The Hour and the Man Part 62

"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 rect.i.tude 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 G.o.d! 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 a.s.sure 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 subst.i.tute for the real coincidence which had always. .h.i.therto 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 conversation with my son respecting the affairs of the war, I think your complaints of your detention unreasonable; and I have no apology to make, on that ground, either to yourselves or your commander. I cannot hear another word of complaint, gentlemen. You know well that by any general in Europe you would, under similar circ.u.mstances, have been hanged as spies. Now to public business. I am about to send you to General Leclerc, with proposals from General Christophe and myself to bring this painful war to an end, according to the desire of the heads of both armies. We all know such to be the wish of the Captain-General."

"No doubt. It was never his desire, nor that of any true Frenchman,"

said Sabes, "to be at war on the soil of this colony. You alone, General Toussaint, are responsible for the loss of lives, and all the other miseries which it has occasioned."

"How so? Let him say on, Lieutenant Martin. No one suffers by speaking his thoughts to me, be they what they may. On what consideration is it possible to impute this war to me?"

"It would never have broken out if you had not despised the authority, and thrown off the control, of the mother-country. This view cannot be new to you, General Toussaint," continued Sabes, on seeing the look of amazement with which L'Ouverture turned to Christophe.

"Indeed it is," replied Toussaint. "The charge is as unexpected as it is untrue. You, sir," he said, appealing to Lieutenant Martin, "are a naval officer. Tell me how you would act in such a case as this.

Suppose you commanded a vessel of the state, authorised and approved in your office? suppose another officer came--without notice, without your having heard a word of complaint--and leaped upon your deck, with a crew double the number of your own, striking down and fettering your men. If you resisted their violence in such a case, successfully or unsuccessfully, would you admit that you were the cause of the struggle--that you despised the government under which you held your command--that you threw off the control of your superiors?"

There was a pause.

"Such is my case," said Toussaint; "and thus you must represent it, if you be men of honour. The purport of my letter to the Captain-General (which will be ready by the time you are prepared for your journey), is to declare the willingness of General Christophe and myself to negotiate, as the continuation of the war, under the circ.u.mstances which have arisen, appears to be without object. The terms which we require, and which it is supposed General Leclerc will agree to, are an amnesty for all who have ever fought, or otherwise acted, under our command; and the preservation of the rank of all black officers, civil and military.

My friend Christophe and I will retire to our estates, to pray for the peace and welfare of the colony--the peace and welfare which have, notwithstanding our prayers, been so unhappily broken up. Gentlemen, there can be little doubt that the Captain-General will agree to these terms of pacification."

"We cannot answer for his replies," said Martin. "Our representations shall be faithful."

"I doubt it not," said Toussaint, "after experiencing your companion's courage and fidelity in rebuke; for which, though he is mistaken in fact, I honour him. Nor can I doubt the readiness of the Captain-General to treat with us on the terms I shall propose; for he must know that I shall always, among my native fastnesses, be strong to burn, ravage, and destroy. He must know, that though my negroes may be conquered, they will never more be subdued; and that, entrenched in the mornes, they can always effectually prevent an unfriendly settlement of the island. He must know that I am open to generous treatment; but otherwise ready and able to sell dearly a life which has done our country some service."

The French officers a.s.sented; but waited, as if to hear something more, besides Christophe's declaration, for his own part, of agreement in what L'Ouverture had said.

Sabes at length spoke, not without another cautionary sign from his companion.

"Your generous frankness, General Toussaint," said he, "induces me to remind you of one more duty which, in case of the desired pacification, you will owe to the Captain-General. You will hold yourself indebted to France for all such treasure as, in an hour of alarm, you may have chosen to conceal."

"What does this mean?" said Toussaint. "General Christophe, do you know of any public treasure being concealed in any part of the island?"

"None," said Christophe, "public or private."

"Nor do I. You hear, gentlemen."

"You forget, General Toussaint, what we heard on the occasion of our capture."

"You forget your own words to us," said Lieutenant Martin--"that we had seen and heard too much for you to let us go."

"I remember my words perfectly; and that they referred to my choice of a post in the mornes, and a retreat for my family--affairs long since made public enough. What else do you suppose you saw and heard? If I spoke of depositing my treasures in the mornes, I was doubtless speaking of my household. Did you understand me to mean gold and silver? What was it that you suppose you saw and heard?"