The Hour and the Man Part 13

And he looked towards the steaming chocolate and the piles of fruit on the table, as if his appet.i.te were growing urgent.

"One word more, my lord, before offering you my welcome to my table,"

said Toussaint. "I beseech you to consider the granting this pa.s.s as an act of justice, or of anything rather than favour to me. Yesterday, I would have accepted a hundred favours from you: to-day, with equal respect, I must refuse even one. I pledge myself to tell you why before you rise from table, to which I now invite you."

"I do not understand all this, Toussaint."

"I have pledged myself to explain."

"And you say there is no personal feeling--no offence between us?"

"If any, my lord, I alone am the offender. Will you be pleased to--"

"Oh, yes, I will breakfast; and was never more ready. Monsieur Papalier, our morning ma.s.s has kept you waiting, I fear."

Papalier seated himself, but was near starting up again when he saw his negro host preparing to take his place between his two quests, Papalier had never yet sat at table with a negro, and his impulse was to resent the necessity; but a stern look from the General warned him to submit quietly to the usages of the new state of society which he had remained to witness; and he sat through the meal, joining occasionally in the conversation, which, for his sake, was kept clear of subjects which might annoy him.

As soon as the servants, after producing pen, ink, and paper, had withdrawn, the General wrote a safe-conduct, and delivered it to Monsieur Papalier, with an intimation that an attendant should be ready to guide him to the nearest port, at his earliest convenience. Papalier understood this as it was meant--as a hint that there must be no delay.

He declared, therefore, his wish to depart, as soon as the heat of the day should decline.

"And now, my lord--," said Toussaint, "Yes, now for the explanation of this fancy of not receiving kindness from your best friends. Let us hear."

"I have this morning, my lord, despatched letters to Don Joachim Garcia, at Saint Domingo--"

"You are in communication with the Colonial Government; and not through me! What can this mean?"

"And here, my lord, are exact copies of my letters, which I request the favour of you to read, and, if I may be permitted to say so, without haste or prejudice--though, in this case, it is much to ask."

Toussaint disappeared in the inner apartment; but not before he saw a smile on Papalier's face--a smile which told of amus.e.m.e.nt at the idea of a negro sending dispatches of any importance to the head of the government of the Spanish colony.

The General did not seem to feel any of the same amus.e.m.e.nt. His countenance was perplexed and anxious. He certainly obeyed Toussaint's wishes as to not being in haste: for he read the papers (which were few and short) again and again. He had not laid them down when Toussaint re-appeared from within--no longer glittering in his uniform and polished arms, but dressed in his old plantation clothes, and with his woollen cap in his hand. Both his guests first gazed at him, and then started from their seats.

Toussaint merely pa.s.sed through the tent, bowing low to the General, and bidding him farewell. A confused noise outside, followed by a shout, roused Hermona from his astonishment.

"He is addressing the troops!" he cried, drawing his sword, and rus.h.i.+ng forth.

Toussaint was not addressing the troops. He was merely informing Jacques, whom he had requested to lie in waiting there, beside his horse, that he was no longer a commander--no longer in the forces; and that the recent proclamation, by showing him that the cause of negro freedom was now one with that of the present government of France, was the reason of his retirement from the Spanish territory. He explained himself thus far, in order that he might not be considered a traitor to the lost cause of royalty in France; but, rather, loyal to that of his colour, from the first day of its becoming a cause.

Numbers became aware that something unusual was going forward, and were thronging to the spot, when the General rushed forth, sword in hand, shouting aloud--

"The traitor! Seize the traitor! Soldiers! seize the traitor!"

Toussaint turned in an instant, and sprang upon his horse. Not a negro would lay hands on him; but they cast upon him, in token of honour, the blossoms of the amaryllis and the orange that they carried. The Spanish soldiers, however, endeavoured to close round him and hem him in, as the General's voice was still heard--

"Seize him! Bring him in, dead or alive!"

Toussaint, however, was a perfect horseman; and his favourite horse served him well in this crisis. It burst through, or bounded over, all opposition, and, amidst a shower of white blossoms which strewed the way, instantly carried him beyond the camp. Well-mounted soldiers, and many of them, were behind, however; and it was a hard race between the fugitive and his pursuers, as it was witnessed from the camp. Along the river bank, and over the bridge, the danger of Toussaint appeared extreme; and the negroes, watching the countenance of Jacques, preserved a dead silence when all the hors.e.m.e.n had disappeared in the woods which clothed the steep. Then all eyes were turned towards the summit of that ridge, where the road crossed a s.p.a.ce clear of trees; and there, in an incredibly short time, appeared the solitary horseman, who, unenc.u.mbered with heavy arms, and lightly clothed, had greatly the advantage of the soldiers in mounting the ascent. He was still followed; but he was just disappearing over the ridge, when the foremost soldier issued from the wood behind him.

"He is safe! he is safe!" was murmured through the throng; and the words reached the ears of the General in a tone which convinced him that the attachment of the black troops to Toussaint Breda was as strong as he himself had that morning declared it to be.

"Now you see, General," said Papalier, turning into the tent, from which he too had come forth in the excitement of the scene--"you see what you have to expect from these negroes."

"I see what I have to expect from you," replied the General, with severity. "It is enough to witness how you speak of a man to whom you owe your life this very day--and not for the first time."

"Nay, General, I have called him no names--not even 'traitor.'"

"I have not owed him my life, Monsieur Papalier; and you are not the commander of these forces. It is my duty to prevent the defection of the negro troops; and I therefore used the language of the government I serve in proclaiming him a traitor. Had it been in mere speculation between him and myself that those papers had come in question, G.o.d knows I should have called him something very different."

"There is something in the man that infatuates--that blinds one's judgment, certainly," said Papalier. "His master, Bayou, spoiled him with letting him educate himself to an absurd extent. I always told Bayou so; and there is no saying now what the consequences may be. It is my opinion that we have not heard the last of him yet."

"Probably," said the General, gathering up his papers as his aide entered, and leaving the tent in conversation with him, almost without a farewell notice of Papalier.

The negro troops were busy to a man, in learning from Jacques, and repeating to one another, the particulars of what was in the proclamation, and the reasons of Toussaint's departure. General Hermona found that the two remaining black leaders, Jean Francais and Bia.s.son, were not infected by Toussaint's convictions; that, on the contrary, they were far from sorry that he was thus gone, leaving them to the full enjoyment of Spanish grace. They addressed their soldiers in favour of loyalty, and in denunciation of treason, and treated the proclamation as slightly as Don Joachim Garcia could possibly have wished. They met with little response, however; and every one felt, amidst the show and parade and festivity of the day, a restlessness and uncertainty which he perceived existed no less in his neighbour than in himself. No one's mind was in the business or enjoyment of the festival; and no one could be greatly surprised at anything that might take place, though the men were sufficiently orderly in the discharge of their duty to render any interference with them unwarrantable, and any precautions against their defection impossible. The great hope lay in the influence of the two leaders who remained, as the great fear was of that of the one who was gone.

The Spanish force was small, const.i.tuting only about one-fourth of the whole; and of these, the best mounted had not returned from the pursuit of Toussaint;--not because they could follow him far in the enemy's country, but because it required some skill and caution to get back in broad day, after having roused expectation all along the road.

While the leaders were anxiously calculating probabilities, and reckoning forces, Jacques was satisfying himself that the preponderance of numbers was greatly on the side of his absent friend. His hatred of the whites, which had never intermitted, was wrought up to strong pa.s.sion this day by the treatment the proclamation and his friend had received. He exulted in the thought of being able to humble the Spaniards by withdrawing the force which enabled them to hold their posts, and by making him whom they called a traitor more powerful in the cause of the blacks than they could henceforth be in that of royalist France. Fired with these thoughts, he was hastily pa.s.sing the tent of Toussaint, which he had supposed deserted, when he heard from within, speaking in anger and fear, a voice which he well knew, and which had power over him. He had strong reasons for remembering the first time he had seen Therese--on the night of the escape across the frontier. She was strongly a.s.sociated with his feelings towards the cla.s.s to which her owner belonged; and he knew that she, beautiful, lonely, and wretched, shared those feelings. If he had not known this from words dropped by her during the events of this morning, he would have learned it now; for she was declaring her thoughts to her master, loudly enough for any one who pa.s.sed by to overhear.

Jacques entered the tent, and there stood Therese, declaring that she would leave her master, and never see him more, but prevented from escaping by Papalier having intercepted her pa.s.sage to the entrance.

Her eyes glowed with delight on the appearance of Jacques, to whom she immediately addressed herself.

"I will not go with him--I will not go with him to Paris, to see his young ladies. He shall not take care of me. I will take care of myself. I will drown myself sooner than go with him. I do not care what becomes of me, but I will not go."

"Yes, you will care what becomes of you, Therese, because your own people care," said Jacques. "I will protect you. If you will be my wife, no white shall molest you again."

"Be your wife!"

"Yes. I love the blacks; and none so much as those whom the whites have oppressed--no one so much as you. If you will be my wife, we will--"

Here, remembering the presence of a white, Jacques explained to Therese in the negro language (which she understood, though she always spoke French), the new hopes which had arisen for the blacks, and his own intention of following Toussaint, to make him a chief. He concluded in good French, smiling maliciously at Papalier as he spoke--

"You will come with me now to the priest, and be my wife."

"I will," replied Therese, calmly.

"Go," said Papalier. "You have my leave. I am thus honourably released from the care of you till times shall change. I am glad that you will not remain unprotected, at least."

"Unprotected!" exclaimed Therese, as she threw on the Spanish mantle which she was now accustomed to wear abroad. "Unprotected! And what has your protection been?"

"Very kind, my dear, I am sure. I have spent on your education money which I should be very glad of now. When people flatter you, Therese (as they will do; for there is not a negress in all the island to compare with you),--remember who made you a lady. You will promise me that much, Therese, at parting?"

"Remember who made me a lady!--I have forgotten too long who made me a woman," said Therese, devoutly upraising her eyes. "In serving Him and loving my husband, I will strive to forget you."

"All alike!" muttered Papalier, as the pair went out. "This is what one may expect from negroes, as the General will leant when he has had enough to do with them. They are all alike."

This great event in the life of Jacques Dessalines did not delay his proceedings for more than half-an-hour. Noon was but just past, when he led forth his wife from the presence of the priest, mounted her on his own horse before his tent, and sent her forward under the escort of his personal servant, promising to overtake her almost as soon as she should have crossed the river. When she was gone, he sent the word through the negro soldiery, who gathered round him almost to a man, and with the quietness which became their superior force. Jean Francais and Bia.s.son were left with scarcely twenty followers each; and those few would do nothing. The whites felt themselves powerless amidst the noonday heats, and opposed to threefold numbers: and their officers found that nothing was to be done but to allow them to look on quietly, while Jacques led away his little army, with loud music and a streaming white flag. A few hors.e.m.e.n led the van, and closed in the rear. The rest marched, as if on a holiday trip, now singing to the music of the band, and now making the hills ring again with the name of Toussaint Breda.

As General Hermona, entirely indisposed for his siesta, watched the march through his gla.s.s from the entrance of his tent, while the notes of the wind-instruments swelled and died away in the still air, one of his aides was overheard by him to say to another--