made no direct reply, and Aimée had strong hopes that he was prepared with some wise, unanswerable reason for remaining where he was. Meanwhile, his father proceeded—
“In all that I have done, in all that I now say, I have the sanction of Father Laxabon.”
“Then all is right, we may be sure,” said Margot. “I have no doubt you would be right, if you had not Father Laxabon to consult; but if he thinks you right, everything must be done as you wish. My boys,” pursued the tearful mother, “you must go with your father: you hear Father Laxabon thinks so.”
“Do you think so?” whispered Aimée to Isaac.
He pressed her arm, which was within his, in token of silence, while his father went on:
“You heard the proclamation I sent out among our people a few weeks ago.”
“Yes,” said Placide; “that in which you tell them that you prefer serving with Spaniards who own a king, than with French who own none.”
“Yes. I have had to make the same declaration to the two commissaries who have arrived at Cap under orders from the regicides at Paris. These commissaries have to-day invited me to their standard by promises of favour and consideration.”
“What do they promise us?” asked Margot eagerly.
“Nothing that we can accept. I have written a letter in reply, saying that I cannot yield myself to the will of any member of the nation, seeing that, since nations began, obedience has been due only to kings. We have lost the king of France; but we are beloved by the monarch of Spain, who faithfully rewards our services, and never intermits his protection and indulgence. Thus, I cannot acknowledge the authority of these commissaries till they shall have enthroned a king. Such is the letter which, guided by Father Laxabon, I have written.”
“It is a beautiful letter, I am sure,” said Margot. “Is it not, Paul.”
“I don’t doubt Father Laxabon is right,” said Dessalines; “only I do not see the use of having a king, if people are turned out of house and home for being loyal—as we all are. If we had not cared anything about the king’s quarrel, we might have been under our vines at home, as I have often said before.”
“And how would it have been with us here?” said Toussaint, laying his hand on his breast.
“Put your hand a little lower, and I say it would have been all the better for us,” said the old negro, laughing, “for we should not have gone without wine all this time.”
“What do you think?” Aimée, as usual, asked Isaac.
“I think it was good for my father to be loyal to the king, as long as the king lived. I think it was good for us to be living here free, with time to consider what we should do next. And I think it has happened very well that my father has shown what a soldier he is, which he could not so well have done if we had stayed at Breda. As for Dessalines, he is best where the vines grow thickest, or where the cellars are deepest. It is a pity he should have taken upon him to be loyal.”
“And what do you think of going to the camp with my father? Look at Moyse—how delighted he is!”
Moyse certainly did look possessed with joy. He was rapidly telling all his warlike intentions to Génifrède, who was looking in his face with a countenance of fear and grief.
“You think nothing of us,” she cried at length, giving way to a passion of tears. “We have been so happy here, all together; and now you are glad to go, and leave us behind! You will go and fight, without caring for us—you will be killed in this horrid war, and we shall never see you again—we shall never know what has become of you.”
Moyse’s military fire was instantly quenched. It immediately appeared to him the greatest of miseries to have to leave his cousins. He assured Génifrède he could not really intend to go. He had only been fancying what a war with the white masters would be. He hated the whites heartily; but he loved this place much more. Placide and Isaac might go, but he should stay. Nothing should part him from those he loved best.
Toussaint was not unmindful of what was passing. Génifrède’s tones of distress, and Moyse’s protestations, all reached his ear. He turned, and gently drew his daughter towards him.
“My child,” said he, “we are no longer what we have been—slaves, whose strength is in the will of their masters. We are free; and to be free requires a strong heart, in women as well as in men. When Monsieur Bayou was our master, we rose and slept every day alike, and went out to our work, and came in to our food, without having to think of anything beyond. Now we are free, and God has raised us to the difficult duties which we have always reverenced in the whites. We men must leave our homes to live in camps, and, if necessary, to fight; and you, women and girls, must make it easy for us to do our duty. You must be willing to see us go—glad to spare us—and you must pray to God that we may not return till our duty is done.”
“I cannot—I shall not,” Génifrède muttered to herself, as she cast down her eyes under her father’s compassionate gaze. He looked towards Aimée, who answered, with tearful eyes—
“Yes, father. They must go; and we will not hinder them; but they will soon be back, will not they?”
“That depends on how soon we can make good soldiers of them,” said he, cheerfully. “Come, Moyse, have you changed your mind again? Or will you stay and plait hammocks, while my boys are trained to arms?”
“I shall not stay behind, if the others go. But why should not we all go together? I am sure there is room enough in yonder valley for all the people on this coast.”
“Room enough, but my family are better beside your father than among soldiers and the hunters of the mountains. Stay with them, or go with me. Shoot ducks, and pick up shell-fish here; or go with me, and prepare to be General Moyse some day.”
Moyse looked as if he would have knocked his uncle down at the supposition that he would stay to pick up shell-fish. He could not but laugh, however, at hearing himself greeted as General Moyse by all the boys; and even Génifrède smiled.
Margot moved, sighing, towards the rocks, to put up for her boys such comforts as she could muster, and to prepare the meal which they must have before they went. Her girls went with her; and Denis shouted after them, that he was to get the cabbage from the palmetto, adding, that if they gave him a good knife, he would take it off as neatly as the Paris people took off the king. His father grasped his arm, and said—
“Never name the king, my boy, till you feel grieved that you have lost him. You do not know what you say. Remember—never mention the king unless we ask you.”
Denis was glad to run after his cabbage. His father remembered to praise it at dinner. No one else praised or liked anything. Margot and Aimée were tearful; Génifrède was gloomy. The lads could think of nothing but the new life before them, which yet they did not like to question their father about, till they should have left the tears behind. No sooner were they past the first turn up the ridge, than they poured out their inquiries as to life in the camp, and the prospects of the war. Their eager gestures were watched by those they left behind; and there was a feeling of mortification in each woman’s heart, on seeing this evidence that home was already forgotten for busier scenes. They persuaded themselves, and believed of each other, that their grief was for the fearful death of the king; and they spoke as if this had been really
