“They believe,” said he—“apparently they believe—that you hid treasure in the morne, and then shot and buried the servants employed.”
“We do,” said the officers, gravely.
“Were you really about to carry this story to the Captain-general?” asked Toussaint, smiling. “Tell him that the wealth of the colony, sufficient for the desires of its inhabitants, is dispersed through all its dwellings, to be enjoyed—not hidden by avarice, and sealed with blood.”
“We are too well informed,” said Sabès, “concerning the wealth and splendour of the colony to believe that any part of its treasure has met our eyes that can be concealed. Duty to France now requires that she should be put in possession of the whole wealth of the island.”
“Let France cultivate an honourable peace,” said Toussaint, “and her authorities will assuredly see the wealth of the colony spread over all its fields, and amassed in every harbour. We can then present an overflowing public treasury. That is all I have to offer: and it ought to be enough.”
Sabès did not press the point further, because he saw it would be useless. But he and his companion were more and more persuaded of the truth of their notion of what they had seen and heard, the more they recalled the tales told at the Court of France of the plate, the gems, the bullion and coin, and the personal ornaments which abounded, even in the prosperous days of the old emigrants. Every one knew, too, that the colony had been more prosperous than ever since. It is not known by whom the amount of the hidden treasure was, at length, fixed at thirty-two millions of francs. Sabès and Martin simply told their story and their ideas to Leclerc, adding the information that Toussaint L’Ouverture was an adept in dissimulation; that they had as nearly as possible been deprived of this piece of insight, by the apparent frankness and candour of his manners; and that, but for the boldness of Sabès in pressing the affair of the buried treasure, they should actually have quitted the negro chief, after an occasional intercourse of nine weeks, without any knowledge of that power of dissimulation which had been formerly attributed to him by those who, it now appeared, knew him well, and which must be the guiding fact in all the Captain-General’s dealings with him. His cunning must be met by all the cunning that Leclerc’s united council could muster, or destruction would lurk under the pretended pacification. Accordingly, the whole of Leclerc’s policy henceforth proceeded on the supposed fact of Toussaint L’Ouverture being the prince of dissemblers.