Chapter Thirty One.
Retreat.
Pongaudin was indeed no longer safe. Immediately on the return of Coasson to the fleet, under the date of the 17th of February, the Captain-General issued a proclamation of outlawry against L’Ouverture and Christophe, pronouncing it the imperative duty of every one who had the power to seize and deliver up the traitors. As Toussaint said to his family, Pongaudin was a residence for a citizen; outlaws must go to the mountains.
To the mountain they went—not weeping and trembling, but in a temper of high courage and hope. The rocks rang with the military music which accompanied them. Their very horses seemed to feel the spirit of their cause; much more were the humblest of the soldiery animated with the hope of success in the struggle, which was now to be carried on in a mode which they much preferred to keeping watch in the plains. They found the pass well fortified; they found the morne above it still and undisturbed; untrod, as it seemed now likely to remain, by the foot of an invader. They found the mansion at Le Zéphyr, spacious as it was, much enlarged by temporary erections, and prepared for the abode of more than the number that had come. Madame Pascal looked at her husband with a sigh, when the alterations met her eye; and Raymond himself did not much relish seeing sentinels posted at all his gates. Euphrosyne, however, was still quite happy. Here was her beloved Le Zéphyr, with its blossoming cacao-groves. Here were space, freedom, and friends; and neither convent rules nor nuns.
A perpetual line of communication was established between the pass and this mansion. Vincent, with a troop, was appointed to guard the estate and the persons on it—including the two French prisoners. Placide was to join his father below, to receive the forces which flocked to the rendezvous. Before he went, he pointed out to Vincent, and his own family, a station, on a steep at some distance in the rear of the house, whence they might discern, with a good glass, the road which wound through the plain of the Artibonite, within two miles of the Plateaux, and up towards Plaisance to the north. Many and wonderful were the objects seen from this lofty station; but not one of them—not even the green knolls and hollows of the morne, stretched out from Le Zéphyr to the pass—not the brimming river of the plain—not the distant azure sea, with its tufted isles—was so interesting, under present circumstances, as this yellow winding road—the way of approach of either friend or foe.
But for the apprehensions belonging to a state of warfare—apprehensions which embitter life in all its hours to women—and, possibly, more than is generally acknowledged, to men—but for the speculations as to who was destined to die, who to fall into the most cruel hands that ever abused their power over a helpless foe (for the French of former wars were not forgotten), and what was to be the lot of those who escaped death and capture—but for these speculations, which were stirring in every woman’s heart in all that household, the way of life at Le Zéphyr was pleasant enough.
Even poor Génifrède appeared to revive here. She showed more interest in nursing Dessalines than in any previous occupation since the death of her lover. Thérèse was delighted to afford her the opportunity of feeling herself useful, and permitted herself many a walk in the groves, many an hour of relaxation in the salon, which she would have despised, but for their affording an interest to Génifrède. The three were more than ever drawn together by their new experience of the conduct of the French. Never was sick man more impatient to be strong than Dessalines. Génifrède regarded him as the pillar of the cause, on account of his uncompromising passion for vengeance; and his wife herself counted the days till he could be again abroad at the head of his forces.
When not in attendance upon him, Génifrède spent the hours of daylight at the station on the height. She cared neither for heat nor chill while there, and forgot food and rest; and there was sometimes that in her countenance when she returned, and in the tone of her prophesying about the destruction of the enemy, which caused the whisper to go round that she met her lover there, just under the clouds. Monsieur Pascal—the rational, sagacious Monsieur Pascal—was of opinion that she believed this herself.
On this station, and other heights which surrounded the mansion, there were other objects of interest than the visitations of the clouds, and the whisperings of the breezes from the depths of the woods. For many days, a constant excitement was caused by the accession of troops. Not only Toussaint’s own bands followed him to the post, but three thousand more, on whom he could rely, were spared from his other strong posts in the mountains. Soon after these three thousand, Christophe appeared with such force as could be spared from the garrisons in the north. The officers under Dessalines also, aware that the main struggle, whenever the French would come to an engagement, must be in the Plateaux de la Ravine, drew thither, with the remnants of the force which had suffered defeat in the south-west. Hither, too, came Bellair, with his family, and the little garrison which had fortified and held L’Étoile, till it became necessary to burn and leave it.
Messenger arrived after messenger, to announce these accessions of force; and the whole household poured out upon the heights to see and hear. If it was at noon, the clear music of the wind-instruments floated faintly in the still air; if the morning or evening breezes were abroad the harmony came in gushes; and the shouts of greeting and reception were plainly distinguishable, and were responded to involuntarily by all at Le Zéphyr but the two prisoners. Under the impulse of the moment, no voice was louder or more joyous than Vincent’s. It now only remained for Maurepas to bring his numerous troops up to the point of junction. He must presently arrive; and then, as Placide and other sanguine young soldiers thought, and as Sabès and his companion began seriously to fear, the negro force under L’Ouverture might defy all Europe.
News, stirring news, came from all corners of the colony with every fresh arrival. Deesha, especially, could tell all that had been done, not only at L’Étoile, and in all the plain of Cul-de-Sac, but within the districts of the unfaithful generals, Clerveaux and La Plume. Her boy Juste, though too young to take a practical part in the war, carried the passion and energy of a man into the cause, and was versed in all the details of the events which had taken place since the landing of the French. It was a sore mortification to Juste that he was not permitted to remain by his father’s side at the Plateaux; but he consoled himself with teaching his little brother Tobie the military exercise, and with sport. Juste was as fond of sport as on the day when he floated under calabashes, to catch wild ducks; and this was well; for at Le Zéphyr, under present circumstances, the sportsman was one of the most useful members of the establishment. The air of the mornes was celebrated for its power of creating an appetite; and there were many mouths to feed: so that Juste was assured, on all hands, that he had as important a function to fulfil as if he had been a soldier. As it was believed impossible for human foot to stray beyond the morne by any other passage than that of the Plateaux, the boys were permitted to be out early and late, in the woods and upon the hill-sides; and often did Génifrède and the sentries hear the far-off shouts of the little sportsmen, or see the puff of smoke from Juste’s rifle in the valley, or under the verge of the groves. Many a nest of young orioles did Tobie abstract from the last fork of a branch, when the peculiar note of the parent-bird led him on into the midst of the thicket where these delicate creatures hide themselves. The ring-tail dove, one of the most exquisite of table luxuries, he was very successful in liming; and he would bring home a dozen in a morning. He could catch turkeys with a noose, and young pigs to barbecue. He filled baskets with plover’s eggs from the high lands; and of the wild-fowl he brought in, there was no end. In the midst of these feats, he engaged for far greater things in a little while—when the soldier-crabs should make their annual march down the mountains, on their way to the sea. In those days, Tobie promised the tables at Le Zéphyr should groan under the profusion of savoury soups, which should banish for the season the salt beef and salt-fish which, meantime, formed part of the daily diet of the household.
While his little brother was thus busy with smaller game, Juste was indulging a higher ambition. When nothing better was to be had, he could condescend to plovers and pigeons; but he liked better to bring down a dainty young heifer among the herds of wild cattle, or several head of deer in a day. It was his triumph to return heavily laden, and to go forth again with three or four soldiers, or half-a-dozen servants (whichever could best be spared), to gather up from the hill-sides the fallen game, which he had covered with branches of trees, to keep off hawk and vulture. It was triumph to point out to his aides spot after spot where the bird of prey hovered, seeking in vain for a space on which to pounce. Amidst these triumphs, Juste was almost satisfied not to be at the Plateau.
Perhaps the heaviest heart among all that household, scarcely excepting Génifrède’s, was Madame L’Ouverture’s; and yet her chief companionship, strangely enough, was with the one who carried the lightest—Euphrosyne. It was not exactly settled whether Madame L’Ouverture or Madame Pascal was hostess; and they therefore divided the onerous duties of the office; and Euphrosyne was their handmaid, charmed to be with those she loved best—charmed to be busy in new ways—charmed to hear, from time to time, that she was useful. She useful to the Ouvertures! It was an honour—it was an exquisite pleasure. She was perhaps the first white lady in the island, out of the convent, who had gathered fruits, prepared vegetables, and made sweet dishes with her own hands. Morning after morning the three ladies spent together in domestic occupations, finding that the servants, numerous as they were, could not get through the whole work of hospitality to such a household. Morning after morning they spent in the shaded store-room, amidst the fragrance of fruits and spices. Here the unhappy mother, the anxious wife, opened her heart to the young people; and they consoled and ministered to her as daughters.
“If you are not my daughters,” said she, on one of these mornings, “I have none.”
“But you will have: they will return to you,” said Afra. “Think of them as you did of your sons, when they were at Paris—as absent for a while to gain experience, and sure to return. You will find one of them, perhaps both, as happy on your bosom hereafter as we see your Placide by his father’s side.”
“How can you say so, Afra? Which of my girls will ever come to me again, as they did at Breda?”
“Génifrède is better,” said Euphrosyne; “better since we came here—better every day: and I should wonder if she were not. No one can long be sullen here.”
“Do not be hard, Euphrosyne, my love—‘Sullen’ is a hard word for my poor, unhappy child.”
“Nay, madam; no one can be more sorry for her than I am; as you will find, if you ask Father Gabriel. He will tell you how angry I was with L’Ouverture, how cruel I thought him on that dreadful day. But now, in these stirring times, when our whole world, our little world in the middle of the sea, is to be destroyed, or made free and glorious for ever, I do think it is being sullen to mope on the mountain as she does, and speak to nobody, care for nobody, but the Dessalines. However, I would not say a word about it, if I were not sure that she is getting better. And if she were growing worse, instead of better, there is nothing that I would not do to help or console her, though I must still think her sullen—not only towards her father here, but—”
And Euphrosyne crossed herself.
“It is hard,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture; “it is hard to do all one ought, even in the serious hours of one’s prayers. I do try, with my husband’s help, when he is here, and from the thought of him when he is absent, to pray, as he desires, for our enemies. But it generally ends (God forgive me!) in my praying that Bonaparte may be held back from the work of estranging our children from us.”
“It can only be for a time,” said Afra, again. She could think of no other consolation.
“Those who know best say that everything is for good,” continued Margot. “If so, I wonder whether anyone can foretell what can be the good of a stranger, a man that we have never seen, and who has everything about him to make him great, thrusting himself between us and our children, to take their hearts from us. I asked L’Ouverture to foretell to me how this would be explained; and he put his hand upon my month, and asked me to kneel down, and pray with him that we might have patience to wait God’s own time.”
“And could you do so?” asked Euphrosyne, with brimming eyes.
“I did: but I added a prayer that Bonaparte might be moved to leave us the glory and dominion which we value—the duty and the hearts of our children—and that he might be contented with gaining the homage of the French nation, and grasping the kingdoms of Europe.”
“I think God will hear that prayer,” said Afra, cheerfully.
“And I am sure Bonaparte will thank you for it,” said Euphrosyne, “in that day when hearts will be known, and things seen as they are.”
“One might expect,” sighed Madame L’Ouverture, “as one’s children grow up, that they should go mad for love; but I never thought of such a thing as their going mad for loyalty.”
“Do you think it is for loyalty?” asked Euphrosyne. “I should call Placide the most loyal of your children; and, next to him, Denis.”
“They think they are loyal and patriotic, my dear. I am sure I hope they will go on to think so; for it is the best excuse for them.”
“I wish I had a magic glass,” said Euphrosyne—
“My dear, do not wish any such thing. It is very dangerous and wicked to have anything to do with that kind of people. I could tell you such a story of poor Moyse (and of many other unhappy persons, too) as would show you the mischief of meddling with charms, Euphrosyne.”
“Do not be afraid, dear madam. I was not thinking of any witchcraft; but only wishing your children the bright mirror of a clear and settled mind. I think such a mirror would show them that what they take for loyalty and patriotism in their own feelings and conduct, is no more loyalty and patriotism than the dancing lights in our rice-grounds are stars.”
“What is it, my dear, do you think?”
“I think it is weakness, remaining from their former condition. When people are reared in humiliation, there will be weakness left behind. Loyal minds must call Bonaparte’s conduct to L’Ouverture vulgar. Those who admire it, it seems to me, either have been, or are ready to be, slaves.”
“One may pity rather than blame the first,” said Afra; “but I do not pretend to have any patience with the last. I pity our poor faithless generals here, and dear Aimée, with her mind so perplexed, and her struggling heart; but I have no toleration for Leclerc and Rochambeau, and the whole train of Bonaparte’s worshippers in France.”
“They are not like your husband, indeed, Afra.”
“And they might all have been as right as he. They might all have known as well as he, what L’Ouverture is, and what he has done. Why do they not know that he might long ago have been a king? Why do they not tell one another that his throne might, at this day, have been visited by ambassadors from all the nations, but for his loyalty to France? Why do they not see, as my husband does, that it is for want of personal ambition that L’Ouverture is now an outlaw in the mornes, instead of being hand-in-hand, as a brother king, with George of England? They might have known whom to honour and whom to restrain, as my husband does, if they had had his clearness of soul, and his love of freedom.”
“And because they have not,” said Euphrosyne, “they are lost in amazement at his devotion to a negro outlaw. Do not shrink, dear madam, from those words. If they were meant in anything but honour they would not be spoken before you. Afra and I feel that to be the First of the Blacks is now to be the greatest man in the world; and that to be an outlaw in the mornes, in the cause of a redeemed race, is a higher glory than to be the conqueror of Europe. Do we not, Afra?”
“Assuredly we do.”
“They will soon learn whom they have to deal with in this outlaw,” said Madame. “I can tell you, my dears, that Rochambeau is drawing near us, and that there is likely soon to be a battle. Heigho!”
“Is that bad news or good?” asked Euphrosyne.
“My husband means it for good news, my dear—at least, if Maurepas arrives from the south as soon as Rochambeau from the north.”
“I wish Maurepas would come!” sighed Afra. Madame L’Ouverture went on—
“It has been a great mortification to my husband that there has been no fair battle yet. His people—those who are faithful—have had no opportunity of showing how they feel, and what they can do. The French have been busy spying, and bribing, and cajoling, and pretending to negotiate; and the one thing they will not do is fighting. But I tell you, my dears, the battle-day is coming on now. Heigho!”
There was a pause; after which Euphrosyne said—
“I suppose we shall hear the battle.”
There was another pause, during which Madame’s tears were dropping into her lap. Afra wondered how General Dessalines would bear to hear the firing from his chamber, so near, and be unable to help.
“That puts me in mind,” said Madame, rising hurriedly—“how could I forget? It was the very reason why my husband told me that Rochambeau was so near. We must prepare for the wounded, my dears. They will be sent up here—as many as the house will hold, and the tents which my husband is sending up. We must be making lint, my dears, and preparing bandages. My husband has provided simples, and Madame Dessalines will tell us—Oh dear! what was I about to forget all this!”
“Do not hurry yourself, dear madam,” said Afra. “We will take care that everything is done. With Madame Dessalines to direct us, we shall be quite prepared. Do not hurry yourself so, I dare say Rochambeau is not at hand at this moment.”
At the very next moment, however, Euphrosyne’s countenance showed that she was by no means certain of this. Madame L’Ouverture stood still to listen, in her agitated walk about the room. There were distant shouts heard, and a bustle and buzz of voices, within and about the house, which made Euphrosyne empty her lap of the shaddocks she was peeling, and run out for news.
“Joy! Joy!” she cried, returning. “Maurepas is coming. We can see his march from the station. His army has crossed the river. Make haste, Afra. Dear madam, will you go with me to the station?”
“No, my love,” said Madame, sitting down, trembling.
“We can go as slowly as you like. There is plenty of time. You need not hurry; and it will be a glorious sight.”
“No, my dear. Do you young people go. But, Euphrosyne, are you quite sure it is not Rochambeau?”
“Oh, dear, yes! quite certain. They come from the south, and have crossed the Artibonite; they come from the very point they ought to come from. It is good news, you may rely upon it; the best possible news.”
“I am thankful,” said Madame, in a low, sad voice. “Go, my dears. Go, and see what you can.”
All who could leave the house, or the post of duty—that is, all but the two prisoners, the sentries, and Madame—were at the station, or on their way to it. The first notice had been given, it appeared, by some huntsmen who had brought in game.
“My boys!” said Madame Bellair, “what a pity they should miss this sight! only that, I suppose, we could not keep Juste within bounds. He would be off to the camp before we could stop him. It may be a fortunate chance that he is on the northern hills instead of the southern, to-day; but I am sorry for my little Tobie. Whereabouts are they, I wonder. Has any one seen them within these two hours?”
The hunters had parted with the boys in the valley, at sunrise, when they said they should seek fish and fowl to-day, in the logwood grove and the pond above it, as there were hunters enough out upon the hills.
“If they are really no farther off than that,” said their mother, “they may hear us, and come for their share of the sight. You walk well, General Dessalines.”
Dessalines declared himself well. The rumour of war was the tonic he needed. Even at this distance, it had done more for him than all Thérèse’s medicines in a month. Thérèse saw that it was indeed so; and that he would lie at the Plateaux now before the enemy.
“Look at General Vincent,” whispered Madame Pascal to her husband, on whose arm she was leaning, as all stood on the height, anxiously gazing at the road, which wound like a yellow thread across the plain, and round the base of the hills. The troops were now hidden by a hanging wood; so that Afra rested her strained eyes for a moment, and happened to notice Vincent’s countenance. “Look, do look, at General Vincent!”
Her husband shook his head, and said that was what he was then thinking of. Dessalines and his wife were similarly occupied; and they and the Pascals communicated with each other by glances.
“What is the matter, Vincent,” asked Dessalines, outright. “Here are the long-expected come at last; and you look as gloomily upon them as if they were all France.”
“I am not such a man of blood as you, Dessalines. I have never given up the hope of accommodation and peace. It is strange, when the great men on both sides profess such a desire for peace, that we must see this breach made, nobody can tell why.”
“Why, my good fellow!” exclaimed Dessalines, staring into his face, “surely you are talking in your sleep! The heats put you to sleep last summer, and you are not awake yet. You know nothing that has been done since December, I do believe. Come! let me tell you, as little Tobie is not here to do it.”
“Don’t, love,” said Thérèse, pressing her husband’s arm. “No disputes to-day, Jacques! The times are too serious.”
“At another time, General,” said Vincent, “I will instruct you a little in my opinions, formed when my eyes were wide open in France; which yours have never been.”
“There they are! There they come from behind the wood, if we could but see them for the dust!” exclaimed some.
“Oh, this dust! we can see nothing!” cried others. “Who can give a guess how many they are?”
“It is impossible,” said Bellair. “Without previous knowledge, one could not tell them from droves of bullocks and goats going to market at Saint Marc.”
“Except for their caps,” said Euphrosyne. “I see a dozen or two of feathers through the crowd. Do not you, Afra?”
“Yes, but where is their music? We should hear something of it here, surely.”
“Yes, it is a dumb march,” said Dessalines, “at present. They will strike up when they have turned the shoulder of that hill, no doubt. There! now listen!”
All listened, so that the brook, half a mile behind, made its babbling heard, but there was not a breath of music.
“Is it possible that Rochambeau should be in the way,” asked Thérèse.
“He cannot be in the way,” said her husband, “for where I stand, I command every foot of the road, up to our posts; but he may be nearer than we thought. I conclude that he is.”
“Look! See!” cried several. “They are taking another road. Where are they going! General Dessalines, what does it mean?”
“I would thank anyone to tell me that it is not as I fear,” replied Dessalines. “I fear Maurepas is effecting a junction, not with us, but with some one else.”
“With Rochambeau!”
“Traitor!”
“The traitor Maurepas!”
“His head!”
“Our all for his head!” cried the enraged gazers, as they saw Maurepas indeed diverging from the road to the post, and a large body of French troops turning a reach of the same road, from behind a hill. The two clouds of dust met. And now there was no more silence, but sound enough from below and afar. There was evidently clamour and rage among the troops in the Plateaux; and bursts of music from the army of their foes, triumphant and insulting, swelled the breeze.
“Our all for the head of Maurepas!” cried the group again.
“Nay,” said Vincent, “leave Maurepas his head. Who knows but that peace may come out of it? If all had done as he has now done, there could be no war.”
“In the same way,” exclaimed Pascal, “as if all of your colour thought as you do, there would then be no war, because there would be no men to fight; but only slaves to walk quietly under the yoke.”
“Be as angry as you will,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Pascal. “No one’s anger can alter the truth. It is impious and vain, here as elsewhere, to oppose Bonaparte. L’Ouverture will have to yield; you know that as well as I do, Monsieur Pascal; and those are the best friends of the blacks who help to render war impossible, and who bring the affair to a close while the First Consul may yet be placable.”
“Has that opinion of yours been offered to your Commander, Vincent?”
“It would have been, if he had asked for it. He probably knows that I had rather have seen him high in honour and function under Leclerc, than an outlaw, entrenched in the mornes.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves, in these rough times. I am here to guard these ladies against all foes, come they whence they may,—from France, or out of our own savannahs,—from earth, air, or sea.—But hark! Silence, ladies! Silence all, for a moment!”
They listened, ready to take alarm from him, they knew not why. Nothing was heard but the distant baying of hounds,—the hunters coming home as it was supposed.
“Those are not Saint Domingo hounds,” said Vincent, in a low voice to Dessalines.
“No, indeed!—Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but run! Thérèse, leave me! I command you.—If this is your doing, Vincent—”
“Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it.—Home, ladies, as fast as possible!”
“My children!” exclaimed Madame Bellair. “I can find them, if you will only tell me the danger,—what is the danger?”
“You hear those hounds. They are Cuba bloodhounds,” said Dessalines. “The fear is that they are leading an enemy over the hills.”
Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except Thérèse, who would not go faster than her husband’s strength permitted him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses’ feet were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers, who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Thérèse ran for their lives,—she striving to thank her companion for remembering to bring this aid.
“No thanks!” said Pascal. “General Dessalines is our great man now. We cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,—a French troop has come over by some unsuspected pass;—I do not understand it.”
“Have you sent to the Plateaux?”
“Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted, though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If L’Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing.”
Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the presence of an enemy in the morne—not, apparently, on their way to the plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children, whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end, could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha’s nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zéphyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.
Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman’s soul. Thérèse looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of Sabès and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a desperate attempt to escape. Thérèse answered for their detention, if she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.
There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of treachery.
Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether, therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.
The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the secure retreat of Le Zéphyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of Bonaparte’s sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of L’Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated; at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road, one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by L’Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could, by the way they came.
Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.
“Never was there a more willing prisoner, in my opinion,” observed Pascal.
“He carries away a mark from us, thank Heaven!” said Dessalines. “Madame Bellair shot him.”
It was so. Deesha saw Vincent join the French, and go off with them, on the arrival of L’Ouverture; and, partly through revenge, but not without a thought of the disclosures it was in his power to make, she strove to silence him for ever. She only reached a limb, however, and sent him away, as Dessalines said, bearing a mark from Le Zéphyr.
One of the French troop, made prisoner, was as communicative as could have been desired—as much so as Vincent would probably be on the other side. He declared that the attack on Le Zéphyr was a mere accident: that his company had entered the morne, led by the bloodhounds in pursuit of some negroes, from whom they wanted certain information for Rochambeau, respecting the localities; that they had thus become acquainted with the almost impracticable pass by which they had entered; that, when the hounds had destroyed the children, and proved that there were inhabitants in the morne, the situation of Le Zéphyr had been discovered, and afterwards the rank of its inhabitants; that the temptation of carrying off these hostages to Rochambeau had been too strong to be resisted; and hence the attack.
“We shall have to remove,” the ladies said to each other, “now that our retreat is known.”
“Shall we have to remove?” asked Euphrosyne, whose love of the place could not be quenched, even by the blood upon its threshold. “I am not afraid to stay, if any one else will.”
“How can you be so rash, Euphrosyne?” asked Afra.
“I would not be rash, Euphrosyne replied; but we know now how these people came into the morne, and L’Ouverture will guard the pass. And remember, Afra, we have beaten them; and they will take care how they attack us another time. Remember, we have beaten them.”
“We have beaten them,” said Dessalines, laughing. “And what did you do to beat off the French, my little lady?”
“I watched the prisoners through the keyhole; and if they had made the least attempt to set the house on fire—”
“You would have put it out with your tears—hey, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne?”
“Ask Madame, your lady, what she would have done in such a case: she stood beside me. But does L’Ouverture say we must remove?”
“L’Ouverture thinks,” said Toussaint, who heard her question, “that this is still the safest place for the brave women who keep up his heart by their cheerful faces. He is ashamed that they have been negligently guarded. It shall not happen again.”
He was just departing for the Plateaux. As he went out he said to his wife, while he cast a look of tender compassion upon Madame Bellair—
“I shall tell Charles that you will cherish Deesha. It is well that we can let her remain here, beside the graves of her children. Bury them with honour, Margot.”