"I shall not ask them. I have a refuge in view for my family."
"When will you go?"
"When you leave me. You will find the estate deserted this night, as you wish. The few negroes who are here will doubtless go with me; and we shall have crossed the river before morning."
"You would not object," said Jean, "to be joined on the road by some of our negro force; on my pledge, you understand, that they will not ravage the country."
"Some too good for your present command?" said Toussaint, smiling. "I will command them on one other condition--that they will treat well any white who may happen to be with me."
"I said nothing about your commanding them," said Jean. "If I send men I shall send officers. But whites! what whites? Did you not say Bayou was on the sea?"
"I did; but there may be other whites whom I choose to protect, as you say you are doing. If, instead of hiding whites in the woods, I carry them across the frontier, what treatment may I expect for my party on the road?"
"I will go with you myself, and that is promising everything," said Jean, making a virtue of what was before a strong inclination. "Set out in two hours from this time. I will put the command of the plain into Bia.s.son"s hands, and make a camp near the Spanish lines. The posts in that direction are weak, and the whites panic-struck, if indeed they have not all fled to the fort. Well, well," he continued, "keep to your time, and I will join you at the cross of the four roads, three miles south of Fort Dauphin. All will be safe that far, at least."
"If not, we have some strong arms among us," replied Toussaint. "I believe my girls (or one of them at least) would bear arms where my honour is at stake. So our king is a prisoner! and we are free! Such are the changes which Heaven sends!"
"Ay, how do you feel, now you are free?" said Jean. "Did you not put your horse to a gallop when you turned your back on your old master?"
"Not a word of that, Jean. Let us not think of ourselves. There is work to do for our king. He is our task-master now."
"You are in a hurry for another master," said Jean. "I am not tired of being my own master yet."
"I wish you would make your people masters of themselves, Jean. They are not fit for power. Heaven take it from us, by putting all power into the hand of the king!"
"We meet by starlight," said Jean. "I have the business of five thousand men to arrange first; so, more of the king another time."
He leaped the nearest fence and was gone. Toussaint rose and walked away, with a countenance so serious, that Margot asked if there was bad news of Monsieur Bayou.
When the family understood that the Breda estate was to be attacked this night, there was no need to hasten their preparations for departure. In the midst of the hurry, Aimee consulted Isaac about an enterprise which had occurred to her, on her father"s behalf; and the result was, that they ventured up to the house, and as far as Monsieur Bayou"s book-shelves, to bring away the volumes they had been accustomed to see their father read. This thought entered Aimee"s mind when she saw him, busy as he was, carefully pocket the Epictetus he had been reading the night before. Monsieur Papalier was reading, while Therese was making packages of comforts for him. He observed the boy and girl, and when he found that the books they took were for their father, he muttered over the volume he held--
"Bayou was a fool to allow it. I always told him so. When our negroes get to read like so many gentlemen, no wonder the world is turned upside down."
"Do your negroes read, Monsieur Papalier?" asked Isaac.
"No, indeed! not one of them."
"Where are they all, then?"
Aimee put in her word.
"Why do they not take care of you, as father did of Monsieur Bayou?"
CHAPTER FOUR.
WHITHER AWAY?
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 Ma.s.sacre, 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 inc.u.mbrances 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 Therese, 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 Therese. 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 Genifrede and Aimee. "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 Therese, 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 Therese, 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 Egalite, 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 Therese, with her infant on her arm.
Therese 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 Aimee happy by getting on her mule. Genifrede 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. Genifrede never could make out what Isaac and Aimee 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 regime!" 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 regime!" He grew _very_ cross, while quite sensible of the necessity of appearing in a good mood to every one-- except, indeed, poor Therese.
"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 G.o.d! 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.