while, as soon as I had cooled down my horse, I rode slowly,
reflecting upon what had just happened.

It was evident that this ruffian had been put upon the plantation by
Gayarre for some secret purpose. Whether he and the lawyer had had
previous acquaintance I could not guess; but such men have a sort of
instinctive knowledge of one another, and he might be only a waif that
the latter had picked up since the night of the wreck. On the boat I
had supposed him to be some rough gambler, by the propensity he
exhibited for betting; and possibly he might have been playing that
_role_ of late. It was evident, however, that "negro-driving" was his
trade; at all events it was not new to him.

Strange that he had been all this time on the plantation without knowing
of me! But that could be easily accounted for. He had never seen me
during my stay at the house. Moreover, he may have been ignorant that
Mademoiselle was the lady with whom he intended to have shared the
life-preserver. This last hypothesis was probable enough, for there
were other ladies who escaped by means of rafts, and sofas, and
life-preservers. I fancied he had not seen Mademoiselle until she was
springing over the guards, and would therefore scarce recognise her
again.

The cause of my being an invalid was only known to Mademoiselle, Aurore,
and Scipio; and the latter had been charged not to carry this knowledge
to the negro quarter. Then the fellow was but new on the plantation,
and had but little intercourse with its mistress, as he received most of
his orders from Gayarre; besides, he was but a dull brute after all.

It was just like enough that, up to the moment of our late encounter, he
had no suspicion either that I was his former antagonist on the boat, or
Eugenie Besancon the lady who had escaped him. He must have known of my
presence on the plantation, but only as one of the survivors of the
wreck, badly wounded,--scalded, perhaps,--but there had been a number of
others, picked up,--scarce a house for some distance along the coast but
had given shelter to some wounded or half-drowned unfortunate. He had
been busy with his own affairs; or rather, perhaps, those of Gayarre:
for I had no doubt there was some conspiracy between them in which this
fellow was to play a part. Dull as he was, he had something which his
employer might regard of more value than intellect; something, too,
which the latter himself lacked,--brute strength and brute