“This is the place for our post, surely,” said Placide. “See how the rocks are rising on either hand above this level! No one could pass here whom we choose to obstruct.”
“Yes: this is the spot; these are the Plateaux,” replied his father, awaiting the officers and soldiers—the latter being prepared with tools, to mark out and begin their work.
While the consultations and measurements were going on, Placide’s eye was caught by the motion of a young fawn in the high grass of a lawny slope, on one side of the valley. He snatched the loaded rifle which one of the soldiers had exchanged for a spade and fired. The passion for sport was instantly roused by the act. Kids were seen here and there on the rocks. Marks were not wanting: and first Vincent, and then one and another, followed Placide’s example; and there were several shots at the same instant, whose echoes reverberated to the delighted ear of Placide, who was sorry when the last had died away among the mountain-tops.
“Your first and last sport for to-day,” observed Toussaint. “You have given the game a sufficient alarm for the present.”
“We must find our game, as we have shot it,” exclaimed Vincent. “My kid is not far-off.”
“After it, then! You will find me under the large cotton-tree yonder. The heat is too great here, Placide, between these walls of rock.”
Every man of the party was off in pursuit of his game, except Placide, who remained to ask his father, now they were alone, what was to happen at the season of the second indigo-cutting. They threw themselves down beneath the cotton-tree, which with its own broad shades, deepened by the masses of creepers which twined and clustered about it, and weighed it down on every side, afforded as complete a shelter from the shower of sun-rays as any artificial roof could have done.
“The second indigo-cutting is in August, you know,” said Toussaint. “August will decide our freedom, if it is not decided before. August is the season when Nature comes in as our ally—comes in with her army of horrors, which we should not have the heart to invoke, but which will arrive, with or without our will; and which it will be the fault of the French themselves if they brave.”
“Foul airs and pestilence, you mean!” said Placide.
“I mean foul airs and pestilence. All our plans, my son—(it is a comfort to make a counsellor of my own son!)—all the plans of my generals and myself are directed to provide for our defence till August, certain that then the French will be occupied in grappling with a deadlier foe than even men fighting for their liberties.”