Chapter Twenty Four.
All Ear.
Thérèse was struck with awe as she stood, from time to time, beside the bed on which lay Génifrède. The room was so darkened that nothing was to be seen; but there she lay, breathing calmly, motionless, unconscious, while the blessings and hopes of her young life were falling fast into ruins around her. It seemed treacherous, cruel, thus to beguile her of that tremendous night—to let those last hours of the only life she prized pass away unused—to deprive her of the last glances of those eyes which were presently to be dim in death—of the latest tones of that voice which soon would never speak more. It seemed an irreparable injury to rob her of these hours of intense life, and to substitute for them a blank and barren sleep. But it was done. It was done to save her intellect; it had probably saved her life; and she could not now be wakened to any purpose. With sickening heart, Thérèse saw the moonlight disturbed by grey light from the east. In a few minutes, the sun would leap up from the sea, to quench not only the gleams of moon and star, but the more sacred lamp of human life. Brief as was always the twilight there, never had the gushing in of light appeared so hasty, so peremptory as now. By the rousing up of the birds, by the stir of the breezes, by the quick unfolding of the flowers, it seemed as if Nature herself had turned against her wretched children, and was impatient till their doom was fulfilled. Thérèse resolved to return no more to the chamber till all should be over, lest light and sound should enter with her, and the sufferer be roused too soon.
As the yellow rays shone in fuller and fuller, the watcher’s nerves were so stretched, that though she wrapped her head in her shawl as she sat, she felt as if the rustle of every leaf, the buzz of every insect-wing in the gardens, reached her ear. She heard at intervals the tap of a distant drum, and, she was certain, a discharge of firearms—not in a volley from the Place d’Armes, as she had expected, but further off, and mere dropping shot. This occurred so often, that she was satisfied it was not the execution; and, while she drew a deep breath, hardly knew whether to feel relieved or not. The door from the corridor presently opened and closed again, before she could throw back the shawl from her face. She flew to the door, to see if any one was there who could give her news. Monsieur Pascal was walking away toward the further end. When she issued forth, he turned and apologised for having interrupted her, believing that the salon would be unoccupied at this early hour.
“Tell me—only tell me,” said she, “whether it is over.”
“Not the principal execution—it is about going forward now. I came away—I saw what melted my soul; and I could endure no more.”
“You saw L’Ouverture?” said Madame Dessalines, anxiously.
Monsieur Pascal went back with her into the salon, as glad to relieve his mind as she was eager to hear.
“I saw,” said he, “what I never could have conceived of, and would never have believed upon report. I have seen man as a god among his fellow-men.”