Chapter Thirty Nine.
Truce no more.
When Toussaint set foot on the deck of the Héros, on the evening of the next day, the commander stood ready to receive him—and not only the commander. Soldiers also stood ready with chains, with which they lost no time in fettering the old man’s ankles and wrists. While they were doing this, Toussaint quietly said to the commander—
“By my overthrow, the trunk of the tree of negro liberty is laid low; only the trunk. It will shoot out again from the roots; and they are many and deep.”
The moment the soldiers stepped back, and allowed access to him, Aimée was in his arms; and Isaac, in great agitation, presented himself.
“I will never leave you more, father!” said he. “These fetters! Nothing should have made me believe such treatment possible. I trusted Leclerc as firmly as I trusted you. I have been living with him while he meditated chains for you. I am humbled for ever! All I can do now is to devote myself to you, as Placide did at the right time. Would I were Placide! I am humbled for ever!”
“No, my son: not for ever. It is a common lot to be humbled for the credulous confidence of youth. It is a safer and a nobler error, Isaac, than its opposite. It is better than unbelief in the virtue of man.”
“You torture me with your goodness, father!”
“I deal with you as with myself, Isaac. In the young days of my freedom I trusted falsely, as you have done. I believed in Bonaparte, as you have believed in Leclerc. We have both received a lesson; but I do not feel humbled for ever; nor must you.”
“Would I were Placide!” was all that Isaac could say.
“You are so good to Isaac and me,” said Aimée, timidly, “that perhaps you would (could you?) see Vincent.”
“No, my child. Vincent is not like Isaac. He cannot be made wise by experience; and his folly is scarcely to be distinguished from treachery. I cannot see General Vincent.”
No choice was allowed, however. Vincent rushed forward, knelt before Toussaint, and clasped his knees, imploring, in a convulsion of grief, pardon for the past, and permission to devote every hour of his future life to the family whom he had ruined.
“My pardon you have,” said L’Ouverture. “I should rather say my compassion; for you never deliberately designed treachery, I am persuaded.”
“I never did! I never did!”
“Neither had you any good design. You have been selfish, vain, and presumptuous; as far from comprehending my purposes as from having criminal ones of your own. In the new circumstances in which negroes are placed, many must fall, however firmly some may stand. You are among the infirm; and therefore, however I may mourn, I do not resent what you have done.”
“Thank God! You pardon me! Thank God! Henceforth, with Aimée to watch over me—with you to guide me—”
“No, Vincent! You cannot be with me. Aimée is free as she has ever been; but you cannot be with me. I go to martyrdom: to fulfil what appears to be the solemn vocation of the Ouvertures. I go to martyrdom; and none but steady souls must travel that way with me.”
“You scorn me,” said Vincent, springing from his knees. “Your acts show that you scorn me. You take that poor fellow,” pointing to Mars Plaisir, “and you reject me.”
“My son’s servant,” said Toussaint, smiling. “He goes to his beloved France, free to quit us for any other service, when ours becomes too grave for his light spirit. I would not insult you by taking you on a like condition. You must leave us, Vincent,” pointing to the Creole’s boat, now about to put off from the Héros. “We will pray for you. Farewell!”
“Aimée!” said her lover, scarcely daring to raise his eyes to her face.
“Farewell, Vincent!” Aimée strove to say.
In vain Vincent endeavoured to plead. Aimée shook her head, signed to him to go, and hid her face on her father’s shoulder. It was too much. Humbled to the point of exasperation, Vincent throw himself over the ship’s side into the boat, and never more saw the face of an Ouverture.
“I have nothing left but you,” sobbed Aimée—“but you and my mother. If they kill you my mother will die, and I shall be desolate.”
“Your brothers, my child.”
“No, no. I have tried all. I left you to try. I loved you always; but I thought I loved others more. But—”
“But,” said her father, when she could not proceed, “you found the lot of woman. To woman the affections are all: to men, even to brothers, they are not. Courage, Aimée! Courage! for you are an Ouverture. Courage to meet your woman’s martyrdom!”
“Let me rest upon your heart, father; and I can bear anything.”
“Would I could, my child! But they will not allow it—these jailors. They will part us.”
“I wish these chains could bind me too—these very links—that I might never leave you,” cried Aimée, kissing the fetters which bound her father’s arms.
“Your mother’s heart, Aimée; that remains.”
“I will keep it from breaking, father, trust me.”
And the mother and daughter tasted something like happiness, even in an hour like this, in their re-union. It was a strange kind of comfort to Aimée to hear from her mother how long ago her father had foreseen, at Pongaudin, that the day might come when her heart would be torn between her lover and her family. The impending blow had been struck—the struggle had taken place: and it only remained now to endure it.
“Father!” said Génifrède, appealing to Toussaint, with a grave countenance, “you say that none but brave and steady souls must go with you on your way to martyrdom. You know me to be cowardly as a slave, and unstable as yonder boat now tossing on the waves. Do you see that boat, father?”
“Surely—yes; it is Paul;” said Toussaint, looking through his glass. “Paul is coming to say farewell.”
“Let me return with him, father. Let me become his child. I am unworthy to be yours. And he and I are so forlorn!”
Her father’s tender gaze encouraged her to say more. Drawing closer, she whispered—
“I have seen Moyse—I have seen him more than once in the Morne; and I cannot leave this place. Let me stay.”
“Stay, my child. Seek consolation in your own way. We will all pray for you; we will all console your mother for your absence. We shall not meet again on earth, Génifrède.”
“I know it, father. But the time of rest—how long it is in coming!”
“My child, our rest is in the soul—it lies not either in place or time. Do not look for it in the grave, unless you have it first in the soul.”
“Then would I had never been born!”
“How different will be your cry when you have been a daughter to Paul for a while! When you see him consoled, and reposing upon your care, you will say, ‘I thank God that I have lived for this!’ A great duty lies before you, my dear child; and in the heart of duty lies rest—a deeper than that of the grave. Shall I give you a duty to discharge for me?”
“Oh, yes! I will take it as your blessing.”
“Convey to Christophe my last message. Bid him rejoice for me that my work is done. My work is now his. Bid him remember how we always agreed that freedom is safe. I bequeath the charge of it to him, with my blessing.”
“He shall know this, if he lives, before the moon rises.”
“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-passes, the forest-shades, and the sad homes of the island whose true ruler was now borne away from its shores?
Pongaudin was already deserted. Monsieur and Madame Pascal had, by great activity, obtained a passage 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 Héros 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 Français. 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 circumstances, 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 Français.
“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 Zéphyr—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 Ogé 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 Zéphyr, 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—Thérèse—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 title of “the Good Empress.”
The eyes which first caught sight of the receding ship Héros, at dawn, were those of Paul L’Ouverture and Génifrède. 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 passions of men might gather about it, and make a conflict, more or less tremendous and protracted; but the way which God had opened, and guarded by awakened human hearts, no multitude of rebellious human hands could close.