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.Her own eyes were soft, almost perhaps filled with tears.The schoolteacher.She regretted what must be done, because there were good muscles being wasted.But done it must be, for the good of all.For the discipline of all.And now the dying man cried out, time and again, and his own wail joined the chant of the slaves.But it lasted a surprisingly short time.He inhaled smoke and choked, and died, before his body was consumed.Yet must they sit there, and stand there, and watch, as the fire crackled and the smoke pyre reached upwards towards the clear blue of the heavens.Once I was a buccaneer, Kit thought, a common cutpurse, a creature of passion, who fought and robbed and raped while convulsed with passion.But now I am one of the elite.There is none higher than me in all the Caribee Isles.I live like a king, and I command like a king.And I punish like a king, as well, with slow and deliberate enmity.Did I not always dream of possessing such power?'Be sure the ashes are scattered, Passmore,' Marguerite said.She touched her horse's flanks with her heels.'You'll stay by my side, Kit,' she said, without looking over her shoulder.The horse was advancing towards the slave compound.'You'd go amongst them now?' Kit asked in wonderment.'Should I not, my darling?' Her voice was low.'It is my, our, daily duty, Kit.For even plantation owners have duties, alas.'Kit gazed at the slaves as they approached.Behind him the flames were roaring and the man was silent, and dead.The spectacle was over.The overseers were moving forward as well, barking their orders, and the foremen were taking their whips from their belts.The Negroes were falling into gangs with well disciplined obedience, but Kit saw to his horror that each man, and each woman, was armed with a sharp knife, almost a small sword, although it had no point and no guard to the haft.And now Marguerite was amongst them, and they stood to each side of her horse, touching their foreheads in eager humility, and averting their eyes.He drew level as they passed the last of the throng and gained the beaten earth of the compound itself.'They could have torn us to pieces in seconds.''I explained that to you, but a minute ago,' she said.'Because we are we, and they are they, it will never happen.They have brains, but only to feel, and fear, not to reason.Not to aspire to anything more than the food I allow them twice a day, and the mug of rum I allow them once a week.' She reined, and George Frederick stooped to allow her to place her boot in the centre of his back as she dismounted.Kit joined her, pulling the kerchief from his pocket to wipe the sweat from his neck and brow.Another foreman was waiting, an older man, this time, with grizzled hair and bent shoulders, and they were to inspect something Kit had not noticed before, a row of six frames set beyond the houses, placed in the ground like inverted hoops, although with square edges.From the crossbar of each of the frames there hung a naked body, and to his dismay he saw that only four of them were men; the other two were women.But disgust had not yet come upon him.It grew as he approached, and saw the marks on their backs, great gashes in the black skin, crimson trenches in which the blood had coagulated.He stared at Marguerite, and his mouth slowly opened in utter horror.Her expression had not changed; not even the faintest wrinkle marked her lip or her forehead.But she slowly pulled the glove from her right hand, and with a bared forefinger actually touched the wounds on the back of the first man.'Enough,' she said.'Salt.' She passed on to the next, again touching and this time even stroking the serrated flesh.'What of him?''He does curse, mistress,' the foreman said.'He does kick and curse you.''Another two dozen,' she said.The body quivered, but the man did not speak.'What crimes have they committed?' Kit asked.'Insubordination in the fields.' Marguerite was stroking the back of the third man, and commanding him to be cut down.Kit gazed at the blood on her hands.'Are you not afraid?' 'Of what?' She had reached the women.'Of.of disease?'Marguerite smiled.'It is good blood, Kit.Were they diseased, they would not have been in the fields in the first place.It is also our responsibility to care for that.Take these girls down,' she told the foreman.'No doubt they will behave in the future.''Yes, mistress.' He held out a towel, and a woman waited with a basin of water.Marguerite washed and dried her hands, and then led the entourage, like an inspecting queen, it occurred to Kit, towards another hut, larger than any of the others and set a little apart from them.But then, he realized, she is a queen, here on Green Grove, and I am no more than her consort.The door was being opened, and they stepped into the gloom.A noisome gloom, for although the interior of the house was carefully washed with lime, and quite recently, and there was clean straw on the floor, yet the smell of human sweat and human excrement could not be excluded.'Is this, then, your prison house?' Kit muttered.'We do not have a prison house,' Marguerite said.'The lash is sufficient for disciplinary purposes.'Now that his eyes were accustomed to the sudden end of the brilliant sunshine he could see that there were perhaps a score of people in here, men and women, lying on pallets on the straw, most trying to raise themselves on their elbows as their mistress came in, but several unable even to muster that much strength.One of the men following Marguerite ran forward with a three-cornered stool, and placed it beside the first of the sick men.Marguerite sat down, and leaned forward, over the trembling Negro, a young fellow, whose eyes rolled.'How is it today, Peter Thomas?' she asked, her voice like a soothing zephyr of breeze.Peter Thomas's eyes rolled some more.'Oh, man, mistress, it itch itch too bad.''But that is good, Peter Thomas,' she said.'It shows you are fighting the poison [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]