"These things are not arranged by talking, monsieur," Murphy explained.

"This nightmare is following me! It's useless to treat the blacks well! They are all incorrigible."

"Be calm, brother-in-law," Sancho interrupted. "Nothing has happened yet. We are in Louisiana, not Saint-Domingue, where there were a half million up in arms Negroes and a handful of merciless whites."

"I must save Maurice. Get a boat ready, Murphy," Valmorain ordered. "I am going to the city immediately."

"No, not that!" yelled Sancho. "No one moves from here. We are not going to scurry away like rats. Besides, the river isn't safe; the rebelling blacks have boats. Monsieur Murphy, we are going to protect the property. Bring all the weapons you can lay hands on."

They lined up the weapons on the dining table, and Murphy's two older sons, thirteen and eleven, loaded them and then distributed them among the four whites, including Gaspard Severin, who had never pressed a trigger and could not aim with his trembling hands. Murphy looked to the slaves, locking the men in the stables and the children in the master's house; the women would not move from the cabins without their children. The majordomo and Tete took charge of the domestics, disoriented by the news. All the Louisiana slaves had heard the whites talk about the danger of an uprising, but they thought that happened only in exotic places, and could not imagine it. Tete charged two women with looking after the children, then helped the majordomo bolt the doors and windows. Celestine reacted better than expected, given her character. She had worked frenetically during the festival, quarrelsome and despotic, competing with the cooks from outside: "Lazy and impudent," she muttered, "being paid for what I am doing for free." She was soaking her feet when Tete came to tell her what was happening. "No one will be hungry," she announced, and with her helpers went into action to feed everyone.

They waited that entire day, Valmorain, Sancho, and the terrified Gaspard Severin with pistols in hand, while Murphy mounted guard in front of the stables and his sons watched the river to raise the alarm should it be necessary. Leanne Murphy calmed the women with the promise that their children were safe in the house, where they had been given cups of chocolate. At ten o'clock that night, when they were so fatigued that no one could keep on their feet, Brandan, the eldest of the Murphy boys, came on horseback with a torch in one hand and a pistol at his waist to announce that a patrol was approaching. Ten minutes later the men dismounted in front of the house. Valmorain, who by that time had relived the horrors of Saint-Lazare and Le Cap, received them with such a show of relief that Sancho was embarrassed for him. He listened to the report from the patrol and ordered bottles of his best liquor uncorked to celebrate. The crisis had passed: nineteen black rebels had been arrested, eleven were dead, and the rest would be hanged at dawn. All the others had dispersed and were probably headed to their refuges in the swamps. One of the militiamen, a redhead about eighteen years old, excited by the night of adventure and the alcohol, assured Gaspard Severin that from living so long in mud the men they hanged had feet like frogs, gills like fish, and a caiman's teeth. Several planters in the area had joined the patrols with enthusiasm for the hunt, a sport they rarely had opportunity to practice on a big scale and swearing to crush the insurgent Negroes to the last man. The losses on the white side were minimal: a murdered overseer, a planter, three wounded patrolmen, and a horse with a broken leg. The uprising was suffocated quickly because a domestic slave had given the alarm. Tomorrow, when the rebels are hanging from their nooses, that man will be free, thought Tete.

The Spanish Hidalgo

Sancho Garcia del Solar came and went between the plantation and the city; he spent more time on a boat or on horseback than in either of the two destinations. Tete never knew when he was going to appear, his horse winded, in the house in the city, day or night; he was always smiling, noisy, gluttonous. One early Monday he fought a duel with another Spaniard, a government official, in the Saint Antoine gardens, the usual place for gentlemen to be killed or at least wounded, the only way to avenge honor. It was a favorite pastime, and the gardens, with their leafy trees, offered the needed privacy. In the house no one knew anything about it until time for breakfast, when Sancho arrived wearing a bloody shirt and asking for coffee and cognac. Laughing heartily, he announced to Tete that he had only a scratch on his ribs, whereas his rival was left with a slash across his face. "Why were you dueling?" she asked as she cleaned the path of the sword thrust, so near the heart that had it entered a little deeper she would be dressing him for the cemetery. "Because he looked at me the wrong way," was his explanation. He was happy he didn't have a dead man on his back. Later Tete found out that the duel had been over Adi Soupir, a quadroon with disturbing curves whom both men claimed.

Sancho would wake the children in the middle of the night to teach them card tricks, and if Tete objected he lifted her off her feet, gave her a couple of whirls, and proceeded to explain that no one can survive in this world without a trick or two, and it was best to learn as soon as possible. At six in the morning it would suddenly occur to him that he wanted roast pig, and she had to fly to the market looking for one, or he would announce that he was going to the tailor, disappear for two days, and come home stupefied with whiskey, accompanied by several comrades to whom he had offered hospitality. He dressed with great care, although soberly, scrutinizing each detail of his appearance in the mirror. He trained the slave who ran errands, a fourteen-year-old boy, to wax his mustache and shave his cheeks with the Spanish gold-handled razor that had been in the Garcia del Solar family for three generations. "Are you going to marry me when I grow up, Uncle Sancho?" Rosette would ask. "Tomorrow if you wish, precious," he would answer, and plant a couple of big smacks on her cheek. Tete he treated like a relative fallen on bad times, with a mixture of familiarity and respect, spiced with jokes. Sometimes, when he suspected she had reached the limit of her patience, he brought her a gift and gave it to her with a compliment and a kiss on the hand, which she accepted with embarrassment. "Hurry and grow up, Rosette, before I marry your mother," he would tease.

In the mornings, Sancho went to the Cafe des Emigres, where he joined friends to play dominos. His entertaining hidalgo fanfaronades and his inalterable optimism were in sharp contrast to the French refugees, shrunken and impoverished by exile, who passed through life lamenting the loss of their wealth, real or exaggerated, and discussing politics. The bad news was that Saint-Domingue continued to be sunk in violence; the English had invaded several cities along the coast, though they had not been able to occupy the center of the country, and for that reason the possibility of the colony's achieving independence had cooled. Toussaint, what is that bastard named now? Louverture? Now there's a name he invented! Well, that Toussaint, who was on the side of the Spanish, turned coat and is now fighting at the side of the republican French, who without his aid would be nowhere. Before he changed over, Toussaint massacred the Spanish troops under his command. You judge whether you can trust that kind of rabble! General Laveaux promoted him to commandeur in the Cordon Occidental, and now that monkey goes around in a plumed hat. Makes me die laughing. What we have come to, my compatriots! France allied with Negroes! What historical humiliation! the refugees exclaimed between games of dominos.