The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance

by Harriet Martineau

“I have not heard of it.”

“Then it is as I hoped—that decree is not considered here as of any importance. I trusted it would be so. It is merely a decree of the Convention, confirming and proclaiming the liberty of the negroes, and declaring the colony henceforth an integrant part of France. It is a piece of folly and nonsense, as you will see at once; for it can never be enforced. No one of any sense will regard it; but just at present it has the effect, you see, of making it out of the question for me to cross the frontier.”

“True,” said Toussaint, in a voice which made Papalier look in his face, which was working with some strong emotion. He turned away from the light, and desired Thérèse to follow him. He would commit her to the charge of one of the suttlers’ wives for the night.

Having put on the table such fruit, bread, and wine as remained from his own meal (Papalier forbidding further preparation, for fear of exciting observation without), Toussaint went out with Thérèse, committed her to safe hands, and then entered the tent next his own, inhabited by his sons, and gave them his accustomed blessing. On his return, he found that Papalier had retired.

Toussaint was glad to be alone. Never had he more needed solitude; for rarely, if ever, in the course of his life, had his calm soul been so disturbed. During the last words spoken by Papalier, a conviction had flashed across him, more vivid and more tremendous than any lightning which the skies of December had sent forth to startle the bodily eye; and amidst the storm which those words had roused within him, that conviction continued to glare forth at intervals, refusing to be quenched. It was this—that if it were indeed true that the revolutionary government of France had decreed to the negroes the freedom and rights of citizenship, to tight against the revolutionary government would be henceforth to fight against the freedom and rights of his race. The consequences of such a conviction were overpowering to his imagination. As one inference after another presented itself before him—as a long array of humiliations and perplexities showed themselves in the future—he felt as if his heart were bursting. For hour after hour of that night he paced the floor of his tent; and if he rested his limbs, so unused to tremble with fear or toil, it was while covering his face with his hands, as if even the light of the lamp disturbed the intensity of his meditation. A few hours may, at certain crises of the human mind and lot, do the work of years; and this night carried on the education of the noble soul, long repressed by slavery, to a point of insight which multitudes do not reach in a lifetime. No doubt, the preparation had been making through years of forbearance and meditation, and through the latter mouths of enterprise and activity; but yet, the change of views and purposes was so great as to make him feel, between night and morning, as if he were another man.

The lamp burned out, and there was no light but from the brilliant flies, a few of which had found their way into the tent. Toussaint made his repeater strike: it was three o’clock. As his mind grew calm under the settlement of his purposes, he became aware of the thirst which his agitation had excited. By the light of the flitting tapers, he poured out water, refreshed himself with a deep draught, and then addressed himself to his duty. He could rarely endure delay in acting on his convictions. The present was a case in which delay was treachery; and he would not lose an hour. He would call up Father Laxabon, and open his mind to him, that he might be ready for action when the camp should awake.

As he drew aside the curtain of the tent, the air felt fresh to his heated brow, and, with the calm starlight, seemed to breathe strength and quietness into his soul. He stood for a moment listening to the dash and gurgle of the river, as it ran past the camp—the voice of waters, so loud to the listening ear, but so little heeded amidst the hum of the busy hours of day. It now rose above the chirpings and buzzings of reptiles and insects, and carried music to the ear and spirit of him who had so often listened at Breda to the fall of water in the night hours, with a mind unburdened and unperplexed with duties and with cares. The sentinel stopped before the tent with a start which made his arms ring at seeing the entrance open, and some one standing there.

“Watch that no one enters?” said Toussaint to him. “Send for me to Father Laxabon’s, if I am wanted.”

As he entered the tent of the priest—a tent so small as to contain only one apartment—all seemed dark. Laxabon slept so soundly as not to awake till Toussaint had found the tinder-box, and was striking a light.

“In the name of Christ, who is there?” cried Laxabon.