"The Hour and the Man" (continued 10)

“In those days, wars will cease,” said Euphrosyne, recalling the thoughts she had revolved on the day of the death of Moyse: “there will be no bloodshed, no violence—no punishment of injuries to others, while your people forgive their own.”

“So will it be, I trust,” said Toussaint.

“Why not, then, begin now? Why not act upon your whole principle at once?”

“Because the nature of the negro has been maimed. He has been made selfish, cowardly, and indolent. He must be educated back into a fair condition; and this necessary education circumstances have imposed. We are compelled to the self-denial, toil, and danger of warfare, in order to obtain the liberty which is to carry us forward. I once hoped otherwise, Euphrosyne; but I now see the bracing process of defensive warfare to be inevitable, and, on the whole, good for my people. Their liberties, thus hardly won, will be prized, so as to shut out the future danger of war. If, however, one stroke is inflicted for other purposes than defence—if one life is taken for vengeance, we shall be set back, long and far, in our career. It shall not be, under my rule. Alas! for those who succeed me, if they permit it! It will not only make the first black empire a by-word throughout the world, but it will render the Christian civilisation of my people difficult and slow.”

Toussaint spoke like a rider; and he was virtually still a sovereign, as he had been for years past. Nor were the tokens of sovereignty altogether wanting. At this moment, as was continually happening, despatches arrived, on affairs of great importance, on which he must think and act.

“See what these French commanders are doing,” said he, handing his letters to Monsieur Pascal, “at the very moment that they disclaim all intention of enslaving the negroes! What are they doing yonder but recommencing slavery? It must not be. Are you disposed for business?”

“This moment,” said Monsieur Pascal, springing up before he had finished the letters. “Will you provide a messenger? Slavery is restored; and there is not a moment to be lost.”

As in old days, lights were ordered into the library; and the royal-souled negro dictated his commands to his friendly secretary, who smiled, at such an hour, at the thought of the exultation of the French court over the “surrender” and “submission” of the blacks.

Chapter Thirty Six.

Departure without Retinue.

“Stand where you are, Thérèse; there, at the foot of the bed! Stir not an inch without my leave? I have let you have your own way too much of late. I call for hours, and you never come. I will not let you out of my sight again?”

So said Monsieur Papalier in the delirium of his fever, as Madame Dessalines was nursing him in his chamber at Saint Marc. It was a sad and dreary office; but she had motive to go through with it. The more he wandered back in his talk to the old days, the more strongly she felt herself called upon to use the present generously. The more imperious the tone of command with which he addressed her, the more easily could she pass over the error. There was a degree of pleasure in giving momentary case to him, while he could not recognise the hand that bestowed it. She dreaded, however, for the sake of both, an hour of sanity. If he slept for a short interval, she feared to hear him speak coherently on his waking; and the more because little or no chance of his recovery remained. The thought of his carrying forward into the hour of death the insolent temper of his life was terrible. She almost hoped that, if he were to die, it would be without having been aware that he and his nurse were no longer master and slave.

She was his sole nurse. There was no alternative between this and her not being with him at all. It was impossible to allow any servant, any stranger, to hear his talk of old times—to witness the mode in which he addressed her. Except the physician, no one but herself entered his chamber during his waking hours.

She now sat, as he desired, full in his view, at the foot of the bed, encouraging repose by her stillness, and gladly turning from the ghastly countenance of the dying man to the scene without—visible in all its splendour, as the room had a north aspect, and the window stood wide, to admit the breathing wind from the sea. The deep blue sea, under the heaven of a lighter blue, looked glorious from the shaded apartment. The rustle of the trees in the courtyard, and the fall of water there, spoke of coolness, and seemed to make themselves heard by the patient even in the midst of the fever-flames by which he was consumed, for he spoke of trees and fountains, and fancied himself at Arabie. He asked Thérèse to sing; and told her what to sing. She did not wish to refuse; she would have indulged him; but there was a choking in her throat which forbade it. Papalier was not long peremptory. From commanding, his voice sank to complaining; from complaining, to the muttering of troubled slumber; and, at length, into the silence of sleep.

Thérèse sat still, as before, looking out upon the sea, till its brightness, combined with the whispers of foliage and waters, made her eyes heavy, and disposed her to sleep too. Leaning back against the bed-post, she was dreaming that she was awake, when she heard her name so called that she awoke with a start. Papalier was himself again, and was demanding where he was, and what had been the matter. He felt the blister on his head; he complained of the soreness and stiffness of his mouth and tongue; he tried to raise himself, and could not; and, on the full discovery of his state, he wept like a child.

Gently, but not tenderly, did Thérèse endeavour to comfort him. He had irrecoverably forfeited her tenderness. Gentle, however, she was, as she told him that his state now, however painful, was better than an hour ago, when he was unconscious of it. Gentle was her hand, when she wrapped fresh, cool leaves round his burning head. Gentle was her voice, when she persuaded him to drink. Gentle was the expression of her eye, when she fixed its gaze upon his face, and by its influence caused him to check, like a child, the sobs that shook his frame.

“Thérèse,” said he, “I am dying. I feel that I am dying. Oh! what must I do?”

“We must wait upon God’s pleasure. Let us wait in quiet. Is there anything that can give you quiet of mind or body?”

Tears stole again from the heavy, closing eyes.

“We are all familiar with the end of our lives, almost from their beginning,” said Thérèse. “There is nothing strange or surprising in it. The great thing is to throw off any burden—any anxiety—and then to be still. An easy mind is the great thing, whether recovery is at hand, or—”

“Do not talk of recovery. I shall not recover.”

“Can I do anything—listen to anything—so as to give you case? Shall I call father Gabriel? You may find comfort in speaking to him.”

“I want to speak to you first. I have not half done the business I came for: I have not half secured my estates for my daughters.”

“I believe you have. I know that L’Ouverture fully intends—”

“What does it matter what L’Ouverture intends? I mean no contempt to him by saying so. He intends very well, I dare say; but in the scramble and confusion that are at hand, what chance will my poor orphan girls have for their rights?”

“Fear nothing for them. If there is to be a struggle, there is no doubt whatever as to how it will end. The French army will be expelled—”

“You do not say so! You cannot think so!”

“I am certain of it. But the white proprietors will be as safe in person and property, as welcome to L’Ouverture, as during the years of his full authority. You were not here to see it; but the white proprietors were very happy, perfectly satisfied, during those years (at least, all of them who were reasonable men). I can undertake for L’Ouverture that your daughters’ income from their estates shall be sent to them at Paris, if you desire them to stay there; or the estates shall be sold for their benefit; or, if you will trust them to my care—”

“No, no! Impossible!”

“I am the wife of a general, and second to no woman in the island,” said Thérèse, calmly. “I have power to protect your daughters; and, in an hour like this, you cannot doubt my sincerity when I say that I have the will.”

“It cannot be, Thérèse. I do not doubt you—neither your word nor your will. But it is impossible, utterly.”

“Is there strength, even in the hour of death, to trample on the dark race? Oh! better far to trample on the prejudices of race! Will you not do this?”

“You talk absurdly, Thérèse. Do not trouble me with nonsense now. You will undertake, you say, that Toussaint shall secure to my daughters the estates I have left to them by will. That is, in case of the blacks getting the upper hand. If they are put down, my will secures everything. Happily, my will is in safe hands. Speak, Thérèse. You engage for what I have just said?”

“As far as warranted by my knowledge of L’Ouverture and his intentions, I do. If, through his death or adversity, this resource should fail, your daughters shall not suffer while my husband and I have property.”

“Your husband! property! It is strange,” muttered Papalier. “I believe you, however, I trust you, Thérèse; and I thank you, love.”

Thérèse started at that old word—that old name. Recovering herself, she inquired—

“Have you more to ask of me? Is there any other service I can render you?”

“No, no. You have done too much for me—too much, considering the new order of affairs.”

“I have something to ask of you. I require an answer to one question.”

“You require!”

“I do. By the right of an outraged mother, I require to know who destroyed my child.”

“Say nothing of that, Thérèse. You should know better than to bring such subjects before a dying man.”

“Such subjects lie before the dead. Better to meet them prepared—atoned for, in as far as atonement is yet possible. For your own sake, and by my own right, I require to be told who destroyed my child?”

“I did not, Thérèse.”

“You did not! Is it possible? Yet in this hour you could not deceive me. I have accused you of the deed, from that hour to this. Is it possible that I have wronged you?”

“I do not say that I disapproved of it—that I did not allow it. But I did not do it.”

“Then you know who did it?”

“Of course I do.”

“Who was it?”

“I swore long ago that I would not tell; and I never will. But you may lay the blame on me, my dear; for, as I told you, I permitted the deed. It was necessary. Our lives depended on it.”

“May you not find your eternal death depend on it!” said Thérèse, agonised by suspicions as to whose hand it was by which her child had died. In a moment, she formed a resolve which she never broke—never again to seek to know that which Papalier now refused to tell. A glance at the countenance before her filled her with remorse the next instant, at what now seemed the cruel words she had just spoken.

“Let me bring Father Gabriel to you,” said she. “He will give you whatever comfort God permits.”

“Do not suppose I shall tell Father Gabriel what you want to discover,” replied Papalier. “He has no business with more than my share of the affair: which is what you know already. I am too weak to talk—to Father Gabriel, or any one else.”

“But you need comfort. You will rest better afterwards.”

“Well, well; in the evening, perhaps. I must be quiet now. Comfort, indeed!” he muttered. “Yes, I want comfort enough, in the horrid condition I am in. But there is no comfort till one lies dead. I wish I were dead.”

He fell into a restless doze. Moved by his misery and melted by the thought that she had wronged him, all these years, by harbouring the image of his hand on her infant’s throat—distracted, too, by the new doubts that had arisen—Thérèse prayed and wept, wept and prayed, on behalf of Papalier and all sinners. Again and again she implored that these wretched hatreds, those miserable strifes, might be all hushed in the grave,—might be wholly dissolved in death.

She was just stealing to the door, intending to send for Father Gabriel, that he might be in readiness for the dying man’s confession, when Papalier started, cast his eyes round the room hurriedly, and exclaimed—

“It is in vain to talk of attaching them. If one’s eye is off them for one moment— Oh! you are there, Thérèse! I thought, after all I had done for you—after all I had spent upon you— I thought you would not go off with the rest. Don’t go— Thérèse—Thérèse!”

“I am here,” said she, perceiving that he no longer saw.

“I knew you would stay,” he said, very faintly. “I cannot spare you, my dear.”

The last words he said were—

“I cannot spare you—remember—Thérèse!”

To the pang of the thought that he had died unconfessed succeeded the question, more painful still—

“Could religious offices avail anything to a soul wholly unsanctified? Is there a promise that any power can put such a spirit into immediate congeniality with the temper of Heaven? Among the many mansions, is there one which would not be a prison to such?—to the proud one who must there feel himself poor and miserable, and blind and naked?”

Chapter Thirty Seven.

June.

Of the letters written by Toussaint and Pascal on the evening when news arrived of the imposition of compulsory labour on the negroes, some reached their destination; but one did not. That one was to L’Ouverture’s aide, Fontaine, at Cap Français. It contained the following:—

“It is said that General Leclerc is in a bad state of health at Tortuga. Of this you will inform me. If you see the Captain-General, be sure to tell him that the cultivators are no longer disposed to obey me, for the planters wish to set them to work at Hericourt; which they certainly ought not to do.

“I have to ask you whether any one near the person of the Captain-General can be gained to procure the release of D—, who would be very useful to me from his influence at La Nouvelle, and elsewhere.

“Acquaint Gingembre that he is not to quit the Borgne, where the cultivators must not be set to work.”

This letter never reached Fontaine, but was, instead, made the subject of a consultation in the Captain-General’s quarters. Amidst the boastings which he sent home, and by which France was amused, Leclerc felt that his thirty-five thousand soldiers had made no progress whatever in the real conquest of Saint Domingo. He was aware that France had less power there than before she had alienated L’Ouverture. He felt that Toussaint was still the sovereign that he had been for ten years past. He knew that a glance of the eye, a lifting of the hand, from Toussaint, wrought more than sheaves of ordinances from himself, and all the commendations and flatteries of the First Consul. Leclerc, and the officers in his confidence, could never take a morning ride, or give an evening party—they could never hear a negro singing, or amuse themselves with children, playing on the shore or in the woods, without being reminded that they were intruders, and that the native and abundant loyalty of the inhabitants was all for their L’Ouverture, now that France had put him in opposition to herself. Leclerc and his confidential advisers committed the error of attributing all this to Toussaint’s personal qualities; and they drew the false inference (most acceptable to the First Consul) that if Toussaint were out of the way, all would be well for the purposes of France. Having never seriously regarded the blacks as free men and fellow-citizens, these Frenchmen omitted to perceive that a great part of their devotion to Toussaint was loyalty to their race. Proceeding on this mistake, Leclerc and his council, sanctioned by the First Consul, ruined their work, lost their object, and brought irretrievable disgrace upon their names—some of which are immortalised only by the infamy of the act which ensued.

From day-to-day, they endeavoured to entrap Toussaint; but he knew it, surrounded as he was by faithful and vigilant friends. Day by day he was warned of an ambush here, of spies there, or of an attempt meditated for such an hour. During a fortnight of incessant designs upon his person, he so baffled all attempts as to induce a sort of suspicion among the French soldiery that he was protected by magic.

It was an anxious season for his family. Their only comfort was that it would soon be over; that this, like all other evils connected with the invasion, was to last only “till August;” the familiar words which were the talisman of hope throughout the island. The household at Pongaudin counted the days till August; but it was yet only the beginning of June; and the season passed heavily away. On one occasion, a faithful servant of Toussaint’s was brought in dead—shot from a thicket which his master was expected to pass. On another, the road home was believed to be beset; and all the messengers sent by the family to warn him of his danger were detained on some frivolous pretext; and the household were at length relieved by his appearing from the garden, having returned in a boat provided by some of his scouts. Now and then, some one mentioned retiring to the mountains; but Toussaint would not hear of it. He said it would be considered a breach of the treaty, and would forfeit all the advantages to be expected from a few weeks’ patience. The French were, he knew, daily more enfeebled and distracted by sickness. Caution and patience, for two months more, would probably secure freedom without bloodshed. He had foreseen that the present perils would arise from the truce; and still believed that it had better not have been made. But, as he had agreed to it, the first breach should not be on his part.

If Toussaint owed his danger to Christophe, he owed him the protection by which he had thus far been preserved. Worn as he was by perpetual labour and anxiety, Henri seemed never to close his eyes in sleep during this anxious season. He felt to the full his responsibility, from the hour of the first discovery of French treachery towards his friend. By day, he was scouring the country in the direction of Toussaint’s rides. By night, he was patrolling round the estate. It seemed as if his eye pierced the deepest shades of the woods; as if his ear caught up whispers from the council-chamber in Tortuga. For Henri’s sake, Toussaint ran no risks but such as duty absolutely required; for Henri’s sake, he freely accepted these toils on his behalf. He knew it to be essential to Henri’s future peace that his personal safety should be preserved through this season, and that Henri himself should be his chief guardian.

Henri himself did not ask him to give up his rides. It was necessary that his people should have almost daily proof that he was among them, safe and free. It was necessary that the French should discern no symptom of fear, of shrinking, of departure from the mode of life he had proposed on retiring to his estate. Almost daily, therefore, he rode; and exhilarating did he find the rapid exercise, the danger, and, above all, the knowledge he gained of the condition of his people, in fortunes and in mind, and the confidence with which they hailed him, the constancy with which they appealed to his authority, wherever he appeared.

This knowledge enabled him to keep up more than the show of co-operation with the French in matters which concerned the welfare of the people. He pointed out gross abuses; and Leclerc hastened to remedy them. Leclerc consulted him occasionally in local affairs, and had his best advice. This kind of correspondence, useful and innocent, could not have been carried on to equal purpose but for Toussaint’s rides.

By such excursions he verified a cause of complaint, concerning which he had received applications at home. In dispersing his troops over the colony, Leclerc had taken care to quarter a very large proportion in the districts near Gonaïves, so as to enclose the residence of Toussaint with the best of the French forces. The canton of Henneri was overcharged with these troops; so that the inhabitants were oppressed, and the soldiers themselves suffered from scarcity of food, and from the fever which raged in their crowded quarters. Having ascertained this to be the fact, Toussaint wrote to represent the case to Leclerc, and received a speedy and favourable reply. By Leclerc’s command, General Brunet wrote that this was an affair which came within his department; that he was necessarily ignorant of the localities of Saint Domingo, and of their respective resources; and that he should be thankful for information and guidance from one who had a perfect knowledge of these circumstances. He proposed that General Toussaint should meet him in the centre of the canton of Henneri, and instruct him concerning the better distribution of the troops.

“See these whites!” said Toussaint, handing the letter to Monsieur Pascal. “Till they find they are wrong, they have no misgivings; they know everything; and they are obliged at last to come, and learn of old Toussaint.”

“You will not meet General Brunet, as he proposes,” said Monsieur Pascal. “You will not place yourself in the centre of the canton, among their troops?”

“No, no; you will not! You will not think of going!” cried Madame L’Ouverture.

“For once, Margot, you bear ill-will towards those who compliment your husband,” said Toussaint, smiling. “But be easy; I shall not go to the canton of Henneri. If I walk into a pitfall, it shall not be after having seen it made. I must meet General Brunet, however. I shall invite him here with an escort of twenty soldiers; promising to limit my own guard to that number.”

“He will not come,” said Monsieur Pascal.

“I think he will; not because they trust me, for they know not what trust is; but because I could gain nothing by any injury to General Brunet and twenty soldiers that could compensate for a breach of the treaty.”

“The gain, from capture or violence, would be all the other way, certainly,” said Pascal, in a low voice.

“Henri will take care that General Brunet’s is bona fide an escort of twenty. There is reason for the meeting taking place here. Maps will be wanted, and other assistance which we might not remember to provide elsewhere. General Brunet must be my guest; and Madame L’Ouverture will make him admire our hospitality.”

General Brunet immediately accepted the invitation, promising to present himself at Pongaudin on the tenth of June.

Chapter Thirty Eight.

A Feat.

General Brunet brought with him no more than his allotted twenty soldiers, and a secretary. Christophe ascertained to his own satisfaction, and let the household know, that not another French soldier breathed within a circuit of some miles, when the evening closed in; so that the ladies threw off constraint and fear together as the two generals, with their secretaries, retired to the library, after coffee.

Placide had been with Christophe all day, and was the means by which the household had been assured of the tranquillity of the neighbourhood. He was of the patrol which was to watch the roads during the night. It seemed improbable, however, that, of all nights, that should be chosen for an assault when the Ouvertures must be particularly roused to observation, and when a French general was in their hands. Of all nights, this was probably the safest; yet Placide, glad, perhaps, of an excuse to keep out of the way of a guest from Paris, chose to mount guard with Christophe.

Denis was permitted to be in the library, as the business was not private, and, to one who knew the country as well as he did, very entertaining. For a time he found it so, while all the five were stooping over the maps, and his father was explaining the nature of the localities, and the interests of the inhabitants, and while words dropped from General Brunet which gave an insight into that object of Denis’s strong curiosity—the French encampment on Tortuga. When all of this kind had been said, and the conversation turned upon points of military science or management, which he did not care about, Denis drew off to the window, and thence into the balcony, where he looked out upon the night—vainly, for it was cloudy, and there was yet no moon. The air was cool and pleasant, however, and he remained leaning over the balcony, revolving what he had heard, and picturing to himself the little court of Madame Leclerc—so near, and yet out of his reach. While thus absorbed, it is probable that some distant voice of song instigated him to sing also. Like his race generally, Denis was almost always singing; always when alone and meditative. It is probable that some notes of the air sung by those who looked to August for freedom—sung by the whole negro population—now caught his ear; for he began, hardly to sing, but to murmur this popular air. The words were not heard within; and it would not have mattered if they had been; for the words were in the negro language. But the air was, by this time, intelligible enough to the invaders. In the interest of conversation, nothing escaped the eye of Toussaint. He saw an exchange of glances between General Brunet and his secretary, and a half smile on the face of each which he did not like.

He thought it best to take no notice; but, far from leaving off, Denis sang louder as he sank deeper into reverie. Monsieur Pascal became aware of some embarrassment, and of its cause.

“Denis, you disturb us,” he called out from the table.

They heard no more of Denis; and their business proceeded. Vexed, partly with himself, and partly at having been rebuked in General Brunet’s hearing, he went round the house by the balcony, and thence to the upper gallery, which commanded the finest sea view in the day-time, and the freshest sea breezes at night. There, in a somewhat perverse mood, he sang for his own pleasure the air which he had been checked for singing unconsciously. He remained there a long while—he did not know how long—till the moon rose, when he remembered that it must be midnight. As no one had called him, he supposed that the party in the library were still in consultation.

As his eye rested on the bay, while he was considering whether he must not go in, he perceived something dark lying on the waters between the island and the shore. As he strained his sight, and as the waned moon rose higher, he discovered that it was a ship. It was strange. No ship ever had business there; though he had heard that there was a deep channel, and good anchorage in that little bay. It was very strange. But something stranger still soon met his ear—sounds, first odd, then painful—horrible. There was some bustle below—on the beach, within the little gate—he thought even on the lawn. It was a scuffle; there was a stifled cry. He feared the guard were disarmed and gagged—attacked on the side of the sea, where no one dreamed of an assault, and where there was no Christophe to help. Denis knew, however, how to reach Christophe. He did the right thing. Lest his purpose should be prevented if he entered the house, he clambered up the roof to its ridge, and swung the heavy alarm-bell. Its irregular clang banished sleep in a moment from a circuit of many miles. It not only startled the ladies of the family from their beds; but every fisherman rushed from his hut upon the shore. Christophe and Placide were galloping to Pongaudin almost before they had drawn a breath. Every beast stirred in its lair; and every bird rustled in its roost. Rapid, however, as was the spread of sound, it was too late to save L’Ouverture.

L’Ouverture himself had but a few moments of uncertainty to endure. In the midst of earnest conversation, suspicious sounds were heard. The two Frenchmen rushed to the door of the library, and Monsieur Pascal to the balcony. Monsieur Pascal re-entered in an instant, saying—

“The house is surrounded—the lawn is crowded. Make no resistance, and they may spare your life.”

“Hark! The bell! There is hope,” said Toussaint. “No resistance! but let us gain time.”

The door was burst open, and with General Brunet entered a personage whom he introduced as Admiral Ferrari, followed by a file of grenadiers.

“What can be your errand at this hour?” asked Toussaint.

“I have orders from the Captain-General to arrest you,” replied Admiral Ferrari. “Your guards are disarmed and bound. Our troops are everywhere. You are dead if you resist. Deliver up your sword!”

“I shall not resist such a force as you have thought it necessary to bring against me,” replied Toussaint, handing his sword to the admiral. “Am I to be a prisoner here, in my own house?”

“No, indeed! I have orders to convey you and your family to Cap Français. No delay! To the boats this moment! You will find your family on board the frigate, or on the way to it.”

“Do what you will with me; but Madame L’Ouverture is in weak health. Suffer her and my children to remain at home.”

“Lose no more time. General. March! or we must carry you.”

Voices of lamentation and of passion were heard in the corridor, which quickened L’Ouverture’s movements more than threats or insults could have done. He left the library, and found the ladies of the household in the corridor—Margot weeping and trembling, and Génifrède addressing Monsieur Coasson in a tone of high anger.

“You here! Monsieur Coasson!” said Toussaint; “and availing yourself once more of the weakness and woes of women, I perceive.”

“I came as guide,” replied Monsieur Coasson. “The admiral and his troops needed some one to show them the way; and, as you are aware, I was qualified to do so. I have always felt, too, that I had a sort of appointment to fulfil with this young lady. Her kind expressions towards the whites on my last visit might be considered a sort of invitation to come again—with such a train as you see,” pointing to the stiff row of grenadiers who stood behind.

Génifrède groaned.

“Make yourself happy with your train,” said Toussaint, as he seized the wretch by the collar, hurled him back among the grenadiers, and kicked him over as he lay, introducing great disorder into the formal arrangements of that dignified guard.

This would have been the last moment of Toussaint, if General Brunet had not drawn his sword, and commanded every one to stand back. His orders, he said, were to deliver his prisoner alive.

“Come, my love,” said Toussaint to Madame L’Ouverture. “We are to sleep on board a frigate this night. Come. Génifrède! We may sleep in peace. General Brunet will hardly be able to digest your hospitality, my Margot; but you may sleep. Who else?” he asked, as he looked round upon his trembling household.

“We are following,” said Monsieur Pascal, who had his wife and Euphrosyne on either arm.

“Pardon me,” said General Brunet. “Our orders extend only to General Toussaint and his family. You must remain. Reverend father,” he said to Father Laxabon, “you will remain also—to comfort any friends of General Toussaint whom you may be able to meet with to-morrow. They will be all inconsolable, no doubt.”

Monsieur Coasson whispered to the admiral, who said, in consequence, bowing to Euphrosyne—

“I can answer for this young lady being a welcome guest to Madame Leclerc. If she will afford to a countryman the pleasure and honour of conveying her, it will give him joy to introduce her to a society worthy of her.”

“I do not wish to see Madame Leclerc,” said Euphrosyne, speaking with surprising calmness, though her cheek was white as ashes. “I wish to be wherever I may best testify my attachment to these my honoured friends, in the day of their undeserved adversity.”

She looked from Monsieur Pascal to L’Ouverture.

“Stay with those who can be your guardians,” said Toussaint.

“For our sakes,” added Génifrède.

“Stay with us!” cried Monsieur Pascal and Afra.

“Farewell, then,” said Euphrosyne, extending her arms to Madame L’Ouverture.

“We are losing time,” said General Brunet, as the clang of the alarm-bell was heard again. By his order, some soldiers went in search of the traitor who was ringing the bell; and others pushed the captive family before them towards the door. Monsieur Coasson thrust himself between the parting friends, and began to count the family, in order to tell who was missing. It would not do, he observed, to leave any behind.

“Lose no more time,” said the admiral. “Those who may be left behind are cared for, I promise you. We have a hundred of them safe already.”

“A hundred of whom?” asked Toussaint, as he walked.

“Of your friends,” replied Admiral Ferrari.

This was too true. A hundred of Toussaint’s most attached adherents had been seized this night. No one of them was ever again heard of in the island.

At the door of the mansion Denis was brought forward, guarded. His eyes were flashing fire.

“The country is up!” he cried. “I got good service out of the old bell before they found me.”

“Right, my boy! Thank you!” said his father, cheerfully.

“Give Génifrède to me, father. My mother is ready to sink.”

Proudly he supported his sister to the boats, carrying her on so rapidly as to prevent the need of any soldier speaking to her.

There was an array of boats along the shore of the bay. Distant firing was heard during the whole time that the prisoners and the troops were embarking.

“They must be very much afraid of us,” observed Denis, looking round, as soon as he had taken his place beside his sister in the boat. “They have given us above a hundred guards, I believe.”

“They are afraid of us,” said Toussaint.

“There is terrible fighting somewhere,” murmured the weeping Margot. “I am afraid Placide is in the midst of it.”

“He is in his duty if he be,” said Toussaint.

Placide had discharged this kind of duty, however, and now appeared to fulfil the other—of sharing the captivity of his parents. He leaped into the boat, breathless, after it had pushed off from the shore.

“In time, thank God!” gasped he.

“He can hardly speak!” exclaimed his mother. “He is wet! He is wounded—cruelly wounded!”

“Not wounded at all, mother. Whole in heart and skin! I am soaked in the blood of our enemies. We have fought gloriously—in vain, however, for to-night. Latortue is shot; and Jasmin. There are few left but Christophe; but he is fighting like a lion.”

“Why did you leave him, my son?” asked Toussaint.

“He desired me to come, again and again, and I fought on. At last I was cut off from him. I could not give any more help there; and I saw that my business lay here. They say this frigate is the Creole. Whither bound, I wonder?”

“To Cap Français,” replied the officer in the stern: “to join the Héros, now in the roads there.”

“The Héros—a seventy-four, I think,” said L’Ouverture.

“A seventy-four—you are correct,” replied the officer. No one spoke again.

Chapter Thirty Nine.

Truce no more.

When Toussaint set foot on the deck of the Héros, on the evening of the next day, the commander stood ready to receive him—and not only the commander. Soldiers also stood ready with chains, with which they lost no time in fettering the old man’s ankles and wrists. While they were doing this, Toussaint quietly said to the commander—

“By my overthrow, the trunk of the tree of negro liberty is laid low; only the trunk. It will shoot out again from the roots; and they are many and deep.”

The moment the soldiers stepped back, and allowed access to him, Aimée was in his arms; and Isaac, in great agitation, presented himself.

“I will never leave you more, father!” said he. “These fetters! Nothing should have made me believe such treatment possible. I trusted Leclerc as firmly as I trusted you. I have been living with him while he meditated chains for you. I am humbled for ever! All I can do now is to devote myself to you, as Placide did at the right time. Would I were Placide! I am humbled for ever!”

“No, my son: not for ever. It is a common lot to be humbled for the credulous confidence of youth. It is a safer and a nobler error, Isaac, than its opposite. It is better than unbelief in the virtue of man.”

“You torture me with your goodness, father!”

“I deal with you as with myself, Isaac. In the young days of my freedom I trusted falsely, as you have done. I believed in Bonaparte, as you have believed in Leclerc. We have both received a lesson; but I do not feel humbled for ever; nor must you.”

“Would I were Placide!” was all that Isaac could say.

“You are so good to Isaac and me,” said Aimée, timidly, “that perhaps you would (could you?) see Vincent.”

“No, my child. Vincent is not like Isaac. He cannot be made wise by experience; and his folly is scarcely to be distinguished from treachery. I cannot see General Vincent.”

No choice was allowed, however. Vincent rushed forward, knelt before Toussaint, and clasped his knees, imploring, in a convulsion of grief, pardon for the past, and permission to devote every hour of his future life to the family whom he had ruined.

“My pardon you have,” said L’Ouverture. “I should rather say my compassion; for you never deliberately designed treachery, I am persuaded.”

“I never did! I never did!”

“Neither had you any good design. You have been selfish, vain, and presumptuous; as far from comprehending my purposes as from having criminal ones of your own. In the new circumstances in which negroes are placed, many must fall, however firmly some may stand. You are among the infirm; and therefore, however I may mourn, I do not resent what you have done.”

“Thank God! You pardon me! Thank God! Henceforth, with Aimée to watch over me—with you to guide me—”

“No, Vincent! You cannot be with me. Aimée is free as she has ever been; but you cannot be with me. I go to martyrdom: to fulfil what appears to be the solemn vocation of the Ouvertures. I go to martyrdom; and none but steady souls must travel that way with me.”

“You scorn me,” said Vincent, springing from his knees. “Your acts show that you scorn me. You take that poor fellow,” pointing to Mars Plaisir, “and you reject me.”

“My son’s servant,” said Toussaint, smiling. “He goes to his beloved France, free to quit us for any other service, when ours becomes too grave for his light spirit. I would not insult you by taking you on a like condition. You must leave us, Vincent,” pointing to the Creole’s boat, now about to put off from the Héros. “We will pray for you. Farewell!”

“Aimée!” said her lover, scarcely daring to raise his eyes to her face.

“Farewell, Vincent!” Aimée strove to say.

In vain Vincent endeavoured to plead. Aimée shook her head, signed to him to go, and hid her face on her father’s shoulder. It was too much. Humbled to the point of exasperation, Vincent throw himself over the ship’s side into the boat, and never more saw the face of an Ouverture.

“I have nothing left but you,” sobbed Aimée—“but you and my mother. If they kill you my mother will die, and I shall be desolate.”

“Your brothers, my child.”

“No, no. I have tried all. I left you to try. I loved you always; but I thought I loved others more. But—”

“But,” said her father, when she could not proceed, “you found the lot of woman. To woman the affections are all: to men, even to brothers, they are not. Courage, Aimée! Courage! for you are an Ouverture. Courage to meet your woman’s martyrdom!”

“Let me rest upon your heart, father; and I can bear anything.”

“Would I could, my child! But they will not allow it—these jailors. They will part us.”

“I wish these chains could bind me too—these very links—that I might never leave you,” cried Aimée, kissing the fetters which bound her father’s arms.

“Your mother’s heart, Aimée; that remains.”

“I will keep it from breaking, father, trust me.”

And the mother and daughter tasted something like happiness, even in an hour like this, in their re-union. It was a strange kind of comfort to Aimée to hear from her mother how long ago her father had foreseen, at Pongaudin, that the day might come when her heart would be torn between her lover and her family. The impending blow had been struck—the struggle had taken place: and it only remained now to endure it.

“Father!” said Génifrède, appealing to Toussaint, with a grave countenance, “you say that none but brave and steady souls must go with you on your way to martyrdom. You know me to be cowardly as a slave, and unstable as yonder boat now tossing on the waves. Do you see that boat, father?”

“Surely—yes; it is Paul;” said Toussaint, looking through his glass. “Paul is coming to say farewell.”

“Let me return with him, father. Let me become his child. I am unworthy to be yours. And he and I are so forlorn!”

Her father’s tender gaze encouraged her to say more. Drawing closer, she whispered—

“I have seen Moyse—I have seen him more than once in the Morne; and I cannot leave this place. Let me stay.”

“Stay, my child. Seek consolation in your own way. We will all pray for you; we will all console your mother for your absence. We shall not meet again on earth, Génifrède.”

“I know it, father. But the time of rest—how long it is in coming!”

“My child, our rest is in the soul—it lies not either in place or time. Do not look for it in the grave, unless you have it first in the soul.”

“Then would I had never been born!”

“How different will be your cry when you have been a daughter to Paul for a while! When you see him consoled, and reposing upon your care, you will say, ‘I thank God that I have lived for this!’ A great duty lies before you, my dear child; and in the heart of duty lies rest—a deeper than that of the grave. Shall I give you a duty to discharge for me?”

“Oh, yes! I will take it as your blessing.”

“Convey to Christophe my last message. Bid him rejoice for me that my work is done. My work is now his. Bid him remember how we always agreed that freedom is safe. I bequeath the charge of it to him, with my blessing.”

“He shall know this, if he lives, before the moon rises.”

“If he does not live, let Dessalines hear what was my message to Christophe. He will know how much to take to himself.”

It was well that this message was given without further delay. Toussaint was summoned to speak with some officers of Leclerc’s council, in the cabin below. At the clank of his chains upon the deck all eyes were upon him, except those of his own family, which were turned away in grief.

“Before your departure,” said one of the officers, in the small cabin to which Toussaint was conducted, “we would urge you to do a service to the colony which yet remains in your power. You must not refuse this last service.”

“I have never refused to serve the colony; and I am as willing to-day as ever.”

“No doubt. Reveal to us, then, the spot in the Mornes du Chaos, in which your treasures lie buried, and state their amount.”

“I have before said that I have buried no treasures. Do you disbelieve my word?”

“We are sorry to do so; but facts are against you. You cannot deceive us. We know that you caused certain of your dependents to bury treasure near the Plateaux de la Ravine; and that you afterwards shot these servants, to secure your secret.”

“Is it possible?”

“You see we have penetrated your counsels. The time for concealment is past. You take your family with you; and none of you will ever return. Your friends are, most of them, disposed of. A new order of things has commenced. You boast of your patriotism. Show it now by giving up the treasure of the colony to the uses of the colony.”

“I have already devoted my all to the colony. I reply once more that I leave behind me no treasure but that which you cannot appreciate—the grateful hearts of my people.”

The investigation was pressed—the inquiry made, under every form of appeal that could be devised; and in vain. Toussaint disdained to repeat his reply; and he spoke no more. The officers left him with threats on their lips. The door was locked and barred behind them, and Toussaint found himself a solitary prisoner.

During the night the vessel got under weigh. What at that hour were the secrets which lay hid in the mountain-passes, the forest-shades, and the sad homes of the island whose true ruler was now borne away from its shores?

Pongaudin was already deserted. Monsieur and Madame Pascal had, by great activity, obtained a passage for France in the ship which was freighted with Leclerc’s boastings of his crowning feat. They were already far on the sea before the Héros spread its sails. Leclerc’s announcement of Toussaint’s overthrow was as follows:—

“I intercepted letters which he had written to one Fontaine, who was his agent at Cap Français. These afforded an unanswerable proof that he was engaged in a conspiracy, and that he was anxious to regain his former influence in the colony. He waited only for the result of disease among the troops.

“Under these circumstances, it would be improper to give him time to mature his criminal designs. I ordered him to be apprehended—a difficult task; but it succeeded through the excellent arrangements made by General Brunet, who was entrusted with its execution, and the zeal and ardour of Admiral Ferrari.

“I am sending to France, with all his family, this deeply perfidious man, who, by his consummate hypocrisy, has done us so much mischief. The government will determine how it should dispose of him.

“The apprehension of General Toussaint occasions some disturbances. Two leaders of the insurgents are already in custody, and I have ordered them to be shot. About a hundred of his confidential partisans have been secured, of whom some are on board the Muiron frigate, which is under orders for the Mediterranean; and the rest are distributed among the different ships of the squadron.

“I am daily occupied in settling the affairs of the colony, with the least possible inconvenience: but the excessive heat, and the diseases which attack us, render it an extremely painful task. I am impatient for the approach of the month of September, when the season will renovate our activity.

“The departure of Toussaint has produced general joy at Cap Français.

“The Commissary of Justice, Mont Peson, is dead. The Colonial Prefect, Benezech, is breathing his last. The Adjutant-commandant, Dampier, is dead: he was a young officer of great promise.

“I have the honour, etcetera,—”

Signed—

“Leclerc.”

On board the vessel which carried these tidings was Pascal, prepared to give a different version of the late transactions, and revolving, with Afra, the means by which he might best employ such influence as he had on behalf of his friend. Theirs was a nearly hopeless errand, they well knew; but the less hopeful, the more anxious were they to do what they could.

Was Euphrosyne with them?—No. She never forgot the duty which she had set before her—to stay near Le Bosquet, in hopes of better times, when she might make reparation to the people of the estate for what they had suffered at her grandfather’s hands. A more pressing duty also detained her on the island. She could be a daughter to Monsieur Raymond in Afra’s stead, and thus make their duty easier to the Pascals. Among the lamentations and prayers which went up from the mourning island were those of the old man and the young girl who wept together at Le Zéphyr—scarcely attempting yet to forgive the enemies whose treachery had outraged the Deliverer—as he was henceforth called, more fondly than ever. They were not wholly wretched. They dwelt on the surprise and pleasure it would be to the Ouvertures to find the Pascals in France before them. Euphrosyne had also the satisfaction of doing something, however indirectly, for her unfortunate friends; and she really enjoyed the occupation, to her so familiar, and still so dear, of ministering to the comfort of an old man, who had no present dependence but on her.

Her cares and duties were soon increased. The habitations of the Plain du Nord became so disgusting and so dangerous as the pestilence strewed the land with dead, and the survivors of the French army became, in proportion to the visitation, desperate and savage, that Madame Ogé was, at length, like all her neighbours, driven from her home. She wished to take refuge with one of her own colour; and Monsieur Raymond, at Euphrosyne’s suggestion, invited her to Le Zéphyr, to await better days. With a good grace did Euphrosyne go out to meet her; with a good grace did she welcome and entertain her. The time was past when she could be terrified with evil prognostications. In the hour of the earthquake, no one heeds the croak of the raven.

Among the nuns at Saint Marc there was trembling, which the pale abbess herself could not subdue by reason or exhortation. Their ears were already weary with the moans of the dying. They had now to hear the shrieks and curses of the kidnapped blacks—the friends of L’Ouverture—whose homes were made desolate. The terrified women could not but ask each other, “who next?” for they all loved L’Ouverture, and had declared their trust in him. No one injured the household of the abbess, however; and the sisters were all spared, in safety and honour, to hear the proclamation of the Independence of Hayti, and to enjoy the protection and friendship of its beloved Empress.

And where was she—Thérèse—when Saint Marc was resounding with the cries of her husband’s betrayed companions and friends? She was on the way to the fastnesses, where her unyielding husband was preparing a tremendous retribution for those whom he had never trusted. She rejoiced, solemnly but mournfully, that he had never yielded. She could not wonder that the first words of Dessalines to her, when he met her horse on the steep, were a command that she would never more intercede for a Frenchman—never more hold back his strong hand from the work which he had now to do. She never did, till that which, in a chief, was warfare, became, in an emperor, vengeance. Then she resumed her woman’s office of intercession; and by it won for herself the title of “the Good Empress.”

The eyes which first caught sight of the receding ship Héros, at dawn, were those of Paul L’Ouverture and Génifrède. They had sent messengers, more likely than themselves to reach Christophe and Dessalines, with the last message of Toussaint; and they were now at leisure to watch, from the heights above their hut (their home henceforth), the departure of all who bore their name. They were left alone, but not altogether forlorn. They called each other father and daughter; and here they could freely, and for ever, mourn Moyse.

Christophe received the message. It was not needed to rouse him to take upon himself, or to share with Dessalines, the office of him who was gone. The thoughts of his heart were told to none. They were unspeakable, except by the language of deeds. His deeds proclaimed them: and after his faithful warfare, during his subsequent mild reign, his acts of liberality, wisdom, and mercy, showed how true was his understanding of the mission of L’Ouverture.

There were many to share his work to-day. Dessalines was the chief: but leaders sprang up wherever soldiers appeared, asking to be led; and that was everywhere, from the moment of the report of the abduction of Toussaint. Clerveaux revolted from the French, and visited on them the bitterness of his remorse. Maurepas also repented, and was putting his repentance into action when he was seized, tortured, and murdered, with his family. Bellair and his wife conducted with new spirit, from this day, a victorious warfare which was never intermitted, being bequeathed by their barbarous deaths to their exasperated followers.

It was true, as Toussaint knew and felt in his solitary prison on the waters, that the groans which went up from the heights and hollows, the homes and the fastnesses of the island, were such as could not but unite in a fearful war-cry; but it was also true, as he had known and felt during the whole term of his power, that in this war victory could not be doubtful. He had been made the portal of freedom to his race. The passions of men might gather about it, and make a conflict, more or less tremendous and protracted; but the way which God had opened, and guarded by awakened human hearts, no multitude of rebellious human hands could close.

Chapter Forty.

Meeting Winter.

It was a glorious day, that twelfth of June, when the Héros sailed away from the shores of Saint Domingo. Before the Héros could sail quite away, it was compelled to hover, as it were, about the shadow of the land—to advance and retreat—to say farewell, apparently, and then to greet it again. The wind was north-east, so that a direct course was impossible; and the Ouverture family assembled, with the exception of Toussaint himself, upon deck, gave vent, again and again, to their tears—again and again strained their eyes, as the mountains with their shadowy sides, the still forests, the yellow sands, and the quiet settlements of the lateral valleys, came into view, or faded away.

L’Ouverture’s cabin, to which he was strictly confined during the voyage, had a window in the stern, and he, too, had therefore some change of prospect. He gazed eagerly at every shifting picture of the land; but most eagerly when he found himself off Cap Samana. With his pocket-glass he explored and discovered the very point of rough ground on the height where he stood with Christophe, less than six months before, to watch the approach, and observe the rendezvous, of the French fleet. He remembered, as his eye was fixed upon the point, his naming to Henri this very ship, in which he was now a prisoner, sailing away, never more to return.

“Be it so!” he thought, according to his wont. “My blacks are not conquered, and will never more be slaves.”

The wind soon changed, and the voyage was a rapid one. Short as it was, it was tedious; for, with the exception of Mars Plaisir, who was appointed to wait on him, the prisoner saw no one. Again and again he caught the voices of his children, singing upon deck—no doubt in order to communicate with him: but, in every instance, almost before he had begun to listen, the song ceased. Mars Plaisir explained that it was silenced by the captain’s order. No captain’s order had power to stop the prisoner’s singing. Every night was Aimée consoled, amidst her weeping, by the solemn air of her father’s favourite Latin Hymn to Our Lady of the Sea: every morning was Margot roused to hope by her husband’s voice, singing his matin-prayer. Whatever might be the captain’s apprehensions of political danger from these exercises, he gave over the opposition which had succeeded so well with the women.

“My father crossed this sea,” thought Toussaint: “and little could he have dreamed that the next of his race would cross it also, a prince and a prisoner. He, the son of a king, was seized and sold as a slave. His son, raised to be a ruler by the hand of Him who creates princes (whether by birth or royalty of soul), is kidnapped, and sacrificed to the passions of a rival. Such is our life! But in its evil there is good. If my father had not crossed this sea as a slave, Saint Domingo would have wanted me; and in me, perhaps, its freedom and civilisation. If I had not been kidnapped, my blacks might have lacked wrath to accomplish the victory to which I have led them. If my father is looking back on this world, I doubt not he rejoices in the degradation which brought elevation to his race; and, as for me, I lay the few years of my old age a ready sacrifice on the altar of Africa.”

Sometimes he amused himself with the idea of surveying, at last, the Paris of which he had heard so much. Oftener, however, he dwelt with complacency on the prospect of seeing Bonaparte—of meeting his rival, mind to mind. He knew that Bonaparte’s curiosity about him was eager, and he never doubted that he should be called to account personally for his government, in all its details. He did not consider that the great captain of the age might fear to meet his victim—might shrink from the eye of a brother-soldier whom he had treated worse than a felon.

Time and disappointment taught the prisoner this. None of his dreams were verified. In Brest harbour he was hurried from the ship—allowed a parting embrace of his family upon deck—no more; not a sentence of conversation, though all the ship’s crew were by to hear. Mars Plaisir alone was allowed to accompany him. Two hurried whispers alone were conveyed to his ear. Placide assured him (yet how could it be?) that Monsieur Pascal was in France and would exert himself. And Margot told him, amidst her sobs, that she had done the one only thing she could—she had prayed for Bonaparte, as she promised, that night of prophetic woe at Pongaudin.

Nothing did he see of Paris but some of the dimly-lighted streets, as he was conveyed, at night, to the prison of the Temple. During the weeks that he was a prisoner there, he looked in vain for a summons to the presence of the First Consul, or for the First Consul’s appearance in his apartment. One of Bonaparte’s aides, Caffarelli, came indeed, and brought messages: but these messages were only insulting inquiries about the treasures—the treasures buried in the mornes;—for ever these treasures! This recurring message, with its answer, was all the communication he had with Bonaparte; and the hum and murmur from the streets were all that he knew of Paris. When Bonaparte, nettled with the reply—“The treasures I have lost are far other than those you seek,”—was convinced that no better answer would be obtained, he gave the order which had been impending during those weeks of confinement in the Temple.

When Bonaparte found his first leisure, after the fêtes and bustle occasioned in August by his being made First Consul for life, he issued his commands regarding the disposal of his West Indian prisoner: and presently Toussaint was traversing France, with Mars Plaisir for his companion in captivity—with an officer, as a guard, inside the closed carriage; another guard on the box; and one, if not two, mounted in their rear.

The journey was conducted under circumstances of great mystery. The blinds of the carriage were never let down; provisions were served out while the party was in full career; and the few baitings that were made were contrived to take place, either during the night, or in unfrequented places. It was clear that the complexion of the strangers was not to be seen by the inhabitants. All that Toussaint could learn was that they were travelling south-east.

“Have you mountains in your island?” asked the officer, letting down the blind just so much, when the carriage turned a corner of the road, as to permit to himself a glimpse of the scenery. “We are entering the Jura. Have you mountains in your island?”

Toussaint left it to Mars Plaisir to answer this question; which he did with indignant volubility, describing the uses and the beauties of the heights of Saint Domingo, from the loftiest peaks which intercept the hurricane, to the lowest, crested with forts or spreading their blossoming groves to the verge of the valleys.

“We too have fortresses on our heights,” said the officer. “Indeed, you will be in one of them before night. When we are on the other side of Pontarlier, we will look about us a little.”

“Then, on the other side of Pontarlier, we shall meet no people,” observed Mars Plaisir.

“People! Oh, yes! we have people everywhere in France.”

When Pontarlier was passed, and the windows of the carriage were thrown open, the travellers perceived plainly enough why this degree of liberty was allowed. The region was so wild, that none were likely to come hither in search of the captives. There were inhabitants; but few likely to give information as to who had passed along the road. There were charcoal-burners up on the hill-side; there were women washing clothes in the stream which rushed along, far below in the valley; the miller was in his mill, niched in the hollow beside the waterfall; and there might still be inmates in the convent which stood just below the firs, on the knoll to the left of the road. But by the wayside, there were none who, with curious eyes, might mark, and with eager tongue report, the complexion of the strangers who were rapidly whirled along towards Joux.

Toussaint shivered as the chill mountain air blew in. Perhaps what he saw chilled him no less than what he felt. He might have unconsciously expected to see something like the teeming slopes of his own mountains, the yellow ferns, the glittering rocks, shining like polished metal in the sun. Instead of these, the scanty grass was of a blue-green; the stunted firs were black; and the patches of dazzling white intermingled with them formed a contrast of colour hideous to the eye of a native of the tropics.

“That is snow,” exclaimed Mars Plaisir to his master, with the pride of superior experience.

“I know it,” replied Toussaint, quietly.

The carriage now laboured up a steep ascent. The brave homme who drove alighted on one side, and the guard on the other, and walked up the hill, to relieve the horses. The guard gathered such flowers as met his eye; and handed into the carriage a blue gentian which had till now lingered on the borders of the snows,—or a rhododendron, for which he had scaled a crag. His officer roughly ordered him not to leave the track.

“If we had passed this way two or three months earlier,” he said complacently to his prisoners, “we should have found cowslips here and there, all along the road. We have a good many cowslips in early summer. Have you cowslips in your island?”

Toussaint smiled as he thought of the flower-strewn savannahs, where more blossoms opened and perished in an hour than in this dreary region all the summer through. He heard Mars Plaisir compelled to admit that he had never seen cowslips out of France.

At length, after several mountings and dismountings of the driver and guard, they seemed, on entering a defile, to apply themselves seriously to their business. The guard cast a glance along the road, and up the sides of the steeps, and beckoned to the horsemen behind to come on; and the driver repeatedly cracked his whip. Silence settled down on the party within the carriage; for all understood that they drew near the fortress. In silence they wound through the defile, till all egress seemed barred by a lofty crag. The road, however, passed round its base, and disclosed to view a small basin among the mountains, in the midst of which rose the steep which bore the fortress of Joux. At the foot of this steep lay the village; a small assemblage of sordid dwellings. At this village four roads met, from as many defiles which opened into this centre. A mountain-stream gushed along, now by the road-side, now winding and growing quieter among the little plot of green fields which lay in the rear of the castle rock. This plot of vivid green cheered, for a moment, the eye of the captives; but a second glance showed that it was but a swamp. This swamp, crags, firs, and snow, with the dirty village, made up the prospect. As for the inhabitants—as the carriage stopped short of the village, none were to be seen, but a girl with her distaff amidst a flock of goats, and some soldiers on the castle walls above.

There appeared to be but one road up the rock—a bridle or foot road to the right, too narrow and too steep for any carriage. Where this joined the main road the carriage stopped; and the prisoners were desired to alight.

“We must trouble you to walk up this hill,” said the officer, “unless you prefer to mount, and have your horse led.”

Before he had finished speaking, Toussaint was many paces in advance of his guards. But few opportunities had he enjoyed, of late, of exercising his limbs. He believed that this would be the last; and he sprang up the rocky pathway with a sense of desperate pleasure. Panting and heated, the most active of the soldiers reached the summit some moments after him. Toussaint had made use of those few moments. He had fixed in his memory the loading points of the landscape towards the east—the bearings of the roads which opened glimpses into two valleys on that side—the patches of enclosure—the nooks of pasture where cows were grazing, and children were at play—these features of the landscape he eagerly comprehended—partly for use, in case of any opportunity of escape; partly for solace, if he should not henceforth be permitted to look abroad.

A few, and but a few, more moments he had, while the drawbridge was lowered, the portcullis raised, and the guard sent in with some order from his officer. Toussaint well knew that that little plot of fields, with its winding stream, was the last verdure that he might ever see. The snowy summits which peered over the fir-tops were prophets of death to him; for how should he, who had gone hither and thither under the sun of the tropics for sixty years, live chained among the snows? Well did he know this; yet he did not wait to be asked to pass the bridge.

The drawbridge and the courtyard were both deserted. Not a soldier was to be seen. Mars Plaisir muttered his astonishment, but his master understood, that the presence of negro prisoners in the fortress was not to become known. He read in this incident a prophecy of total seclusion.

They were marched rapidly through the courtyard, into a dark passage, where they were desired to stop. In a few moments Toussaint heard the tramp of feet about the gate, and understood that the soldiers had been ordered back to their post.

“The Commandant,” the officer announced to his prisoners; and the Commandant Rubaut entered the dim passage. Toussaint formed his judgment of him, to a certain extent, in a moment. Rubaut endeavoured to assume a tone of good-humoured familiarity; but there appeared through this a misgiving as to whether he was thus either letting himself down, on the one hand, or, on the other, encroaching on the dignity of the person he addressed. His prisoner was a negro; but then he had been the recognised Commander-in-Chief of Saint Domingo. One symptom of awkwardness was, that he addressed Toussaint by no sort of title.

“We have had notice of your approach,” said he; “which is fortunate, as it enables me to conduct you at once to your apartment. Will you proceed? This way. A torch, Bellines! We have been looking for you these two days; which happens very well, as we have been enabled to prepare for you. Torches, Bellines! This way. We mount a few steps, you perceive. We are not taking you underground, though I call for lights; but this passage to the left, you perceive, is rather dark. Yes, that is our well; and a great depth it is—deeper, I assure you, than this rock is high. What do they call the depth, Chalôt? Well, never mind the depth! You can follow me, I believe, without waiting for a light. We cannot go wrong. Through this apartment to the left.”

Toussaint, however, chose to wait for Bellines and his torch. He chose to see what he could of the passages of his prison. If this vault in which he stood were not underground, it was the dreariest apartment from which the daylight had ever been built out. In the moment’s pause occasioned by his not moving on when desired, he heard the dripping of water as in a well.

Bellines appeared, and his torch showed the stone walls of the vault shining with the trickling of water. A cold steam appeared to thicken the air, oppress the lungs, and make the torch burn dim.

“To what apartment can this be the passage?” thought Toussaint. “The grave is warm compared with this.”

A glance of wretchedness from Mars Plaisir, seen in the torchlight, as Bellines passed on to the front, showed that the poor fellow’s spirits, and perhaps some visions of a merry life among the soldiers, had melted already in the damps of this vault. Rubaut gave him a push, which showed that he was to follow the torch-bearer.

Through this vault was a passage, dark, wet, and slippery. In the left-hand wall of this passage was a door, studded with iron nails thickly covered with rust. The key was in this door. During the instant required for throwing it wide, a large flake of ice fell from the ceiling of the passage upon the head of Toussaint. He shook it off, and it extinguished the torch.

“You mean to murder us,” said he, “if you propose to place us here. Do you not know that ice and darkness are the negro’s poison? Snow, too,” he continued, advancing to the cleft of his dungeon wall, at the outward extremity of which was his small grated window. “Snow piled against this window now! We shall be buried under it in winter.”

“You will have good fires in winter.”

“In winter! Yes! this night; or I shall never see winter.”

“This night! Oh, certainly! You can have a fire, though it is not usual with us at this season. Bellines—a fire here immediately.”

He saw his prisoner surveying, by the dim light from the deep window, the miserable cell—about twenty-eight feet by thirteen, built of blocks of stone, its vaulted ceiling so low that it could be touched by the hand; its floor, though planked, rotten and slippery with wet; and no furniture to be seen but a table, two chairs, and two heaps of straw in opposite corners.

“I am happy,” said the Commandant, “to have been able to avoid putting you underground. The orders I have had, from the First Consul himself, as to your being mis au secret, are very strict. Notwithstanding that, I have been able, you see, to place you in an apartment which overlooks the courtyard; and which, too, affords you other objects”—pointing through the gratings to the few feet of the pavement without, and the few yards of the perpendicular rock opposite, which might be seen through the loop-hole.

“How many hours of the day and night are we to pass in tills place?”

“How many hours? We reckon twenty-four hours to the day and night, as is the custom in Europe,” replied Rubaut; whether in ignorance or irony, his prisoner could not, in the dim twilight, ascertain. He only learned too surely that no exit from this cell was to be allowed.

Firewood and light were brought. Rubaut, eager to be busy till he could go, and to be gone as soon as possible, found fault with some long-deceased occupant of the cell, for having covered its arched ceiling with grotesque drawings in charcoal; and then with Bellines, for not having dried the floor. Truly the light gleamed over it as over a pond. Bellines pleaded in his defence that the floor had been dried twice since morning; but that there was no stopping the melting of the ice above. The water would come through the joints till the winter frosts set in.

“Ay, the winter frosts—they will set all to rights. They will cure the melting of the ice, no doubt.” Turning to his prisoners, he congratulated himself on not being compelled to search their persons. The practice of searching was usual, but might, he rejoiced to say, be dispensed with on the present occasion. He might now, therefore, have the pleasure of wishing them a good evening.

Pointing to the two heaps of straw, he begged that his prisoners would lay down their beds in any part of the cell which pleased them best. Their food, and all that they wanted, would be brought to the door regularly. As for the rest, they would wait upon each other. Having thus exhausted his politeness, he quitted the cell; and lock, bolt, and bar were fastened upon the captives.

By the faint light, Toussaint then perceived that his companion was struggling with laughter. When Mars Plaisir perceived by his master’s smile that he had leave to give way, he laughed till the cell rang again, saying—

“Wait upon each other! His Excellency wait upon me! His Excellency wait upon anybody!”

“There would be nothing new in that. I have endeavoured to wait upon others all my life. Rarely does Providence grant the favour to wait upon so many.”

Mars Plaisir did not comprehend this, and therefore continued—

“These whites think that we blacks are created to be serving, serving always—always serving.”

“And they are right. Their mistake is in not seeing that the same is the case with all other men.”

In his incessant habit of serving those about him, Toussaint now remembered that it would be more kind to poor Mars Plaisir to employ him, than to speak of things which he could not comprehend. He signed to him, therefore, to shake down the straw on each side the fireplace. Mars Plaisir sacrificed some of his own bundle to wipe down the wet walls; but it was all in vain. During the silence, while his master was meditating at the window, the melancholy sound of falling water—drip, drip—plash, plash—was heard all around, within and without the cell. When he had wiped down the walls, from the door in the corner round to the door again, the place from which he had set out was as wet as ever, and his straw was spoiled. He angrily kicked the wet straw into the fire; the consequence of which was that the cell was filled with smoke, almost to suffocation.

“Ask for more,” said Toussaint.

Mars Plaisir shouted, knocked at the door, and used every endeavour to make himself heard; but in vain. No one came.

“Take some of mine,” said Toussaint. “No one can lie on this floor.”

Mars Plaisir shook his head. He proceeded mournfully to spread the other heap of straw; but a large flake of ice had fallen upon it from the corner of the walls, and it was as wet as that which he had burned.

This was too much for poor Mars Plaisir. He looked upon his master, now spreading his thin hands over the fire, his furrowed face now and then lighted up by the blaze which sprang fitfully through the smoke—he thought of the hall of audience at Port-au-Prince, of the gardens at Pongaudin, of the Place d’Armes at Cap Français on review-days, of the military journeys and official fêtes of the Commander-in-Chief, and he looked upon him now. He burst into tears as uncontrollable as his laughter had been before. Peeling his master’s hand upon his shoulder, he considered it necessary to give a reason for his grief, and sobbed out—

“They treat your Excellency as if your Excellency were nobody. They give your Excellency no title. They will not even call you General.”

Toussaint laughed at this cause of grief in such a place; but Mars Plaisir insisted upon it.

“How would they like it themselves? What would the First Consul himself say if he were a prisoner, and his gaolers refused him his titles?”

“I do not suppose him to be a man of so narrow a heart, and so low a soul, as that such a trifle could annoy him. Cheer up, if that be all.”

Mars Plaisir was far from thinking this all; but his tears and sobs choked him in the midst of his complaints. Toussaint turned again to the fire, and presently began to sing one of the most familiar songs of Saint Domingo. He had not sung a stanza before, as he had anticipated, his servant joined in, rising from his attitude of despair, and singing with as much animation as if he had been on the Haut-du-Cap. This was soon put a stop to by a sentinel, who knocked at the door to command silence.

“They cannot hear us if we want dry straw,” said Mars Plaisir, passionately: “and yet we cannot raise a note but they must stop us.”

“We are caged birds; and you know Denis’s canary might sing only when it pleased his master. Have I not seen even you cover up the cage? But sing—sing softly, and they may not hear you.”

When supper was brought, fresh straw and more firewood were granted. At his master’s bidding, and under the influence of these comforts, Mars Plaisir composed himself to sleep.

Toussaint sat long beside the fire. He could not have slept. The weeks that had passed since he left Saint Domingo had not yet reconciled his ear to the silence of a European night. At sea, the dash of the waves against the ship’s side had lulled him to rest. Since he had landed, he had slept little, partly from privation of exercise, partly from the action of over-busy thoughts; but also, in part, from the absence of that hum of life which, to the natives of the tropics, is the incentive to sleep and its accompaniment. Here, there was but the crackle of the burning wood, and the plashing of water, renewed from minute to minute, till it became a fearful doubt—a passing doubt, but very fearful—whether his ear could become accustomed to the dreary sound, or whether his self-command was to be overthrown by so small an agency as this. From such a question he turned, by an effort, to consider other evils of his condition. It was a cruel aggravation of his sufferings to have his servant shut up with him. It imposed upon him some duties, it was true; and was, in so far, a good; but it also imposed most painful restraints. He had a strong persuasion that Bonaparte had not given up the pursuit of his supposed treasures, or the hope of mastering all his designs, real or imaginary; and he suspected that Mars Plaisir would be left long enough with him to receive the overflowings of his confidence (so hard to restrain in such circumstances as theirs!) and would then be tampered with by the agents of the First Consul. What was the nature and efficacy of their system of cross-examination, he knew; and he knew how nothing but ignorance could preserve poor Mars Plaisir from treachery. Here, therefore—here, in this cell, without resource, without companionship, without solace of any kind, it would be necessary, perhaps, through long months, to set a watch upon his lips, as strict as when he dined with the French Commissaries at Government-House, or when he was weighing the Report of the Central Assembly, regarding a Colonial constitution. For the reserve which his function had imposed upon him at home, he had been repaid by a thousand enjoyments. Now, no more sympathy, no more ministering from his family!—no more could he open to Margot his glory in Placide, his hopes from Denis, his cares for his other children, to uphold them under a pressure of influences which were too strong for them; no more could he look upon the friendly face of Henri, and unbosom himself to him in sun or shade; no more could he look upon the results of his labours in the merchant fleets on the sea, and the harvests burdening the plains! No more could happy voices, from a thousand homes, come to him in blessing and in joy! No more music, no more sunshine, no more fragrance; no more certainty, either, that others were now enjoying what he had parted with for ever! Not only might he never hear what had ensued upon the “truce till August,” but he must carefully conceal his anxiety to hear—his belief that there were such tidings to be told. In the presence of Mars Plaisir, he could scarcely even think of that which lay heaviest at his heart—of what Henri had done, in consequence of his abduction—of his poor oppressed blacks—whether they had sunk under the blow for the time, and so delayed the arrival of that freedom which they must at length achieve; or whether they had risen, like a multitudinous family of bereaved children, to work out the designs of the father who had been snatched from them. Of all this there could be no speech (scarcely a speculation in his secret soul) in the presence of one who must, if he heard, almost necessarily become a traitor. And then his family! From them he had vanished; and he must live as if they had vanished from his very memory. They were, doubtless, all eye, all ear: for ever watching to know what had become of him. For their personal safety, now that he was helpless, he trusted there was little cause for fear; but what peace of mind could they enjoy, while in ignorance of his fate? He fancied them imploring of their guardians tidings of him, in vain; questioning the four winds for whispers of his retreat; pacing every cemetery for a grave that might be his; gazing up at the loopholes of every prison, with a fear that he might be there; keeping awake at midnight, for the chance of a visit from his injured spirit; or seeking sleep, in the dim hope that he might be revealed to them in a dream. And all this must be but a dim dream to him, except in such an hour as this—a chance hour when no eye was upon him! The reconciling process was slow—but it was no less sure than usual.

“Be it so!” was, as usual, his conclusion—“Be it so! for as long as Heaven pleases—though that cannot be long. The one consolation of being buried alive, soul or body—or both, as in this case—is, that release is sure and near. This poor fellow’s spirit will die within him, and his body will then be let out—the consummation most necessary for him. And my body, already failing, will soon die, and my work be done. To die, and to die thus, is part of my work; and I will do it as willingly as in the field. Hundreds, thousands of my race have died for slavery, cooped up, pining, suffocated in slave-ships, in the wastes of the sea. Hundreds and thousands have thus died, without knowing the end for which they perished. What is it, then, for one to die of cold in the wastes of the mountains, for freedom, and knowing that freedom is the end of his life and his death? What is it? If I groan, if I shrink, may my race curse me, and my God cast me out!”

A warmer glow than the dying embers could give passed through his frame; and he presently slept, basking till morning in dreams of his sunny home.

Chapter Forty One.

Half Free.

Autumn faded, and the long winter of the Jura came on, without bringing changes of any importance to the prisoners—unless it were that, in addition to the wood-fire, which scarcely kept up the warmth of life in their bodies, they were allowed a stove. This indulgence was not in answer to any request of theirs. Toussaint early discovered that Rubaut would grant nothing that was asked for, but liked to bestow a favour spontaneously, now and then. This was a clear piece of instruction; by which, however, Mars Plaisir was slow to profit. Notwithstanding his master’s explanations and commands, and his own promises, fervently given when they were alone, he could never see the Commandant without pouting out all his complaints, and asking for everything relating to external comfort that his master had been accustomed to at Pongaudin. A stove, not being among the articles of furniture there, was not asked for; and thus this one comfort was not intercepted by being named. Books were another. Mars Plaisir had been taught to read and write in one of the public schools in the island; but his tastes did not lie in the direction of literature; and he rarely remembered that he possessed the accomplishment of being able to read, except when circumstances called upon him to boast of his country and his race. Books were therefore brought, two at a time, with the Commandant’s compliments; two at a time, for the rule of treating the prisoners as equals was exactly observed. This civility brought great comfort to Toussaint—the greatest except solitude. He always chose to suppose that Mars Plaisir was reading when he held a book: and he put a book into his hands daily when he opened his own. Many an hour did he thus obtain for the indulgence of his meditations; and while his servant was wondering how he could see to read by the dim light which came in at the window—more dim each day, as the snow-heap there rose higher—or by the fitful flame of the fire, his thoughts were far away, beating about amidst the struggle then probably going on in Saint Domingo; or exploring, with wonder and sorrow, the narrow and darkened passages of that mind which he had long taken to be the companion of his own; or springing forward into the future, and reposing in serene faith on the condition of his people when, at length, they should possess their own souls, and have learned to use their human privileges. Many a time did Mars Plaisir, looking off from a volume of the Philosophical Dictionary, which yielded no amusement to him, watch the bright smile on his master’s face, and suppose it owing to the jokes in the Racine he held, when that smile arose from pictures formed within of the future senates, schools, courts, and virtuous homes, in which his dusky brethren would hereafter be exercising and securing their lights. Not ungratefully did he use his books the while. He read and enjoyed; but his greatest obligations to them were for the suggestions they afforded, the guidance they offered to his thoughts to regions amidst which his prison and his sufferings were forgotten.

At times, the servant so far broke through his habitual deference for his master as to fling down his book upon the table, and then beg pardon, saying that they should both go mad if they did not make some noise. When he saw the snow falling perpetually, noiseless as the dew, he longed for the sheeted rains of his own winter, splashing as if to drown the land. Here, there was only the eternal drip, drip, which his ear was weary of months ago.

“Cannot you fancy it rain-drops falling from a palm-leaf? Shut your eyes and try,” said his master.

It would not do. Mars Plaisir complained that the Commandant had promised that this drip should cease when the frosts of winter came.

“So it might, but for our stove. But then our ears would have been frozen up, too. We should have been underground by this time—which they say we are not now, though it is hard, sometimes to believe them. However, we shall hear something by-and-by that will drown the drip. Among these mountains, there must be thunder. In the summer, Mars Plaisir, we may hear thunder.”

“In the summer!” exclaimed Mars Plaisir, covering his face with his hands.

“That is, not you, but I. I hope they will let you out long before the summer.”

“Does your Excellency hope so?” cried Mars Plaisir, springing to his feet.

“Certainly, my poor fellow. The happiest news I expect ever to hear is that you are to be released: and this news I do expect to hear. They will not let you go home, to tell where I am; but they will take you out of this place.”

“Oh, your Excellency! if you think so, would your Excellency be pleased to speak for me—to ask the Commandant to let me out? If you will tell him that my rheumatism will not let me sleep—I do not want to go home—I do not want to leave your Excellency, except for your Excellency’s good. I would say all I could for you, and kneel to the First Consul; and, if they would not set you free, I would—” Here his voice faltered, but he spoke the words—“I would come back into your Excellency’s service in the summer—when I had got cured of my rheumatism. If you would speak a word to the Commandant!”

“I would, if I were not sure of injuring you by doing so. Do you not see that nothing is to be granted us that we ask for? Speak not another word of liberty, and you may have it. Ask for it, and you are here for life—or for my life. Remember!”

Mars Plaisir stood deep in thought.

“You have never asked for your liberty?” said his master. “No. I knew that, for my sake, you had not. Has no one ever mentioned liberty to you? I understand,” he continued, seeing an expression of confusion in the poor fellow’s face. “Do not tell me anything; only hear me. If freedom should be offered to you, take it. It is my wish—it is my command. Is there more wood? None but this?”

“None but this damp wood that chokes us with smoke. They send us the worst wood—the green, damp wood that the poorest of the whites in the castle will not use,” cried Mars Plaisir, striving to work off his emotions in a fit of passion. He kicked the unpromising log into the fireplace as he exclaimed—

“They think the worst of everything good enough for us, because we are blacks. Oh! oh!” Here his wrath was aggravated by a twinge of rheumatism. “They think anything good enough for blacks.”

“Let them think so,” said his master, kindly. “God does not. God did not think so when He gave us the soil of Africa, and the sun of Saint Domingo. When he planted the gardens of the world with palms, it was for the blacks. When He spread the wide shade of the banyan, He made a tent for the blacks. When He filled the air with the scent of the cinnamon and the cacao, was it not for the blacks to enjoy the fragrance? Has He not given them music? Has he not given them love and a home? What has He not given them? Let the whites think of us as they will! They shall be welcome to a share of what God gave the blacks, though they return us nothing better than wet wood, to warm us among their snows.”

“It is true,” said Mars Plaisir, his complacency completely restored—“God thinks nothing too good for the blacks. I will tell the First Consul so, if—”

“The First Consul would rather hear something else from you: and you know, Mars Plaisir, the whites laugh at us for our boastings. However, tell the First Consul what you will.”

Again was Mars Plaisir silenced, and his countenance confused. Perpetually, from this hour did he drop words which showed an expectation of seeing the First Consul—words which were never noticed by his master. Every time that the increasing weakness and pain under which Toussaint suffered forced themselves on his servant’s observation—whenever the skeleton hands were rubbed in his own, to relieve cramps and restore warmth; or the friendly office was returned, in spite of the shame and confusion of the servant at finding himself thus served—with every drift of snow which blocked up the window—and every relaxation of frost, which only increased the worse evil of the damp—Mars Plaisir avowed or muttered the persuasive things he would say to the First Consul.

Toussaint felt too much sympathy to indulge in much contempt for his companion. He, too, found it hard to be tortured with cramps, and wrung by spasms—to enjoy no respite from vexations of body and spirit. He, too, found the passage to the grave weary and dreary. And, as for an interview with Bonaparte, for how long had this been his first desire! How distinctly had it of late been the reserve of his hope! Reminding himself, too, of the effects on the wretched of an indefinite hope, such as the unsettled mind and manners of his servant convinced him, more and more, had been held out—he could not, in the very midst of scenes of increasing folly and passion, despise poor Mars Plaisir. He mistrusted him, however, and with a more irksome mistrust continually, while he became aware that Mars Plaisir was in the habit of lamenting Saint Domingo chiefly for the sake of naming Christophe and Dessalines, the companies in the mornes, the fever among the whites, and whatever might be most likely to draw his master into conversation on the hopes and resources of the blacks. He became more and more convinced that the weakness of his companion was practised upon, and possibly his attachment to his master, by promises of good to both, on condition of information furnished. He was nearly certain that he had once heard the door of the cell closed gently, as he was beginning to awake, in the middle of the night; and he was quite sure that he one day saw Mars Plaisir burn a note, as he replenished the fire, while he thought his master was busy reading. Not even these mysterious proceedings could make Toussaint feel anything worse than sorrowing pity for Mars Plaisir.