“Royal.”
Handing Claircine the foregoing note, Clensy bade her hasten back to her mistress.
“Ah, monsieur!” wailed the old negress as she looked into his eyes in a sorrowful way, and then added: “Madamsele weeps, and loves you well, dat she does.” The next moment the old negress had disappeared under the flamboyant trees that grew in front of Clensy’s lodgings.
That same night Clensy was suddenly awakened by a crash. He leapt from his bed and hastened out on to the veranda. Notwithstanding all that he had heard about the insurgents, he was surprised to hear the sounds of heavy cannonading somewhere away in the hills—the Cacaos and Government soldiery had met! The streets were alive with frightened, babbling negroes and mulattoes, running about as though they were demented. Children and women ran in and out the small wooden houses wringing their hands and wailing in a weird, dismal manner. As Clensy stared out into the night he saw a great blaze of reddish light up the hills in the direction of La Coupe. The rebels were firing the villages along the slopes and in the valleys! “Good God!” was all that Clensy could say to express his consternation. In a moment he was dressed and out in the streets. “I’ll risk it!” he muttered. The next moment he was hurrying off in the direction of the palace. But as he got to the outskirts of the town he found that he was too late. Hundreds of Government soldiers were already entrenched along the main roads outside the town. They would allow none to pass. Seeing some Haytians hurrying along, Clensy asked them what was happening.
“Revolution! War! We must fly or be killed!” they cried.
“Is the palace in the hands of the Government or the rebels?” he asked, a great fear clutching at his heart.
“In the hands of the Government and the rebels too,” shouted some one.
Then Clensy gathered that many of the Government soldiers who had been brought to the palace had gone over to the side of the Cacaos. Seeing that he could do nothing, that he was utterly helpless to help Sestrina or even find out anything about her, Clensy took to his heels and made his way to the small wooden house on the outskirts of the town where Sestrina had told him Père Chaco, the Catholic, dwelt. In less than ten minutes he stood in front of the small wooden building that had a small cross on top of it. He knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by a grey-bearded, serious-looking old man. The face before Clensy was expressive, very melancholy looking, the eyes deep set and clear, the brow high and intellectual.
“Well, my son, and what would you wish of me?”
“I am a friend of Sestrina’s, President Gravelot’s daughter. What can be done about her?” said Clensy, immediately going into the matter.