Thus she came to a decision. First she brought herself to face and accept her betrayal by Miss Eugenie. She cleared that monstrously difficult fence with valiant courage and with maturity beyond her years. She did it all by herself and with none to advise her. Next, she accepted her duty to her mother, to her father and to her family. Finally she lay back on the bed, spread her gown to best advantage, and waited for the master. But the master did not come, and eventually, being unused to staying awake at the end of a hard day's work, Selena closed her eyes and went to sleep.
She was awakened by a fumbling at the front of her gown and a man's drink-loaded breath wheezing in her face. A fat belly pressed down upon her with the buckles of his clothes scratching. Hands squeezed her breasts and a foul mouth pressed on hers, licking and sucking.
At forty-six years of age, the master, Mr Fitzroy Delacroix, had long since established his etiquette where slave-girls were concerned. He liked them young, he liked them slim, he liked them full-breasted and he liked them virgins. The delight of slave-girls, to his way of thinking, was that you could do what you damn well liked to them, when you damn well liked, and not have to waste hours bringing them to the boil like you did with decent white women. As for whores, slaves beat them every time because you didn't have to pay and you couldn't get poxed.
Added to these usual benefits was the particular one that Selena had been his own daughter's playmate, raised alongside her, and equipped with the speech and manners of a white girl to the degree that — for some time now — Delacroix had been just itching to get his hands on her. Thus it was very much the case that his daughter's desire for a wider education and her hopes of fluency in the French language were far from Delacroix's only reasons for sending Miss Eugenie to Europe.
Not sharing Delacroix's point of view, Selena struggled furiously and got a ringing box round the ears in reply. Delacroix laughed and threw her skirts over her head. Holding her down by the wrists, he buried his nose into the soft recess between her thighs and gorged like a hog at a trough. Enjoying himself hugely, he rolled to one side to unbutton himself and haul out his shaft. But, freed from his weight, Selena leapt up and darted to the door… which was locked.
Delacroix positively roared with laughter, and staggered after her with his drawers round his ankles and his paunch wobbling over his upstanding lust. He grabbed at Selena, but he was full of drink and she ducked under his arms, snatched up a silver candlestick and swung it at his head. He just managed to raise his arms in defence and the blow thumped painfully into his left elbow. He fell back, stumbled and sat down heavily on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him.
"Ow!" he said, rubbing his elbow in surprise. "Well, I'm damned!" And he doubtless was, for those were his last words on earth.
With a huge quantity of food and drink in his stomach, and sick from the pain of the blow, Delacroix suddenly vomited heavily, gulped and choked… and inhaled a good lungful of half-digested beef and claret. He then throttled and kicked for a minute or two, before expiring purple-faced and pop- eyed at Selena's feet, with his tongue lolling out of his open mouth.
Philosophers would argue that Delacroix was entirely responsible for his own death — and a shameful death too — from gluttony and attempted rape, but Selena knew that the world would see things differently. A slave found with her dead master was just meat on the hoof. They'd not ask her what had happened. They'd simply hang her.
Fear and panic surged out of the dark corners of the room. There was no refuge on the plantation. They'd hang any slave who tried to help her, and her mother's house was the first place they'd look — even supposing for one minute that her mother would take her in. But beyond the plantation was the great, wide world: the outside world that Selena had never even seen, let alone visited. And now she had to get out into that world and make her way, and not get caught. And all she had to guide her was her own native wit.
Chapter 10
On the morning after his secret conference, when Flint had taken his irreversible step and now stood at risk of betrayal by too many men for him to face down, he went to Captain Springer.
The man was sunk beyond belief in drunkenness. As far as Flint could judge, Springer was a worse hulk than Elizabeth. He was decayed and rotting in his tent. Flint sighed. By the look of Springer, this would delay vital preparations by a week or more; or at least by however long it took to get Springer off the rum and looking like some passably good imitation of an officer. But since Springer was unconscious, Flint went and found Springer's servant and put Billy Bones to work, kicking the servant's unfortunate arse around the camp for sufficient time to drive home the message that the captain was to receive no more strong drink, no matter what threats or entreaties he might offer.
In the event, Flint was lucky. Springer came from a tough old breed, and his liver was so powerfully exercised by its life's work that it had him sobered up that very evening.
Then, after a day spent in blinding headaches and purgative vomits, Springer was fit to walk, talk and to be washed and shaved and put into a clean shirt by the morning of the day after. Flint duly presented himself at the captain's tent, and — as his deputy and representative during the captain's indisposition — he gave Springer an account of all the island's news that was masterly in the very small proportion of untruth that was added in order to deceive Springer completely, and to set him off on the false trail that Flint had planned.
When Flint was done, and was standing humbly before his captain with his hat in his hands, Springer glared at him with bloodshot yellowed eyes and with hatred that could have been cut into blocks and sold by the pound as rat poison. But Springer knew his duty (or so he thought), and he never hesitated.
"Muster the men, you bloody lubber!" he growled. "This is your fault, as I've always said, and I'll see you broke for it as soon as we rejoin the squadron!"
"Aye-aye, Captain," murmured Flint, with downcast eyes. And after suffering a sufficient quantity of oaths and curses from Springer, Flint withdrew, found Billy Bones, and gave his final instructions.
Half an hour later, every soul on the island, excepting the four marines still guarding the useless blockhouse, were mustered on the beach under the hot sun, before the tented encampment and the almost-completed Betsy, while stuck on her sandbank a cable's length off, the empty corpse of the Elizabeth was a constant reminder of past failures, and a spectator to what happened next.
Springer got up on a chest, the better to speak to the men. He sweated heavily in his uniform coat and cocked hat, and his shirt and stock. But these were the indispensable icons of his rank, especially given the shockingly ugly mood of the men. Springer had never seen the like before, and he stuck out his chin and clenched his fists in anger. He wasn't the man to tolerate skulking and scowling from the lower deck, as they would bloody soon learn!
Around him, in their blue navy coats, stood Lieutenant Flint, Acting-Master Bones, and five midshipmen. The surgeon and the purser stood to one side of them, with a group of senior warrant officers including the boatswain, the gunner and the carpenter. Further off still was the comforting block of twenty-nine marines, drawn up with bayonets fixed, under Sergeant Dawson and two corporals.