Ballyho Bey, or, The power of woman : (a sequel to "Susan Turnbull")

Front matter

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE&SONS, LIMITED

Fifteenth^ Routledge's Railway Liuim^ auv^uw, ^Issue.

HAIR PRESERVED & BEAUTIFIED

Chapter I. — Letters from Greece, - 5 II. — The Dream of Empire, - - 15

III.— For the Glory of God, - - 34 IV.— "Father, I Want You to Think

V. — Susan's Dream of Holiness, - 56 VI. — " Nov/ I Know How to Break

Your Heart," - - - 68

VII.—" Will the Spark Bring Fire? " 77

Book Ii.— Pursued By A Buccaneer

VIII.— "I Will Win That Soul Yet! " 89 IX. — The Three Giant Cocoanut

X.— Red Sam Doesn't Get His Kiss, 108

XI.— "You Go With Me to Greece," 124

XII. — The Caballeros of Habana, - 135

XIII.— Juggling With God, - - 145

XIV. — Priest and Warrior, - - 160

XV. — The Chase Across the Atlantic, 1 70

4 CONTENTS.

Book Iii.— The Land Of The White Skirts

Chapter XVI. — The Pasha of Two Horse- Tails, - - - - i So " XVII. — A Mainote Chief Prepares Greeting for Susan Turnbull, - - - - 190 " XVIII. — Danger to England's Flag, - 200 " XIX. — The Temptation of a Saint, - 213

XX.— "My Love Has Given Him c: XXII.— The Dirty Dervish of Kala-

XXIII.— "To You I Am All Nun!" -260

XXIV.— By the Pasha's Tent, - - 278

XXV.— The Battle of the Torches, - 286

'* XXVI.— The Nuptial Torch of Trefus-

sis the Lacedsemonian, - 299 " XXVII.— "Give Me the Cross !" - -306

THE POWEROF WOMAN.

BOOK I. Loving the Man

CHAPTER I.

LETTERS FROM GREECE.

It is toward the end of the year of our Lord 1769. In Andrew Turnbull, the English speculator and colonizer's, hamlet of New Smyrna in the British Plantations of Florida, there is a season of gayety and revelry — a saturnalia of torture and punishment. Gayety and revelry at the autocrat's pretty cottage, where his gallant soldier defenders are entertained by his piquant niece, Miss Susan, with much feasting and wine-bibbing — torture and punishment in Turnbull's barracoons, where his unhappy Greeks, enticed from their native country by his specious promises and made absolute slaves by their articles of indenture, are chastened for their late rebellion with much flogging of cat-o'-nine tails and cowhide. Also in the court-room of Justice Cutter, Turnbull's tool and sycophant, who is now drinking himself to death in despair over the loss of his cut-off ear, vengeance is being done upon the despairing Greeks who have dared to run away.

In the course of time a Grand J ury is appointed from St. Augustine. But it is not half as severe as the English speculator wishes, it only sentences five to death! and two General Grant, the British governor of the province of Florida, pardons, though he would like to be more severe with the rebellious slaves of his friend Turnbull, whom he is supporting with all the power England has placed in his hands — i.e., part of the Ninth regiment, sent down from St. Augustine to sub due the escaping Greeks.

To Irene Vannos, the beautiful daughter of the Greek merchant, transplanted so suddenly from London luxury and wealth to a state of absolute slavery, all this seems like a hideous nightmare. Even when suffering the smart and agonies of the whip — for her imperious mistress, Miss Susan Turnbull, still visits each disobedience or mistake of service on the beautiful object of her vengeance with cruel chastisement — it seems to Irene as if it were a horrible hallucination, from which she must awake.

She cries to herself: " It is not possible that I have been brought so low ! " She cannot realize that she will never see again, in all this life, Marco Tref ussis, the hero she loves, who is even now leading the Greeks, striving for freedom in the Peloponnesus. That despair is too great to be possible.

From this catalepsy she awakes with a start. The red-coated soldiers of England putting down the rebellion of those who have been enslaved by the same subtle arts that have made her flesh and blood the property of Miss Susan Turnbull, the judgments passed upon them by the Grand Jury, the legal hangings, the legal floggings, finally make Irene realize in all its immensity of horror the awful truth.

THE POWER OF WOMAN J

Gazing at the British officers, as they lounge about the veranda of the Turnbull house while she is employed in her mistress's chamber, the frantic girl mutters; "The power of England is against me! "

The de jure hanging of her fellow-slaves makes her cry out despairingly "My God! I am legally a bondmaid ! I am the lawful chattel 'of Miss Susan Turnbull. Even were Marco here, he could not rescue me from the power of my absolute owner, as enforced by the slave law of this colony; " for despite herself she has had some wild hopes of the message she had sent by the departing privateersman, Bocock, reaching her lover in far-away Greece, though between them roll all the Atlantic — all the Mediterranean.

With this conviction of her helpless captivity, her cruel divorce from even hope of love ; of her father's and mother's and sister's enslavement; of the filching from them of their fortune by their cruel mistress ; of the selling of her little sister, Clyte, to the Spanish slave-dealer — would come a despair that might drive the girl to madness or to suicide, were it not for the consolations of her religion, as she tells her beads; for Susan has never after her first day of slavery demanded her rosary. In addition, her servile duties are too severe to permit her time, even for thought.

Not that her tasks are so physically crushing; for Miss Susan compels from her maid only personal service to herself ; but the unceasing alertness necessary to catch the orders of her capricious mistress, given sometimes even by careless gesture, and their absolute accuracy of fulfillment, compel the girl's mind to constant attention upon every movement of Miss Turnbull when in attendance upon her, so as to save her self from slave's correction. And when relieved from fanning her luxurious autocrat through hot days and long nights, from the numerous deckings of her dainty mistress's body for fite and supper party, and for rides and drives with her attendant officer cavaliers, kindly nature gives the girl's wearied body sleep — the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, which relieves the tortured mind.

Besides, a slave is everybody's slave. Irene is compelled to courtesy and to hearken to the orders of the mulatto woman, Mrs. Catto, Susan's matron at the barracoon. If Miss Ross or Miss Penman, the daughters of near-by planters, visit her mistress, she is called from one to the other at their will. Likewise the British officers, lounging on the veranda, would amorously bid the beautiful slave bring lights for their cigars — if Miss Turnbull would permit it.

But guessing the treatment her lovely bondmaids would be apt to receive, their mistress keeps Irene, Natalie, Chloris and the rest, very closely and sedately when military gallants are about her mansion.

Perchance also Miss Turnbull would not care to see Irene's exquisite charms too constantly placed before the admiring eyes of these gentlemen of epaulet and sword ; for, from the dangers of war, she has now turned'to the delights of flirtation. The three officers, Baker, Brookes, and Fosdyke, are lounging about her pretty elbows, also Lieutenant Barrowe, of the British war-schooner Rattler, all trying to make her forget the departed blue-jacket privateer, Captain Dick Bocock.

The girl now feels herself a veritable queen in New Smyrna. Great compliments have been paid to her about her handling of the rebellion. Her success in this affair tends to give this young lady extreme confidence in herself. She believes she is born to rule, not only over slave barracoons, but over men in general — also her uncle, bluff, honest, tender-hearted Andrew Turnbull.

THE POWER OP WOMAN g

To him little Susan pertly says: " You're not a good business man."

" And why not, you saucy jade ?"

"You starve valuable flesh and blood — sometimes to death. How do you expect these Greeks in a hot climate, without sufficient food, to do tasks which would require the strength of able-bodied Jamaica negroes ? "

"Starvation keeps them under, my saucebox."

" Starvation kills them, and we want more hands. Instead of three thousand acres in indigo we should have six thousand, at least, this year, and more the next. We must double our working force."

" You mean more slaves from the Mediterranean ? "

"Yes; more Greek and Minorcan colonists," she jeers. "And when we get them we must feed more and flog less."

"Rule by moral suasion?" gasps Turnbull astonished.

" Oh, not at all. It is the certainty of punishment, rather than its severity, that makes it efficacious. Look at my wenches; not one would dare disobey even my glance of eye, and yet my ladies are all plump and pretty. Every morning I pray Heaven: More slaves! I'm going soon to make a shipment to the Havannah, and shall need," she laughs, "new goods in my barracoon. You know I'm having all my Greek and Minorcan women taught English ; it adds greatly to their value, and gives me a wider market for my chattels," continues this little female slave-trader.*

While Miss Susan has been crying out for more slaves, a favoring wind — fortune is now very kind to this young lady — is bearing to her a company of rich

* For account of Turnbull's extraordinary and novel colonization scheme at New Smyrna, Florida, A. D. 1767, when he made all his Greek emigrants his absolute slaves, see appendix to Susan Turnbull, Part I of the Power of Woman.

IO THE POWER OF WOMAN

trading Greeks. These, frightened by the first deep rumbles of war in the Peloponnesus, between the Hellenic patriots, aided by the Russian fleet, and their tyrant ruler, the unspeakable Turk, have taken passage on the Hope, one of Turnbull's vessels—the one that brought poor Alceste Vannos to New Smyrna — the one commanded by the stout, bluff, bullying Bullock.

It is not a large party, but quite a rich one. Some twenty or thirty men, with their wives and children — in all some sixty people — who have come, bringing their property with them, and believing in the English speculator's scheme for colonization, have signed his enslaving indentures.

The vessel drops anchor late at night. Turnbull, being summoned privately, goes on board and returns rubbing his hands, and very joyous.

"Here's something that will amuse you," chuckles Andrew. " A letter from our Eastern friend, Ballyho Bey," and puts the following under her eyes:

Modon, Greece, June 2r, 1769.

My well Beloved Andrew Turnbull:

Greeting you in the name of Allah, I give the Christian date; for, dash me, if I don't forget what year of Mahomet this is, though, by St. Patrick, I mean no disrespect to him.

But the truth is the infernal Greeks, aided by the Russians, are cutting up such a row here that I am thinking more of approaching plunder than of dates. Just wait — there's a good time coming for the poor Bey; though they talk about making me a Pasha soon, chiefly because I have put a stop to the doings of a certain Greek captain named Papasoglou, the agent of the bloody, Czar-murdering Orloffs, up in Maina, also a priest named Stephen, who pretends to be the assassinated husband of that Jezebel, Catherine of Russia. If I get hold of him, it will be the second time that gentleman will be murdered in hia lifetime.

Likewise I am very much bothered by a beast named Tre-

THE POWER OF WOMAN It

fussis, who has a band of Greek cut-throats up in the mountains back of me, and it is in that regard, friend Turnbull., that I write to you.

The rebel Trefussis came out from England with that spalpeen Alceste Vannos, who, as far as I can learn from rny guardboats, escaped to your vessel the night you left here. You remember, you both had dinner with me. After accepting my hospitality, the ungrateful scoundrel betrayed me. Now. I am anxious to lay my fingers on Vannos. His eldest daughter Irene is a very pretty girl, and perhaps I will pardon her father for her sweet sake, if he'll give her dower enough.

It is in this view I write you, to ask you to kindly forward Vannos by return ship to me. I have got better uses for the spalpeen in Greece than you can have for him in Florida.

Hoping you are having less trouble with your Greeks than I have been having with mine, for nothing here seems to please the beasts but killing them, I remain,

Yours, under Allah,

Ballyho Bey.

P. S. — There is also a balance of a hundred and fifty pounds due me. I let Bullock have half the last load on tick. Bally.

Over this Miss Turnbull laughs quite merrily.

Then she says significantly: "Ballyho seems still enamored of my maid, Irene;" next asks earnestly: "What does Captain Bullock report as to affairs in Greece ? "

"They're simply awful! Between the coming Russians and the despoiling Turks, the trading population who have any property are wildly crazy to leave their country," chuckles Andrew.

"Bravo!" cries Susan. "More slaves for us!" and murmurs: " These Greeks should be grateful to us for takjng charge of them and saving them from their murderous Ottoman masters."

"Apropos of that," guffaws Turnbull, "here is a letter Bullock brought over from Greece for your slave-girl Irene, who, lured from London gayety, is not probably as grateful to you as you suggest."

"For Irene ?" cries Miss Turnbull; and seizing the packet, reads:

For

Miss Irene Vannos,

38 Mincing Lane,

London,

England.

The captain of the Hope is petitioned to deposit this in the General Post at Malta or Gibraltar, if he touches at those points ; if not, to deliver it to some passing vessel ; failing this, to take it to New Smyrna and from there forward it to England, and he will have the blessings and, God permitting, the good offices of Marco Trefussis.

'Why, this is fun!" it's from my wench's lover, the Greek insurgent leader!" laughs Susan, who remembers the name. Then she inspects the packet, which bears the signs of difficult carriage through rough roads, having apparently been immersed in some mountain stream and being soiled with the fingermarks of some dirty though faithful Mainote mountaineer. Its seal, still unbroken, is stamped with the same Greek cross and motto, " Sweetheart and Country," that is upon her slave-girl's betrothal ring, which Miss Turnbull even now wears upon her dainty finger.

" I'll give that minx's heart another twist," she thinks savagely. "This will sting her more than my rod! "

Then the tyrant breaks the seal, to read a letter which makes her for a moment shiver: "Should he ever know the slavery and tormenting of this being he loves so dearly, this Trefussis is a man who would avenge her wrongs!"

For it is the letter of a patriot hero to his sweetheart, who has bidden him go forth to meet the oppressors of his country. Apparently almost a journal of Marco's life for the last few months, it depicts the awful state of Greece. The patriots in the mountains getting ready for the coming of the Russian fleet and uprising against the Ottomans. The commercial classes on the coast of the Peloponnesus and the islands of the ^Egean, in panic to escape and save their goods and chattels, and themselves from the slavemarkets of Constantinople and the chances of barbarous war between their oppressors and the coming Muscovite.

Withal the letter bears the impress of true love for the woman whom he addresses, and of that determined manhood in the writer that makes Miss Turnbull say, with a sigh of relief: "This indicates he thinks his sweetheart is living a safe and luxurious London life. Thank God he does not guess Irene is now my abject slave at New Smyrna, Florida ! "

" You think there's no danger of this man Trefussis ever knowing ? " mutters Andrew. " From what you've read to me of his letter, he seems to be one of those surly dogs that would make trouble for us with the English ministry in London."

" No ! He would kill us, if I read his letter right," answers Susan, her face for one moment growing pale. Then she laughs : "Pish ! In a year or two this Marco Trefussis will have been butchered by the Turks. Perhaps even now he is carrion;" adding with a dainty jeer : " But his note will serve to give Irene another pang."

With this ignoble idea in her mind, the little sybaritic tyrant passes to her luxurious chamber, and, ringing her bell, Irene and Chloris run in to her attendance.

"Chloris, get my bath ready, and my gown laid out for to-morrow morning," she orders imperiously. "Irene, disrobe me as I read this letter."

And her maid sinking at her feet, Miss Susan begins to again peruse the love words written to her chattel, who is now employed removing her autocrat's slippers and stockings.

Suddenly the mistress feels the delicate fingers which are even now unclasping her silken garters, tremble and clutch themselves upon her limbs, and glancing down, notes the eyes of Irene, beaming in agony like stars, fixed upon the handwriting of the manuscript in her hand.

"Oho! " she laughs. "You have noticed, my jade, that I am not only wearing your betrothal ring, but reading your billet-doux from the man who once pledged his troth to a free-born maid, who is now my slave-girl ! "

" O my God ! From Marco ! " gasps the girl, springing to her feet. "Marco! Give it to me — it is mine!" And forgetting bonds and stripes and fear of punishment, Irene Vannos seizes from her mistress's hand the letter of the man she loves. Then reading on it: "Yours till death, Marco Trefussis," she falls to kissing it and mocks her tyrant by ecstatic words: "Thank God, you've given me at least one moment's happiness!"

' ' Beware ! " mutters Susan, menacingly. ' ' My whip is nearer to you than your Greek evzone."

"Not nearer to my heart, Madame!" And Irene devours the words of love that have come to her from far away Greece.

"La! if you had left me to marry as /wished — had your babbling tongue allowed me to become my Lady Marchioness, I might have permitted you to wed the man you love ! " mutters Susan. Then some little pity coming to her as she notes the beauty of the creature who, robed as her slave, shows in her exquisite face, radiant with true, undying love, the graces and beauties that make her the adored of the man whose letter she is feasting upon, not only with eyes but with heart and soul, her mistress murmurs: " Go, gloat over your billet-doux. I pardon your insolence, for the valuable information your lost sweetheart has given me. "

And Irene darting away, Miss Turnbull goes to musing on the state of Greece. For Marco Trefussis's letter, stating the fear of all the rich and trading portion of the population, and their desperate efforts to fly from the coming war 'twixt Turkish tyranny and Muscovite barbarism, has put into this young lady's head a very bold ambition, such as would fly into a flippant brain made greedy by small successes — one of those dear little feminine strokes of genius that would be grandly successful in a petty plot, yet made dangerous by reason of its grandeur — which must array against it opposing outside interests, of which her woman's instinct takes no count.

Chapter II. The Dream Of Empire

This project very shortly is enforced upon Miss Turnbull by a very subtle feminine mind.

The next morning, dawdling over her dainty breakfast, Susan is joined by her uncle, who has come cheerily from the barracoon. To him she says eagerly : " How are the new importations — those that have just arrived on the Hope ? Their papers are all made out and signed correctly ? "

iC THE POWER OF WOMAN

"Straight as a trivet and legal as Blackstone," chuckles Andrew. " This morning at sunrise I had the new emigrants brought on shore. My gentlemen, screaming that they have been tricked, duped, and betrayed, are now at work under the overseers in my indigo fields."

" Before our friends, the Grand Jury, have opened their sleepy eyes this morning," laughs Miss Susan. " Especially that Bernard Romans, their foreman, who asks impertinent questions." Then she suggests to the butler: " Antoine, some more pompano a la Creole,'' and asks sweetly "Another cup of coffee, my dear uncle ?" next queries eagerly: "And my new ladies ?'*

" Safe under lock and key in the cells of your barracoon," answers Turnbull. " They're a fine lot of women; some are very beautiful, and several vastly accomplished."

" Ah, then some of them'll do for sale in Havannah :;nd the West Indies! "

"Quite right, my little slave-trader," laughs her uncle, patting her fair cheek; next adds jovially: "I have a present for you, Susie — a new slave-girl that will delight your eyes. "

"Yes, I have need of one or two other minxes to give me proper state and attendance," languidly remarks Miss Turnbull, whose pride of station has grown with her success. " You say she is beautiful ? "

"Venus and Hebe mixed! Educated at a French convent ; jabbers Italian, Spanish, and French perfectly, and English passably — so she told me with tears in her eyes. Sings like an opera woman, and dances like a play actress. Captain Bullock says she intended to go upon the stage, if she had not accompanied her brother to accept our New Smyrna hospitality," chuckles Andrew. "Besides, she styles herself 'La Comtesse Marie Rasselli ! ' "

"Pish! Titles are cheap in foreign parts," jeers Susan. "Send the wench up for inspection."

So, some two hours after this, Marie Rasselli enters into Susan Turnbull's life, producing in it some weird effects that make her tyrant, at various times, wish she had never seen her.

Miss Susan is in her library when the young lady is brought in to her. To her astonishment, Mademoiselle Rasselli drops a most humble courtesy and says, meekly: "My — my mistress, I believe, Madame."

"And you are ? "

"Your — your slave-girl, Marie!" The answer is given with drooping eyes and trembling lips.

"Then your servitude has been explained to you," says Susan, astonished at her captive's meekness.

" Certainly, Madame. It has been impressed upon me that I am your chattel, your personal property," replies the girl, apparently schooling herself to humility. Then, as if unable to restrain her anguish, she breaks out, jeering herself: " I, who was yesterday La Comtesse Marie Rasselli, of the best blood in Greece by my mother, and the noblest Venetian lineage through my father, have been compelled to know that I am your humble slave, my mistress," and makes obeisance even more abjectly than before.

"Oho! A mixture of the Doges and the Alcibiades and Epaminondases," laughs Miss Turnbull, who has little respect for any birth save Norman, Battle-of- Hastings descent, to which she bows down with middle class British reverence, as was the custom at that day.

" Diable, don't taunt me, Madame, with my gentle blood! " mutters the girl, then cries out: "Beware of my despair!" And tears fly into her lovely eyes, that are dried up suddenly by two wondrous sparks of some subtle passion, which Susan, gazing on, cannot understand; though she has seen many women — some of great refinement and education — enduring the first agony of enslavement.

"You naughty creature, don't dare to swear to me," says Miss Turnbull sternly.

But here her captive astonishes her again. She falters, as if frightened: "Please — please pardon me, my mistress; but it is not easy within a — a few hours, to thoroughly realize I am your personal property and humble serf." And Susan can see the slight hands tremble as Mademoiselle Rasselli drapes her dress humbly and sinks on one knee before her.

Feeling she is supreme, and wishing to impress her dominion, Miss Turnbull gives her chattel a half-playful, half-menacing slap upon the cheek, and says cheerfully, but commandingly: "Stand up! Let's have a look at you, wench ! "

Suddenly, at the smart — for Susan has meant her delicate fingers to sting — Marie's cheeks, which were pale as lilies, blaze red as poppies, and the exquisite eyes, drooping before, again glow with that subtle fire. But, as if by mighty resolution, Mademoiselle Rasselli murmurs: " Certainly, my mistress! " then adds, half meekly, half sneeringly: "I hope my figure, face, and mind will please you, Madame."

At command the new chattel, though there are now tears in her lovely eyes, stepping to a magnificent Broadwood harpsichord, accompanying herself, sings a French chanson with an execution, confidence, and voice so beyond the amateur that her mistress can't forbear exclaiming: "Magnificent! I like your singing very much! "

" Oh, that is what I desire, Madame! Of course my whole object in life must now be to please you, for from your hands I am to receive reward or punishment as you elect." Next she remarks, almost philosophically: "Though it is not so strange that I sing well, for, after leaving the convent, I took special lessons in music, thinking perhaps I would go upon the operatic stage. They tell me I would have made a success there; that I have that peculiar, careless, reckless, bizarre disposition necessary for artistic triumph. But I suppose you, my mistress," she goes on, a slight sarcasm in her soft voice, "will destroy all emotions in me, save those of obedience and fear."

"I will if you are pert! " returns Susan, severely, scarce thinking the tone of some of these remarks is sufficiently humble.

Then she commands: "Come to my chamber with me."

" A— aah! The — the examination of a slave," sighs Marie, biting her lip. Then suddenly she adds, in a kind of laughing jeer, though her cheeks are very pale and her lips twitching: "Of course, Madame wishes to know the full value of her property," and obediently follows Miss Turnbull to her private apartment, where she makes sweeping courtesy and murmurs: " At your very humble service, my — my owner."

To this Susan doesn't answer. She is too busy admiring the modish yet striking beauty of the girl, for Mademoiselle Rasselli, not having been placed in slave's uniform nor maid's livery, stands before her mistress, an example of fashion that is almost Parisian, and beauty that is vivaciously ethereal.

Dressed for landing in a summery clime, her serf is robed in lightest muslins, which draping, yet not concealing, the graceful symmetry of her superb bust and shoulders, are gathered together round a slight, graceful waist by zone of silk, embroidered with delicate wild flowers. From this belt float the light gauzes of her robe, looped up over an ample petticoat of white shimmering satin, extended by most fashionable hoop, from beneath which peep feet of fairy proportions and ankles of exquisite mould, hosed and booted in latest Parisian style.

Like most feminine faces of extreme loveliness, Marie Rasselli's is a mass of charming contradictions.

Piquantly vivacious, her exquisite brune eyes would be audaciously bright did not the knowledge of her just announced serfdom give a pathetic appealing expression to them.

Her cheeks would be lilies, were they not made roses by blushes of excitement mixed with the fear, the humiliation, and the shame of feeling she is in the presence of the being who owns her, body and soul. For all Mademoiselle Rasselli's actions this morning show she knows thoroughly Miss Turnbull's absolute power over her; as well she may, her brother, who had come out with her to this land, having been driven to slave's labor by the overseer's lash this very morning before her eyes.

Her lips also contradict each other; the upper one, a thin curve of beauty like an archer's bow, looking firm enough to repress the emotions of its more sensuous mate, which seems full of all the passions to which female flesh is heir.

Beneath is a figure of such supevb proportions that it would be statuesque were it not lightened by a dozen piquancies of gesture and movement, that are fairylike in agile grace, yet almost at times Oriental in subtlety.

A moment later, at stern command, the girl, blushing divinely, discards the great white satin hooped petticoat, and letting fall from her shining statuesque shoulders the muslins of her robe, gives to her mistress's admiring eyes the glorious beauty of an ivory Venus.

" La ! How docile my countess is ! " jeers Susan.

"Madame," says her chattel humbly, "I do not presume to dispute with you the manner in which you wish your own flesh and blood arrayed. Would you like your hair unbound ? " and she lets fall her shining tresses about her graceful figure. " Or your stays removed, and your shoes and stockings taken off your pretty feet?"

"No, you funny girl !" cries her mistress laughingly, passing her hands through wavy locks that, floating about the graceful head, are almost black in the shadows, yet golden bronze when tinted by the sun. ii Par die, you look handsome enough now."

So gazing on her fair captive, into Susan's slave-dealing eyes come joy, pride and avarice. Joy at the loveliness of her new slave ; pride that Marie is her property ; and avarice because she sees here a beauty that will fill the order of Don Sancho, the Spanish slave-dealer of Havannah, for the opulent planter of Guadaloupe.