In June a slave revolt broke out in the extreme south of the island, but by prompt and firm handling it was stamped out within a week; and Roger, who had gone down there to superintend operations, afterwards held a special court of justice at which he showed no mercy to the ringleaders. He also occasionally signed a death warrant for a hanging, as he gave short shrift to any of Hugues's agitators whom his own spies caught at their nefarious work. In consequence, Martinique remamed tranquil.
It was in June, too, that news arrived of the Prussians having finally agreed peace terms with the French, and that there had been an insurrection in Paris. On April the 1st—or 12th Germinal, Year III, according to the Revolutionary calendar—the sans-culottes had risen in protest against the relaxation of the persecution of the bourgeois; but they had been put down with a firm hand by the victorious and popular General Pichegru, on his being given command of the troops in the capital.
Within a few weeks of Roger's arrival in Martinique, he had appointed a retired merchant named Beckwith to act in the rather nebulous capacity of his Commercial Adviser and Comptroller of his Household. Mr. Beckwith's mother had been French and he had long been resident in the island, but he had never wavered in his personal allegiance to Britain, was still in the vigour of robust middle-age, and rich enough not to be corruptible; so he was an admirable choice to act as the guardian of Roger's financial interests. Without being extortionate, he saw to it that as each administrative post fell vacant a successor for it was appointed who was both politically sound and could afford to contribute a suitable sum to the Governor's 'expenses'. He also kept a sharp eye upon the payments of dues, and for licences, that were the Governor's official perquisites.
In consequence, by midsummer Roger had been for some months in receipt of a steady and quite considerable income. Having to worry neither about money nor the carrying out of such decrees as he issued; and with the troops in far better health from shifts of some ten per cent of them being sent to sea each week in a few coasting vessels acquired for that purpose, he was now able to enjoy to the full the gracious social life of the island, which still retained a distinct flavour of the ancien regime.
Amanda too was in excellent spirits and enjoyed abundant health. Vague and forgetful as she was by nature, now that her household was run for her by Cousin Margaret, who had accepted an invitation to move up to the summer Residence with them, she made a charming and most decorative hostess. Now, too, that she and Roger had been together again for some months without strain, he fell in love with her anew, and during this halcyon summer they enjoyed what amounted to a second honeymoon.
During August, news of further troubles in France reached them. In many parts, particularly in the cities of the south, a White Terror had set in, and bands of revengeful citizens were hunting out and murdering many of the Red Terrorists at whose hands they had suffered such miseries. Paris was said to be near starvation, and general discontent with the Government had gained wide support for another rising, in which the Jacobins and remaining extremists of the Mountain had endeavoured to use the mobs in an attempt to reimpose the old Terrorist dictatorship. On May the 20th—or 1st Prairial—-the storm had broken; once more the Chamber had been invaded by a howling mob and blood had been spilled in it But the Thermidorians still controlled the army. Twenty thousand troops had been rushed into Paris overnight this time with General Menou in command. By the 23rd the insurrection had been suppressed, and a number of its instigators sentenced to transportation to the fever-ridden island of Cayenne—a punishment which had recently been meted out to the majority of those found guilty at treason trials, instead of death; but which had become popularly known as the 'dry guillotine'.
It was early on the morning of August the 18th that Roger rode down to St. Pierre, to confer on various matters with Colonel Penruddock, and spend the night there. That evening the Colonel suggested that it might amuse him to visit a new house of entertainment that had recently been opened on the outskirts of the city. It was, he said, a brothel and a gaming-hell of the more exclusive kind; but there was no obligation to patronize either its pretty mulatto wenches or probably crookedly-run tables. It had other attractions, in that an excellent dinner was served in its garden, and afterwards one could sit and listen to strangely fascinating negro music.
At first Roger demurred, on the score that although regarded by the Catholic clergy of the island as an heretic, several of them had held him up to their congregations as a man who by his happily married life gave a fine example; and as he set some store by their opinion of him he did not want it noised abroad that he had been seen in such a place.
To that Penruddock replied that His Excellency was far from being alone in his desire to protect his reputation; and it was for that reason that many of the French nobility made a practice of hiding their identity under masks on such occasions; so why should they not do the same. To that Roger willingly agreed, and as dusk was falling, accompanied by young Cowdray and three other officers also masked, they set off in a coach driven by a coachman in plain livery for 'Belinda's Parlour', as the place was called.
They had not been there long before Roger decided that the Colonel's recommendation had been fully justified. The establishment was clean and well run; they were not pestered by the girls, and the twenty odd tables in the garden were set far enough from each other to ensure the parties at each of them a pleasant privacy. The Creole dishes served proved excellent and the wines were of the first quality; so few ways of passing an evening could have been more enjoyable than to dine there in the cool, after a day of torrid heat, under a tropical sky bright with a myriad of stars.
It was not until they had finished their meal that they saw Madame Belinda, the proprietress. She came to their table then to enquire if they had everything they wanted and had been pleased by the efforts of her cook.
She had come up quite silently, and as Roger was saying something to Cowdray he did not glance at her as she first spoke. But a familiar note in her voice caused him sharply to turn his head, and he got one of the shocks of his life. Madame Belinda was none other than Lucette.
As he sat there staring at her through the slits of his mask, he marvelled at her audacity in coming to Martinique and opening a public establishment there. She must have learnt that he had survived and taken up the Governorship of the island; and there were other people such as his Cousin Margaret and the de Taschers who, even after a lapse of years, might recognize her.
He could only suppose that, after he had wrought havoc among de Senlac's lieutenants and left his crew without a suitable leader, she had decided to sever her connections with the rabble that remained and make off with her share of the spoils; and that then the island in which she had spent her youth had exercised such a pull upon her that she had made up her mind to face the risk entailed in running this expensive whore-shop there.
Yet, on further thought, he realized that the risk she had taken, under a changed name, was not really very great. That he, the Governor, would ever visit her establishment must have seemed to her most unlikely. That Cousin Margaret or Madame de Tascher would do so could be entirely ruled out And even if some men she had known as a young girl came there and recognized her, she would be in no danger from them because they would not know that for thirteen years or more she had lived by participating in innumerable abominable crimes.
True to his principle of always looking before he leapt, Roger kepi control of himself and made no move which might draw her attention particularly to him. There was no risk of her running away and he did not wish to spoil the evening, which had begun so pleasantly, for the others.