He was just finishing the meal when Fergusson came in, and Roger asked him anxiously for news of the others. The young doctor replied that Georgina was suffering from shock and concussion, but in a better state than might have been expected and, owing to her youth and vitality, in no serious danger. Tom was now giving him more concern as he had undoubtedly developed brain fever and it yet remained to be seen if he would survive the crisis. Amanda too was in poor shape. Her strained arm was nothing to worry about; but although she had bravely refrained from complaining during their ordeal of the previous day she must have been in great pain, as her stomach was black and blue from a vicious kick one of the pirates had given her, and it was possible that she had sustained internal injuries. Kilick's shoulder was badly inflamed from his having manned an oar during their last bid to reach the beach, but should yield to treatment. The rest of them had met for a midday meal and were the worse for their adventure only by cuts, bruises and inflammation. Then he said that, having heard that Roger was awake, he had come up to re-examine his wound.
Roger submitted to some painful prodding, after which Fergusson declared himself satisfied that his first diagnosis had been correct. The bone of the thigh had not been smashed; and, as within a very short time of the wound being received it had been thoroughly cleansed with salt water, it showed no signs of festering. Providing Roger remained in bed the healthy flesh should soon heal and he might hope to be about on crutches in a week or so.
Having anointed his mosquito bites with a soothing ointment and promised to convey his loving messages to Amanda, the doctor left him, but returned in the evening bringing a sedative to ensure him a good night.
With his breakfast tray next morning the negro servant brought an enquiry from M. de Boucteault, who wished to know if Roger felt well enough to receive a visit from him; and he sent back a reply that he would be happy to do so:
An hour or so later the burly French nobleman arrived. Having congratulated Roger on his wound being less serious than had been feared he sat down beside his bed, and said:
"I have heard something from the doctor of the terrible trials to which you and your partly have been subjected during the past week, but he was kept busy with his patients most of yesterday; none of the ladies have so far left their rooms, and the others lack the education to speak of their adventures with much coherence; so I pray you, Monsieur le Gouverneur, if you feel well enough, to give me an account of these most distressing happenings."
Roger raised a smile as he repeated: "The past week! It seems more like a year since the pirate barque attacked our ship off the coast of Porto Rico. But now that I have slept my fill I should thoroughly enjoy talking for a whiles so, Monsieur, I will willingly oblige you." He then proceeded to give a graphic description of the perils he and his party had survived.
When he had done de Boucicault said: "That you should be alive to tell this tale thanks must be rendered to le Bon Dieu, but it is due in part at least to the courage displayed by yourself and your companions, and I am honoured to make your acquaintance. I need hardly say that you are all welcome to remain here for as long as you wish; but without intending any discourtesy I should be glad if the ladies could be transferred to Mole St. Nicholas as soon as they are sufficiently recovered to travel."
"I am sorry that you should find it inconvenient to let them stay here until my wound is healed and we can all leave together," Roger replied in some surprise.
"No, no! You must understand me," de Boucicault rejoined nastily. "Surely you know that war, revolution and civil war are all now tearing this island apart; so that no white persons, particularly defenceless women, are really safe anywhere in it except in the towns held by British troops. It is the certain knowledge of the ghastly fate which would overtake your ladies did they fall into the hands of the revolted negroes that causes me to urge their removal as speedily as may be possible."
chapter xiv
THE TERROR-RIDDEN ISLAND
Roger's face fell, then he admitted a shade apologetically to his host: "I fear I am but sadly ill-informed about West Indian affairs, my appointment came as a surprise and I had little time to study them before I left England. I knew, of course, that as a result of the Revolution in France there had been revolts among the slaves in all the islands, and that here they were said to have been particularly serious; but I imagined that they would have been put down ere this seeing that, as in Martinique, the planters had called in the English to aid them against the Terrorists."
"Far from it," de Boucicault sadly shook his head. "There are British garrisons in the capital, Port-au-Prince, at Mole St. Nicholas, which is only about thirty miles away, and in most of the coastal towns; but they can do little more than aid our army of colonists and loyal mulattoes to hold its own. The greater part of the interior of the country is still at the mercy of the negroes and infested by marauding bands of slaves turned brigand."
Having condoned with his host on this unhappy state of things, Roger said: "Pray enlighten me if you can, Monsieur, as to why matters should have gone so much worse here than in the other islands."
"Perhaps because it was the largest, richest and most progressive of all the French possessions in the Indies, and therefore more closely en rapport with popular feeling in the mother country. Possibly, too, because we had here a higher proportion of slaves than in any other colony. In '89 there were half a million negroes and sixty thousand mulattoes to only forty thousand whites. Although, as a matter of factj it was not the blacks but the mulattoes who initiated our long chain of troubles."
"How so, Monsieur?"
"Looking back I am inclined to think that we colonists were largely to blame for having stubbornly refused to advise our government in France to rectify the anomalous situation of these half-castes. Had we confined ourselves to taking their women as concubines, as you English do, that would have been regarded as a normal privilege of the ruling caste, but many of us married them: yet we still refused to receive their families or grant them any political rights. A high proportion of them were free men who between them owned about ten per cent of the land and some 50,000 slaves. Naturally they bitterly resented such contemptuous treatment. A group of the more intelligent among them began, as early as '88, an agitation in Paris for equal rights; and coupled with it there started a movement for the abolition of both the slave trade and slavery.
"While the monarchy remained absolute these agitations for reform made no headway, but soon after King Louis summoned the States General and it had formed itself into a National Assembly, it issued its famous Declaration of the Rights of Man. Mulattoes and negroes alike instantly seized on that as their Charter, and unrest here became widespread. In March 1790, alarmed by the urgent representations of our Governor, the Assembly passed a resolution to the effect that the Declaration applied only to France and not to her colonies. On that, a mulatto delegate named Vincent Oge, who arrived back here in the following autumn, called on his fellows to secure their rights by force of arms. It was thus there started the appalling bloodshed which has since drenched this country."
"You interest me greatly. Do please continue."
Acceding to the request, de Boucicault went on: "Oge was soon defeated and took refuge in the Spanish part of the island. But he afterwards surrendered and was executed by being broken on the wheel. By then the revolution in Paris was gaining momentum, and the news of Oge's martyrdom, as it was termed, provoked a great outcry. In consequence, in May '91, the law was amended giving coloured people born of free parents in the French colonies equal civil rights, including that of sitting in our Assemblies.