The Hour and the Man Part 70

"If he does not live, let Dessalines hear what was my message to Christophe. He will know how much to take to himself."

It was well that this message was given without further delay.

Toussaint was summoned to speak with some officers of Leclerc's council, in the cabin below. At the clank of his chains upon the deck all eyes were upon him, except those of his own family, which were turned away in grief.

"Before your departure," said one of the officers, in the small cabin to which Toussaint was conducted, "we would urge you to do a service to the colony which yet remains in your power. You must not refuse this last service."

"I have never refused to serve the colony; and I am as willing to-day as ever."

"No doubt. Reveal to us, then, the spot in the Mornes du Chaos, in which your treasures lie buried, and state their amount."

"I have before said that I have buried no treasures. Do you disbelieve my word?"

"We are sorry to do so; but facts are against you. You cannot deceive us. We know that you caused certain of your dependents to bury treasure near the Plateaux de la Ravine; and that you afterwards shot these servants, to secure your secret."

"Is it possible?"

"You see we have penetrated your counsels. The time for concealment is past. You take your family with you; and none of you will ever return.

Your friends are, most of them, disposed of. A new order of things has commenced. You boast of your patriotism. Show it now by giving up the treasure of the colony to the uses of the colony."

"I have already devoted my all to the colony. I reply once more that I leave behind me no treasure but that which you cannot appreciate--the grateful hearts of my people."

The investigation was pressed--the inquiry made, under every form of appeal that could be devised; and in vain. Toussaint disdained to repeat his reply; and he spoke no more. The officers left him with threats on their lips. The door was locked and barred behind them, and Toussaint found himself a solitary prisoner.

During the night the vessel got under weigh. What at that hour were the secrets which lay hid in the mountain-pa.s.ses, the forest-shades, and the sad homes of the island whose true ruler was now borne away from its sh.o.r.es?

Pongaudin was already deserted. Monsieur and Madame Pascal had, by great activity, obtained a pa.s.sage for France in the ship which was freighted with Leclerc's boastings of his crowning feat. They were already far on the sea before the _Heros_ spread its sails. Leclerc's announcement of Toussaint's overthrow was as follows:--

"I intercepted letters which he had written to one Fontaine, who was his agent at Cap Francais. These afforded an unanswerable proof that he was engaged in a conspiracy, and that he was anxious to regain his former influence in the colony. He waited only for the result of disease among the troops.

"Under these circ.u.mstances, it would be improper to give him time to mature his criminal designs. I ordered him to be apprehended--a difficult task; but it succeeded through the excellent arrangements made by General Brunet, who was entrusted with its execution, and the zeal and ardour of Admiral Ferrari.

"I am sending to France, with all his family, this deeply perfidious man, who, by his consummate hypocrisy, has done us so much mischief.

The government will determine how it should dispose of him.

"The apprehension of General Toussaint occasions some disturbances.

Two leaders of the insurgents are already in custody, and I have ordered them to be shot. About a hundred of his confidential partisans have been secured, of whom some are on board the _Muiron_ frigate, which is under orders for the Mediterranean; and the rest are distributed among the different ships of the squadron.

"I am daily occupied in settling the affairs of the colony, with the least possible inconvenience: but the excessive heat, and the diseases which attack us, render it an extremely painful task. I am impatient for the approach of the month of September, when the season will renovate our activity.

"The departure of Toussaint has produced general joy at Cap Francais.

"The Commissary of Justice, Mont Peson, is dead. The Colonial Prefect, Benezech, is breathing his last. The Adjutant-commandant, Dampier, is dead: he was a young officer of great promise.

"I have the honour, etcetera,--"

Signed--

"Leclerc."

On board the vessel which carried these tidings was Pascal, prepared to give a different version of the late transactions, and revolving, with Afra, the means by which he might best employ such influence as he had on behalf of his friend. Theirs was a nearly hopeless errand, they well knew; but the less hopeful, the more anxious were they to do what they could.

Was Euphrosyne with them?--No. She never forgot the duty which she had set before her--to stay near Le Bosquet, in hopes of better times, when she might make reparation to the people of the estate for what they had suffered at her grandfather's hands. A more pressing duty also detained her on the island. She could be a daughter to Monsieur Raymond in Afra's stead, and thus make their duty easier to the Pascals. Among the lamentations and prayers which went up from the mourning island were those of the old man and the young girl who wept together at Le Zephyr-- scarcely attempting yet to forgive the enemies whose treachery had outraged the Deliverer--as he was henceforth called, more fondly than ever. They were not wholly wretched. They dwelt on the surprise and pleasure it would be to the Ouvertures to find the Pascals in France before them. Euphrosyne had also the satisfaction of doing something, however indirectly, for her unfortunate friends; and she really enjoyed the occupation, to her so familiar, and still so dear, of ministering to the comfort of an old man, who had no present dependence but on her.

Her cares and duties were soon increased. The habitations of the Plain du Nord became so disgusting and so dangerous as the pestilence strewed the land with dead, and the survivors of the French army became, in proportion to the visitation, desperate and savage, that Madame Oge was, at length, like all her neighbours, driven from her home. She wished to take refuge with one of her own colour; and Monsieur Raymond, at Euphrosyne's suggestion, invited her to Le Zephyr, to await better days.

With a good grace did Euphrosyne go out to meet her; with a good grace did she welcome and entertain her. The time was past when she could be terrified with evil prognostications. In the hour of the earthquake, no one heeds the croak of the raven.

Among the nuns at Saint Marc there was trembling, which the pale abbess herself could not subdue by reason or exhortation. Their ears were already weary with the moans of the dying. They had now to hear the shrieks and curses of the kidnapped blacks--the friends of L'Ouverture-- whose homes were made desolate. The terrified women could not but ask each other, "who next?" for they all loved L'Ouverture, and had declared their trust in him. No one injured the household of the abbess, however; and the sisters were all spared, in safety and honour, to hear the proclamation of the Independence of Hayti, and to enjoy the protection and friendship of its beloved Empress.

And where was she--Therese--when Saint Marc was resounding with the cries of her husband's betrayed companions and friends? She was on the way to the fastnesses, where her unyielding husband was preparing a tremendous retribution for those whom he had never trusted. She rejoiced, solemnly but mournfully, that he had never yielded. She could not wonder that the first words of Dessalines to her, when he met her horse on the steep, were a command that she would never more intercede for a Frenchman--never more hold back his strong hand from the work which he had now to do. She never did, till that which, in a chief, was warfare, became, in an emperor, vengeance. Then she resumed her woman's office of intercession; and by it won for herself the t.i.tle of "the Good Empress."

The eyes which first caught sight of the receding ship _Heros_, at dawn, were those of Paul L'Ouverture and Genifrede. They had sent messengers, more likely than themselves to reach Christophe and Dessalines, with the last message of Toussaint; and they were now at leisure to watch, from the heights above their hut (their home henceforth), the departure of all who bore their name. They were left alone, but not altogether forlorn. They called each other father and daughter; and here they could freely, and for ever, mourn Moyse.

Christophe received the message. It was not needed to rouse him to take upon himself, or to share with Dessalines, the office of him who was gone. The thoughts of his heart were told to none. They were unspeakable, except by the language of deeds. His deeds proclaimed them: and after his faithful warfare, during his subsequent mild reign, his acts of liberality, wisdom, and mercy, showed how true was his understanding of the mission of L'Ouverture.

There were many to share his work to-day. Dessalines was the chief: but leaders sprang up wherever soldiers appeared, asking to be led; and that was everywhere, from the moment of the report of the abduction of Toussaint. Clerveaux revolted from the French, and visited on them the bitterness of his remorse. Maurepas also repented, and was putting his repentance into action when he was seized, tortured, and murdered, with his family. Bellair and his wife conducted with new spirit, from this day, a victorious warfare which was never intermitted, being bequeathed by their barbarous deaths to their exasperated followers.

It was true, as Toussaint knew and felt in his solitary prison on the waters, that the groans which went up from the heights and hollows, the homes and the fastnesses of the island, were such as could not but unite in a fearful war-cry; but it was also true, as he had known and felt during the whole term of his power, that in this war victory could not be doubtful. He had been made the portal of freedom to his race. The pa.s.sions of men might gather about it, and make a conflict, more or less tremendous and protracted; but the way which G.o.d had opened, and guarded by awakened human hearts, no mult.i.tude of rebellious human hands could close.

CHAPTER FORTY.

MEETING WINTER.

It was a glorious day, that twelfth of June, when the _Heros_ sailed away from the sh.o.r.es of Saint Domingo. Before the _Heros_ could sail quite away, it was compelled to hover, as it were, about the shadow of the land--to advance and retreat--to say farewell, apparently, and then to greet it again. The wind was north-east, so that a direct course was impossible; and the Ouverture family a.s.sembled, with the exception of Toussaint himself, upon deck, gave vent, again and again, to their tears--again and again strained their eyes, as the mountains with their shadowy sides, the still forests, the yellow sands, and the quiet settlements of the lateral valleys, came into view, or faded away.

L'Ouverture's cabin, to which he was strictly confined during the voyage, had a window in the stern, and he, too, had therefore some change of prospect. He gazed eagerly at every shifting picture of the land; but most eagerly when he found himself off Cap Samana. With his pocket-gla.s.s he explored and discovered the very point of rough ground on the height where he stood with Christophe, less than six months before, to watch the approach, and observe the rendezvous, of the French fleet. He remembered, as his eye was fixed upon the point, his naming to Henri this very ship, in which he was now a prisoner, sailing away, never more to return.

"Be it so!" he thought, according to his wont. "My blacks are not conquered, and will never more be slaves."

The wind soon changed, and the voyage was a rapid one. Short as it was, it was tedious; for, with the exception of Mars Plaisir, who was appointed to wait on him, the prisoner saw no one. Again and again he caught the voices of his children, singing upon deck--no doubt in order to communicate with him: but, in every instance, almost before he had begun to listen, the song ceased. Mars Plaisir explained that it was silenced by the captain's order. No captain's order had power to stop the prisoner's singing. Every night was Aimee consoled, amidst her weeping, by the solemn air of her father's favourite Latin Hymn to Our Lady of the Sea: every morning was Margot roused to hope by her husband's voice, singing his matin-prayer. Whatever might be the captain's apprehensions of political danger from these exercises, he gave over the opposition which had succeeded so well with the women.

"My father crossed this sea," thought Toussaint: "and little could he have dreamed that the next of his race would cross it also, a prince and a prisoner. He, the son of a king, was seized and sold as a slave. His son, raised to be a ruler by the hand of Him who creates princes (whether by birth or royalty of soul), is kidnapped, and sacrificed to the pa.s.sions of a rival. Such is our life! But in its evil there is good. If my father had not crossed this sea as a slave, Saint Domingo would have wanted me; and in me, perhaps, its freedom and civilisation.

If I had not been kidnapped, my blacks might have lacked wrath to accomplish the victory to which I have led them. If my father is looking back on this world, I doubt not he rejoices in the degradation which brought elevation to his race; and, as for me, I lay the few years of my old age a ready sacrifice on the altar of Africa."

Sometimes he amused himself with the idea of surveying, at last, the Paris of which he had heard so much. Oftener, however, he dwelt with complacency on the prospect of seeing Bonaparte--of meeting his rival, mind to mind. He knew that Bonaparte's curiosity about him was eager, and he never doubted that he should be called to account personally for his government, in all its details. He did not consider that the great captain of the age might fear to meet his victim--might shrink from the eye of a brother-soldier whom he had treated worse than a felon.

Time and disappointment taught the prisoner this. None of his dreams were verified. In Brest harbour he was hurried from the ship--allowed a parting embrace of his family upon deck--no more; not a sentence of conversation, though all the ship's crew were by to hear. Mars Plaisir alone was allowed to accompany him. Two hurried whispers alone were conveyed to his ear. Placide a.s.sured him (yet how could it be?) that Monsieur Pascal was in France and would exert himself. And Margot told him, amidst her sobs, that she had done the one only thing she could-- she had prayed for Bonaparte, as she promised, that night of prophetic woe at Pongaudin.

Nothing did he see of Paris but some of the dimly-lighted streets, as he was conveyed, at night, to the prison of the Temple. During the weeks that he was a prisoner there, he looked in vain for a summons to the presence of the First Consul, or for the First Consul's appearance in his apartment. One of Bonaparte's aides, Caffarelli, came indeed, and brought messages: but these messages were only insulting inquiries about the treasures--the treasures buried in the mornes;--for ever these treasures! This recurring message, with its answer, was all the communication he had with Bonaparte; and the hum and murmur from the streets were all that he knew of Paris. When Bonaparte, nettled with the reply--"The treasures I have lost are far other than those you seek,"--was convinced that no better answer would be obtained, he gave the order which had been impending during those weeks of confinement in the Temple.

When Bonaparte found his first leisure, after the fetes and bustle occasioned in August by his being made First Consul for life, he issued his commands regarding the disposal of his West Indian prisoner: and presently Toussaint was traversing France, with Mars Plaisir for his companion in captivity--with an officer, as a guard, inside the closed carriage; another guard on the box; and one, if not two, mounted in their rear.

The journey was conducted under circ.u.mstances of great mystery. The blinds of the carriage were never let down; provisions were served out while the party was in full career; and the few baitings that were made were contrived to take place, either during the night, or in unfrequented places. It was clear that the complexion of the strangers was not to be seen by the inhabitants. All that Toussaint could learn was that they were travelling south-east.

"Have you mountains in your island?" asked the officer, letting down the blind just so much, when the carriage turned a corner of the road, as to permit to himself a glimpse of the scenery. "We are entering the Jura.

Have you mountains in your island?"