“Is it possible,” replied Jacques, “that, with this fine house all to himself, he should take up with that old hut?”
“Let us see,” said Thérèse; “for he is certainly not here.”
When they readied Toussaint’s cottage, it was no easy matter to know how to effect an entrance. Enormous gourds had spread their network over the ground, like traps for the feet of trespassers. The front of the piazza was completely overgrown with the creepers which had been brought there only to cover the posts, and hang their blossoms from the eaves. They had now spread and tangled themselves, till they made the house look like a thicket. In one place, however, between two of the posts, they had been torn down, and the evening wind was tossing the loose coils about. Jacques entered the gap, and immediately looked out again, smiling, and beckoning Thérèse to come and see. There, in the piazza, they found Toussaint, stretched asleep upon the bench—so soundly asleep, for once, that the whispers of his friends did not alter, for a moment, his heavy breathing.
“How tired he must be!” said Jacques. “At other times I have known his sleep so light, that he was broad awake as quick as a lizard, if a beetle did but sail over his head.”
“He may well be tired,” said Thérèse. “You know how weary he looked at mass this morning. I believe he had no rest last night; and now this march to-day—”
“Well! He must rouse up now, however; for his business will not wait.” And he called him by his name.
“Henri!” cried Toussaint, starting up.
“No, not Henri. I am Jacques. You are not awake yet, and the place is dark. I am your friend Jacques, five inches shorter than Henri. You see?”
“You here, Jacques! and Thérèse! Surely I am not awake yet.”
“Yes, you are, now you know Thérèse—whom you will henceforth look upon as my wife. We are both free of the whites now, for ever.”