As soon as Toussaint was out of hearing of his family and suite, he put
his horse to its utmost speed. There was not a moment to be lost, if
the peace of the island was to be preserved. Faster than ever fugitive
escaped from trouble and danger, did the negro commander rush towards
them. The union between the black and white races probably depended on
his reaching Cap by the early morning--in time to prevent certain
proclamations of Hedouville, framed in ignorance of the state of the
colony and the people, from being published. Forty leagues lay between
L'Etoile and Cap, and two mountain ridges crossed his road: but he had
ridden forty leagues in a night before, and fifty in a long day; and he
thought little of the journey. As he rode, he meditated the work of the
next day, while he kept his eye awake, and his heart open, to the beauty
of the night.
He had cleared the plain, with his trompette at his heels, before the
woods and fields had melted together into the purple haze of evening;
and the labourers returning from the cane-pieces, with their tools on
their shoulders, offered their homage to him as he swept by. Some
shouted, some ran beside him, some kneeled in the road and blessed him,
or asked his blessing. He came to the river, and found the ford lined
by a party of negroes, who, having heard and known his horse's tread,
above the music of pipe and drum, had thrown themselves into the water
to point out the ford, and save his precious moments. He dashed through
uncovered, and was lost in the twilight before their greeting was done.
The evening star was just bright enough to show its image in the still
salt-lake, when he met the expected relay, on the verge of the mountain
woods. Thence the ascent was so steep, that he was obliged to relax his
speed. He had observed the birds winging home to these woods; they had
reached it before him, and the chirp of their welcome to their nests was
sinking into silence; but the whirring beetles were abroad. The frogs
were scarcely heard from the marshes below; but the lizards and crickets
vied with the young monkeys in noise, while the wood was all alight with
luminous insects. Wherever a twisted fantastic cotton-tree, or a
drooping wild fig, stood out from the thicket and apart, it appeared to
send forth streams of green flame from every branch; so incessantly did
the fireflies radiate from every projecting twig.
As he ascended, the change was great. At length there was no more
sound; there were no more flitting fires. Still as sleep rose the
mountain-peaks to the night. Still as sleep lay the woods below. Still
as sleep was the outspread western sea, silvered by the steady stars
which shone, still as sleep, in the purple depths of heaven. Such was
the starlight on that pinnacle, so large and round the silver globes, so
bright in the transparent atmosphere were their arrowy rays, that the
whole, vault was as one constellation of little moons, and the horse and
his rider saw their own shadows in the white sands of their path. The
ridge passed, down plunged the horseman, hurrying to the valley and the
plain; like rocks loosened by the thunder from the mountain-top. The
hunter, resting on the heights from his day's chase of the wild goats,
started from his sleep, to listen to what he took for a threatening of
storm. In a little while, the child in the cottage in the valley
nestled close to its mother, scared at the flying tramp; while the
trembling mother herself prayed for the shield of the Virgin's grace
against the night-fiends that were abroad. Here, there was a solitary
light in the plain; there, beside the river; and yonder, behind the
village; and at each of these stations were fresh horses, the best in
the region, and smiling faces to tender their use. The panting animals
that were left behind were caressed for the sake of the burden they had
carried, and of the few kind words dropped by their rider during his
momentary pause.
Thus was the plain beyond Mirbalais passed soon after midnight. In the
dark the horsemen swam the Artibonite, and leaped the sources of the
Petite Riviere. The eastern sky was beginning to brighten as they
mounted the highest steeps above Atalaye; and from the loftiest point,
the features of the wide landscape became distinct in the cool grey
dawn. Toussaint looked no longer at the fading stars. He looked
eastwards, where the green savannahs spread beyond the reach of human
eye. He looked northwards, where towns and villages lay in the skirts
of the mountains, and upon the verge of the rivers, and in the green
recesses where the springs burst from the hill-sides. He looked
westwards, where the broad and full Artibonite gushed into the sea, and
where the yellow bays were thronged with shipping, and every green
promontory was occupied by its plantation or fishing hamlet. He paused,
for one instant, while he surveyed what he well knew to be virtually his
dominions. He said to himself that with him it rested to keep out
strife from this paradise--to detect whatever devilish cunning might
lurk in its by-corners, and rebuke whatever malice and revenge might
linger within its bounds. With the thought he again sprang forward,
again plunged down the steeps, scudded over the wilds, and splashed
through the streams; not losing another moment till his horse stood
trembling and foaming under the hot sun, now touching the Haut-du-Cap,
where the riders had at length pulled up. Here they had overtaken the
first trompette, who, having had no leader at whose heels he must
follow, had been unable, with all his zeal, quite to equal the speed of
his companion. He had used his best efforts, and showed signs of
fatigue; but yet they had come upon his traces on the grass road from
the Gros Morne, and had overtaken him as he was toiling up the
Haut-du-Cap.
Both waited for orders, their eyes fixed on their master's face, as they
saw him stand listening, and glancing his eye over the city, the
harbour, and the road from the Plain du Nord. He saw afar signs of
trouble: but he saw also that he was not too late. He looked down into
the gardens of Government-house. Was it possible that he would show
himself there, heated, breathless, covered with dust as he was? No. He
dismounted, and gave his horse to the trompettes, ordering them to go by
the most public way to the hotel, in Place Mont Archer, to give notice
of the approach of his secretary and staff; and thence to the barracks,
where he would appear when he had bathed.
The trompettes would have gone round five weary miles for the honour of
carrying messages from the Commander-in-chief through the principal
streets of Cap. They departed with great zeal, while Toussaint ascended
to the mountain-pool, to take the plunge in which he found his best
refreshment after a long ride. He was presently walking leisurely down
the sloping field, through which he could drop into the grounds of
Government-house by a back gate, and have his interview with Hedouville
before interruption came from the side of the town. As he entered the
gardens, he looked, to the wondering eyes he met there, as if he had
just risen from rest, to enjoy a morning walk in the shrubberies. They
were almost ready to understand, in its literal sense, the expression of
his worshippers, that he rode at ease upon the clouds.