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.She was obviously still in a rage because, although Melita could not at first understand what she was saying, she could hear her high-pitched voice rising higher with every word she spoke.In the centre of the mound was a white pillar on which there was a cross.Melita could not help wondering if Madame Boisset, who was so fond of preaching to the slaves, had ever read them the story of how Christ had been whipped by the Romans.She reached the mound, but she did not climb up it.Instead she went round it and walked directly towards the rough barricade that stood in front of the slave quarters.She had nearly reached it when Madame Boisset became aware of her.“Where are you going, mademoiselle!” she asked.Melita did not answer and Madame Boisset screamed,“Mademoiselle – I spoke to you! Come here immediately!”Melita had, however, reached the barricade and she could see dark eyes peeping at her from between the trunks of the trees.The men were crouching down, but, as she stood there, one rose and she recognised him as an older man she had seen in the sugar distillery.“Go ’way, m’mselle,” he said.“You not come here.”“If la petite m’mselle is your prisoner,” Melita answered, “or perhaps I should say your hostage, then as I must be with her and I am also your hostage.”The man stared at her in astonishment.Now she realised that she had also seen him the night before, sitting with closed eyes beside Philippe in the forest.“Let me in,” Melita demanded.Then, in a low voice that was impossible for anyone else to hear, she said,“I have sent someone to fetch Monsieur le Comte.Don’t surrender until he returns.”There was a flash of white teeth, as the man understood what she was saying.Then he held out his hand.Taking it, Melita put one foot on the lowest of the piled tree trunks and he helped her over the others.As she stood for a moment on top of the barricade supported by the black man’s hand, she heard Madame Boisset yelling at her in a frenzy of anger.“Come back, mademoiselle! How dare you behave in such a manner! If you are shot, as these slaves will be shot, you will have only yourself to blame.”Melita did not answer or even turn her head.She was well aware that Madame Boisset would not dare risk shooting anyone while Rose-Marie was in their midst.She was helped onto the ground and, as she reached it, Rose-Marie came running towards her from Philippe’s hut.“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!”She flung herself into Melita’s arms and, as she bent down to kiss the child, Melita asked,“You are not frightened?”“No, I am not frightened,” Rose-Marie said proudly.“Cousin Josephine is very angry, but it is wrong and wicked to beat poor Léonore.She is too old.”“Much too old,” Melita agreed firmly.“Come and see Philippe,” Rose-Marie begged.“He is making another doll, a very pretty one.”Melita wondered what had happened to the doll in the red dress that had been used in the Voodoo ceremony last night.Then she told herself that her most important duty at the moment was to keep Rose-Marie happy and unafraid.She was certain that violence was out of the question and, as if in answer to her thoughts, she heard one of the Overseers shout, obviously at Madame Boisset’s instigation,“You will be given no food or water until you behave yourselves.When you are hungry, you will come out like cowed dogs.Then we will see who is Master.”She felt Rose-Marie’s hand tighten in hers.“Shall we be very hungry, mademoiselle?”“Not for very long,” Melita said soothingly.“Your Papa will be here soon and I know he will think it wrong to hurt Léonore.”“Cousin Josephine is very angry,” Rose-Marie sighed, “and she will be angry with Papa if he interferes.”“He will know exactly what to do,” Melita said confidently.She knew that the slaves would be waiting for his return as eagerly as she was.Philippe was sitting in the doorway of his hut with a bundle of leaves beside him and behind him inside the desolate empty building was Léonore.Melita stepped over the threshold.“Everything will be all right, Léonore,” she said.“When Monsieur le Comte hears what has happened, he will come back and I know he will not allow you to be punished.”Léonore looked at Melita with her penetrating black eyes, which still seemed young despite the lines of age on her face.After a moment she said quietly,“You saw!”Melita made no pretence of not understanding what she meant.“Yes, I saw,” she answered.“The drum called me and I followed the sound.”There was silence.Then Léonore said,“You find happiness.”She turned away as she spoke, as if she had nothing more to say.Melita stared after her wondering how it was possible for the old woman to know so much.Yet she did not doubt for a moment that she knew she had been present at the ritual last night and that she knew also what she and the Comte felt for each other.It would have somehow been wrong to ask questions.Melita sat down beside Rose-Marie while Philippe carved away at the coconut, which was to be the body of her new doll.She told them both stories that she had known and loved as a child, the story of Cinderella and of Hansel and Gretel.Every time she finished a tale, Rose-Marie clapped her hands and asked for more.The two children seemed utterly absorbed in her storytelling.Only Melita was vividly aware of the slaves crouching behind the barricades, of Madame Boisset and the Overseers watching them from the mound.It grew very hot and now Melita began to understand what it would be like if they had to go without water for long and it had to be brought from the gully that ran beneath the waterwheel.One by one the male slaves came back from the barricades to go into the houses and drink the last dregs of what was left in the huge stone jars that their wives had carried home on their heads the night before.“I wonder when they last ate,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud, forgetting for the moment that Philippe was dumb.It was Léonore who answered her and at the sound of her voice Melita started because she had thought the old woman was in the shadows at the far end of the hut instead of behind her.“We eat at noon and when work over,” Léonore said.“Then nobody will be very hungry as yet.”“Always hungry,” Léonore answered.“Madame give too little food.Enough working men only.”Melita’s lips tightened.It seemed incredible that Madame Boisset, with Cécile’s large fortune to draw on, should deliberately cut the food given to the slaves and their families.‘But it is what I might have expected,’ she reflected [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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