“You are out of spirits,” said Rubaut, building up the fire.
“You wear well, however. You must have been very strong in your best days. You wear extremely well.”
“I still live; and that I do so is because the sun of my own climate, and the strength of soul of my best days, shine and glow through me now, quenching in part even these damps. But I am old, and every day heaps years on me. However, I am as willing as you that my looking forward should be for others than myself. I might be able to forebode for France, and for its ruler.”
Rubaut folded his arms, and leaned, as if anxious to listen, against the wall beside the fire; but it was so wet that he quickly shifted his position; still, however, keeping his eyes fixed on his prisoner.
“And what would you forebode for France, and for her ruler?” he asked.
“That my country will never again be hers. Her retribution is as sure as her tyranny has been great. She may send out fleet after fleet, each bearing an army; but the spirit of freedom will be too strong for them all. Their bodies will poison the air, and choke the sea, and the names of their commanders will, one after another, sink in disgrace, before they will again make slaves of my people in Saint Domingo. How stands the name of Leclerc at this moment in France?”
“Leclerc is dead,” said Rubaut; repenting, the next moment, that he had said so much. Toussaint saw this by his countenance, and inquired no further.
“He is dead! and twenty thousand Frenchmen with him, who might at this hour have been enjoying at home the natural wealth of my country, the fruits of our industry. The time was when I thought your ruler and I—the ruler, in alliance with him, of my race in Saint Domingo—were brothers in soul, as we were apparently in duty and in fortune. Brothers in soul we were not, as it has been the heaviest grief of my life to learn. I spurn brotherhood of soul with one whose ambition has been for himself. Brothers in duty we were; and, if we should yet be brothers in fortune—if he should fall into the hands of a strong foe—But you are saying in your heart, ‘No foreboding! Foreboding is bad!’”
Rubaut smiled, and said foreboding was only bad for the spirits; and the First Consul’s spirits were not likely to be affected by anything that could be said at Joux. To predict bad fortune for him was like looking for the sun to be put out at noonday; it might pass the time, but would not dim the sun.
“So was it said of me,” replied the prisoner, “and with the more reason, because I made no enemies. My enemies have not been of my own making. Your ruler is making enemies on every hand; and alas! for him if he lives to meet the hour of retribution! If he, like myself, should fall into the power of a strong foe—if he should pass his remaining days imprisoned on a rock, may he find more peace than I should dare look for, if I had his soul!”