Obi-woman, and respected him for his daring, were persuaded that he had been quelled and brought into subjection through some charm put upon him by Célandine. To the same magical influence they attributed the Quadroon's favour with her mistress, and this superstitious dread had indeed been of service to both; for a strong feeling of dissatisfaction was gaining ground rapidly amongst the blacks, and then, as now, notwithstanding all that has been said and written in their favour, they were less easily ruled by love than fear.
It is not that they are naturally savage, inhuman, brutal. Centuries of Christianity and cultivation might probably have done for the black man what they have done for the white; but those centuries have been denied him; and if he is to be taken at once from a state of utter ignorance and degradation to be placed on a footing of social equality with those who have hitherto been his masters—a race that has passed gradually through the successive stages he is expected to compass in one stride—surely it must be necessary to restrain him from the excesses peculiar to the lusty adolescence of nations, as of individuals, by some stronger repressive influence than need be applied to the staid and sober demeanour of a people arrived long ago at maturity, if not already past their prime.
Signor Bartoletti did not trouble himself with such speculations. Intimidation he found answered his purpose tolerably, corporal punishment extremely well.
Passing from the supervision of some five-score hoes, picking their labour out with great deliberation amongst the clefts and ridges of a half-cleared mountain, clothed to its summit in a tangle of luxuriant beauty, he threaded a line of wattled mud cottages, cool with thick heavy thatch, dazzling in whitewash, and interspersed with fragrant almond-trees, breaking the scorching sunlight into a thousand shimmering rays, as they rustled and quivered to the whisper of the land-breeze, not yet exhausted by the heat.
At the door of one of these huts he spied a comely negro girl, whose duties should have kept her in the kitchen of the great house. He also observed that she concealed something bulky under her snowy apron, and looked stealthily about as if afraid of being seen.
