The rising winds that lashed his clothing against his flesh fanned the flames into yellow banners among the thrashing oaks. A salvo of gunflashes spouted out of the windows of the garçonniere wing; a moment later two figures burst through the French doors, sprang and scrambled over the gallery rail, fleeing for the brick sugar-mill. Men closed on them, men clothed in the rags of slaves, or naked, sweat shining with the firelight, long cane-knives swinging in their hands. The howl of the wind drowned their cries. The shirtsleeved figures fired, a rifle and then a pistol. Then they were cut off from the mill and could not re-load, and January glimpsed an old-fashioned white pigtail: the family lawyer, Diacre. Was the other man Bertrand's dandyish attorney Rabot? At the same time four white-nightgowned forms, long hair whipping in the storm, dropped from the gallery in the company of a single white man and bolted for the levee, while out of their sight the slaves hacked the two decoys to death.
What do You think about Benjamin January 6 - Wet Grave?
