“He can hardly speak!” exclaimed his mother. “He is wet! He is wounded—cruelly wounded!”
“Not wounded at all, mother. Whole in heart and skin! I am soaked in the blood of our enemies. We have fought gloriously—in vain, however, for to-night. Latortue is shot; and Jasmin. There are few left but Christophe; but he is fighting like a lion.”
“Why did you leave him, my son?” asked Toussaint.
“He desired me to come, again and again, and I fought on. At last I was cut off from him. I could not give any more help there; and I saw that my business lay here. They say this frigate is the Creole. Whither bound, I wonder?”
“To Cap Français,” replied the officer in the stern: “to join the Héros, now in the roads there.”
“The Héros—a seventy-four, I think,” said L’Ouverture.
“A seventy-four—you are correct,” replied the officer. No one spoke again.