before any one of that race shall lay his grasp upon you. The whites never will, never shall again, be masters: but then, it must be by L'Ouverture having an army always at his command; and of that army I must be one of the officers. We cannot live here, or on the sea-shore, love, while there are whites who may be our masters. So, while I am away, you must pray Christ to humble the whites. Will you? This is all you can do. Will you not?"
"How can I, when my father is always exalting them?"
"You must choose between him and me. Love the whites with him, or hate them with me."
"But you love my father. Moyse?"
"I do. I adore him as the saviour of the blacks. You adore him, Genifrede. Every one of our race worships him. Genifrede, you love him--your father."
"I know not--Yes, I loved him the other day. I know not, Moyse. I know nothing but that--I will hate the whites as you do. I never loved them: now I hate them."
"You shall. I will tell you things of them that will make you curse them. I know every white man's heart."
"Then tell my father."
"Does he not know enough already? Is not his cheek furrowed with the marks of the years during which the whites were masters; and is there any cruelty, any subtlety, in them that he does not understand? Knowing all this, he curses, not them, but the flower which, he says, corrupted them. He keeps from them this power, and believes that all will be well. I shall tell him nothing."
"Yes, tell him all--all except--" "Yes, and tell me first," cried a voice near at hand. There was a great rustling among the bushes, and Denis appeared, begging particularly to know what they were talking about. They, in return, begged to be told what brought him this way, to interrupt their conversation.
"Deesha says Juste is out after wild-fowl, and, most likely, among some of the ponds hereabouts."
"One would think you had lived in Cap all your days," said Moyse. "Do you look for wild-fowl in a garden?"
"We will see presently," said the boy, thrusting himself into the thicket in the direction of the ponds, and guiding himself by the scent of the blossoming reeds--so peculiar as to be known among the many with which the air was filled. He presently beckoned to his sister; and she followed with Moyse, till they found themselves in the field where there had once been several fish-ponds, preserved in order with great care.
All were now dried up but two; and the whole of the water being diverted to the service of these two, they were considerable in extent and in depth. What the extent really was, it was difficult to ascertain at the first glance, so hidden was the margin with reeds, populous with wild-fowl.
Denis was earnestly watching these fowl, as he lay among the high grass at some little distance from the water, and prevented his companions from approaching any nearer. The sun was hot, and Genifrede was not long in desiring to return to the garden.
"Let us go back," said she. "Juste is not here."
"Yes he is," said Denis. "However, go back if you like. I shall go fowling with Juste." And he began to strip off his clothes.
His companions were of opinion, however, that a son of the Commander-in-chief must not sport with a farmer's boy, without leave of parents or tutor; and they begged him to put on his clothes again, at least till leave was asked. Denis had never cared for his rank, except when riding by his father's side on review-days; and now he liked it less than ever, as the pond lay gleaming before him, the fowl sailing and fluttering on the surface, and his dignity prevented his going among them.
"What makes you say that Juste is here?" said Genifrede.
"I have seen him take five fowl in the last five minutes."
As he spoke, he plucked the top of a bulrush, and threw it with such good aim, that it struck a calabash which appeared to be floating among others on the surface of the pond. That particular calabash immediately rose, and the face of a negro child appeared, to the consternation of the fowl, whose splashing and screaming might be heard far and wide.
Juste came out of the water, displaying at his belt the result of his sport. He had, as Denis had said, taken five ducks in five minutes by pulling them under the water by the feet, while lying near them with his head covered by the calabash. The little fellow was not satisfied with the admiration of the beholders; he ran homewards, with his clothes in his hand, Denis at his heels, and his game dangling from his waist, and dripping as he ran.
"Many a white would shudder to see that child," said Moyse, as Juste disappeared. "That is the way Jean's blacks wore their trophies during the first days of the insurrection."
"Trophies!" said Genifrede. "You mean heads: heads with their trailing hair;" and her face worked with horror as she spoke. "But it is not for the whites to shudder, after what they did to Oge, and have done to many a negro since."
"But they think we do not feel as they do."
"Not feel! O Christ! If any one of them had my heart before I knew you--in those days at Breda, when Monsieur Bayou used to come down to us!"
"Here comes that boy again," cried Moyse. "Let us go into the thicket, among the citrons."
Denis found them, however--found Moyse gathering the white and purple blossoms for Genifrede, while she was selecting the fruit of most fragrant rind from the same tree, to carry into the house.
"You must come in--you must come to dinner," cried Denis. "Aimee has had a drawing lesson, while you have been doing nothing all this while.
They said you were sketching; but I told them how idle you were."
"I will go back with Denis," said Genifrede. "You threw away my sketch-book, Moyse. You may find it, and follow us."
Their path lay together as far as the garden-house. When there, Moyse seized Denis unawares, shot him through the window into the house, and left him to get out as he might, and bring the book. The boy was so long in returning, that his sister became uneasy, lest some snake or other creature should have detained him in combat. She was going to leave the table in search of him, because Moyse would not, when he appeared, singing, and with the book upon his head.
"Who calls Genifrede idle?" cried he, flourishing the book. "Look here!" And he exhibited a capital sketch of herself and Moyse, as he had found them, gathering fruits and flowers.
"Can it be his own?" whispered Genifrede to her lover.
Denis nodded and laughed, while Azua gravely criticised and approved, without suspicion that the sketch was by no pupil of his own.
In the cool evening, Genifrede was really no longer idle. While Denis and Juste were at play, they both at once stumbled and fell over something in the long grass, which proved to be a marble statue of a Naiad, lying at length. Moyse seized it, and raised it where it was relieved by a dark green back-ground. The artist declared it an opportunity for a lesson which was not to be lost: and the girls began to draw, as well as they could for the attempts of the boys to restore the broken urn to the arm from which it had fallen. When Denis and Juste found that they could not succeed, and were only chidden for being in the way, they left the drawing party seated under their clump of cocoa-nut trees, and went to hear what Madame was relating to Bellair and Deesha, in the hearing of Monsieur Moliere, Laxabon, and Vincent.
Her narration was one which Denis had often heard, but was never tired of listening to. She was telling of the royal descent of her husband-- how he was grandson of Gaou Guinou, the king of the African tribe of Arrudos: how this king's second son was taken in battle, and sold, with other prisoners of war, into slavery: how he married an African girl on the Breda estate, and used to talk of home and its wars, and its haunts, and its sunshine idleness--how he used thus to talk in the evenings, and on Sundays, to the boy upon his knee; so that Toussaint felt, from his infancy, like an African, and the descendant of chiefs. This was a theme which Madame L'Ouverture loved to dwell on, and especially when listened to as now. The Congo chief and his wife hung upon her words, and told in their turn how their youth had been spent at home--how they had been kidnapped, and delivered over to the whites. In the eagerness of their talk, they were perpetually falling unconsciously into the use of their negro language, and as often recalled by their hearers to that which all could understand. Moliere and Laxabon listened earnestly; and even Loisir, occupied as he was still with the architecture of the mansion, found himself impatient if he lost a word of the story.
Vincent alone, negro as he was, was careless and unmoved. He presently sauntered away, and nobody missed him.
He looked over the shoulder of the architect.
"What pains you are taking!" he said. "You have only to follow your own fancy and convenience about Christophe's house. Christophe has never been to France. Tell him, or any others of my countrymen, that any building you choose to put up is European, and in good taste, and they will be quite pleased enough."
"You are a sinner," said Loisir; "but be quiet now."
"Nay--do not you find the blacks one and all ready to devour your travellers' tales--your prodigious reports of European cities? You have only to tell like stories in stone and brick, and they will believe you just as thankfully."
"No, no, Vincent. I have told no tales so wicked as you tell of your own race. My travellers' tales are all very well to pass an hour, and be forgotten; but Christophe's mansion is to stand for an age--to stand as the first evidence, in the department of the arts, of the elevation of your race. Christophe knows, as well as you do without having been to Paris, what is beautiful in architecture; and, if he did not, I would not treacherously mislead him."
"Christophe knows! Christophe has taste!"
"Yes. While you have been walking streets and squares, he has been studying the aisles of palms, and the crypts of the banyan, which, to an open eye, may teach as much as a prejudiced mind can learn in all Rome."
"So Loisir is of those who flatter men in power?" said Vincent, laughing.
"I look further," said Loisir; "I am working for men unborn. I am ambitious; but my ambition is to connect my name honourably with the first great house built for a negro general. My ambition is to build here a rival to the palaces of Europe."
"Do what you will, you will not rival your own tales of them--unless you find Aladdin's lamp among these ruins."
"If you find it, you may bring it me. Azna has found something half as good--a really fine statue in the grass."
Vincent was off to see it. He found the drawing party more eager in conversation than about their work. Aimee was saying as he approached-- "General Vincent declares that he is as affectionate to us as if we were the nearest to him of all the children of the empire.--Did you not say so?" she asked, eagerly. "Is not the First Consul's friendship for us real and earnest? Does he not feel a warm regard for my father? Is he not like a father to my brothers?"
"Certainly," said Vincent. "Do not your brothers confirm this in their letters?"
"Do they not, Genifrede?" repeated Aimee.
"They do; but we see that they speak as they think: not as things really are."
"How can you so despise the testimony of those who see what we only hear of?"
"I do not despise them or their testimony. I honour their hearts, which forget injuries, and open to kindness. But they are young; they went from keeping cattle, and from witnessing the desolations of war here, to the first city of the world, where the first men lavish upon them instructions, and pleasures, and flatteries; and they are pleased. The greatest of all--the First of the Whites, smiles upon the sons of the First of the Blacks; and their hearts beat with enthusiasm for him. It is natural. But, while they are in Paris, we are in Saint Domingo; and we may easily view affairs, and judge men differently."
"And so," said Aimee, "distrust our best friends, and despise our best instructors; and all from a jealousy of race!"
"We think the jealousy of race is with them," said Moyse, bitterly.
"There is not a measure of L'Ouverture's which they do not neutralise-- not a fragment of authority which they will yield. As to friends, if the Consul Bonaparte is our best friend among the Whites, may we be left thus far friendless!"
"You mean that he has not answered my father's letters. Monsieur Vincent doubts not that an answer is on the way. Remember, my brothers have been invited to his table."
"There are blacks in Paris, who look on," replied Moyse, drily.
"And are there not whites too, from this island, who watch every movement?"
"Yes: and those whites are in the private closet, at the very ear of Bonaparte, whispering to him of L'Ouverture's ambition; while your brothers penetrate no further than the saloon."
"My brothers would lay down their lives for Bonaparte and France," said Aimee; "and you speak treason. I am with them."
"And with me," said Vincent, in a whisper at her ear. "Where I find the loyal heart in woman, mine is ever loyal too."
Aimee was too much excited to understand in this what was meant. She went on-- "Here is Monsieur Vincent, of our own race, who has lived here and at Paris--who has loved my father.--You love my father and his government?"
she said, with questioning eyes, interrupting herself.
"Certainly. No man is more devoted to L'Ouverture."
"Devoted to my father," pursued Aimee, "and yet devoted to Bonaparte.
He is above the rivalry of races--as the First Consul is, and as Isaac is."
"Isaac and the First Consul--these are the idols of Aimee's worship," said Genifrede. "Worship Isaac still; for that is a harmless idolatry; but give up your new religion, Aimee; for it is not sound."
"Why not sound? How do you know that it is not sound?"
"When have the blacks ever trusted the whites without finding themselves bound victims in the end?"
"I have," said Vincent. "I have lived among them a life of charms, and I am free," he continued, stretching his arms to the air--"free to embrace the knees of both Bonaparte and L'Ouverture--free to embrace the world."
"The end has not come yet," said Moyse.
"What end?" asked Aimee.
"Nay, God knows what end, if we trust the French."
"You speak from prejudice," said Aimee. "Monsieur Vincent and my brothers judge from facts."
"We speak from facts," said Genifrede; "from, let us see--from seven-- no, eight, very ugly facts."
"The eight Commissaries that the colony has been blessed with," said Moyse. "If they had taken that monkey which is looking down at your drawing, Aimee, and seven of its brethren, and installed them at Cap, they would have done us all the good the Commissaries have done, and far less mischief. The monkeys would have broken the mirrors, and made a hubbub within the walls of Government-house. These Commissaries, one after another, from Mirbeck to Hedouville, have insulted the colony, and sown quarrels in it, from end to end."
"Mirbeck! Here is Mirbeck," said Denis, who had come up to listen. And the boy rolled himself about like a drunken man--like Mirbeck, as he had seen him in the streets of Cap.
"Then they sent Saint Leger, the Irishman," continued Moyse, "who kept his hand in every man's pocket, whether black or white."
Denis forthwith had his hands, one in Vincent's pocket, the other in Azua's. Azua, however, was drawing so fast that he did not find it out.
"Then there was Roume."
"Roume. My father speaks well of Roume," said Aimee.
"He was amiable enough, but so weak that he soon had to go home, where he was presently joined by his successor, Santhonax, whom, you know, L'Ouverture had to get rid of, for the safety of the colony. Then came Polverel. What the tranquillity of Saint Domingo was in his day we all remember."
Denis took off Polverel, spying from his ship at the island, on which he dared not land.
"For shame, Denis?" said Aimee. "You are ridiculing him who first called my father L'Ouverture."
"And do you suppose he knew the use that would be made of the word?"
asked Genifrede. "If he had foreseen its being a tide, he would have contented himself with the obsequious bows I remember so well, and never have spoken the word."
Denis was forthwith bowing, with might and main.
"Now, Denis, be quiet! Raymond, dear Raymond, came next;" and she looked up at Vincent as she praised his friend.
"Raymond is excellent as a man, whatever he may be as governor of Cap," said Moyse. "But we have been speaking of whites, not of mulattoes-- which is another long chapter."
"Raymond was sent to us by France, however," said Aimee.
"So was our friend Vincent there; but that is nothing to the purpose."
"Well; who next?" cried Denis.
"Do not encourage him," said Aimee. "My father would be vexed with you for training him to ridicule the French--particularly the authorities."
"Now we are blessed with Hedouville," pursued Moyse. "There you have him, Denis--only scarcely sly, scarcely smooth enough. Yet, that is Hedouville, who has his eye and his smiles at play in one place, while his heart and hands are busy in another."
"Busy," said Genifrede, "in undermining L'Ouverture's influence, and counteracting his plans; but no one mentioned Ailbaud. Ailbaud--" "Stay a moment," said Azua, whose voice had not been heard till then.
All looked at him in surprise, nobody supposing that, while so engrossed with his pencil, he could have cared for their conversation. Aimee saw at a glance that his paper was covered with caricatures of the commissaries who had been enumerated.
"You must have known them," was Aimee's involuntary testimony, as the paper went from hand to hand, amidst shouts of laughter, while Azua sat, with folded arms, perfectly grave.
"I have seen some of the gentlemen," said he, "and Monsieur Denis helped me to the rest."
The laughter went on till Aimee was somewhat nettled. When the paper came back to her, she looked up into the tree under which she sat. The staring monkey was still there. She made a vigorous spring to hand up the caricature, which the creature caught. As it sat demurely on a branch, holding the paper as if reading it, while one of its companions as gravely looked over its shoulder, there was more laughter than ever.
"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Azua," said Aimee; "but this is the only worthy fate of a piece of mockery of people wiser than ourselves, and no less kind. The negroes have hitherto been thought, at least, grateful.
It seems that this is a mistake. For my part, however, I leave it to the monkeys to ridicule the French."
Vincent seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. She was abashed, and turned away, when she saw her father behind her, in the shade of the wood. Monsieur Pascal, his secretary, was with him.
"My father!"
"L'Ouverture!" exclaimed one after another of the party; for they all supposed he had been far away. Even Denis at once gave over pelting the monkeys, and left them to their study of the arts in peace.
"Your drawings, my daughters!" said L'Ouverture, with a smile, as if he had been perfectly at leisure. And he examined the Naiad, and then Genifrede's drawing, with the attention of an artist. Genifrede had made great progress, under the eye of Moyse. Not so Aimee; her pencil had been busy all the while, but there was no Naiad on her page.
"They are for Isaac," she said, timidly. "Among all the pictures he sees, there are no--" "No sketches of Denis and his little companions," said her father; "no cocoa-nut clumps--no broken fountains among the aloes--no groups that will remind him of home. Isaac shall presently have these, Aimee. I am on my way to Cap, and will send them."
"On your way to Cap!" cried every one--some in a tone of fear.
"To Cap," said he, "where Father Laxabon will follow me immediately, with Monsieur Pascal. By them, Aimee, you will send your packet for Isaac. My own horse is waiting."
"Do not go alone--do not go without good escort," said Moyse. "I can give you reason."
"I know your thoughts, Moyse. I go for the very reason that there are, or will be, troubles at Cap.--The French authorities may sometimes decree and do that which we feel to be unwise--unsuitable to the blacks," he continued, with an emphasis which gave some idea of his having overheard more or less of the late conversation; "but we islanders maybe more ignorant still of the thoughts and ways of their practised race."
"But you are personally unsafe," persisted Moyse. "If you knew what is said by the officers of Hedouville's staff--" "They say," proceeded Toussaint, smiling, "that they only want three or four brigands to seize the ape with the Madras head dress; and then all would go well. These gentlemen are mistaken; and I am going to prove this to them. An armed escort proves nothing. I carry something stronger still in my mind and on my tongue. General Vincent, a word with you."
While he and Vincent spoke apart, Aimee exclaimed, "Oh, Moyse! Go with my father!"
"Do not--Oh, do not!" cried Genifrede. "You will never return!" she muttered to him, in a voice of terror. "Aimee, you would send him away: and my mother--all of us, are far from home. Who knows but that Rigaud--" "Leave Rigaud to me," cried Vincent, gaily, as he rejoined the party.
"I undertake Rigaud. He shall never alarm you more. Farewell, Mademoiselle Aimee! I am going to the south. Rigaud is recruiting in the name of France; and I know France too well to allow of that. I shall stop his recruiting, and choke his blasphemy with a good French sword. Farewell, till I bring you news at Pongaudin that you may ride along the southern coast as securely as in your own cane-pieces."
"You are going?" said Aimee.
"This very hour. I south--L'Ouverture north--" "And the rest to Pongaudin with the dawn," said Toussaint.
"What is your pleasure concerning me?" asked Moyse. "I wait your orders."
"I remember my promise," said Toussaint; "but I must not leave my family unprotected. You will attend them to Pongaudin: and then let me see you at Cap, with the speed of the wind."
"With a speed like your own, if that be possible," said Moyse.
"Is there danger, father?" asked Genifrede, trembling.
"My child, there is danger in the air we breathe, and the ground we tread on: but there is protection also, everywhere."
"You will see Afra, father," said Aimee. "If there is danger, what will become of Afra? Her father will be in the front, in any disturbance: and Government-house is far from being the safest place."
"I will not forget Afra. Farewell, my children! Go now to your mother; and, before this hour to-morrow, I shall think of you resting at Pongaudin."
They saw him mount before the courtyard, and set off, followed by one of his two trompettes--the only horsemen in the island who could keep up with him, and therefore his constant attendants in his most important journeys. The other was gone forward, to order horses from post to post.
Vincent, having received written instructions from the secretary, set off in an opposite direction, more gay than those he left behind.
The loftiest trees of the rich plain were still touched with golden light; and the distant bay glittered so as to make the gazers turn away their eyes, to rest on the purple mountains to the north: but their hearts were anxious; and they saw neither the glory nor the beauty of which they heard talk between the painter, the architect, and their host.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
A NIGHT OF OFFICE.
As soon as Toussaint was out of hearing of his family and suite, he put his horse to its utmost speed. There was not a moment to be lost, if the peace of the island was to be preserved. Faster than ever fugitive escaped from trouble and danger, did the negro commander rush towards them. The union between the black and white races probably depended on his reaching Cap by the early morning--in time to prevent certain proclamations of Hedouville, framed in ignorance of the state of the colony and the people, from being published. Forty leagues lay between L'Etoile and Cap, and two mountain ridges crossed his road: but he had ridden forty leagues in a night before, and fifty in a long day; and he thought little of the journey. As he rode, he meditated the work of the next day, while he kept his eye awake, and his heart open, to the beauty of the night.
He had cleared the plain, with his trompette at his heels, before the woods and fields had melted together into the purple haze of evening; and the labourers returning from the cane-pieces, with their tools on their shoulders, offered their homage to him as he swept by. Some shouted, some ran beside him, some kneeled in the road and blessed him, or asked his blessing. He came to the river, and found the ford lined by a party of negroes, who, having heard and known his horse's tread, above the music of pipe and drum, had thrown themselves into the water to point out the ford, and save his precious moments. He dashed through uncovered, and was lost in the twilight before their greeting was done.
The evening star was just bright enough to show its image in the still salt-lake, when he met the expected relay, on the verge of the mountain woods. Thence the ascent was so steep, that he was obliged to relax his speed. He had observed the birds winging home to these woods; they had reached it before him, and the chirp of their welcome to their nests was sinking into silence; but the whirring beetles were abroad. The frogs were scarcely heard from the marshes below; but the lizards and crickets vied with the young monkeys in noise, while the wood was all alight with luminous insects. Wherever a twisted fantastic cotton-tree, or a drooping wild fig, stood out from the thicket and apart, it appeared to send forth streams of green flame from every branch; so incessantly did the fireflies radiate from every projecting twig.
As he ascended, the change was great. At length there was no more sound; there were no more flitting fires. Still as sleep rose the mountain-peaks to the night. Still as sleep lay the woods below. Still as sleep was the outspread western sea, silvered by the steady stars which shone, still as sleep, in the purple depths of heaven. Such was the starlight on that pinnacle, so large and round the silver globes, so bright in the transparent atmosphere were their arrowy rays, that the whole, vault was as one constellation of little moons, and the horse and his rider saw their own shadows in the white sands of their path. The ridge passed, down plunged the horseman, hurrying to the valley and the plain; like rocks loosened by the thunder from the mountain-top. The hunter, resting on the heights from his day's chase of the wild goats, started from his sleep, to listen to what he took for a threatening of storm. In a little while, the child in the cottage in the valley nestled close to its mother, scared at the flying tramp; while the trembling mother herself prayed for the shield of the Virgin's grace against the night-fiends that were abroad. Here, there was a solitary light in the plain; there, beside the river; and yonder, behind the village; and at each of these stations were fresh horses, the best in the region, and smiling faces to tender their use. The panting animals that were left behind were caressed for the sake of the burden they had carried, and of the few kind words dropped by their rider during his momentary pause.
Thus was the plain beyond Mirbalais passed soon after midnight. In the dark the horsemen swam the Artibonite, and leaped the sources of the Petite Riviere. The eastern sky was beginning to brighten as they mounted the highest steeps above Atalaye; and from the loftiest point, the features of the wide landscape became distinct in the cool grey dawn. Toussaint looked no longer at the fading stars. He looked eastwards, where the green savannahs spread beyond the reach of human eye. He looked northwards, where towns and villages lay in the skirts of the mountains, and upon the verge of the rivers, and in the green recesses where the springs burst from the hill-sides. He looked westwards, where the broad and full Artibonite gushed into the sea, and where the yellow bays were thronged with shipping, and every green promontory was occupied by its plantation or fishing hamlet. He paused, for one instant, while he surveyed what he well knew to be virtually his dominions. He said to himself that with him it rested to keep out strife from this paradise--to detect whatever devilish cunning might lurk in its by-corners, and rebuke whatever malice and revenge might linger within its bounds. With the thought he again sprang forward, again plunged down the steeps, scudded over the wilds, and splashed through the streams; not losing another moment till his horse stood trembling and foaming under the hot sun, now touching the Haut-du-Cap, where the riders had at length pulled up. Here they had overtaken the first trompette, who, having had no leader at whose heels he must follow, had been unable, with all his zeal, quite to equal the speed of his companion. He had used his best efforts, and showed signs of fatigue; but yet they had come upon his traces on the grass road from the Gros Morne, and had overtaken him as he was toiling up the Haut-du-Cap.
Both waited for orders, their eyes fixed on their master's face, as they saw him stand listening, and glancing his eye over the city, the harbour, and the road from the Plain du Nord. He saw afar signs of trouble: but he saw also that he was not too late. He looked down into the gardens of Government-house. Was it possible that he would show himself there, heated, breathless, covered with dust as he was? No. He dismounted, and gave his horse to the trompettes, ordering them to go by the most public way to the hotel, in Place Mont Archer, to give notice of the approach of his secretary and staff; and thence to the barracks, where he would appear when he had bathed.
The trompettes would have gone round five weary miles for the honour of carrying messages from the Commander-in-chief through the principal streets of Cap. They departed with great zeal, while Toussaint ascended to the mountain-pool, to take the plunge in which he found his best refreshment after a long ride. He was presently walking leisurely down the sloping field, through which he could drop into the grounds of Government-house by a back gate, and have his interview with Hedouville before interruption came from the side of the town. As he entered the gardens, he looked, to the wondering eyes he met there, as if he had just risen from rest, to enjoy a morning walk in the shrubberies. They were almost ready to understand, in its literal sense, the expression of his worshippers, that he rode at ease upon the clouds.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
AN OLD MAN IN NEW DAYS.
Before the sun had touched the roofs of the town of Cap--while the streets lay cool and grey under the heights, which glowed in the flames of sunrise--most of the inhabitants were up and stirring. Euphrosyne Revel was at her grandfather's chamber-door; first listening for his call, and then softly looking in, to see whether he could still be sleeping. The door opened and shut by a spring, so that the old man did not hear the little girl as she entered, though his sleep was not sound.
As Euphrosyne saw how restless he was, and heard him mutter, she thought she would rouse him: but she stayed her hand, as she remembered that he might have slept ill, and might still settle for another quiet doze, if left undisturbed. With a gentle hand she opened one of the jalousies, to let in more air; and she chose one which was shaded by a tree outside, that no glare of light might enter with the breeze.
What she saw from this window drew her irresistibly into the balcony.
It was a tree belonging to the convent which waved before the window; and below lay the convent garden, fresh with the dews of the night.
There stretched the green walks, so glittering with diamond-drops and with the gossamer as to show that no step had passed over them since dawn. There lay the parterres--one crowded with geraniums of all hues; another with proud lilies, white, orange, and purple; and another with a flowering pomegranate in the centre, while the gigantic white and blue convolvulus coveted the soil all around, mixing with the bright green leaves and crimson blossoms of the hibiscus. No one seemed to be abroad, to enjoy the garden during this the freshest hour of the day; no one but the old black gardener, Raphael, whose cracked voice might be heard at intervals from the depths of the shrubbery in the opposite corner, singing snatches of the hymns which the sisters sung in the chapel. When his hoarse music ceased, the occasional snap of a bough, and movements among the bushes, told that the old man was still there, busy at his work.
Euphrosyne wished that he would come out, within sight of the beckon of her hand. She dared not call, for fear of wakening her grandfather: but she very much wanted a flowering orange branch. A gay little humming-bird was sitting and hovering near her; and she thought that a bunch of fragrant blossoms would entice it in a moment. The little creature came and went, flew round the balcony and retired: and still old Raphael kept out of sight behind the leafy screen.
"It will be gone, pretty creature!" said Euphrosyne to herself; "and all for want of a single bough from all those thickets!"
A thought struck her. Her morning frock was tied round the waist with a cord, having tassels which hung down nearly to her feet. She took off the cord, made a noose in it, and let it down among the shrubs below, swinging the end this way and that, as she thought best for catching some stray twig. She pursued her aim for a time, sending showers of dew-drops paltering down, and knocking off a good many blossoms, but catching nothing. She was so busy, that she did not see that a grey-suited nun had come out, with a wicker cage in her hand, and was watching her proceedings.
"What are you doing, my child?" asked the nun, approaching, as a new shower of dew-drops and blossoms was shaken abroad. "If you desire to fish, I doubt not our reverend mother will make you welcome to our pond yonder."
"Oh, sister Christine! I am glad you are come out," said Euphrosyne, bending over the balcony, and speaking in a low, though eager voice.
"Do give me a branch of something sweet,--orange, or citron, or something. This humming-bird, will be gone if we do not make haste-- Hush! Do not call. Grandpapa is not awake yet. Please, make haste."
Sister Christine was not wont to make haste; but she did her best to gratify Euphrosyne. She went straight to the corner of the shrubbery where the abbess's mocking-bird spent all its summer days, hung up the cage, and brought back what Euphrosyne had asked. The branch was drawn