DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0116
96
SINGULAR HISTORY OF AN IMPOSTOR.
tract attention and excite curiosity. It was instantly
known throughout the whole colony, that a person of
high rank had arrived; all the circumstances attending
his embarkation were related ; the facts were altered,
magnified, and multiplied ; and before the young stranger
had been four days in the island he was the subject of an
infinite number of ridiculous suppositions, of romances
each more astonishing than the other, all of which were
repeated with equal assurance, and heard with equal
avidity.
After a few days, Duval Ferrol informed the stranger
that as he did not know him, and was only a subaltern,
he could not dispense with acquainting the king’s lieu-
tenant, who commanded at the cul-de-sac Marin, of his
arrival; and that the latter requested to see him at his
house. The young man complied; and presented him-
self as the Count de Tarnaud. The commandant having
heard the reports propagated concerning the stranger, de-
termined to unravel the mystery, and with that view
offered him the use of his house and table, which wras ac-
cepted by Tarnaud. Rhodez did not leave him, but re-
moved with him to the house of the commandant, M.
Nadau, thus seemingly avowing a kind of voluntary de-
pendence, which he did not endeavour to conceal.
Two days after young Tarnaud’s removal to the com-
mandant’s, the latter had company to dinner, and just as
they were sitting down to table, the young man found
that he had forgotten his handkerchief, on which Rho-
dez got up and fetched it for him. The company gazed
at each other; for a white to wait upon a white is in the
West Indiesan unheard-of—a dishonourable submission,
(excepting it were a prince, or at least the governor of
the island,) to which not even the meanest colonist would
submit. It was immediately surmised that Rhodez, who
was of a respectable family, liberal education, and ac-
quainted
SINGULAR HISTORY OF AN IMPOSTOR.
tract attention and excite curiosity. It was instantly
known throughout the whole colony, that a person of
high rank had arrived; all the circumstances attending
his embarkation were related ; the facts were altered,
magnified, and multiplied ; and before the young stranger
had been four days in the island he was the subject of an
infinite number of ridiculous suppositions, of romances
each more astonishing than the other, all of which were
repeated with equal assurance, and heard with equal
avidity.
After a few days, Duval Ferrol informed the stranger
that as he did not know him, and was only a subaltern,
he could not dispense with acquainting the king’s lieu-
tenant, who commanded at the cul-de-sac Marin, of his
arrival; and that the latter requested to see him at his
house. The young man complied; and presented him-
self as the Count de Tarnaud. The commandant having
heard the reports propagated concerning the stranger, de-
termined to unravel the mystery, and with that view
offered him the use of his house and table, which wras ac-
cepted by Tarnaud. Rhodez did not leave him, but re-
moved with him to the house of the commandant, M.
Nadau, thus seemingly avowing a kind of voluntary de-
pendence, which he did not endeavour to conceal.
Two days after young Tarnaud’s removal to the com-
mandant’s, the latter had company to dinner, and just as
they were sitting down to table, the young man found
that he had forgotten his handkerchief, on which Rho-
dez got up and fetched it for him. The company gazed
at each other; for a white to wait upon a white is in the
West Indiesan unheard-of—a dishonourable submission,
(excepting it were a prince, or at least the governor of
the island,) to which not even the meanest colonist would
submit. It was immediately surmised that Rhodez, who
was of a respectable family, liberal education, and ac-
quainted