"True, there are four of you, messieurs,... but there are five of us!" And I took a step forward and said, "Messieurs, I give you my word of honour that if the order is not signed within the next five seconds I will blow out the brains of all four of you, and I will begin with you, Monsieur le Lieutenant de Roi--honour to whom honour is due!"
I had turned deadly pale, but in spite of my pallor my face expressed immovable determination. The double-barrelled pistol which I held in my right hand was only a foot and a half off M. de Linières' face.
"Beware, monsieur!" I said to him: "I am going to count the seconds"; and after a pause I began, "One, two, three!..."
At this moment a side door opened and a woman burst into the room in a paroxysm of terror.
"Oh! my love, yield! yield!" she cried; "it is a second revolt of the negroes!..
And, saying this, she gazed at me with terrified eyes.
"Monsieur," began the commander of the fort, "out of regard for my wife...."
"Monsieur," I replied, "I have the profoundest respect for Madame, but I too have a mother and a sister and hope, therefore, you will have the goodness to send Madame away, so that we can thrash this matter out between men alone."
"My love!" Madame de Linières continued to implore, "yield! yield! I implore you! Remember my father and mother, both massacred at Saint-Domingo!"
I had not until then understood what she meant by her words, "It is a second revolt of negroes!"
She had taken me for a negro, from my fuzzy hair and complexion, burnt deep brown by three days' exposure to the sun and by my faintly Creole accent--if, indeed, I had any accent at all, from the hoarseness that had seized me. She was beside herself with terror, and her fright was easily understood; for I learnt, later, that she was a daughter of M. and Madame de Saint-Janvier, who had been mercilessly killed under her very eyes during a revolt. The situation was now too strained to be prolonged much further.
"But, monsieur," the commander exclaimed in despair, "how can I yield before one single man?"
"Would you like me, monsieur, to sign a paper attesting that you gave me the order with a pistol at your head?"
"Yes, yes! monsieur," shrieked Madame de Linières.