“And now,” said Toussaint, “I have to ask you to be generous to me. I need and implore your pardon, Moyse. While you were yet weak and wayward, I neglected the necessary watch over you. Too prone to ease and satisfaction, for my child’s sake and my own, I too soon concluded you a man, and imposed upon you the duties of a man. Your failure is my condemnation. I have cut short your discipline, and enabled you to throw away your life. All this, and much more, am I answerable for. Whether or not God may have mercy, can you yield me your pardon? I implore it, Moyse.”
Moyse gazed at him in astonishment, and then cast himself at his uncle’s feet, clinging to his knees, and crying—
“Save me! uncle, save me! You can—you will—”
“No, Moyse, I will not—I cannot,” declared Toussaint, in a voice which silenced even that most piercing of all sounds—the cry for life.
“Not one word!” continued L’Ouverture. “Keep your entreaties for Him who alone can help you. Kneel to Him alone. Rise, Moyse, and only say, if you can say it, that your last prayer for me shall be for pardon.”
The awe of man was not destroyed in Moyse. He looked humbly upon the ground, as he again stood before his uncle, and said—
“My destruction is my own work; and I have felt this throughout. But if you have ever done me wrong, may it be forgotten before God, as it is by me! I know of no such wrong.”
“Thank God!” cried Toussaint, pressing him to his breast. “This is the temper which will win mercy.”
“Leave us now,” said Father Laxabon, once more; and this time he was obeyed.