“Why not sound? How do you know that it is not sound?”
“When have the blacks ever trusted the whites without finding themselves bound victims in the end?”
“I have,” said Vincent. “I have lived among them a life of charms, and I am free,” he continued, stretching his arms to the air—“free to embrace the knees of both Bonaparte and L’Ouverture—free to embrace the world.”
“The end has not come yet,” said Moyse.
“What end?” asked Aimée.
“Nay, God knows what end, if we trust the French.”
“You speak from prejudice,” said Aimée. “Monsieur Vincent and my brothers judge from facts.”
“We speak from facts,” said Génifrède; “from, let us see—from seven—no, eight, very ugly facts.”
“The eight Commissaries that the colony has been blessed with,” said Moyse. “If they had taken that monkey which is looking down at your drawing, Aimée, and seven of its brethren, and installed them at Cap, they would have done us all the good the Commissaries have done, and far less mischief. The monkeys would have broken the mirrors, and made a hubbub within the walls of Government-house. These Commissaries, one after another, from Mirbeck to Hédouville, have insulted the colony, and sown quarrels in it, from end to end.”
“Mirbeck! Here is Mirbeck,” said Denis, who had come up to listen. And the boy rolled himself about like a drunken man—like Mirbeck, as he had seen him in the streets of Cap.