The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance

by Harriet Martineau

Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except Thérèse, who would not go faster than her husband’s strength permitted him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses’ feet were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers, who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Thérèse ran for their lives,—she striving to thank her companion for remembering to bring this aid.

“No thanks!” said Pascal. “General Dessalines is our great man now. We cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,—a French troop has come over by some unsuspected pass;—I do not understand it.”

“Have you sent to the Plateaux?”

“Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted, though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If L’Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing.”

Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the presence of an enemy in the morne—not, apparently, on their way to the plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children, whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end, could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha’s nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zéphyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated, and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.

Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman’s soul. Thérèse looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of Sabès and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a desperate attempt to escape. Thérèse answered for their detention, if she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.

There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of treachery.

Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether, therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.

The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the secure retreat of Le Zéphyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of Bonaparte’s sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of L’Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated; at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road, one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by L’Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could, by the way they came.

Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.