“Ah, Monsieur S——, comment vous portez-vous? Je suis bien aise de vous voir,” said one of the young officers; “how are you, how have you been?”
“Vous devenez tout à fait rare,” quoth a second. “Le president will be delighted to see you. Why, he says he thought you must have been dead, and les messieurs là—”
“Who?—Introduce us.”
It was done in due form—the Honourable Captain Transom, Captain Cringle of his Britannic Majesty’s schooner Wave, and Aaron Bang, Esquire. And presently we were all as thick as pickpockets.
“But come, the president will be delighted to see you.” We followed the officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along; and in an inner chamber, wherein there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in a blue military undress frock, white trousers, and the everlasting Madras handkerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were in no way akin to those of an African. His nose was as high, sharp, and well defined as that of any Hindoo I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his hair was fine and silky. In fact, dark as he was, he was at least three removes from the African; and when I mention that he had been long in Europe—he was even for a short space acting adjutant-general of the army of Italy with Napoleon—his general manner, which was extremely good, kind, and affable, was not matter of so much surprise.
He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into conversation with all the ease and polish of a gentleman—”Je me porte assez bien aujourd’hui; but I have been very unwell, M. S-, so tell me the news.” Early as it was, he immediately ordered in coffee; it was brought by two black servants, followed by a most sylph-like girl, about twelve years of age, the president’s natural daughter; she was fairer than her father, and acquitted herself very gracefully. She was rigged, pin for pin, like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair; and although her neck was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor little ears were stretching under the weight of the heavy gold and emerald ear-rings, while her bracelets were like manacles, yet I had never seen a more lovely little girl. She wore a frock of green Chinese crape, beneath which appeared the prettiest little feet in the world.
We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in honour of the president’s birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner at our friend Mr S——’s, we all adjourned to the gay scene. There was a company of grenadiers of the president’s guard, with their band, on duty in front of the palace, as a guard of honour; they carried arms as we passed, all in good style; and at the door we met two aides-de-camp in full dress, one of whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, with a sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown and black officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, were drinking coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or another. The ladies were dressed in the very height of the newest Parisian fashion of the day—hats and feathers, and jewellery, real or fictitious, short sleeves, and shorter petticoats—fine silks, and broad blonde trimmings and flounces, and low-cut corsages—some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave them the appearance of purple dahlias; but as to manner, all ladylike and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as fine as gold and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress-swords could make them—and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle; but the black officers, in general, covered their woolly pates with Madras handkerchiefs, as if ashamed to show them, the brown officers alone venturing to show their own hair. Presently a military band struck up with a sudden crash in the inner-room, and the large folding door being thrown open, the ball-room lay before us, in the centre of which stood the president, surrounded by his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm. He was dressed in a plain blue uniform with gold epaulets, and acquitted himself extremely well; conversing freely on European politics, and giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very peculiar naïveté. As for his daughter, however much she might appear to have been overdressed in the morning, she was now simple in her attire as a little shepherdess—a plain white muslin frock, white sash, white shoes, white gloves, pearl ear-rings and necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful, camilla japonica in her hair. Dancing now commenced, and all that I shall say is, that before I had been an hour in the room, I had forgotten whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white; everything was conducted with such decorum. However, I could see that the fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, and that many a very handsome woolly-headed belle was destined to ornament the walls, until a few of the young white merchants made a dash amongst them, more for the fun of the thing, as it struck me, than anything else, which piqued some of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening blackee, had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a very splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, with long kid gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown a space of two inches of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, was visible; while her white dress, and rich white satin hat, and a lofty plume of feathers, with a pearl necklace and diamond ear-rings, set off her loveliness most conspicuously. At every wheel round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on one side and peeped in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his cranium on t’other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast his eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had been shot all of a heap by the blind boy’s butt-shaft; but every now and then as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in his cheek, yet so slightly as to be perceptible to no one but myself. After this heat, Massa Aaron and myself were perambulating the ball-room, quite satisfied with our own prowess, and I was churming to myself “Voulez-vous danser, mademoiselle”—”Be tout mon cceur,” said a buxom brown dame, about eighteen stone by the coffee-mill in St James’s Street. The devil Aaron gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain, as the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, started up, and hooked on, and as a cotillon had been called, there I was, figuring away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom’s great entertainment. At length the dance was at an end, and a waltz was once more called, and having done my duty, I thought I might slip out between the acts; so I offered to hand my solid armful to her seat—”Certainement vous pouvez bien rester encore un moment.” The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I; but waltz I must, and away we whirled until the room span round faster than we did, and when I was at length emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a regular die-away, “J’espère vous revoir bientôt.” All this while there was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun grew so fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of the matter, until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin curtains, or mosquito net, about noon on the following day.
I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame Le Clerc’s bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him; and after a cool dip we breakfasted with President Petion at his country-house there, and met with great kindness. About the house itself there was nothing particularly to distinguish it from many others in the neighbourhood; but the little statues, and fragments of marble steps, and detached portions of old-fashioned wrought-iron railing, which had been grouped together so as to form an ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it had been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich French planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the plain of Leogane. A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were riding at anchor in the bight just below the windows, manned, as I afterwards found, by Americans. The president, in his quiet way, after contemplating them through his glass, said, “Ces pavillons sont bien neuf.”
The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a man than Massa Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one
of the merchantmen lying at anchor off the town, we were nearly run down by getting athwart the bows of an American schooner standing in for the port. As it was, her cutwater gave us so smart a crack that I thought we were done for; but our Palinurus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self-possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same course as the schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our two larboard oars, which were snapped off like parsnips, and a good heavy bump that nearly drove us into staves.
“Never mind, my dear sir, never mind,” said I; “but hereafter listen to the old song—
‘Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.’”
Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning—
“Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom”
While I continued—
“‘Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip—’”
He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth—
“Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom.”
“Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first quality.”
We rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day until we sat down to dinner at Mr S-’s. We had a very agreeable party. Captain Transom and Mr Bang were, as usual, the life of the company; and it was verging towards eight o’clock in the evening, when an English sailor, apparently belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza, and planted himself opposite to the window where I sat.
He made various nautical salaams until he had attracted my attention. “Excuse me,” I said to Mr S-,”there is some one in the piazza wanting me.” I rose.
“Are you Captain Transom?” said the man.
“No, I am not. There is the captain; do you want him?”
“If you please, sir,” said the man.
I called my superior officer into the dark narrow piazza.
“Well, my man,” said Transom, “what want you with me?”
“I am sent, sir, to you from the captain of the Haytian ship, the E——, to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayerbook.”
“A what?” said Transom.
“A prayerbook, sir. I suppose you know that he and the captain of that other Haytian ship, the P-, are condemned to be shot to-morrow morning.”
“I know nothing of all this,” said Transom. “Do you, Cringle?”
“No, sir,” said I.
“Then let us adjourn to the dining-room again; or, stop, ask Mr S—— and Mr Bang to step here for a moment.”
They appeared; and when Transom explained the affair, so far as consisted with his knowledge, Mr S—— told us that the two unfortunates in question were, one of them a Guernsey man, and the other a man of colour, a native of St Vincent’s, whom the president had promoted to the command of two Haytian ships that had been employed in carrying coffee to England; but on their last return voyage, they had introduced a quantity of base Birmingham coin into the republic; which fact having been proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason against the state, condemned, and were now under sentence of death; and, the government being purely military, they were to be shot tomorrow morning. A boat was immediately sent on board, the messenger returned with a prayerbook; and we prepared to visit the miserable men.
Mr Bang insisted on joining us—ever first where misery was to be relieved—and we proceeded towards the prison. Following the sailor, who was the mate of one of the ships, presently we arrived before the door of the place where the unfortunate men were confined. We were speedily admitted; but the building had none of the common appurtenances of a prison. There were neither long galleries nor strong iron-bound and clamped doors to pass through, nor jailers with rusty keys jingling, nor fetters clanking; for we had not made two steps past the black grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us into a long ill-lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve—in truth, it was more like a gallery than a room—with the windows into the street open, and no precautions taken, apparently at least, to prevent the escape of the condemned. In truth, if they had broken forth, I imagine the kind-hearted president would not have made any very serious inquiry as to the how.
There was a small rickety old card-table, covered with tattered green cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was composed of dirty unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table glimmered two brown wax candles, in old-fashioned brass candlesticks. Between us and the table, forming a sort of line across the floor, stood four black soldiers, with their muskets at their shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old-fashioned armchairs, three figures, whose appearance I never can forget.
The man fronting us rose on our entrance. He was an uncommonly handsome elderly personage; his age I should guess to have been about fifty. He was dressed in white trousers and shirt, and wore no coat; his head was very bald, but he had large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above which towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spreading. His eyes were deep-set and sparkling, but he was pale, very pale, and his fine features were sharp and pinched. He sat with his hands clasped together, and resting on the table, his fingers twitching to and fro convulsively, while his under jaw had dropped a little, and, from the constant motion of his head and the heaving of his chest, it was clear that he was breathing quick and painfully.
The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar-looking personage. He was a man of colour; his caste being indicated by his short curly black hair, and his African descent vouched for by his obtuse features; but he was composed and steady in his bearing. He was dressed in white trousers and waistcoat, and a blue surtout; and on our entrance he rose, and remained standing. But the person on the elder prisoner’s left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other two. She was a respectable-looking, little, thin woman, but dressed with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown. Her sharp features were high and well formed; her eyes and mouth were not particularly noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful—her long shining auburn hair— although she must have been forty years of age, and her skin was like the driven snow. When we entered, she was seated on the left hand of the eldest prisoner, and was lying back on her chair, with her arms crossed on her bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards the roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, while her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead—her breathing was scarcely perceptible—her bosom remaining still as a frozen sea for the space of a minute, when she would draw a long breath with a low moaning noise, to which succeeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a child in the hooping-cough, and all would be still again.
At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner.
“You have sent for us, Mr ——; what can we do for you—in accordance with our duty as English officers?”
The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare, but his fellow-sufferer instantly spoke. “Gentlemen, this is kind—very kind. I sent my mate to borrow a prayerbook from you, for our consolation now must flow from above; man cannot comfort us.”
The female, who was the elder prisoner’s wife, suddenly leant forward in her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang’s face. “Prayerbook,” said she; “prayer-book—why, I have a prayerbook. I will go for my prayerbook,” and she rose quickly from her seat.
“Restez,” quoth the black sergeant. The word seemed to rouse her; she laid her head on her hands, on the table, and sobbed out as if her heart were bursting—”O God! O God!” is it come to this—is it come to this?” the frail table trembling beneath her, with her heart-crushing emotion. His wife’s misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself. He made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his composure.
“Captain Transom” said he, “I believe you know our story. That we have been justly condemned, I admit, but it is a fearful thing to die, captain, in a strange country, and by the hands of these barbarians, and to leave my own dear—” Here his voice altogether failed him; presently he resumed. “The government have sealed up my
papers and packages, and I have neither Bible nor prayer-book—will you spare us the use of one, or both, for this night, sir?”
The captain said he had brought a prayerbook, and did all he could to comfort the poor fellows. But, alas! their grief “knew not consolation’s name.”
Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by both of the miserable men with the greatest devotion, but all the while the poor woman never moved a muscle, every faculty appearing to be once more frozen up by grief and misery. At length, the elder prisoner again spoke, “I know I have no claim on you, gentlemen; but I am an Englishman—at least I hope I may call myself an Englishman—and my wife there is an Englishwoman: when I am gone—oh, gentlemen, what is to become of her? If I were but sure that she would be cared for and enabled to return to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past.” Here the poor woman threw herself round her husband’s neck, and gave a shrill sharp cry, and, relaxing her hold, fell down across his knees, with her head hanging back, and her face towards the roof, in a dead faint. For a minute or two, the husband’s sole concern seemed to be the condition of his wife.
Tom Cringle's Log Page 56
