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. Genifrede! 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 Genifrede.
"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 Genifrede 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 Francais," replied the officer in the stern: "to join the _Heros_, now in the roads there."
"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 _Heros_, 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, Aimee 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 Aimee, 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 Aimee to watch over me--with you to guide me--" "No, Vincent! You cannot be with me. Aimee 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 _Heros_. "We will pray for you.
Farewell!"
"Aimee!" said her lover, scarcely daring to raise his eyes to her face.
"Farewell, Vincent!" Aimee strove to say.
In vain Vincent endeavoured to plead. Aimee 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 Aimee--"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, Aimee! 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 Aimee, kissing the fetters which bound her father's arms.
"Your mother's heart, Aimee; 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 Aimee 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 Genifrede, 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, Genifrede."
"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 _Heros_ 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 Francais. 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 Francais.
"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 Zephyr-- 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 Oge 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 Zephyr, 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--Therese--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 _Heros_, at dawn, were those of Paul L'Ouverture and Genifrede. 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 _Heros_ sailed away from the shores of Saint Domingo. Before the _Heros_ 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 Aimee 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 fetes 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.