Chapter Eleven.L’Étoile and its people.One radiant day of the succeeding spring, a party was seen in the plain of Cul-de-Sac, moving with such a train as showed that one of the principal families of the island was travelling. Rigaud and his forces were so safely engaged in the south, that the plain was considered secure from their incursions. Port-au-Prince, surrounded on three sides by hills, was now becoming so hot, that such of its inhabitants as had estates in the country were glad to retire to them, as soon as the roads were declared safe; and among these were the family of the Commander-in-Chief, who, with tutors, visitors, and attendants, formed the group seen in the Cul-de-Sac this day. They were removing to their estate of Pongaudin, on the shores of the bay of Gonaves, a little to the north of the junction of the Artibonite with the sea; but instead of travelling straight and fast, they intended to make a three days’ journey of what might have been accomplished in less than two—partly for the sake of the pleasure of the excursion, and partly to introduce their friends from Europe to some of the beauties of the most beautiful island in the world.Madame L’Ouverture had had presents of European carriages, in which she did not object to take airings in the towns and their neighbourhood; but nowhere else were the roads in a state to bear such heavy vehicles. In the sandy bridle-paths they would have sunk half their depth; in the green tracks they would have been caught in thickets of brambles and low boughs; while many swamps occurred which could be crossed only by single horses, accustomed to pick their way in uncertain ground. The ladies of the colony, therefore, continued, as in all time past, to take their journeys on horseback, each attended by some one—a servant, if there were neither father, brother, nor lover—to hold the umbrella over her during rain, or the more oppressive hours of sunshine.The family of L’Ouverture had left the palace early, and were bound, for an estate in the middle of the plain, where they intended to rest, either till evening, or till the next morning, as inclination might determine. As their train, first of horses, and then of mules, passed along, now under avenues of lofty palms, which constituted a deep, moist shade in the midst of the glare of the morning—now across fields of sward, kept green by the wells which were made to overflow them; and now through swamps where the fragrant flowering reeds reached up to the flanks of the horses, and courted the hands of the riders, the inhabitants of the region watched their progress, and gave them every variety of kindly greeting. The mother who was sitting at work under the tamarind-tree called her children down from its topmost branches to do honour to the travellers. Many a half-naked negro in the rice-grounds slipped from the wet plank on which, while gazing, he forgot his footing, and laughed his welcome from out of the mud and slime. The white planters who were taking their morning ride over their estates, bent to the saddle-bow, the large straw hat in hand, and would not cover their heads from the hot sun till the ladies had passed. These planters’ wives and daughters, seated at the shaded windows, or in the piazzas of their houses, rose and curtsied deep to the ladies L’Ouverture. Many a little black head rose dripping from the clear waters, gleaming among the reeds, where negro children love to watch the gigantic dragon-flies of the tropics creeping from their sheaths, and to catch them as soon as they spread their gauzy wings, and exhibit their gem-like bodies to the sunlight. Many a group of cultivators in the cane-grounds grasped their arms, on hearing the approach of numbers—taught thus by habitual danger—but swung back the gun across the shoulder, or tucked the pistol again into the belt, at sight of the ladies; and then ran to the road-side to remove any fancied obstruction in the path; or, if they could do no more, to smile a welcome. It was observable that, in every case, there was an eager glance, in the first place, of search for L’Ouverture himself; but when it was seen that he was not there, there was still all the joy that could be shown where he was not.The whole country was full of song. As Monsieur Loisir, the architect from Paris, said to Génifrède, it appeared as if vegetation itself went on to music. The servants of their own party sang in the rear; Moyse and Denis, and sometimes Denis’ sisters, sang as they rode; and if there was not song already on the track, it came from behind every flowering hedge—from the crown of the cocoa-nut tree—from the window of the cottage. The sweet wild note of the mocking-bird was awakened in its turn; and from the depths of the tangled woods, where it might defy the human eye and hand, it sent forth its strain, shrill as the thrush, more various than the nightingale, and sweeter than the canary. But for the bird, the Spanish painter, Azua, would have supposed that all this music was the method of reception of the family by the peasantry; but, on expressing his surprise to Aimée, she answered that song was as natural to Saint Domingo, when freed, as the light of sun or stars, when there were no clouds in the sky. The heart of the negro was, she said, as naturally charged with music as his native air with fragrance. If you dam up his mountain-streams, you have, instead of fragrance, poison and pestilence; and if you chain up the negro’s life in slavery, you have, for music, wailing and curses. Give both free course, and you have an atmosphere of spicy odours, and a universal spirit of song.“This last,” said Azua, “is as one long, but varied, ode in honour of your father. Men of some countries would watch him as a magician, after seeing the wonders he has wrought. Who, looking over this wide level, on which plenty seems to have emptied her horn, would believe how lately and how thoroughly it was ravaged by war?”“There seems to be magic in all that is made,” said Aimée; “so that all are magicians who have learned to draw it forth. Monsieur Loisir was showing us yesterday how the lightning may now be brought down from the thunder-cloud, and carried into the earth at some given spot. Our servants, who have yearly seen the thunderbolt fire the cottage or the mill, tremble, and call the lightning-rods magic. My father is a magician of the same sort, except that he deals with a deeper and higher magic.”“That which lies in men’s hearts—in human passions.”“In human affections; by which he thinks more in the end is done than by their passions.”“Did you learn this from himself?” asked Azua, who listened with much surprise and curiosity to this explanation from the girl by whose side he rode. “Does your father explain to you his views of men, and his purposes with regard to them?”“There is no need,” she replied. “From the books he has always read, we know what he thinks of men’s minds and ways: and from what happens, we learn his purposes; for my father always fulfils his purposes.”“And who led you to study his books, and observe his purposes?”“My brother Isaac.”“One of those who is studying at Paris? Does he make you study here, while he is being educated there?”“No; he does not make me study. But I know what he is doing—I have books—Isaac and I were always companions— He learns from me what my father does— But I was going to tell you, when you began asking about my father, that this plain will not appear to you throughout so, flourishing as it does now, from the road. When we reach the Étoile estate, you will see enough of the ravages of war.”“I have perceived some signs of desertion in a house or two that we have passed,” said Azua. “But these brothers of yours—when will they return?”“Indeed I wish I knew,” sighed Aimée. “I believe that depends on the First Consul.”“The First Consul has so much to do, it is a pity their return should depend upon his memory. If he should forgot, you will go and see Paris, and bring your brothers home.”“The First Consul forgets nothing,” replied Aimée. “He knows and heeds all that we do here, at the distance of almost half the world. He never forgets my brothers: he is very kind to them.”“All that you say is true,” said Vincent, who was now on the other side of Aimée. “Everything that you can say in praise of the First Consul is true. But yet you should go and see Paris. You do not know what Paris is—you do not know what your brothers are like in Paris—especially Isaac. He tells you, no doubt, how happy he is there?”“He does; but I had rather see him here.”“You have fine scenery here, no doubt, and a climate which you enjoy: but there! what streets and palaces—what theatres—what libraries and picture-galleries—and what society!”“Is it not true, however,” said Azua, “that all the world is alike to her where her brother is?”“This is L’Étoile,” said Aimée. “Of all the country houses in the island, this was, not perhaps the grandest, but the most beautiful. It is now ruined; but we hear that enough remains for Monsieur Loisir to make out the design.”She turned to Vincent, and told him that General Christophe was about to build a house; and that he wished it to be on the model of L’Étoile, as it was before the war. Monsieur Loisir was to furnish the design.The Europeans of the party were glad to be told that they had nearly arrived at their resting place; for they could scarcely sit their horses, while toiling in the heat through the deep sand of the road. They had left far behind them both wood and swamp; and, though the mansion seemed to be embowered in the green shade, they had to cross open ground to reach it. At length Azua, who had sunk into a despairing silence, cried out with animation—“Ha! the opuntia! what a fence! what a wall!”“You may know every deserted house in the plain,” said Aimée, “by the cactus hedge round it.”“What ornament can the inhabited mansion have more graceful, more beautiful?” said Azua, forgetting the heat in his admiration of the blossoms, some red, some snow-white, some blush-coloured, which were scattered in profusion over the thick and high cactus hedge which barred the path.“Nothing can be more beautiful,” said Aimée, “but nothing more inconvenient. See, you are setting your horse’s feet into a trap.” And she pointed to the stiff, prickly green shoots which matted all the ground. “We must approach by some other way. Let us wait till the servants have gone round.”With the servants appeared a tall and very handsome negro, well-known throughout the island for his defence of the Étoile estate against Rigaud. Charles Bellair was a Congo chief, kidnapped in his youth, and brought into Saint Domingo slavery; in which state he had remained long enough to keep all his detestation for slavery, without losing his fitness for freedom. He might have returned, ere this, to Africa, or he might have held some military office under Toussaint; but he preferred remaining on the estate which he had partly saved from devastation, bringing up his little children to revere and enthusiastically obey the Commander-in-chief—the idol of their colour. The heir of the Étoile estate did not appear, nor transmit his claim. Bellair, therefore, and two of his former fellow bondsmen, cultivated the estate, paying over the fixed proportion of the produce to the public funds.Bellair hastened to lead Madame L’Ouverture’s horse round to the other side of the house, where no prickly vegetation was allowed to encroach. His wife was at work and singing to her child under the shadow of the colonnade—once an erection of great beauty, but now blackened by fire, and at one end crumbling into ruins.“Minerve!” cried Madame, on seeing her.“Deesha is her name,” said Bellair, smiling.“Oh, you call her by her native name! Would we all knew our African names, as you know hers! Deesha!”Deesha hastened forward, all joy and pride at being the hostess of the Ouverture family. Eagerly she led the way into the inhabited part of the abode—a corner of the palace-like mansion—a corner well covered in from the weather, and presenting a strange contrast of simplicity and luxury.The courtyard through which they passed was strewed with ruins, which, however, were almost entirely concealed by the brushwood, through which only a lane was kept cleared for going in and out. The whole was shaded, almost as with an awning, by the shrubs which grew from the cornices, and among the rafters which had remained where the roof once was. Ropes of creepers hung down the wall, so twisted, and of so long a growth, that Denis had climbed half-way up the building by means of this natural ladder, when he was called back again. The jalousies were decayed—starting away from their hinges, or hanging in fragments; while the window-sills were gay with flowering weeds, whose seeds even took root in the joints of the flooring within, open as it was to the air and the dew. The marble steps and entrance-hall were kept clear of weeds and dirt, and had a strange air of splendour in the midst of the desolation. The gilding of the balustrades of the hall was tarnished; and it had no furniture but the tatters of some portraits, whose frame and substance had been nearly devoured by ants; but it was weather-tight and clean. The saloon to the right constituted the family dwelling. Part of its roof had been repaired with a thatch of palm-leaves, which formed a singular junction with the portion of the ceiling which remained, and which exhibited a blue sky-ground, with gilt stars. An alcove had been turned into the fireplace, necessary for cooking. The kitchen corner was partitioned off from the sitting-room by a splendid folding screen of Oriental workmanship, exhibiting birds-of-paradise, and the blue rivers and gilt pagodas of China. The other partitions were the work of Bellair’s own hands, woven of bamboo and long grass, dyed with the vegetable dyes, with whose mysteries he was, like a true African, acquainted. The dinner-table was a marble slab, which still remained cramped to the wall, as when it had been covered with plate, or with ladies’ work-boxes. The seats were benches, hewn by Bellair’s axe. On the shelves and dresser of unpainted wood were ranged together porcelain dishes from Dresden, and calabashes from the garden; wooden spoons, and knives with enamelled handles. A harp, with its strings broken, and its gilding tarnished, stood in one corner; and musical instruments of Congo origin hung against the wall. It was altogether a curious medley of European and African civilisation, brought together amidst the ruins of a West Indian revolution.The young people did not remain long in the house, however tempting its coolness might have appeared. At one side of the mansion was the colonnade, which engrossed the architect’s attention; on the other bloomed the garden, offering temptations which none could resist—least of all those who were lovers. Moyse and his Génifrède stepped first to the door which looked out upon the wilderness of flowers, and were soon lost sight of among the shrubs.Génifrède had her sketch-book in her hand. She and her sister were here partly for the sake of a drawing lesson from Azua; and perhaps she had some idea of taking a sketch during this walk with Moyse. He snatched the book from her, however, and flung it through the window of a garden-house which they passed, saying—“You can draw while I am away. For this hour you are all my own.”“And when will you be away? Wherever you go, I will follow you. If we once part, we shall not meet again.”“We think so, and we say so, each time that we part; and yet we meet again. Once more, only the one time when I am to distinguish myself, to gain you—only that once will we be parted; and then we will be happy for over.”“Then you will be killed—or you will be sent to France, or you will love some one else and forget me—”“Forgot you!—love some one else! Oh! Heaven and earth!” cried Moyse, clasping her in his arms, and putting his whole soul into the kisses he impressed on her forehead. “And what,” he continued, in a voice which thrilled her heart, “what would you do if I were killed?”“I would die. Oh, Moyse! if it should be so, wait for me! Let your spirit wait for mine! It shall not be long.”“Shall my spirit come—shall I come as a ghost, to tell you that I am dead? Shall I come when you are alone, and call you away?”“Oh! no, no!” she cried, shuddering. “I will follow—you need not fear. But a ghost—oh! no, no!” And she looked up at him, and clasped him closer.“And why?” said Moyse. “You do not fear me now—you cling to me. And why fear me then? I shall be yours still. I shall be Moyse. I shall be about you, haunting you, whether you see and hear me or not. Why not see and hear me?”“Why not?” said Génifrède, in a tone of assent. “But I dare not—I will not. You shall not die. Do not speak of it.”“It was not I, but you, love, that spoke of it. Well, I will not die. But tell me—if I forget you—if I love another—what then?” And he looked upon her with eyes so full of love, that she laughed, and withdrew herself from his arms, saying, as she sauntered on along the blossom-strewn path—“Then I will forget you too.”Moyse lingered for a moment, to watch her stately form, as she made a pathway for herself amidst the tangled shrubs. The walk, once a smooth-shaven turf, kept green by trenches of water, was now overgrown with the vegetation which encroached on either hand. As the dark beauty forced her way, the maypole-aloe shook its yellow crown of flowers, many feet above her head; the lilac jessamine danced before her face; and the white datura, the pink flower-fence, and the scarlet cordia, closed round her form, or spread themselves beneath her feet. Her lover was soon again by her side, warding off every branch and spray, and saying—“The very flowers worship you: but they and all—all must yield you to me. You are mine; and yet not mine till I have won you from your father. Génifrède, how shall I distinguish myself? Show me the way, and I shall succeed.”“Do not ask me,” she replied, sighing.“Nay, whom should I ask?”“I never desired you to distinguish yourself.”“You do not wish it?”“No.”“Not for your sake?”“No.”And she looked around her with wistful eyes, in which her lover read a wish that things would ever remain as they were now—that this moment would never pass away.“You would remain here—you would hide yourself here with me for ever!” cried the happy Moyse.“Here, or anywhere;—in the cottage at Breda;—in your father’s hut on the shore;—anywhere, Moyse, where there is nothing to dread. I live in fear; and I am wretched.”“What is it that you fear, love? Why do you not trust, me to protect you?”“Then I fear for you, which is worse. Why cannot we live in the woods or the mountains, where there would be no dangerous duties, and no cares?”“And if we lived in the woods, you would be more terrified still. There would never be a falling star, but your heart would sink. You would take the voices of the winds for the spirits of the woods, and the mountain mists for ghosts. Then, there are the tornado and the thunderbolt. When you saw the trees crashing, you would be for making haste back to the plain. Whenever you heard the rock rolling and bounding down the steep, or the cataract rising and roaring in the midst of the tempest, you would entreat me to fly to the city. It is in this little beating heart that the fear lies.”“What then is to be done?”“This little heart must beat yet a while longer; and then, when I have once come back, it shall rest upon mine for ever.”“Beside my father? He never rests. Your father would leave us in peace; but he has committed you to one who knows not what rest is.”“Nor ever will,” said Moyse. “If he closed his eyes, if he relaxed his hand, we should all be sunk in ruin.”“We? Who? What ruin?”“The whole negro race. Do you suppose the whites are less cruel than they were? Do you believe that their thirst for our humiliation, our slavery, is quenched? Do you believe that the white man’s heart is softened by the generosity and forgiveness of the blacks?”“My father believes so,” replied Génifrède; “and do they not adore him—the whites whom he has reinstated? Do they not know that they owe to him their lives, their homes, the prosperity of the island? Does he not trust the whites? Does he not order all things for their good, from reverence and affection for them?”“Yes, he does,” replied Moyse, in a tone which made Génifrède anxiously explore his countenance.“You think him deceived?” she said.“No, I do not. It is not easy to deceive L’Ouverture.”“You do not think—no, you cannot think, that he deceives the whites, or any one.”“No. L’Ouverture deceives no one. As you say, he reveres the whites. He reveres them for their knowledge. He says they are masters of an intellectual kingdom from which we have been shut out, and they alone can let us in. And then again.—Génifrède, it seems to me that he loves best those who have most injured him.”“Not best,” she replied. “He delights to forgive: but what white has he ever loved as he loves Henri? Did he ever look upon any white as he looked upon me, when—when he consented? Moyse, you remember?”“I do. But still he loves the whites as if they were born, and had lived and died, our friends, as he desires they should be. Yet more—he expects and requires that all his race should love them too.”“And you do not?” said Génifrède, timidly.“I abhor them.”“Oh! hush! hush! Speak lower. Does my father know this?”“Why should he? If he once knew it—”“Nay, if he knew it, he would give up his purposes of distinction for you; and we might live here, or on the shore.”“My Génifrède, though I hate the whites, I love the blacks. I love your father. The whites will rise upon us at home, as they are always scheming against us in France, if we are not strong and as watchful as we are strong. If I and others leave L’Ouverture alone to govern, and betake ourselves to the woods and the mountains, the whites will again be masters, and you and I, my Génifrède, shall be slaves. But you shall not be a slave, Génifrède,” he continued, soothing her tremblings at the idea. “The bones of the whites shall be scattered over the island, like the shells on the sea-shore, before my Génifrède shall be a slave. I will cut the throat of every infant at every white mother’s breast, before any one of that race shall lay his grasp upon you. The whites never will, never shall again, be masters: but then, it must be by L’Ouverture having an army always at his command; and of that army I must be one of the officers. We cannot live here, or on the sea-shore, love, while there are whites who may be our masters. So, while I am away, you must pray Christ to humble the whites. Will you? This is all you can do. Will you not?”“How can I, when my father is always exalting them?”“You must choose between him and me. Love the whites with him, or hate them with me.”“But you love my father. Moyse?”“I do. I adore him as the saviour of the blacks. You adore him, Génifrède. Every one of our race worships him. Génifrède, you love him—your father.”“I know not—Yes, I loved him the other day. I know not, Moyse. I know nothing but that—I will hate the whites as you do. I never loved them: now I hate them.”“You shall. I will tell you things of them that will make you curse them. I know every white man’s heart.”“Then tell my father.”“Does he not know enough already? Is not his cheek furrowed with the marks of the years during which the whites were masters; and is there any cruelty, any subtlety, in them that he does not understand? Knowing all this, he curses, not them, but the flower which, he says, corrupted them. He keeps from them this power, and believes that all will be well. I shall tell him nothing.”“Yes, tell him all—all except—”“Yes, and tell me first,” cried a voice near at hand. There was a great rustling among the bushes, and Denis appeared, begging particularly to know what they were talking about. They, in return, begged to be told what brought him this way, to interrupt their conversation.“Deesha says Juste is out after wild-fowl, and, most likely, among some of the ponds hereabouts.”“One would think you had lived in Cap all your days,” said Moyse. “Do you look for wild-fowl in a garden?”“We will see presently,” said the boy, thrusting himself into the thicket in the direction of the ponds, and guiding himself by the scent of the blossoming reeds—so peculiar as to be known among the many with which the air was filled. He presently beckoned to his sister; and she followed with Moyse, till they found themselves in the field where there had once been several fish-ponds, preserved in order with great care. All were now dried up but two; and the whole of the water being diverted to the service of these two, they were considerable in extent and in depth. What the extent really was, it was difficult to ascertain at the first glance, so hidden was the margin with reeds, populous with wild-fowl.Denis was earnestly watching these fowl, as he lay among the high grass at some little distance from the water, and prevented his companions from approaching any nearer. The sun was hot, and Génifrède was not long in desiring to return to the garden.“Let us go back,” said she. “Juste is not here.”“Yes he is,” said Denis. “However, go back if you like. I shall go fowling with Juste.” And he began to strip off his clothes.His companions were of opinion, however, that a son of the Commander-in-chief must not sport with a farmer’s boy, without leave of parents or tutor; and they begged him to put on his clothes again, at least till leave was asked. Denis had never cared for his rank, except when riding by his father’s side on review-days; and now he liked it less than ever, as the pond lay gleaming before him, the fowl sailing and fluttering on the surface, and his dignity prevented his going among them.“What makes you say that Juste is here?” said Génifrède.“I have seen him take five fowl in the last five minutes.”As he spoke, he plucked the top of a bulrush, and threw it with such good aim, that it struck a calabash which appeared to be floating among others on the surface of the pond. That particular calabash immediately rose, and the face of a negro child appeared, to the consternation of the fowl, whose splashing and screaming might be heard far and wide. Juste came out of the water, displaying at his belt the result of his sport. He had, as Denis had said, taken five ducks in five minutes by pulling them under the water by the feet, while lying near them with his head covered by the calabash. The little fellow was not satisfied with the admiration of the beholders; he ran homewards, with his clothes in his hand, Denis at his heels, and his game dangling from his waist, and dripping as he ran.“Many a white would shudder to see that child,” said Moyse, as Juste disappeared. “That is the way Jean’s blacks wore their trophies during the first days of the insurrection.”“Trophies!” said Génifrède. “You mean heads: heads with their trailing hair;” and her face worked with horror as she spoke. “But it is not for the whites to shudder, after what they did to Ogé, and have done to many a negro since.”“But they think we do not feel as they do.”“Not feel! O Christ! If any one of them had my heart before I knew you—in those days at Breda, when Monsieur Bayou used to come down to us!”“Here comes that boy again,” cried Moyse. “Let us go into the thicket, among the citrons.”Denis found them, however—found Moyse gathering the white and purple blossoms for Génifrède, while she was selecting the fruit of most fragrant rind from the same tree, to carry into the house.“You must come in—you must come to dinner,” cried Denis. “Aimée has had a drawing lesson, while you have been doing nothing all this while. They said you were sketching; but I told them how idle you were.”“I will go back with Denis,” said Génifrède. “You threw away my sketch-book, Moyse. You may find it, and follow us.”Their path lay together as far as the garden-house. When there, Moyse seized Denis unawares, shot him through the window into the house, and left him to get out as he might, and bring the book. The boy was so long in returning, that his sister became uneasy, lest some snake or other creature should have detained him in combat. She was going to leave the table in search of him, because Moyse would not, when he appeared, singing, and with the book upon his head.“Who calls Génifrède idle?” cried he, flourishing the book. “Look here!” And he exhibited a capital sketch of herself and Moyse, as he had found them, gathering fruits and flowers.“Can it be his own?” whispered Génifrède to her lover.Denis nodded and laughed, while Azua gravely criticised and approved, without suspicion that the sketch was by no pupil of his own.In the cool evening, Génifrède was really no longer idle. While Denis and Juste were at play, they both at once stumbled and fell over something in the long grass, which proved to be a marble statue of a Naiad, lying at length. Moyse seized it, and raised it where it was relieved by a dark green back-ground. The artist declared it an opportunity for a lesson which was not to be lost: and the girls began to draw, as well as they could for the attempts of the boys to restore the broken urn to the arm from which it had fallen. When Denis and Juste found that they could not succeed, and were only chidden for being in the way, they left the drawing party seated under their clump of cocoa-nut trees, and went to hear what Madame was relating to Bellair and Deesha, in the hearing of Monsieur Molière, Laxabon, and Vincent. Her narration was one which Denis had often heard, but was never tired of listening to. She was telling of the royal descent of her husband—how he was grandson of Gaou Guinou, the king of the African tribe of Arrudos: how this king’s second son was taken in battle, and sold, with other prisoners of war, into slavery: how he married an African girl on the Breda estate, and used to talk of home and its wars, and its haunts, and its sunshine idleness—how he used thus to talk in the evenings, and on Sundays, to the boy upon his knee; so that Toussaint felt, from his infancy, like an African, and the descendant of chiefs. This was a theme which Madame L’Ouverture loved to dwell on, and especially when listened to as now. The Congo chief and his wife hung upon her words, and told in their turn how their youth had been spent at home—how they had been kidnapped, and delivered over to the whites. In the eagerness of their talk, they were perpetually falling unconsciously into the use of their negro language, and as often recalled by their hearers to that which all could understand. Molière and Laxabon listened earnestly; and even Loisir, occupied as he was still with the architecture of the mansion, found himself impatient if he lost a word of the story. Vincent alone, negro as he was, was careless and unmoved. He presently sauntered away, and nobody missed him.He looked over the shoulder of the architect.“What pains you are taking!” he said. “You have only to follow your own fancy and convenience about Christophe’s house. Christophe has never been to France. Tell him, or any others of my countrymen, that any building you choose to put up is European, and in good taste, and they will be quite pleased enough.”“You are a sinner,” said Loisir; “but be quiet now.”“Nay—do not you find the blacks one and all ready to devour your travellers’ tales—your prodigious reports of European cities? You have only to tell like stories in stone and brick, and they will believe you just as thankfully.”“No, no, Vincent. I have told no tales so wicked as you tell of your own race. My travellers’ tales are all very well to pass an hour, and be forgotten; but Christophe’s mansion is to stand for an age—to stand as the first evidence, in the department of the arts, of the elevation of your race. Christophe knows, as well as you do without having been to Paris, what is beautiful in architecture; and, if he did not, I would not treacherously mislead him.”“Christophe knows! Christophe has taste!”“Yes. While you have been walking streets and squares, he has been studying the aisles of palms, and the crypts of the banyan, which, to an open eye, may teach as much as a prejudiced mind can learn in all Rome.”“So Loisir is of those who flatter men in power?” said Vincent, laughing.“I look further,” said Loisir; “I am working for men unborn. I am ambitious; but my ambition is to connect my name honourably with the first great house built for a negro general. My ambition is to build here a rival to the palaces of Europe.”“Do what you will, you will not rival your own tales of them—unless you find Aladdin’s lamp among these ruins.”“If you find it, you may bring it me. Azna has found something half as good—a really fine statue in the grass.”Vincent was off to see it. He found the drawing party more eager in conversation than about their work. Aimée was saying as he approached—“General Vincent declares that he is as affectionate to us as if we were the nearest to him of all the children of the empire.—Did you not say so?” she asked, eagerly. “Is not the First Consul’s friendship for us real and earnest? Does he not feel a warm regard for my father? Is he not like a father to my brothers?”“Certainly,” said Vincent. “Do not your brothers confirm this in their letters?”“Do they not, Génifrède?” repeated Aimée.“They do; but we see that they speak as they think: not as things really are.”“How can you so despise the testimony of those who see what we only hear of?”“I do not despise them or their testimony. I honour their hearts, which forget injuries, and open to kindness. But they are young; they went from keeping cattle, and from witnessing the desolations of war here, to the first city of the world, where the first men lavish upon them instructions, and pleasures, and flatteries; and they are pleased. The greatest of all—the First of the Whites, smiles upon the sons of the First of the Blacks; and their hearts beat with enthusiasm for him. It is natural. But, while they are in Paris, we are in Saint Domingo; and we may easily view affairs, and judge men differently.”“And so,” said Aimée, “distrust our best friends, and despise our best instructors; and all from a jealousy of race!”“We think the jealousy of race is with them,” said Moyse, bitterly. “There is not a measure of L’Ouverture’s which they do not neutralise—not a fragment of authority which they will yield. As to friends, if the Consul Bonaparte is our best friend among the Whites, may we be left thus far friendless!”“You mean that he has not answered my father’s letters. Monsieur Vincent doubts not that an answer is on the way. Remember, my brothers have been invited to his table.”“There are blacks in Paris, who look on,” replied Moyse, drily.“And are there not whites too, from this island, who watch every movement?”“Yes: and those whites are in the private closet, at the very ear of Bonaparte, whispering to him of L’Ouverture’s ambition; while your brothers penetrate no further than the saloon.”“My brothers would lay down their lives for Bonaparte and France,” said Aimée; “and you speak treason. I am with them.”“And with me,” said Vincent, in a whisper at her ear. “Where I find the loyal heart in woman, mine is ever loyal too.”Aimée was too much excited to understand in this what was meant. She went on—“Here is Monsieur Vincent, of our own race, who has lived here and at Paris—who has loved my father.—You love my father and his government?” she said, with questioning eyes, interrupting herself.“Certainly. No man is more devoted to L’Ouverture.”“Devoted to my father,” pursued Aimée, “and yet devoted to Bonaparte. He is above the rivalry of races—as the First Consul is, and as Isaac is.”“Isaac and the First Consul—these are the idols of Aimée’s worship,” said Génifrède. “Worship Isaac still; for that is a harmless idolatry; but give up your new religion, Aimée; for it is not sound.”“Why not sound? How do you know that it is not sound?”“When have the blacks ever trusted the whites without finding themselves bound victims in the end?”“I have,” said Vincent. “I have lived among them a life of charms, and I am free,” he continued, stretching his arms to the air—“free to embrace the knees of both Bonaparte and L’Ouverture—free to embrace the world.”“The end has not come yet,” said Moyse.“What end?” asked Aimée.“Nay, God knows what end, if we trust the French.”“You speak from prejudice,” said Aimée. “Monsieur Vincent and my brothers judge from facts.”“We speak from facts,” said Génifrède; “from, let us see—from seven—no, eight, very ugly facts.”“The eight Commissaries that the colony has been blessed with,” said Moyse. “If they had taken that monkey which is looking down at your drawing, Aimée, and seven of its brethren, and installed them at Cap, they would have done us all the good the Commissaries have done, and far less mischief. The monkeys would have broken the mirrors, and made a hubbub within the walls of Government-house. These Commissaries, one after another, from Mirbeck to Hédouville, have insulted the colony, and sown quarrels in it, from end to end.”“Mirbeck! Here is Mirbeck,” said Denis, who had come up to listen. And the boy rolled himself about like a drunken man—like Mirbeck, as he had seen him in the streets of Cap.“Then they sent Saint Leger, the Irishman,” continued Moyse, “who kept his hand in every man’s pocket, whether black or white.”Denis forthwith had his hands, one in Vincent’s pocket, the other in Azua’s. Azua, however, was drawing so fast that he did not find it out.“Then there was Roume.”“Roume. My father speaks well of Roume,” said Aimée.“He was amiable enough, but so weak that he soon had to go home, where he was presently joined by his successor, Santhonax, whom, you know, L’Ouverture had to get rid of, for the safety of the colony. Then came Polverel. What the tranquillity of Saint Domingo was in his day we all remember.”Denis took off Polverel, spying from his ship at the island, on which he dared not land.“For shame, Denis?” said Aimée. “You are ridiculing him who first called my father L’Ouverture.”“And do you suppose he knew the use that would be made of the word?” asked Génifrède. “If he had foreseen its being a tide, he would have contented himself with the obsequious bows I remember so well, and never have spoken the word.”Denis was forthwith bowing, with might and main.“Now, Denis, be quiet! Raymond, dear Raymond, came next;” and she looked up at Vincent as she praised his friend.“Raymond is excellent as a man, whatever he may be as governor of Cap,” said Moyse. “But we have been speaking of whites, not of mulattoes—which is another long chapter.”“Raymond was sent to us by France, however,” said Aimée.“So was our friend Vincent there; but that is nothing to the purpose.”“Well; who next?” cried Denis.“Do not encourage him,” said Aimée. “My father would be vexed with you for training him to ridicule the French—particularly the authorities.”“Now we are blessed with Hédouville,” pursued Moyse. “There you have him, Denis—only scarcely sly, scarcely smooth enough. Yet, that is Hédouville, who has his eye and his smiles at play in one place, while his heart and hands are busy in another.”“Busy,” said Génifrède, “in undermining L’Ouverture’s influence, and counteracting his plans; but no one mentioned Ailbaud. Ailbaud—”“Stay a moment,” said Azua, whose voice had not been heard till then.All looked at him in surprise, nobody supposing that, while so engrossed with his pencil, he could have cared for their conversation. Aimée saw at a glance that his paper was covered with caricatures of the commissaries who had been enumerated.“You must have known them,” was Aimée’s involuntary testimony, as the paper went from hand to hand, amidst shouts of laughter, while Azua sat, with folded arms, perfectly grave.“I have seen some of the gentlemen,” said he, “and Monsieur Denis helped me to the rest.”The laughter went on till Aimée was somewhat nettled. When the paper came back to her, she looked up into the tree under which she sat. The staring monkey was still there. She made a vigorous spring to hand up the caricature, which the creature caught. As it sat demurely on a branch, holding the paper as if reading it, while one of its companions as gravely looked over its shoulder, there was more laughter than ever.“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Azua,” said Aimée; “but this is the only worthy fate of a piece of mockery of people wiser than ourselves, and no less kind. The negroes have hitherto been thought, at least, grateful. It seems that this is a mistake. For my part, however, I leave it to the monkeys to ridicule the French.”Vincent seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. She was abashed, and turned away, when she saw her father behind her, in the shade of the wood. Monsieur Pascal, his secretary, was with him.“My father!”“L’Ouverture!” exclaimed one after another of the party; for they all supposed he had been far away. Even Denis at once gave over pelting the monkeys, and left them to their study of the arts in peace.“Your drawings, my daughters!” said L’Ouverture, with a smile, as if he had been perfectly at leisure. And he examined the Naiad, and then Génifrède’s drawing, with the attention of an artist. Génifrède had made great progress, under the eye of Moyse. Not so Aimée; her pencil had been busy all the while, but there was no Naiad on her page.“They are for Isaac,” she said, timidly. “Among all the pictures he sees, there are no—”“No sketches of Denis and his little companions,” said her father; “no cocoa-nut clumps—no broken fountains among the aloes—no groups that will remind him of home. Isaac shall presently have these, Aimée. I am on my way to Cap, and will send them.”“On your way to Cap!” cried every one—some in a tone of fear.“To Cap,” said he, “where Father Laxabon will follow me immediately, with Monsieur Pascal. By them, Aimée, you will send your packet for Isaac. My own horse is waiting.”“Do not go alone—do not go without good escort,” said Moyse. “I can give you reason.”“I know your thoughts, Moyse. I go for the very reason that there are, or will be, troubles at Cap.—The French authorities may sometimes decree and do that which we feel to be unwise—unsuitable to the blacks,” he continued, with an emphasis which gave some idea of his having overheard more or less of the late conversation; “but we islanders maybe more ignorant still of the thoughts and ways of their practised race.”“But you are personally unsafe,” persisted Moyse. “If you knew what is said by the officers of Hédouville’s staff—”“They say,” proceeded Toussaint, smiling, “that they only want three or four brigands to seize the ape with the Madras head dress; and then all would go well. These gentlemen are mistaken; and I am going to prove this to them. An armed escort proves nothing. I carry something stronger still in my mind and on my tongue. General Vincent, a word with you.”While he and Vincent spoke apart, Aimée exclaimed, “Oh, Moyse! Go with my father!”“Do not—Oh, do not!” cried Génifrède. “You will never return!” she muttered to him, in a voice of terror. “Aimée, you would send him away: and my mother—all of us, are far from home. Who knows but that Rigaud—”“Leave Rigaud to me,” cried Vincent, gaily, as he rejoined the party. “I undertake Rigaud. He shall never alarm you more. Farewell, Mademoiselle Aimée! I am going to the south. Rigaud is recruiting in the name of France; and I know France too well to allow of that. I shall stop his recruiting, and choke his blasphemy with a good French sword. Farewell, till I bring you news at Pongaudin that you may ride along the southern coast as securely as in your own cane-pieces.”“You are going?” said Aimée.“This very hour. I south—L’Ouverture north—”“And the rest to Pongaudin with the dawn,” said Toussaint.“What is your pleasure concerning me?” asked Moyse. “I wait your orders.”“I remember my promise,” said Toussaint; “but I must not leave my family unprotected. You will attend them to Pongaudin: and then let me see you at Cap, with the speed of the wind.”“With a speed like your own, if that be possible,” said Moyse.“Is there danger, father?” asked Génifrède, trembling.“My child, there is danger in the air we breathe, and the ground we tread on: but there is protection also, everywhere.”“You will see Afra, father,” said Aimée. “If there is danger, what will become of Afra? Her father will be in the front, in any disturbance: and Government-house is far from being the safest place.”“I will not forget Afra. Farewell, my children! Go now to your mother; and, before this hour to-morrow, I shall think of you resting at Pongaudin.”They saw him mount before the courtyard, and set off, followed by one of his two trompettes—the only horsemen in the island who could keep up with him, and therefore his constant attendants in his most important journeys. The other was gone forward, to order horses from post to post.Vincent, having received written instructions from the secretary, set off in an opposite direction, more gay than those he left behind.The loftiest trees of the rich plain were still touched with golden light; and the distant bay glittered so as to make the gazers turn away their eyes, to rest on the purple mountains to the north: but their hearts were anxious; and they saw neither the glory nor the beauty of which they heard talk between the painter, the architect, and their host.
One radiant day of the succeeding spring, a party was seen in the plain of Cul-de-Sac, moving with such a train as showed that one of the principal families of the island was travelling. Rigaud and his forces were so safely engaged in the south, that the plain was considered secure from their incursions. Port-au-Prince, surrounded on three sides by hills, was now becoming so hot, that such of its inhabitants as had estates in the country were glad to retire to them, as soon as the roads were declared safe; and among these were the family of the Commander-in-Chief, who, with tutors, visitors, and attendants, formed the group seen in the Cul-de-Sac this day. They were removing to their estate of Pongaudin, on the shores of the bay of Gonaves, a little to the north of the junction of the Artibonite with the sea; but instead of travelling straight and fast, they intended to make a three days’ journey of what might have been accomplished in less than two—partly for the sake of the pleasure of the excursion, and partly to introduce their friends from Europe to some of the beauties of the most beautiful island in the world.
Madame L’Ouverture had had presents of European carriages, in which she did not object to take airings in the towns and their neighbourhood; but nowhere else were the roads in a state to bear such heavy vehicles. In the sandy bridle-paths they would have sunk half their depth; in the green tracks they would have been caught in thickets of brambles and low boughs; while many swamps occurred which could be crossed only by single horses, accustomed to pick their way in uncertain ground. The ladies of the colony, therefore, continued, as in all time past, to take their journeys on horseback, each attended by some one—a servant, if there were neither father, brother, nor lover—to hold the umbrella over her during rain, or the more oppressive hours of sunshine.
The family of L’Ouverture had left the palace early, and were bound, for an estate in the middle of the plain, where they intended to rest, either till evening, or till the next morning, as inclination might determine. As their train, first of horses, and then of mules, passed along, now under avenues of lofty palms, which constituted a deep, moist shade in the midst of the glare of the morning—now across fields of sward, kept green by the wells which were made to overflow them; and now through swamps where the fragrant flowering reeds reached up to the flanks of the horses, and courted the hands of the riders, the inhabitants of the region watched their progress, and gave them every variety of kindly greeting. The mother who was sitting at work under the tamarind-tree called her children down from its topmost branches to do honour to the travellers. Many a half-naked negro in the rice-grounds slipped from the wet plank on which, while gazing, he forgot his footing, and laughed his welcome from out of the mud and slime. The white planters who were taking their morning ride over their estates, bent to the saddle-bow, the large straw hat in hand, and would not cover their heads from the hot sun till the ladies had passed. These planters’ wives and daughters, seated at the shaded windows, or in the piazzas of their houses, rose and curtsied deep to the ladies L’Ouverture. Many a little black head rose dripping from the clear waters, gleaming among the reeds, where negro children love to watch the gigantic dragon-flies of the tropics creeping from their sheaths, and to catch them as soon as they spread their gauzy wings, and exhibit their gem-like bodies to the sunlight. Many a group of cultivators in the cane-grounds grasped their arms, on hearing the approach of numbers—taught thus by habitual danger—but swung back the gun across the shoulder, or tucked the pistol again into the belt, at sight of the ladies; and then ran to the road-side to remove any fancied obstruction in the path; or, if they could do no more, to smile a welcome. It was observable that, in every case, there was an eager glance, in the first place, of search for L’Ouverture himself; but when it was seen that he was not there, there was still all the joy that could be shown where he was not.
The whole country was full of song. As Monsieur Loisir, the architect from Paris, said to Génifrède, it appeared as if vegetation itself went on to music. The servants of their own party sang in the rear; Moyse and Denis, and sometimes Denis’ sisters, sang as they rode; and if there was not song already on the track, it came from behind every flowering hedge—from the crown of the cocoa-nut tree—from the window of the cottage. The sweet wild note of the mocking-bird was awakened in its turn; and from the depths of the tangled woods, where it might defy the human eye and hand, it sent forth its strain, shrill as the thrush, more various than the nightingale, and sweeter than the canary. But for the bird, the Spanish painter, Azua, would have supposed that all this music was the method of reception of the family by the peasantry; but, on expressing his surprise to Aimée, she answered that song was as natural to Saint Domingo, when freed, as the light of sun or stars, when there were no clouds in the sky. The heart of the negro was, she said, as naturally charged with music as his native air with fragrance. If you dam up his mountain-streams, you have, instead of fragrance, poison and pestilence; and if you chain up the negro’s life in slavery, you have, for music, wailing and curses. Give both free course, and you have an atmosphere of spicy odours, and a universal spirit of song.
“This last,” said Azua, “is as one long, but varied, ode in honour of your father. Men of some countries would watch him as a magician, after seeing the wonders he has wrought. Who, looking over this wide level, on which plenty seems to have emptied her horn, would believe how lately and how thoroughly it was ravaged by war?”
“There seems to be magic in all that is made,” said Aimée; “so that all are magicians who have learned to draw it forth. Monsieur Loisir was showing us yesterday how the lightning may now be brought down from the thunder-cloud, and carried into the earth at some given spot. Our servants, who have yearly seen the thunderbolt fire the cottage or the mill, tremble, and call the lightning-rods magic. My father is a magician of the same sort, except that he deals with a deeper and higher magic.”
“That which lies in men’s hearts—in human passions.”
“In human affections; by which he thinks more in the end is done than by their passions.”
“Did you learn this from himself?” asked Azua, who listened with much surprise and curiosity to this explanation from the girl by whose side he rode. “Does your father explain to you his views of men, and his purposes with regard to them?”
“There is no need,” she replied. “From the books he has always read, we know what he thinks of men’s minds and ways: and from what happens, we learn his purposes; for my father always fulfils his purposes.”
“And who led you to study his books, and observe his purposes?”
“My brother Isaac.”
“One of those who is studying at Paris? Does he make you study here, while he is being educated there?”
“No; he does not make me study. But I know what he is doing—I have books—Isaac and I were always companions— He learns from me what my father does— But I was going to tell you, when you began asking about my father, that this plain will not appear to you throughout so, flourishing as it does now, from the road. When we reach the Étoile estate, you will see enough of the ravages of war.”
“I have perceived some signs of desertion in a house or two that we have passed,” said Azua. “But these brothers of yours—when will they return?”
“Indeed I wish I knew,” sighed Aimée. “I believe that depends on the First Consul.”
“The First Consul has so much to do, it is a pity their return should depend upon his memory. If he should forgot, you will go and see Paris, and bring your brothers home.”
“The First Consul forgets nothing,” replied Aimée. “He knows and heeds all that we do here, at the distance of almost half the world. He never forgets my brothers: he is very kind to them.”
“All that you say is true,” said Vincent, who was now on the other side of Aimée. “Everything that you can say in praise of the First Consul is true. But yet you should go and see Paris. You do not know what Paris is—you do not know what your brothers are like in Paris—especially Isaac. He tells you, no doubt, how happy he is there?”
“He does; but I had rather see him here.”
“You have fine scenery here, no doubt, and a climate which you enjoy: but there! what streets and palaces—what theatres—what libraries and picture-galleries—and what society!”
“Is it not true, however,” said Azua, “that all the world is alike to her where her brother is?”
“This is L’Étoile,” said Aimée. “Of all the country houses in the island, this was, not perhaps the grandest, but the most beautiful. It is now ruined; but we hear that enough remains for Monsieur Loisir to make out the design.”
She turned to Vincent, and told him that General Christophe was about to build a house; and that he wished it to be on the model of L’Étoile, as it was before the war. Monsieur Loisir was to furnish the design.
The Europeans of the party were glad to be told that they had nearly arrived at their resting place; for they could scarcely sit their horses, while toiling in the heat through the deep sand of the road. They had left far behind them both wood and swamp; and, though the mansion seemed to be embowered in the green shade, they had to cross open ground to reach it. At length Azua, who had sunk into a despairing silence, cried out with animation—
“Ha! the opuntia! what a fence! what a wall!”
“You may know every deserted house in the plain,” said Aimée, “by the cactus hedge round it.”
“What ornament can the inhabited mansion have more graceful, more beautiful?” said Azua, forgetting the heat in his admiration of the blossoms, some red, some snow-white, some blush-coloured, which were scattered in profusion over the thick and high cactus hedge which barred the path.
“Nothing can be more beautiful,” said Aimée, “but nothing more inconvenient. See, you are setting your horse’s feet into a trap.” And she pointed to the stiff, prickly green shoots which matted all the ground. “We must approach by some other way. Let us wait till the servants have gone round.”
With the servants appeared a tall and very handsome negro, well-known throughout the island for his defence of the Étoile estate against Rigaud. Charles Bellair was a Congo chief, kidnapped in his youth, and brought into Saint Domingo slavery; in which state he had remained long enough to keep all his detestation for slavery, without losing his fitness for freedom. He might have returned, ere this, to Africa, or he might have held some military office under Toussaint; but he preferred remaining on the estate which he had partly saved from devastation, bringing up his little children to revere and enthusiastically obey the Commander-in-chief—the idol of their colour. The heir of the Étoile estate did not appear, nor transmit his claim. Bellair, therefore, and two of his former fellow bondsmen, cultivated the estate, paying over the fixed proportion of the produce to the public funds.
Bellair hastened to lead Madame L’Ouverture’s horse round to the other side of the house, where no prickly vegetation was allowed to encroach. His wife was at work and singing to her child under the shadow of the colonnade—once an erection of great beauty, but now blackened by fire, and at one end crumbling into ruins.
“Minerve!” cried Madame, on seeing her.
“Deesha is her name,” said Bellair, smiling.
“Oh, you call her by her native name! Would we all knew our African names, as you know hers! Deesha!”
Deesha hastened forward, all joy and pride at being the hostess of the Ouverture family. Eagerly she led the way into the inhabited part of the abode—a corner of the palace-like mansion—a corner well covered in from the weather, and presenting a strange contrast of simplicity and luxury.
The courtyard through which they passed was strewed with ruins, which, however, were almost entirely concealed by the brushwood, through which only a lane was kept cleared for going in and out. The whole was shaded, almost as with an awning, by the shrubs which grew from the cornices, and among the rafters which had remained where the roof once was. Ropes of creepers hung down the wall, so twisted, and of so long a growth, that Denis had climbed half-way up the building by means of this natural ladder, when he was called back again. The jalousies were decayed—starting away from their hinges, or hanging in fragments; while the window-sills were gay with flowering weeds, whose seeds even took root in the joints of the flooring within, open as it was to the air and the dew. The marble steps and entrance-hall were kept clear of weeds and dirt, and had a strange air of splendour in the midst of the desolation. The gilding of the balustrades of the hall was tarnished; and it had no furniture but the tatters of some portraits, whose frame and substance had been nearly devoured by ants; but it was weather-tight and clean. The saloon to the right constituted the family dwelling. Part of its roof had been repaired with a thatch of palm-leaves, which formed a singular junction with the portion of the ceiling which remained, and which exhibited a blue sky-ground, with gilt stars. An alcove had been turned into the fireplace, necessary for cooking. The kitchen corner was partitioned off from the sitting-room by a splendid folding screen of Oriental workmanship, exhibiting birds-of-paradise, and the blue rivers and gilt pagodas of China. The other partitions were the work of Bellair’s own hands, woven of bamboo and long grass, dyed with the vegetable dyes, with whose mysteries he was, like a true African, acquainted. The dinner-table was a marble slab, which still remained cramped to the wall, as when it had been covered with plate, or with ladies’ work-boxes. The seats were benches, hewn by Bellair’s axe. On the shelves and dresser of unpainted wood were ranged together porcelain dishes from Dresden, and calabashes from the garden; wooden spoons, and knives with enamelled handles. A harp, with its strings broken, and its gilding tarnished, stood in one corner; and musical instruments of Congo origin hung against the wall. It was altogether a curious medley of European and African civilisation, brought together amidst the ruins of a West Indian revolution.
The young people did not remain long in the house, however tempting its coolness might have appeared. At one side of the mansion was the colonnade, which engrossed the architect’s attention; on the other bloomed the garden, offering temptations which none could resist—least of all those who were lovers. Moyse and his Génifrède stepped first to the door which looked out upon the wilderness of flowers, and were soon lost sight of among the shrubs.
Génifrède had her sketch-book in her hand. She and her sister were here partly for the sake of a drawing lesson from Azua; and perhaps she had some idea of taking a sketch during this walk with Moyse. He snatched the book from her, however, and flung it through the window of a garden-house which they passed, saying—
“You can draw while I am away. For this hour you are all my own.”
“And when will you be away? Wherever you go, I will follow you. If we once part, we shall not meet again.”
“We think so, and we say so, each time that we part; and yet we meet again. Once more, only the one time when I am to distinguish myself, to gain you—only that once will we be parted; and then we will be happy for over.”
“Then you will be killed—or you will be sent to France, or you will love some one else and forget me—”
“Forgot you!—love some one else! Oh! Heaven and earth!” cried Moyse, clasping her in his arms, and putting his whole soul into the kisses he impressed on her forehead. “And what,” he continued, in a voice which thrilled her heart, “what would you do if I were killed?”
“I would die. Oh, Moyse! if it should be so, wait for me! Let your spirit wait for mine! It shall not be long.”
“Shall my spirit come—shall I come as a ghost, to tell you that I am dead? Shall I come when you are alone, and call you away?”
“Oh! no, no!” she cried, shuddering. “I will follow—you need not fear. But a ghost—oh! no, no!” And she looked up at him, and clasped him closer.
“And why?” said Moyse. “You do not fear me now—you cling to me. And why fear me then? I shall be yours still. I shall be Moyse. I shall be about you, haunting you, whether you see and hear me or not. Why not see and hear me?”
“Why not?” said Génifrède, in a tone of assent. “But I dare not—I will not. You shall not die. Do not speak of it.”
“It was not I, but you, love, that spoke of it. Well, I will not die. But tell me—if I forget you—if I love another—what then?” And he looked upon her with eyes so full of love, that she laughed, and withdrew herself from his arms, saying, as she sauntered on along the blossom-strewn path—
“Then I will forget you too.”
Moyse lingered for a moment, to watch her stately form, as she made a pathway for herself amidst the tangled shrubs. The walk, once a smooth-shaven turf, kept green by trenches of water, was now overgrown with the vegetation which encroached on either hand. As the dark beauty forced her way, the maypole-aloe shook its yellow crown of flowers, many feet above her head; the lilac jessamine danced before her face; and the white datura, the pink flower-fence, and the scarlet cordia, closed round her form, or spread themselves beneath her feet. Her lover was soon again by her side, warding off every branch and spray, and saying—
“The very flowers worship you: but they and all—all must yield you to me. You are mine; and yet not mine till I have won you from your father. Génifrède, how shall I distinguish myself? Show me the way, and I shall succeed.”
“Do not ask me,” she replied, sighing.
“Nay, whom should I ask?”
“I never desired you to distinguish yourself.”
“You do not wish it?”
“No.”
“Not for your sake?”
“No.”
And she looked around her with wistful eyes, in which her lover read a wish that things would ever remain as they were now—that this moment would never pass away.
“You would remain here—you would hide yourself here with me for ever!” cried the happy Moyse.
“Here, or anywhere;—in the cottage at Breda;—in your father’s hut on the shore;—anywhere, Moyse, where there is nothing to dread. I live in fear; and I am wretched.”
“What is it that you fear, love? Why do you not trust, me to protect you?”
“Then I fear for you, which is worse. Why cannot we live in the woods or the mountains, where there would be no dangerous duties, and no cares?”
“And if we lived in the woods, you would be more terrified still. There would never be a falling star, but your heart would sink. You would take the voices of the winds for the spirits of the woods, and the mountain mists for ghosts. Then, there are the tornado and the thunderbolt. When you saw the trees crashing, you would be for making haste back to the plain. Whenever you heard the rock rolling and bounding down the steep, or the cataract rising and roaring in the midst of the tempest, you would entreat me to fly to the city. It is in this little beating heart that the fear lies.”
“What then is to be done?”
“This little heart must beat yet a while longer; and then, when I have once come back, it shall rest upon mine for ever.”
“Beside my father? He never rests. Your father would leave us in peace; but he has committed you to one who knows not what rest is.”
“Nor ever will,” said Moyse. “If he closed his eyes, if he relaxed his hand, we should all be sunk in ruin.”
“We? Who? What ruin?”
“The whole negro race. Do you suppose the whites are less cruel than they were? Do you believe that their thirst for our humiliation, our slavery, is quenched? Do you believe that the white man’s heart is softened by the generosity and forgiveness of the blacks?”
“My father believes so,” replied Génifrède; “and do they not adore him—the whites whom he has reinstated? Do they not know that they owe to him their lives, their homes, the prosperity of the island? Does he not trust the whites? Does he not order all things for their good, from reverence and affection for them?”
“Yes, he does,” replied Moyse, in a tone which made Génifrède anxiously explore his countenance.
“You think him deceived?” she said.
“No, I do not. It is not easy to deceive L’Ouverture.”
“You do not think—no, you cannot think, that he deceives the whites, or any one.”
“No. L’Ouverture deceives no one. As you say, he reveres the whites. He reveres them for their knowledge. He says they are masters of an intellectual kingdom from which we have been shut out, and they alone can let us in. And then again.—Génifrède, it seems to me that he loves best those who have most injured him.”
“Not best,” she replied. “He delights to forgive: but what white has he ever loved as he loves Henri? Did he ever look upon any white as he looked upon me, when—when he consented? Moyse, you remember?”
“I do. But still he loves the whites as if they were born, and had lived and died, our friends, as he desires they should be. Yet more—he expects and requires that all his race should love them too.”
“And you do not?” said Génifrède, timidly.
“I abhor them.”
“Oh! hush! hush! Speak lower. Does my father know this?”
“Why should he? If he once knew it—”
“Nay, if he knew it, he would give up his purposes of distinction for you; and we might live here, or on the shore.”
“My Génifrède, though I hate the whites, I love the blacks. I love your father. The whites will rise upon us at home, as they are always scheming against us in France, if we are not strong and as watchful as we are strong. If I and others leave L’Ouverture alone to govern, and betake ourselves to the woods and the mountains, the whites will again be masters, and you and I, my Génifrède, shall be slaves. But you shall not be a slave, Génifrède,” he continued, soothing her tremblings at the idea. “The bones of the whites shall be scattered over the island, like the shells on the sea-shore, before my Génifrède shall be a slave. I will cut the throat of every infant at every white mother’s breast, before any one of that race shall lay his grasp upon you. The whites never will, never shall again, be masters: but then, it must be by L’Ouverture having an army always at his command; and of that army I must be one of the officers. We cannot live here, or on the sea-shore, love, while there are whites who may be our masters. So, while I am away, you must pray Christ to humble the whites. Will you? This is all you can do. Will you not?”
“How can I, when my father is always exalting them?”
“You must choose between him and me. Love the whites with him, or hate them with me.”
“But you love my father. Moyse?”
“I do. I adore him as the saviour of the blacks. You adore him, Génifrède. Every one of our race worships him. Génifrède, you love him—your father.”
“I know not—Yes, I loved him the other day. I know not, Moyse. I know nothing but that—I will hate the whites as you do. I never loved them: now I hate them.”
“You shall. I will tell you things of them that will make you curse them. I know every white man’s heart.”
“Then tell my father.”
“Does he not know enough already? Is not his cheek furrowed with the marks of the years during which the whites were masters; and is there any cruelty, any subtlety, in them that he does not understand? Knowing all this, he curses, not them, but the flower which, he says, corrupted them. He keeps from them this power, and believes that all will be well. I shall tell him nothing.”
“Yes, tell him all—all except—”
“Yes, and tell me first,” cried a voice near at hand. There was a great rustling among the bushes, and Denis appeared, begging particularly to know what they were talking about. They, in return, begged to be told what brought him this way, to interrupt their conversation.
“Deesha says Juste is out after wild-fowl, and, most likely, among some of the ponds hereabouts.”
“One would think you had lived in Cap all your days,” said Moyse. “Do you look for wild-fowl in a garden?”
“We will see presently,” said the boy, thrusting himself into the thicket in the direction of the ponds, and guiding himself by the scent of the blossoming reeds—so peculiar as to be known among the many with which the air was filled. He presently beckoned to his sister; and she followed with Moyse, till they found themselves in the field where there had once been several fish-ponds, preserved in order with great care. All were now dried up but two; and the whole of the water being diverted to the service of these two, they were considerable in extent and in depth. What the extent really was, it was difficult to ascertain at the first glance, so hidden was the margin with reeds, populous with wild-fowl.
Denis was earnestly watching these fowl, as he lay among the high grass at some little distance from the water, and prevented his companions from approaching any nearer. The sun was hot, and Génifrède was not long in desiring to return to the garden.
“Let us go back,” said she. “Juste is not here.”
“Yes he is,” said Denis. “However, go back if you like. I shall go fowling with Juste.” And he began to strip off his clothes.
His companions were of opinion, however, that a son of the Commander-in-chief must not sport with a farmer’s boy, without leave of parents or tutor; and they begged him to put on his clothes again, at least till leave was asked. Denis had never cared for his rank, except when riding by his father’s side on review-days; and now he liked it less than ever, as the pond lay gleaming before him, the fowl sailing and fluttering on the surface, and his dignity prevented his going among them.
“What makes you say that Juste is here?” said Génifrède.
“I have seen him take five fowl in the last five minutes.”
As he spoke, he plucked the top of a bulrush, and threw it with such good aim, that it struck a calabash which appeared to be floating among others on the surface of the pond. That particular calabash immediately rose, and the face of a negro child appeared, to the consternation of the fowl, whose splashing and screaming might be heard far and wide. Juste came out of the water, displaying at his belt the result of his sport. He had, as Denis had said, taken five ducks in five minutes by pulling them under the water by the feet, while lying near them with his head covered by the calabash. The little fellow was not satisfied with the admiration of the beholders; he ran homewards, with his clothes in his hand, Denis at his heels, and his game dangling from his waist, and dripping as he ran.
“Many a white would shudder to see that child,” said Moyse, as Juste disappeared. “That is the way Jean’s blacks wore their trophies during the first days of the insurrection.”
“Trophies!” said Génifrède. “You mean heads: heads with their trailing hair;” and her face worked with horror as she spoke. “But it is not for the whites to shudder, after what they did to Ogé, and have done to many a negro since.”
“But they think we do not feel as they do.”
“Not feel! O Christ! If any one of them had my heart before I knew you—in those days at Breda, when Monsieur Bayou used to come down to us!”
“Here comes that boy again,” cried Moyse. “Let us go into the thicket, among the citrons.”
Denis found them, however—found Moyse gathering the white and purple blossoms for Génifrède, while she was selecting the fruit of most fragrant rind from the same tree, to carry into the house.
“You must come in—you must come to dinner,” cried Denis. “Aimée has had a drawing lesson, while you have been doing nothing all this while. They said you were sketching; but I told them how idle you were.”
“I will go back with Denis,” said Génifrède. “You threw away my sketch-book, Moyse. You may find it, and follow us.”
Their path lay together as far as the garden-house. When there, Moyse seized Denis unawares, shot him through the window into the house, and left him to get out as he might, and bring the book. The boy was so long in returning, that his sister became uneasy, lest some snake or other creature should have detained him in combat. She was going to leave the table in search of him, because Moyse would not, when he appeared, singing, and with the book upon his head.
“Who calls Génifrède idle?” cried he, flourishing the book. “Look here!” And he exhibited a capital sketch of herself and Moyse, as he had found them, gathering fruits and flowers.
“Can it be his own?” whispered Génifrède to her lover.
Denis nodded and laughed, while Azua gravely criticised and approved, without suspicion that the sketch was by no pupil of his own.
In the cool evening, Génifrède was really no longer idle. While Denis and Juste were at play, they both at once stumbled and fell over something in the long grass, which proved to be a marble statue of a Naiad, lying at length. Moyse seized it, and raised it where it was relieved by a dark green back-ground. The artist declared it an opportunity for a lesson which was not to be lost: and the girls began to draw, as well as they could for the attempts of the boys to restore the broken urn to the arm from which it had fallen. When Denis and Juste found that they could not succeed, and were only chidden for being in the way, they left the drawing party seated under their clump of cocoa-nut trees, and went to hear what Madame was relating to Bellair and Deesha, in the hearing of Monsieur Molière, Laxabon, and Vincent. Her narration was one which Denis had often heard, but was never tired of listening to. She was telling of the royal descent of her husband—how he was grandson of Gaou Guinou, the king of the African tribe of Arrudos: how this king’s second son was taken in battle, and sold, with other prisoners of war, into slavery: how he married an African girl on the Breda estate, and used to talk of home and its wars, and its haunts, and its sunshine idleness—how he used thus to talk in the evenings, and on Sundays, to the boy upon his knee; so that Toussaint felt, from his infancy, like an African, and the descendant of chiefs. This was a theme which Madame L’Ouverture loved to dwell on, and especially when listened to as now. The Congo chief and his wife hung upon her words, and told in their turn how their youth had been spent at home—how they had been kidnapped, and delivered over to the whites. In the eagerness of their talk, they were perpetually falling unconsciously into the use of their negro language, and as often recalled by their hearers to that which all could understand. Molière and Laxabon listened earnestly; and even Loisir, occupied as he was still with the architecture of the mansion, found himself impatient if he lost a word of the story. Vincent alone, negro as he was, was careless and unmoved. He presently sauntered away, and nobody missed him.
He looked over the shoulder of the architect.
“What pains you are taking!” he said. “You have only to follow your own fancy and convenience about Christophe’s house. Christophe has never been to France. Tell him, or any others of my countrymen, that any building you choose to put up is European, and in good taste, and they will be quite pleased enough.”
“You are a sinner,” said Loisir; “but be quiet now.”
“Nay—do not you find the blacks one and all ready to devour your travellers’ tales—your prodigious reports of European cities? You have only to tell like stories in stone and brick, and they will believe you just as thankfully.”
“No, no, Vincent. I have told no tales so wicked as you tell of your own race. My travellers’ tales are all very well to pass an hour, and be forgotten; but Christophe’s mansion is to stand for an age—to stand as the first evidence, in the department of the arts, of the elevation of your race. Christophe knows, as well as you do without having been to Paris, what is beautiful in architecture; and, if he did not, I would not treacherously mislead him.”
“Christophe knows! Christophe has taste!”
“Yes. While you have been walking streets and squares, he has been studying the aisles of palms, and the crypts of the banyan, which, to an open eye, may teach as much as a prejudiced mind can learn in all Rome.”
“So Loisir is of those who flatter men in power?” said Vincent, laughing.
“I look further,” said Loisir; “I am working for men unborn. I am ambitious; but my ambition is to connect my name honourably with the first great house built for a negro general. My ambition is to build here a rival to the palaces of Europe.”
“Do what you will, you will not rival your own tales of them—unless you find Aladdin’s lamp among these ruins.”
“If you find it, you may bring it me. Azna has found something half as good—a really fine statue in the grass.”
Vincent was off to see it. He found the drawing party more eager in conversation than about their work. Aimée was saying as he approached—
“General Vincent declares that he is as affectionate to us as if we were the nearest to him of all the children of the empire.—Did you not say so?” she asked, eagerly. “Is not the First Consul’s friendship for us real and earnest? Does he not feel a warm regard for my father? Is he not like a father to my brothers?”
“Certainly,” said Vincent. “Do not your brothers confirm this in their letters?”
“Do they not, Génifrède?” repeated Aimée.
“They do; but we see that they speak as they think: not as things really are.”
“How can you so despise the testimony of those who see what we only hear of?”
“I do not despise them or their testimony. I honour their hearts, which forget injuries, and open to kindness. But they are young; they went from keeping cattle, and from witnessing the desolations of war here, to the first city of the world, where the first men lavish upon them instructions, and pleasures, and flatteries; and they are pleased. The greatest of all—the First of the Whites, smiles upon the sons of the First of the Blacks; and their hearts beat with enthusiasm for him. It is natural. But, while they are in Paris, we are in Saint Domingo; and we may easily view affairs, and judge men differently.”
“And so,” said Aimée, “distrust our best friends, and despise our best instructors; and all from a jealousy of race!”
“We think the jealousy of race is with them,” said Moyse, bitterly. “There is not a measure of L’Ouverture’s which they do not neutralise—not a fragment of authority which they will yield. As to friends, if the Consul Bonaparte is our best friend among the Whites, may we be left thus far friendless!”
“You mean that he has not answered my father’s letters. Monsieur Vincent doubts not that an answer is on the way. Remember, my brothers have been invited to his table.”
“There are blacks in Paris, who look on,” replied Moyse, drily.
“And are there not whites too, from this island, who watch every movement?”
“Yes: and those whites are in the private closet, at the very ear of Bonaparte, whispering to him of L’Ouverture’s ambition; while your brothers penetrate no further than the saloon.”
“My brothers would lay down their lives for Bonaparte and France,” said Aimée; “and you speak treason. I am with them.”
“And with me,” said Vincent, in a whisper at her ear. “Where I find the loyal heart in woman, mine is ever loyal too.”
Aimée was too much excited to understand in this what was meant. She went on—
“Here is Monsieur Vincent, of our own race, who has lived here and at Paris—who has loved my father.—You love my father and his government?” she said, with questioning eyes, interrupting herself.
“Certainly. No man is more devoted to L’Ouverture.”
“Devoted to my father,” pursued Aimée, “and yet devoted to Bonaparte. He is above the rivalry of races—as the First Consul is, and as Isaac is.”
“Isaac and the First Consul—these are the idols of Aimée’s worship,” said Génifrède. “Worship Isaac still; for that is a harmless idolatry; but give up your new religion, Aimée; for it is not sound.”
“Why not sound? How do you know that it is not sound?”
“When have the blacks ever trusted the whites without finding themselves bound victims in the end?”
“I have,” said Vincent. “I have lived among them a life of charms, and I am free,” he continued, stretching his arms to the air—“free to embrace the knees of both Bonaparte and L’Ouverture—free to embrace the world.”
“The end has not come yet,” said Moyse.
“What end?” asked Aimée.
“Nay, God knows what end, if we trust the French.”
“You speak from prejudice,” said Aimée. “Monsieur Vincent and my brothers judge from facts.”
“We speak from facts,” said Génifrède; “from, let us see—from seven—no, eight, very ugly facts.”
“The eight Commissaries that the colony has been blessed with,” said Moyse. “If they had taken that monkey which is looking down at your drawing, Aimée, and seven of its brethren, and installed them at Cap, they would have done us all the good the Commissaries have done, and far less mischief. The monkeys would have broken the mirrors, and made a hubbub within the walls of Government-house. These Commissaries, one after another, from Mirbeck to Hédouville, have insulted the colony, and sown quarrels in it, from end to end.”
“Mirbeck! Here is Mirbeck,” said Denis, who had come up to listen. And the boy rolled himself about like a drunken man—like Mirbeck, as he had seen him in the streets of Cap.
“Then they sent Saint Leger, the Irishman,” continued Moyse, “who kept his hand in every man’s pocket, whether black or white.”
Denis forthwith had his hands, one in Vincent’s pocket, the other in Azua’s. Azua, however, was drawing so fast that he did not find it out.
“Then there was Roume.”
“Roume. My father speaks well of Roume,” said Aimée.
“He was amiable enough, but so weak that he soon had to go home, where he was presently joined by his successor, Santhonax, whom, you know, L’Ouverture had to get rid of, for the safety of the colony. Then came Polverel. What the tranquillity of Saint Domingo was in his day we all remember.”
Denis took off Polverel, spying from his ship at the island, on which he dared not land.
“For shame, Denis?” said Aimée. “You are ridiculing him who first called my father L’Ouverture.”
“And do you suppose he knew the use that would be made of the word?” asked Génifrède. “If he had foreseen its being a tide, he would have contented himself with the obsequious bows I remember so well, and never have spoken the word.”
Denis was forthwith bowing, with might and main.
“Now, Denis, be quiet! Raymond, dear Raymond, came next;” and she looked up at Vincent as she praised his friend.
“Raymond is excellent as a man, whatever he may be as governor of Cap,” said Moyse. “But we have been speaking of whites, not of mulattoes—which is another long chapter.”
“Raymond was sent to us by France, however,” said Aimée.
“So was our friend Vincent there; but that is nothing to the purpose.”
“Well; who next?” cried Denis.
“Do not encourage him,” said Aimée. “My father would be vexed with you for training him to ridicule the French—particularly the authorities.”
“Now we are blessed with Hédouville,” pursued Moyse. “There you have him, Denis—only scarcely sly, scarcely smooth enough. Yet, that is Hédouville, who has his eye and his smiles at play in one place, while his heart and hands are busy in another.”
“Busy,” said Génifrède, “in undermining L’Ouverture’s influence, and counteracting his plans; but no one mentioned Ailbaud. Ailbaud—”
“Stay a moment,” said Azua, whose voice had not been heard till then.
All looked at him in surprise, nobody supposing that, while so engrossed with his pencil, he could have cared for their conversation. Aimée saw at a glance that his paper was covered with caricatures of the commissaries who had been enumerated.
“You must have known them,” was Aimée’s involuntary testimony, as the paper went from hand to hand, amidst shouts of laughter, while Azua sat, with folded arms, perfectly grave.
“I have seen some of the gentlemen,” said he, “and Monsieur Denis helped me to the rest.”
The laughter went on till Aimée was somewhat nettled. When the paper came back to her, she looked up into the tree under which she sat. The staring monkey was still there. She made a vigorous spring to hand up the caricature, which the creature caught. As it sat demurely on a branch, holding the paper as if reading it, while one of its companions as gravely looked over its shoulder, there was more laughter than ever.
“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Azua,” said Aimée; “but this is the only worthy fate of a piece of mockery of people wiser than ourselves, and no less kind. The negroes have hitherto been thought, at least, grateful. It seems that this is a mistake. For my part, however, I leave it to the monkeys to ridicule the French.”
Vincent seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. She was abashed, and turned away, when she saw her father behind her, in the shade of the wood. Monsieur Pascal, his secretary, was with him.
“My father!”
“L’Ouverture!” exclaimed one after another of the party; for they all supposed he had been far away. Even Denis at once gave over pelting the monkeys, and left them to their study of the arts in peace.
“Your drawings, my daughters!” said L’Ouverture, with a smile, as if he had been perfectly at leisure. And he examined the Naiad, and then Génifrède’s drawing, with the attention of an artist. Génifrède had made great progress, under the eye of Moyse. Not so Aimée; her pencil had been busy all the while, but there was no Naiad on her page.
“They are for Isaac,” she said, timidly. “Among all the pictures he sees, there are no—”
“No sketches of Denis and his little companions,” said her father; “no cocoa-nut clumps—no broken fountains among the aloes—no groups that will remind him of home. Isaac shall presently have these, Aimée. I am on my way to Cap, and will send them.”
“On your way to Cap!” cried every one—some in a tone of fear.
“To Cap,” said he, “where Father Laxabon will follow me immediately, with Monsieur Pascal. By them, Aimée, you will send your packet for Isaac. My own horse is waiting.”
“Do not go alone—do not go without good escort,” said Moyse. “I can give you reason.”
“I know your thoughts, Moyse. I go for the very reason that there are, or will be, troubles at Cap.—The French authorities may sometimes decree and do that which we feel to be unwise—unsuitable to the blacks,” he continued, with an emphasis which gave some idea of his having overheard more or less of the late conversation; “but we islanders maybe more ignorant still of the thoughts and ways of their practised race.”
“But you are personally unsafe,” persisted Moyse. “If you knew what is said by the officers of Hédouville’s staff—”
“They say,” proceeded Toussaint, smiling, “that they only want three or four brigands to seize the ape with the Madras head dress; and then all would go well. These gentlemen are mistaken; and I am going to prove this to them. An armed escort proves nothing. I carry something stronger still in my mind and on my tongue. General Vincent, a word with you.”
While he and Vincent spoke apart, Aimée exclaimed, “Oh, Moyse! Go with my father!”
“Do not—Oh, do not!” cried Génifrède. “You will never return!” she muttered to him, in a voice of terror. “Aimée, you would send him away: and my mother—all of us, are far from home. Who knows but that Rigaud—”
“Leave Rigaud to me,” cried Vincent, gaily, as he rejoined the party. “I undertake Rigaud. He shall never alarm you more. Farewell, Mademoiselle Aimée! I am going to the south. Rigaud is recruiting in the name of France; and I know France too well to allow of that. I shall stop his recruiting, and choke his blasphemy with a good French sword. Farewell, till I bring you news at Pongaudin that you may ride along the southern coast as securely as in your own cane-pieces.”
“You are going?” said Aimée.
“This very hour. I south—L’Ouverture north—”
“And the rest to Pongaudin with the dawn,” said Toussaint.
“What is your pleasure concerning me?” asked Moyse. “I wait your orders.”
“I remember my promise,” said Toussaint; “but I must not leave my family unprotected. You will attend them to Pongaudin: and then let me see you at Cap, with the speed of the wind.”
“With a speed like your own, if that be possible,” said Moyse.
“Is there danger, father?” asked Génifrède, trembling.
“My child, there is danger in the air we breathe, and the ground we tread on: but there is protection also, everywhere.”
“You will see Afra, father,” said Aimée. “If there is danger, what will become of Afra? Her father will be in the front, in any disturbance: and Government-house is far from being the safest place.”
“I will not forget Afra. Farewell, my children! Go now to your mother; and, before this hour to-morrow, I shall think of you resting at Pongaudin.”
They saw him mount before the courtyard, and set off, followed by one of his two trompettes—the only horsemen in the island who could keep up with him, and therefore his constant attendants in his most important journeys. The other was gone forward, to order horses from post to post.
Vincent, having received written instructions from the secretary, set off in an opposite direction, more gay than those he left behind.
The loftiest trees of the rich plain were still touched with golden light; and the distant bay glittered so as to make the gazers turn away their eyes, to rest on the purple mountains to the north: but their hearts were anxious; and they saw neither the glory nor the beauty of which they heard talk between the painter, the architect, and their host.
Chapter Twelve.A Night of Office.As soon as Toussaint was out of hearing of his family and suite, he put his horse to its utmost speed. There was not a moment to be lost, if the peace of the island was to be preserved. Faster than ever fugitive escaped from trouble and danger, did the negro commander rush towards them. The union between the black and white races probably depended on his reaching Cap by the early morning—in time to prevent certain proclamations of Hédouville, framed in ignorance of the state of the colony and the people, from being published. Forty leagues lay between L’Étoile and Cap, and two mountain ridges crossed his road: but he had ridden forty leagues in a night before, and fifty in a long day; and he thought little of the journey. As he rode, he meditated the work of the next day, while he kept his eye awake, and his heart open, to the beauty of the night.He had cleared the plain, with his trompette at his heels, before the woods and fields had melted together into the purple haze of evening; and the labourers returning from the cane-pieces, with their tools on their shoulders, offered their homage to him as he swept by. Some shouted, some ran beside him, some kneeled in the road and blessed him, or asked his blessing. He came to the river, and found the ford lined by a party of negroes, who, having heard and known his horse’s tread, above the music of pipe and drum, had thrown themselves into the water to point out the ford, and save his precious moments. He dashed through uncovered, and was lost in the twilight before their greeting was done. The evening star was just bright enough to show its image in the still salt-lake, when he met the expected relay, on the verge of the mountain woods. Thence the ascent was so steep, that he was obliged to relax his speed. He had observed the birds winging home to these woods; they had reached it before him, and the chirp of their welcome to their nests was sinking into silence; but the whirring beetles were abroad. The frogs were scarcely heard from the marshes below; but the lizards and crickets vied with the young monkeys in noise, while the wood was all alight with luminous insects. Wherever a twisted fantastic cotton-tree, or a drooping wild fig, stood out from the thicket and apart, it appeared to send forth streams of green flame from every branch; so incessantly did the fireflies radiate from every projecting twig.As he ascended, the change was great. At length there was no more sound; there were no more flitting fires. Still as sleep rose the mountain-peaks to the night. Still as sleep lay the woods below. Still as sleep was the outspread western sea, silvered by the steady stars which shone, still as sleep, in the purple depths of heaven. Such was the starlight on that pinnacle, so large and round the silver globes, so bright in the transparent atmosphere were their arrowy rays, that the whole, vault was as one constellation of little moons, and the horse and his rider saw their own shadows in the white sands of their path. The ridge passed, down plunged the horseman, hurrying to the valley and the plain; like rocks loosened by the thunder from the mountain-top. The hunter, resting on the heights from his day’s chase of the wild goats, started from his sleep, to listen to what he took for a threatening of storm. In a little while, the child in the cottage in the valley nestled close to its mother, scared at the flying tramp; while the trembling mother herself prayed for the shield of the Virgin’s grace against the night-fiends that were abroad. Here, there was a solitary light in the plain; there, beside the river; and yonder, behind the village; and at each of these stations were fresh horses, the best in the region, and smiling faces to tender their use. The panting animals that were left behind were caressed for the sake of the burden they had carried, and of the few kind words dropped by their rider during his momentary pause.Thus was the plain beyond Mirbalais passed soon after midnight. In the dark the horsemen swam the Artibonite, and leaped the sources of the Petite Rivière. The eastern sky was beginning to brighten as they mounted the highest steeps above Atalaye; and from the loftiest point, the features of the wide landscape became distinct in the cool grey dawn. Toussaint looked no longer at the fading stars. He looked eastwards, where the green savannahs spread beyond the reach of human eye. He looked northwards, where towns and villages lay in the skirts of the mountains, and upon the verge of the rivers, and in the green recesses where the springs burst from the hill-sides. He looked westwards, where the broad and full Artibonite gushed into the sea, and where the yellow bays were thronged with shipping, and every green promontory was occupied by its plantation or fishing hamlet. He paused, for one instant, while he surveyed what he well knew to be virtually his dominions. He said to himself that with him it rested to keep out strife from this paradise—to detect whatever devilish cunning might lurk in its by-corners, and rebuke whatever malice and revenge might linger within its bounds. With the thought he again sprang forward, again plunged down the steeps, scudded over the wilds, and splashed through the streams; not losing another moment till his horse stood trembling and foaming under the hot sun, now touching the Haut-du-Cap, where the riders had at length pulled up. Here they had overtaken the first trompette, who, having had no leader at whose heels he must follow, had been unable, with all his zeal, quite to equal the speed of his companion. He had used his best efforts, and showed signs of fatigue; but yet they had come upon his traces on the grass road from the Gros Morne, and had overtaken him as he was toiling up the Haut-du-Cap.Both waited for orders, their eyes fixed on their master’s face, as they saw him stand listening, and glancing his eye over the city, the harbour, and the road from the Plain du Nord. He saw afar signs of trouble: but he saw also that he was not too late. He looked down into the gardens of Government-house. Was it possible that he would show himself there, heated, breathless, covered with dust as he was? No. He dismounted, and gave his horse to the trompettes, ordering them to go by the most public way to the hotel, in Place Mont Archer, to give notice of the approach of his secretary and staff; and thence to the barracks, where he would appear when he had bathed.The trompettes would have gone round five weary miles for the honour of carrying messages from the Commander-in-chief through the principal streets of Cap. They departed with great zeal, while Toussaint ascended to the mountain-pool, to take the plunge in which he found his best refreshment after a long ride. He was presently walking leisurely down the sloping field, through which he could drop into the grounds of Government-house by a back gate, and have his interview with Hédouville before interruption came from the side of the town. As he entered the gardens, he looked, to the wondering eyes he met there, as if he had just risen from rest, to enjoy a morning walk in the shrubberies. They were almost ready to understand, in its literal sense, the expression of his worshippers, that he rode at ease upon the clouds.
As soon as Toussaint was out of hearing of his family and suite, he put his horse to its utmost speed. There was not a moment to be lost, if the peace of the island was to be preserved. Faster than ever fugitive escaped from trouble and danger, did the negro commander rush towards them. The union between the black and white races probably depended on his reaching Cap by the early morning—in time to prevent certain proclamations of Hédouville, framed in ignorance of the state of the colony and the people, from being published. Forty leagues lay between L’Étoile and Cap, and two mountain ridges crossed his road: but he had ridden forty leagues in a night before, and fifty in a long day; and he thought little of the journey. As he rode, he meditated the work of the next day, while he kept his eye awake, and his heart open, to the beauty of the night.
He had cleared the plain, with his trompette at his heels, before the woods and fields had melted together into the purple haze of evening; and the labourers returning from the cane-pieces, with their tools on their shoulders, offered their homage to him as he swept by. Some shouted, some ran beside him, some kneeled in the road and blessed him, or asked his blessing. He came to the river, and found the ford lined by a party of negroes, who, having heard and known his horse’s tread, above the music of pipe and drum, had thrown themselves into the water to point out the ford, and save his precious moments. He dashed through uncovered, and was lost in the twilight before their greeting was done. The evening star was just bright enough to show its image in the still salt-lake, when he met the expected relay, on the verge of the mountain woods. Thence the ascent was so steep, that he was obliged to relax his speed. He had observed the birds winging home to these woods; they had reached it before him, and the chirp of their welcome to their nests was sinking into silence; but the whirring beetles were abroad. The frogs were scarcely heard from the marshes below; but the lizards and crickets vied with the young monkeys in noise, while the wood was all alight with luminous insects. Wherever a twisted fantastic cotton-tree, or a drooping wild fig, stood out from the thicket and apart, it appeared to send forth streams of green flame from every branch; so incessantly did the fireflies radiate from every projecting twig.
As he ascended, the change was great. At length there was no more sound; there were no more flitting fires. Still as sleep rose the mountain-peaks to the night. Still as sleep lay the woods below. Still as sleep was the outspread western sea, silvered by the steady stars which shone, still as sleep, in the purple depths of heaven. Such was the starlight on that pinnacle, so large and round the silver globes, so bright in the transparent atmosphere were their arrowy rays, that the whole, vault was as one constellation of little moons, and the horse and his rider saw their own shadows in the white sands of their path. The ridge passed, down plunged the horseman, hurrying to the valley and the plain; like rocks loosened by the thunder from the mountain-top. The hunter, resting on the heights from his day’s chase of the wild goats, started from his sleep, to listen to what he took for a threatening of storm. In a little while, the child in the cottage in the valley nestled close to its mother, scared at the flying tramp; while the trembling mother herself prayed for the shield of the Virgin’s grace against the night-fiends that were abroad. Here, there was a solitary light in the plain; there, beside the river; and yonder, behind the village; and at each of these stations were fresh horses, the best in the region, and smiling faces to tender their use. The panting animals that were left behind were caressed for the sake of the burden they had carried, and of the few kind words dropped by their rider during his momentary pause.
Thus was the plain beyond Mirbalais passed soon after midnight. In the dark the horsemen swam the Artibonite, and leaped the sources of the Petite Rivière. The eastern sky was beginning to brighten as they mounted the highest steeps above Atalaye; and from the loftiest point, the features of the wide landscape became distinct in the cool grey dawn. Toussaint looked no longer at the fading stars. He looked eastwards, where the green savannahs spread beyond the reach of human eye. He looked northwards, where towns and villages lay in the skirts of the mountains, and upon the verge of the rivers, and in the green recesses where the springs burst from the hill-sides. He looked westwards, where the broad and full Artibonite gushed into the sea, and where the yellow bays were thronged with shipping, and every green promontory was occupied by its plantation or fishing hamlet. He paused, for one instant, while he surveyed what he well knew to be virtually his dominions. He said to himself that with him it rested to keep out strife from this paradise—to detect whatever devilish cunning might lurk in its by-corners, and rebuke whatever malice and revenge might linger within its bounds. With the thought he again sprang forward, again plunged down the steeps, scudded over the wilds, and splashed through the streams; not losing another moment till his horse stood trembling and foaming under the hot sun, now touching the Haut-du-Cap, where the riders had at length pulled up. Here they had overtaken the first trompette, who, having had no leader at whose heels he must follow, had been unable, with all his zeal, quite to equal the speed of his companion. He had used his best efforts, and showed signs of fatigue; but yet they had come upon his traces on the grass road from the Gros Morne, and had overtaken him as he was toiling up the Haut-du-Cap.
Both waited for orders, their eyes fixed on their master’s face, as they saw him stand listening, and glancing his eye over the city, the harbour, and the road from the Plain du Nord. He saw afar signs of trouble: but he saw also that he was not too late. He looked down into the gardens of Government-house. Was it possible that he would show himself there, heated, breathless, covered with dust as he was? No. He dismounted, and gave his horse to the trompettes, ordering them to go by the most public way to the hotel, in Place Mont Archer, to give notice of the approach of his secretary and staff; and thence to the barracks, where he would appear when he had bathed.
The trompettes would have gone round five weary miles for the honour of carrying messages from the Commander-in-chief through the principal streets of Cap. They departed with great zeal, while Toussaint ascended to the mountain-pool, to take the plunge in which he found his best refreshment after a long ride. He was presently walking leisurely down the sloping field, through which he could drop into the grounds of Government-house by a back gate, and have his interview with Hédouville before interruption came from the side of the town. As he entered the gardens, he looked, to the wondering eyes he met there, as if he had just risen from rest, to enjoy a morning walk in the shrubberies. They were almost ready to understand, in its literal sense, the expression of his worshippers, that he rode at ease upon the clouds.