Hippolyte, who was not deficient in energy, had also been in communication with the disaffected slaves on the adjoining estates; these too were sworn to rise at a given signal, and the Coromantee, feeling that his own enterprise could scarcely fail, entertained a fervent hope that in a few hours the whole of the little island, from sea to sea, would be in possession of the negroes, and he himself chosen as their chief. The sack and burning of Port Welcome, the massacre of the planters and abduction of their families, were exciting little incidents of the future, on which he could hardly trust himself to dwell; but the first step in the great enterprise was to be taken at Montmirail West, and to its details Célandine now listened with a horror that, while it curdled her blood, she was forced to veil under a pretence of zeal and enthusiasm in the cause.
Her only hope was in the brigantine. Her early associations had taught her to place implicit reliance on a boat's crew of English sailors, and if she could but delay the attack until she had communicated with the privateer, Mademoiselle, for it was of Mademoiselle she chiefly thought, might be rescued even yet. If she could but speak to her son, lying within three feet of her! If she could but make him understand the emergency! How she trusted he overheard their conversation! How she prayed he might not have been asleep the whole time!
Hippolyte's plan of attack was simple enough. It would be dark in a couple of hours. Long before then, he and his little band meant to advance as far as the skirts of the bush, from whence they could reconnoitre the house. Doors and windows would all be open. There was but one white man in the place, and he unarmed. Nothing could be easier than to overpower the overseer, and perhaps, for Célandine's sake, his life might be spared. Then, it was the Coromantee's intention to secure the Marquise and her daughter, which he opined might be done with little risk, and at the expense of a shriek or two; to collect in the store-room any of the domestic slaves, male or female, who showed signs of resistance, and there lock them up; to break open the cellar, serve out a plentiful allowance of wine to his guards, and then, setting fire to the house, carry the Marquise and her daughter into the mountains. The
