Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, page 69 by Various Authors
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r her to live or die? Dis-moi, dis ce que tu veux!"
The man answered slowly, as if the words were forced from him against his will, but still with an accent of truth and a certain amount of energy: "Love her? Jesu! yes, I do love her. It seems drôle for one of us to talk about loving these cursed whites, who treat us worse than dogs; but, for all that, I do love madame."
The woman almost shook him as she said in a whisper of concentrated fury, "Who saved your life, Pierre Lambas, when you were perishing with smallpox? Who went to New Orleans to buy your wife and children from a cruel master and bring them here to you? Who watched by Sophie when she was in convulsions?"
Her voice broke and her fingers relaxed their hold, but this time Pierre answered without hesitation: "C'était-elle, je le sais bien--I know it well."
"Then," pursued Marcelline, "you are willing to stand by and see her slowly murdered, inch by inch, by this white-faced devil, who leans over her and professes to love her, but is killing her--killing her, Dieu des dieux!--with hunger and thirst?" Her voice shook so that she could scarcely speak as she concluded.
"How do I know," asked Pierre slowly, after a long pause, "that what you think about this may not be a mistake?" Marcelline made an impatient gesture, but he went calmly on: "They say Mons. Alphège is a good doctor, and that he is fond of sa belle-mère. How can I take a man's life on a mere suspicion?"
She almost flew at him in her frenzy, but the darkness so shielded her that he did not see the movement, which was as well. She controlled herself instantly, and only said in reply, "Thou hast not been always so careful of white life, mon ami--so unwilling to shed white blood."
"Ah, bah!" retorted he: "that was when I could not be detected, and when more than life was in question. But now to kill this man would be to suffer death myself in the next hour, and to know that my wife and children were punished as w