"Has that opinion of yours been offered to your Commander, Vincent?"
"It would have been, if he had asked for it. He probably knows that I had rather have seen him high in honour and function under Leclerc, than an outlaw, entrenched in the mornes."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves, in these rough times. I am here to guard these ladies against all foes, come they whence they may,--from France, or out of our own savannahs,--from earth, air, or sea.--But hark! Silence, ladies! Silence all, for a moment!"
They listened, ready to take alarm from him, they knew not why. Nothing was heard but the distant baying of hounds,--the hunters coming home as it was supposed.
"Those are not Saint Domingo hounds," said Vincent, in a low voice to Dessalines.
"No, indeed!--Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but run! Therese, leave me! I command you.--If this is your doing, Vincent--" "Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it.--Home, ladies, as fast as possible!"
"My children!" exclaimed Madame Bellair. "I can find them, if you will only tell me the danger,--what is the danger?"
"You hear those hounds. They are Cuba bloodhounds," said Dessalines.
"The fear is that they are leading an enemy over the hills."
Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except Therese, who would not go faster than her husband's strength permitted him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses' feet were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers, who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Therese ran for their lives,--she striving to thank her companion for remembering to bring this aid.
"No thanks!" said Pascal. "General Dessalines is our great man now. We cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,--a French troop has come over by some unsuspected pass;--I do not understand it."
"Have you sent to the Plateaux?"
"Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted, though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If L'Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing."
Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the presence of an enemy in the morne--not, apparently, on their way to the plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children, whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end, could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha's nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zephyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.
Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman's soul.
Therese looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of Sabes and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a desperate attempt to escape. Therese answered for their detention, if she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.
There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of treachery.
Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether, therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.
The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the secure retreat of Le Zephyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of Bonaparte's sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of L'Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated; at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road, one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by L'Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could, by the way they came.
Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.
"Never was there a more willing prisoner, in my opinion," observed Pascal.
"He carries away a mark from us, thank Heaven!" said Dessalines.
"Madame Bellair shot him."
It was so. Deesha saw Vincent join the French, and go off with them, on the arrival of L'Ouverture; and, partly through revenge, but not without a thought of the disclosures it was in his power to make, she strove to silence him for ever. She only reached a limb, however, and sent him away, as Dessalines said, bearing a mark from Le Zephyr.
One of the French troop, made prisoner, was as communicative as could have been desired--as much so as Vincent would probably be on the other side. He declared that the attack on Le Zephyr was a mere accident: that his company had entered the morne, led by the bloodhounds in pursuit of some negroes, from whom they wanted certain information for Rochambeau, respecting the localities; that they had thus become acquainted with the almost impracticable pass by which they had entered; that, when the hounds had destroyed the children, and proved that there were inhabitants in the morne, the situation of Le Zephyr had been discovered, and afterwards the rank of its inhabitants; that the temptation of carrying off these hostages to Rochambeau had been too strong to be resisted; and hence the attack.
"We shall have to remove," the ladies said to each other, "now that our retreat is known."
"Shall we have to remove?" asked Euphrosyne, whose love of the place could not be quenched, even by the blood upon its threshold. "I am not afraid to stay, if any one else will."
"How can you be so rash, Euphrosyne?" asked Afra.
"I would not be rash, Euphrosyne replied; but we know now how these people came into the morne, and L'Ouverture will guard the pass. And remember, Afra, we have beaten them; and they will take care how they attack us another time. Remember, we have beaten them."
"We have beaten them," said Dessalines, laughing. "And what did you do to beat off the French, my little lady?"
"I watched the prisoners through the keyhole; and if they had made the least attempt to set the house on fire--" "You would have put it out with your tears--hey, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne?"
"Ask Madame, your lady, what she would have done in such a case: she stood beside me. But does L'Ouverture say we must remove?"
"L'Ouverture thinks," said Toussaint, who heard her question, "that this is still the safest place for the brave women who keep up his heart by their cheerful faces. He is ashamed that they have been negligently guarded. It shall not happen again."
He was just departing for the Plateaux. As he went out he said to his wife, while he cast a look of tender compassion upon Madame Bellair-- "I shall tell Charles that you will cherish Deesha. It is well that we can let her remain here, beside the graves of her children. Bury them with honour, Margot."
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.
AUGUST FAR-OFF.
In time of peace, and if her children had perished by any other mode, it might have been a consolation to Deesha to dwell for a time beside their graves. As it was, the deep bark of the murderous dogs filled her ear perpetually, and their fangs seemed to tear her heart. Her misery in the quiet mansion of the mornes was unendurable; and the very day after the funeral she departed, with her husband, to a place where no woman's eye could mark her maternal anguish--where no semblance of a home kept alive the sense of desolation. She retired, with her husband and his troop, to a fastness higher up in the Morne-du-Chaos, whence they kept watch over the regular entrenchments below, cut off supplies of provisions from the French, harassed all their marches, and waged a special war against the bloodhounds--the negro's most dreaded foe.
More, however, were perpetually brought over from Cuba, and regularly trained, by means too barbarous for detail, to make negroes their prey.
From the hour when Deesha first heard the cry of a bloodhound, more than the barbarism of her native Congo took possession of her. Never more was she seen sowing under the shade of the tamarind-tree. Never more did she spread the table, for husband or guests, within a house. Never more was her voice heard singing, gaily or plaintively, the songs that she had gathered from the palm groves of Africa, or the vineyards of France, or from the flowery fields of a mother's hopes. Henceforth she carried the rifle, and ate her meal in stern silence, in the cave of the rock. When she laughed, it was as her shot went straight to her victim's heart. When she spoke, it was of the manoeuvres of her mountain war; and the only time that she was ever seen to shed tears was when a rumour of a truce reached the pinnacle on which she dwelt.
Though assured that any truce could be only, as every negro knew, a truce till August, the mere semblance of accommodation with the foe forced tears of vexation from eyes which were for ever after dry. If she felt a gleam of satisfaction before leaving Le Zephyr, it was at the singular accident by which Juste, always so bent upon being a soldier, shared the honours of a military funeral. Juste and Tobie were buried with the soldiers who had fallen in the defence of the house; and to the father, who followed the coffins, and the mother, who hid herself in the thicket, there was something like pleasure in the roll of the drum, and the measure of the dead march, and the warlike tone of the shrill dirge which was sung round the open graves, and the discharge of firearms over them--a satisfaction like that of fulfilling the last wish of their boy.
This done, and the graves fenced and planted, the childless pair departed, wishing, perhaps, in their own hearts, that they could weep their misfortune like those whom they left behind.
For some time forward from that day there was no more cause for weeping at Le Zephyr. The season had come for the blacks to show what they could do. In the hope, as he said, of hastening on the peace, Vincent told all that he knew of the plans and resources of the outlawed chiefs; and, in consequence, the French at length proceeded to vigorous action, believing that if they could force the post at the Plateaux, they could so impoverish and disable the negro leaders as to compel them to become mere banditti, who might be kept in check by guarding the mountain-passes. The French force was, therefore, brought up again and again to the attack, and always in vain. The ill success of the invaders was, no doubt, partly owing to the distress which overtook their soldiery whenever they had been a few days absent from their camp and their ships. Whichever way they turned, and however sudden the changes of their march, they found the country laid waste--the houses unroofed, the cattle driven away, the fields burned or inundated, and nothing but a desert under their feet, and flames on the horizon, while the sun of the tropic grew daily hotter overhead. These were disadvantages; but the French had greatly the superiority in numbers, in experience, and in supplies of ammunition. Yet, for many weeks, they failed in all their attempts. They left their dead before the entrance of the Plateaux, or heaped up in the neighbouring fields, or strewed along the mountain-paths, now to the number of seven hundred, now twelve, and now fifteen hundred; while the negroes numbered their losses by tens or scores. The first combined attack, when Maurepas, with his army, joined Rochambeau, and two other divisions met them from different points, was decisively disastrous; and even Vincent began to doubt whether the day of peace, the day of chastisement of L'Ouverture's romance, was so near as he had supposed.
The last time that the French dared the blacks to come forth from their entrenchments, and fight on the plain afforded the most triumphant result to the negroes. So tremendous was the havoc among the French-- while the blacks charged without intermission, rolling on their force from their entrenchments, each advancing line throwing itself upon the ground immediately after the charge, while those behind passed over their bodies, enabling them to rise and retreat in order to rush forward again in their turn--that the troops of the Rhine and the Alps were seized with a panic, and spread a rumour that there was sorcery among the blacks, by which they were made invulnerable. It was scarcely possible, too, to believe in the inferiority of their numbers, so interminable seemed the succession of foes that presented a fresh front.
Rochambeau saw that, if not ordered to retreat, his troops would fly; and whether it was a retreat or a flight at last, nobody could afterwards determine. They left fifteen hundred dead on the field, and made no pause till they reached Plaisance.
From this time, the French generals resolved against more fighting, till reinforcements arrived from France. New hopes inspired the blacks--all of them, at least, who did not, like L'Ouverture and Christophe, anticipate another inundation of the foe from the sea. Placide, who was foremost in every fight, was confident that the struggle was nearly over, and rode up to Le Zephyr occasionally with tidings which spread hope and joy among the household, and not only made his mother proud, but lightened her heart.
He told, at length, that the French, not relishing the offensive war begun by Christophe, had blockaded his father in the Plateaux. He treated this blockade as a mere farce--as a mode of warfare which would damage the French irreparably as the heats came on, while it could not injure the blacks, acquainted as they were with the passes of the country.
Placide would have been right, if only one single circumstance had been otherwise than as it was. L'Ouverture had nothing to fear from a blockade in regard to provisions. He had adherents above, among the heights, who could supply his forces with food for themselves and fodder for their horses inexhaustibly. Every ravine in their rear yielded water. They had arms enough; and in their climate, and with the summer coming on, the clothing of the troops was a matter of small concern.
But their ammunition was running short. Everything was endeavoured, and timely, to remedy this; but there was no effectual remedy. Many a perilous march over the heights, and descent upon the shore, did one and another troop attempt--many a seizure of French supplies did they actually effect--many a trip did Paul, and others who had boats, make to one and another place, where it was hoped that powder and ball might be obtained; but no sufficient supply could be got. The foe were not slow in discovering this, and in deriving courage from their discovery. From the moment that they found themselves assailed with flights of arrows from the heights, and that their men were wounded, not always with ball, or even shot, but with buttons, nails, and other bits of old metal--with anything rather than lead--they kept a closer watch along the coast and the roads, that no little boat, no cart or pack-horse, might escape capture. Towards the end of April the difficulty became so pressing, that L'Ouverture found himself compelled to give up his plan of defensive war, with all its advantages, and risk much to obtain the indispensable means of carrying on the struggle.
It was with this view that he mustered his force, gave out nearly the last remains of his ammunition, burst victoriously through the blockading troops, routed them, and advanced to attack the French lines posted at Plaisance. Behind him he left few but his wounded, commanded by Dessalines, who was yet hardly sufficiently recovered to undertake a more arduous service. Before him were the troops under Maurepas, whom he had always believed he could recall with a word, if he could but meet them face to face. Others probably believed so too; for those troops had, on every occasion, been kept back, and so surrounded, as that no one from their old haunts and their old companions could reach them.
Now, however, the French force was so reduced by the many defeats they had undergone, that it was probable they would be obliged to put faith in the renegado division, if attacked; and L'Ouverture was not without hopes of striking a decisive blow by recalling the negroes in the French lines to their allegiance to himself.
Everything answered to his anticipations. When he advanced to the attack, he found the troops of Maurepas posted in the front, to weaken the resolution of their former comrades, or receive their first fire.
His heart bounded at the sight; and all his resentment against them as renegades melted into compassion for the weakness of those who had been reared in terror and servility. He rushed forward, placing himself, without a thought of fear, between the two armies, and extended his arms towards the black lines of the enemy, shouting to them-- "My soldiers, will you kill your general? Will you kill your father, your comrades, your brothers?"
In an instant every black was on his knees. It was a critical moment for the French. They rushed on, drowning the single voice on which their destruction seemed to hang, threw the kneeling soldiers on their faces, strode over their prostrate bodies, and nearly effected their object of closing round L'Ouverture, and capturing him. His danger was imminent. The struggle was desperate;--but his soldiers saved him. The battle was fierce and long, but again and again turning in his favour, till all seemed secure. He was forcing the enemy from their lines, and giving out the inspiring negro cry of victory, when a new force marched up against him, stopped the retreat of the French, and finally repulsed the blacks--exhausted as they were, and unable to cope with a fresh foe.
In the most critical moment, four thousand troops, fresh from the ships had arrived to convert the defeat of the French into a victory; and they brought into the battle more than their own strength in the news that reinforcements from France were pouring in upon every point of the coast.
The news reached L'Ouverture, and completed the discouragement of his little army. It decided him at once in what direction to retreat. It was useless to return to the Plateaux, as the force there was more than proportioned to the supply of ammunition. This fresh descent of the French upon the coast would have the effect of dispersing the small bodies of black troops in the north. A rendezvous was necessary, in order to make the most both of the men and stores. He proceeded to post his troops at Le Dondon, and Marmalade, sending orders to Christophe to meet him there. There they might possibly be usefully employed in cutting off access to the French army at Plaisance, and at the same time supplying their own wants, while deliberating on what plan to carry on the struggle, under the new circumstances, till August; for, whatever treachery and defection might have to be encountered elsewhere, there was never a moment's doubt that Nature would prove a faithful ally, when her appointed season came.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
CONFLICTING.
"What to do!" said L'Ouverture to Christophe, as they entered his apartment at Le Dondon. "What to do? Everything, this year and for the future, may depend on what we decide on for our next step. And we must decide before we leave this room, say your thoughts, Henri."
"I am for a truce."
"I am for a retreat in the mountains. Now for our reasons! Why do you desire a truce?"
"Because I see that Leclerc so earnestly wishes it, that I am confident we may make good terms, for the interval of waiting till we recover altogether our power, our territory, and our people. Leclerc will revoke our outlawry. That done, you will be the virtual rider of our people till August; after which no foes will be left upon our soil.
What have you to say against this?"
"That it is yielding, unnecessarily and fatally, to the invaders. Where are our censures of Clerveaux and Maurepas, if we, too, yield to Leclerc, and make terms with him?"
"Every one of our people will understand the difference in the cases.
Every one of them sees the difference between falling at the feet of Leclerc, like Clerveaux; or joining him on the very field on which you were about to oppose him, like Maurepas; and making a truce, for a short interval, when you are almost destitute of ammunition, and the enemy so exhausted with the heats as to decline coming into the field; while, at the same time, fresh troops are pouring in upon the coast, in such numbers as to prevent your regaining your independence by remaining in arms. If every man of the negroes has not wit enough to understand this for himself, who is better able than you to inform them of whatsoever you desire them to know? Be assured, Toussaint, powerful as your influence is this day among our people, it will be more so when you are no longer an outlaw. It is worth a large sacrifice of our feelings to have our outlawry revoked."
"Have you more reasons to give for accepting a truce; or, as the French understand it, a peace?"
"Let me first hear your reasons for a retreat in the mountains."
"A retreat in the mountains is the more honest proceeding of the two, Henri. If we make terms with the French, it will be knowing that that which goes by the name of peace is no more than a truce till August."
"And will not they know that as well as we? Is it necessary to tell the whites, at this day, that they are liable to the fever in the heats, and that any army, however glorious in its strength previously, becomes a skeleton at that season? This is a matter that is perfectly understood by all the parties."
"We must look forward, Henri, to the days to come, when August itself is past. The influence of myself or my successor will be injured by my having, even apparently, yielded to the invaders. My power over our people's minds will be immeasurably greater, if I shall have consistently refused to tolerate the foe, from the moment of their first hostile act to the end of the struggle. Am I not right?"
"That character of consistency will be purchased at a price too dear;-- at the cost of your characteristic of mercy, Toussaint--of reverence for human life. You will be ranked with Dessalines, if you keep up, for four months, the disturbance and devastation of war, when every one knows that your end will be as certainly gained after these four months have been spent in peace. What a grief it would be to see you changed in all eyes from the adored L'Ouverture to Toussaint the bandit! Pardon my freedom."
"I required it of you, my friend; so do not speak of pardon. We are agreed that the moral influence of my conduct is the main consideration, as the destruction of the French army is certain, sooner or later--our independence secure, if we so will it. If we remain in the mountains, cutting off in detail the grasp which France shall attempt to lay on any part of our territory or our system; training our people, meantime, for another campaign, if France should attempt another; replenishing gradually our stores with perpetual small captures from the enemy, allowing them no asylum, discountenancing their presence, in every possible way--we shall be taking the shortest, and therefore the most merciful method of convincing the French and the blacks at once that their empire here is at an end, and slavery henceforth impossible for the negroes of Saint Domingo. But, if I make a peace or truce, how dim and perplexed will be the impression of my conduct! I cannot hold office, civil or military, under the French. Henri, you would not have me do so!"
"Certainly not. Till August, retire to your estate, that every office in the colony may thereafter be in your hand."
"If I co-operate with the French, even in the faintest appearance, my moral influence will be all on their side, and a second year of warfare will find us farther from peace or independence than the first. If I act, more or less, for the blacks, Leclerc will send me to France as a traitor. If I do nothing, neither party will believe in my doing nothing: each will suspect me of secret dealings with the other. It is also true that I cannot, if I would, be inoperative. Every glance of my eye, every word of my lips, in my own piazza at Pongaudin, would be made to bear its interpretation, and go to disturb the single and distinct image which I now stand before every eye and in every mind."
"I do not agree with you," said Henri. "While the image of August is distinct in the minds of the Saint Domingo people, it will keep your influence single and intelligible to them. As for what the French think, that is their own affair. They have the means of knowledge. Let them use them. There is one fact which no one can misunderstand, the while--that after the defections under which you have suffered, and under your known want of military stores, an incursive war from the mountains appears ferocious--both revengeful and cruel--when every one knows that time will render it unnecessary."
"These defections do not discourage me as they do you, Henri. Full one third of my forces are faithful--are proved so by trial. These, with the goodness of our cause, are enough for my hopes--almost for my desires. There is no ferocity, but rather mercy, in hastening on the day of our independence and peace, by using a force so respectable--so honoured, as this tried remnant of my army."
"You reckon fallaciously, Toussaint. You include my troops in the force you speak of."
"Henri!" exclaimed L'Ouverture, stopping in his walk up the apartment; "it cannot be that you will desert me. No, no! forgive me that the words passed my lips!"
"Never will I desert you or our cause, Toussaint. Never will I intermit my enmity to our invaders; never will I live for any other object than the liberties of our people. But the time may be come for us to pursue our common object by different paths. I cannot go and play the bandit in the mountains."
"Why did you not call me a bandit when I was at the Plateaux?"
"Because you were then waging an honourable war. War, not peace, was then beckoning you on to freedom. A state of voluntary outlawry, a practice of needless ravage, will make a different man of you. Say no more of it, Toussaint: I cannot be lieutenant to--Do not make me utter the word."
"You have always hitherto obeyed me, Henri."
"I have; and when _we_ are in a state of war, I will obey you again. Do not class me with La Plume and Clerveaux--or, rather, do, if you will, and when August is past I will prove to you the difference."
"Do not you see, Henri, that you not only cease to aid me at a great crisis but that you put a force upon me?"
"I cannot help it; I must do so, rather than go and be a butcher in the mornes with Dessalines."
"Say with me, too: call me a butcher, too! After the long years that you have known my heart, call me a butcher too."
"Let us talk sense, Toussaint: this is no time for trifling. After August, I shall join you again--to fight, if it be necessary: but I hope it will not."
"Not if heaven strengthens me to do my work without you, Christophe.
After the fever, it is much for the sick to walk: we do not expect the dead to rise."
"When I join you, after August," resumed Christophe, "whether for the labours of war or peace, you, and perhaps even Jacques, will wish that your hands were as clean from blood as mine. Your thought, Toussaint!-- tell me your thought. If--" "I was thinking that you _will_ join us, Henri. You _will_ labour till our great work is done. You may err; and you may injure our cause by your error; but you will never be seduced from the rectitude of your own intentions. That is what I was thinking. I would fain keep my judgment of you undisturbed by a grieving heart."
"You are more than generous, Toussaint: you are just. I was neither.
Pardon me. But I am unhappy--I am wretched that you are about to forfeit your greatness, when--Oh, Toussaint! nothing should ever grieve me again, if we could but agree to-day--if I could but see you retire, with your wonted magnanimity, to Pongaudin, there, with your wonted piety, to await the leadings from above. Where is your wonted faith, that you do not see them now, through the clouds that are about us?"
"I cannot but see them now," said Toussaint, sighing; "and to see is to follow. If you are wholly resolved to make a truce for yourself and your division--" "I am wholly resolved to do so."
"Then you compel me to do the same. Without you, I have not force sufficient to maintain an effectual resistance."
"Thank God! then we shall see you again L'Ouverture, and no longer Toussaint, the outlaw. You will--" "Hear me, Henri! You put this constraint upon me. What are you prepared to do, if the French prove treacherous, after our peace is made?"
"To drive them into the sea, to be sure. You do not suppose I shall regard them as friends the more for making a truce with them! We will keep our eyes upon them. We will preserve an understanding with the whole island, as to the vigilance which the blacks must exercise, day and night, over their invaders. The first treacherous thought in Leclerc's mind is a breach of the truce; and dearly shall he rue it."
"This is all well-planned, Henri. If the cunning of Leclerc proves deeper than yours--" "Say ours, Toussaint."
"No. I have no part in this arrangement. I act under your compulsion, and under my own protest; as I require of you, Henri, to remember. If we are not deep enough, vigilant enough, active enough, for Leclerc and his council--if he injures us before August, and Bonaparte ordains a second campaign after it, are you ready to endure the responsibility of whatever may befall?"
"I am."
"Have you looked well forward into the future, and detected every mischief that may arise from our present temporising, and resolved that it was a less evil than losing the rest of this season, putting a compulsion upon your best friend, and fettering the deliverer of your people?"
"I have so looked forward--repudiating the charge of undutiful compulsion. I act for myself, and those under my command."
"Virtually compelling me to act with you, by reducing me from being the General of an army to be the leader of a troop; and by exposing our cause to the peril--the greatest of all--of a declared division between you and me. I yield, Christophe; but what I am going to do, I do under protest. Order in the French prisoners."
"Yet one moment," said Henri. "Let me reason with you a little further.
Be satisfied of the goodness of the act before you do it."
"I do not need satisfaction on that. I do not quarrel with the terms we are to make. I do not protest against any of the provisions of the treaty. I protest against the necessity of treating. Summon the prisoners."
"Can you," said Christophe, still delaying, "can you improve upon the terms proposed? Can the conditions be altered, so as to give more satisfaction to your superior foresight? I would not use flattering terms at this moment, Toussaint; you know I would not. But your sagacity is greater than mine, or any one's. I distrust myself about the terms of the treaty, I assure you."
"About anything more than the mere terms of the treaty?" asked Toussaint, again stopping in his walk.
"About the conditions--and about the conditions only."
"Your self-distrust is misplaced, and comes too late. Order the prisoners to be brought in."
As Sabes and Martin entered, L'Ouverture and Christophe renewed, by a glance, their agreement to speak and act with the utmost apparent sameness of views and intentions. It was but a poor substitute for the real coincidence which had always hitherto existed; but it was all that was now possible.
"I am going to send you back to your Captain-General, gentlemen," said Toussaint.
"Not without apology, I trust," said Sabes, "for having subjected to such treatment as we have undergone, messengers sent to parley--bearing actually the necessary credentials from the Captain-General. For nine weeks have my companion and I been dragged from place to place, wherever it suited your purposes to go, in perpetual fear for our lives."
"I am sorry you have trembled for your lives, gentlemen," replied Toussaint. "It was an unnecessary suffering, as I gave you my word, on your capture, that your persons were safe. Considering that you were found crouching among the ferns, within hearing of my private