The Loss of El Dorado by V.S. Naipaul
Author:V.S. Naipaul [Naipaul, V.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-78933-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-15T16:00:00+00:00
ON TUESDAY the 29th Begorrat was very busy. On that day his poisoning commission passed its first sentences; and on that day the sentences were carried out.
The Negro called Bouqui had been charged with sorcery, divination and poisoning. He had spent some months in solitary confinement. Now he was taken out of the jail and marched by a guard of soldiers to the church. In religious matters a new Negro was considered a párvulo, a child under six, and could be baptized without instruction. The curate of Port of Spain baptized Bouqui. The soldiers put him in irons and took him to the gallows. Fifteen minutes after the hanging the Negro executioner took Bouqui’s body down and cut off the head. The headless body was tied to a stake. The head was taken away and spiked on a pole on the mountain road to St Joseph.
In the meantime in the jail the Negro called Pierre François had been ordered to fall on his knees to hear his sentence. He was then taken to the church. He was not baptized; he was already a Christian. Prayers were read to him. He was then ‘heavily ironed’ and the soldiers led him to where Bouqui’s headless body was tied to the stake. Many Negroes watched. Some of Vallot’s jail Negroes were waiting with faggots. Pierre Francçois was chained to the stake with the headless body. He was made to put on a shirt. The shirt was filled with sulphur. The jail Negroes built up the faggots. The executioner lit the fire.
It was about three in the afternoon, dinner time. The Negroes who were watching didn’t stay. They ran through the streets, yelling. The smell of sulphur and the two burning bodies drove many people out of their houses and there were some whites who feared a massacre. Begorrat and the French planters had devised the punishment and the ritual. They said afterwards it was what they used to do in Martinique.
A third sentence was passed that day, on Leonard, a mulatto. He was banished.
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