of frightening the alligator back into its home of slime. It had another, and more unforeseen effect. It reached the senses of an almost unconscious man, who had slidden into a sitting position beside some bushes, but a few yards off, and roused him from his sleep of death. The sound of the shot conveyed but one idea to his mind, however,—that his pursuers had penetrated his asylum, and were close at hand to capture him; and with the intention to defy them to the last, he staggered to his feet, and set his back against a tree. The tall figure clothed in white became apparent in the surrounding twilight, and when Lizzie raised her eyes from the spot where the cayman had disappeared from view, it was to fix them on the form of Henri de Courcelles. She uttered a cry of pleasure at the discovery, which sounded to him like a note of victory.

‘Stand off!’ he exclaimed loudly; ‘shoot me like a man if you will, but don’t attempt to touch me with your accursed fingers, or I will dive into the swamp and escape you.’

He was about to put his suicidal threat into execution, when Lizzie stepped quickly across the yielding earth which separated them, and stood by his side.

‘Henri!’ she ejaculated, as she clutched at his clothes with her hand and held him back.

He turned and stared at her.

‘Lizzie!’ was all he could say.

‘Yes, it is I,’ she answered simply.

At that his senses appeared to return to him. His astonishment at seeing her was so great, that he pulled himself together, as a drunken man will sometimes do, under special circumstances.

‘Lizzie—here!’ he repeated. ‘But what made you come to such a place? Do you know that you are courting certain death, and that every moment may be your last? Go back at once! Don’t stay here another instant! You were mad to think of such a thing.’

‘I am going back, and at once,’ she answered quickly, ‘but you must come with me.’

‘I cannot. The police are waiting for me outside, and I will die here sooner than deliver myself into their hands.’

She disengaged the wallet of medicines which she had carried on her back, and, pouring out a mixture of brandy and quinine, held it to his lips.

‘Drink this, Henri, and listen to me. I have come here expressly to find you and save you, and you must trust yourself to me. The police shall not take you. They are waiting by Shanty Hill, and I know a secret outlet by Miners’ Gulch. But we must leave this pestiferous atmosphere at once, or it may be fatal to both of us.’

He clung to her like a child to its mother.

‘You can save me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, my good angel! why did I ever desert you?’

‘Hush! Don’t speak of that now. Think of nothing excepting the best means to get out of this dreadful place. Drink some more brandy, and inhale this ammonia. That is right. Pull yourself together, and follow me closely. I will go first, and lead the way.’

She pulled him forward as she spoke, and mechanically he followed her. Step by step they went, very slowly and cautiously at first, and then faster, as the dusky twilight spread itself out, and the gleams of sunshine penetrated at intervals the dense foliage, and turned its neutral tints into living green. On they went, she in front with her staff and revolver, and he, behind, only half comprehending what had occurred to him, until they reached the thicket which abutted on the Sans Souci plantation, where he sank down upon the grass, with a low moan of exhaustion. Lizzie was busy with her wallet directly. She had anticipated that as soon as the excitement was over he would succumb to the strain he had passed through—for the Spanish Creoles have not strong constitutions, and had provided the necessary remedies against it. It was some little time before Henri de Courcelles fairly understood what had happened to him, and then his gratitude knew no bounds.

‘Am I really safe, and with you?’ he murmured. ‘What have I done to deserve such goodness at your hands?’

‘You are clear of that terrible swamp, Henri; but you are not by any means safe yet; and if you would be, you must follow out my instructions to the letter. See here! I have an old cloak and sombrero which belonged to my poor father. I left them under this tree when I entered the swamp. We will wait here quietly until it is a little darker, and then you must put them on, and come home to the bungalow with me, and I will conceal you there until you can find some means of leaving San Diego.’

‘But how will that be possible, Lizzie? The bills must be out by this time, putting a price upon my head, and every nigger in the island will be turned into an amateur detective, in the hope of being able to claim the reward.’

‘Oh, don’t let us think of that now!’ replied Lizzie wearily. ‘The chief thing at present is to restore your vitality. It is a blessing you are still alive, Henri. Eat and drink what I have brought for you, and thank God you can do it in safety. Nothing will harm you here.’

‘And you actually came in search of me, alone and unprotected?’ he said, looking at her with the deepest admiration. ‘You braved the dangers of this awful place,—ran the risk of a terrible death, and all for me—for me, who have treated you so badly! Oh, Lizzie,’ continued Henri de Courcelles, seizing her hand, ‘if the devotion of the life you have rescued can atone to you, it will.’

But she drew her hand away hastily—almost with repugnance—from his clasp. Was it not that of a would-be murderer?

‘Henri,’ she replied quietly, though her voice shook, ‘you must never speak to me again like that. I have done what you say, and I thank Heaven, who has crowned my efforts with success; but it was done for the sake of the Past, not of the Present; and nothing in the Future, except the knowledge that your life has been saved for better things, can ever repay me. I have been shocked beyond measure at what I have heard concerning you. You have steeped your hands, or would have done so, in the blood of innocent victims, for the sake of carrying out an unworthy revenge on the daughter of your benefactors. It was a crime which would make any honest person shrink from you, which would make most people consider that a death on the gallows, or in the Alligator Swamp, was your just deserts. But I cannot forget, Henri. Ever since I have known your relations with my adopted sister, I have ceased to desire your affection; but I cannot forget that I once valued it, and to think of your being sent out of the world without the opportunity to repent, was very terrible to me. That is why I have run this risk to save you, and why I am thankful I have succeeded. But don’t speak of love to me again, or you may make me sorry instead of glad.’

There was a calm, reasonable determination in her voice as she spoke, that brought conviction home to Henri de Courcelles’ mind. He saw it plainly now. He had not only lost her love,—he had forfeited her respect and her esteem; and as the truth smote home to him, the unwonted tears rose to his eyes.

‘Why didn’t you leave me in the swamp?’ he murmured. ‘I had better have remained there, to become the prey of the alligators, than live under your contempt. Let me go back,’ he continued, starting to his feet, ‘for your words have taken all my courage out of me, and I would rather die a thousand deaths by my own hand than fall into those of my enemies, and swing like a malefactor from the Fort gates.’

‘You shall do neither!’ exclaimed Lizzie, as she caught his arm, and drew him down to her side again. ‘Come, Henri, be reasonable. Remember I am your friend, and have thought out the whole plan of your escape. Put on this cloak and sombrero. See how completely they disguise you, and cover you from head to foot. The only thing we have to dread now is lest some acquaintance should meet and question me; but that is very unlikely, as this is the general dinner hour for all Europeans, and I will take you home by an unfrequented path.’

‘But when I reach your bungalow, Lizzie, what will Rosa say?’

‘I have been obliged to take Rosa into my confidence, Henri, but she will not betray you. As for the rest, leave it to me, and I believe that, with Heaven’s aid, I can bring you out of this strait.’

‘You are too good to me,’ he said brokenly; ‘and I place myself altogether in your hands. Lead on, Lizzie, as you think best, and I will follow.’

‘No, Henri; we will walk side by side. It will be much better, in case of an encounter with any one who knows us, that I should show a perfect fearlessness in the matter. Take my staff in your hand, and sling the wallet across your shoulder. Then we shall look as if we had been searching the country for herbs for medicinal purposes; and I will gather a bundle of leaves, in order to carry out the delusion. That is right. Now come with me, and let us step out manfully together.’

They traversed the couple of miles that lay between them and Beauregard, without encountering anything more formidable than a few negroes sauntering along the road as they returned from work. But as they approached the plantation, the danger of discovery became more imminent, and Lizzie conducted her companion to her bungalow by a circuitous route.

It was reached at last, however, and as De Courcelles sank into one of the familiar chairs in the sitting-room, he felt like a man who has been delivered from the very jaws of death to be suddenly transported into paradise.

‘But you must not rest here, Henri,’ whispered Lizzie, as she quickly closed all the jalousies. ‘Mr Courtney or one of the hands might enter at any moment. There would be continual risk of discovery.’

‘Where, then?’ he demanded, in the same tone.

‘In my dear father’s bedroom. It has never been opened since his death, and you are not likely to be disturbed there. You know what these silly, superstitious natives are. They would not enter a chamber where a death has occurred, to save their lives. They would be fearful of encountering my dear father’s wraith. You see now my object in dressing you up in his cloak and hat. If any of our negroes had seen you, he would probably have run shrieking to his hut, to spread the report that the Doctor’s ghost was walking about Beauregard. You must remember to keep up the idea, should any unforeseen risk occur. But here, for a few days at least, I believe you will be safe,’ continued Lizzie, as she unlocked the door of her late father’s apartment, ‘until I can get you away from the island. You will have to be my prisoner,’ she added playfully; ‘and I shall lock you in, and bring you your meals at the stated times. But keep the jalousies bolted inside night and day, and try to do with as little light as possible, to avoid attracting attention. You will find all my dear father’s wardrobe in the cupboard here. Use it as you think best, and try and be contented under the restraint, and thankful (as I am) that Heaven has spared your life to you.’

He turned round as he crossed the threshold, and sank on his knees before her.

‘You have forbidden me to speak of love,’ he ejaculated, ‘but I must say something to express my gratitude. You have indeed heaped coals of fire on my head! You have done what no other living creature, male or female, would have done; you have risked your life and safety for me, who have treated you worse than any one else. Let me say Heaven bless you for it, Lizzie. I feel if there is a hell beyond the one we suffer here, that mine will be to remember always the terrible mistake I made in allowing a woman’s personal beauty to blind me to the virtues of the friend whom I now feel I have loved and honoured above all the world.’

He took her hand and kissed it as he spoke, and Lizzie was not ashamed to let her tears fall freely on them both.

‘I am glad now, Henri,’ she uttered falteringly, ‘and I shall be glad in the days to come to think over the words you have just said, and to remember that you knew me for your true friend. There are different kinds of love from the one we once thought we felt for each other—and perhaps better ones—and something of the sort I shall never cease to feel for you. And if you think you owe me gratitude, Henri—if you would repay me let it be by abandoning all ideas of revenge and murder for the future. Don’t let me have the terrible self-reproach that I have wasted my affection on one so utterly unworthy of it.’

‘I have taken a different oath, Lizzie, but I will rescind it, for your sake, and here on my knees I swear to you that if I am spared to escape the gallows, I will abandon all ideas of revenge in the future. After all, Maraquita is but a false woman, not worthy of a man’s revenge. There are dozens such: the world is peopled with them.’

‘She is the woman you loved, Henri,’ replied Lizzie gravely, ‘and therefore she is the woman you should always be most lenient to. But she has passed out of your world, and the kindest thing you can do for her and yourself is to forget her. But you must not talk of such exciting topics to-night. It may be some time before you shake off the effects of the poisonous vapours you have inhaled. Go to rest now, and sleep without fear. I will guarantee that no one shall disturb your slumbers.’

De Courcelles took her advice, and flung himself, exhausted through excitement and fatigue, upon the late Doctor’s bed, whilst she, with a divine light, almost akin to maternal solicitude, upon her countenance, took a seat in the outer room, and prepared to watch all night against a possible surprise for the man she held prisoner.

CHAPTER VII.

BUT from that moment Lizzie had not a moment’s peace. She dreaded everything and everybody. Each casual visitor she believed to be a spy, and the appearance of a friend made her think that the hour of discovery had come. Rosa made her a thousand promises of fidelity, but the yellow girl, though devoted to her mistress’s interests, was, after all, very much like other women, and found it a hard task to hold her tongue. The whole time she was employed in exercising the baby in the plantation, was a season of torture to Lizzie, who pictured her confiding the whole story to her most intimate friend, under a promise of inviolable secrecy. Meanwhile Henri de Courcelles, though confined to one room during the day time, and only venturing out after dark by means of the window, and with a disguise on, was passing a fairly pleasant time. The two women fed him royally, and waited on him like servants, and he held several conferences with Lizzie as to the possibility of his getting down to the Fort by night, and embarking as a seaman on board one of the Spanish crafts that lay in the bay of San Diego. They would have carried this plan, of which they had arranged all the minutiæ together, into effect at once, had it not been deemed advisable that De Courcelles should lie perdu until it might be supposed by the authorities that their prisoner had perished beyond all doubt in the Alligator Swamp. As soon as the guard of mounted police who watched for him outside the swamp was withdrawn, Lizzie and De Courcelles decided that his first attempt at an escape from the island should be made. He had been concealed in the bungalow for two days when Mr Courtney walked in one morning and took a seat beside Lizzie. The planter looked worn and anxious, and as he removed his hat, and passed his handkerchief across his brow, he seemed to have grown older of late, notwithstanding the brilliant marriage that his daughter had made. The words with which he opened the conversation, had reference to Maraquita.

‘Sir Russell and Lady Johnstone have come to stay with us at the White House, Lizzie.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ she replied. ‘I suppose Quita is nervous of staying at Government House, after what happened there last week. And I don’t wonder at it, poor girl! I should be glad to hear that the Governor had decided to take her to England.’

‘So should we, my dear, and they will go before long—there is no doubt of that—only, it would hardly do for the Governor to run away whilst the island is in this state of ferment. But he judged rightly in thinking that our dear Maraquita would feel safer and happier with her parents, and in her old home. For she has received a terrible shock, Lizzie, and it is telling on her visibly. She seems ten years older to me.’

‘Poor Quita, she cannot fail to feel it,’ replied Lizzie, looking at the matter in a totally different light from that in which Mr Courtney regarded it.

‘Yes, and I wish I could think that there was no further reason for her fears. Lizzie, I have come here this morning for one purpose only,—to persuade you to return with me to the White House.’

Lizzie started, and coloured.

‘Oh, Mr Courtney, I cannot. I don’t know why you want me there, but unless it is in my capacity as medical adviser, I must refuse. You forget that Mrs Courtney ordered me never to show my face there again.’

‘I can allow no feminine quarrels to interfere with your safety, Lizzie; and it is to secure that that I beg of you to take up your residence at my house until these mutinous ideas have been knocked out of the coolies’ heads. I do not feel that you are safe,—that we are, any of us, safe. I begin to distrust even my own hands, for whom I have done all in my power.’

‘Mr Courtney, I appreciate your kindness, but there are too many reasons why I cannot accept it.’

‘Name them, my dear.’

‘I have named one already, sir. Another is my infant charge. Do you suppose I would desert her?’

‘Bring her with you. There is room in the White House for us all.’

‘No, Mr Courtney,’ she answered proudly, ‘it is impossible. I will not take the child under the roof of the very woman who has falsely accused me of being its mother.’

‘But I am sure, Lizzie, that neither my wife nor Maraquita really believe that story.’

‘And I am sure of it too, sir; but that only places their cruelty to me in a more heinous light. Forgive me for saying it, Mr Courtney, before you, who have always been so good to me and my poor father, but I will never again place myself voluntarily in the society of either Mrs Courtney or Maraquita, until they have publicly acknowledged that they have done me a foul wrong.’

‘They have been very hard on you,’ sighed the planter; ‘but their conduct cannot blind me to my duty. I cannot consent to your remaining here, Lizzie. The negroes may rise at any moment, and this bungalow is in the very midst of their quarters. I have received secret information concerning them, that has seriously alarmed me. The general disaffection has spread much further than I dreamt of, and even the hands on Beauregard are believed to be ripe for rebellion. Were they to take it into their heads to rise, what would you do?’

Lizzie laughed at the idea.

‘In that case, sir—did I believe it possible (which I can hardly do) that your coolies could so utterly forget all they owe to you—I should be much safer here than in the White House. Why should they harbour any resentment against me? They loved my dear father, and I believe they love me for his sake, and I have nothing to do with their fancied causes for complaint. If they do rise, which God forbid, it will be the White House against which they will make a raid.’

‘Ah, my dear child, long as you have lived amongst them, you do not know the negro nature as I do. Once roused, he becomes a devil, and has no power of distinguishing between friends and foes. This bungalow will be the first piece of my property which they will have the opportunity of destroying, and I feel sure they will not spare it, nor perhaps even you. Lizzie, I beg, I implore of you to accept my offer of protection, and transport yourself, and all you value, to the White House.’

But Lizzie was firm. She quailed a little before the possible picture Mr Courtney had conjured up,—before the remembrance too of certain words of Captain Norris, in which he had expressed his own fears for her safety; but they had no power to alter her determination. There was her poor prisoner in the next room to them. Guilty as he had proved himself to be, she had promised him her protection, and she would stand by him to the last, even if they were doomed to perish together. So she only shook her head, and smiled, and continued stitching at her work.

‘Your obstinacy is incredible to me,’ said Mr Courtney, half angrily, ‘and you put me in a very unpleasant position. I promised your father (as far as I could) to supply his place to you. I look on you as second only to my own child, yet you refuse to accept from me a father’s protection, or to yield me the obedience of a daughter.’

‘I am sorry to appear ungrateful to you, Mr Courtney, but I have my own reasons for remaining in my own home, and your arguments have no power to shake them. Pray don’t be under any further apprehension for me—I have none for myself; and if your workers are disposed to mutiny, it is all the more reason that I should remain amongst them, and try to bring them to a better frame of mind.’

‘Ah, I have heard of your attempts in that direction already, Lizzie, and that the coolies call you the angel of Beauregard! You are a good girl, my dear, and may God reward you for all you have done. I am only sorry that unfortuitous circumstances should have laid this burden of secrecy upon you. But cheer up; the day will come, perhaps, when it will be removed as unexpectedly as it appeared. And no one shall rejoice more when that day comes than I shall, Lizzie.’

She sighed, but she answered nothing. She knew that if the day he spoke of ever dawned, it would be to bow her benefactor’s head with shame.

‘And so all my entreaties are in vain?’ said Mr Courtney, as he rose to go.

‘Yes, sir; I shall remain here; and honestly, I do not believe you have any cause for fear.’

Yet she pondered over what he had told her all that day, not from any dread of her own safety, but endeavouring to think of some plan for getting Henri de Courcelles away before there was any possibility of his detection. For she felt that if the coolies on Beauregard did rise, and proceed to incendiarism or slaughter, Henri de Courcelles, who had been their tyrannical master in the days gone by, and their inciter to rebellion in the present, would be the first victim of their lawless passions. Her mind was still running on the same subject when the evening shadows closed, and Hugh Norris unexpectedly walked into the room.

Her first feeling at seeing him was one of such unmitigated pleasure, that she could not help betraying it.

‘Oh, Hugh—I mean, Captain Norris,’ she exclaimed, ‘are you really back again? I am so glad—I didn’t think—I was afraid that—’ and here she stopped, blushing for her incoherency.

‘Are you really glad?’ he said, taking her hand, and warmly pressing it, whilst his open countenance revealed his emotion. ‘Have you felt my absence, Lizzie? Have our two months of separation stretched themselves out to their full term?’

‘Indeed they have,’ she answered ingenuously. ‘I have been counting the days till you should return. For we have passed through a terrible time since you left us. But perhaps you have already heard of it.’

‘Indeed I have heard of it, Lizzie,’ he said gravely, ‘and I thank God that it was no worse. What should I have done had you been involved in this horrible catastrophe? But I am here, and you are safe, and I will not leave San Diego again until I take you with me. Was I not right in my forebodings?’

‘Partially so; but you see that no one has harmed me yet. What a quick passage you have made this time, Captain Norris.’

‘Very quick; but you may imagine that I wasted no more time in England than I could help, Lizzie. I was not out of sight of San Diego before I was longing to get back again, and, thanks to favourable winds, and an obliging supercargo, I have made the double passage in as short a time as is possible. But I found time to accomplish my heart’s desire, all the same.’

‘What was that?’ she demanded curiously.

‘Do you remember the packet of letters you threw me to read when we last said good-bye, and you had to run off to attend to some woolly infant or other?’

‘Yes, yes, I remember. It was Mammy Chloe’s baby,’ she answered, laughing.

‘The first letter I opened surprised me more than anything has ever done in my life before. It was from your late father to Mr Courtney, and he signed himself “Herbert Ruthin,” and wrote in familiar terms of his father and mother, Sir William and Lady Ruthin, and of their place in Scotland—Aberdare.’

‘Well, well! of course; it was his own home,’ interrupted Lizzie impatiently. ‘Why should it have so greatly surprised you?’

‘Because, Lizzie, my mother (whose maiden name was Mary Herbert) is a second or third cousin of Lady Ruthin, and when her ladyship came to Maidstone, which is close to mother’s home, a few years ago, she called on us, and took dinner at the cottage.’

‘Oh, Hugh, how very, very strange!’ cried Lizzie, forgetting etiquette in her breathless surprise.

‘Yes, it is only another proof of how small the world is, and how we are all but one large family. I remembered Lady Ruthin’s visit to my mother distinctly, and also that I had heard she had had great trouble about her second son Herbert, but I fancied he was dead. When I learnt the truth from those letters, I determined to see Sir William and Lady Ruthin on my return to England, and I did so.’

‘You did!’ echoed Lizzie; ‘and, oh! what did they say?’

‘I was only at Aberdare two hours, dearest,’ replied Captain Norris, growing bolder as he gained his advantage, ‘but it was long enough to serve my purpose. I told them everything, Lizzie,—what a good life your dear father had lived here, expiating his youthful error by a course of self-abnegation, and how like a martyr he had died, stricken down by the exhaustion consequent on his labours for others. And I soon found that if their pride and mortification have prevented their speaking of their lost son for so many years past, it has not been because the love of him has faded from their hearts. They concluded he was dead long ago, but as I spoke of him, they were both melted into tears, and reproached themselves bitterly for not having employed stronger measures to ascertain his fate.’

‘My poor darling father!’ exclaimed Lizzie, weeping; ‘how I wish he could have had the comfort of knowing that his parents felt for him.’

‘Doubtless he knows it now, dear. But my story is not done yet, Lizzie. When I had told Sir William and Lady Ruthin all I knew about your father, I spoke of you, and their excitement became painful to witness. They are longing to see you, my dear, and make up to you for all you have suffered on account of your poor father’s exile. I am the bearer of a letter from them begging you at once to return to England and place yourself under their protection. I shall see you in your proper position at last, Lizzie, and reaping the reward you so richly deserve. I cannot tell you how proud and happy I feel to have been made the instrument of this change in your destinies.’

Lizzie looked up at him gratefully.

‘It was so good of you to think of it,’ she murmured; ‘but I can hardly believe it yet. My dear father’s parents! They will seem like part of himself to me, and especially if they cherish his memory. And I shall owe it all to you. What can I do for you in return, Hugh?’

‘Only one thing, dear. Let me take you back to England, and present you to your grandparents as my wife.’

‘Did you—did you—say anything to them about it?’ she asked timidly.

‘Well, I gave them a hint on the subject,’ he answered, laughing; ‘as far, that is to say, as I am concerned—I could not answer for you, you know, because you have not yet answered for yourself.’

‘And how did they take it?’

‘They were good enough to say that they would make no objection whatever to me as your husband, provided I gave up the sea and kept you on dry land. And Sir William promised, moreover, in that case, to help me to obtain suitable employment. And so you see, my dear, the conclusion of the matter rests with you. What is your answer?’

She saw the deep blue honest eyes gazing fondly into her own, and had just placed her hand in his preparatory to saying ‘Yes,’ when a loud unmistakable cough sounded from the inner room.

‘What is that?’ exclaimed Hugh Norris, starting to his feet, his senses always acutely alive to possible danger. ‘There is some one in your father’s bedroom. Stand aside, Lizzie, and let me see who it is.’

He seized his stick—his only weapon—as he spoke, and was about to try the locked door. But she interposed herself between him and it.

‘You cannot enter that room, Captain Norris. It is fastened.’

‘Then some one—a mutineer, perhaps—must have got in by the window. I am certain my ears did not deceive me. The sound we heard proceeded from that room, and I must satisfy myself on the subject.’

He was about to pass her, when she put out her hand to prevent him, and he observed how very pale and strained her face (but a few moments ago so smiling) had suddenly become.

‘Captain Norris, I hold this room sacred to myself, and neither you, nor any man, shall cross the threshold.’

He looked full at her then in his amazement, and the truth seemed to flash suddenly upon him.

‘You have been deceiving me!’ he exclaimed; ‘you have some one concealed there whom you are ashamed to tell me of! Who is it?’ he continued, in a low voice, which threatened danger,—‘that blackguard De Courcelles, who would have slaughtered every European in the Fort, if he had had his way, and whom I hear has been in hiding ever since?’

Lizzie was silent. Twice her mouth opened to utter a lie in the defence of her former lover, and twice it died unuttered on her lips. Hugh Norris knew her too well to misinterpret her want of courage. He threw her one look of deep reproach, and, turning away, sat down by the table, and buried his face in his hands. Lizzie could not withstand the action. She crept after him, and laid her hand timidly upon his shoulder.

‘Hugh,’ she whispered, ‘Hugh—’

But he jerked the kindly touch away, almost roughly.

‘Don’t come near me,’ he muttered, ‘Don’t speak to me. You are false, and you have destroyed all my faith in womankind.’

‘No, no, Hugh! you shall not say that of me. Listen, and I will tell you everything. I should have told it you in any case, for I sorely need your counsel and advice, only we have had no time as yet to speak of any one but ourselves. But you are good, and noble, and true, and if you do not approve of my action, you will at least not betray it. I will not deceive you, and I think, when you know all, you will acknowledge you would have done the same. Henri de Courcelles is in that room, a fugitive hiding from the law! No, don’t look at me like that! I call Heaven to witness he is not there as my lover, but that I would have extended the same succour to any fellow-creature who threw himself upon my mercy. Hugh! I heard that he had escaped from the Fort prison, and eluded the pursuit of the police by taking refuge in the Alligator Swamp. Could I have left him there to perish by a miserable death, without making one effort to save him?’

Captain Norris looked up at her in amazement.

‘But what could you do?’ he inquired. ‘Not a man in San Diego would venture to penetrate the horrors of the swamp, unless he wished to die.’

‘Yet a woman did,’ she whispered.

‘Lizzie, you do not mean to tell me that you went yourself?—that you risked the awful dangers of the miasma and the alligators, for the sake of this man, and that you live to tell the tale?’

‘The danger was not so great for me as for another, Hugh, because I knew the proper preventatives to carry with me. Anyway, I went, and I was successful. I found this unhappy and misguided man nearly unconscious from the effects of the poisonous air he was inhaling, and I brought him safely out of it, and have hid him here for the last two days, until I could devise some plan to get him away from San Diego. Will you help me, Hugh? I know it is a great thing to ask at your hands; and I have not another friend whom I would trust with the secret; but I shall not rest till I know he is secure from suffering a malefactor’s death upon the gallows.’

‘He deserves it, Lizzie, if any one ever did.’

‘I know it! but if we all received our deserts in this world, how badly we should fare! Hugh, you will believe me when I tell you that such love as I once entertained for Henri de Courcelles is all past, and for ever. I see his character in its true light at last,—as vindictive and revengeful and untrue! But that does not alter the case that once I thought him good enough to be my husband, and mine is a heart that cannot entirely forget!’

‘What do you want me to do for him, Lizzie?’

‘To get him down to the docks in disguise, and ship him on board one of the vessels there that are bound for Spain or America. It would be cruel to send him anywhere else. And if that should be impossible to do all at once, couldn’t you let him stay on the Trevelyan till you are able to send him away?’ continued Lizzie wistfully.

‘You ask me to do a very wrong and dangerous thing, my dear,—to harbour a rebel against the British Government, and cheat the gallows of its just due.’

‘No, Hugh—to succour a wretched fellow-creature, who was half driven to madness by a woman’s treachery, before he dreamt of committing such a crime. I cannot tell you all his story, but if you knew it, you would pity him, as I do.’

‘Nothing of the sort. I despise the fool for having thrown away such a heart as he had found in yours! Why, Lizzie! you are a heroine, and the noblest woman I ever met! Well, and suppose I become a traitor to my Queen and country at your command, and help this rascally lover of yours to escape the ends of justice, what reward am I to expect for the risk I shall run?’

‘What reward do you want?’ she answered, smiling at him through her tears. ‘You shall name it, Hugh, for I see you are going to do this great and generous thing for my sake, and hold out a helping hand to your unfortunate rival.’

‘Promise to become my wife, Lizzie! Nothing short of that will quite satisfy me of the purity of your benevolence for De Courcelles—because I know your nobility of character too well to think you would ever bestow your hand on one man whilst there was a remnant of love left in your heart for another.’

‘You only do me justice there, Hugh; for if I am not true I am nothing. Yes, I will be your wife, whenever you choose to ask me, and (God helping me) a good and faithful one.’

‘And a loving one into the bargain?’ he returned interrogatively. ‘I will not accept your hand without your heart, Lizzie.’

‘Can any wife be good and faithful if she is not loving, Hugh? But do not be afraid! I love you. Is that enough?’

‘Then come to my arms!’ he exclaimed, as he rose and held them out to her. She was hesitating just a little, not entirely from coyness, but because it is so sweet to dally with our happiness—when a low murmuring sound, like the first menacing tones of thunder, or the moaning of a sleuthhound when it finds the trail, which evidently proceeded from the negroes’ quarters, made them start asunder, and change colour.

‘What was that?’ demanded Lizzie, under her breath, as Hugh Norris threw his arm round her for protection.

‘It is the groaning of a crowd,’ he answered. ‘It is the first note of mutiny. Lizzie, there is something wrong! For God’s sake, let me take you away from this.’

But she struggled to free herself.

‘If they are rising, Hugh, let me go to them! No one understands them as I do! Let me speak, and they will obey me! I can do with them as I like.’

But before he had time to put into words his entreaty that she would resign herself to his protection, a piercing shriek seemed to rend the evening air, and the next minute Rosa, the yellow girl, rushed into the room, with Maraquita’s infant in her arms.

‘Oh, Missy Liz,’ she cried, ‘what have they done to my baby? Dis crowd of niggers is all cryin’ out for dere rights, and down with de planters, and I coming along, and dey pulled de poor baby from my arms, and hit it on de head with a stone. Oh, Missy Liz, I couldn’t help it! I screamed to dem to leave my poor baby alone! But dey call out ’tis Missy Quita’s chile and Massa Courcelles’, and den dey strike it again. And the baby’s berry sick, Missy Liz—berry sick, indeed,’ continued Rosa, weeping, and rocking the bundle in her arms.

‘Give it to me,’ said Lizzie calmly, though her face was deathly white, but not so white as that of Maraquita’s infant, which lay calm and peaceful in the sleep of death, with a discoloured bruise upon its little forehead, where the cruel stone had struck it.

‘She is dead!’ said Lizzie solemnly, as she placed the body on the table. She did not shed a tear as she did so, but Hugh Norris, looking up at her, marked the deep lines which suppressed emotion had drawn upon her forehead, and thought he had never seen her look so stern before.

‘My poor little Mary,’ she said, in a low voice, as she gazed upon the infant’s dead form. ‘This is the first-fruits of the Beauregard rebellion, Hugh! They have risen at last, and they will not stop here! What will become of them all at the White House?’

‘We must give the alarm at once,’ said Captain Norris. ‘They may not be prepared for this outbreak. But Lizzie, I will not go and leave you here! If you wish your friends to be put on their guard, you must come with me.’

‘It is too late,’ she answered: ‘they are already upon us! We should only walk into their midst. Listen to that—’

She held up her finger, and Captain Norris could distinctly hear the yelling of a mob of coolies advancing on the plantation, and see the flaming torches which they carried in their hands, whilst in another moment two or three random shots proved that they were carrying firearms, and prepared to use them.’

‘The devils!’ cried Norris. ‘Is it possible they can have the heart to injure you, after all you have done for them?’

‘No, no, massa!’ exclaimed the yellow girl; ‘coolies never hurting Missy Liz; they love her too much for dat. Only dey want revenge on Massa Courtney and de Governor and Missy Quita. Missy Liz, dey will fire de White House for sure, and kill de Governor! Hark! they hab passed oder side of plantation. Dey go by Oleander Bungalow to de big house, and nebber come near Missy Liz at all.’

‘They have come near enough, in killing my poor baby!’ exclaimed Lizzie, weeping, as she kissed the dead child. ‘If they love me, why couldn’t they have spared her?’

‘’Cause she belong to dat De Courcelles, and grow up bad like him and Missy Quita. Dat what dem trashy niggers say,’ replied Rosa, joining her sobs to those of her mistress.

‘Is it possible this child belongs to Lady Johnstone?’ demanded Norris.

‘Oh, hush, Hugh! don’t mention it, even here!’ said Lizzie. ‘I have kept the secret for her sake—not his!’

‘Oh, my brave girl, your love has indeed earned the martyr’s crown!’ he answered, looking at her with the deepest admiration and respect. ‘But hark, Lizzie! Surely the mob have turned this way.’

At that moment a kind of sudden rush through the darkness outside was followed by the entrance of Mr and Mrs Courtney, with Maraquita and Sir Russell Johnstone! The women were in their evening dresses—half fainting with fear, and their protectors were almost as agitated as themselves.

‘Lizzie,’ cried Mr Courtney, ‘give us shelter, for God’s sake! Hide us in your rooms, and this murderous crew will not dare to follow us there. They are fond of you, Lizzie, and they will believe what you say. Make them hear reason, in Heaven’s name! or we shall all be slaughtered before your eyes!’

‘Quick! quick! in here!’ she exclaimed, as she thrust the whole party into her own bedroom, and closed the door. ‘Go with them, Hugh,’ she said, when they had concealed themselves, ‘and let me bring these mutineers to reason.’

‘And leave you to fall a prey to their baffled wrath, or become a billet for the first bullet that strays this way, Lizzie,’ he answered tenderly. ‘No, my dear. You have said you love me; and if we have to die, we will die together.’

Before she could answer him, a crew of dusky faces were surrounding the bungalow, blocking up the verandah, pressing into the doors, and filling up the framework of the windows.

‘Whar’s de Gubnor and de planter? Is dem in hiding here?’ they shouted. ‘Gib dem up, Missy Liz, or we must enter de bungalow, and we doesn’t want to do dat. Gib dem up, missy, and don’t you be skeered—no nigger hurting one hair ob your head.’

‘I’m not afraid of you for myself, my friends,’ she exclaimed, standing out boldly to the front, and facing the crowd of rebels, ‘for you have always been good and kind to me; but if you love me, you will go away to your own quarters, and leave my house alone!’

‘D’rectly we finds de Gubnor and de planter, Missy Liz. But we’se sworn to ruin dem, and we must do it—dat’s so!’

‘And de Gubnor’s wife!’ shrieked a female voice, that might be heard all over the bungalow. ‘Dat gal what pretends to be so good, and dat is de moder of dat baby you keep, Missy Liz. She and Massa Courcelles know all about dat chile; and I wish dey could swing together!’

‘Hush, Jerusha, hush! Go away, and keep your evil tongue to yourself!’ cried Lizzie.

‘Dat’s true, and you know it, Missy Liz. And de Governor shall know it, too, and Massa Courtney, and all de world, dat she am no better than de poor coolie gals what go all wrong.’

‘Jerusha, I implore you, for God’s sake!’ commenced Lizzie again.

But before she could finish her entreaty, Maraquita had pushed open the bedroom door, and stood beside her, pale and trembling, but not courageous, except with the courage born of despair.

‘It is true!’ she gasped, rather than said, ‘and I am ready to confess it. No, Lizzie, don’t try to prevent my speaking. Everybody may hear me now. I can suffer in secret no longer. Father, I am not what you thought me! I am a sinful girl, and I have let the burden of my shameful secret rest on Lizzie’s shoulders. These people only say what is true. They hate me for what I have done, and want to revenge themselves on us all, for my sake. Perhaps, now that I have confessed my sin, they will pity and forgive me.’

She sunk exhausted with fear and shame on Lizzie’s shoulder as she finished her recital. Sir Russell Johnstone and her parents were standing by, horror-struck by what they had heard, and forgetful of their own safety in the agony of witnessing her humiliation. But Lizzie was the only person who addressed her.

‘Hush, Quita, you have said enough; and surely all will think you have suffered sufficiently, and need no further punishment.’

But the continual groaning and muttering of the crowd outside did not seem as though their anger was appeased, and Quita shuddered as she heard it.

‘Give me my child!’ she exclaimed wildly. ‘Everything is slipping from me. My father and mother stand by in silence, my husband will drive me from his house. Give me something that I can call my own! Lizzie, I want my child!’

‘There is your child, Quita,’ replied her adopted sister sadly, as she led her to the table. ‘God has already called it through their hands to Himself. They would not leave you even that poor consolation, my unhappy Quita.’

‘Dead!’ cried the unfortunate Lady Russell, as she gazed upon her infant’s breathless form, ‘dead! Oh, Henri, Henri, why was I ever untrue to you, and to myself? My punishment is harder than I can bear.’

As she sunk upon her knees, and her pitiful cry of ‘Henri’ sounded on the air, De Courcelles, unable to restrain his feelings longer, burst open his prison door and rushed in upon them.

‘Yes,’ he exclaimed triumphantly, as he glared round upon the parents and husband of Maraquita, ‘she speaks the truth at last. I had sworn to have her life, in exchange for that of which she has robbed me; but she has avenged herself. Take me prisoner again, as soon as you like. I shall die contented, to know what her future life must be.’

‘Dey nebber take you!’ cried a shrill voice at the open casement, which was immediately followed by a shot, which brought Henri de Courcelles to the ground.

‘Jerusha!’ he muttered between his teeth as he fell, with the dark blood and froth bubbling from his lips.

Lizzie was at his side in a moment tearing away his shirt, and striving to stem the current of his life. But it was in vain. The overseer had met his fate at last, and was rapidly bleeding to death.

‘Henri,’ she cried, in a voice of distress, ‘I can do nothing for you! You are going to God! May He bless and forgive you.’

‘As—you—have—done,’ he gasped out, as his lifeless head fell from her arm.

Sir Russell Johnstone had stood by, stern and miserable, watching the pitiable sight, and listening to the confession which dashed all the brightness from his married life, but Maraquita and her parents had hidden themselves away, unable to bear such a strain upon their nervous systems. Hugh Norris seeing that all was over, came forward to take Lizzie in his arms; but she turned from him, and walked bravely into the midst of the mutineers. Their flaring torches fell full on her ashen face, and lighted up the large tears standing in her eyes; but she stood before them without one sign of fear, and her voice was loud and determined.

‘Are you satisfied now?’ she demanded boldly, ‘or are not two lives sufficient to gorge your lust for blood? Do you know what you have done? You say you love me, and would not harm a hair of my head, yet you have killed the man you knew was dear to me! You have made me risk my life in vain. Two days ago I walked into the Alligator Swamp alone, to find Henri de Courcelles, and save him from the gallows, and I brought him here, only to fall a victim to your barbarity. Was that love for me? And the poor baby too—the little innocent child that I was bringing up as my own, and that had never done you any harm, you must needs take that from me too. Now, what more do you want? Is it my own life? You may as well kill me as well as the rest. Perhaps I am not more worthy to live, in your estimation, than they were.’

At this harangue, the ringleaders of the mutiny drew back abashed. They had not calculated that in taking their revenge on Henri de Courcelles they would injure their ‘Missy Liz.’

‘Missy Liz, no talking like dat,’ said an aged negro, speaking for the rest. ‘Missy know we lub her, and call her de Good Angel ob Beauregard.’

‘Then if you love me, coolies, prove it by what you do. Give up this hateful mutiny against those who only desire your good, and let the Governor, and Mr and Mrs Courtney, return to the White House in peace. If you don’t, I warn you my life will be the sacrifice, for you shall trample over my body before you enter the bungalow in search of them.’

She placed her two hands on the lintels of the doorposts as she spoke, to bar their way, and the negroes saw she was in earnest.

‘Go back to your quarters, my friends,’ she continued, in a softer voice. ‘In my name, and the name of all whom I love, I beg of you to return quietly to your homes, and relinquish your murderous design.’

‘For your sake den, Missy Liz, for your sake,’ replied the coolies, as, startled, and somewhat ashamed of themselves, for they had no real cause of complaint, and had only been incited on by the example of others, the crowd broke up into groups, and commenced to walk back slowly to their homes. And then Lizzie turned round, and threw herself weeping into Hugh Norris’s arms.

THE END.

COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

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Table of Contents

- A CROWN OF SHAME.

- CONTENTS.

- CHAPTER I.

- CHAPTER II.

- CHAPTER III.

- CHAPTER IV.

- CHAPTER V.

- CHAPTER VI.

- CHAPTER VII.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE