The Hour and the Man Part 73

"The Commandant is not in the castle. He is absent to-day."

"Where?"

"They say the First Consul has business with him."

"With me rather," thought Toussaint. He said aloud, "Then he is gone with my servant?"

"May be so. They went the same road; but that road leads to many places."

"The road from Pontarlier?"

"Any road--all our roads here lead to many places," said Bellines, as he went out.

"Poor Mars Plaisir!" thought Toussaint, as he carefully placed the wood so as to tempt the feeble blaze. "Our road has seemed the same for the last eight months; but it leads to widely different points. I rejoice for him that his has parted off to-day; and for myself, though it shows that I am near the end of mine. Is it this soldier, with comrades, who is to end me? Or is it this supper, better drugged than that of last night? Or will they wait to see whether solitude will kill a busy, ambitious Commander-in-Chief, as they think me?"

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

FREE.

Day after day pa.s.sed on, and the prisoner found no change in his condition--as far, at least, as it depended on his gaolers. He was more ill as he became enveloped in the damps of the spring; and he grew more and more sensible of the comfort of being alone. Death by violence, however, did not come.

He did not give over his concern for Mars Plaisir because he was glad of his absence. He inquired occasionally for the Commandant, hoping that, if he could see Rubaut, he might learn whether his servant was still a prisoner, and whether his release from his cell had been for freedom, or for a worse lot than he had left behind. There was no learning from Bellines, however, whether the Commandant had returned to the fortress, or who was his lieutenant, if he had not. In the middle of April, the doubt was settled by the appearance of Rubaut himself in the cell. He was civil--unusually so--but declared himself unable to give any information about Mars Plaisir. He had nothing more to do with his prisoners when they were once taken out of his charge. He had always business enough upon his hands to prevent his occupying himself with things and people that were gone by. He had delivered Mars Plaisir into proper care; and that was the last he knew of him. The man was well at that time--as well as usual, and pleased enough to be in the open air again. Rubaut could remember no more concerning him--in fact, had not thought of him again, from that day to the present.

"And this is the kind of answer that you would give concerning me, if my sons should arrive hither in search of me some days after my grave had been closed?"

"Come, come! no foreboding!" said Rubaut. "Foreboding is bad."

"If my sons should present themselves--" proceeded Toussaint--

"They will not come here--they cannot come here," interrupted Rubaut.

"No one knows that you are here, but some three or four who will never tell."

"How," thought Toussaint, "have they secured Mars Plaisir, that he shall never tell?" For the poor man's sake, however, he would not ask this aloud.

Rubaut continued: "The reason why we cannot have the pleasure of giving you the range of the fortress is, that the First Consul thinks it necessary to keep secret the place of your abode--for the good of the colony, as he says. With one of our own countrymen, this seclusion might not be necessary, as the good people of the village could hardly distinguish features from the distance at which they are; and they have no telescopes--no idea of playing the spy upon us, as we can upon them.

They cannot distinguish features, so high up--"

"But they could complexion."

"Exactly so; and it might get abroad that some one of your colour was here."

"And if it should get abroad, and some one of my sons, or my wife should come, your answer would be that you remember nothing--that you cannot charge your memory with persons and things that are gone by--that you have had prisoners of all complexions--that some have lived and some have died--and that you have something else to do than to remember what became of each. I hope, however, and (as it would be for the advantage of the First Consul) I believe, that you would have the complaisance to show them my grave."

"Come, come! no foreboding! Foreboding is bad," repeated Rubaut.

Toussaint smiled, and said--

"What other employment do you afford me than that of looking into the past and future, in order to avoid the present? If, turning from the sickening view which the past presents of the treachery of your race to mine, of the abuse of my brotherly trust in him by which your ruler has afflicted our hearts if, turning from this mournful past, I look the other way, what do I see before me but the open grave?"

"You are out of spirits," said Rubaut, building up the fire.

"You wear well, however. You must have been very strong in your best days. You wear extremely well."

"I still live; and that I do so is because the sun of my own climate, and the strength of soul of my best days, s.h.i.+ne and glow through me now, quenching in part even these damps. But I am old, and every day heaps years on me. However, I am as willing as you that my looking forward should be for others than myself. I might be able to forebode for France, and for its ruler."

Rubaut folded his arms, and leaned, as if anxious to listen, against the wall beside the fire; but it was so wet that he quickly s.h.i.+fted his position; still, however, keeping his eyes fixed on his prisoner.

"And what would you forebode for France, and for her ruler?" he asked.

"That my country will never again be hers. Her retribution is as sure as her tyranny has been great. She may send out fleet after fleet, each bearing an army; but the spirit of freedom will be too strong for them all. Their bodies will poison the air, and choke the sea, and the names of their commanders will, one after another, sink in disgrace, before they will again make slaves of my people in Saint Domingo. How stands the name of Leclerc at this moment in France?"

"Leclerc is dead," said Rubaut; repenting, the next moment, that he had said so much. Toussaint saw this by his countenance, and inquired no further.

"He is dead! and twenty thousand Frenchmen with him, who might at this hour have been enjoying at home the natural wealth of my country, the fruits of our industry. The time was when I thought your ruler and I-- the ruler, in alliance with him, of my race in Saint Domingo--were brothers in soul, as we were apparently in duty and in fortune.

Brothers in soul we were not, as it has been the heaviest grief of my life to learn. I spurn brotherhood of soul with one whose ambition has been for himself. Brothers in duty we were; and, if we should yet be brothers in fortune--if he should fall into the hands of a strong foe-- But you are saying in your heart, 'No foreboding! Foreboding is bad!'"

Rubaut smiled, and said foreboding was only bad for the spirits; and the First Consul's spirits were not likely to be affected by anything that could be said at Joux. To predict bad fortune for him was like looking for the sun to be put out at noonday; it might pa.s.s the time, but would not dim the sun.

"So was it said of me," replied the prisoner, "and with the more reason, because I made no enemies. My enemies have not been of my own making.

Your ruler is making enemies on every hand; and alas! for him if he lives to meet the hour of retribution! If he, like myself, should fall into the power of a strong foe--if he should pa.s.s his remaining days imprisoned on a rock, may he find more peace than I should dare look for, if I had his soul!"

"There is not a braver man in Europe, or the Indies either, than the First Consul."

"Brave towards foes without and sufferings to come. But bravery gives no help against enemies harboured within, and evils fixed in the past.

What will his bravery avail against the images of France corrupted, of Europe outraged, of the blacks betrayed and oppressed--of the G.o.dlike power which was put into his hands abused to the purposes of the devil!"

"But perhaps he would not view his affairs as you do."

"Then would his bravery avail him no better. If he should be so blind as to see nothing higher and better than his own acts, then will he see no higher nor better hope than he has lost. Then will he suffer and die under the slow torment of personal mortifications and regrets."

"You say you are sinking under your reverses. You say you are slowly dying."

"I am. I shall die of the sickening and pining of sense and limb--of the wasting of bone and muscle. Day by day is my eye more dim, and my right arm more feeble. But I have never complained of evils that the bravery you speak of would not meet. Have I ever said that you have touched my soul?"

Rubaut saw the fire in his eye, glanced at his emaciated hand, and felt that this was true. He could bear the conversation no longer, now that no disclosures that could serve the First Consul seemed likely to be made.

"You are going?" said Toussaint.

"Yes. I looked in to-day because I am about to leave the fortress for a few days."

"If you see the First Consul, tell him what I have now said; and add that if, like him, I had used my power for myself, he would have had a power over me which he has not now. I should not then have been here-- nay, you must hear me--I should not then have been here, crushed beneath his hand; I should have been on the throne of Saint Domingo--flattered, as he is, by a.s.surances of my glory and security--but crushed by a heavier weight than that of his hand; by his image, as that of one betrayed in my infidelity to his country and nation. Tell him this; tell him that I perish willingly, if this consequence of my fidelity to France may be a plea for justice to my race."

"How people have misrepresented you to me!" said Rubaut, bustling about the cell, and opening the door to call Bellines. "They told me you were very silent--rarely spoke."

"That was true when my duty was to think," said Toussaint. "To-day my duty has been to speak. Remember that yours, in fidelity to your ruler, is to repeat to him what I say."