Besides the twenty guns decorating her sides, the Calypso possessed two rear-facing, long-range cannons capable of firing thirty-six-pound balls. Jacques liked to hoist just enough sail to keep the pursuing ship in range of these, and at the first sign of enemy shot he would use all his old gunnery skills to wreak havoc on the opposing vessel. He would keep going in this way until the game of skittles, as he cheerfully referred to it, grew tiresome. Then, deeming his battered pursuer to be sufficiently punished, he would order all sails hoisted and, with a parting shot or two in farewell, skim away over the waves like a giant seabird.
Escapades such as these earned Jacques and the Calypso a reputation that made them rather unwelcome in many ports. The sly captain became a master of deception, disguising his ship and giving her an innocent name such as Belle Jenny or Jeune Olympe. They had come from loading tea at Canton, he would claim, or coffee at Mocha, or spices at Ceylon. He would display samples of these cargoes, take orders for more, and advertise berths for passengers. Dressed in a long waistcoat and broad-brimmed hat, Jacques was the very image of an honest sailor from Bretagne. At other times the Calypso would be transformed into a French military vessel: the Sphynx, perhaps, or the Léonidas. The crew donned uniforms, and the ship sailed graciously into port, flying the white flag and firing courteous salutes that were returned in kind. On these days Jacques would dress in his predecessor’s clothes and assume the character of a crotchety old sea dog, swearing and grumbling, or, if the mood struck him, that of a dashing young officer fresh from the academy. He called himself M. de Kergouran as the old man and M. de Champ-Fleury as the young one; he mumbled and squinted and limped. The act would have been seen through immediately in a French or English port, but it was wonderfully successful in Cuba, or Martinique and Guadeloupe, or Java.
Jacques cared nothing for speculations or schemes; he spent his profits on luxuries in Visapour and Guzarato and became almost as good a judge of diamonds as he was of Negroes. He wore a pouch full of gems at his belt, and if he ran out of ready money he simply withdrew a glittering stone as big as a hazelnut and sold it to some Jewish trader at the market price. Often, like Cleopatra, who ate and drank the pearls and diamonds given to her by Antony, he consumed a very expensive meal. It was not uncommon for him to be carrying two or three million francs’ worth of jewels on his person at any given time, and his unorthodox way of saving allowed him to store a good deal more with ease. He had learned much during his career, and he knew that his was a profession frowned upon by many—and that ill fortune might befall him at any moment.
In the meantime it was, as I have said, a very enjoyable life, and Jacques would not have exchanged his place with that of a king. He would have been perfectly happy—were it not for thoughts of his father, and of Georges. One bright morning he could resist temptation no longer. After picking up a shipment of Negroes in Senegambia and the Congo and moving down the coast to pick up cargo from Mozambique and Zanzibar, he decided to make a visit to île de France to see if his father was still there and if his brother had returned. As he approached the coast, he had made the signals usually used by slave ships, and had received the expected signals in return. The incredible part of it was that these signals had been exchanged between father and son. By that evening he found himself not only back on the shores of his native land, but—better yet—in the arms of those he had come to seek.
XV
PANDORA’S BOX
The happiness of the Munier family at being unexpectedly reunited after such a long separation may be imagined. Naturally, Georges’s European-educated heart had given a lurch of regret when he learned that his brother was a trader in human flesh, but this quickly gave way to the simple joy of seeing Jacques again. As for Pierre Munier, an islander born and bred, he did not give his elder son’s profession a second thought. He had both of his boys with him again; that was all that mattered.
Jacques returned to Moka for the night with his father and brother as if it were nothing, and the little family talked late into the night, sharing their most intimate feelings with one another. Pierre Munier was so happy to be back together with his sons that he could speak of nothing else; Jacques spun tales of the exotic adventures and pleasures of the life he had carved for himself. Georges, though, talked only of his love.
Pierre Munier was so shocked at his younger son’s words that he shook from head to foot. His boy, a mulatto—the son of a mulatto—in love with a white woman? And so sure that he would win her, too! It was unspeakable, unheard-of audacity; nothing like it had ever happened on île de France. Pierre Munier felt horribly certain that no good could come of the matter. Georges was inviting all the wrath of heaven and earth down upon his own head.
As for Jacques, he saw no reason why his brother shouldn’t love a white woman—though he preferred black ones himself, and laid out his reasons for this most eloquently indeed. Still, Jacques was the sort of fellow who understood that every man had his own taste; moreover, he thought his brother—handsome, wealthy, and cultivated—worthy of aspiring to the hand of any white woman he chose, even if she were Aline, queen of Golconda! Accordingly, he told Georges that if M. de Malmédie refused to bestow Sara upon him as a bride he would carry her off himself, aboard the Calypso, and take her to some remote spot where she and Georges could live in untroubled marital bliss. Georges thanked his brother, smiling, but he had another plan in mind.
The next day all three Muniers were up before sunrise, so anxious were they to meet and resume their conversation, telling one another the things they had forgotten to say the night before. Around eleven o’clock Jacques decided he wanted to visit some favorite places from his childhood, and suggested that his father and brother accompany him on a stroll around the estate. Pierre Munier agreed, but Georges begged off. He was waiting for news from town, as we know, and he had an appointment to keep with Miko-Miko at the house.
At the agreed-upon time, Georges saw his visitor approaching the house. The Chinese man carried his bamboo rod and baskets, just as if he was on an errand of business—indeed, businessman that he was, he had hoped he might encounter a willing buyer along the way to the plantation. Heart pounding, the young mulatto opened the door at Miko-Miko’s knock. The man had just come from seeing Sara—surely he would have news of her!
Everything had happened exactly as planned. Miko-Miko had been granted immediate entry into M. de Malmédie’s house where the servant Bijou, who had watched Sara purchase the ivory fan from him a few days earlier, had conducted him at once to mademoiselle’s room. Sara had given a slight start at the sight of the peddler; he naturally stirred up memories of her first glimpse of Georges. She received Miko-Miko graciously, though to her dismay she was obliged to rely on hand signals and nods of her head to communicate with him. When he produced Georges’s calling card, her cheeks flushed crimson. Clearly her lover, unable to come to her in person, was using this bit of paper to tell her she was in his thoughts. Without bothering to bargain with the Chinese merchant, she bought every one of the items Georges had written down. As for the card itself, Miko-Miko did not ask for it back—and Sara was all too happy to keep it.
As he left Sara’s apartments, Miko-Miko had been waylaid by Henri, who took him aside to examine his collection of trinkets. He bought nothing for the moment, but made it clear to the Chinaman that as mademoiselle was to be his bride, he would soon have need of all the charming frippery the peddler could provide.
Miko-Miko was delighted, not only at the promise of future business but because his encounters with Sara and Henri had allowed him to observe their house in great detail. His bald cranium concealed a remarkable brain, and he now had a perfect architectural plan of the home imprinted on his memory.
The Malmédie town house had three entrances. The principal door, as we have already seen, opened onto the small footbridge that connected the home with its magnificent gardens. Another, on the opposite side of the house, led to a small, tree-lined path that led in turn to the bustling ru
e du Gouvernement. The third door was a side entrance, and opened directly onto rue de la Comédie. Entering the mansion through the main door, visitors found themselves in a large, square courtyard, planted with mango trees and Chinese lilacs whose leaves shaded the inner door of the sprawling home. The Negro servants’ quarters were to the right of the courtyard; the stables to the left. Still farther to the right was a large pavilion guarded by a magnificent sculpted dragon, and facing it was another suite of small rooms also intended for use by the slaves. On the far left was the side door that opened onto rue de la Comédie, and to the right of that was a passage leading to a little staircase and a tree-lined terrace, affording a view of the stone façade of the theater.
The sharp-eyed reader will note that the dragon pavilion was separated from the main body of the house by the passageway containing the staircase. The pavilion was, as it happens, Sara’s habitual retreat. It had four sides, one of which was connected to the slave quarters; the three others faced the fragrant courtyard, the passageway with the staircase, and a large and nearly empty shipyard, respectively. This shipyard faced the river on one side and a windbreak of trees on the other, which rose about a dozen feet above the floor of the yard itself. Two or three houses were built against the other side of the alley, their slanted roofs offering—to anyone who might wish it—easy and secret access into the shipyard. The pavilion also had three windows; one opened near the door of the house, another on the passage, and the third on the shipyard.
As Miko-Miko recited these details, Georges smiled three times—once when the Chinaman told him Sara had kept his calling card; once when Sara’s forthcoming marriage to Henri was mentioned; and once when told he could easily enter the pavilion unseen, through the window that opened onto the shipyard. Giving Miko-Miko a sheet of paper and a pencil, he asked the peddler to draw the Malmédie house exactly as he had just described it. Then, taking another sheet of paper and a pen, he sat down and wrote a letter. When it was finished, he went to his room and brought back a little jewel box worthy of Mme de Pompadour herself. Placing the letter inside, he closed and locked the box and handed it and the key to Miko-Miko. After receiving a few final words of instruction from Georges, the Chinaman hefted his bamboo pole and baskets and went away as he had come, disappearing down the tree-lined avenue that connected the Munier plantation with the Moka road.
Just then Jacques and Pierre Munier returned, entering the house through a rear door. Georges, who had been preparing to set off in search of them, stopped in surprise. There were clouds gathering in the sky that warned of a storm, Jacques explained. As much as he trusted Master Tête-de-Fer, he loved the Calypso too dearly to leave her in anyone else’s care, even his lieutenant’s, under such circumstances. Climbing to the top of Mont Pouce, he had seen his ship standing barely two leagues off the coast; he had signaled Ironhead from there, and the first mate was sending a skiff to retrieve his captain. Jacques had returned home merely to bid his brother farewell.
Pierre Munier, understandably upset, pleaded with his elder son not to go. “I must, Father,” said Jacques, gently yet firmly enough that his father immediately understood that there was no point in arguing further.
As for Georges, he identified with his brother’s single-minded determination so completely that he didn’t even attempt to dissuade him from returning to the Calypso. He and Pierre would accompany Jacques as far as the opposite slope of Mont Pieterboot, he said. From there they would be able to watch his skiff as it was rowed toward the Calypso, and thus be sure he made it back to his ship safely.
The three Muniers set out directly, taking little-known back roads to the mouth of the rivière des Calebasses. There Jacques took his leave of the cherished father and brother with whom his visit had been all too brief. He would come back, he promised, as soon as he possibly could. An hour later his skiff pushed away from shore, carrying him back to the ship he loved so fiercely that he was bound to protect her, or die in the attempt.
Georges and Pierre Munier watched as the little boat reached the Calypso and her captain climbed aboard. Almost immediately the sails were hoisted and the ship rounded île de Sable and bore away northward at top speed. Jacques was gone. Meanwhile the sea and the sky grew more and more threatening. Waves dashed violently against the shore, and the water rose rapidly even though it was hours away from full tide. The skies darkened and filled with heaving masses of dark clouds, and the wind howled in gusts toward the east and south. To anyone but a sailor, all of this meant nothing except that an ordinary storm was on the way, of the kind that threatened île de France several times each year. By the time Georges and Pierre Munier reached home, however, the barometer had fallen below twenty-eight degrees, and they were obliged to acknowledge Jacques’s sharp eye.
Pierre Munier quickly gave orders for all the manioc stalks to be cut away, so that the roots at least might be saved, while Georges instructed his manservant to have Antrim saddled at eight o’clock that evening. “Why on earth do you need to saddle your horse, Georges?” Pierre Munier asked in some alarm.
“I have an appointment in the city at ten o’clock that I must keep, Father.”
“Impossible!” cried Pierre Munier.
“I must, Father,” said Georges quietly, in a resolute tone that echoed the one Jacques had used earlier. Pierre Munier’s shoulders drooped in resignation, and he said no more.
During all this time Miko-Miko had been carrying out the task Georges had given him. Immediately upon his arrival in Port Louis, he went to the home of M. de Malmédie. On his way into town he had seen the well-to-do father and son down at the docks, watching the captains doubling the moorings of the ships lying at anchor there in preparation for the coming storm. The peddler was confident, therefore, that he would be able to enter the Malmédie residence without arousing suspicion. The servant Bijou, who had already seen Miko-Miko doing business with both Mademoiselle Sara and Monsieur Henri that day, led him unhesitatingly to the future mistress of the house—who was, as usual, seated in the pavilion.
As Georges had foreseen, the young beauty’s attention was immediately drawn to the charming Boule jewel box Miko-Miko offered her. Taking it into her hands, she turned it over and over, admiring the exterior, and then tried to open it so that she could see the inside. Finding it locked, she asked the peddler for the key. He made a great show of searching his pockets for it, finally indicating by means of hand gestures that he did not have it. Signaling that he would return in ten minutes with the key, he left the box with Sara and disappeared.
Instead of going home, though, once inside the Malmédie house Miko-Miko gave the key—which had been in his pocket all the time—to Bijou, who went out to the pavilion with it just as Sara was examining the jewel box for the hundredth time. Asking no questions, she took the key eagerly from the servant—who then hurried to close all the shutters in the house against the winds of the oncoming hurricane. Child-like in her eagerness, Sara wasted no time in unlocking the box. It contained only a single slip of paper, folded twice.
She hesitated for an instant, but there could be no doubt who had sent the mysterious note. Curiosity, and love, got the better of her. Cheeks flushed and heart pounding, Sara unfolded the paper and read these words:
Sara,
There is no need for me to tell you I love you; you must know that already. I have dreamed my whole life of meeting someone like you. Sometimes, in this world, there are moments of supreme importance—when everything we know about society must crumble in the face of awesome and absolute necessity.
Sara, do you love me?
Think of what your life will be with M. de Malmédie, and weigh it carefully against the life you would have with me.
With him, you will want for nothing.
With me, you must share the burden of the prejudices I face.
But I will tell you again—I love you, more than any other man ever has, or ever will.
I know that M. de Malmédie is anxious to make you his bride; ther
e is no time to waste. You are free, Sara. Look into your heart, and decide between Monsieur Henri and me.
I will regard your decision as sacred. Tonight, at ten o’clock, I will come to the pavilion to receive it.
Georges
Sara glanced around, terrified. It seemed that Georges might appear at any moment. Just then the door opened—revealing not the young mulatto, but Henri de Malmédie. Hastily the girl concealed Georges’s letter in her bosom.
Henri was usually rather luckless in his advances toward Sara, and this was no exception, as he now happened upon her at a moment when her head was reeling with thoughts of another. “I beg your pardon for intruding upon you this way, my dear Sara,” he said. “But after all, in a fortnight we will be husband and wife! I daresay it’s all right for me to take a liberty or two! I’ve come to tell you that if there are any pretty flowers in the garden especially dear to you, you should get them to shelter as quickly as you can.”
“Why?” murmured Sara, distractedly.
“Don’t you know there’s a hurricane coming? No living thing will be safe outdoors tonight.”
“What?” Sara cried, thinking immediately of Georges. “You think it will be dangerous?”
“Well, not for people safely behind solid walls,” said Henri. “But the poor devils living in huts or traveling the roads will have something to worry about. I wouldn’t trade places with them; that’s certain.”
“Do you—do you really think it will be so bad, Henri?”
“Lord, yes! Don’t you hear the filao trees in the garden? The wind is howling through them like a banshee—a sure sign that a storm is on the way—and look at that sky! You’d better bring your flowers inside, Sara, and quickly. I’m going to see about my dogs.” With that, Henri left her alone.
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