"One can't ever say," answered the boy. "I must be ready for the morning," and, with a word of farewell, he sauntered into the village of Millot, to find some kind of stabling and food for the horses, and, if possible, some shelter for himself.
Morning found Stuart outside the door of the general's "mansion," a straw-thatched building, comprising three rooms and a narrow brick-paved verandah. From what the soldiers had said the night before, the boy had not the slightest expectation of the Cuban's success.
He had not waited long, however, before Manuel came out through the door, obsequiously followed by a coal-black general daubed with gold lace—most of which was unsewn and hanging in tatters, and all of which was tarnished. He was strongly, even violently, urging upon Manuel the need of an escort. The Cuban not only disdained the question, but, most evidently, disdained and disregarded the man.
This extraordinary scene was closed by the General, the commandant of the entire commune, holding out his hand for a tip. Manuel put a five-gourdes bill (two dollars and a half) into the outstretched palm, and mounted his horse to an accompaniment of a profusion of thanks.
A short distance out of Millot, the two riders came to the ruins of Christophe's palace of "Without Worry" (Sans Souci). It was once a veritable palace, situated on the top of a small hill overlooking a deep ravine. Great flights of stone steps led up to it, while terrace upon terrace of what once were exquisitely kept gardens, filled with the finest statuary, stepped to the depths below.
Now, the gardens are waste, the statuary broken and the terraces are washed into gullies by the rains. The palace itself is not less lamentable. The walls are crumbling. Everything movable from the interior has been looted. Trees grow outward from the upper windows, and, in the cracks of masonry and marble floors, a tropic vegetation has sprung up. Moss covers the mosaics, and the carved woodwork has become the prey of the worm.
A little further on, at a hut which the General had described, Manuel and Stuart left their horses, and then began the steep climb up La Ferrière. From the steaming heat of the plain below, the climbers passed into the region of cold. The remains of a road were there, but the track was so indistinct as to render it difficult to follow.
"Where the dense forest begins," Manuel explained, "we shall find a warder. I would rather be without him, but the General does not dare to send a message that a 'white' may visit the Citadel unaccompanied. Besides, I doubt if we could find the way, though once this was a wide road, fit for carriage travel, on which the Black Emperor drove in pomp and state to his citadel. It is incredible!"
"What is incredible?" asked Stuart.
"That Christophe should have been able to make these negroes work for him as no people in the world have worked since the days when the Pharaohs of Egypt built the Pyramids. You will see the vast size of the Citadel. You see the steepness of the mountain. Consider it!