“They drugged me—hence my long sleep,” thought Toussaint. “They knew the poor fellow’s weakness, and feared his saying too much, when it came to parting. I hope they will treat him well, for (thanks to my care for him!) he never betrayed me to them. I treated him well in taking care that he should not betray me to them, while they yet so far believed that he might as to release him. It is all well; and I am alone! It is almost like being in the free air. I am almost as free as yonder kid on the rock. My wife! my children! I may name you all now—name you in my thoughts and in my song. Placide! are you rousing the nations to ask the tyrant where I am? Henri! have you buried the dead whites yet in Saint Domingo? and have your rains done weeping the treason of those dead against freedom? Let it be so, Henri! Your rains have washed out the blood of this treason; and your dews have brought forth the verdure of your plains, to cover the graves of the guilty and the fallen. Take this lesson home, Henri! Forget—not me, for you must remember me in carrying on my work—but forget how you lost me. Believe that I fell in the mornes, and that you buried me there; believe this, rather than shed one drop of blood for me. Learn of God, not of Bonaparte, how to bless our race. Poison their souls no more with blood. The sword and the fever have done their work, and tamed your tyrants. As for the rest, act with God for our people! Give them harvests to their hands; and open the universe of knowledge before their eyes. Give them rest and stillness in the summer heats: and shelter them in virtuous and busy homes from the sheeted rains. It is enough that blood was the price of freedom—a heavy price, which has been paid. Let there be no such barter for vengeance. My children, hear me! Wherever you are—in the court of our tyrant, or on the wide sea, or on the mountain-top, where the very storms cannot make themselves heard so high—yet let your father’s voice reach you from his living grave! No vengeance! Freedom—freedom to the last drop of blood in the veins of our race! Let our island be left to the wild herds and the reptiles, rather than be the habitation of slaves: but if you have established freedom there, it is holy ground, and no vengeance must profane it. If you love me and my race, you must forgive my murderers. Yes, murderers,” he pursued in thought, after dwelling a while on the images of home and familiar faces, “murderers they already are, doubtless, in intent. I should have been sent hence long ago, but for the hope of reaching my counsels through Mars Plaisir. From the eyes of the world I have already disappeared; and nothing hinders the riddance of me now. Feeble as I am, the waiting for death may yet be tedious. If tedious for him who has this day done with me, how tedious for me, who have done with him and with all the world!—done with them, except as to the affections with which one may look back upon them from the clear heights on the other side of the dark valley. That I should pine and shiver long in the shadows of that valley would be tedious to him who drove me there before my time, and to me. He has never submitted to what is tedious, and he will not now.”
The door of the cell was here softly opened, a head showed itself, and immediately disappeared. Toussaint silently watched the kid, as it moved from point to point on the face of the rock: and it was with some sorrow that he at last saw it spring away. Just then, Bellines entered with the usual miserable breakfast. Toussaint requested fire, to which Bellines assented. He then asked to have the window opened, that the air of the spring morning might enter. Bellines shrugged his shoulders, and observed that the air of these March mornings was sharp. The prisoner persisted, however; and with the fresh air, there came in upon him a fresh set of thoughts. Calling Bellines back, he desired, in a tone of authority, to see the Commandant.
It was strange to him—he wondered at himself on finding his mind filled with a new enterprise—with the idea of making a last appeal to Rubaut for freedom—an appeal to his justice, not to his clemency. With the chill breeze, there had entered the tinkle of the cow-bell, and the voices of children singing. These called up a vivid picture of the valley, as he had seen it on entering his prison—the small green level, the gushing stream, the sunny rock, the girl with her distaff, tending the goats. He thought he could show his title to, at least, a free sight of the face of nature; and the impulse did not immediately die. During the morning, he listened for footsteps without. After some hours, he smiled at his own hope, and nearly ceased to listen. The face of the rock grow dim; the wind rose, and sleet was driven in at the window: so that he was compelled to use his stiff and aching limbs in climbing up to shut it. No one had remembered, or had chosen to make his fire; and he was shivering, as in an ague fit, when, late in the afternoon, Bellines brought in his second meal, and some fuel.
“The Commandant?”
“The Commandant is not in the castle. He is absent to-day.”
“Where?”
“They say the First Consul has business with him.”
“With me rather,” thought Toussaint. He said aloud, “Then he is gone with my servant?”
“May be so. They went the same road; but that road leads to many places.”
“The road from Pontarlier?”