The Hour and the Man Part 23

"I never desired you to distinguish yourself."

"You do not wish it?"

"No."

"Not for your sake?"

"No."

And she looked around her with wistful eyes, in which her lover read a wish that things would ever remain as they were now--that this moment would never pa.s.s away.

"You would remain here--you would hide yourself here with me for ever!"

cried the happy Moyse.

"Here, or anywhere;--in the cottage at Breda;--in your father's hut on the sh.o.r.e;--anywhere, Moyse, where there is nothing to dread. I live in fear; and I am wretched."

"What is it that you fear, love? Why do you not trust, me to protect you?"

"Then I fear for you, which is worse. Why cannot we live in the woods or the mountains, where there would be no dangerous duties, and no cares?"

"And if we lived in the woods, you would be more terrified still. There would never be a falling star, but your heart would sink. You would take the voices of the winds for the spirits of the woods, and the mountain mists for ghosts. Then, there are the tornado and the thunderbolt. When you saw the trees cras.h.i.+ng, you would be for making haste back to the plain. Whenever you heard the rock rolling and bounding down the steep, or the cataract rising and roaring in the midst of the tempest, you would entreat me to fly to the city. It is in this little beating heart that the fear lies."

"What then is to be done?"

"This little heart must beat yet a while longer; and then, when I have once come back, it shall rest upon mine for ever."

"Beside my father? He never rests. Your father would leave us in peace; but he has committed you to one who knows not what rest is."

"Nor ever will," said Moyse. "If he closed his eyes, if he relaxed his hand, we should all be sunk in ruin."

"We? Who? What ruin?"

"The whole negro race. Do you suppose the whites are less cruel than they were? Do you believe that their thirst for our humiliation, our slavery, is quenched? Do you believe that the white man's heart is softened by the generosity and forgiveness of the blacks?"

"My father believes so," replied Genifrede; "and do they not adore him-- the whites whom he has reinstated? Do they not know that they owe to him their lives, their homes, the prosperity of the island? Does he not trust the whites? Does he not order all things for their good, from reverence and affection for them?"

"Yes, he does," replied Moyse, in a tone which made Genifrede anxiously explore his countenance.

"You think him deceived?" she said.

"No, I do not. It is not easy to deceive L'Ouverture."

"You do not think--no, you cannot think, that he deceives the whites, or any one."

"No. L'Ouverture deceives no one. As you say, he reveres the whites.

He reveres them for their knowledge. He says they are masters of an intellectual kingdom from which we have been shut out, and they alone can let us in. And then again.--Genifrede, it seems to me that he loves best those who have most injured him."

"Not best," she replied. "He delights to forgive: but what white has he ever loved as he loves Henri? Did he ever look upon any white as he looked upon me, when--when he consented? Moyse, you remember?"

"I do. But still he loves the whites as if they were born, and had lived and died, our friends, as he desires they should be. Yet more--he expects and requires that all his race should love them too."

"And you do not?" said Genifrede, timidly.

"I abhor them."

"Oh! hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ Speak lower. Does my father know this?"

"Why should he? If he once knew it--"

"Nay, if he knew it, he would give up his purposes of distinction for you; and we might live here, or on the sh.o.r.e."

"My Genifrede, though I hate the whites, I love the blacks. I love your father. The whites will rise upon us at home, as they are always scheming against us in France, if we are not strong and as watchful as we are strong. If I and others leave L'Ouverture alone to govern, and betake ourselves to the woods and the mountains, the whites will again be masters, and you and I, my Genifrede, shall be slaves. But you shall not be a slave, Genifrede," he continued, soothing her tremblings at the idea. "The bones of the whites shall be scattered over the island, like the sh.e.l.ls on the sea-sh.o.r.e, before my Genifrede shall be a slave. I will cut the throat of every infant at every white mother's breast, 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-sh.o.r.e, 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 wors.h.i.+ps 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 gra.s.s 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.