Bligh introduced them all, then waited, his document held out in expectation that it would be accepted, and whisked off to Dessalines, instanter. In the short period of their landing and introductions, a substantial crowd of the curious had gathered; poor field slaves still in the cheap nankeen short trousers and loose smocks of slavery, their women in shapeless longer smocks, and the children in barely any garments at all. Many of them had cane-cutter knives or machetes shoved into rough rope belts… or in their hands. Ominously, some of the better-garbed looters in incongruous finery, and better-armed with captured muskets or pistols, joined them, muttering and scowling.

French, English… bloody Russians, Lewrie thought with a bit of rising dread; We’re White… their blood enemies. This could get very ugly!

“Messieurs, I leave ze guard pour votre boat, oui? Et, I will escort vous au Le Tigre, ’is own face,” Colonel Mirabois offered, then turned and barked orders to his men. A round dozen of his soldiers formed a protective line to protect the barge, its wide-eyed Midshipman, Coxswain, and oarsmen, at the head of the quay, and another dozen formed to either side of their party.

Like prisoners, off t’the guillotine or firin’ squad, Lewrie imagined, with (it must be admitted) a bit of a chill shudder.

A Black sergeant gleefully called a fast “heep-heep” pace as they were marched off to see “Le Tigre,” Dessalines, face-to-face.

“Think they’d’ve laid on some horses,” Captain Bligh whispered from the side of his mouth, panting a bit at the pace.

“Already ate ’em, most-like,” Lewrie whispered back, unable to quell his sense of humour, no matter the risk they faced. “And, how come there’s still so many Whites ashore, I wonder?” he pointed out.

It was uncanny; it was downright eerie, that long march through the littered streets.