“I suspected a plan to prevent the publishing of the amnesty to-morrow, and the filling up the offices of the colony with blacks. I suspected, but was not certain. Your intelligence has confirmed me.”
“What will happen?” asked Euphrosyne, trembling. “Will anybody be killed?”
“Not to-night, I trust. You may go to rest secure that no blood will be spilled to-night; and to-morrow, you know, is a holy-day. If you hear a step in the corridor of this your wing, do not be alarmed. I am going to send one of my own guard.”
He left them at their door, after standing to hear them fasten it inside.
The girls kept awake as long as they could, calling each other’s attention to every fancied noise. They could be sure of nothing, however, but of the march of the sentinel along the corridor. They both slept at last, and were wakened in broad daylight by the gouvernante, who entered in great trepidation, to say that there had been a plot against the Commander-in-chief;—that the window of his chamber had been entered at two o’clock by a party of mulattoes, who had all been seized by L’Ouverture’s soldiers. How it came to end so—how soldiers enough happened to be at hand at the right moment—how it was all done without fighting, without noise enough even to break her rest (and she always know if anybody stirred)—the gouvernante could not tell. All she knew was, that L’Ouverture was the most considerate creature in the world. As soon as the eleven mulattoes who had been taken were put into confinement, L’Ouverture had sent one of his own guards into her corridor to prevent her being alarmed for herself and her young charge.
Chapter Seventeen.
The Gift at the Altar.
Poor Euphrosyne! She was not allowed by her grandfather to go to church this day. Monsieur Revel insisted upon it that it would be an act of treason for one of the French race to attend a thanksgiving for having got rid of the French authorities. In vain did Euphrosyne represent that the thanksgiving was for something very different—for the deliverance of the town and district from war—for the security of white and black inhabitants alike.—Neither Monsieur Revel nor Pierre would hear a word of this. They were quite sure that the faster the dark people thronged to the churches to rejoice, the more fervently should the whites mourn and pray for mercy at home. Her grandfather said Pierre should escort her to the chapel of the convent, where she might go without being seen. That service was a fitting one for her to attend; and he would spare her for a couple of hours, to be so spent, under the eye of the abbess. This, however, Euphrosyne declined. She preferred remaining to see from behind the blind what went on in the Jesuits’ Walk—to see Afra and her gouvernante dressed for church—to see L’Ouverture set forth—to see the soldiers follow, marching in a compact body, each man carrying a green bough, in token of rejoicing. She did not know, any more than the crowd that lined the way, that in the centre of this body of military, and concealed by the green boughs, were the eleven mulatto prisoners.