Chapter Twenty Nine.

Chapter Twenty Nine.The Hour of Proof.“So the long-expected letter is come at last,” observed Monsieur Pascal, as the study-door closed upon himself and his friend.“Read it,” said Toussaint, putting the letter into the secretary’s hand, and walking up and down the room, till his friend spoke again.“We hear,” said Monsieur Pascal, “that the First Consul understands men. He may understand some men—the soldiery of France, perhaps—but of others he knows no more than if he were not himself a man.”“He no more understands my people than myself. Can it be possible that he believes that proclamation will be acceptable to them—that mixture of cajolery and bombast. He has heard that we are ignorant, and he concludes that we are without understanding. What think you of his promise of abundance by the hands of Leclerc? As if it were not their cupidity, excited by our abundance, which has brought these thousands of soldiers to our shores! They are welcome to it all—to our harvests, our money, and our merchandise—if they would not touch our freedom.”“Bonaparte has a word to say to that in his letter to you,” observed the secretary. “What can you desire? The freedom of the blacks? You know that in all the countries we have been in, we have given it to the people who had it not? What say the Venetians to that? What says the Pope!”“Does he suppose us deaf,” replied Toussaint, “that we have not heard of the fate of our race in Guadaloupe, and Martinique, and Cayenne? Does he suppose us blind, that we do not see the pirates he has commissioned hovering about the shores of Africa, as the vulture preparing to strike his prey? Ignorant as we are, does he suppose us stupid enough to be delighted when, free already, we find ourselves surrounded by fifty-four war-ships, which come to promise us liberty?”“He does not know, apparently, how our commerce with the world brings us tidings of all the world.”“And if it were not so—if his were the first ships that our eyes had ever seen—does he not know that the richest tidings of liberty come, not through the eye and ear, but from the heart? Does he not know that the liberties of Saint Domingo, large as they are, everlasting as they will prove to be—all sprang from here and here?”—pointing to his head and heart. “This is he,” he continued, “who has been king in my thoughts, from the hour when I heard of the artillery officer who had saved the Convention! This is he to whom I have felt myself bound as a brother in destiny and in glory! This is he with whom I hoped to share the lot of reconciling the quarrel of races and of ages! In the eye of the world he may be great, and I the bandit captain of a despised race. On the page of history he may be magnified, and I derided. But I spurn him for a hero—I reject him for a brother. My rival he may make himself. His soul is narrow, and his aims are low. He might have been a god to the world, and he is a tyrant. We have followed him with wistful eyes, to see him loosen bonds with a divine touch; and we find him busy forging new chains. He has sullied his divine commission; and while my own remains pure, he is no brother of my soul. You, my friend, knew him better than I, or you would not have left his service for mine.”“Yet I gave him credit for a better appreciation of you, a clearer foresight of the destiny of this colony, than he has shown.”“While we live, my friend, we must accept disappointment. In my youth, I learned to give up hope after hope; and one of the brightest I must now relinquish in my old age.”“Two brilliant ones have, however, entered your dwelling this evening, my friend,” said the secretary.“My boys? Are they not?—But these are times to show what they are. In the joy of having them back, I might have forgiven and forgotten everything, but for the claim— You heard, Pascal?”“About their leaving you at dawn. Yes; that was amusing.”“If they will not consider a negro a man, they might have remembered that beasts are desperate to recover the young that they have lost. Leclerc will find, however, that this night will make men of my sons. I will call them my boys no more; and never more shall this envoy call them his pupils, or his charge. These French will find that there is that in this Saint Domingo of ours which quickly ripens young wits, and makes the harvest ready in a day. Let them beware the reaping; for it is another sort of harvest than they look for.—But come,” said he: “it is late; and we have to answer the letter of this foreigner—this stranger to my race and nature.”He took some papers from his pocket, sat down beside the friend, and said, with the countenance of one who has heard good news, “See here how little they comprehend how negroes may be friends! See here the proofs that they understand my Henri no better than myself.”And he put into the hands of his secretary those fine letters of Christophe, which do everlasting honour to his head and heart, and show that he bore a kingly soul before he adorned the kingly office. As Monsieur Pascal road the narrative of Leclerc’s attempts to alarm, to cajole, and to bribe Christophe to betray his friend’s cause, and deliver up his person, the pale countenance of the secretary became now paler with anger and disgust, now flushed with pleasure and admiration.“Here is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” said he.“Alas! poor Paul! he will be faithful, Pascal; but he can never again love me.”“Pardon me, I entreat you. I meant no allusion.”“You did not. But everything serves as an allusion there; for Paul is never out of my mind. Now for our letters;—that to Leclerc modified, as you perceive, by our knowledge of what has passed between him and Henri.”“Modified, indeed!” exclaimed Pascal.Their proceedings were destined to be further modified by the events of this night. Tidings as black as the darkest night that ever brooded over the island in the season of storms poured in to overshadow the prospects of the negroes, and the hopes of their chief.It was after midnight when, in the midst of their quiet consultation, Toussaint and his secretary thought they heard voices at the gate. Toussaint was going to ascertain, when he was met in the hall by news that a messenger from the south-west had arrived. The messenger entered, halting and slow.“It is—no,” said Pascal; “surely it cannot be—”“Is it possible that you are Jacques?” exclaimed Toussaint, his eyes shaded by his hand.“I am Dessalines,” said the wounded man, who had already sunk upon a seat.“Why come yourself, in this state!” cried Toussaint, hastening to support him.“I could more easily come than write my news,” replied Dessalines; “and it is news that I would commit to no man’s ear but your own.”“Shall I go?” asked Monsieur Pascal of Toussaint.“No. Stay and hear. Tell us your tidings, Jacques.”“I am as well here as down in the south-west, or you would not have seen me.”“You mean that all is lost there?”“All is lost there.”“While the enemy is beguiling us with letters, and talk of truce!” observed Toussaint to Pascal. “Where was your battle, Jacques? How can all the west be lost?”“The French have bought La Plume. They told him your cause was desperate, and promised him honours and office in France. Get me cured, and let me win a battle for you, and I have no doubt I can buy him back again. Meantime—”“Meantime, what has Domage done? Is he with me or La Plume? And is Chaney safe?”“Domage never received your instructions. La Plume carried them, and no doubt, your aide-de-camp also, straight to the French. Chaney has not been seen: he is traitor or prisoner.”“Then Cayes is not burned, nor Jeremie defended?”“Neither the one nor the other. Both are lost; and so is Port-au-Prince. My troops and I did our best at the Croix de Bosquets: but what could we do in such a case? I am here, wounded within an inch of my life; and they are in the fastnesses. You were a doctor once, L’Ouverture. Set me up again; and I will gather my men from the mountains, and prick these whites all across the peninsula into the sea.”“I will be doctor, or nurse, or anything, to save you, Jacques.”“What if I have more bad news? Will you not hate me?”“Lose no time, my friend. This is no hour for trifling.”“There is no room for trifling, my friend. I fear—I am not certain—but I fear the east is lost.”“Is Clerveaux bought too?”“Not bought. He is more of your sort than La Plume’s. He is incorruptible by money; but he likes the French, and he loves peace. He would be a very brother to you, if he only loved liberty better than either. As it is, he is thought to have delivered over the whole east, from the Isabella to Cap Samana, without a blow.”“And my brother!”“He has disappeared from the city. He did not yield; but he could do nothing by himself, or with only his guard. He disappeared in the night, and is thought to have put off! by water. You will soon hear from him, I doubt not. Now I have told my news, and I am faint. Where is Thérèse?”“She is here. Look more like yourself, and she shall be called. You have told all your news?”“All; and I am glad it is out.”“Keep up your heart, Dessalines! I have you and Henri; and God is with the faithful.—Now to your bed, my friend.”Instead of the attendants who were summoned, Thérèse entered. She spoke no word, but aided by her servant, had her husband carried to his chamber. When the door was closed, sad and serious as were the tidings which had now to be acted upon, the secretary could not help asking L’Ouverture if he had ever seen Madame Dessalines look as she did just now.“Yes,” he replied, “on certain occasions, some years since.—But here she is again.”Thérèse came to say that her husband had yet something to relate into Toussaint’s own ear before he could sleep; but, on her own part, she entreated that she might first be permitted to dress his wounds.“Send for me when you think fit, and I will come, madame. But, Thérèse, one word. I am aware that Monsieur Papalier is here. Do not forget that you are a Christian, and pledged to forgive injuries.”“You think you read my thoughts, L’Ouverture; but you do not. Listen, and I am gone. His voice once had power over me through love, and then through hatred. I never miss the lightest word he speaks. I heard him tell his old friends from Cap that I was his slave, and that the time was coming when masters would claim their own again. Now you know my thoughts.”And she was gone.When Toussaint returned from his visit to Dessalines’ chamber, he found Monsieur Pascal sitting with his face hid in his hands.“Meditation is good,” said Toussaint, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Lamentation is unworthy.”“It is so; and we have much to do,” replied the secretary, rousing himself.“Fear not,” resumed Toussaint, “but that your bride will bloom in the air of the mountains. We may have to entrench ourselves in the mornes—or, at least, to place there our ladies, and the civil officers of the government; but we ought to thank God for providing those natural homes, so full of health and beauty, for the free in spirit. I have still three brigades, and the great body of the cultivators, in reserve; but we shall all act with stronger hearts if our heart’s treasure is safe in the mornes.”“Are we to lose Dessalines?” asked Monsieur Pascal.“I believe not. He is severely wounded, and, at this moment, exasperated. He vows the death of Monsieur Papalier; and I vow his safety while he is my guest.”“Papalier and Madame Dessalines cannot exist in one house.”“And therefore must this deputation be dismissed early in the morning, if there were no other reasons. Notice must be carried to them with their coffee, that I am awaiting them with my replies. Those delivered, negotiation is at an end, and we must act. My foes have struck the blow which unties my hands.”“What has Monsieur Papalier to do with the deputation?”“Nothing, but that he uses its protection to attempt to resume his estates. They are in commission; and he may have them; though not, as he thinks, with men and women as part of his chattels. No more of him.”“Of whom next, then? Except Christophe, who is there worthy to be named by you?” asked Monsieur Pascal, with emotion.“Every one who has deserted us, except, perhaps, La Plume. He is sordid; and I dismiss him. As for Clerveaux and his thousands, they have been weak, but not, perhaps, wicked. They may be recovered. I take the blame of their weakness upon myself. Would that I alone could bear the consequences!”“You take the blame of their weakness? Is not their former slavery the cause of it? Is there anything in their act but the servility in which they were reared?”“There is much of that. But I have deepened the taint, in striving to avoid the opposite corruption of revenge. I have the taint myself. The stain of slavery exists in the First of the Blacks himself. Let all others, then, be forgiven. They may thus be recovered. I gave them the lesson of loving and trusting the whites. They have done so, to the point of being treacherous to me. I must now give them another lesson, and time to learn it; and they may possibly be redeemed.”“You will hold out in the mornes—conduct your resistance on a pinnacle, where the eyes of the blacks may be raised to you—fixed upon you.”“Just so;—and where they may flock to me, when time shall have taught them my principle and my policy, and revealed the temper and purpose of our invaders. Now, then, to prepare!”Before dawn, the despatches for the French, on the coast and at home, were prepared; and messengers were dismissed, in every direction, with orders by which the troops which remained faithful would be concentrated, the cultivators raised and collected, stores provided in the fastnesses, and the new acquisitions of the enemy rendered useless to them. Never had the heads of these two able men, working in perfect concert, achieved such a mass of work in a single night.A little after sunrise, the French party appeared in the salon, where already almost every member of the household was collected; all being under the impression that a crisis had arrived, and that memorable words were about to be spoken.Toussaint acknowledged the apparent discourtesy of appointing the hour for the departure of his guests; but declared that he had no apology to offer:—that the time for courteous observance was past, when his guests were discovered to be sent merely to amuse and disarm him for the hour, while blows were struck at a distance against the liberties of his race. In delivering his despatches, he said, he was delivering his farewell. Within an hour, the deputation and himself must be travelling in different directions.Monsieur Coasson, on receiving the packets, said that he had no other desire than to be on his way. There could be no satisfaction, and little safety, in remaining in a house where, under a hypocritical pretence of magnanimity and good-will, there lurked a spirit of hideous malice, of diabolical revenge, towards a race to whom nature, and the universal consent of men, had given a superiority which they could never lose.In unaffected surprise, Toussaint looked in the face of the envoy, observing that, for himself, he disclaimed all such passion and such dissimulation as his household was charged with.“Of course you do,” replied Coasson: “but I require not your testimony. The men of a family may, where there is occasion, conceal its ruling passion: but, where there is occasion, it will be revealed by the women.”Toussaint’s eyes, like every one’s else, turned to the ladies of his family. It was not Madame L’Ouverture that was intended, for her countenance asked of her husband what this could mean. It could not be Aimée, who now stood drowned in tears, where she could best conceal her grief. Génifrède explained. She told calmly, and without the slightest confusion, that Monsieur Coasson had sought a conversation with her, for the purpose of winning over her feelings, and her influence with her father, to the side of the French. He had endeavoured to make her acknowledge that the whole family, with the exception of its head, were in favour of peace, admirers of Bonaparte, and aware that they were likely to be victims to the ambition of their father. Her reply, in which she declared that she gloried, was that the deepest passion of her soul was hatred of the whites; and that she prayed for their annihilation.“And did you also declare, my daughter,” said Toussaint, “that in this you differ from us all? Did you avow that your parents look upon this passion in you as a disease, for which you have their daily and nightly prayers?”“I did declare, my father, that I alone of the Ouvertures know how to feel for the wrongs of my race. But Monsieur Coasson did not believe me, and vowed that we should all suffer for the opinions held by me alone.”“It is true, I did not believe, nor do I now believe,” said Coasson, “that the devil would single out one of a family, to corrupt her heart with such atrocious hatred as that whose avowal chilled the marrow of my bones. It was her countenance of wretchedness that attracted me. I saw that she was less capable of dissimulation than the rest of you; and so I have found.”“A wise man truly has the Captain-General chosen for an envoy!” observed Toussaint: “a wise and an honourable man! He sees woe in the face of a woman, and makes it his instrument for discovering the secret souls of her family. Blindly bent upon this object, and having laid open, as he thinks, one heart, he reads the rest by it. But he may, with all his wisdom, and all this honour, be no less ignorant than before he saw us. So far from reading all our souls, he has not even read the suffering one that he has tempted. You have opened the sluices of the waters of bitterness in my child’s soul, Monsieur Coasson, but you have not found the source.”“Time will show that,” observed the envoy.“It will,” replied Toussaint; “and also the worth of your threat of revenge for the words of my suffering child. I have no more to say to you.—My sons!”Placide sprang to his side, and Isaac followed.“I no longer call you boys; for the choice of this hour makes you men. The Captain-General insists that you go from me. He has no right to do so. Neither have I a right to bid you stay. Hear, and decide for yourselves.—The cause of the blacks is not so promising as it appeared last night. News has arrived, from various quarters, of defeat and defection. Our struggle for our liberties will be fierce and long. It will never be relinquished; and my own conviction is, that the cause of the blacks will finally prevail; that Saint Domingo will never more belong to France. The ruler of France has been a guardian to you—an indulgent guardian. I do not ask you to tight against him.”The faces of both the young men showed strong and joyful emotion; but it was not the same emotion in them both.“Decide according to your reason and your hearts, my children, whether to go or stay; remembering the importance of your choice.” Putting a hand on the shoulder of each, he said impressively, “Go to the Captain-General, or remain with me. Whichever you do, I shall always equally love and cherish you.”Margot looked upon her sons, as if awaiting from them life or death. Aimée’s face was still hidden in her handkerchief. She had nothing to learn of her brother’s inclinations.Isaac spoke before Placide could open his lips.“We knew, father,” he said, “that your love and your rare liberality—that liberality which gave us our French education—would not fail now. And this it is that persuades me that this quarrel cannot proceed to extremities—that it will not be necessary for your sons to take any part, as you propose. When Placide and I think of you—your love of peace, your loyalty, and your admiration of Bonaparte; and then, when we think of Bonaparte—his astonishment at what you have done in the colony, and the terms in which he always spoke of you to us—when we consider how you two are fitted to appreciate each other, we cannot believe but that the Captain-General and you will soon be acting in harmony, for the good of both races. But for this assurance, we could hardly have courage to return.”“Speak for yourself alone, Isaac,” said his brother.“Well, then: I say for myself, that, but for this certainly, it would almost break my heart to leave you so soon again, though to go at present no further off than Tortuga. But I am quite confident that there will soon be perfect freedom of intercourse among all who are on the island.”“You return with me?” asked Monsieur Coasson.“Certainly, as my father gives me my choice. I feel myself bound, in honour and gratitude, to return, instead of appearing to escape, at the very first opportunity, from those with whom I can never quarrel. Returning to Leclerc, under his conditional orders, can never be considered a declaration against my father: while remaining here, against Leclerc’s orders, is an undeniable declaration against Bonaparte and France—a declaration which I never will make.”“I stay with my father,” said Placide.“Your reasons?” asked Monsieur Coasson; “that I may report them to the Captain-General.”“I have no reasons,” replied Placide; “or, if I have, I cannot recollect them now. I shall stay with my father.”“Welcome home, my boy!” said Toussaint; “and Isaac, my son, may God bless you, wherever you go.”And he opened his arms to them both.“I am not afraid,” said Madame L’Ouverture, timidly, as if scarcely venturing to say so much—“I am not afraid but that, happen what may, we can always make a comfortable home for Placide.”“Never mind comfort, mother: and least of all for me. We have something better than comfort to try for now.”“Give me your blessing, too, father,” said Aimée, faintly, as Isaac led her forward, and Vincent closely followed. “You said you would bless those that went, and those that stayed; and I am going with Isaac.”The parents were speechless; so that Isaac could explain that the Captain-General offered a welcome to as many of the Ouvertures as were disposed to join him; and that Madame Leclerc had said that his sisters would find a home and protection with her.“And I cannot separate from Isaac yet,” pleaded Aimée. “And with Madame Leclerc—”“General Vincent,” said Toussaint, addressing his aide before noticing his daughter, “have the goodness to prepare for an immediate journey. I will give you your commission when you are ready to ride.”After one moment’s hesitation, Vincent bowed, and withdrew. He was not prepared to desert his General while actually busy in his affairs. He reflected that the great object (in order to the peace and reconciliation he hoped for) was to serve, and keep on a good understanding with, both parties. He would discharge this commission, and then follow Aimée and her brother, as he had promised. Thus he settled with himself, while he ordered his horses, and prepared for departure.Toussaint was sufficiently aware that he should prosper better without his shallow-minded and unstable aide; but he meant to retain him about his person, on business in his service, till Aimée should have opportunity, in his absence, to explore her own mind, and determine her course, while far from the voice of the tempter.“Go with your brother, Aimée,” he said, “rather than remain unwillingly with us. Whenever you wish it, return. You will find our arms ever open to you.”And he blessed her, as did her weeping mother—the last, however, not without a word of reproach.“Oh, Aimée, why did not you tell me?”“Mother, I did not know myself—I was uncertain—I was—Oh, mother! it will not be for long. It is but a little way: and Isaac and I shall soon write. I will tell you everything about Madame Leclerc. Kiss me once more, mother; and take care of Génifrède.”As Toussaint abruptly turned away, with a parting bow to the envoy, and entered the piazza, on his way to the urgent business of the day, and as the shortest escape from the many eyes that were upon him, he encountered Monsieur Pascal, who stood awaiting him there.“My friend!” said Monsieur Pascal, with emotion, as he looked in the face of Toussaint.“Ay, Pascal: it is bitter. Bonaparte rose up as my rival; and cheerfully did I accept him for such, in the council and in the field. But now he is my rival in my family. He looks defiance at me through my children’s eyes. It is too much. God give me patience!”Monsieur Pascal did not speak; for what could he say?

“So the long-expected letter is come at last,” observed Monsieur Pascal, as the study-door closed upon himself and his friend.

“Read it,” said Toussaint, putting the letter into the secretary’s hand, and walking up and down the room, till his friend spoke again.

“We hear,” said Monsieur Pascal, “that the First Consul understands men. He may understand some men—the soldiery of France, perhaps—but of others he knows no more than if he were not himself a man.”

“He no more understands my people than myself. Can it be possible that he believes that proclamation will be acceptable to them—that mixture of cajolery and bombast. He has heard that we are ignorant, and he concludes that we are without understanding. What think you of his promise of abundance by the hands of Leclerc? As if it were not their cupidity, excited by our abundance, which has brought these thousands of soldiers to our shores! They are welcome to it all—to our harvests, our money, and our merchandise—if they would not touch our freedom.”

“Bonaparte has a word to say to that in his letter to you,” observed the secretary. “What can you desire? The freedom of the blacks? You know that in all the countries we have been in, we have given it to the people who had it not? What say the Venetians to that? What says the Pope!”

“Does he suppose us deaf,” replied Toussaint, “that we have not heard of the fate of our race in Guadaloupe, and Martinique, and Cayenne? Does he suppose us blind, that we do not see the pirates he has commissioned hovering about the shores of Africa, as the vulture preparing to strike his prey? Ignorant as we are, does he suppose us stupid enough to be delighted when, free already, we find ourselves surrounded by fifty-four war-ships, which come to promise us liberty?”

“He does not know, apparently, how our commerce with the world brings us tidings of all the world.”

“And if it were not so—if his were the first ships that our eyes had ever seen—does he not know that the richest tidings of liberty come, not through the eye and ear, but from the heart? Does he not know that the liberties of Saint Domingo, large as they are, everlasting as they will prove to be—all sprang from here and here?”—pointing to his head and heart. “This is he,” he continued, “who has been king in my thoughts, from the hour when I heard of the artillery officer who had saved the Convention! This is he to whom I have felt myself bound as a brother in destiny and in glory! This is he with whom I hoped to share the lot of reconciling the quarrel of races and of ages! In the eye of the world he may be great, and I the bandit captain of a despised race. On the page of history he may be magnified, and I derided. But I spurn him for a hero—I reject him for a brother. My rival he may make himself. His soul is narrow, and his aims are low. He might have been a god to the world, and he is a tyrant. We have followed him with wistful eyes, to see him loosen bonds with a divine touch; and we find him busy forging new chains. He has sullied his divine commission; and while my own remains pure, he is no brother of my soul. You, my friend, knew him better than I, or you would not have left his service for mine.”

“Yet I gave him credit for a better appreciation of you, a clearer foresight of the destiny of this colony, than he has shown.”

“While we live, my friend, we must accept disappointment. In my youth, I learned to give up hope after hope; and one of the brightest I must now relinquish in my old age.”

“Two brilliant ones have, however, entered your dwelling this evening, my friend,” said the secretary.

“My boys? Are they not?—But these are times to show what they are. In the joy of having them back, I might have forgiven and forgotten everything, but for the claim— You heard, Pascal?”

“About their leaving you at dawn. Yes; that was amusing.”

“If they will not consider a negro a man, they might have remembered that beasts are desperate to recover the young that they have lost. Leclerc will find, however, that this night will make men of my sons. I will call them my boys no more; and never more shall this envoy call them his pupils, or his charge. These French will find that there is that in this Saint Domingo of ours which quickly ripens young wits, and makes the harvest ready in a day. Let them beware the reaping; for it is another sort of harvest than they look for.—But come,” said he: “it is late; and we have to answer the letter of this foreigner—this stranger to my race and nature.”

He took some papers from his pocket, sat down beside the friend, and said, with the countenance of one who has heard good news, “See here how little they comprehend how negroes may be friends! See here the proofs that they understand my Henri no better than myself.”

And he put into the hands of his secretary those fine letters of Christophe, which do everlasting honour to his head and heart, and show that he bore a kingly soul before he adorned the kingly office. As Monsieur Pascal road the narrative of Leclerc’s attempts to alarm, to cajole, and to bribe Christophe to betray his friend’s cause, and deliver up his person, the pale countenance of the secretary became now paler with anger and disgust, now flushed with pleasure and admiration.

“Here is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” said he.

“Alas! poor Paul! he will be faithful, Pascal; but he can never again love me.”

“Pardon me, I entreat you. I meant no allusion.”

“You did not. But everything serves as an allusion there; for Paul is never out of my mind. Now for our letters;—that to Leclerc modified, as you perceive, by our knowledge of what has passed between him and Henri.”

“Modified, indeed!” exclaimed Pascal.

Their proceedings were destined to be further modified by the events of this night. Tidings as black as the darkest night that ever brooded over the island in the season of storms poured in to overshadow the prospects of the negroes, and the hopes of their chief.

It was after midnight when, in the midst of their quiet consultation, Toussaint and his secretary thought they heard voices at the gate. Toussaint was going to ascertain, when he was met in the hall by news that a messenger from the south-west had arrived. The messenger entered, halting and slow.

“It is—no,” said Pascal; “surely it cannot be—”

“Is it possible that you are Jacques?” exclaimed Toussaint, his eyes shaded by his hand.

“I am Dessalines,” said the wounded man, who had already sunk upon a seat.

“Why come yourself, in this state!” cried Toussaint, hastening to support him.

“I could more easily come than write my news,” replied Dessalines; “and it is news that I would commit to no man’s ear but your own.”

“Shall I go?” asked Monsieur Pascal of Toussaint.

“No. Stay and hear. Tell us your tidings, Jacques.”

“I am as well here as down in the south-west, or you would not have seen me.”

“You mean that all is lost there?”

“All is lost there.”

“While the enemy is beguiling us with letters, and talk of truce!” observed Toussaint to Pascal. “Where was your battle, Jacques? How can all the west be lost?”

“The French have bought La Plume. They told him your cause was desperate, and promised him honours and office in France. Get me cured, and let me win a battle for you, and I have no doubt I can buy him back again. Meantime—”

“Meantime, what has Domage done? Is he with me or La Plume? And is Chaney safe?”

“Domage never received your instructions. La Plume carried them, and no doubt, your aide-de-camp also, straight to the French. Chaney has not been seen: he is traitor or prisoner.”

“Then Cayes is not burned, nor Jeremie defended?”

“Neither the one nor the other. Both are lost; and so is Port-au-Prince. My troops and I did our best at the Croix de Bosquets: but what could we do in such a case? I am here, wounded within an inch of my life; and they are in the fastnesses. You were a doctor once, L’Ouverture. Set me up again; and I will gather my men from the mountains, and prick these whites all across the peninsula into the sea.”

“I will be doctor, or nurse, or anything, to save you, Jacques.”

“What if I have more bad news? Will you not hate me?”

“Lose no time, my friend. This is no hour for trifling.”

“There is no room for trifling, my friend. I fear—I am not certain—but I fear the east is lost.”

“Is Clerveaux bought too?”

“Not bought. He is more of your sort than La Plume’s. He is incorruptible by money; but he likes the French, and he loves peace. He would be a very brother to you, if he only loved liberty better than either. As it is, he is thought to have delivered over the whole east, from the Isabella to Cap Samana, without a blow.”

“And my brother!”

“He has disappeared from the city. He did not yield; but he could do nothing by himself, or with only his guard. He disappeared in the night, and is thought to have put off! by water. You will soon hear from him, I doubt not. Now I have told my news, and I am faint. Where is Thérèse?”

“She is here. Look more like yourself, and she shall be called. You have told all your news?”

“All; and I am glad it is out.”

“Keep up your heart, Dessalines! I have you and Henri; and God is with the faithful.—Now to your bed, my friend.”

Instead of the attendants who were summoned, Thérèse entered. She spoke no word, but aided by her servant, had her husband carried to his chamber. When the door was closed, sad and serious as were the tidings which had now to be acted upon, the secretary could not help asking L’Ouverture if he had ever seen Madame Dessalines look as she did just now.

“Yes,” he replied, “on certain occasions, some years since.—But here she is again.”

Thérèse came to say that her husband had yet something to relate into Toussaint’s own ear before he could sleep; but, on her own part, she entreated that she might first be permitted to dress his wounds.

“Send for me when you think fit, and I will come, madame. But, Thérèse, one word. I am aware that Monsieur Papalier is here. Do not forget that you are a Christian, and pledged to forgive injuries.”

“You think you read my thoughts, L’Ouverture; but you do not. Listen, and I am gone. His voice once had power over me through love, and then through hatred. I never miss the lightest word he speaks. I heard him tell his old friends from Cap that I was his slave, and that the time was coming when masters would claim their own again. Now you know my thoughts.”

And she was gone.

When Toussaint returned from his visit to Dessalines’ chamber, he found Monsieur Pascal sitting with his face hid in his hands.

“Meditation is good,” said Toussaint, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Lamentation is unworthy.”

“It is so; and we have much to do,” replied the secretary, rousing himself.

“Fear not,” resumed Toussaint, “but that your bride will bloom in the air of the mountains. We may have to entrench ourselves in the mornes—or, at least, to place there our ladies, and the civil officers of the government; but we ought to thank God for providing those natural homes, so full of health and beauty, for the free in spirit. I have still three brigades, and the great body of the cultivators, in reserve; but we shall all act with stronger hearts if our heart’s treasure is safe in the mornes.”

“Are we to lose Dessalines?” asked Monsieur Pascal.

“I believe not. He is severely wounded, and, at this moment, exasperated. He vows the death of Monsieur Papalier; and I vow his safety while he is my guest.”

“Papalier and Madame Dessalines cannot exist in one house.”

“And therefore must this deputation be dismissed early in the morning, if there were no other reasons. Notice must be carried to them with their coffee, that I am awaiting them with my replies. Those delivered, negotiation is at an end, and we must act. My foes have struck the blow which unties my hands.”

“What has Monsieur Papalier to do with the deputation?”

“Nothing, but that he uses its protection to attempt to resume his estates. They are in commission; and he may have them; though not, as he thinks, with men and women as part of his chattels. No more of him.”

“Of whom next, then? Except Christophe, who is there worthy to be named by you?” asked Monsieur Pascal, with emotion.

“Every one who has deserted us, except, perhaps, La Plume. He is sordid; and I dismiss him. As for Clerveaux and his thousands, they have been weak, but not, perhaps, wicked. They may be recovered. I take the blame of their weakness upon myself. Would that I alone could bear the consequences!”

“You take the blame of their weakness? Is not their former slavery the cause of it? Is there anything in their act but the servility in which they were reared?”

“There is much of that. But I have deepened the taint, in striving to avoid the opposite corruption of revenge. I have the taint myself. The stain of slavery exists in the First of the Blacks himself. Let all others, then, be forgiven. They may thus be recovered. I gave them the lesson of loving and trusting the whites. They have done so, to the point of being treacherous to me. I must now give them another lesson, and time to learn it; and they may possibly be redeemed.”

“You will hold out in the mornes—conduct your resistance on a pinnacle, where the eyes of the blacks may be raised to you—fixed upon you.”

“Just so;—and where they may flock to me, when time shall have taught them my principle and my policy, and revealed the temper and purpose of our invaders. Now, then, to prepare!”

Before dawn, the despatches for the French, on the coast and at home, were prepared; and messengers were dismissed, in every direction, with orders by which the troops which remained faithful would be concentrated, the cultivators raised and collected, stores provided in the fastnesses, and the new acquisitions of the enemy rendered useless to them. Never had the heads of these two able men, working in perfect concert, achieved such a mass of work in a single night.

A little after sunrise, the French party appeared in the salon, where already almost every member of the household was collected; all being under the impression that a crisis had arrived, and that memorable words were about to be spoken.

Toussaint acknowledged the apparent discourtesy of appointing the hour for the departure of his guests; but declared that he had no apology to offer:—that the time for courteous observance was past, when his guests were discovered to be sent merely to amuse and disarm him for the hour, while blows were struck at a distance against the liberties of his race. In delivering his despatches, he said, he was delivering his farewell. Within an hour, the deputation and himself must be travelling in different directions.

Monsieur Coasson, on receiving the packets, said that he had no other desire than to be on his way. There could be no satisfaction, and little safety, in remaining in a house where, under a hypocritical pretence of magnanimity and good-will, there lurked a spirit of hideous malice, of diabolical revenge, towards a race to whom nature, and the universal consent of men, had given a superiority which they could never lose.

In unaffected surprise, Toussaint looked in the face of the envoy, observing that, for himself, he disclaimed all such passion and such dissimulation as his household was charged with.

“Of course you do,” replied Coasson: “but I require not your testimony. The men of a family may, where there is occasion, conceal its ruling passion: but, where there is occasion, it will be revealed by the women.”

Toussaint’s eyes, like every one’s else, turned to the ladies of his family. It was not Madame L’Ouverture that was intended, for her countenance asked of her husband what this could mean. It could not be Aimée, who now stood drowned in tears, where she could best conceal her grief. Génifrède explained. She told calmly, and without the slightest confusion, that Monsieur Coasson had sought a conversation with her, for the purpose of winning over her feelings, and her influence with her father, to the side of the French. He had endeavoured to make her acknowledge that the whole family, with the exception of its head, were in favour of peace, admirers of Bonaparte, and aware that they were likely to be victims to the ambition of their father. Her reply, in which she declared that she gloried, was that the deepest passion of her soul was hatred of the whites; and that she prayed for their annihilation.

“And did you also declare, my daughter,” said Toussaint, “that in this you differ from us all? Did you avow that your parents look upon this passion in you as a disease, for which you have their daily and nightly prayers?”

“I did declare, my father, that I alone of the Ouvertures know how to feel for the wrongs of my race. But Monsieur Coasson did not believe me, and vowed that we should all suffer for the opinions held by me alone.”

“It is true, I did not believe, nor do I now believe,” said Coasson, “that the devil would single out one of a family, to corrupt her heart with such atrocious hatred as that whose avowal chilled the marrow of my bones. It was her countenance of wretchedness that attracted me. I saw that she was less capable of dissimulation than the rest of you; and so I have found.”

“A wise man truly has the Captain-General chosen for an envoy!” observed Toussaint: “a wise and an honourable man! He sees woe in the face of a woman, and makes it his instrument for discovering the secret souls of her family. Blindly bent upon this object, and having laid open, as he thinks, one heart, he reads the rest by it. But he may, with all his wisdom, and all this honour, be no less ignorant than before he saw us. So far from reading all our souls, he has not even read the suffering one that he has tempted. You have opened the sluices of the waters of bitterness in my child’s soul, Monsieur Coasson, but you have not found the source.”

“Time will show that,” observed the envoy.

“It will,” replied Toussaint; “and also the worth of your threat of revenge for the words of my suffering child. I have no more to say to you.—My sons!”

Placide sprang to his side, and Isaac followed.

“I no longer call you boys; for the choice of this hour makes you men. The Captain-General insists that you go from me. He has no right to do so. Neither have I a right to bid you stay. Hear, and decide for yourselves.—The cause of the blacks is not so promising as it appeared last night. News has arrived, from various quarters, of defeat and defection. Our struggle for our liberties will be fierce and long. It will never be relinquished; and my own conviction is, that the cause of the blacks will finally prevail; that Saint Domingo will never more belong to France. The ruler of France has been a guardian to you—an indulgent guardian. I do not ask you to tight against him.”

The faces of both the young men showed strong and joyful emotion; but it was not the same emotion in them both.

“Decide according to your reason and your hearts, my children, whether to go or stay; remembering the importance of your choice.” Putting a hand on the shoulder of each, he said impressively, “Go to the Captain-General, or remain with me. Whichever you do, I shall always equally love and cherish you.”

Margot looked upon her sons, as if awaiting from them life or death. Aimée’s face was still hidden in her handkerchief. She had nothing to learn of her brother’s inclinations.

Isaac spoke before Placide could open his lips.

“We knew, father,” he said, “that your love and your rare liberality—that liberality which gave us our French education—would not fail now. And this it is that persuades me that this quarrel cannot proceed to extremities—that it will not be necessary for your sons to take any part, as you propose. When Placide and I think of you—your love of peace, your loyalty, and your admiration of Bonaparte; and then, when we think of Bonaparte—his astonishment at what you have done in the colony, and the terms in which he always spoke of you to us—when we consider how you two are fitted to appreciate each other, we cannot believe but that the Captain-General and you will soon be acting in harmony, for the good of both races. But for this assurance, we could hardly have courage to return.”

“Speak for yourself alone, Isaac,” said his brother.

“Well, then: I say for myself, that, but for this certainly, it would almost break my heart to leave you so soon again, though to go at present no further off than Tortuga. But I am quite confident that there will soon be perfect freedom of intercourse among all who are on the island.”

“You return with me?” asked Monsieur Coasson.

“Certainly, as my father gives me my choice. I feel myself bound, in honour and gratitude, to return, instead of appearing to escape, at the very first opportunity, from those with whom I can never quarrel. Returning to Leclerc, under his conditional orders, can never be considered a declaration against my father: while remaining here, against Leclerc’s orders, is an undeniable declaration against Bonaparte and France—a declaration which I never will make.”

“I stay with my father,” said Placide.

“Your reasons?” asked Monsieur Coasson; “that I may report them to the Captain-General.”

“I have no reasons,” replied Placide; “or, if I have, I cannot recollect them now. I shall stay with my father.”

“Welcome home, my boy!” said Toussaint; “and Isaac, my son, may God bless you, wherever you go.”

And he opened his arms to them both.

“I am not afraid,” said Madame L’Ouverture, timidly, as if scarcely venturing to say so much—“I am not afraid but that, happen what may, we can always make a comfortable home for Placide.”

“Never mind comfort, mother: and least of all for me. We have something better than comfort to try for now.”

“Give me your blessing, too, father,” said Aimée, faintly, as Isaac led her forward, and Vincent closely followed. “You said you would bless those that went, and those that stayed; and I am going with Isaac.”

The parents were speechless; so that Isaac could explain that the Captain-General offered a welcome to as many of the Ouvertures as were disposed to join him; and that Madame Leclerc had said that his sisters would find a home and protection with her.

“And I cannot separate from Isaac yet,” pleaded Aimée. “And with Madame Leclerc—”

“General Vincent,” said Toussaint, addressing his aide before noticing his daughter, “have the goodness to prepare for an immediate journey. I will give you your commission when you are ready to ride.”

After one moment’s hesitation, Vincent bowed, and withdrew. He was not prepared to desert his General while actually busy in his affairs. He reflected that the great object (in order to the peace and reconciliation he hoped for) was to serve, and keep on a good understanding with, both parties. He would discharge this commission, and then follow Aimée and her brother, as he had promised. Thus he settled with himself, while he ordered his horses, and prepared for departure.

Toussaint was sufficiently aware that he should prosper better without his shallow-minded and unstable aide; but he meant to retain him about his person, on business in his service, till Aimée should have opportunity, in his absence, to explore her own mind, and determine her course, while far from the voice of the tempter.

“Go with your brother, Aimée,” he said, “rather than remain unwillingly with us. Whenever you wish it, return. You will find our arms ever open to you.”

And he blessed her, as did her weeping mother—the last, however, not without a word of reproach.

“Oh, Aimée, why did not you tell me?”

“Mother, I did not know myself—I was uncertain—I was—Oh, mother! it will not be for long. It is but a little way: and Isaac and I shall soon write. I will tell you everything about Madame Leclerc. Kiss me once more, mother; and take care of Génifrède.”

As Toussaint abruptly turned away, with a parting bow to the envoy, and entered the piazza, on his way to the urgent business of the day, and as the shortest escape from the many eyes that were upon him, he encountered Monsieur Pascal, who stood awaiting him there.

“My friend!” said Monsieur Pascal, with emotion, as he looked in the face of Toussaint.

“Ay, Pascal: it is bitter. Bonaparte rose up as my rival; and cheerfully did I accept him for such, in the council and in the field. But now he is my rival in my family. He looks defiance at me through my children’s eyes. It is too much. God give me patience!”

Monsieur Pascal did not speak; for what could he say?

Chapter Thirty.Speculation in the Plateaux.Pongaudin was no longer safe, as head-quarters for the Commander-in-chief, his family, and guests. The defeats which had been sustained were bad enough; but the defection was worse. Amidst the contagion of defection there was no saying who, out of the circle of immediate friends, might next join the French for the sake of peace; and for the sake of peace, perhaps, deliver up the persons of the Ouvertures, with their wounded friend, Dessalines, and the brave young officers who formed the guard of the household. Christophe’s letters had already proved to Toussaint and his secretary, that no reliance was to be placed on the honour of the French, in their dealings with negroes. Cajolery in speech, covering plots against their persons, appeared to be considered the conduct appropriate to business with blacks, who had no concern, it seemed, with the usages of war, as established among whites. La Plume had fallen by bribery; Clerveaux by cajolery; and both means had been attempted with Christophe. The troops were assailed on the side of their best affections. They were told that Leclerc came to do honour to L’Ouverture—to thank him for his government of the island during the troubles of France, and to convoy to him the approbation of the First Consul, in papers enclosed in a golden box. It is probable that, if they had not heard from Toussaint’s own lips of the establishment of slavery in the other French colonies, the authorisation of the slave-trade, and the threat to do what was convenient with Saint Domingo—all the negroes would have made the French welcome, as Clerveaux had done. As it was, large numbers unquestionably remained faithful to their liberties and their chief—enough, as Toussaint never doubted, to secure their liberties at last: but how many, and after how long and arduous a struggle, it remained for time to show.Many houses had been offered as a retreat for the household of the Commander-in-chief. The one chosen this day was his friend Raymond’s cacao-plantation, Le Zéphyr, in the Mornes du Chaos—among the mountains which retired above the light bank of the Artibonite. It was a spacious mansion, sheltered from storms, but enjoying a pleasant mountain air—the most wholesome that could be found, if the retreat should continue through the hot season. It was surrounded with never-failing springs of pure water. There were kids on all the hills, and cattle in every valley round. Grain and fruits were in the fields and gardens; and it was thought that one well-guarded post, at a pass below the Plateaux de la Ravine, would render the place inaccessible to the enemy. To the satisfaction of Raymond and his daughter, and the delight of Euphrosyne, this, their beloved summer mansion, was fixed on for the abode of the whole party, provided Toussaint should find, on examination, that it would answer his purposes as well as was now supposed.Such was the plan settled presently after the deputation had left the gates—settled among the few confidential friends, whose tastes, as well as interests, Toussaint chose to consult. Madame Dessalines was among those; and one of the most eager to be gone. She engaged to remove her husband safely to a place where his recovery must proceed better than among the agitations of Pongaudin. By one of these agitations her desire to go had been much quickened. Before the departure of the deputation, she had chanced to meet Monsieur Papalier in one of the corridors, equipped for his journey. She could not avoid passing him; and he had greeted her with a significant “Au revoir, Thérèse.” Fervently she prayed that she might never meet him again; and anxious was she to be gone to a place where he could not come.Before noon, L’Ouverture, with Placide riding by his side, and followed by some officers, who were themselves followed by a few soldiers, was among the heights which commanded the plain of the Artibonite on one side, and on the other the valleys which lay between their party and the Gros Morne. They had visited Le Zéphyr, and were now about to examine the pass where their post was to be established.“This heat, Placide,” said his father, as the sun beat down upon their heads, “is it not too much for you? Perhaps you had better—But I beg your pardon,” he added, smiling; “I had forgotten that you are no longer my growing boy, Placide, whom I must take care of. I beg your pardon, Placide; but it is so new to me to have a manly son beside me—!”And he looked at him with eyes of pride.Placide told how often at Paris he had longed to bask in such a sunshine as this, tempered by the fragrant breezes from the mountain-side. He was transported now to hear the blows of the axe in the woods, and the shock of the falling trunks, as the hewers of the logwood and the mahogany trees were at their hidden work. He was charmed with the songs of the cultivators which rose from the hot plain below, where they were preparing the furrows for the indigo-sowing. He greeted every housewife who, with her children about her, was on her knees by the mountain-stream, washing linen, and splashing her little ones in sport. All these native sights and sounds, so unlike Paris, exhilarated Placide in the highest degree. He was willing to brave either heats or hurricanes on the mountains, for the sake of thus feeling himself once more in his tropical home.“One would think it a time of peace,” said he, “with the wood-cutters and cultivators all about us. Where will be the first cropping from those indigo-fields? And, if that is saved, where will be the second!”“Of that last question, ask me again when we are alone,” replied his father. “As for the rest, it is by no will of mine that our people are to be called off from their wood-cutting and their tillage. To the last moment, you see, I encourage the pursuits of peace. But, if you could see closely these men in the forest and the fields, you would find that, as formerly, they have the cutlass at their belt, and the rifle slung across their shoulders. They are my most trusty soldiery.”“Because they love you best, and owe most to you. What has Vincent discovered below there—far-off? Have you your glass, father?”“The deputation, perhaps,” said Toussaint.“Yes: there they are! They have crossed the Trois Rivières, and they are creeping up towards Plaisance. What a mere handful the party looks at this distance! What mere insects to be about to pull the thunder down upon so many heads! What an atom of space they cover! Yet Vincent’s heart is on that little spot, I believe. Is it not so, father?”“Yes! unless some of it is, as I fear, with the fleet beyond the ridge.”“He will be missing, some day soon, then.”“For his own sake and Aimée’s, I trust not. This step of hers has disconcerted me: but no harm can be done by detaining Vincent in honour near me, till the turn of events may decide his inclinations in favour of Aimée’s father, and of his own race. Detained he must be, for the present, in dishonour, if not in honour: for he knows too much of my affairs to be allowed to see Leclerc. If Aimée returns to us, or if we gain a battle, Vincent will be ours without compulsion. Meantime, I keep him always employed beside me.”“This is the place for our post, surely,” said Placide. “See how the rocks are rising on either hand above this level! No one could pass here whom we choose to obstruct.”“Yes: this is the spot; these are the Plateaux,” replied his father, awaiting the officers and soldiers—the latter being prepared with tools, to mark out and begin their work.While the consultations and measurements were going on, Placide’s eye was caught by the motion of a young fawn in the high grass of a lawny slope, on one side of the valley. He snatched the loaded rifle which one of the soldiers had exchanged for a spade and fired. The passion for sport was instantly roused by the act. Kids were seen here and there on the rocks. Marks were not wanting: and first Vincent, and then one and another, followed Placide’s example; and there were several shots at the same instant, whose echoes reverberated to the delighted ear of Placide, who was sorry when the last had died away among the mountain-tops.“Your first and last sport for to-day,” observed Toussaint. “You have given the game a sufficient alarm for the present.”“We must find our game, as we have shot it,” exclaimed Vincent. “My kid is not far-off.”“After it, then! You will find me under the large cotton-tree yonder. The heat is too great here, Placide, between these walls of rock.”Every man of the party was off in pursuit of his game, except Placide, who remained to ask his father, now they were alone, what was to happen at the season of the second indigo-cutting. They threw themselves down beneath the cotton-tree, which with its own broad shades, deepened by the masses of creepers which twined and clustered about it, and weighed it down on every side, afforded as complete a shelter from the shower of sun-rays as any artificial roof could have done.“The second indigo-cutting is in August, you know,” said Toussaint. “August will decide our freedom, if it is not decided before. August is the season when Nature comes in as our ally—comes in with her army of horrors, which we should not have the heart to invoke, but which will arrive, with or without our will; and which it will be the fault of the French themselves if they brave.”“Foul airs and pestilence, you mean!” said Placide.“I mean foul airs and pestilence. All our plans, my son—(it is a comfort to make a counsellor of my own son!)—all the plans of my generals and myself are directed to provide for our defence till August, certain that then the French will be occupied in grappling with a deadlier foe than even men fighting for their liberties.”“Till August!” repeated Placide. “Nearly six months! I scarcely think the French could hold their footing so long, if—but that—”“If what? Except for what?”“If it were not for the tremendous reinforcements which I fear will be sent.”“I thought so,” said his father.“All France is eager to come,” continued Placide. “The thousands who are here (about twelve thousand, I fancy; but they did what they could to prevent our knowing the numbers exactly)—the thousands who are here are looked upon with envy by those who are left behind. The jealousy was incredible—the clamour to gain appointments to the Saint Domingo expedition.”“To be appointed to pestilence in the hospitals, and a grave in the sands!” exclaimed Toussaint. “It is strange! Frenchmen enough have died here, in seasons of trouble, to convince all France that only in times of peace, leisure, stillness, and choice of residence, have Europeans a fair chance of life here, for a single year. It is strange that they do not foresee their own death-angels clustering on our shores.”“The delusion is so strong,” said Placide, “that I verily believe that if these twelve thousand were all dead to-day, twenty thousand more would be ready to come to-morrow. If every officer was buried here, the choicest commanders there would press forward over their graves. If even the Leclercs should perish, I believe that other relatives of the First Consul, and perhaps some other of his sisters, would kneel to him, as these have done, to implore him to appoint them to the new expedition to Saint Domingo.”“The madness of numbers is never without an open cause,” said Toussaint. “What is the cause here?”“Clear and plain enough. The representations of the emigrants coming in aid of the secret wishes of Bonaparte, have, under his encouragement, turned the heads of his family, his court, and after them, of his people.”“The emigrants sigh for their country (and it is a country to sigh after), and they look back on their estates and their power, I suppose; while the interval of ten years dims in their memories all inconveniences from the climate, and from the degradation of their order.”“They appear to forget that any form of evil but Ogé and you, father, ever entered their paradise. They say that, but for you, they might have been all this while in paradise. They have boasted of its wealth and its pleasures, till there is not a lady in the court of France who does not long to come and dwell in palaces of perfumed woods, marbles, and gold and silver. They dream of passing the day in breezy shades, and of sipping the nectar of tropical fruits, from hour to hour. They think a good deal, too, of the plate and wines, and equipages, and trains of attendants, of which they have heard so much; and at the same time, of martial glory and laurel crowns.”“So these are the ideas with which they have come to languish on Tortuga, and be buried in its sands! These emigrants have much to answer for.”“So Isaac and I perpetually told them; but they would not listen to anything said by an Ouverture. Nor could we wonder at this, when persons of every colour were given to the same boastings; so that Isaac and I found ourselves tempted into a like strain upon occasion.”“It appears as if the old days had returned,” said Toussaint; “the days of Columbus and his crows. We are as the unhappy Indians to the rapacity of Europe. No wonder, if mulattoes and blacks speak of the colony as if it were the old Hayti.”“They do, from Lanville, the coffee-planter, to our Mars Plaisir. Mars Plaisir has brought orders for I do not know how many parrots; and for pearls, and perfumes, and spices, and variegated woods.”“Is it possible?” said Toussaint, smiling. “Does he really believe his own stories? If so, that accounts for his staying with you, instead of going with Isaac; which I wondered at. I thought he could not have condescended to us, after having lived in France.”“He condescends to be wherever he finds most scope for boasting. On Tortuga, or among the ashes of Cap, he can boast no more. With us he can extol France, as there he extolled Saint Domingo. If August brings the destruction we look for, the poor fellow ought to die of remorse; but he has not head enough to suffer for the past. You can hold out till August, father?”“If Maurepas joins us here with his force, I have no doubt of holding out till August. In these mornes, as many as will not yield might resist for life; but my own forces, aided by those of Maurepas, may effectually keep off the grasp of the French from all places but those in which they are actually quartered. A few actions may be needful,—morally needful,—to show them that the blacks can fight. If this lesson will not suffice, August, alas! will exterminate the foe. What do I see stirring among the ferns there? Is it more game?”Placide started up.“Too near us for game,” he whispered; and then added aloud, “Shall we carry home another deer? Shall I fire?”At these words, some good French was heard out of the tall, tree-like ferns,—voices of men intreating that no one would fire; and two Frenchman presently appeared, an army and a navy officer.“How came you here, gentlemen? Are you residents in the colony?”“If we had been, we should not have lost ourselves, as you perceive we have done. We are sent by the Captain-General to parley, as a last hope of avoiding the collision which the Captain-General deprecates. Here are our credentials, by which you will discover our names,—Lieutenant Martin,” pointing to his companion, “and Captain Sabès,” bowing for himself.“It is too late for negotiation, gentlemen,” said L’Ouverture, “as the news from the south will already have informed the Captain-General. I regret the accident of your having lost your way, as it will deprive you for a time of your liberty. You must be aware that, voluntarily or involuntarily, you have fulfilled the office of spies; and for the present, therefore, I cannot part with you. Placide, summon our attendants, and, with them, escort these gentlemen to Le Zéphyr. I shall soon join you there, and hear anything that your charge may have to say.”The officers protested, but in vain.“It is too late, gentlemen. You may thank your own commanders for compelling me to run no more risks—for having made trust in a French officer’s honour a crime to my own people. You may have heard and seen so much that I am compelled to hold you prisoners. As I have no proof, however, that you are spies, your lives are safe.”In answer to Placide’s shout—the well-known mountain-cry which he was delighted to revive—their followers appeared on all sides, some bringing in their game, some empty-handed. The French officers saw that escape was impossible. Neither had they any thought, but for a passing moment, of fighting for their liberty. The Ouvertures were completely armed; and there never was an occasion when a man would lightly engage, hand-to-hand, with Toussaint or his son.Half the collected party, including Vincent, accompanied Toussaint to Pongaudin. The other half escorted Placide and his prisoners up the morne to Le Zéphyr; these carried all the game for a present provision.Placide observed an interchange of glances between his prisoners as they passed the spades, pick-axes, and fresh-dug earth in the plateaus. He had little idea how that glance was connected with the romancing he had just been describing; nor how much of insult and weary suffering it boded to his father.

Pongaudin was no longer safe, as head-quarters for the Commander-in-chief, his family, and guests. The defeats which had been sustained were bad enough; but the defection was worse. Amidst the contagion of defection there was no saying who, out of the circle of immediate friends, might next join the French for the sake of peace; and for the sake of peace, perhaps, deliver up the persons of the Ouvertures, with their wounded friend, Dessalines, and the brave young officers who formed the guard of the household. Christophe’s letters had already proved to Toussaint and his secretary, that no reliance was to be placed on the honour of the French, in their dealings with negroes. Cajolery in speech, covering plots against their persons, appeared to be considered the conduct appropriate to business with blacks, who had no concern, it seemed, with the usages of war, as established among whites. La Plume had fallen by bribery; Clerveaux by cajolery; and both means had been attempted with Christophe. The troops were assailed on the side of their best affections. They were told that Leclerc came to do honour to L’Ouverture—to thank him for his government of the island during the troubles of France, and to convoy to him the approbation of the First Consul, in papers enclosed in a golden box. It is probable that, if they had not heard from Toussaint’s own lips of the establishment of slavery in the other French colonies, the authorisation of the slave-trade, and the threat to do what was convenient with Saint Domingo—all the negroes would have made the French welcome, as Clerveaux had done. As it was, large numbers unquestionably remained faithful to their liberties and their chief—enough, as Toussaint never doubted, to secure their liberties at last: but how many, and after how long and arduous a struggle, it remained for time to show.

Many houses had been offered as a retreat for the household of the Commander-in-chief. The one chosen this day was his friend Raymond’s cacao-plantation, Le Zéphyr, in the Mornes du Chaos—among the mountains which retired above the light bank of the Artibonite. It was a spacious mansion, sheltered from storms, but enjoying a pleasant mountain air—the most wholesome that could be found, if the retreat should continue through the hot season. It was surrounded with never-failing springs of pure water. There were kids on all the hills, and cattle in every valley round. Grain and fruits were in the fields and gardens; and it was thought that one well-guarded post, at a pass below the Plateaux de la Ravine, would render the place inaccessible to the enemy. To the satisfaction of Raymond and his daughter, and the delight of Euphrosyne, this, their beloved summer mansion, was fixed on for the abode of the whole party, provided Toussaint should find, on examination, that it would answer his purposes as well as was now supposed.

Such was the plan settled presently after the deputation had left the gates—settled among the few confidential friends, whose tastes, as well as interests, Toussaint chose to consult. Madame Dessalines was among those; and one of the most eager to be gone. She engaged to remove her husband safely to a place where his recovery must proceed better than among the agitations of Pongaudin. By one of these agitations her desire to go had been much quickened. Before the departure of the deputation, she had chanced to meet Monsieur Papalier in one of the corridors, equipped for his journey. She could not avoid passing him; and he had greeted her with a significant “Au revoir, Thérèse.” Fervently she prayed that she might never meet him again; and anxious was she to be gone to a place where he could not come.

Before noon, L’Ouverture, with Placide riding by his side, and followed by some officers, who were themselves followed by a few soldiers, was among the heights which commanded the plain of the Artibonite on one side, and on the other the valleys which lay between their party and the Gros Morne. They had visited Le Zéphyr, and were now about to examine the pass where their post was to be established.

“This heat, Placide,” said his father, as the sun beat down upon their heads, “is it not too much for you? Perhaps you had better—But I beg your pardon,” he added, smiling; “I had forgotten that you are no longer my growing boy, Placide, whom I must take care of. I beg your pardon, Placide; but it is so new to me to have a manly son beside me—!”

And he looked at him with eyes of pride.

Placide told how often at Paris he had longed to bask in such a sunshine as this, tempered by the fragrant breezes from the mountain-side. He was transported now to hear the blows of the axe in the woods, and the shock of the falling trunks, as the hewers of the logwood and the mahogany trees were at their hidden work. He was charmed with the songs of the cultivators which rose from the hot plain below, where they were preparing the furrows for the indigo-sowing. He greeted every housewife who, with her children about her, was on her knees by the mountain-stream, washing linen, and splashing her little ones in sport. All these native sights and sounds, so unlike Paris, exhilarated Placide in the highest degree. He was willing to brave either heats or hurricanes on the mountains, for the sake of thus feeling himself once more in his tropical home.

“One would think it a time of peace,” said he, “with the wood-cutters and cultivators all about us. Where will be the first cropping from those indigo-fields? And, if that is saved, where will be the second!”

“Of that last question, ask me again when we are alone,” replied his father. “As for the rest, it is by no will of mine that our people are to be called off from their wood-cutting and their tillage. To the last moment, you see, I encourage the pursuits of peace. But, if you could see closely these men in the forest and the fields, you would find that, as formerly, they have the cutlass at their belt, and the rifle slung across their shoulders. They are my most trusty soldiery.”

“Because they love you best, and owe most to you. What has Vincent discovered below there—far-off? Have you your glass, father?”

“The deputation, perhaps,” said Toussaint.

“Yes: there they are! They have crossed the Trois Rivières, and they are creeping up towards Plaisance. What a mere handful the party looks at this distance! What mere insects to be about to pull the thunder down upon so many heads! What an atom of space they cover! Yet Vincent’s heart is on that little spot, I believe. Is it not so, father?”

“Yes! unless some of it is, as I fear, with the fleet beyond the ridge.”

“He will be missing, some day soon, then.”

“For his own sake and Aimée’s, I trust not. This step of hers has disconcerted me: but no harm can be done by detaining Vincent in honour near me, till the turn of events may decide his inclinations in favour of Aimée’s father, and of his own race. Detained he must be, for the present, in dishonour, if not in honour: for he knows too much of my affairs to be allowed to see Leclerc. If Aimée returns to us, or if we gain a battle, Vincent will be ours without compulsion. Meantime, I keep him always employed beside me.”

“This is the place for our post, surely,” said Placide. “See how the rocks are rising on either hand above this level! No one could pass here whom we choose to obstruct.”

“Yes: this is the spot; these are the Plateaux,” replied his father, awaiting the officers and soldiers—the latter being prepared with tools, to mark out and begin their work.

While the consultations and measurements were going on, Placide’s eye was caught by the motion of a young fawn in the high grass of a lawny slope, on one side of the valley. He snatched the loaded rifle which one of the soldiers had exchanged for a spade and fired. The passion for sport was instantly roused by the act. Kids were seen here and there on the rocks. Marks were not wanting: and first Vincent, and then one and another, followed Placide’s example; and there were several shots at the same instant, whose echoes reverberated to the delighted ear of Placide, who was sorry when the last had died away among the mountain-tops.

“Your first and last sport for to-day,” observed Toussaint. “You have given the game a sufficient alarm for the present.”

“We must find our game, as we have shot it,” exclaimed Vincent. “My kid is not far-off.”

“After it, then! You will find me under the large cotton-tree yonder. The heat is too great here, Placide, between these walls of rock.”

Every man of the party was off in pursuit of his game, except Placide, who remained to ask his father, now they were alone, what was to happen at the season of the second indigo-cutting. They threw themselves down beneath the cotton-tree, which with its own broad shades, deepened by the masses of creepers which twined and clustered about it, and weighed it down on every side, afforded as complete a shelter from the shower of sun-rays as any artificial roof could have done.

“The second indigo-cutting is in August, you know,” said Toussaint. “August will decide our freedom, if it is not decided before. August is the season when Nature comes in as our ally—comes in with her army of horrors, which we should not have the heart to invoke, but which will arrive, with or without our will; and which it will be the fault of the French themselves if they brave.”

“Foul airs and pestilence, you mean!” said Placide.

“I mean foul airs and pestilence. All our plans, my son—(it is a comfort to make a counsellor of my own son!)—all the plans of my generals and myself are directed to provide for our defence till August, certain that then the French will be occupied in grappling with a deadlier foe than even men fighting for their liberties.”

“Till August!” repeated Placide. “Nearly six months! I scarcely think the French could hold their footing so long, if—but that—”

“If what? Except for what?”

“If it were not for the tremendous reinforcements which I fear will be sent.”

“I thought so,” said his father.

“All France is eager to come,” continued Placide. “The thousands who are here (about twelve thousand, I fancy; but they did what they could to prevent our knowing the numbers exactly)—the thousands who are here are looked upon with envy by those who are left behind. The jealousy was incredible—the clamour to gain appointments to the Saint Domingo expedition.”

“To be appointed to pestilence in the hospitals, and a grave in the sands!” exclaimed Toussaint. “It is strange! Frenchmen enough have died here, in seasons of trouble, to convince all France that only in times of peace, leisure, stillness, and choice of residence, have Europeans a fair chance of life here, for a single year. It is strange that they do not foresee their own death-angels clustering on our shores.”

“The delusion is so strong,” said Placide, “that I verily believe that if these twelve thousand were all dead to-day, twenty thousand more would be ready to come to-morrow. If every officer was buried here, the choicest commanders there would press forward over their graves. If even the Leclercs should perish, I believe that other relatives of the First Consul, and perhaps some other of his sisters, would kneel to him, as these have done, to implore him to appoint them to the new expedition to Saint Domingo.”

“The madness of numbers is never without an open cause,” said Toussaint. “What is the cause here?”

“Clear and plain enough. The representations of the emigrants coming in aid of the secret wishes of Bonaparte, have, under his encouragement, turned the heads of his family, his court, and after them, of his people.”

“The emigrants sigh for their country (and it is a country to sigh after), and they look back on their estates and their power, I suppose; while the interval of ten years dims in their memories all inconveniences from the climate, and from the degradation of their order.”

“They appear to forget that any form of evil but Ogé and you, father, ever entered their paradise. They say that, but for you, they might have been all this while in paradise. They have boasted of its wealth and its pleasures, till there is not a lady in the court of France who does not long to come and dwell in palaces of perfumed woods, marbles, and gold and silver. They dream of passing the day in breezy shades, and of sipping the nectar of tropical fruits, from hour to hour. They think a good deal, too, of the plate and wines, and equipages, and trains of attendants, of which they have heard so much; and at the same time, of martial glory and laurel crowns.”

“So these are the ideas with which they have come to languish on Tortuga, and be buried in its sands! These emigrants have much to answer for.”

“So Isaac and I perpetually told them; but they would not listen to anything said by an Ouverture. Nor could we wonder at this, when persons of every colour were given to the same boastings; so that Isaac and I found ourselves tempted into a like strain upon occasion.”

“It appears as if the old days had returned,” said Toussaint; “the days of Columbus and his crows. We are as the unhappy Indians to the rapacity of Europe. No wonder, if mulattoes and blacks speak of the colony as if it were the old Hayti.”

“They do, from Lanville, the coffee-planter, to our Mars Plaisir. Mars Plaisir has brought orders for I do not know how many parrots; and for pearls, and perfumes, and spices, and variegated woods.”

“Is it possible?” said Toussaint, smiling. “Does he really believe his own stories? If so, that accounts for his staying with you, instead of going with Isaac; which I wondered at. I thought he could not have condescended to us, after having lived in France.”

“He condescends to be wherever he finds most scope for boasting. On Tortuga, or among the ashes of Cap, he can boast no more. With us he can extol France, as there he extolled Saint Domingo. If August brings the destruction we look for, the poor fellow ought to die of remorse; but he has not head enough to suffer for the past. You can hold out till August, father?”

“If Maurepas joins us here with his force, I have no doubt of holding out till August. In these mornes, as many as will not yield might resist for life; but my own forces, aided by those of Maurepas, may effectually keep off the grasp of the French from all places but those in which they are actually quartered. A few actions may be needful,—morally needful,—to show them that the blacks can fight. If this lesson will not suffice, August, alas! will exterminate the foe. What do I see stirring among the ferns there? Is it more game?”

Placide started up.

“Too near us for game,” he whispered; and then added aloud, “Shall we carry home another deer? Shall I fire?”

At these words, some good French was heard out of the tall, tree-like ferns,—voices of men intreating that no one would fire; and two Frenchman presently appeared, an army and a navy officer.

“How came you here, gentlemen? Are you residents in the colony?”

“If we had been, we should not have lost ourselves, as you perceive we have done. We are sent by the Captain-General to parley, as a last hope of avoiding the collision which the Captain-General deprecates. Here are our credentials, by which you will discover our names,—Lieutenant Martin,” pointing to his companion, “and Captain Sabès,” bowing for himself.

“It is too late for negotiation, gentlemen,” said L’Ouverture, “as the news from the south will already have informed the Captain-General. I regret the accident of your having lost your way, as it will deprive you for a time of your liberty. You must be aware that, voluntarily or involuntarily, you have fulfilled the office of spies; and for the present, therefore, I cannot part with you. Placide, summon our attendants, and, with them, escort these gentlemen to Le Zéphyr. I shall soon join you there, and hear anything that your charge may have to say.”

The officers protested, but in vain.

“It is too late, gentlemen. You may thank your own commanders for compelling me to run no more risks—for having made trust in a French officer’s honour a crime to my own people. You may have heard and seen so much that I am compelled to hold you prisoners. As I have no proof, however, that you are spies, your lives are safe.”

In answer to Placide’s shout—the well-known mountain-cry which he was delighted to revive—their followers appeared on all sides, some bringing in their game, some empty-handed. The French officers saw that escape was impossible. Neither had they any thought, but for a passing moment, of fighting for their liberty. The Ouvertures were completely armed; and there never was an occasion when a man would lightly engage, hand-to-hand, with Toussaint or his son.

Half the collected party, including Vincent, accompanied Toussaint to Pongaudin. The other half escorted Placide and his prisoners up the morne to Le Zéphyr; these carried all the game for a present provision.

Placide observed an interchange of glances between his prisoners as they passed the spades, pick-axes, and fresh-dug earth in the plateaus. He had little idea how that glance was connected with the romancing he had just been describing; nor how much of insult and weary suffering it boded to his father.

Chapter Thirty One.Retreat.Pongaudin was indeed no longer safe. Immediately on the return of Coasson to the fleet, under the date of the 17th of February, the Captain-General issued a proclamation of outlawry against L’Ouverture and Christophe, pronouncing it the imperative duty of every one who had the power to seize and deliver up the traitors. As Toussaint said to his family, Pongaudin was a residence for a citizen; outlaws must go to the mountains.To the mountain they went—not weeping and trembling, but in a temper of high courage and hope. The rocks rang with the military music which accompanied them. Their very horses seemed to feel the spirit of their cause; much more were the humblest of the soldiery animated with the hope of success in the struggle, which was now to be carried on in a mode which they much preferred to keeping watch in the plains. They found the pass well fortified; they found the morne above it still and undisturbed; untrod, as it seemed now likely to remain, by the foot of an invader. They found the mansion at Le Zéphyr, spacious as it was, much enlarged by temporary erections, and prepared for the abode of more than the number that had come. Madame Pascal looked at her husband with a sigh, when the alterations met her eye; and Raymond himself did not much relish seeing sentinels posted at all his gates. Euphrosyne, however, was still quite happy. Here was her beloved Le Zéphyr, with its blossoming cacao-groves. Here were space, freedom, and friends; and neither convent rules nor nuns.A perpetual line of communication was established between the pass and this mansion. Vincent, with a troop, was appointed to guard the estate and the persons on it—including the two French prisoners. Placide was to join his father below, to receive the forces which flocked to the rendezvous. Before he went, he pointed out to Vincent, and his own family, a station, on a steep at some distance in the rear of the house, whence they might discern, with a good glass, the road which wound through the plain of the Artibonite, within two miles of the Plateaux, and up towards Plaisance to the north. Many and wonderful were the objects seen from this lofty station; but not one of them—not even the green knolls and hollows of the morne, stretched out from Le Zéphyr to the pass—not the brimming river of the plain—not the distant azure sea, with its tufted isles—was so interesting, under present circumstances, as this yellow winding road—the way of approach of either friend or foe.But for the apprehensions belonging to a state of warfare—apprehensions which embitter life in all its hours to women—and, possibly, more than is generally acknowledged, to men—but for the speculations as to who was destined to die, who to fall into the most cruel hands that ever abused their power over a helpless foe (for the French of former wars were not forgotten), and what was to be the lot of those who escaped death and capture—but for these speculations, which were stirring in every woman’s heart in all that household, the way of life at Le Zéphyr was pleasant enough.Even poor Génifrède appeared to revive here. She showed more interest in nursing Dessalines than in any previous occupation since the death of her lover. Thérèse was delighted to afford her the opportunity of feeling herself useful, and permitted herself many a walk in the groves, many an hour of relaxation in the salon, which she would have despised, but for their affording an interest to Génifrède. The three were more than ever drawn together by their new experience of the conduct of the French. Never was sick man more impatient to be strong than Dessalines. Génifrède regarded him as the pillar of the cause, on account of his uncompromising passion for vengeance; and his wife herself counted the days till he could be again abroad at the head of his forces.When not in attendance upon him, Génifrède spent the hours of daylight at the station on the height. She cared neither for heat nor chill while there, and forgot food and rest; and there was sometimes that in her countenance when she returned, and in the tone of her prophesying about the destruction of the enemy, which caused the whisper to go round that she met her lover there, just under the clouds. Monsieur Pascal—the rational, sagacious Monsieur Pascal—was of opinion that she believed this herself.On this station, and other heights which surrounded the mansion, there were other objects of interest than the visitations of the clouds, and the whisperings of the breezes from the depths of the woods. For many days, a constant excitement was caused by the accession of troops. Not only Toussaint’s own bands followed him to the post, but three thousand more, on whom he could rely, were spared from his other strong posts in the mountains. Soon after these three thousand, Christophe appeared with such force as could be spared from the garrisons in the north. The officers under Dessalines also, aware that the main struggle, whenever the French would come to an engagement, must be in the Plateaux de la Ravine, drew thither, with the remnants of the force which had suffered defeat in the south-west. Hither, too, came Bellair, with his family, and the little garrison which had fortified and held L’Étoile, till it became necessary to burn and leave it.Messenger arrived after messenger, to announce these accessions of force; and the whole household poured out upon the heights to see and hear. If it was at noon, the clear music of the wind-instruments floated faintly in the still air; if the morning or evening breezes were abroad the harmony came in gushes; and the shouts of greeting and reception were plainly distinguishable, and were responded to involuntarily by all at Le Zéphyr but the two prisoners. Under the impulse of the moment, no voice was louder or more joyous than Vincent’s. It now only remained for Maurepas to bring his numerous troops up to the point of junction. He must presently arrive; and then, as Placide and other sanguine young soldiers thought, and as Sabès and his companion began seriously to fear, the negro force under L’Ouverture might defy all Europe.News, stirring news, came from all corners of the colony with every fresh arrival. Deesha, especially, could tell all that had been done, not only at L’Étoile, and in all the plain of Cul-de-Sac, but within the districts of the unfaithful generals, Clerveaux and La Plume. Her boy Juste, though too young to take a practical part in the war, carried the passion and energy of a man into the cause, and was versed in all the details of the events which had taken place since the landing of the French. It was a sore mortification to Juste that he was not permitted to remain by his father’s side at the Plateaux; but he consoled himself with teaching his little brother Tobie the military exercise, and with sport. Juste was as fond of sport as on the day when he floated under calabashes, to catch wild ducks; and this was well; for at Le Zéphyr, under present circumstances, the sportsman was one of the most useful members of the establishment. The air of the mornes was celebrated for its power of creating an appetite; and there were many mouths to feed: so that Juste was assured, on all hands, that he had as important a function to fulfil as if he had been a soldier. As it was believed impossible for human foot to stray beyond the morne by any other passage than that of the Plateaux, the boys were permitted to be out early and late, in the woods and upon the hill-sides; and often did Génifrède and the sentries hear the far-off shouts of the little sportsmen, or see the puff of smoke from Juste’s rifle in the valley, or under the verge of the groves. Many a nest of young orioles did Tobie abstract from the last fork of a branch, when the peculiar note of the parent-bird led him on into the midst of the thicket where these delicate creatures hide themselves. The ring-tail dove, one of the most exquisite of table luxuries, he was very successful in liming; and he would bring home a dozen in a morning. He could catch turkeys with a noose, and young pigs to barbecue. He filled baskets with plover’s eggs from the high lands; and of the wild-fowl he brought in, there was no end. In the midst of these feats, he engaged for far greater things in a little while—when the soldier-crabs should make their annual march down the mountains, on their way to the sea. In those days, Tobie promised the tables at Le Zéphyr should groan under the profusion of savoury soups, which should banish for the season the salt beef and salt-fish which, meantime, formed part of the daily diet of the household.While his little brother was thus busy with smaller game, Juste was indulging a higher ambition. When nothing better was to be had, he could condescend to plovers and pigeons; but he liked better to bring down a dainty young heifer among the herds of wild cattle, or several head of deer in a day. It was his triumph to return heavily laden, and to go forth again with three or four soldiers, or half-a-dozen servants (whichever could best be spared), to gather up from the hill-sides the fallen game, which he had covered with branches of trees, to keep off hawk and vulture. It was triumph to point out to his aides spot after spot where the bird of prey hovered, seeking in vain for a space on which to pounce. Amidst these triumphs, Juste was almost satisfied not to be at the Plateau.Perhaps the heaviest heart among all that household, scarcely excepting Génifrède’s, was Madame L’Ouverture’s; and yet her chief companionship, strangely enough, was with the one who carried the lightest—Euphrosyne. It was not exactly settled whether Madame L’Ouverture or Madame Pascal was hostess; and they therefore divided the onerous duties of the office; and Euphrosyne was their handmaid, charmed to be with those she loved best—charmed to be busy in new ways—charmed to hear, from time to time, that she was useful. She useful to the Ouvertures! It was an honour—it was an exquisite pleasure. She was perhaps the first white lady in the island, out of the convent, who had gathered fruits, prepared vegetables, and made sweet dishes with her own hands. Morning after morning the three ladies spent together in domestic occupations, finding that the servants, numerous as they were, could not get through the whole work of hospitality to such a household. Morning after morning they spent in the shaded store-room, amidst the fragrance of fruits and spices. Here the unhappy mother, the anxious wife, opened her heart to the young people; and they consoled and ministered to her as daughters.“If you are not my daughters,” said she, on one of these mornings, “I have none.”“But you will have: they will return to you,” said Afra. “Think of them as you did of your sons, when they were at Paris—as absent for a while to gain experience, and sure to return. You will find one of them, perhaps both, as happy on your bosom hereafter as we see your Placide by his father’s side.”“How can you say so, Afra? Which of my girls will ever come to me again, as they did at Breda?”“Génifrède is better,” said Euphrosyne; “better since we came here—better every day: and I should wonder if she were not. No one can long be sullen here.”“Do not be hard, Euphrosyne, my love—‘Sullen’ is a hard word for my poor, unhappy child.”“Nay, madam; no one can be more sorry for her than I am; as you will find, if you ask Father Gabriel. He will tell you how angry I was with L’Ouverture, how cruel I thought him on that dreadful day. But now, in these stirring times, when our whole world, our little world in the middle of the sea, is to be destroyed, or made free and glorious for ever, I do think it is being sullen to mope on the mountain as she does, and speak to nobody, care for nobody, but the Dessalines. However, I would not say a word about it, if I were not sure that she is getting better. And if she were growing worse, instead of better, there is nothing that I would not do to help or console her, though I must still think her sullen—not only towards her father here, but—”And Euphrosyne crossed herself.“It is hard,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture; “it is hard to do all one ought, even in the serious hours of one’s prayers. I do try, with my husband’s help, when he is here, and from the thought of him when he is absent, to pray, as he desires, for our enemies. But it generally ends (God forgive me!) in my praying that Bonaparte may be held back from the work of estranging our children from us.”“It can only be for a time,” said Afra, again. She could think of no other consolation.“Those who know best say that everything is for good,” continued Margot. “If so, I wonder whether anyone can foretell what can be the good of a stranger, a man that we have never seen, and who has everything about him to make him great, thrusting himself between us and our children, to take their hearts from us. I asked L’Ouverture to foretell to me how this would be explained; and he put his hand upon my month, and asked me to kneel down, and pray with him that we might have patience to wait God’s own time.”“And could you do so?” asked Euphrosyne, with brimming eyes.“I did: but I added a prayer that Bonaparte might be moved to leave us the glory and dominion which we value—the duty and the hearts of our children—and that he might be contented with gaining the homage of the French nation, and grasping the kingdoms of Europe.”“I think God will hear that prayer,” said Afra, cheerfully.“And I am sure Bonaparte will thank you for it,” said Euphrosyne, “in that day when hearts will be known, and things seen as they are.”“One might expect,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture, “as one’s children grow up, that they should go mad for love; but I never thought of such a thing as their going mad for loyalty.”“Do you think it is for loyalty?” asked Euphrosyne. “I should call Placide the most loyal of your children; and, next to him, Denis.”“They think they are loyal and patriotic, my dear. I am sure I hope they will go on to think so; for it is the best excuse for them.”“I wish I had a magic glass,” said Euphrosyne—“My dear, do not wish any such thing. It is very dangerous and wicked to have anything to do with that kind of people. I could tell you such a story of poor Moyse (and of many other unhappy persons, too) as would show you the mischief of meddling with charms, Euphrosyne.”“Do not be afraid, dear madam. I was not thinking of any witchcraft; but only wishing your children the bright mirror of a clear and settled mind. I think such a mirror would show them that what they take for loyalty and patriotism in their own feelings and conduct, is no more loyalty and patriotism than the dancing lights in our rice-grounds are stars.”“What is it, my dear, do you think?”“I think it is weakness, remaining from their former condition. When people are reared in humiliation, there will be weakness left behind. Loyal minds must call Bonaparte’s conduct to L’Ouverture vulgar. Those who admire it, it seems to me, either have been, or are ready to be, slaves.”“One may pity rather than blame the first,” said Afra; “but I do not pretend to have any patience with the last. I pity our poor faithless generals here, and dear Aimée, with her mind so perplexed, and her struggling heart; but I have no toleration for Leclerc and Rochambeau, and the whole train of Bonaparte’s worshippers in France.”“They are not like your husband, indeed, Afra.”“And they might all have been as right as he. They might all have known as well as he, what L’Ouverture is, and what he has done. Why do they not know that he might long ago have been a king? Why do they not tell one another that his throne might, at this day, have been visited by ambassadors from all the nations, but for his loyalty to France? Why do they not see, as my husband does, that it is for want of personal ambition that L’Ouverture is now an outlaw in the mornes, instead of being hand-in-hand, as a brother king, with George of England? They might have known whom to honour and whom to restrain, as my husband does, if they had had his clearness of soul, and his love of freedom.”“And because they have not,” said Euphrosyne, “they are lost in amazement at his devotion to a negro outlaw. Do not shrink, dear madam, from those words. If they were meant in anything but honour they would not be spoken before you. Afra and I feel that to be the First of the Blacks is now to be the greatest man in the world; and that to be an outlaw in the mornes, in the cause of a redeemed race, is a higher glory than to be the conqueror of Europe. Do we not, Afra?”“Assuredly we do.”“They will soon learn whom they have to deal with in this outlaw,” said Madame. “I can tell you, my dears, that Rochambeau is drawing near us, and that there is likely soon to be a battle. Heigho!”“Is that bad news or good?” asked Euphrosyne.“My husband means it for good news, my dear—at least, if Maurepas arrives from the south as soon as Rochambeau from the north.”“I wish Maurepas would come!” sighed Afra. Madame L’Ouverture went on—“It has been a great mortification to my husband that there has been no fair battle yet. His people—those who are faithful—have had no opportunity of showing how they feel, and what they can do. The French have been busy spying, and bribing, and cajoling, and pretending to negotiate; and the one thing they will not do is fighting. But I tell you, my dears, the battle-day is coming on now. Heigho!”There was a pause; after which Euphrosyne said—“I suppose we shall hear the battle.”There was another pause, during which Madame’s tears were dropping into her lap. Afra wondered how General Dessalines would bear to hear the firing from his chamber, so near, and be unable to help.“That puts me in mind,” said Madame, rising hurriedly—“how could I forget? It was the very reason why my husband told me that Rochambeau was so near. We must prepare for the wounded, my dears. They will be sent up here—as many as the house will hold, and the tents which my husband is sending up. We must be making lint, my dears, and preparing bandages. My husband has provided simples, and Madame Dessalines will tell us—Oh dear! what was I about to forget all this!”“Do not hurry yourself, dear madam,” said Afra. “We will take care that everything is done. With Madame Dessalines to direct us, we shall be quite prepared. Do not hurry yourself so, I dare say Rochambeau is not at hand at this moment.”At the very next moment, however, Euphrosyne’s countenance showed that she was by no means certain of this. Madame L’Ouverture stood still to listen, in her agitated walk about the room. There were distant shouts heard, and a bustle and buzz of voices, within and about the house, which made Euphrosyne empty her lap of the shaddocks she was peeling, and run out for news.“Joy! Joy!” she cried, returning. “Maurepas is coming. We can see his march from the station. His army has crossed the river. Make haste, Afra. Dear madam, will you go with me to the station?”“No, my love,” said Madame, sitting down, trembling.“We can go as slowly as you like. There is plenty of time. You need not hurry; and it will be a glorious sight.”“No, my dear. Do you young people go. But, Euphrosyne, are you quite sure it is not Rochambeau?”“Oh, dear, yes! quite certain. They come from the south, and have crossed the Artibonite; they come from the very point they ought to come from. It is good news, you may rely upon it; the best possible news.”“I am thankful,” said Madame, in a low, sad voice. “Go, my dears. Go, and see what you can.”All who could leave the house, or the post of duty—that is, all but the two prisoners, the sentries, and Madame—were at the station, or on their way to it. The first notice had been given, it appeared, by some huntsmen who had brought in game.“My boys!” said Madame Bellair, “what a pity they should miss this sight! only that, I suppose, we could not keep Juste within bounds. He would be off to the camp before we could stop him. It may be a fortunate chance that he is on the northern hills instead of the southern, to-day; but I am sorry for my little Tobie. Whereabouts are they, I wonder. Has any one seen them within these two hours?”The hunters had parted with the boys in the valley, at sunrise, when they said they should seek fish and fowl to-day, in the logwood grove and the pond above it, as there were hunters enough out upon the hills.“If they are really no farther off than that,” said their mother, “they may hear us, and come for their share of the sight. You walk well, General Dessalines.”Dessalines declared himself well. The rumour of war was the tonic he needed. Even at this distance, it had done more for him than all Thérèse’s medicines in a month. Thérèse saw that it was indeed so; and that he would lie at the Plateaux now before the enemy.“Look at General Vincent,” whispered Madame Pascal to her husband, on whose arm she was leaning, as all stood on the height, anxiously gazing at the road, which wound like a yellow thread across the plain, and round the base of the hills. The troops were now hidden by a hanging wood; so that Afra rested her strained eyes for a moment, and happened to notice Vincent’s countenance. “Look, do look, at General Vincent!”Her husband shook his head, and said that was what he was then thinking of. Dessalines and his wife were similarly occupied; and they and the Pascals communicated with each other by glances.“What is the matter, Vincent,” asked Dessalines, outright. “Here are the long-expected come at last; and you look as gloomily upon them as if they were all France.”“I am not such a man of blood as you, Dessalines. I have never given up the hope of accommodation and peace. It is strange, when the great men on both sides profess such a desire for peace, that we must see this breach made, nobody can tell why.”“Why, my good fellow!” exclaimed Dessalines, staring into his face, “surely you are talking in your sleep! The heats put you to sleep last summer, and you are not awake yet. You know nothing that has been done since December, I do believe. Come! let me tell you, as little Tobie is not here to do it.”“Don’t, love,” said Thérèse, pressing her husband’s arm. “No disputes to-day, Jacques! The times are too serious.”“At another time, General,” said Vincent, “I will instruct you a little in my opinions, formed when my eyes were wide open in France; which yours have never been.”“There they are! There they come from behind the wood, if we could but see them for the dust!” exclaimed some.“Oh, this dust! we can see nothing!” cried others. “Who can give a guess how many they are?”“It is impossible,” said Bellair. “Without previous knowledge, one could not tell them from droves of bullocks and goats going to market at Saint Marc.”“Except for their caps,” said Euphrosyne. “I see a dozen or two of feathers through the crowd. Do not you, Afra?”“Yes, but where is their music? We should hear something of it here, surely.”“Yes, it is a dumb march,” said Dessalines, “at present. They will strike up when they have turned the shoulder of that hill, no doubt. There! now listen!”All listened, so that the brook, half a mile behind, made its babbling heard, but there was not a breath of music.“Is it possible that Rochambeau should be in the way,” asked Thérèse.“He cannot be in the way,” said her husband, “for where I stand, I command every foot of the road, up to our posts; but he may be nearer than we thought. I conclude that he is.”“Look! See!” cried several. “They are taking another road. Where are they going! General Dessalines, what does it mean?”“I would thank anyone to tell me that it is not as I fear,” replied Dessalines. “I fear Maurepas is effecting a junction, not with us, but with some one else.”“With Rochambeau!”“Traitor!”“The traitor Maurepas!”“His head!”“Our all for his head!” cried the enraged gazers, as they saw Maurepas indeed diverging from the road to the post, and a large body of French troops turning a reach of the same road, from behind a hill. The two clouds of dust met. And now there was no more silence, but sound enough from below and afar. There was evidently clamour and rage among the troops in the Plateaux; and bursts of music from the army of their foes, triumphant and insulting, swelled the breeze.“Our all for the head of Maurepas!” cried the group again.“Nay,” said Vincent, “leave Maurepas his head. Who knows but that peace may come out of it? If all had done as he has now done, there could be no war.”“In the same way,” exclaimed Pascal, “as if all of your colour thought as you do, there would then be no war, because there would be no men to fight; but only slaves to walk quietly under the yoke.”“Be as angry as you will,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Pascal. “No one’s anger can alter the truth. It is impious and vain, here as elsewhere, to oppose Bonaparte. L’Ouverture will have to yield; you know that as well as I do, Monsieur Pascal; and those are the best friends of the blacks who help to render war impossible, and who bring the affair to a close while the First Consul may yet be placable.”“Has that opinion of yours been offered to your Commander, Vincent?”“It would have been, if he had asked for it. He probably knows that I had rather have seen him high in honour and function under Leclerc, than an outlaw, entrenched in the mornes.”“Then why are you here?”“I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves, in these rough times. I am here to guard these ladies against all foes, come they whence they may,—from France, or out of our own savannahs,—from earth, air, or sea.—But hark! Silence, ladies! Silence all, for a moment!”They listened, ready to take alarm from him, they knew not why. Nothing was heard but the distant baying of hounds,—the hunters coming home as it was supposed.“Those are not Saint Domingo hounds,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Dessalines.“No, indeed!—Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but run! Thérèse, leave me! I command you.—If this is your doing, Vincent—”“Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it.—Home, ladies, as fast as possible!”“My children!” exclaimed Madame Bellair. “I can find them, if you will only tell me the danger,—what is the danger?”“You hear those hounds. They are Cuba bloodhounds,” said Dessalines. “The fear is that they are leading an enemy over the hills.”Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except Thérèse, who would not go faster than her husband’s strength permitted him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses’ feet were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers, who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Thérèse ran for their lives,—she striving to thank her companion for remembering to bring this aid.“No thanks!” said Pascal. “General Dessalines is our great man now. We cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,—a French troop has come over by some unsuspected pass;—I do not understand it.”“Have you sent to the Plateaux?”“Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted, though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If L’Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing.”Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the presence of an enemy in the morne—not, apparently, on their way to the plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children, whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end, could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha’s nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zéphyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman’s soul. Thérèse looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of Sabès and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a desperate attempt to escape. Thérèse answered for their detention, if she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of treachery.Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether, therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the secure retreat of Le Zéphyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of Bonaparte’s sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of L’Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated; at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road, one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by L’Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could, by the way they came.Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.“Never was there a more willing prisoner, in my opinion,” observed Pascal.“He carries away a mark from us, thank Heaven!” said Dessalines. “Madame Bellair shot him.”It was so. Deesha saw Vincent join the French, and go off with them, on the arrival of L’Ouverture; and, partly through revenge, but not without a thought of the disclosures it was in his power to make, she strove to silence him for ever. She only reached a limb, however, and sent him away, as Dessalines said, bearing a mark from Le Zéphyr.One of the French troop, made prisoner, was as communicative as could have been desired—as much so as Vincent would probably be on the other side. He declared that the attack on Le Zéphyr was a mere accident: that his company had entered the morne, led by the bloodhounds in pursuit of some negroes, from whom they wanted certain information for Rochambeau, respecting the localities; that they had thus become acquainted with the almost impracticable pass by which they had entered; that, when the hounds had destroyed the children, and proved that there were inhabitants in the morne, the situation of Le Zéphyr had been discovered, and afterwards the rank of its inhabitants; that the temptation of carrying off these hostages to Rochambeau had been too strong to be resisted; and hence the attack.“We shall have to remove,” the ladies said to each other, “now that our retreat is known.”“Shall we have to remove?” asked Euphrosyne, whose love of the place could not be quenched, even by the blood upon its threshold. “I am not afraid to stay, if any one else will.”“How can you be so rash, Euphrosyne?” asked Afra.“I would not be rash, Euphrosyne replied; but we know now how these people came into the morne, and L’Ouverture will guard the pass. And remember, Afra, we have beaten them; and they will take care how they attack us another time. Remember, we have beaten them.”“We have beaten them,” said Dessalines, laughing. “And what did you do to beat off the French, my little lady?”“I watched the prisoners through the keyhole; and if they had made the least attempt to set the house on fire—”“You would have put it out with your tears—hey, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne?”“Ask Madame, your lady, what she would have done in such a case: she stood beside me. But does L’Ouverture say we must remove?”“L’Ouverture thinks,” said Toussaint, who heard her question, “that this is still the safest place for the brave women who keep up his heart by their cheerful faces. He is ashamed that they have been negligently guarded. It shall not happen again.”He was just departing for the Plateaux. As he went out he said to his wife, while he cast a look of tender compassion upon Madame Bellair—“I shall tell Charles that you will cherish Deesha. It is well that we can let her remain here, beside the graves of her children. Bury them with honour, Margot.”

Pongaudin was indeed no longer safe. Immediately on the return of Coasson to the fleet, under the date of the 17th of February, the Captain-General issued a proclamation of outlawry against L’Ouverture and Christophe, pronouncing it the imperative duty of every one who had the power to seize and deliver up the traitors. As Toussaint said to his family, Pongaudin was a residence for a citizen; outlaws must go to the mountains.

To the mountain they went—not weeping and trembling, but in a temper of high courage and hope. The rocks rang with the military music which accompanied them. Their very horses seemed to feel the spirit of their cause; much more were the humblest of the soldiery animated with the hope of success in the struggle, which was now to be carried on in a mode which they much preferred to keeping watch in the plains. They found the pass well fortified; they found the morne above it still and undisturbed; untrod, as it seemed now likely to remain, by the foot of an invader. They found the mansion at Le Zéphyr, spacious as it was, much enlarged by temporary erections, and prepared for the abode of more than the number that had come. Madame Pascal looked at her husband with a sigh, when the alterations met her eye; and Raymond himself did not much relish seeing sentinels posted at all his gates. Euphrosyne, however, was still quite happy. Here was her beloved Le Zéphyr, with its blossoming cacao-groves. Here were space, freedom, and friends; and neither convent rules nor nuns.

A perpetual line of communication was established between the pass and this mansion. Vincent, with a troop, was appointed to guard the estate and the persons on it—including the two French prisoners. Placide was to join his father below, to receive the forces which flocked to the rendezvous. Before he went, he pointed out to Vincent, and his own family, a station, on a steep at some distance in the rear of the house, whence they might discern, with a good glass, the road which wound through the plain of the Artibonite, within two miles of the Plateaux, and up towards Plaisance to the north. Many and wonderful were the objects seen from this lofty station; but not one of them—not even the green knolls and hollows of the morne, stretched out from Le Zéphyr to the pass—not the brimming river of the plain—not the distant azure sea, with its tufted isles—was so interesting, under present circumstances, as this yellow winding road—the way of approach of either friend or foe.

But for the apprehensions belonging to a state of warfare—apprehensions which embitter life in all its hours to women—and, possibly, more than is generally acknowledged, to men—but for the speculations as to who was destined to die, who to fall into the most cruel hands that ever abused their power over a helpless foe (for the French of former wars were not forgotten), and what was to be the lot of those who escaped death and capture—but for these speculations, which were stirring in every woman’s heart in all that household, the way of life at Le Zéphyr was pleasant enough.

Even poor Génifrède appeared to revive here. She showed more interest in nursing Dessalines than in any previous occupation since the death of her lover. Thérèse was delighted to afford her the opportunity of feeling herself useful, and permitted herself many a walk in the groves, many an hour of relaxation in the salon, which she would have despised, but for their affording an interest to Génifrède. The three were more than ever drawn together by their new experience of the conduct of the French. Never was sick man more impatient to be strong than Dessalines. Génifrède regarded him as the pillar of the cause, on account of his uncompromising passion for vengeance; and his wife herself counted the days till he could be again abroad at the head of his forces.

When not in attendance upon him, Génifrède spent the hours of daylight at the station on the height. She cared neither for heat nor chill while there, and forgot food and rest; and there was sometimes that in her countenance when she returned, and in the tone of her prophesying about the destruction of the enemy, which caused the whisper to go round that she met her lover there, just under the clouds. Monsieur Pascal—the rational, sagacious Monsieur Pascal—was of opinion that she believed this herself.

On this station, and other heights which surrounded the mansion, there were other objects of interest than the visitations of the clouds, and the whisperings of the breezes from the depths of the woods. For many days, a constant excitement was caused by the accession of troops. Not only Toussaint’s own bands followed him to the post, but three thousand more, on whom he could rely, were spared from his other strong posts in the mountains. Soon after these three thousand, Christophe appeared with such force as could be spared from the garrisons in the north. The officers under Dessalines also, aware that the main struggle, whenever the French would come to an engagement, must be in the Plateaux de la Ravine, drew thither, with the remnants of the force which had suffered defeat in the south-west. Hither, too, came Bellair, with his family, and the little garrison which had fortified and held L’Étoile, till it became necessary to burn and leave it.

Messenger arrived after messenger, to announce these accessions of force; and the whole household poured out upon the heights to see and hear. If it was at noon, the clear music of the wind-instruments floated faintly in the still air; if the morning or evening breezes were abroad the harmony came in gushes; and the shouts of greeting and reception were plainly distinguishable, and were responded to involuntarily by all at Le Zéphyr but the two prisoners. Under the impulse of the moment, no voice was louder or more joyous than Vincent’s. It now only remained for Maurepas to bring his numerous troops up to the point of junction. He must presently arrive; and then, as Placide and other sanguine young soldiers thought, and as Sabès and his companion began seriously to fear, the negro force under L’Ouverture might defy all Europe.

News, stirring news, came from all corners of the colony with every fresh arrival. Deesha, especially, could tell all that had been done, not only at L’Étoile, and in all the plain of Cul-de-Sac, but within the districts of the unfaithful generals, Clerveaux and La Plume. Her boy Juste, though too young to take a practical part in the war, carried the passion and energy of a man into the cause, and was versed in all the details of the events which had taken place since the landing of the French. It was a sore mortification to Juste that he was not permitted to remain by his father’s side at the Plateaux; but he consoled himself with teaching his little brother Tobie the military exercise, and with sport. Juste was as fond of sport as on the day when he floated under calabashes, to catch wild ducks; and this was well; for at Le Zéphyr, under present circumstances, the sportsman was one of the most useful members of the establishment. The air of the mornes was celebrated for its power of creating an appetite; and there were many mouths to feed: so that Juste was assured, on all hands, that he had as important a function to fulfil as if he had been a soldier. As it was believed impossible for human foot to stray beyond the morne by any other passage than that of the Plateaux, the boys were permitted to be out early and late, in the woods and upon the hill-sides; and often did Génifrède and the sentries hear the far-off shouts of the little sportsmen, or see the puff of smoke from Juste’s rifle in the valley, or under the verge of the groves. Many a nest of young orioles did Tobie abstract from the last fork of a branch, when the peculiar note of the parent-bird led him on into the midst of the thicket where these delicate creatures hide themselves. The ring-tail dove, one of the most exquisite of table luxuries, he was very successful in liming; and he would bring home a dozen in a morning. He could catch turkeys with a noose, and young pigs to barbecue. He filled baskets with plover’s eggs from the high lands; and of the wild-fowl he brought in, there was no end. In the midst of these feats, he engaged for far greater things in a little while—when the soldier-crabs should make their annual march down the mountains, on their way to the sea. In those days, Tobie promised the tables at Le Zéphyr should groan under the profusion of savoury soups, which should banish for the season the salt beef and salt-fish which, meantime, formed part of the daily diet of the household.

While his little brother was thus busy with smaller game, Juste was indulging a higher ambition. When nothing better was to be had, he could condescend to plovers and pigeons; but he liked better to bring down a dainty young heifer among the herds of wild cattle, or several head of deer in a day. It was his triumph to return heavily laden, and to go forth again with three or four soldiers, or half-a-dozen servants (whichever could best be spared), to gather up from the hill-sides the fallen game, which he had covered with branches of trees, to keep off hawk and vulture. It was triumph to point out to his aides spot after spot where the bird of prey hovered, seeking in vain for a space on which to pounce. Amidst these triumphs, Juste was almost satisfied not to be at the Plateau.

Perhaps the heaviest heart among all that household, scarcely excepting Génifrède’s, was Madame L’Ouverture’s; and yet her chief companionship, strangely enough, was with the one who carried the lightest—Euphrosyne. It was not exactly settled whether Madame L’Ouverture or Madame Pascal was hostess; and they therefore divided the onerous duties of the office; and Euphrosyne was their handmaid, charmed to be with those she loved best—charmed to be busy in new ways—charmed to hear, from time to time, that she was useful. She useful to the Ouvertures! It was an honour—it was an exquisite pleasure. She was perhaps the first white lady in the island, out of the convent, who had gathered fruits, prepared vegetables, and made sweet dishes with her own hands. Morning after morning the three ladies spent together in domestic occupations, finding that the servants, numerous as they were, could not get through the whole work of hospitality to such a household. Morning after morning they spent in the shaded store-room, amidst the fragrance of fruits and spices. Here the unhappy mother, the anxious wife, opened her heart to the young people; and they consoled and ministered to her as daughters.

“If you are not my daughters,” said she, on one of these mornings, “I have none.”

“But you will have: they will return to you,” said Afra. “Think of them as you did of your sons, when they were at Paris—as absent for a while to gain experience, and sure to return. You will find one of them, perhaps both, as happy on your bosom hereafter as we see your Placide by his father’s side.”

“How can you say so, Afra? Which of my girls will ever come to me again, as they did at Breda?”

“Génifrède is better,” said Euphrosyne; “better since we came here—better every day: and I should wonder if she were not. No one can long be sullen here.”

“Do not be hard, Euphrosyne, my love—‘Sullen’ is a hard word for my poor, unhappy child.”

“Nay, madam; no one can be more sorry for her than I am; as you will find, if you ask Father Gabriel. He will tell you how angry I was with L’Ouverture, how cruel I thought him on that dreadful day. But now, in these stirring times, when our whole world, our little world in the middle of the sea, is to be destroyed, or made free and glorious for ever, I do think it is being sullen to mope on the mountain as she does, and speak to nobody, care for nobody, but the Dessalines. However, I would not say a word about it, if I were not sure that she is getting better. And if she were growing worse, instead of better, there is nothing that I would not do to help or console her, though I must still think her sullen—not only towards her father here, but—”

And Euphrosyne crossed herself.

“It is hard,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture; “it is hard to do all one ought, even in the serious hours of one’s prayers. I do try, with my husband’s help, when he is here, and from the thought of him when he is absent, to pray, as he desires, for our enemies. But it generally ends (God forgive me!) in my praying that Bonaparte may be held back from the work of estranging our children from us.”

“It can only be for a time,” said Afra, again. She could think of no other consolation.

“Those who know best say that everything is for good,” continued Margot. “If so, I wonder whether anyone can foretell what can be the good of a stranger, a man that we have never seen, and who has everything about him to make him great, thrusting himself between us and our children, to take their hearts from us. I asked L’Ouverture to foretell to me how this would be explained; and he put his hand upon my month, and asked me to kneel down, and pray with him that we might have patience to wait God’s own time.”

“And could you do so?” asked Euphrosyne, with brimming eyes.

“I did: but I added a prayer that Bonaparte might be moved to leave us the glory and dominion which we value—the duty and the hearts of our children—and that he might be contented with gaining the homage of the French nation, and grasping the kingdoms of Europe.”

“I think God will hear that prayer,” said Afra, cheerfully.

“And I am sure Bonaparte will thank you for it,” said Euphrosyne, “in that day when hearts will be known, and things seen as they are.”

“One might expect,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture, “as one’s children grow up, that they should go mad for love; but I never thought of such a thing as their going mad for loyalty.”

“Do you think it is for loyalty?” asked Euphrosyne. “I should call Placide the most loyal of your children; and, next to him, Denis.”

“They think they are loyal and patriotic, my dear. I am sure I hope they will go on to think so; for it is the best excuse for them.”

“I wish I had a magic glass,” said Euphrosyne—

“My dear, do not wish any such thing. It is very dangerous and wicked to have anything to do with that kind of people. I could tell you such a story of poor Moyse (and of many other unhappy persons, too) as would show you the mischief of meddling with charms, Euphrosyne.”

“Do not be afraid, dear madam. I was not thinking of any witchcraft; but only wishing your children the bright mirror of a clear and settled mind. I think such a mirror would show them that what they take for loyalty and patriotism in their own feelings and conduct, is no more loyalty and patriotism than the dancing lights in our rice-grounds are stars.”

“What is it, my dear, do you think?”

“I think it is weakness, remaining from their former condition. When people are reared in humiliation, there will be weakness left behind. Loyal minds must call Bonaparte’s conduct to L’Ouverture vulgar. Those who admire it, it seems to me, either have been, or are ready to be, slaves.”

“One may pity rather than blame the first,” said Afra; “but I do not pretend to have any patience with the last. I pity our poor faithless generals here, and dear Aimée, with her mind so perplexed, and her struggling heart; but I have no toleration for Leclerc and Rochambeau, and the whole train of Bonaparte’s worshippers in France.”

“They are not like your husband, indeed, Afra.”

“And they might all have been as right as he. They might all have known as well as he, what L’Ouverture is, and what he has done. Why do they not know that he might long ago have been a king? Why do they not tell one another that his throne might, at this day, have been visited by ambassadors from all the nations, but for his loyalty to France? Why do they not see, as my husband does, that it is for want of personal ambition that L’Ouverture is now an outlaw in the mornes, instead of being hand-in-hand, as a brother king, with George of England? They might have known whom to honour and whom to restrain, as my husband does, if they had had his clearness of soul, and his love of freedom.”

“And because they have not,” said Euphrosyne, “they are lost in amazement at his devotion to a negro outlaw. Do not shrink, dear madam, from those words. If they were meant in anything but honour they would not be spoken before you. Afra and I feel that to be the First of the Blacks is now to be the greatest man in the world; and that to be an outlaw in the mornes, in the cause of a redeemed race, is a higher glory than to be the conqueror of Europe. Do we not, Afra?”

“Assuredly we do.”

“They will soon learn whom they have to deal with in this outlaw,” said Madame. “I can tell you, my dears, that Rochambeau is drawing near us, and that there is likely soon to be a battle. Heigho!”

“Is that bad news or good?” asked Euphrosyne.

“My husband means it for good news, my dear—at least, if Maurepas arrives from the south as soon as Rochambeau from the north.”

“I wish Maurepas would come!” sighed Afra. Madame L’Ouverture went on—

“It has been a great mortification to my husband that there has been no fair battle yet. His people—those who are faithful—have had no opportunity of showing how they feel, and what they can do. The French have been busy spying, and bribing, and cajoling, and pretending to negotiate; and the one thing they will not do is fighting. But I tell you, my dears, the battle-day is coming on now. Heigho!”

There was a pause; after which Euphrosyne said—

“I suppose we shall hear the battle.”

There was another pause, during which Madame’s tears were dropping into her lap. Afra wondered how General Dessalines would bear to hear the firing from his chamber, so near, and be unable to help.

“That puts me in mind,” said Madame, rising hurriedly—“how could I forget? It was the very reason why my husband told me that Rochambeau was so near. We must prepare for the wounded, my dears. They will be sent up here—as many as the house will hold, and the tents which my husband is sending up. We must be making lint, my dears, and preparing bandages. My husband has provided simples, and Madame Dessalines will tell us—Oh dear! what was I about to forget all this!”

“Do not hurry yourself, dear madam,” said Afra. “We will take care that everything is done. With Madame Dessalines to direct us, we shall be quite prepared. Do not hurry yourself so, I dare say Rochambeau is not at hand at this moment.”

At the very next moment, however, Euphrosyne’s countenance showed that she was by no means certain of this. Madame L’Ouverture stood still to listen, in her agitated walk about the room. There were distant shouts heard, and a bustle and buzz of voices, within and about the house, which made Euphrosyne empty her lap of the shaddocks she was peeling, and run out for news.

“Joy! Joy!” she cried, returning. “Maurepas is coming. We can see his march from the station. His army has crossed the river. Make haste, Afra. Dear madam, will you go with me to the station?”

“No, my love,” said Madame, sitting down, trembling.

“We can go as slowly as you like. There is plenty of time. You need not hurry; and it will be a glorious sight.”

“No, my dear. Do you young people go. But, Euphrosyne, are you quite sure it is not Rochambeau?”

“Oh, dear, yes! quite certain. They come from the south, and have crossed the Artibonite; they come from the very point they ought to come from. It is good news, you may rely upon it; the best possible news.”

“I am thankful,” said Madame, in a low, sad voice. “Go, my dears. Go, and see what you can.”

All who could leave the house, or the post of duty—that is, all but the two prisoners, the sentries, and Madame—were at the station, or on their way to it. The first notice had been given, it appeared, by some huntsmen who had brought in game.

“My boys!” said Madame Bellair, “what a pity they should miss this sight! only that, I suppose, we could not keep Juste within bounds. He would be off to the camp before we could stop him. It may be a fortunate chance that he is on the northern hills instead of the southern, to-day; but I am sorry for my little Tobie. Whereabouts are they, I wonder. Has any one seen them within these two hours?”

The hunters had parted with the boys in the valley, at sunrise, when they said they should seek fish and fowl to-day, in the logwood grove and the pond above it, as there were hunters enough out upon the hills.

“If they are really no farther off than that,” said their mother, “they may hear us, and come for their share of the sight. You walk well, General Dessalines.”

Dessalines declared himself well. The rumour of war was the tonic he needed. Even at this distance, it had done more for him than all Thérèse’s medicines in a month. Thérèse saw that it was indeed so; and that he would lie at the Plateaux now before the enemy.

“Look at General Vincent,” whispered Madame Pascal to her husband, on whose arm she was leaning, as all stood on the height, anxiously gazing at the road, which wound like a yellow thread across the plain, and round the base of the hills. The troops were now hidden by a hanging wood; so that Afra rested her strained eyes for a moment, and happened to notice Vincent’s countenance. “Look, do look, at General Vincent!”

Her husband shook his head, and said that was what he was then thinking of. Dessalines and his wife were similarly occupied; and they and the Pascals communicated with each other by glances.

“What is the matter, Vincent,” asked Dessalines, outright. “Here are the long-expected come at last; and you look as gloomily upon them as if they were all France.”

“I am not such a man of blood as you, Dessalines. I have never given up the hope of accommodation and peace. It is strange, when the great men on both sides profess such a desire for peace, that we must see this breach made, nobody can tell why.”

“Why, my good fellow!” exclaimed Dessalines, staring into his face, “surely you are talking in your sleep! The heats put you to sleep last summer, and you are not awake yet. You know nothing that has been done since December, I do believe. Come! let me tell you, as little Tobie is not here to do it.”

“Don’t, love,” said Thérèse, pressing her husband’s arm. “No disputes to-day, Jacques! The times are too serious.”

“At another time, General,” said Vincent, “I will instruct you a little in my opinions, formed when my eyes were wide open in France; which yours have never been.”

“There they are! There they come from behind the wood, if we could but see them for the dust!” exclaimed some.

“Oh, this dust! we can see nothing!” cried others. “Who can give a guess how many they are?”

“It is impossible,” said Bellair. “Without previous knowledge, one could not tell them from droves of bullocks and goats going to market at Saint Marc.”

“Except for their caps,” said Euphrosyne. “I see a dozen or two of feathers through the crowd. Do not you, Afra?”

“Yes, but where is their music? We should hear something of it here, surely.”

“Yes, it is a dumb march,” said Dessalines, “at present. They will strike up when they have turned the shoulder of that hill, no doubt. There! now listen!”

All listened, so that the brook, half a mile behind, made its babbling heard, but there was not a breath of music.

“Is it possible that Rochambeau should be in the way,” asked Thérèse.

“He cannot be in the way,” said her husband, “for where I stand, I command every foot of the road, up to our posts; but he may be nearer than we thought. I conclude that he is.”

“Look! See!” cried several. “They are taking another road. Where are they going! General Dessalines, what does it mean?”

“I would thank anyone to tell me that it is not as I fear,” replied Dessalines. “I fear Maurepas is effecting a junction, not with us, but with some one else.”

“With Rochambeau!”

“Traitor!”

“The traitor Maurepas!”

“His head!”

“Our all for his head!” cried the enraged gazers, as they saw Maurepas indeed diverging from the road to the post, and a large body of French troops turning a reach of the same road, from behind a hill. The two clouds of dust met. And now there was no more silence, but sound enough from below and afar. There was evidently clamour and rage among the troops in the Plateaux; and bursts of music from the army of their foes, triumphant and insulting, swelled the breeze.

“Our all for the head of Maurepas!” cried the group again.

“Nay,” said Vincent, “leave Maurepas his head. Who knows but that peace may come out of it? If all had done as he has now done, there could be no war.”

“In the same way,” exclaimed Pascal, “as if all of your colour thought as you do, there would then be no war, because there would be no men to fight; but only slaves to walk quietly under the yoke.”

“Be as angry as you will,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Pascal. “No one’s anger can alter the truth. It is impious and vain, here as elsewhere, to oppose Bonaparte. L’Ouverture will have to yield; you know that as well as I do, Monsieur Pascal; and those are the best friends of the blacks who help to render war impossible, and who bring the affair to a close while the First Consul may yet be placable.”

“Has that opinion of yours been offered to your Commander, Vincent?”

“It would have been, if he had asked for it. He probably knows that I had rather have seen him high in honour and function under Leclerc, than an outlaw, entrenched in the mornes.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves, in these rough times. I am here to guard these ladies against all foes, come they whence they may,—from France, or out of our own savannahs,—from earth, air, or sea.—But hark! Silence, ladies! Silence all, for a moment!”

They listened, ready to take alarm from him, they knew not why. Nothing was heard but the distant baying of hounds,—the hunters coming home as it was supposed.

“Those are not Saint Domingo hounds,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Dessalines.

“No, indeed!—Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but run! Thérèse, leave me! I command you.—If this is your doing, Vincent—”

“Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it.—Home, ladies, as fast as possible!”

“My children!” exclaimed Madame Bellair. “I can find them, if you will only tell me the danger,—what is the danger?”

“You hear those hounds. They are Cuba bloodhounds,” said Dessalines. “The fear is that they are leading an enemy over the hills.”

Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except Thérèse, who would not go faster than her husband’s strength permitted him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses’ feet were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers, who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Thérèse ran for their lives,—she striving to thank her companion for remembering to bring this aid.

“No thanks!” said Pascal. “General Dessalines is our great man now. We cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,—a French troop has come over by some unsuspected pass;—I do not understand it.”

“Have you sent to the Plateaux?”

“Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted, though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If L’Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing.”

Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the presence of an enemy in the morne—not, apparently, on their way to the plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children, whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end, could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha’s nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zéphyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.

Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman’s soul. Thérèse looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of Sabès and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a desperate attempt to escape. Thérèse answered for their detention, if she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.

There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of treachery.

Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether, therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.

The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the secure retreat of Le Zéphyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of Bonaparte’s sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of L’Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated; at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road, one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by L’Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could, by the way they came.

Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.

“Never was there a more willing prisoner, in my opinion,” observed Pascal.

“He carries away a mark from us, thank Heaven!” said Dessalines. “Madame Bellair shot him.”

It was so. Deesha saw Vincent join the French, and go off with them, on the arrival of L’Ouverture; and, partly through revenge, but not without a thought of the disclosures it was in his power to make, she strove to silence him for ever. She only reached a limb, however, and sent him away, as Dessalines said, bearing a mark from Le Zéphyr.

One of the French troop, made prisoner, was as communicative as could have been desired—as much so as Vincent would probably be on the other side. He declared that the attack on Le Zéphyr was a mere accident: that his company had entered the morne, led by the bloodhounds in pursuit of some negroes, from whom they wanted certain information for Rochambeau, respecting the localities; that they had thus become acquainted with the almost impracticable pass by which they had entered; that, when the hounds had destroyed the children, and proved that there were inhabitants in the morne, the situation of Le Zéphyr had been discovered, and afterwards the rank of its inhabitants; that the temptation of carrying off these hostages to Rochambeau had been too strong to be resisted; and hence the attack.

“We shall have to remove,” the ladies said to each other, “now that our retreat is known.”

“Shall we have to remove?” asked Euphrosyne, whose love of the place could not be quenched, even by the blood upon its threshold. “I am not afraid to stay, if any one else will.”

“How can you be so rash, Euphrosyne?” asked Afra.

“I would not be rash, Euphrosyne replied; but we know now how these people came into the morne, and L’Ouverture will guard the pass. And remember, Afra, we have beaten them; and they will take care how they attack us another time. Remember, we have beaten them.”

“We have beaten them,” said Dessalines, laughing. “And what did you do to beat off the French, my little lady?”

“I watched the prisoners through the keyhole; and if they had made the least attempt to set the house on fire—”

“You would have put it out with your tears—hey, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne?”

“Ask Madame, your lady, what she would have done in such a case: she stood beside me. But does L’Ouverture say we must remove?”

“L’Ouverture thinks,” said Toussaint, who heard her question, “that this is still the safest place for the brave women who keep up his heart by their cheerful faces. He is ashamed that they have been negligently guarded. It shall not happen again.”

He was just departing for the Plateaux. As he went out he said to his wife, while he cast a look of tender compassion upon Madame Bellair—

“I shall tell Charles that you will cherish Deesha. It is well that we can let her remain here, beside the graves of her children. Bury them with honour, Margot.”

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