Why, if I'd been willing to stay at Avoyelles to be a
nigger-driver like him, the plantation of 'de Fontanges'--whose name
you have taken--would have been left to me. If YOU had stayed there,
you might have been my property instead of YOUR owning a square man like
Randolph. You didn't think of that when you came here, did you?" he said
composedly.
"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, dropping rapidly into a different accent,
with her white teeth and fixed mirthless smile, "so it is a claim for
PROPERTY, eh? You're wanting money--you? Tres bien, you forget we are
in California, where one does not own a slave. And you have a fine story
there, my poor friend. Very pretty, but very hard to prove, m'sieu. And
these peasants are in it, eh, working it on shares like the farm, eh?"
"Well," said Dawson, slightly changing his position, and passing his
hand over the horse's neck with a half-wearied contempt, "one of these
men is from Plaquemine, and the other from Coupee. They know all the
l'Hommadieus' history.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228