"I suppose we shall hear the battle."
There was another pause, during which Madame's tears were dropping into
her lap. Afra wondered how General Dessalines would bear to hear the
firing from his chamber, so near, and be unable to help.
"That puts me in mind," said Madame, rising hurriedly--"how could I
forget? It was the very reason why my husband told me that Rochambeau
was so near. We must prepare for the wounded, my dears. They will be
sent up here--as many as the house will hold, and the tents which my
husband is sending up. We must be making lint, my dears, and preparing
bandages. My husband has provided simples, and Madame Dessalines will
tell us--Oh dear! what was I about to forget all this!"
"Do not hurry yourself, dear madam," said Afra. "We will take care that
everything is done. With Madame Dessalines to direct us, we shall be
quite prepared. Do not hurry yourself so, I dare say Rochambeau is not
at hand at this moment."
At the very next moment, however, Euphrosyne's countenance showed that
she was by no means certain of this. Madame L'Ouverture stood still to
listen, in her agitated walk about the room. There were distant shouts
heard, and a bustle and buzz of voices, within and about the house,
which made Euphrosyne empty her lap of the shaddocks she was peeling,
and run out for news.
"Joy! Joy!" she cried, returning. "Maurepas is coming. We can see his
march from the station. His army has crossed the river. Make haste,
Afra. Dear madam, will you go with me to the station?"
"No, my love," said Madame, sitting down, trembling.
"We can go as slowly as you like. There is plenty of time. You need
not hurry; and it will be a glorious sight."
"No, my dear. Do you young people go. But, Euphrosyne, are you quite
sure it is not Rochambeau?"
"Oh, dear, yes! quite certain. They come from the south, and have
crossed the Artibonite; they come from the very point they ought to come
from. It is good news, you may rely upon it; the best possible news."
"I am thankful," said Madame, in a low, sad voice. "Go, my dears. Go,
and see what you can."
All who could leave the house, or the post of duty--that is, all but the
two prisoners, the sentries, and Madame--were at the station, or on
their way to it. The first notice had been given, it appeared, by some
huntsmen who had brought in game.
"My boys!" said Madame Bellair, "what a pity they should miss this
sight! only that, I suppose, we could not keep Juste within bounds. He
would be off to the camp before we could stop him. It may be a
fortunate chance that he is on the northern hills instead of the
southern, to-day; but I am sorry for my little Tobie. Whereabouts are
they, I wonder. Has any one seen them within these two hours?"
The hunters had parted with the boys in the valley, at sunrise, when
they said they should seek fish and fowl to-day, in the logwood grove
and the pond above it, as there were hunters enough out upon the hills.
"If they are really no farther off than that," said their mother, "they
may hear us, and come for their share of the sight. You walk well,
General Dessalines."
Dessalines declared himself well. The rumour of war was the tonic he
needed. Even at this distance, it had done more for him than all
Therese's medicines in a month. Therese saw that it was indeed so; and
that he would lie at the Plateaux now before the enemy.
"Look at General Vincent," whispered Madame Pascal to her husband, on
whose arm she was leaning, as all stood on the height, anxiously gazing
at the road, which wound like a yellow thread across the plain, and
round the base of the hills. The troops were now hidden by a hanging
wood; so that Afra rested her strained eyes for a moment, and happened
to notice Vincent's countenance. "Look, do look, at General Vincent!"
Her husband shook his head, and said that was what he was then thinking
of. Dessalines and his wife were similarly occupied; and they and the
Pascals communicated with each other by glances.
"What is the matter, Vincent," asked Dessalines, outright. "Here are
the long-expected come at last; and you look as gloomily upon them as if
they were all France."
"I am not such a man of blood as you, Dessalines. I have never given up
the hope of accommodation and peace. It is strange, when the great men
on both sides profess such a desire for peace, that we must see this
breach made, nobody can tell why."
"Why, my good fellow!" exclaimed Dessalines, staring into his face,
"surely you are talking in your sleep! The heats put you to sleep last
summer, and you are not awake yet. You know nothing that has been done
since December, I do believe. Come! let me tell you, as little Tobie is
not here to do it."
"Don't, love," said Therese, pressing her husband's arm. "No disputes
to-day, Jacques! The times are too serious."
"At another time, General," said Vincent, "I will instruct you a little
in my opinions, formed when my eyes were wide open in France; which
yours have never been."
"There they are! There they come from behind the wood, if we could but
see them for the dust!" exclaimed some.
"Oh, this dust! we can see nothing!" cried others. "Who can give a
guess how many they are?"
"It is impossible," said Bellair. "Without previous knowledge, one
could not tell them from droves of bullocks and goats going to market at
Saint Marc."
"Except for their caps," said Euphrosyne. "I see a dozen or two of
feathers through the crowd. Do not you, Afra?"
"Yes, but where is their music? We should hear something of it here,
surely."
"Yes, it is a dumb march," said Dessalines, "at present. They will
strike up when they have turned the shoulder of that hill, no doubt.
There! now listen!"
All listened, so that the brook, half a mile behind, made its babbling
heard, but there was not a breath of music.
"Is it possible that Rochambeau should be in the way," asked Therese.
"He cannot be in the way," said her husband, "for where I stand, I
command every foot of the road, up to our posts; but he may be nearer
than we thought. I conclude that he is."
"Look! See!" cried several. "They are taking another road. Where are
they going! General Dessalines, what does it mean?"
"I would thank anyone to tell me that it is not as I fear," replied
Dessalines. "I fear Maurepas is effecting a junction, not with us, but
with some one else."
"With Rochambeau!"
"Traitor!"
"The traitor Maurepas!"
"His head!"
"Our all for his head!" cried the enraged gazers, as they saw Maurepas
indeed diverging from the road to the post, and a large body of French
troops turning a reach of the same road, from behind a hill. The two
clouds of dust met. And now there was no more silence, but sound enough
from below and afar. There was evidently clamour and rage among the
troops in the Plateaux; and bursts of music from the army of their foes,
triumphant and insulting, swelled the breeze.
"Our all for the head of Maurepas!" cried the group again.
"Nay," said Vincent, "leave Maurepas his head. Who knows but that peace
may come out of it? If all had done as he has now done, there could be
no war."
"In the same way," exclaimed Pascal, "as if all of your colour thought
as you do, there would then be no war, because there would be no men to
fight; but only slaves to walk quietly under the yoke."
"Be as angry as you will," said Vincent, in a low voice to Pascal. "No
one's anger can alter the truth. It is impious and vain, here as
elsewhere, to oppose Bonaparte. L'Ouverture will have to yield; you
know that as well as I do, Monsieur Pascal; and those are the best
friends of the blacks who help to render war impossible, and who bring
the affair to a close while the First Consul may yet be placable."
"Has that opinion of yours been offered to your Commander, Vincent?"
"It would have been, if he had asked for it. He probably knows that I
had rather have seen him high in honour and function under Leclerc, than
an outlaw, entrenched in the mornes."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves, in these
rough times. I am here to guard these ladies against all foes, come
they whence they may,--from France, or out of our own savannahs,--from
earth, air, or sea.--But hark! Silence, ladies! Silence all, for a
moment!"
They listened, ready to take alarm from him, they knew not why. Nothing
was heard but the distant baying of hounds,--the hunters coming home as
it was supposed.
"Those are not Saint Domingo hounds," said Vincent, in a low voice to
Dessalines.
"No, indeed!--Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but
run! Therese, leave me! I command you.--If this is your doing,
Vincent--"
"Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it.--Home, ladies, as
fast as possible!"
"My children!" exclaimed Madame Bellair. "I can find them, if you will
only tell me the danger,--what is the danger?"
"You hear those hounds. They are Cuba bloodhounds," said Dessalines.
"The fear is that they are leading an enemy over the hills."
Not a word more was necessary. Every one fled who could, except
Therese, who would not go faster than her husband's strength permitted
him to proceed. The voice of the hounds, and the tramp of horses' feet
were apparently so near, before they could reach the first sentry, that
both were glad to see Pascal hurrying towards them, with two soldiers,
who carried Dessalines to the house, while Pascal and Therese ran for
their lives,--she striving to thank her companion for remembering to
bring this aid.
"No thanks!" said Pascal. "General Dessalines is our great man now. We
cannot do without him. Here is to be a siege,--a French troop has come
over by some unsuspected pass;--I do not understand it."
"Have you sent to the Plateaux?"
"Of course, instantly; but our messengers will probably be intercepted,
though we have spared three men, to try three different paths. If
L'Ouverture learns our condition, it will be by the firing."
Some of the sportsmen had brought in from the hills the news of the
presence of an enemy in the morne--not, apparently, on their way to the
plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke
tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the
determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children,
whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that
it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a
track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was
heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first
undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end,
could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of
defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a
cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that
the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha's
nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful
defence of Le Zephyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and
superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage,
executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in
tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and
mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated,
and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the
fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing
the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and
apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.
Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman's soul.
Therese looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her
husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not
but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any
companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of
Sabes and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the
firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a
desperate attempt to escape. Therese answered for their detention, if
she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines
might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.
There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed
deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison
Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was
no one to guard him; and his surprise and concern were evidently so
real, and his activity was so great in preparing for defence, that there
seemed nothing for it but trusting him to protect the women who were
under his charge. Dessalines, however, kept his eye upon him, and his
piece in readiness to shoot him down, on the first evidence of
treachery.
Another doubt was as to the foe they had to contend against. How they
got into the morne, and why such an approach was made to an object so
important as securing a party of hostages like these; whether, if
Vincent had nothing to do with it, the spies had; and whether,
therefore, more attacks might not be looked for, were questions which
passed through many minds, but to which no consideration could now be
given. Here were the foe; and they must be kept off.
The struggle was short and sharp. Small as was the force without, it
far outnumbered that of the fighting men in what had been supposed the
secure retreat of Le Zephyr; and there is no saying but that the ladies
might have found themselves at length on Tortuga, and in the presence of
Bonaparte's sister, if the firing had not reached the watchful ear of
L'Ouverture at the Plateaux, on the way to which all the three
messengers had been captured. Toussaint arrived with a troop, in time
to deliver his household. After his first onset, the enemy retreated;
at first carrying away some prisoners, but dropping them on their road,
one after another, as they were more and more hardly pressed by
L'Ouverture, till the few survivors were glad to escape as they could,
by the way they came.
Toussaint returned, his soldiers bringing in the mangled bodies of the
two boys. When he inquired what loss had been sustained, he found that
three, besides the children, were killed; and that Vincent was the only
prisoner, besides the three messengers turned back in the morne.
"Never was there a more willing prisoner, in my opinion," observed
Pascal.
"He carries away a mark from us, thank Heaven!" said Dessalines.
"Madame Bellair shot him."
It was so. Deesha saw Vincent join the French, and go off with them, on
the arrival of L'Ouverture; and, partly through revenge, but not without
a thought of the disclosures it was in his power to make, she strove to
silence him for ever. She only reached a limb, however, and sent him
away, as Dessalines said, bearing a mark from Le Zephyr.
One of the French troop, made prisoner, was as communicative as could
have been desired--as much so as Vincent would probably be on the other
side. He declared that the attack on Le Zephyr was a mere accident:
that his company had entered the morne, led by the bloodhounds in
pursuit of some negroes, from whom they wanted certain information for
Rochambeau, respecting the localities; that they had thus become
acquainted with the almost impracticable pass by which they had entered;
that, when the hounds had destroyed the children, and proved that there
were inhabitants in the morne, the situation of Le Zephyr had been
discovered, and afterwards the rank of its inhabitants; that the
temptation of carrying off these hostages to Rochambeau had been too
strong to be resisted; and hence the attack.
"We shall have to remove," the ladies said to each other, "now that our
retreat is known."
"Shall we have to remove?" asked Euphrosyne, whose love of the place
could not be quenched, even by the blood upon its threshold. "I am not
afraid to stay, if any one else will."
"How can you be so rash, Euphrosyne?" asked Afra.
"I would not be rash, Euphrosyne replied; but we know now how these
people came into the morne, and L'Ouverture will guard the pass. And
remember, Afra, we have beaten them; and they will take care how they
attack us another time. Remember, we have beaten them."
"We have beaten them," said Dessalines, laughing. "And what did you do
to beat off the French, my little lady?"
"I watched the prisoners through the keyhole; and if they had made the
least attempt to set the house on fire--"
"You would have put it out with your tears--hey, Mademoiselle
Euphrosyne?"
"Ask Madame, your lady, what she would have done in such a case: she
stood beside me. But does L'Ouverture say we must remove?"
"L'Ouverture thinks," said Toussaint, who heard her question, "that this
is still the safest place for the brave women who keep up his heart by
their cheerful faces. He is ashamed that they have been negligently
guarded. It shall not happen again."
He was just departing for the Plateaux. As he went out he said to his
wife, while he cast a look of tender compassion upon Madame Bellair--
"I shall tell Charles that you will cherish Deesha. It is well that we
can let her remain here, beside the graves of her children. Bury them
with honour, Margot."