“Josephine,” said I, lifting her gently up, and kissing her fair brow, “you are breaking my heart. I cannot stand this — I must rush out of the house. I have never said I loved you;” — (mean subterfuge!)

  “But you do, you do — it is my fate, — it is yours — for three years I have been expecting you — disbelieve me not — ask the Obeah woman. It is true,” and then, hurrying out the words like the downpouring of the mountain torrent, she continued, “Do you love me? — do you love me? — do you love me?”

  “I do, Josephine — I do distractedly! But stern honour stands in the way.”

  “And what is this honour?” she exclaimed, with genuine simplicity; for it was evident that, if she had ever heard the word before, she had not the remotest idea of its meaning: “Et quelle est cette honneur-là?” and there was contempt in her tone.

  I had no words to reply.

  “Will this honour do that for you which my father — which I — will do? What has this honour done for him? — tell me, father. Has it put that gay blue jacket on him, or that small sword by his side? Show him, my dear father, the rich dresses that we have, and the beautiful arms. Will honour watch you in your hours of sickness, take you out in the noonday heats, and show you the cool shady places, and the refreshing rippling springs? What is this honour, that seems to bid you to break my heart, and make me die of very grief?”

  “Monsieur Manuel,” said I, extremely confused, “have the kindness to explain to dear Josephine what honour is.”

  “A rule of conduct,” he replied, with severity, “that was never recorded, never understood, and which men construe just as suits their convenience. One honest impulse of the heart is worth all the honour I ever heard of.”

  This was a delicate helping of a friend in a dilemma. I turned for relief from the sarcastic father to the beautiful countenance of the daughter, and I there beheld an expression of intense sorrow that agonised me. Her sudden, and, to me, totally unexpected animation, had disappeared. Melancholy seemed to have drooped her darkest wings over her. I thought that she must soon die under their noxious shadow. For one instant my eyes caught hers: I could not stand the appeal.

  “I will stay,” said I, gently, “until the ship sails.”

  I had then, for the first time, to witness the enthusiasm of the melancholy temperament — the eloquence of unschooled nature. The bending figure that seemed to collapse in weakness upon my supporting arm, suddenly flung herself from me; her rounded and delicate figure swelled at once into sudden dignity; her muscles assumed the rigidity, yet all the softness of a highly-polished Grecian statue; and stood before me, as if by enchantment, half woman, half marble, beautiful inexpressibly. I was sorely tried. There was no action, no waving of the arms, as she spoke. Her voice came forth musically, as if from sacred oracle, that oracle having life only in words. Monsieur Manuel had very wisely departed.

  “Not an hour — not a minute — not an instant, or — for ever! Young sir, you have already stayed too long, if you stay not always. Leave me to dream of you, and to die. The thorn is in my heart; it may kill me gradually. Go. Why, sir, have you looked upon me as man never before looked? Why, why have you mingled your false tears with mine, that were so true — and, oh, so loving! But what am I, who thus speak so proudly to a being whom, if I did not know he was treacherous, I should think an angel? (Un des bons esprits.) I, a poor, weak, ignorant girl of colour — born of a slave, to a slavery — whose only ambition was to have been loved, loved for a short, short while — for know, that I am to die early — I should not have troubled you long. But you are too good for me — I was a presumptuous fool. Go, and at once, and take with you all that I have to give — the blessing of a young-born bonds-woman.”

  All this time she had stood firmly and nearly motionless, with her hands folded beneath her heaving bosom, at some distance from me. I approached her with extended arms, and had some such foolish rhapsody on my tongue as “Beautiful daughter of the sun,” for I had already contemplated her under a new character, when, retreating and waving me from her, she continued:

  “Already too much of this — let me die by cruelty rather than by caresses, which are the worst of cruelty. I feel a new spirit living within me. I am a child no more. Yesterday I should have crouched before you, as one degraded, as I ought to do. You have pressed me to your bosom — you have spoken to me as your equal — even your tears have bathed my brow. You have ennobled me. Oh! it is a happiness and a great glory. I, formerly so humble, command you to go — go, dear, dear, Ralph. You will not kill me quite by going now, therefore, be generous, and go.”

  I was already sufficiently in love, and began to feel ashamed of myself; for not having as yet caught a little of her enthusiasm.

  “Josephine,” said I, in a quiet, serious tone, “give me your hand.” I took it — it was deadly cold. At that moment all her best blood was rallying round her young heart. I led her to the open window, and showed her the noble frigate so hateful to her sight, and said, “Dear Josephine, in that ship there are more than three hundred gallant fellows, all of whom are my countrymen, and some of them my familiar friends. I have often shared with them danger, under the very jaws of death. I have broken my bread with some of them, constantly, for nearly three years. These are all claims on me: you see that I am speaking to you calmly. I had no idea what a little impassioned orator you were — do not look so dejected and so humble. I love you for it the more. I only made the remark to convince you that what I now say is not the mere prompting of a transient impulse. But, Josephine, in my own far-away land, I have also a few friends; nor am I wholly a castaway; there is a mystery about my origin, which I wish to dissipate, yet that I cherish. If I conduct myself as I have hitherto done, in time I shall have the sole control and government of a vessel, as proud as the one before you, and of all the noble spirits it will contain. The mystery of which I have spoken I am most sanguine will be cleared up; and I may, peradventure, one day take my place among the nobles of my land, as it now is among the nobles of the sea. Weep not thus, my love, or you will infect me with emotions too painful to be borne. Let us be calm for a little space. The reign of passion will commence soon enough. Mark me, Josephine. For you — God forgive me if I commit sin! — for you, I cast off my associates, sever all my ties of friendship, let the mystery of my origin remain unravelled, renounce the land of my birth — for you, I encounter the peril of being hung for desertion. Josephine, you will incur a great debt — a heavy responsibility. My heart, my happiness, is in your hands. Josephine, I stay.”

  “For ever?”

  “For ever!” A wild shriek of joy burst from her delighted lips, as she leaped to my bosom; and, for the first time, our lips sealed the mysterious compact of love. After a moment, I gently released myself from the sweet bondage of her embrace, and said, “Dear Josephine, this cannot be to me a moment of unalloyed joy. You see the sun is half below the horizon; give me one moment of natural grief; for, so surely as I stay here, so surely, like that orb, are all my hopes of glory setting, and for ever.” And the tears came into my eyes as I exclaimed, “Farewell, my country — farewell, honour — Eos, my gallant frigate, fare thee well!”

  As if instinct with life, the beautiful vessel answered my apostrophe. The majestic thunder of her main-deck gun boomed awfully, and methought sorrowfully, over the waters, and then bounded among the echoes of the distant hills around and above me, slowly dying away in the distant mountains. It was the gun which, as commodore, was fired at sunset.

  “It is all over,” I exclaimed. “I have made my election — leave me for a little while alone.”

  Chapter Fifty.

  Ralph falleth into the usual delusion of supposing himself happy — Wisheth it may last all his life, making it a reality — As yet no symptoms of it dispelling; but the brightest sunset may have the darkest night.

  She bounded from me in a transport of joy, shouting, “He stays, he stays!” and I heard the words repeated among the groups of negresses, who loved her; it seemed to be the burthen of a general song, the glad realisation of some prophecy; for, ere the night was an hour old, the old witch, who had had the tuition of Josephine, had already made a mongrel sort of hymn of the affair, whilst a circle of black chins were wagging to a chords of: —

  “Goramity good, buchra body stays!”

  I saw no more of Josephine that night. The old gentleman, her father, joined me after I had been alone nearly two hours — two hours, I assure the reader, of misery.

  I contemplated a courtship of some decent duration, and a legal marriage at the altar. I tried to view my position on all sides, and thus to find out that which was the most favourable for my mind’s eye to rest upon. — It was but a disconsolate survey. Sometimes a dark suspicion, that I repelled from me as if it were a demon whispering murder in my ear, would hint to me the possibility that I was entrapped. However, the lights that came in with Monsieur Manuel dissipated them and darkness together. He behaved extremely well — gave me an exact account of all his possessions, and of his ready money, the latter of which was greatly beyond my expectations, and the former very considerable.

  He immediately gave me an undertaking, that he would, if I remained with him, adopt me as his son, allow me during life a competency fit to support me and his daughter genteelly, and to make me his sole heir at his death. This undertaking bound him also to see the proper documents duly and legally drawn up by a notary, so as to render the conditions of our agreement binding on both parties. We then spoke, as father and son, of our future views. We were determined to leave the island, immediately we could get anything like its value for the plantation and the large gang of negroes upon it. But where go to then? England — my desertion. France? — yes, it was there that we were to spend our lives. And thus we speculated on future events, that the future never owned.

  I have said before, that, during the whole time that I was in the navy, I never was intoxicated — and never once swallowed spirituous liquors. Both assertions are strictly true. This memorable evening, over our light supper, I drank, perhaps, two glasses of claret more than was my wont at Captain Reud’s table. I was excessively wearied both in mind and body. I became so unaccountably, and lethargically drowsy, that, in spite of every effort of mine to the contrary, I fell fast asleep in the midst of a most animated harangue of the good Manuel, upon the various perfections of his lovely daughter — a strange subject for a lover to sleep upon; but so it was. Had Josephine’s nurse and the Obeah woman anything to do with it? perhaps. They are skilful druggers. If my life, and the lives of all those dearer to me than life itself; had depended upon my getting up and walking across the room, I could not have done it. How I got to bed I know not; but I awoke in the morning in luxuriant health, with a blushing bride upon my bosom.

  And then ensued days of dreamy ecstasy; my happiness seemed too great, too full, too overflowing, to be real. Everything around me started into poetry. I seemed to be under the direction of fairy spirits: all my wants were cared for as if by invisible hands. It appeared to me that I had but to wish, and gratification followed before the wish was half formed. I was passive, and carried away in a trance of happiness. I was beset with illusion; and so intense were my feelings of rapture, mingled with doubt, and my blissful distraction so great, that it was late in the day before I noticed the dress I had on. The light and broad-brimmed planter’s hat, the snowy white jean jacket and trousers, and the infinitely fine linen shirt, with its elaborately laced front, had all been donned without my noticing the change from my usual apparel. It was a dress, from its purity and its elegance, worthy of a bridegroom. I learnt afterwards that Josephine’s old negress-nurse had, with many and powerful incantations — at least, as powerful as incantations always are — buried under six feet of earth every article of clothing in which I had first entered the mansion.

  Well, there we were, a very pretty version of Paul and Virginia — not perhaps quite so innocent, but infinitely more happy, roving hand in hand through orange bowers and aromatic shades. Love is sweet, and a first love very, very delightful; but, when we are not only loved, but almost worshipped, that, that is the incense that warms the heart and intoxicates the brain. Wherever I turned, I found greeting and smiles, and respectful observance hovered along my path. The household adored their young mistress and me through her.

  Old Manuel seemed serenely happy. He encouraged us to be alone with each other. I could write volumes upon the little incidents, and interesting ones too, of this singular honeymoon. I observed no more bursts of passion in Josephine; her soul had folded its wings upon my bosom, and there dreamed itself away in a tender and loving melancholy. How I now smile, and perhaps could weep, when I call to mind all her little artifices of love to prevent my ever casting my eyes upon the hated ship! As I have related before, our little squadron at anchor in this secluded bay departed one by one, leaving only the Eos, with her sorely-wounded captain; yet, though I saw them not, I knew, by Josephine’s triumphant looks, when a vessel had sailed. All the jalousies in front of the house were nailed up, so that, if by chance I wandered into one of the rooms in that quarter, I saw nothing.

  I had been domesticated in this paradise — a fool’s perhaps, but still a paradise — a month: and I was sitting alone in the shade, reading, behind the house, when Josephine flew along the avenue of lemon-trees, and flung herself into my arms, and, sobbing hysterically, exclaimed, “My dear, dear Ralph, now you are almost wholly mine! there is only one left.”

  “And that one, my Josephine?”

  “Speak not of it, think not of it, sweet; it is not yours. But, swear, swear to me again, you will never more look upon it; do, dearest, and I will learn a whole column extra of words in two syllables.”

  And I repeated the often-iterated oath; and she sat down tranquilly at my feet, like a good little girl, and began murmuring the task she was committing to memory.

  And how did the schooling get on? Oh! beautifully; we had such sweet and so many school-rooms, and interruptions still more sweet and numerous. Sometimes our hall of study was beneath the cool rock, down the sides of which, green with age, the sparkling rill so delightfully trickled; sometimes in the impervious quiet, and flower-enamelled bower, amidst all the spicy fragrance of tropical shrubs; and sometimes, in the solemn old wood, beneath the boughs of trees that had stood for uncounted ages. And the interruptions! Repeatedly the book and the slate would be cast away, and we would start up, as if actuated by a single spirit, and chase some singularly beautiful humming-bird; sometimes, the genius of frolic would seize us, and we would chase each other round and round the old mahogany-trees, with no other object than to rid ourselves of our exuberance of happiness; but the most frequent interruptions were when she would close her book, and, bathing me in the lustre of her melancholy eyes, bid me tell her some tale that would make her weep; or, with a pious awe, request me to unfold some of the mysteries of the universe around her, and commune with her of the attributes of their great and beneficent Creator.

  Was not this a state of the supremest happiness? Joy seemed to come down to me from heaven in floods of light; the earth to offer up her incense to me, as I trod upon her beautiful and flower-encumbered bosom; the richly-plumaged birds to hover about me, as if sent to do me homage; even the boughs of the majestic trees, as I passed them, seemed to wave me a welcome. Joy was in me and around me; there was no pause in my blissful feelings. I required no relaxation to enjoy them more perfectly, for pleasure seemed to succeed pleasure in infinite variety. It was too glorious to last. The end was approaching, and that end was very bitter.

  Chapter Fifty One.

  A short chapter and a miserable one — The less that is said of it the better.

  I had been living in the plantation nearly three months. My little wife, for such I held her to be, had made much progress in her education — more in my affection she could not. I had already put her into joining hand; and I began to be as proud of her dawning intellect as I was of her person and of her love. I had renounced my country, and, in good faith, I had intended to have held by her for ever; and, when I should find myself in a country where marriage with one born in slavery was looked upon as no opprobrium, I had determined that the indissoluble ceremony should be legally performed. To do all this I was in earnest; but, events, or destiny, or by whatever high-sounding term we may call those occurrences which force us on in a path we wish not to tread, ruled it fearfully otherwise.

  I religiously abstained from looking towards the ship, or even the sea; yet, I plainly saw, by the alternations of hope, and joy, and fear, on Josephine’s sweet countenance, that something of the most vital importance was about to take place. They could not conceal from me that parties of men had been searching for me, because, for a few days, I had been in actual hiding with Josephine, three or four miles up the woody mountain. I must hurry over all this: for the recollection of it, even at this great lapse of time, is agonising. The night before the Eos sailed she would not sleep — her incessant tears, the tremulous energy with which clasped me and held me for hours, all told the secret that I wished not to know. All that night she watched, as a mother watches a departing and first-born child — tearfully — anxiously — but, overcome with fatigue, and the fierce contention of emotions, as the morning dawned, her face drooped away from mine, her clasping arms gradually relaxed, and, murmuring my name with a blessing, she slept. Did she ever sleep again? May God pardon me, I know not!

  I hung over her, and watched her, almost worshipping, until two hours after sunrise. I blessed her as she lay there in all her tranquil beauty, fervently, and, instead of my prayers, I repeated over and over again my oath, that I would never desert her. But some devil, in order to spread the ashes of bitterness through the long path of my after-life, suggested to me that now, as the frigate had sailed for some time, there could be no danger in taking one last look at her; indeed, the thought of doing so took the shape of a duty.