You and I are near akin; your people are the people of my mother's mother; whom you trust, I trust; whom you hate, I hate, but far more bitterly, because my injuries are older and deeper than yours."
He opened his eyes wondering, but the rum had taken effect, and nothing, not even the Quadroon's disloyalty to her mistress, seemed improbable now. An Obi-woman too, if really in earnest, he considered a valuable auxiliary; so signed his approval by another grin and a grunt of acquiescence.
"I live but for one object now," continued Célandine, in a tone of repressed fury that did credit to her power of acting. "I have been waiting all my life for my revenge, and it seems to have come at last. The Marquise should have given me my freedom long ago if she wished me to forgive. Ay, they may call me Mustee, but I am black, black as yourself, my brave Hippolyte, at heart. She struck me once,—I tell you, struck me with her riding-*whip, far away yonder in France, and I will have her blood."
It is needless to observe this imputed violence was a fabrication for the especial benefit of Hippolyte, and the energy with which he pronounced the ejaculation, "Golly!" denoted that he placed implicit reliance on its truth.
"You are brave," continued Célandine; "you are strong; you are the fine tall negro whom we call the Pride of the Plantation. You do not know what it is to hate like a poor weak woman. I would have no scruple, no mercy; I would spare none, neither Madame nor Mademoiselle."
"Ma'amselle come into woods with me," interrupted Hippolyte, with a horrible leer. "Good enough wife for Pride of Plantation. Lilly-face look best by um side of black man. Ma'amselle guess me come for marry her. When floggee Fleurette, look at me so, afore all de niggers, sweet as molasses!"
Again Célandine shivered. The wretch's vanity would have been ludicrous, had he not been so formidable from his recklessness, and the authority he seemed to hold over his comrades. She prepared to learn the worst.
"They will both be in our power to-night, I suppose,"
