She spoke carelessly, almost contemptuously, but she scarcely knew what she said. Her actual thoughts, had she allowed herself to utter them, would have thus framed themselves: "Can there be anything so blind, so heartless, so self-engrossed—shall I say it?—so entirely and hopelessly stupid as a man?"
It was not for George to dispute her wishes. Though little given to illusions, he could scarcely believe that he was not dreaming now, so strange did it seem to have achieved in the last twelve hours that which had hitherto formed the one engrossing object of his life, prized, coveted, dwelt on the more that it looked almost impossible of fulfilment. There was but one drawback to his joy, one difficulty left, perplexing indeed, although simple, and doubly annoying because others of apparently far greater moment had been surmounted. There was no priest to be found in Port Welcome! The good old Portuguese Curé who took spiritual charge of the white inhabitants, and such negroes as could be induced to pay attention to his ministering, had been nearly frightened out of his wits by the outbreak. This quiet meek old man, who, since he left his college forty years before, had never known an excitement or anxiety greater than a visit from his bishop or a blight in his plantain-ground, now found himself surrounded by swarms of drunken and infuriated slaves, yelling for his life. It was owing to the presence of mind shown by an old coloured woman who lived with him as housekeeper, and to no energy or activity of his own, that he made his escape. She smuggled him out of the town through a by-street, and when he had once got his mule into an amble he never drew rein till he reached the Jesuits' establishment at Maria-Galante, where he found a qualified welcome and a precarious refuge. From this shelter, defenceless and uncertain as it was, nothing would induce him to depart till the colours of a Spanish three-decker were flying in the harbour, and ere such an arrival could restore confidence to the colony it would behove 'The Bashful Maid' to spread her wings and flee away.
Captain George was at his wits' end. In such a dilemma he bethought him of consulting his second in command.
