“Hear me, Henri! You put this constraint upon me. What are you prepared to do, if the French prove treacherous, after our peace is made?”
“To drive them into the sea, to be sure. You do not suppose I shall regard them as friends the more for making a truce with them! We will keep our eyes upon them. We will preserve an understanding with the whole island, as to the vigilance which the blacks must exercise, day and night, over their invaders. The first treacherous thought in Leclerc’s mind is a breach of the truce; and dearly shall he rue it.”
“This is all well-planned, Henri. If the cunning of Leclerc proves deeper than yours—”
“Say ours, Toussaint.”
“No. I have no part in this arrangement. I act under your compulsion, and under my own protest; as I require of you, Henri, to remember. If we are not deep enough, vigilant enough, active enough, for Leclerc and his council—if he injures us before August, and Bonaparte ordains a second campaign after it, are you ready to endure the responsibility of whatever may befall?”
“I am.”
“Have you looked well forward into the future, and detected every mischief that may arise from our present temporising, and resolved that it was a less evil than losing the rest of this season, putting a compulsion upon your best friend, and fettering the deliverer of your people?”
“I have so looked forward—repudiating the charge of undutiful compulsion. I act for myself, and those under my command.”
“Virtually compelling me to act with you, by reducing me from being the General of an army to be the leader of a troop; and by exposing our cause to the peril—the greatest of all—of a declared division between you and me. I yield, Christophe; but what I am going to do, I do under protest. Order in the French prisoners.”
“Yet one moment,” said Henri. “Let me reason with you a little further. Be satisfied of the goodness of the act before you do it.”