Читать книгу The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance - Harriet Martineau - Страница 12

Monsieur Papalier did not much relish the idea of roosting in a tree for the night; especially as, on coming down in the morning, there would be no friend or helper near, to care for or minister to him. Habitually and thoroughly as he despised the negroes, he preferred travelling in their company to hiding among the monkeys; and he therefore decided at once to do as Toussaint concluded he would—accompany him to the Spanish frontier.

The river Massacre, the boundary at the north between the French and Spanish portions of the island, was about thirty miles distant from Breda. These thirty miles must be traversed between sunset and sunrise. Three or four horses, and two mules which were left on the plantation, were sufficient for the conveyance of the women, boys, and girls; and Placide ran, of his own accord, to Monsieur Papalier’s deserted stables, and brought thence a saddled horse for the gentleman, who was less able than the women to walk thirty miles in the course of a tropical summer’s night.

“What will your Spanish friends think of our bringing so many women and children to their post?” said Papalier to Toussaint, as soon as they were on their way. “They will not think you worth having, with all the incumbrances you carry.”

“I shall carry none,” said Toussaint.

“What do you mean to do with your wife and children?”

“I shall put them in a safe place by the way. For your own sake, Monsieur Papalier, I must ask you what you mean to do in the Spanish post—republican as you are. You know the Spaniards are allies of the king of France.”

“They are allies of France, and will doubtless receive any honourable French gentleman,” said Papalier confidently, though Toussaint’s question only echoed a doubt which he had already spoken to himself. “You are acting so like a friend to me here, Toussaint, that I cannot suppose you will do me mischief there, by any idle tales about the past.”

“I will not; but I hear that the Marquis d’Hermona knows the politics of every gentleman in the colony. If there have been any tales abroad of speeches of yours against the king, or threats, or acts of rebellion, the Marquis d’Hermona knows them all.”

“I have taken less part in politics than most of my neighbours; and Hermona knows that, if he knows the rest. But what shall I do with Thérèse, if your women stop short on the way? Could you make room for her with them?”

“Not with them, but—”

“My good fellow, this is no time for fancies. I am sorry to see you set your girls above their condition and their neighbours. There is no harm about poor Thérèse. Indeed, she is very well educated; I have had her well taught; and they might learn many things from her, if you really wish them to be superior. She is not a bit the worse for being a favourite of mine; and it will be their turn soon to be somebody’s favourites, you know. And that before long, depend upon it,” he continued, turning on his saddle to look for Génifrède and Aimée. “They are fine girls—very fine girls for their age.”

When he turned again, Toussaint was no longer beside his horse. He was at the head of the march.

“What a sulky fellow he is!” muttered the planter, with a smile. “The airs of these people are curious enough. They take upon them to despise Thérèse, who has more beauty than all his tribe, and almost as much education as the learned Toussaint himself.”

He called to the sulky fellow, however, and the sulky fellow came. What Papalier wanted to say was—

“You seem to know more of these Spaniards than I. What will become of Thérèse, if I take her among them; which, you see, you oblige me to do?”

“I proposed to her,” said Toussaint, “to leave her with some of our people near Fort Dauphin.”

“Fort Égalité, you mean. That is its present name, you know. So you asked her! Why did you not speak to me about it? It is my affair, not hers.”

“I thought it her affair. She will not remain behind, however. She begged me to say nothing to you about her leaving you.”

“Indeed! I will soon settle that.” And the planter immediately overtook the horse on which sat Thérèse, with her infant on her arm. Thérèse smiled as she saw him coming; but the first few words he said to her covered her face with tears. Blinded by these tears, she guided her horse among the tough aloes which grew along the border of the bridle-path, and the animal stumbled, nearly jerking the infant from her arms. Her master let her get over the difficulty as she might, while he rode on in the midst of the green track.

Placide disdained to ride. He strode along, singing in a low voice, with a package on his shoulders, and his path marked by the fireflies, which new round his head, or settled on his woollen cap. Isaac had made Aimée happy by getting on her mule. Génifrède heard from the direction in which they were, sometimes smothered laughter, but, for the most part, a never-ending, low murmur of voices, as if they were telling one another interminable stories. Génifrède never could make out what Isaac and Aimée could be for ever talking about. She wondered that they could talk now, when every monkey-voice from the wood, every click of a frog from the ponds, every buzz of insects from the citron-hedge, struck fear into her. She did not ask Placide to walk beside her horse; but she kept near that on which her mother rode, behind Denis, who held a cart-whip, which he was forbidden to crack—an accomplishment which he had learned from the driver of the plantation.

It soon became clear that Jean had made active use of the hours since he parted from Toussaint. He must have sent messengers in many directions; for, from beneath the shadow of every cacao grove, from under the branches of many a clump of bamboos, from the recess of a ravine here—from the mouth of a green road there, beside the brawling brook, or from their couch among the canes, appeared negroes, singly or in groups, ready to join the travelling party. Among all these, there were no women and children. They had been safely bestowed somewhere; and these men now regarded themselves as soldiers, going to the camp of the allies, to serve against their old masters on behalf of the king. “Vive le Roi, et l’ancien régime!” was the word as each detachment joined—a word most irritating to Papalier, who thought to himself many times during this night, that he would have put all to hazard on his own estate, rather than have undertaken this march, if he had known that he was to be one of a company of negroes, gathering like the tempest in its progress, and uttering at every turning, as if in mockery of himself, “Vive le Roi, et l’ancien régime!” He grew very cross, while quite sensible of the necessity of appearing in a good mood to every one—except, indeed, poor Thérèse.

“We are free—this is freedom!” said Toussaint more than once as he laid his hand on the bridle of his wife’s horse, and seemed incapable, of uttering any other words. He looked up at the towering trees, as if measuring with his eye the columnar palms, which appeared to those in their shade as if crowned with stars. He glanced into the forest with an eye which, to Margot, appeared as if it could pierce through darkness itself. He raised his face in the direction of the central mountain-peaks, round which the white lightning was exploding from moment to moment; and Margot saw that tears were streaming on his face—the first tears she had known him shed for years. “We are free—this is freedom!” he repeated, as he took off his cap; “but, thank God! we have the king for our master now.”

“You will come and see us,” said she. “We shall see you sometimes while you are serving the king.”

“Yes.” He was called away by another accession of numbers, a party of four who ran down among them from a mountain path. Toussaint brushed away his unwonted tears, and went forward, hearing a well-known voice inquire for Toussaint Breda.

“Here I am, Jacques!” he exclaimed in some surprise, as he addressed himself to a short, stout-built young negro. “You are the first townsman among us, Jacques. Where is old Dessalines?”

“Here is my master,” said Jacques.

“Not the better for being a master,” said the old tiler, who was himself a negro. “I found myself no safer than Jacques in the town; so I came away with him, and we have been among the rocks all day, tired enough.”

“Have not you a horse for him?” asked Jacques. Toussaint stepped back, to desire Aimée and Isaac to give up their mule to Dessalines; but before it was done, Dessalines was mounted on Papalier’s horse. Jacques had told Papalier, on finding that he had not been walking at all, that his horse was wanted, and Papalier had felt all the danger of refusing to yield it up. He was walking moodily by the side of Thérèse, when Toussaint offered him the mule, which he haughtily declined.

When Dessalines was mounted, Jacques came running forward to Toussaint, to ask and to tell much concerning their singular circumstances.

“Your party is too noisy,” said he. “The whole country is up; and I saw, not far-off, two hours ago, a party that were bringing ammunition from Cap. There may be more; and, if we fall in their way, with a white in company—”

“True, true.” And Toussaint turned back to command silence. He told every one that the safety of all might depend on the utmost possible degree of quietness being observed. He separated Isaac from Aimée, as the only way of obtaining silence from them, and warned the merry blacks in the rear that they must be still as death. He and Jacques, however, exchanged a few more words in a low whisper, as they kept in advance of the party.

“How do they get ammunition from Cap?” asked Toussaint. “Have they a party in the town? I thought the town negroes had been sent on board ship.”

“The suspected ones are. They are the silly and the harmless who have still wit and mischief enough to give out powder and ball slyly for the plantation negroes. Once over the river, what will you do with your party?”

“My wife and children will be safe with my brother Paul—you know he fishes on the coast, opposite the Seven Brothers. I shall enter the Spanish ranks; and every one else here will do as he thinks proper.”

“Do not you call yourself a commander, then! Why do you not call us your regiment, and take the command as a matter of course, as Jean has done?”

“If it is desired, I am ready. Hark!”

There was evidently a party at some distance, numerous and somewhat noisy, and on the approach from behind. Toussaint halted his party, quickly whispered his directions, and withdrew them with all speed and quietness within the black shade of a cacao-plantation, on the left of the road. They had to climb an ascent; but there they found a green recess, so canopied with interwoven branches that no light could enter from the stars, and so hedged in by the cacao plants, growing twelve feet high among the trees, that the party could hardly have been seen from the road in broad daylight. There they stood crowded together in utter darkness and stillness, unless, as Génifrède feared, the beating of her heart might be heard above the hum of the mosquito, or the occasional rustle of the foliage.

The approaching troop came on, tramping, and sometimes singing and shouting. Those in the covert knew not whether most to dread a shouting which should agitate their horses, or a silence which might betray a movement on their part. This last seemed the most probable. The noise subsided; and when the troop was close at hand, only a stray voice or two was singing. They had with them two or three trucks, drawn by men, on which were piled barrels of ammunition. They were now very near. Whether it was that Thérèse, in fear of her infant crying, pressed it so close to her bosom as to awaken it, or whether the rumbling and tramping along the road roused its sleeping ear—the child stirred, and began what promised to be a long shrill wawl, if it had not been stopped. How it was stopped, the trembling, sickening mother herself did not know. She only knew that a strong hand wrenched the child from her grasp in the black darkness, and that all was still, unless, as she then and ever after had a shuddering apprehension, there was something of a slight gurgle which reached her strained ear. Her own involuntary moan was stopped almost before it became a sound—stopped by a tap on the shoulder, whose authoritative touch she well knew.

No one else stirred for long after the troop had passed. Then Toussaint led his wife’s horse down into the road again, and the party resumed their march as if nothing had happened.

“My child!” said Thérèse, fearfully. “Give me my child!” She looked about, and saw that no one seemed to have the infant.

“I will not let it cry,” she said. “Give me back my child!”

“What is it?” asked Papalier, coming beside her horse. She told her grief, as she prepared to spring down.

“No, keep your seat! Don’t get down,” said he, in a tone she dared not disobey. “I will inquire for the child.”

He went away, and returned—without it. “This is a sad thing,” said he, leading her horse forward with the rest. “No one knows anything about the poor thing. Why did you let it go?”

“Have you asked them all? Who snatched it from me? Oh, ask who took it! Let me look for it. I will—I will—”

“It is too late now. We cannot stop or turn back. These sad accidents will happen at such times.”

“Leave me behind—oh, leave me in the wood! I can follow when I have found it. Leave me behind!”

“I cannot spare you, my dear. I should never see you again; and I cannot spare you. It is sad enough to have lost the child.”

“It was your child,” said she, pleadingly.

“And you are mine too, my dear. I cannot spare you both.”

Thérèse had never felt before. All that had moved her during her yet short life—all emotions in one were nothing to the passion of this moment—the conditional hatred that swelled her soul; conditional—for, from moment to moment, she believed and disbelieved that Papalier had destroyed her child. The thought sometimes occurred that he was not the only cruel one. No one seemed to pity or care for her—not even Margot or the girls came near her. She more than once was about to seek and appeal to them; but her master held her bridle, and would not permit her to stop or turn, saying occasionally that the lives of all depended on perfect quiet and order in the march. When they arrived at the cross, at the junction of the four roads, they halted, and there she told her story, and was convinced that the grieved women knew nothing of her loss till that moment. It was too late now for anything but compassion.

Jean Français soon appeared with a troop so numerous, that all necessity for caution and quiet was over. They could hardly meet an equal force during the remainder of the march, and might safely make the forests and ravines echo to their progress. Jean took off his cocked hat in saluting Toussaint, and commended his punctuality and his arrangements.

“Jean always admires what my husband does,” observed Margot to her acquaintance Jacques. “You hear how he is praising him for what he has done to-night.”

“To be sure. Everybody praises Toussaint Breda,” replied Jacques.

The wife laughed with delight.

“Everybody praises him but me,” pursued Jacques. “I find fault with him sometimes; and to-night particularly.”

“Then you are wrong, Jacques. You know you have everybody against you.”

“Time will show that I am right. Time will show the mischief of sending away any whites to do us harm in far countries.”

“Oh, you do not blame him for helping away Monsieur Bayou!”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why, we have been under him ever since we were children—and a kind youth he was then. And he taught my husband to read, and made him his coachman; and then he made him overseer; and he has always indulged the children, and always bought my young guinea-fowl, and—”

“I know that. All that will not prevent the mischief of helping him away. Toussaint ought to have seen that if we send our masters to all the four sides of the world, they will bring the world down upon us.”

“Perhaps Toussaint did see it,” said the man himself, from the other side of his wife’s horse. “But he saw another thing, too—that any whites who stayed would be murdered.”

“That is true enough; and murdered they ought to be. They are a race of tyrants and rebels that our warm island hates.”

“Nobody hated Monsieur Bayou,” said Margot.

“Yes, I did. Every one who loves the blacks hates the whites.”

“I think not,” said Toussaint. “At least, it is not so with Him who made them both. He is pleased with mercy, Jacques, and not with murder.”

Jacques laughed, and muttered something about the priests having been brought in by the whites for a convenience; to which Toussaint merely replied that it was not a priest, nor an ally of white masters, who forgave His enemies on the cross.

“Father,” said Placide, joining the group, “why is Jean commanding your march? He speaks to you as if you were under him.”

“Because he considers it his march.”

“He praised your father—very much, Placide,” said his mother.

“Yes—just as if my father were under him—as if the march were not ours. We began it.”

“I command those who began it—that is, my own family, Placide. I command you to obey Jean, while you are with him. On the other side the river, you shall be commander, all the way to your uncle’s house. You will follow his lead, Margot?”

“Oh, yes, if he leads straight. Jean is a commander, Placide. Look at his cocked hat.”

“And he calls himself commander-in-chief of the armies of France.”

“In Saint Domingo. Well, so he is,” said Toussaint, smiling, and pointing to the troop. “Here are the armies of the King of France in Saint Domingo; and here Jean commands.”

At this moment, Jean made proclamation for Toussaint Breda; and Toussaint joined him, leaving his wife saying, “You see he wants my husband at every turn. I am sure he thinks a great deal of my husband.”

“Toussaint,” said Jean, “I shall introduce you to the Marquis d’Hermona; and I have no doubt he will give you a command.”

“I shall introduce myself to him, Jean.”

“But he will be expecting you. He will receive you according to my report—as a man of ability, and a most valuable officer. I sent messengers forward to tell him of my approach with reinforcements; and I gave a prodigious report of you.”

“Still I shall speak for myself, Jean.”

“What I now have to ask of you is, that you will dress like an officer—like me. The uniform is, on the whole, of no great consequence at this season, when the whites wear all the linen, and as little cloth as they can. But the hat. Toussaint—the hat! You will not show yourself to the Marquis d’Hermona in a cap! For my sake, do not show yourself till you have procured a cocked hat.”

“Where did you get yours, Jean?”

Jean could only say that it was from one who would never want it again.

“We will go as we are,” said Toussaint. “You look like a commander, as you are—and I look what I am, Toussaint Breda.”

“But he will not believe what I shall say of you, if he sees a mere common negro.”

“Then let him disbelieve, till I have shown what I am. We shall find daylight on the other side this ridge.”

They had been for some time ascending the ridge which lies north and south between Fort Dauphin and the river Massacre, the Spanish boundary. In the covert of the woods which clothed the slope all was yet darkness; but when the travellers could catch a glimpse upwards through the interwoven branches, they saw that the stars were growing pale, and that the heavens were filling with a yellower light. On emerging from the woods on the summit of the ridge, they found that morning was indeed come, though the sun was not yet visible. There was a halt, as if the troops now facing the east would wait for his appearance. To the left, where the ridge sank down into the sea, lay Mancenillo Bay, whose dark grey waters, smooth as glass, as they rolled in upon the shore, began to show lines of light along their swell. A dim sail or two, small and motionless, told that the fishermen were abroad. From this bay, the river Massacre led the eye along the plain which lay under the feet of the troops, and between this ridge and another, darkly wooded, which bounded the valley to the east; while to the south-east, the view was closed in by the mass of peaks of the Cibao group of mountains. At the first moment, these peaks, rising eight thousand feet from the plain, appeared hard, cold, and grey, between the white clouds that encumbered their middle height and the kindling sky. But from moment to moment their aspect softened. The grey melted into lilac, yellow, and a faint blushing red, till the start, barren crags appeared bathed in the hues of the soft yielding clouds which opened to let forth the sun. The mists were then seen to be stirring—rising, curling, sailing, rolling, as if the breezes were imprisoned among them, and struggling to come forth. The breezes came, and, as it seemed, from those peaks. The woods bent before them at one sweep. The banyan-tree, a grove in itself, trembled through all its leafy columns, and shook off its dews in a wide circle, like the return shower of a playing fountain. Myriads of palms which covered the uplands, till now still as a sleeping host beneath the stars, bowed their plumed heads as the winds went forth, and shook off dews and slumber from the gorgeous parasitic beauties which they sustained. With the first ray that the sun levelled among the woods, these matted creepers shook their flowery festoons, their twined, green ropes, studded with opening blossoms and bells, more gay than the burnished insects and gorgeous birds which flitted among their tangles. In the plain, the river no longer glimmered grey through the mists, but glittered golden among the meadows, upon which the wild cattle were descending from the clefts of the hills. Back to the north the river led the eye, past the cluster of hunters’ huts on the margin—past the post where the Spanish flag was flying, and whence the early drum was sounding—past a slope of arrowy ferns here, a grove of lofty cocoa-nut trees there, once more to the bay, now diamond-strewn, and rocking on its bosom the boats, whose sails were now specks of light in contrast with the black islets of the Seven Brothers, which caught the eye as if just risen from the sea.

“No windmills here! No cattle-mills!” the negroes were heard saying to one another. “No canes, no sugar-houses, no teams, no overseers’ houses, no overseers! By God, it is a fine place, this! So we are going down there to be soldiers to the king! those cattle are wild, and yonder are the hunters going out! By God, it is a fine place!”

In somewhat different ways, every one present, but Papalier and Thérèse, was indulging the same mood of thought. There was a wildness in the scene which made the heart beat high with the sense of freedom. For some the emotion seemed too strong. Toussaint pointed out to his boys the path on the other side of the river which would lead them to the point of the shore nearest to Paul’s hut, instructed them how to find or make a habitation for their mother and sisters till he could visit them, gave his wife a letter to his brother, and, except to bid his family a brief farewell for a brief time, spoke no more till he reached the Spanish post, and inquired for the General.

Jean stepped before him into the general’s presence, taking possession of the centre of the green space before the tent, where the Marquis d’Hermona was enjoying the coolness of the morning. After having duly declared his own importance, and announced the accession of numbers he was likely to bring, Jean proceeded to extol Toussaint as one of the valuables he had brought. After apologising for his friend’s want of a cocked hat, he proceeded to exhibit his learning, declaring that he had studied “Plutarch,” “Caesar’s Commentaries,” “Epictetus,” “Marshal Saxe’s Military Reveries—”

Here he was stopped by the grasp of Toussaint’s hand upon his arm. Toussaint told the General that he came alone, without chief and without followers: the few men who had left Breda with him having ranged themselves with the force of Jean Français. He came alone to offer the strength of his arm, on behalf of his king, to the allies of royalist France.

The Spanish soldiers, who glittered all around in their arms and bright uniform, looked upon the somewhat gaunt negro in his plantation dress, dusty with travel, and his woollen cap in hand, and thought, probably, that the king of France would not be much aided by such an ally. It is probable; for a smile went round, in which Jean joined. It is probable that the Marquis d’Hermona thought differently, for he said—

“The strength of your arm! Good! And the strength of your head, too, I hope. We get more arms than heads from your side of the frontier. Is it true that you have studied the art of war?”

“I have studied it in books.”

“Very well. We want officers for our black troops—all we can raise in the present crisis. You will have the rank of colonel in a regiment to be immediately organised. Are you content?”

Toussaint signified his assent, and orders were given for a tent to be prepared for his present repose. He looked around, as if for some one whom he did not see. On being asked, he said that if there was at the post a priest who spoke French, he could wish to converse with him.

“Laxabon understands French, I think,” said the marquis to a gentleman of his staff. The aide assented.

“Your excellent desire shall be gratified,” said the General. “I doubt not Father Laxabon will presently visit you in your tent.”

Father Laxabon had heard rumours of the horrors perpetrated in the French colony within the last two nights. On being told that his attendance was equally desired by a fugitive negro, he recoiled for a moment from what he might have to hear.

When he entered the tent, he found Toussaint alone, on the ground, his bosom bursting with deep and thick-coming sobs, “How is this, my son?” said the priest. “Is this grief, or is it penitence?”

“I am free,” said Toussaint, “and I am an oppression to myself. I did not seek freedom. I was at ease, and did not desire it, seeing how men abuse their freedom.”

“You must not, then, abuse your freedom, my son,” said the priest, wholly relieved.

“How shall I appear before God—I who have ever been guided, and who know not whether I can guide myself—my master gone—my employment gone—and I, by his will, a free man, but unprepared, unfit?—Receive my confession, father, and guide me from this time.”

“Willingly, my son. He who has appointed a new lot to you will enable me to guide you in it.”

The tent was closed; and Toussaint kneeled to relieve his full heart from its new sense of freedom, by subjecting himself to a task-master of the soul.