The Marquise had indeed cause for uneasiness as to the condition of her plantation, although she had never before hinted so much to her daughter, and indeed, like the generality of people who live on the crust of a volcano, she forced herself to ignore the danger of which she was yet uncomfortably conscious. For some time, perhaps ever since the arrival of the Italian overseer, there had been symptoms of discontent and disaffection among the slaves. The work indeed went on as usual, for Bartoletti was unsparing of the lash, but scarce a week passed without a runaway betaking himself to the bush, and vague threats, forerunners of some serious outbreak, had been heard from the idlest and most mutinous of the gang when under punishment. It would not have been well in such difficulties to relax the bonds of discipline, yet it was scarcely wise to draw them tighter than before. The Marquise, however, came of a race that had never yet learned to yield, and to which, for generations, the assertion of his rights by an inferior had seemed an intolerable presumption that must be resisted to the death. As her slaves, therefore, grew more defiant she became more severe, and of late the slightest offences had been visited with the utmost rigour, and under no circumstances passed over without punishment. It was an unfortunate time therefore that poor Fleurette had chosen to be detected in the abstraction of a turkey ready plucked for cooking, and she could not have fallen into worse hands than those of the pitiless Italian overseer. The Marquise had scarce concluded her warning, ere Bartoletti entered the sitting-room with his daily report. His manner was extremely obsequious to Madame de Montmirail, and polite beyond expression to Mademoiselle. The former scarcely noticed his demeanour at any time; the latter observed him narrowly, with the air of a child who watches a toad or any such object for which it feels an unaccountable dislike. Cerise usually left the room soon after the Signor entered it, but something in her mother’s face on the present occasion, as she ran her eye over the black book, induced her to remain. The Marquise read the punishment list twice; frowned, hesitated, and looked discomposed. “It is her first offence?” said she, inquiringly. “And the girl is generally active and well-behaved enough.” “Pardon, Madame la Marquise,” answered Bartoletti. “Madame forgave her only last week when she lost half-a-dozen of Mademoiselle’s handkerchiefs, that she had taken to wash; or _said_ she lost them,” he added pointedly. “Oh, mamma!” interposed Cerise, but the Marquise checked her with a sign, and Bartoletti proceeded. “One of her brothers is at the head of a gang of _Maroons_,[6] who infest the very mountains above our cane-pieces, and another ran away to join him last week. They say at the Plantation we _dare_ not punish any of the family, and I am pledged to make an example of the first that comes into my hands.”