When she was thus lost in voluptuous daydreams, Sara’s cheeks would flush deeply and vividly pink. Her blooming face, so different from the pale and expressionless visages of the other Creole women, led the nickname-loving Negroes of île de France to call her—with typical poetry—the Rose of the rivière Noire.
Sara was gloriously happy that Sunday. The hours to come held the promise of the two things she loved best in the world: an afternoon spent outdoors in the countryside, and a glittering ball the following night.
X
THE BATH
At that time the island was not, as it is today, crisscrossed by roads that permit easy travel to the different parts of the colony. The only means of transport were the horse and the palanquin. Whenever Sara went into the countryside with M. de Malmédie or Henri it was invariably on horseback, for she was an experienced and skillful rider, and extremely fond of that form of exercise; Henriette, however, preferred the palanquin, so this was how Sara traveled when she was with her staid English governess. That Sunday, the two women set out in side-by-side palanquins, each borne by four well-built blacks and followed by four more. They were carried near enough to each other that they could converse easily through the curtains, while their attendants, secure in the promise of a sizable gratuity, sang loudly, thus announcing to passersby the generosity of their young mistress.
Sara and Henriette were a study in contrasts, both physical and moral. We have already become acquainted with the former: black-haired, black-eyed, and capricious, with teeth like pearls, delicate hands and feet, and a figure sylph-like in its grace. As for the latter, permit me now to say a few words about her.
She had been born in London as Henriette Smith, daughter of a professor who, intending her to be a teacher as well, had carefully instructed her in French and Italian from early childhood so that she spoke them with the ease of a native. Her father, like many members of his profession, had died in poverty, leaving Henriette, then twenty-five, talented but so poor that she had little hope of attracting a husband. A musician friend who was aware of her talent for languages suggested that they combine their skills to open a school for young women—but though each of them lavished attention and care on the endeavor, it proved unsuccessful, and the two were forced to dissolve their partnership.
Soon afterward, the wealthy father of one of Henriette’s erstwhile pupils received a letter from Monsieur de Malmédie of île de France, with whom he often conducted business. M. de Malmédie was looking for a governess for his young niece and wondered if his London friend might know anyone suitable. He promised a handsome salary in light of the fact that whoever accepted the position would have to leave Europe, and Henriette, poor and with no one and nothing keeping her in England, and facing the prospect of starving if she stayed, looked on the offer as a gift from heaven. She boarded the very next ship to île de France armed with letters extolling her virtue and talent, and M. de Malmédie, receiving her graciously, immediately put her in charge of the care and education of his niece Sara, aged nine.
Naturally, Henriette asked M. de Malmédie how he would like his young niece to be educated. He replied that it was entirely up to her—in fact, it was precisely because he didn’t wish to be bothered with such matters that he had hired a governess. She was an intelligent woman, he said; she should simply teach Sara what she knew. There was only one thing he required. The girl was irrevocably destined to become the wife of her cousin Henri, and it was very important that she never become attracted to any other man. M. de Malmédie desired the union for reasons other than his affection for both his son and his niece—more financial than familial. Sara was heiress to a vast sum that would more than double during her minority in the care of her uncle.
At first little Sara had been terrified of this new governess who had come from far across the sea. Henriette’s appearance was not, in truth, very reassuring. She was a tall, thin woman around thirty years of age, with a rather prim and spinsterish way of dressing. Cool-eyed, pale-skinned, and thin-lipped, she had ashy blond hair that did little to warm the overall effect. She was always immaculately dressed and coiffed; Sara had never once seen her in a nightgown, and she used to imagine that instead of sleeping in a bed like a mere mortal, Henriette spent her nights in the closet like a doll, emerging fully dressed each morning. For a long time these fears had the effect of prompting Sara to obey her governess to the letter. She learned some English and Italian, played the piano, the guitar, and the Malgache harp—her favorite over all other instruments, from which she drew sounds that enchanted the most famous Madagascar-born virtuosos on the island—with skill, and sang like a nightingale.
Even as Sara’s education proceeded, though, she retained everything that made her character unique—and so did Henriette, who did not alter from what God and her education had made her. Thus the two women, so different from each other, lived side by side, together yet separate. Despite this, they grew very fond of each other as the years passed. Each possessed excellent qualities, and Henriette developed a profound attachment to her young pupil, a sentiment that Sara returned fully. The governess often called the girl “my child,” while Sara, finding the terms miss and mademoiselle too cold for the affection she bore her governess, used the nickname ma mie—dear—Henriette.
There was one area in which Henriette’s tutelage was decidedly lacking. Her own education had focused exclusively on the intellect, and she had neither the taste nor the ability for physical exercise. Despite Sara’s repeated entreaties, the governess refused to take up riding; even Berloque, the quiet little garden pony, intimidated her. The narrow cliff roads, bordering sharp drops, made Henriette so nervous that she often went two or three leagues out of her way to avoid them. Boats, too, caused her nerves to jangle with anxiety. She was extremely prone to seasickness, and claimed that she had not been well a single day of the voyage from Portsmouth to Port Louis, which had taken a full four months. You will probably not be surprised, then, when I tell you that she existed in a constant state of worry about young Sara. The girl rode like an Amazon, bounded about the rocky hillsides like a gazelle, and swam like a mermaid, often disappearing momentarily into the cool depths—and as Henriette’s poor heart fluttered in terror, she resembled nothing so much as an unfortunate chicken who has adopted a swan and must now watch as her charge swims for the first time while she stays on the riverbank, uncomprehending, clucking in disapproval at such willful risk taking.
At the moment, Henriette was being carried in a comfortable and very safe palanquin—but even then she was preoccupied with worry, whereas Sara chattered rapturously about the pleasures of the ball to come. It was a magnificent May morning, spring for us but autumn in île de France, when nature prepares itself to be flooded with rain and bids a fond good-bye to the sun, and as the women progressed the landscape grew ever wilder and more lush. Crossing the bridges fording both the source of the rivière du Rempart and the waterfalls of the rivière du Tamarin, whose fragility made Henriette shiver, they wound around the foot of Trois-Mamelles. Told that Sara’s uncle and Henri were out hunting with friends between the Great Basin and the Plains of Saint-Pierre, they crossed the small rivière du Boucaut and passed the rushing rivière Noire. Finally, there was the country house of M. de Malmédie.
Sara ran to say hello to the house staff, whom she had not seen in a fortnight, and to visit her aviary, an immense wrought-iron enclosure filled with Guida turtledoves, fig trees, fondijalas, and flycatchers. Her next stop was the garden, which boasted a multitude of flowers originally brought from Paris: tuberoses, Chinese carnations, anemones, Indian roses—and that tropical jewel, the immortal Cape amaranth. The garden was enclosed by hedges of frangipane and Chinese rosebushes, which flowered all year long. This was Sara’s kingdom; here she was queen.
As long as her charge remained in the gardens, Henriette could relax and stroll along the smoothly graveled paths—but her repose was short-lived. Sara spoke to the old mulatto woman who had nursed her as a baby and
now lived in dignified retirement at the country house, kissed her favorite turtledove, laced a few flowers into her dark hair, and then declared it time to go out. Thus poor Henriette’s anxieties began all over again.
When Sara was younger, Henriette had tried mightily to curb the girl’s restless, independent spirit and introduce her to life’s more sedate pleasures—but in vain. Sara always managed to escape, and if the governess refused to accompany her on one of her rambles, she simply went alone. Eventually Henriette’s desire to watch over her charge had triumphed over her personal uneasiness. She usually contented herself with sitting where she could watch Sara as the girl climbed up and down the hills, and as long as the two were within earshot, Henriette was relatively content. Today the two women set out as usual—the elder with a book and a resigned sigh, and the younger with a flush of excitement on her blooming cheek.
However, it was not a walk that Sara had in mind. Today she wanted to go swimming in the beautifully calm and clear bay of the rivière Noire, where one could see twenty feet down in the depths and watch the madrapores burrowing in the sand and the various crustaceans walking among the waving sea plants. Sara had been careful, as usual, to tell dear Henriette nothing of her plan—but the old mulatto nurse had been told, and she waited with the girl’s bathing costume at the indicated spot.
Sara and Henriette made their way down along the banks of the river, which widened until the bay appeared before them, shimmering like an enormous mirror. Dense clusters of tall trees bordered each side of the water like so many columns holding up the vast blue canopy of the sky through which only an occasional ray of sunlight penetrated, their roots twining serpent-like around the rocks. Where the riverbed grew wider, the trees on the two banks leaned forward, taking advantage of the space created by the water, and formed a sort of gigantic tent. The whole place held an air of dark mystery; the only sounds to be heard were the rasping squawks of the gray-headed parrots; the only animals to be seen were a few of those reddish monkeys called aigrettes that were so plentiful on the island that numerous attempts to destroy the population had failed, and an occasional bright-green kingfisher that shot up, frightened by the women’s footfalls, to disappear again into the foliage on the other side of the river. Mangrove vines stretched across the water like arrow shafts, brilliant as emeralds, to disappear among the tangled vines on the other bank. Sara loved places like this; their harmony of tree and rock and river, and their savage beauty and profound solitude, made her heart sing. She understood this primitive scenery in some deep corner of her soul. No paintbrush or pen could possibly reproduce such a landscape, but it was reflected in Sara’s mind and in her heart.
Even Henriette was not immune to such a magnificent spectacle; she viewed it with admiration, but her principal thoughts were always of the girl who was her charge.
They reached the summit of a small hill, and Henriette seated herself here to keep an eye on Sara, who leapt like a wagtail from rock to rock toward the water. With a sigh, she pulled the tenth volume of Clarissa Harlowe—her favorite novel—from her pocket, and began to reread it for perhaps the twentieth time.
Meanwhile Sara made for the clump of bamboo trees where the mulatto nurse waited for her. Having retrieved her bathing costume, she stepped to the water’s edge and looked around with the shyness of a classical nymph. Eventually, having ascertained to her satisfaction that there was no one else around, she took off her garments and draped herself in a tunic of white linen that fell to her knees, leaving her arms and legs bare and unencumbered. She was the very image of the goddess Diana as she stood on the riverbank, preparing to enter her bath.
Climbing onto a rock that overhung a deep spot in the bay, Sara dove into the water and swam a few yards before resurfacing. She headed toward a large boulder that marked a very deep spot, confident in her own strength and mastery of the element in which—rather like Venus—she had, after a fashion, been born. She plunged and resurfaced, moving away from the place where she had entered the water. A moment later, on the riverbank, Henriette raised her head as she heard someone call her name once, then twice. It was Sara, and the governess, resisting what she knew would be a futile urge to call the girl back to shore, stood and stepped to the water’s edge so that she might see her more clearly. The lovely mermaid, treading water, gestured toward the woods excitedly, and Henriette was soon able to make out the howling of a distant pack of hounds, which grew louder every second. All at once, about two hundred feet above the place where Henriette was standing, a majestic stag burst from the underbrush, springing across the river in a single bound and disappearing among the trees on the opposite bank. The dogs followed an instant later, splashing through the water and into the woods after their prey.
Sara, in the bay, had watched the spectacle with the excitement and delight of a true huntress. She let out a cry of joy—but the next instant her cry was answered with a heartrending shriek of terror. Henriette turned in alarm to see the old mulatto woman standing silent as the statue of Horror, pointing mutely at a gigantic shark about sixty feet away from the girl, its dorsal fin clearly visible above the water as it swam lazily toward her. Too horrified even to scream, Henriette sank to her knees on the grassy bank.
Sara had turned at the mulatto nurse’s cry and seen the danger that threatened her. With admirable calm, she struck out for the nearest shore, but it was at least forty feet away. She was a strong swimmer, but her chances of reaching the bank before the shark overtook her were slim indeed.
Just then, another cry rang out. A Negro, clenching a long knife between his teeth, appeared from among the trees and dove between the tangled mangrove roots into the bay. With strong, sure strokes he swam nearly a third of the bay in an instant, in an attempt to intercept the path of the shark, which was now only a short distance away from its intended prey and was swimming frighteningly fast, with easy flips of its tail, toward Sara. She stared at it and at her would-be rescuer as they both raced toward her.
Henriette and the mulatto nurse, waiting together on the riverbank, were breathless and frozen with fear and suspense. Their position on a high rock allowed them an all-too-perfect view of the terrible scene below them. Their arms were extended toward the girl they loved, but they both knew they were powerless to save her and cried out with alternating fear and hope. Fear soon won out. Despite the efforts of Sara’s rescuer, the shark now appeared to be closing in on her; there were only a few feet between them now; the Negro was still twenty feet behind the monster. The girl, pale as death, could hear the beast’s tail as it lashed the water, bringing it ever nearer. She shot a last, desperate glance at the shore; there was no way she would reach it in time. Raising her eyes heavenward, she gasped a brief prayer. Only God could save her now.
Just as the shark opened its great jaws to tear into the girl, there was a sound like an explosion, and the animal rolled over in the water, its white belly gleaming. Henriette, who had squeezed her eyes shut in dread of the horrible spectacle about to take place, opened them as a second blast cracked the air. The governess heard a sonorous voice behind her utter two calm words: “Good shot.”
Turning, she saw a young man grasping the branch of a cinnamon tree in one hand and a still-smoking rifle in the other. He stared past her, watching the shark as it convulsed in the water and then turned to attack the nearest victim—Sara’s erstwhile rescuer. The Negro dove at the beast’s approach, disappearing under the waves with the animal in single-minded pursuit. The surface of the water, churning, turned red with blood. It was obvious that a struggle to the death was raging in the depths.
Meanwhile, Henriette ran to the river’s edge and slid down the rocks to extend her hand to the exhausted Sara. Scarcely able to believe that she had escaped death, the girl had no sooner emerged from the water than she sank to her knees, the governess at her side in a near-faint of shock and relief. When the two women had recovered sufficiently to raise their heads, the first thing they saw was Laïza, standing on the shore, his arms and
legs lacerated and bloody. The carcass of the shark floated in the bay. Sara and Henriette then looked up to the crag of rock where their rescuing angel had appeared, but he was gone. It didn’t matter; they had both seen his face and recognized him at once. It was the young stranger so recently arrived in Port Louis.
Sara now turned to the black man who had shown such great proof of his devotion to her. But after silently gazing at her for an instant, he vanished in his turn among the trees. Sara looked around for him, but in vain. He had disappeared, just as the stranger had.
XI
THE PRICE OF NEGROES
At the same instant M. de Malmédie and Henri rushed up to the women, followed by their fellow hunters. It was only then that Sara remembered she was half naked; blushing, she wrapped herself in a loose peignoir provided by the mulatto nurse and moved shakily, leaning on Henriette’s arm, her heart still hammering, to join her uncle and cousin.
The two men had been following their prey to the riverbank when they heard the two shots from Georges’s gun; thinking at first that it was one of their companions firing at a deer, they had looked in the direction from which the sounds had come—only to witness, vaguely and from a great distance, the final moments of the terrible scene I have just described.
Sara and Henriette now found themselves the center of attention. Asked what had happened, the governess found herself still too upset to speak; it was the girl who recounted her entire ordeal.
There is a substantial difference between actually seeing a horrible event and simply hearing it described, but here the rifle smoke still lingered in the air and the shark’s bloodied body still floated in the water, and Sara, the victim herself, told her story to great effect. The hunters gallantly assured her that they would have hastened to save her, and regretted that they had not reached the scene a few moments earlier; they could swim just as fast and shoot just as straight as the two saviors, no doubt. Sara listened politely, but a secret voice inside her insisted that no one could have rescued her except the two men who had.
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