Waiting for him there were Lord Murray, M. de Malmédie, and Sara. To the girl’s surprise, Georges’s face reflected dismay, rather than happiness, when he saw her. He frowned slightly, and a small, almost bitter smile flashed across his lips. Sara, who had risen to her feet on her lover’s entrance, felt her knees grow weak, and sank slowly back into her chair. M. de Malmédie, who had also risen, was as still as a statue. A slight nod was his only greeting to Georges.
Lord Murray stepped forward and shook Georges’s hand. “Well, my friend,” he said, “I am very happy to be able to give you a piece of good news, which I hope will fulfill all your desires. Monsieur de Malmédie here, wishing to put an end to the rivalries of color and caste that have been the bane of île de France—indeed, of all the colonies—for two centuries now, has agreed to give you the hand of his niece, Sara, in marriage.”
Sara, blushing, lifted her gaze to meet that of her lover—who, to the astonishment of Lord Murray and M. de Malmédie, merely sketched a silent bow.
The governor smiled. “My dear Monsieur de Malmédie,” he said, “I see that my word alone is not enough to convince our young friend of his good fortune. Please, tell him yourself that you are ready to grant his request, and that it is your wish to bury forever all feelings of animosity between your families.”
M. de Malmédie gave a somewhat forced nod; he was clearly struggling to control himself. “It is true, monsieur,” he said at last. “Lord Murray has described my intentions rightly. If you still hold a grudge for something that took place fourteen years ago, at the surrender of Port Louis, I hope you will forget it—as my son has promised me he will forget your recent insult to him, which, after all, was much more grievous. As for your marriage to my niece, Lord Murray spoke the truth there, as well. I give my consent to the union, unless you wish to refuse it today.”
“Oh, Georges!” Sara burst out, giving in for an instant to the strength of her emotions.
“Please, Sara,” said the young man. “Do not judge me too hastily for the answer I am about to give. Believe me, I do only what is necessary. Since our meeting in the pavilion—since the night of the ball—indeed, since the moment I first saw you, you have been my wife. No other woman shall ever bear that title, which you have accepted despite the abasement that comes with it. Trust me when I tell you that what I say now is dictated by form and time alone.”
He turned to Lord Murray. “I thank you, milord, a thousand times. I know that what has just happened is due in large part to your generosity and friendship. But from the moment Monsieur de Malmédie first refused me Sara’s hand, and his son Henri insulted me for the second time, I believed it my duty to inflict a public, unforgivable punishment. That being done, I have severed all connection with the whites. There can be no further dealings between us. Monsieur de Malmédie may well have resolved to settle his differences with me, for whatever reasons of his own, but I can never do the same. If Mademoiselle Sara loves me, she must decide for herself what her path will be. She can only raise herself in my eyes by descending to my station; it is not for me to lower myself by attempting to ascend to hers.”
“But, Georges!” Sara cried. “You know that I—”
“I know, Sara, that you are a noble young woman with a devoted heart and a pure soul. I know you would be mine despite all obstacles, all entreaties, all prejudice. I know I have only to wait, and one day you will be at my side—and I know that, in your sweet and generous heart, you have already decided to make this great sacrifice for me. But”—he turned to M. de Malmédie—“as for you, sir, and your son, who has doubtless consented to forgo a duel with me on the condition that I am ambushed and whipped by his friends, ours is a lasting enmity. Understand me well: Nothing will cool my hatred, except bloodshed.”
“Monsieur le Gouverneur,” said M. de Malmédie, turning to Lord Murray and speaking with more dignity than one might have expected of him, “you see that I have done my part. I have sacrificed my pride and agreed to forget offenses both old and new. I can do no more. But surely you must agree that I cannot ignore the declaration of war this gentleman has just made against me. We will wait for the attack, and we will be prepared to defend ourselves. Now, Sara”—here he looked at his niece—“as Monsieur Munier says, you are free to do as you please with your heart, your hand, and your fortune. Act as you like. Stay with Monsieur Munier, or follow me.”
“Uncle,” said Sara in a low tone, “it is my duty to go with you, and so I shall. Georges, adieu! I cannot claim to understand your motives for acting as you have done today—but you must do what you think is right.” Curtseying to the governor with cool dignity, she followed M. de Malmédie out of the room.
Lord Murray accompanied his visitors to the door, then returned to meet Georges’s steady gaze. A moment’s silence passed between these two men who, despite their very different upbringings, understood each other so well.
“So you have refused,” said the governor at last.
“I believed it to be my duty, milord.”
“I don’t mean to be too inquisitive, but may I ask why?”
“Dignity required it of me,” said Georges.
“Dignity—is that all?”
“If there is anything else, milord, it must remain my secret.”
“Georges, listen to me,” said Lord Murray suddenly, with an impulsiveness that was all the more charming since it was so obviously foreign to his cool and restrained nature. “You must listen. Since I first met you aboard the Leicester, I saw in you the high and noble qualities that set you apart from other men. From that moment it has been my earnest desire to make you the link that would reunite this island’s two castes, so long opposed to each other. When you entrusted me with the secret of your love affair, I agreed without hesitation to act as your sponsor and negotiate on your behalf—” He paused, for Georges had lowered his head. “—and for this, my young friend, you owe me no thanks. You acted in accordance with my wishes; you supported my plans for conciliation; you smoothed the path for my political endeavors. Because of all this, I was happy to go with you to the house of Monsieur de Malmédie, and to support your request for Sara’s hand in marriage with all the influence my name and position afforded me.”
“I know, milord; and I thank you. But you have seen for yourself that even your honorable presence did not spare me the pain of being refused.”
“Yes, and I suffered for you as much as you did yourself, Georges. I admired your calm in the face of it, but I also believed you were preparing some sort of terrible vengeance—and, indeed, I was proven right on the day of the races. I have known, since then, that I must abandon my cherished hopes of conciliation between the races.”
“I warned you of that, milord,” said Georges, in a level tone.
“I know you did. But even so, I refused to accept defeat. I went to Monsieur de Malmédie’s house yesterday and pleaded with him, cajoled him—indeed, I nearly went so far as to abuse the power of my station—and finally I obtained his word that he would forget his old feud with your father. Henri, too, promised not to take any action against you; and both of them consented to your marriage with Mademoiselle Sara.”
“Sara is a free woman, milord,” Georges interrupted him. “She needs no one’s consent to become my wife, God be praised.”
“That is true,” agreed Lord Murray. “But think of the difference in the eyes of the world, between secretly taking a girl from the home of her guardian, and receiving her hand publicly from her family! Search your pride, Monsieur Munier, and tell me I did not obtain for you a triumph you had not even hoped for!”
“Yes,” said Georges, “that you did. Unfortunately, though, the consent has come too late.”
“What? Too late? Why?” Lord Murray demanded.
“I am sorry, milord, but that is my secret.”
“Is it? Shall I tell you this secret, which you are so reluctant to tell me?”
Georges could not conceal an incredulous smile.
“A very
well-kept secret, indeed,” continued Lord Murray, “entrusted to ten thousand select individuals!”
Georges’s smile disappeared.
“Listen to me,” the governor said again. “You have willfully sought your own ruin. I wanted to save you; I went to Sara’s uncle, and said to him, ‘You are underestimating Monsieur Georges Munier. You have offended him openly and driven him to cut himself off from us, and you were wrong to do it. Georges Munier is a distinguished man, with a noble heart and a brave soul. You should not have scorned a man such as him, for now he holds our very lives in his hands. He has agreed to lead a vast rebellion, and tomorrow night at ten o’clock’—it was yesterday that I visited the Malmédie house—‘he will march on Port Louis with ten thousand blacks following him. We have only eighteen hundred men to defend ourselves, and unless Fate blesses me with a stroke of genius we are all lost. The truth is, monsieur, that on the day after tomorrow you may very well be enslaved yourself by a man you have long despised as the descendant of slaves—and he may not consider you worthy to serve him in turn!
“‘You can prevent all of this,’ I said to Monsieur de Malmédie. ‘You have the power to save the colony. Forget the past, and give Georges Munier your niece’s hand in marriage. If he accepts it, you will have preserved not only your own life, liberty, and fortune, but those of us all!’ At last, he consented to act as I urged him. But alas, what I feared has come to pass. You have already committed yourself, and you can no longer turn back.”
Georges had listened to this speech in mute astonishment, but retained his calm. “So,” he said, when Lord Murray had finished. “You know everything.”
“I should think so. Or have I left something out?”
“No,” replied Georges, smiling. “Your spies are well informed. I must compliment you on the efficiency of your police force.”
“Well then,” said the governor. “Now that you are acquainted with my motives, there is still time to accept Sara’s hand. Do so, and be reconciled with her family. Renounce these senseless plans of yours, and I promise you I will forget everything I have learned.”
“It is impossible,” said Georges.
“Think, for a moment, of the sort of men you are joining with!”
“You forget, milord, that these men of whom you speak with such disdain are my brothers, who have chosen me to lead them out of slavery. When they entrusted their lives to me, I vowed to sacrifice my own for them.”
“You refuse, then?”
“I refuse.”
“Despite everything I have said?”
“I beg your pardon, milord, but I cannot heed you.”
“Despite your love for Sara, and hers for you?”
“Despite everything,” said Georges resolutely.
Lord Murray sighed. “Then let me ask you just one more question.”
Georges nodded. “Of course.”
“If I were in your place, and you were in mine, what would you do?”
“What do you mean, milord?”
“Imagine for a moment that I am Georges Munier, leader of a slave revolt, and you are Lord William Murray, governor of île de France. If you held me in your grasp as surely as I now hold you in mine, I ask you again—what would you do?”
Georges was silent for a moment. “What I would do,” he said at last, “is release the man who came to me because I asked him to; the man who came under the impression that he was being summoned by a friend, not lured into a trap. Then, when the time for revolt came, if I believed myself to be in the right I would appeal to God, who alone can choose between us.”
Lord Murray snapped, “Then you would be wrong! If I were you, you would not be able to save me. From the moment I agreed to lead a rebellion, it would have been your duty to quench the flames with my blood. Once I had drawn my sword, there could have been no reprieve from you. No! I cannot allow you to perish on the scaffold like a common criminal! I will not see your name dragged through the mud! I must save you from yourself, my friend. Monsieur, I arrest you!”
“Milord!” Georges exclaimed, his eyes darting around the room in search of a weapon he might use to defend himself.
“Guards!” Lord Murray cried. “Come, and take this gentleman into custody!” Four soldiers entered the room and surrounded Georges. “Take Monsieur Munier to the guardhouse,” the governor directed. “Put him in the room I had prepared this morning, and watch him carefully. Take care that you—and anyone else who may come to see him—give him the respect due a man of his rank.” With these words, the governor bowed and Georges was taken from the room.
XXII
THE REVOLT
Georges’s arrest happened so quickly and unexpectedly that he did not have time even to resist. His self-control remained infallible, however, and he hid the many emotions that assaulted him beneath his usual smile of disdain. His guards escorted him by a back entrance out of the governor’s residence and into one of Lord Murray’s carriages. As Georges stepped up into the equipage, Miko-Miko—whether by chance or otherwise—passed by its open door. The men exchanged a glance.
As Lord Murray had ordered, Georges was taken to a large building known as the guardhouse, located on rue du Gouvernement, and into the room that had been prepared for him there. It was evident that pains had been taken to make the chamber as pleasing as possible: The furniture was comfortable, and the bed very nearly elegant. Nothing about the place suggested that it was a prison, except the iron bars at the windows.
The moment Georges’s door closed behind his guards and he found himself alone, he went directly to one of the windows. It was about twenty feet off the ground, directly facing the open window of a room in the Hôtel Coignet. From where he stood, he could see directly into this opposing chamber. Georges crossed the room and listened attentively at the door until he heard the guards leave a single sentry and depart; he then returned to the window and opened it.
There was no guard stationed in the street below his chamber; evidently, the iron bars were considered safekeeping enough—indeed, they were thick and extremely strong. Georges knew he would have no way of escaping without some help from the outside.
Serene and confident that such help would come, he waited. Leaving the window open, he kept his eyes fixed on the room opposite his, in the Hôtel Coignet—which, as I have said, stands directly opposite the guardhouse. Sure enough, scarcely an hour had gone by before Miko-Miko appeared, his bamboo pole across his shoulders, escorted by a concierge. The merchant exchanged only the briefest of glances with Georges as he passed the window, but it was enough. Georges’s brow relaxed, and his face grew peaceful.
From that moment onward Georges appeared almost as calm as if he had been in his own room at Moka. Still, from time to time an attentive observer might have noticed that he knitted his brows and passed a hand over his forehead. The truth was that, beneath his untroubled appearance, a thousand ideas teemed in his mind like a rising sea that seemed to batter his brain with each surge and recession.
The hours dragged by, and Georges could hear nothing to indicate that preparations for the revolt were being made in the city. Neither the roll of a drum nor the clash of weapons could be discerned. Here and there the young man heard sounds that caused him to dash to the window—but they invariably turned out to be nothing more than the rumble of a passing cart laden with barrels.
Night fell, and Georges paced from the door of his room to the window and back again. A lone guard could still be heard keeping watch in the corridor; the street below was empty. Georges’s face remained as impassive as ever, but the occasional, compulsive movements of his hand to his heart and the slight creasing of his brow betrayed his growing anxiety. Even the bravest of men cannot remain altogether unmoved in circumstances that may decide the course of his entire future life. Georges thought of his father, who was unaware of the peril he faced, and of Sara, who had been its unwitting cause. As for Lord Murray, Georges now felt for him the cold, intense fury of a gambler who has lost the game. Still,
he could not deny that the governor had, on this occasion as on all others, shown him the courtesy of a true gentleman: He had not summoned his guards until Georges had refused every escape route he had the power to offer. Finally, though, he had had no choice but to arrest the young mulatto, and on the most serious of charges: high treason.
The darkness grew thicker. Georges looked at his watch; it was half past eight. In another hour and a half the revolt would begin. He fixed his eyes again on the Hôtel Coignet. Suddenly a dark shape appeared in the open window and signaled to him. Georges moved to one side of the window as a packet was thrown into his room, passing between the bars and landing on the floor. He picked it up; it contained a rope and a file. Freedom now lay within his grasp—freedom he wanted for no other reason than to be at liberty when the hour of decision came.
Night had fallen completely, and the room was absolutely dark. Hiding the rope under the mattress of his bed, Georges began to file away at one of the window bars. They were spaced widely enough apart that the removal of a single one of them would allow him to squeeze through. The guards had brought supper earlier in the evening, and Georges felt fairly certain that he could now work undisturbed.
It was a slow, laborious process. Nine o’clock struck; then half past nine, then ten. As Georges sawed patiently at the bar, he thought he saw a bright light shine from the direction of the port, at the far end of the rue du Gouvernement near the rue de la Comédie. Still, the streets remained empty and quiet. No patrols walked the city; not a soldier made for the barracks. Georges could not understand Lord Murray’s apparent indifference to an uprising he knew was coming, but he was too well acquainted with the governor to believe that he had not taken every precaution against it. Still, the city seemed defenseless, almost abandoned.
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