Josephine, laughing, turned to her astonished women, who had followed with their eyes the flight of the prophetess, but who now directed their dark eyes with an expression of awe and bewilderment to their young mistress, of whom the fortune-teller had said she would one day be Queen of France.  Josephine endeavored to overthrow the faith of her swarthy servants in the fortune-teller, and, by pointing to the ridiculous prophecy in reference to herself, and which predicted an impossible future, she tried to prove to them what a folly it was to rely on the words of those who made a profession of foretelling the future.

But against her will the prophetic words of the old woman echoed in the heart of the young maiden.  She could not return home to her family and talk, laugh, and dance, as she had been accustomed to do with her sisters.  Followed by her slaves, she went into her garden and sank in a hammock, hung amid the gigantic leaves of a palm-tree, and, while the negro girls danced and sang round her, the young maid was dreaming about the future, and her beating heart asked if it were not possible that the prophecy of the negro woman might one day be realized.

She, the daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie—­she a future “Queen of France!  More than a queen!” Oh, it was mere folly to think on such things, and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the old woman.

And Josephine laughed at her own credulity, and the slaves sang and danced, and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned to the prophecy again and again.

What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so impossible?  Could not that prophecy become a reality?  Was it, then, the first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been exalted to grandeur and lofty honors?

Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful she swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea, which, in its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had lowered itself down to earth.  That sea was a pathway to France, and already once before had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of Martinique to a throne.

Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine.  She thought of Franchise d’Aubigne, and of her wondrous story.  A poor wanderer, fleeing from France to search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M. d’Aubigne had landed in Martinique with his young wife.  There Franchise was born, there passed away the first years of her life.  Once, when a child of three years old, she was bitten by a venomous serpent, and her life was saved only through the devotion of her black nurse, who sucked alike poison and death from the wound.  Another time, as she was on a voyage with her parents, the vessel was in danger of being captured by a corsair; and a third time a powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of the sea the little Francoise, who was walking on the shore, but a large black dog, her companion and favorite, sprang after her, seized her dress with its teeth, and carried the child back to the shore, where sobbing for joy her mother received her.