The Hour and the Man Part 74

"More wood, Bellines," said Rubaut, going to the door, to give further directions in a low voice. Returning, he said, with some hurry of manner, that, as he was to be absent for two or three days, he had sent for such a supply of wood and flambeaux as might last some time. More books should also be brought.

"When shall we meet again?" asked Toussaint.

"I don't know. Indeed I do not know," said the Commandant, looking at his watch by the firelight. His prisoner saw that his hands trembled, and that he walked with some irresolution to the door.

"Au revoir!" said Toussaint.

Rubaut did not reply, but went out, leaving the door standing wide, and apparently no one to guard it.

Toussaint's heart beat at the thought that this might give him one more opportunity of being abroad in the daylight, perhaps in the sun! He rose to make the attempt; but he was exhausted by the conversation he had held--the first for so long! His aching limbs failed him; and he sank down on his bed, from which he did not rise till long after Bellines had laid down his loads, and left the place.

The prisoner rose, at length, to walk, as he did many times in the day, from corner to corner of his cell. At the first turn, by the door, he struck his foot against something which he upset. It was a pitcher of water, which, with a loaf of bread, had been put in that unusual place.

The sight was as distinct in its signification as a yawning grave. His door was to open upon him no more. He was not again to see a human face. The Commandant was to be absent awhile, and, on returning, to find his prisoner dead.

He used all means that he could devise to ascertain whether it were indeed so. He called Bellines from the door, in the way which Bellines had never failed to reply to since the departure of Mars Plaisir.

Bellines did not come. He sang aloud, as he had never before been allowed to sing unchecked, since he entered the fortress. He now sang unchecked. The hour of the afternoon meal pa.s.sed, and no one came. The evening closed, and no bolt had been drawn. The case was clear.

The prisoner now and then felt a moment's surprise at experiencing so little recoil from such a fate. He was scarcely conscious even of repugnance. His tranquillity was doubtless owing, in part, to his having long contemplated death in this place as certain; to life having now little left to make its continuance desirable; and to his knowing himself to be so reduced, that the struggle could not be very long. But he himself believed his composure to be owing to another cause than any of these.

"He who appointed me to the work of such a life as mine," thought the dying man, "is making its close easy to His servant. I would willingly have suffered to the extremity of His will: but my work is done; men's eyes are no longer upon me; I am alone with Him; and He is pleased to let me enter already upon my everlasting peace. If Father Laxabon were here, would he now say, as he has often said, and as most men say, that, looking back upon life from its close, it appears short as the time of the early rains? Instead of this, how long appear the sixty years that I have lived! How long, how weary now teems the life when I was a slave--though much was done, and it was the schooling of my soul for the work preparing for my hand. My Margot! my children! how quietly did we then live, as if no change were ever to come, and we were to sit before our door at Breda every evening, till death should remove us, one by one! While I was composing my soul to patience by thought and by reading, how little did I dream that I was so becoming prepared to free my race, to reign, and then to die of cold and hunger, such as the meanest slave never knows! Then the next eight years of toil--they seem longer than all that went before. Doubtless they were lengthened to me, to make my weak powers equal to the greatness of my task; for every day of conducting war, and making laws, appeared to me stretched out into a year. These late seasons of reverse have pa.s.sed over more rapidly, for their suffering has been less. While all, even to Henri, have pitied me during these latter years, they knew not that I was recovering the peace which I shall now no more lose. It is true that I erred, according to the common estimate of affairs, in not making myself a king, and separating my country from France, as France herself is compelling her to separate at last. It is true, I might now have been reigning there, instead of dying here; and, what is more worthy of meditation, my people might now have been laying aside their arms, and beginning a long career of peace. It might possibly have been so; but at what cost! Their career of freedom (if freedom it could then have been called) would have begun in treason and in murder; and the stain would have polluted my race for ever. Now, they will have freedom still--they cannot but have it, though it is delayed. And upon this freedom will rest the blessing of Heaven. We have not fought for dominion, nor for plunder; nor, as far as I could govern the pa.s.sions of men, for revenge. We began our career of freedom in fidelity, in obedience, and in reverence towards the whites; and therefore may we take to ourselves the blessing of Him who made us to be free, and demands that we be so with clean hands and a pure heart. Therefore will the freedom of Saint Domingo be but the beginning of freedom to the negro race. Therefore may we hope that in this race will the spirit of Christianity appear more fully than it has yet shown itself among the proud whites--show itself in its gentleness, its fidelity, its disinterestedness, and its simple trust. The proud whites may scorn this hope, and point to the ignorance and the pa.s.sions of my people, and say, 'Is this your exhibition of the spirit of the Gospel?' But not for this will we give up our hope. This ignorance, these pa.s.sions, are natural to all men, and are in us aggravated and protracted by our slavery. Remove them by the discipline and the stimulus of freedom, begun in obedience to G.o.d and fidelity to men, and there remain the love that embraces all--the meek faith that can bear to be betrayed, but is ashamed to doubt--the generosity that can forgive offences seventy-and-seven times renewed--the simple, open, joyous spirit which marks such as are of the kingdom of heaven. Lord! I thank Thee that Thou hast made me the servant of this race!"

Never, during the years of his lowliness, or the days of his grandeur, had Toussaint spent a brighter hour than now, while the spirit of prophecy (twin-angel with death) visited him, and showed him the realms of mind which were opening before his race--that countless host whose van he had himself led to the confines. This spirit whispered something of the immortality of his own name, hidden, lost as he was in his last hours.

"Be it so!" thought he, "if my name can excite any to devotedness, or give to any the pleasure of being grateful. If my name live, the goodness of those who name it will be its life; for my true self-will not be in it. No one will the more know the real Toussaint. The weakness that was in me when I felt most strong, the reluctance when I appeared most ready, the acts of sin from which I was saved by accident alone, the divine constraint of circ.u.mstances to which my best deeds were owing--these things are between me and my G.o.d. If my name and my life are to be of use, I thank G.o.d that they exist; but this outward existence of them is nothing between Him and me. To me henceforward they no more belong than the name of Epaminondas, or the life of Tell.

Man stands naked on the brink of the grave, his name stripped from him, and his deeds laid down as the property of the society he leaves behind.

Let the name and deeds I now leave behind be a pride to generations yet to come--a more innocent pride than they have sometimes, alas! been to me. I have done with them."

Toussaint had often known what hunger was--in the mornes he had endured it almost to extremity. He now expected to suffer less from it than then, from being able to yield to the faintness and drowsiness which had then to be resisted. From time to time during his meditations, he felt its sensations visiting him, and felt them without fear or regret. He had eaten his loaf when first hungry, and had watched through the first night, hoping to sleep his long sleep the sooner, when his fire should at length be burned out. During the day, some faint sounds reached him from the valley--some tokens of the existence of men. During the two last nights of his life, his ear was kept awake only by the dropping of water--the old familiar sound--and the occasional stir of the brands upon the hearth. About midnight of the second night, he found he could sit up no longer. With trembling hands he laid on such pieces of wood as he could lift, lighted another flambeau, and lay down on his straw.

He raised himself but once, hastily and dizzily in the dawn (dawn to him, but sunrise abroad). His ear had been reached by the song of the young goatherds, as they led their flock abroad into another valley.

The prisoner had dreamed that it was his boy Denis, singing in the piazza at Pongaudin. As his dim eye recognised the place, by the flicker of the expiring flambeau, he smiled at his delusion, and sank back to sleep again.

The Commandant was absent three days. On his return, he summoned Bellines, and said, in the presence of several soldiers--

"How is the prisoner there?" pointing in the direction of Toussaint's cell.

"He has been very quiet this morning, sir."

"Very quiet? Do you suppose he is ill?"

"He was as well as usual the last time I went to him."

"He has had plenty of everything, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Wood, candle, food, water--everything."

"Very well. Get lights, and I will visit him."

Lights were brought. A boy, who carried a lantern, s.h.i.+vered as he saw how ghastly Bellines' face looked in the yellow gleam, in the dark vault on the way to the cell, and was not sorry to be told to stay behind, till called to light the Commandant back again.

"Have you heard anything?" asked Rubaut of the soldier, in a low voice.

"Not for many hours. There was a call or two, and some singing, just after you went; but nothing since."

"Hus.h.!.+ Listen!"

They listened motionless for some time; but nothing was heard but the everlasting plash, which went on all around them.

"Unbar the door, Bellines."

He did so, and held the door wide for the Commandant to enter. Rubaut stalked in, and straight up to the straw bed. He called the prisoner in a somewhat agitated voice, felt the hand, raised the head, and declared that he was gone. The candle was burned completely out. Rubaut turned to the hearth, carefully stirred the ashes, blew among them, and raised a spark.

"You observe," he said to Bellines; "his fire was burning when we found him."

"Yes, sir."

"There is more wood and more candle?"

"Yes, sir; the wood in this corner, and the candle on the table--just under your hand, sir."

"Oh, ay, here. Put on some wood, and blow up a flame. Observe, we found his fire burning."

"Yes, sir."

They soon re-appeared in the courtyard, and announced the death of the prisoner. Rubaut ordered a messenger to be in readiness to ride to Pontarlier, by the time he should have written a letter.

"We must have the physicians from Pontarlier," observed the Commandant, aloud, "to examine the deceased, and declare what he died of. The old man has not been well for some time past. I have no doubt the physicians will find that he died of apoplexy, or something of the kind."

"No wonder, poor soul!" said a sutler's wife to another woman.

"No wonder, indeed," replied the other. "My husband died of the heat in Saint Domingo; and they took this poor man (don't tell it, but he was a black; I got a sight of him, and he came from Saint Domingo, you may depend upon it)--they took him out of all that heat, and put him into that cold, damp place there! No wonder he is dead."

"Well, I never knew we had a black here!"

"Don't say I told you, then."

"I have no doubt--yes, we found his fire burning," said Bellines to the inquirers round him. "They will find it apoplexy, or some such thing, I have no doubt of it."

And so they did, to the entire satisfaction of the First Consul.

Yet it was long before the inquiring world knew with certainty what had become of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

APPENDIX.

Those who feel interest enough in the extraordinary fortunes of Toussaint L'Ouverture to inquire concerning him from the Biographical Dictionaries and Popular Histories of the day, will find in them all the same brief and peremptory decision concerning his character. They all p.r.o.nounce him to have been a man of wonderful sagacity, endowed with a native genius for both war and government; but savage in warfare; hypocritical in religion--using piety as a political mask; and, in all his affairs, the very prince of dissemblers. It is true that this account consists neither with the facts of his life, the opinions of the people he delivered, nor the state doc.u.ments of the island he governed.

Yet it is easy to account for. The first notices of him were French, reported by the discomfited invaders of Saint Domingo to writers imbued with the philosophy of the days of the Revolution; and later accounts are copies of these earlier ones. From the time when my attention was first fixed on this hero, I have been struck with the inconsistencies contained in all reports of his character which ascribe to him cruelty and hypocrisy; and, after a long and careful comparison of such views with his words and deeds, with the evidence obtainable from Saint Domingo, and with the temper of his times in France, I have arrived at the conclusion that his character was, in sober truth, such as I have endeavoured to represent it in the foregoing work.

I do not mean to say that I am the first who has formed an opinion that Toussaint was an honest, a religious, and a mild and merciful man. In an article in the _Quarterly Review_ (Number seventeen) on the "Past and Present State of Hayti," so interesting an account is given of the great negro, as to cause some wonder that no one has till now been moved by it to present the facts of his life in the form of an historical novel. In that article it is justly observed that the _onus_ rests with those who accuse Toussaint of hypocrisy to prove their allegation by facts. I would say the same of the other charge, of cruelty. Meanwhile, I disbelieve both charges, for these reasons among others:--