Zelica,
The Creole

Chapter I.

When the peace of Amiens had given
a momentary respite to France, so long
and so cruelly harassed by the horrors of
war, the armies of Napoleon, accustomed
to the license of conquest, were without
employment for that restless spirit which Vol. I. B1v 2
had produced the revolution,—overturned
the ancient dynasty that had reigned
during so many ages in France,—and,
having, beneath the impulse of his wonderful
genius, destroyed the governments
of Europe, now threatened with danger
his own recently-established empire.

St. Domingo,—celebrated for its
wealth, the luxurious softness of its climate,
the beauty of its women, and the
voluptuous manners of its inhabitants,—
offered a theatre on which the soldiers
who had conquered Italy, could again
exercise their valour, or lose in its
bowers of soul-dissolving delight the
energy that was thought inimical to the
repose of their native land.

An army was immediately organized B2r 3
and transported to the country where
the fabled delights of the Cyprian isle
and the exhaustless treasures of the
Indian mines were combined in the
imagination of those who anticipated no
obstacle to their success. The most
ardent enthusiast in the cause of liberty
would not have indulged the visionary
thought of beholding the slaves, who had
emancipated themselves and broke by
their own efforts the fetters of bondage,
daring to oppose their undisciplined
courage to the bravery of well-appointed
troops, accustomed to conquest, elated
by victory, and commanded by officers
who had served with distinction in the
field of Marengo, and shared the danger
and the glory of the triumphs at Lodi.

It is true, that the New World, on B2 B2v 4
which this torrent of valour was to be
poured, offered, in perspective, no addition
to the glory that the soldiers had
already obtained; but it held forth the
promise of a rich harvest of gold to reward
their toils in less propitious climes.
The soldiers were elated by the certainty
of success; and the chiefs who commanded
the expedition were persuaded,
that the slaves who had usurped the
dominion of St. Domingo would resume
their chains, and return without resistance
to their abject state, at the appearance
of warriors who had arrested the
flight of the Austrian Eagle,—subdued
the descendants of the Cæsars,—and inscribed
their claims to immortality on
the imperishable Pyramids of Egypt.

The fleet that conveyed the army to B3r 5
St. Domingo, arrived in the magnificent
bay from which the city of Cape François
(built on a narrow plain between
the sea and a lofty mountain that elevates
its wood-crowned head to the
clouds seems to rise.

The soldiers, wearied by the inactivity
of a long voyage, and impatient to luxuriate
in aromatic bowers, and to find in
the smiles of voluptuous beauty the reward
of their toils, loudly requested
their commander to land, and suffer
them to sweep away, in one resistless
onset, the obstacles that would be opposed
by the last efforts of despair to
their fondly-anticipated hopes.

If this counsel had been attended to,
it is highly probable that the glorious B3 B3v 6
flame of liberty would have been extinguished
in St. Domingo, and its votaries,
who had made incredible efforts to
secure a blessing—for whose attainment
the wildest excesses have been thought
pardonable, reduced again to that frightful
slavery from which, for a keenly-enjoyed
moment, they had escaped, would
have had no other asylum from the despair,
caused by baffled efforts and disappointed
hopes, but the grave.

But General Le Clerc, the commander-
in-chief of the expedition, did not yield
to this national impetuosity. He employed
temporizing measures, and opened
a correspondence with Christophe,
the black chief, in which he employed
all the arts of deception. But Christophe
was not the dupe of his art; and these B4r 7
proud strangers beheld, with surprise, a
self-emancipated slave write with as
much elegance, force, and dignity, as the
commander-in-chief of the French army.

In his first letter to Christophe, General
Le Clerc demanded of him to deliver
the Cape into his hands, without
waiting for the orders of Toussaint,
who was then the chief of the blacks.
To this demand the general added, that
in case of a refusal he would consider
him as a rebel, and immediately employ
against him all the force under his
command.

“If,” replied Christophe, “you employ
the force with which you menace us, we
will oppose it to all our energy. You
will not enter our city till it is reduced B4 B4v 8
to ashes; and, on its smoking ruins you
will find us still combatting. You are
not my chief. I know you not, nor will
I acknowledge your power till it has
been acknowledged by Toussaint. As
for the consideration you offer me, I
will not purchase it at the price of my
honour, nor merit it by the violation of
all my duties.”

During this correspondence, the negroes
had time to reflect, and to form
an estimate of their own force. They
had possessed, during a period of ten
years, their dearly-acquired freedom,
and were emboldened, by the experience
of the past, to look forward with hope
of preserving the blessings they had so
painfully attained. On their numbers,
also, they relied with flattering prospects B5r 9
of success; for they formed a body of
upwards of five hundred thousand men,
who, having thrown off the chains fastened
on them by a comparatively small
number of men of a different colour, had
asserted, and were resolved to maintain,
their claims to the rights of which they
had been so cruelly deprived.

It is lamentably true, that the first wild
transports of freedom in St. Domingo
were accompanied by excesses shocking
to humanity. The rich planters of the
island paid dearly in that season of
anarchy and confusion for the luxurious
ease in which they had revelled; and
the slaves, who had been rendered ferocious
by their sufferings, and were
intoxicated with a desire of vengeance,
committed unheard-of cruelties. The B5 B5v 10
hands of infancy, stretched forth to its
murderer, could not turn aside the blow
that was aimed at its life. Age lost its
power to command respect. Youth,
beauty, or elegance, could no longer
charm, when exposed to this licentious
ferocity. The wrongs that had been
endured for ages were recollected with
bitterness, and fiercely avenged; and
those who had never, even in thought,
injured a mortal, were condemned to
expiate with their lives the crimes of
their countrymen and their ancestors.
Rapine and murder were, at the commencement
of this sanguinary revolution,
the order of the day, and those who
boasted of the wildest excesses were
the most assured of obtaining the favour
of their chiefs, who, in order to obviate
all possibility of the influence of pity, or B6r 11
the visitings of compassion, sent the
negroes of the mountains to ravage and
destroy the plains, whilst those from the
plains were removed to other parts of
the island; and thus, by sending the
slaves from the places to which they
had been accustomed, all the softer
feelings, arising from habit or attachment,
were prevented from acting. Yet,
even in these seasons of undescribed
horror, when all the worst passions of
the soul were awakened,—when revenge,
urged on by hatred, triumphed,—there
were some of the slaves who gave
proofs of attachment and fidelity to their
former masters that do honour to humanity,
—who respected the lives of
those they were resolved no longer to
obey,—protected them from the fury of
the exasperated negroes, and facilitated B6 B6v 12
their escape from a country where they
could no longer find safety.

When General Le Clerc discovered
that he could neither win Christophe by
his flattery nor make him the dupe of
his art, he issued a proclamation in
which he sought to detach the people of
colour from the interest of their chiefs,
inviting them to return to their duty and
accept the conditions offered them by
the French.

To this proclamation Christophe returned
for answer, that the people of
colour would never submit to the dominion
of the Europeans, whilst a single
arm retained power to resist it—that
the war between them would be one of
extermination, and if the troops from B7r 13
Europe were destined to gain the ascendency
in the island, their empire
should be held over mountains of ashes
moistened with blood.

This answer was pronounced by General
Le Clerc to be the production of
a madman; he again summoned the
negroes to surrender, and prepared to
land his troops.

Great was the consternation that prevailed
in the town of Cape François at
this period; for, though numbers of the
white inhabitants had emigrated at the
commencement of the revolution, to
escape from the destruction that then
menaced them, many had remained, and
many had returned to it from their voluntary
exile. These unfortunate people B7v 14
had suffered all the evils that ever await
a general overthrow of established order;
but even these ills were thought preferable
to the pains of poverty in a strange
country, and after the first effervescence
of the revolution had subsided, they
gradually recovered, though not their
former opulence, the enjoyment of plenty
and security. At the arrival of the Europeans
they were regarded with suspicion
by the blacks, and beheld themselves
surrounded with danger from
which they had no hope of escaping

Christophe, who, if he had been the
uncontrolled director of the councils of
the blacks, would have summoned them
to make with their bodies a rampart to
oppose the entrance of the French into
the Cape, received an order from Toussaint B8r 15
to retreat with his troops to the
plain. He obeyed the command with
reluctance, but was resolved to leave
behind him an example of the resistance
that the invaders would encounter.

In all the details of his office he possessed
unlimited power, and his ardent
soul submitted with impatience even to
the commands of his chief. From the
time that the negotiation commenced
between him and General Le Clerc, he
had sent from town those among the
white inhabitants whom he most suspected
of being favourable to the descent
of the French; but when he received
orders from Toussaint to evacuate
the Cape, assembled all the white
men who were still in the town, and sent
them under a strong guard to the plain. B8v 16
The women desolated by this separation
from their protectors, remained like deserted
victims in their desolate homes,
till by a second decree of Christophe,
they were ordered to fly to the mountains,
and at the same time an order was
issued to set fire to the town. Loud
yells of joy evinced the pleasure with
which this command was received by
the negroes, and the chief himself gave
the signal for its execution by seizing a
torch and setting fire to the superb palace
he inhabited.

The ladies who, at the order of Christophe,
had abandoned their homes, ascended
in crowds the mountain that
rises almost perpendicularly behind the
town, some bearing their children in
their arms—some supporting the feeble B9r 17
steps of aged relatives, climbing over
rocks that were covered with thorns and
brambles, where no path had been ever
worn; their feet were torn to pieces and
their steps marked with blood. These
creatures who had been nursed in the
softest folds of luxury, on whom the sun
had never shone, whose faces had never
been visited by the winds of heaven, now
exposed without shelter to the ardour of
the sun, whose blaze in these climes is
to unaccustomed eyes insupportable,
suffered excruciating torture; but their
physical pains were forgotten in the
more exquisite anguish of their moral
torments. Every heart was torn with
anxiety for some object of its dearest
affection; trembled for a father, a brother,
a husband, or a son, from whom
they had been severed; and apprehension B9v 18
for the fate that awaited them, augmented
with tenfold force the evils that
surrounded themselves. Some of these
helpless fugitives pressed forward as if
hoping to find in distance security from
their persecutors. Others seated, immoveably
fixed in mute anguish on the
side of the mountain, looked down despairingly
on the enchanting prospect
that was extended before them; the
Arabian jessamine flung its gay festoons
of darkest verdure and flowers of fairest
hue among the orange trees glowing with
their golden fruit; the city reposed at
the foot of the mountain, and appeared
from the heights that crowned it to float
on the sea—that sea was calm as a mirror,
reflecting in one broad blaze the
golden light of the sun—the numerous
vessels of the French fleet were riding B10r 19
lightly on the waves with all their colours
flying as if to celebrate a festival.
In those vessels were their deliverers;
but between them lay an impassable
gulf, and the flames that suddenly rose
from the burning town, the destruction
of their homes and the doubtful fate of
their friends, filled them with horror.
But even this deep, though silent sorrow
—this profound despair, was happiness
compared to the destruction that
was approaching to ravage the rude
recesses to which they had retreated.
The mountain appeared suddenly to
open, thick clouds of smoke darkened
the atmosphere, and changed the brilliant
light of the sun to the obscurity of
midnight; whilst a noise, louder than
the loudest thunder, roaring at its base,
was re-echoed through the caverns, resembling B10v 20
the last effort of expiring nature
involving the universe in ruin—the
clouds gradually passed away, the thunder
rolled to a distance, the sun broke
forth in all its splendour and illumined a
scene of desolation that would have made
the heart of the stoutest warrior bleed
at the misery attending on war.

The explosion of the powder magazine
at the arsenal had occasioned this
terrific scene. Numbers of the unfortunate
fugitives were destroyed by large
masses of rock that detached from the
mountain by the violence of the concession,
rolled with resistless violence
down the declitivities; others still more
unfortunate had their limbs broken, or
were so cruelly bruised as to be unable
to move. The mountain was strewed B11r 21
with severed limbs, blackened bodies,
and disfigured heads—the survivors had
not the last mournful satisfaction of
weeping over the remains of the objects
most dear to them, for their remains
were not distinguishable. Groans of
agony, cries of anguish, and shrieks of
despair resounded on every side; the
wounded claimed the compassion of
those who had, as if by miracle, escaped
unhurt. But what relief could they
afford? Even the sources of their tears
were dried, and they had no consolation
to offer—nothing was left them but unavailing
sorrow and impotent regret.

After setting fire to the town, Christophe
retreated to the plain of La Petite
Anse, to await the final orders of his
chief; and, as he viewed from his encampment B11v 22
the flames that devoured the
city rising on the illuminated sky,—
“Such,” he said, “shall be the rejoicings
that will on all sides hail the arrival
of these invaders; burning cities shall
light them to their fate, and mountains
of ashes form their graves.”

Yet this fierce chieftain loved: his
heart, the seat of the direst vengeance,
glowed at the same time with the fondest
affection; he loved a maid—the fairest
of the race that he had devoted to destruction,
and whilst his imagination
rioted among heaps of slain and scenes
of devastation, it pointed as the reward
of his toils to some distant tranquil
bower of that delicious country, where
embalmed in fragrance, soothed by melody
and surrounded by delight he, B12r 23
should devote his life to love and the
object of his idolatry.

But these bowers of beauty, these
verdant shades—where every leaf shed
perfume, and every tree embalmed the
air with fragrance—that had waved over
tyrants abusing their power, and oppressing
the slaves that toiled to supply
their extravagant enjoyments, were now
changed into haunts which these revolted
slaves, roused by insupportable injustice
to break their chains, had in their turn
polluted with crime and stained with
blood. The proud chief of these bands,
whose nerves were strung to resistance
by a bitter recollection of their sufferings,
and who, having enjoyed the blessings
of liberty, had sworn never again
to submit to the yoke they had thrown B12v 24
off whilst one arm possessed strength to
wield a sword, or one heart palpitated
in a breast warmed with the love of
freedom; after having, in obedience to
the orders of Toussaint, evacuated the
Cape, snatched from the toils of the day
a moment’s repose—not in the moonlight
luxury of a grove, nor on the
downy cushions of a silken couch beneath
the gorgeous drapery of a magnificent
tent; but stretched on a rock,
his head supported by the moss-covered
trunk of a fallen tree, his hand resting on
his sabre’s hilt, he viewed the silvered
waves rolling in the bay studded with
the white sails of the hostile fleet, and
his heart was alternately occupied by
the desire of vengeance and the hopes of
love. He thought of the madness—of
the inconsistency of the French, who, C1r 25
after having raised the banners of liberty
in France on the ruins of the altar and
the throne that they had overturned,
had become in their own land the slaves
of a stranger, and crouched beneath the
throne of a despot. “But his power will
not reach us here; our hearts are buoyant
with hope, and we have hands to
second all those hearts can dare.”

Such were the thoughts of Christophe
as he sunk to sleep. Bright visions of
success crowned with glory cheered his
slumbers; but the fair reward of his
toils—the lovely maid, who though
sprung from the ungentle race that his
hatred had vowed to destroy, he panted
to obtain, even in his dreams eluded the
grasp with which he sought to hold her
fair but frowning image.

Vol. I. C

Chapter II.

During the interval that elapsed between
the arrival of the French fleet
from Europe, and the burning of the
town of Cape François, Christophe had
sent into the interior of the country all
those whom he suspected of favouring
the invasion of the island, and whose
influence (derived either from their
wealth or rank) he feared. A party of
these prisoners awaited, in a small enclosed C2r 27
court, the final orders of the
general. It was to be escorted by a
numerous guard, commanded by General
Glaude, a black officer, equally distinguished
for his talents and the hatred
he bore to those who had been the oppressors
of his countrymen.

The gloom of doubt,—the clouds of
hopeless despondence, hung over this
unfortunate group, who were unacquainted
with the cause for which they
were assembled. The only heart that
was not chilled with melancholy forbodings,
—the only face that was not
clouded with care, was that of Belmont,
a young officer who had arrived from
France with General Le Clerc. He had
visited St. Domingo to seek an uncle
who had been many years established C2 C2v 28
in the island, and who was immensely
rich. General Le Clerc imagined that,
in consequence of his uncle’s wealth, he
would have great influence with the
blacks; but he had been seized as a
hostage by Christophe, and, as a further
means of security, sent to the mountain,
without having obtained an interview
with the sable chief. As he surveyed
his companions in misfortune with a
rapid, and apparently careless, glance,
he was irresistibly attracted by the captivating
air of Monsieur de St. Louis,
who was walking in the court, and on
whose arm hung an elegantly-formed
female, closely wrapped in a large veil.

St. Louis was a native of St. Domingo,
who had emigrated at the commencement
of the revolution, and established C3r 29
himself in the United States, where
great prosperity had attended his commercial
enterprises. He had returned
to the island to form relations of commerce
with some friends who had remained
there through all the changes of
the times, and found means in every
change to increase their fortunes. He
had been induced to return by the security
the white inhabitants enjoyed
under the dominion of the blacks; but
the disposition of St. Louis did not possess
the flexibility that had been acquired
by those who had followed all the
vicissitudes of the revolution. He could
not bend and cringe and bow to creatures
whom he had known and despised as
miserable slaves, though they were at
that period enjoying supreme power.
His deportment was haughty; his mannersC3 C3v 30
insulting; and, during a conference
he had with Christophe, concerning
supplies of provisions from the United
States, he offended the irritable chief
by his supercilious disdain; and, when
General Glaude received orders to conduct
the prisoners to the interior of the
country, an intimation was given at the
same time that St. Louis was to return
no more. The lady, who was now the
anxious companion of his doubtful fate,
was his wife. She was a native of New
York, one of the most agreeable cities
of the United States, and this was for
her a most fortunate circumstance; for,
though all white people of French origin
were treated with insolent severity by
the blacks, they felt great respect
the Anglo-Americans, from whose country
they had caught the glorious flame of C4r 31
liberty, and from which they probably
expected assistance. Madame St. Louis,
as a native of the country that formed
at once their model and their hope, was
favoured by her guards with particular
attention, and a very convincing proof
of the consideration in which she was
held was given in her being allowed to
accompany her husband to the mountain.

Madame St. Louis, to whom the
slightest inconvenience had been hitherto
unknown, accustomed to the tranquillity
of a country where personal
liberty is sacred, and all the rights of
man respected, felt indignant at being
thus torn from her home and exposed
to the gaze of the multitude. She was
terrified by the rude glances of her
guards, and full of indefinable inquietude,C4 C4v 32
—but she was with her husband;
and, before that consideration all lesser
evils vanished. Her love for him was adoration,
—it was idolatry; and she felt, in
this moment of distress, a degree of happiness
she had long been unacquainted
with; for she had the mortification of
knowing that his heart was shared by a
rival; and, though humanity forbade
her wishing the destruction of any human
being, she could not forbear indulging
a hope that she would not again
be exposed to the pain of beholding the
being that had occasioned her so much
grief. But disappointment waited on the
wish; and, even in that period of dismay
and desolation, this hated rival disputed
with her the prize she so highly valued.

A lady, who had with great difficulty C5r 33
made her way through the crowd, entered
the court, flew to St. Louis, seized
his hand, and burst into tears.

“If,” she said, “it is indeed your
cruel intention to seek your own safety
in flight, and leave me to be assassinated
by these monsters, let me entreat you
to plunge your sword into my heart,—
it will be less inhuman.”

“My present situation, you must be
well aware, is not one of choice,” replied
St. Louis. “My flight is not
voluntary, nor can I ask you to share
it; for I am not sufficiently in favour
with these monsters to hope to obtain
any thing from them. Clara alone has
the power, if you can inspire her with
the will to serve you.”

C5 C5v 34

Madame Senat had disturbed the domestic
peace of Clara; but the amiable
stranger, forgetting the wrongs of one
whose life she beheld in such imminent
danger if left in the town, solicited, and
obtained, permission for her to accompany
them.

This lady was a native of St. Domingo;
her husband had been massacred at the
commencement of the revolution; she
had fled to New York, where she had
lived under the protection of St. Louis.
The marriage of her lover had not interrupted
their intercourse, and she had
continued to hold her empire over him
by a combination of coquetry, all
the art, and all the sprightliness of her
sex. She had returned to her native
country, animated by the hope which at C6r 35
that period animated all—the hope of
again possessing the wealth in which she
had once revelled, and of enjoying all
the delights it could procure; and when
she breathed the balmy atmosphere of
her native clime, these hopes were reanimated
with fresh ardour; the arrival
of the French fleet also promised new
sources of pleasure—pleasure was the
deity she had ever worshipped—in its
pursuit alone she lived—her life had no
other object—nor would life, deprived of
this stimulus, have been, in her estimation,
supportable.

Belmont regarded the two ladies with
an air of deep interest, and remarked
that between them there was no appearance
of cordiality; the fair and serene
countenance of Clara bore no traces of C6 C6v 36
profound feeling or of strong emotion;
yet it excited in Belmont the warmest
interest—he saw that this serenity was
assumed to hide from the cold regard of
the world feelings too delicate to be
submitted to its scrutiny; the expression
of this lovely face had assumed an air of
thoughtfulness. After the approach of
Madame Senat, she had procured the
consent of Glaude to a request that probably
saved the life of her rival, without
betraying any symptoms of pleasure for
her success; but the brightest glow of
joy crimsoned the cheek and animated
the eyes of her whose pleasure-devoted
existence was thus prolonged by one of
whose peace she had been the destroyer.
Her joy was softened by no gratefulness
for her fair preserver—no regret, such
as is felt by generous but erring souls C7r 37
when they receive benefits from the hand
of those they have injured, dwelt in her
bosom; she revelled in the delight of
being restored to her intercourse with
St. Louis, and her delight was not diminished
by the idea of giving pain to
his unoffending wife. She seized the
arm of St. Louis with the air of one who,
in the face of day, takes possession of
that to which she has an undoubted
right. Clara, as if occupied in arranging
the folds of her robe, withdrew her hand
from the arm of her husband, and he
was drawn forward by her rival. The
face of Clara was concealed by her veil,
but she pressed it frequently to her eyes,
and it was evidently wet with tears.
Taking the arm of an old female slave
who attended her with all the fond
officiousness of affection, she slowly followed C7v 38
the guards that led them towards
the mountain. They passed through the
streets where terror had spread the desolating
tranquillity of death, and were
beginning to ascend the mountain, when,
from beneath the portico of a large house
that appeared falling into ruins, a young
female approached them. Her form in
lightness, symmetry, and grace, resembled
the brightest emanation of a
youthful poet’s fancy; her face was such
as gilds the imagination of the painter in
the moments of his happiest conception.
Every eye was turned on the fair vision,
who, rapidly descending from the portico
and approaching Clara, asked if she
was Madame St. Louis?

“I am,” was the reply; “in what
can I serve you?”

C8r 39

“You can save me from despair and
death,” returned the stranger. “To
remain in the town among the horrors
that are accumulating in it is impossible,
and I can only hope for safety in
flight beneath your protection—suffer
me to accompany you to the mountain,
and I will serve you as your humblest
slave.”

The spirits of Clara had flown—even
her energy in doing good had been prostrated
by her rival. “Alas!” she replied,
“it grieves me to refuse you; but
I have already exceeded the limits of
my privilege, and dare not make another
request to those whom it may be so
dangerous to irritate.”

“Then I am lost,” said Zelica, and C8v 40
she shuddered with terror at the idea of
remaining in the town during the scene
of horror that was rapidly approaching,
and where Christophe, of whom she
had an insuperable dread, commanded.
Though a moment’s reflection would
have convinced her that no corner of the
island, however remote, could conceal
her from his power, she cherished the
fallacious hope of escaping, and without
revealing her hopes or her fears, they
gave an air of distraction to her looks
that awakened the warmest interest in
the breast of Clara.

“If it was only from death that I was
flying—the death that now menaces all
the inhabitants of this unfortunate town,
I would not thus importune you; my
life is of little importance, but there are C9r 41
evils worse than death, and those I have
not courage to meet. Consider how
direful must be the terror from which I
now beseech you to save me? and let
not that benevolence which gives its
divine impress to your face be deaf to
the tears of the veriest wretch that ever
addressed her prayers at the shrine of
pity.”

Madame Senat listened to this conversation
with no pleased attention; she
was well acquainted with the versatile
taste of her lover, and could not see
with pleasure this lovely stranger, so
full of charms, heightened by the interest
that ever accompanies novelty,
received as the partner of their pilgrimage.
She drew Clara aside, and employed
all her eloquence to convince her C9v 42
that it would be an act of unpardonable
folly to importune Glaude for one wholly
unknown to her. If no other consideration
but that of thwarting the wishes of
a rival had offered itself to Clara, that
would by most females have been thought
a sufficient inducement for extending her
protection to the lovely supplicant; but
the heart of Clara was influenced by
other and better motives—to her the
name of stranger was irresistible—there
was in her disposition a large portion of
romantic generosity that led her to view
things as they ought to be, not as they
too generally are; and it was sufficient to
have asked her friendship with confidence
to inspire her with a belief that
it was merited. Without attending to
the representations of Madame Senat,
she sent a soldier to Glaude, requesting C10r 43
him to grant her an audience, which was
instantly complied with.

“Let me not abuse your goodness,
general,” said Clara, with an air of timid
hesitation; “but a young lady has entreated
me to solicit from you your permission
to accompany us to the mountain.
I could not refuse her; may I
hope that you will find it equally impossible
—she is very lovely, and appears
very unhappy.”

Glaude listened to the soft accents of
that voice that thrilled to his inmost
soul with a sensation of hitherto unfelt
delight, and instantly signified his compliance.

Clara could not have felt more joy C10v 44
from this success if her own safety had
depended on that of Zelica, whose silent
gratefulness was more touching to the
heart than the warmest eloquence. A
faint smile irradiated her fair face as
she pressed in transport to her lips the
hand of her protectress; she was clothed
in the plainest attire, but neither that
nor the modest simplicity of her manner,
could conceal the native dignity that
would have done honour to a throne.
Madame Senat, mortified by a success
that she could not prevent, was sullenly
silent.

The whole part now proceeded up
the mountain, each sufficiently occupied
with his own thoughts to prevent his
remarking the silence that prevailed,
and which was only broken by the low C11r 45
whistle of a negro, or the scream of an
untuneful bird that the approach of this
numerous band disturbed from his solitary
haunt.

Madame St. Louis was naturally reserved,
and the unpleasant situation in
which she was now placed rendered her
more than usually silent; but there was
blended with this reserve an air of softness
that interested all by whom she
was closely observed; not remarked by
those who, considering her cursorily,
were repelled by her apparent coldness.
Madame Senat opposed to the chilling
reserve of Clara a tone of sarcastic playfulness,
beneath which she sought to
conceal the apprehensions that at present
tormented her. She had long possessed
uncontrolled power over the C11v 46
heart of St. Louis, and had taken delight
in exhibiting that power; but the
presence of the stranger threatened to
cause a revolution in the feelings of her
lover which all her art could not teach
her to prevent. When this lovely addition
was made to the gloomy party of
prisoners, St. Louis joined his wife, and
offered to the stranger, to whom she
had extended her protection, all those
little attentions which the refined voluptuary
knows so well how to practise
in order to touch the female heart.

Zelica, whose large black eyes swam
in melting languor, and who had not
been deprived, by a long abode in
France, of the gracefully indolent movements
that are the distinguishing characteristics
of the creole ladies—formed C12r 47
by nature to fascinate, and furnished by
education with all the powers of pleasing
—was a perfect enchantress, but she
appeared wholly insensible to the flattery
or gallantry of St. Louis. To Clara
all her gratefulness was due, and to
Clara all her attention was directed.
She attended to her with unremitting
assiduity, and appeared not to remember
that there was another being in the
universe. The politeness of Belmont,
and the solicitude of St. Louis, were
equally unregarded; and this carelessness
of the admiration her beauty excited
increased the effect it produced
on St. Louis, who, though his life was
in the utmost danger, thought only of
offering his homage to this charming
object who absorbed all the faculties of
his soul.

C12v 48

Clara, who was well acquainted with
the enmity of Christophe for St. Louis,
was too much occupied by her anxiety
for him, to remark the new flame that
was kindled in his breast; but Madame
Senat saw it with rage that betrayed
itself by a thousand slightly-concealed
symptoms and increased the power of
her rival.

During the extreme heat of the day
the prisoners were allowed to take
some repose; and, whilst the ladies
retired to the shelter of a wood, Belmont,
seated on a rock, entered into
conversation with St. Louis, who had
thrown himself on the grass with the
listlessness of one so overcome with heat
and fatigue as to be wholly indifferent
to what further awaited him.

D1r 49

“This is a pleasant situation,” said
St. Louis, “in which your arrival has
placed us. We are ruined; driven from
our homes, to be hunted like wild beasts
on the mountain; with the agreeable
prospect of being hanged on the first
tree that our sable chief may think suitable
for the purpose.”

“But,” replied Belmont, “as it is
not probable that he will immediately
fix his choice, I should be sorry to lose
in inaction the time that is still left me,
and must consult you about the best
means of employing it.”

“You will not, at least, be much
troubled with the embarras du choix,”
returned St. Louis. “There appears to
me nothing left for us to do but to blow Vol. I. D D1v 50
out the brains of that black scoundrel,
Glaude, and then to perform on ourselves
the same ceremony.”

“Amusements of that nature are not
at all to my taste,” observed Belmont;
“and, though to blow out his brains
would probably be rendering a service
to humanity, it would expose us to great
danger, and I have no disposition whatever
to blow out my own. It would be
much wiser to employ the hours his
caprice may still leave us, in the pursuit
of pleasure; and I, who have never
known any comparable to that we derive
from the society of women, am already
more than half in love.”

“En verité! And may I ask the
object?”

D2r 51

“Though I move in a very circumscribed
sphere,” replied Belmont, “it presents
great difficulties, and I can make
no choice without intruding on your possessed,
or anticipated, rights; therefore,
as companions in misfortune, I could on
your indulgence—your wife.”

“If,” said St. Louis, “you are in love
with my wife, I must admire your choice
of a confidant.”

“Your wife,” continued Belmont,
laughing, “who loves you with all the
ardour of a first passion, is the most
charming woman on earth; but she is
enveloped, by her angelic purity, in a
mantle of ice. I do not assert that this
could not be thawed,—for what so
fallacious as the constancy of a woman?D2 D2v 52
—but it will require more time
than I may have to live, to make the
experiment, and it would be also sinning
against certain rules of conduct
that I have long since adopted; one of
which is, never to offer my devoirs to
a married woman, unless unequivocally
invited. Therefore, your wife, infinitely
charming as she is, will not be the
object of my choice. Though her loveliness
is sufficient to make an anchorite
break his vows, her modesty would
repel the advances of the most confirmed
libertine. I am neither, and yet
my respect for Madame St. Louis is
so profound that I should blush to attempt
what I should regret infinitely to
obtain.”

“Clara in an angel, by Heaven!” exclaimed D3r 53
St. Louis. “She has but one
fault,—”

“And that,” replied Belmont, “is,
probably, being your wife.”

St. Louis laughed louder at this observation
than his guards thought was
consistent with his perilous situation.
They imagined that his mirth was insulting
to them, and proceeded from
the persuasion that their power would
be destroyed by the arrival of the forces
from Europe. The thought was rendered
galling by its probable truth, but
they resolved that all those within their
immediate sphere should feel that their
power had not yet diminished. The
order of Christophe, concerning St.
Louis, was no secret to his guards. D3 D3v 54
They assumed to him an air of insolent
defiance. Their aspect became menacing,
and they talked loudly of an
immediate execution.

Belmont, who was unacquainted with
the particular enmity of the chief to
St. Louis, paid no attention to the
threatening gestures of the negroes; and
the thoughtless St. Louis laughed not
less loud nor less long for the angry
looks of those on whom his life depended.

“The bewitching Senat loves you at
present to fury,” he continued, “and
perhaps her passion is augmented by
the evident symptoms of decline she
has perceived in her empire over you.
She is a piquante creature, and must D4r 55
offer infinite variety; but, though I am
persuaded that you would most willingly
resign her, and that she would not
be averse to the change, she is not the
object that at present attracts me. It
is Zelica,—the fair, the fascinating Zelica,
—who combines the beauty of the
houris with all the graces only to be acquired
in Paris, and the irresistible
languor created by this voluptuous climate.
She is an enchantress whose
slightest motion enslaves; but you love
her—love her with the passion you
should feel for your wife,—with the
ardour you have felt for the beautiful
Senat; therefore I cannot expect your
formal consent to offer her my homage,
but you must allow me to enter the lists
in honourable competition; and, if I win
the prize, submit to the decision of that D4 D4v 56
fate which in love or war it is in vain
to resist.”

“You arrange all this admirably,”
said St. Louis, “and I know no other
subject of conversation that would be
half so interesting. It is certainly not
unphilosophical to employ—what are
probably the last moments of my life—
on a subject that has formed its most
agreeable occupation. Justine Senat is,
I acknowledge, a creature of infinite
variety; and by turns represents, in her
own person, all the charms combined in
a seraglio. Whilst novelty attends her,
she is incomparable, and she possesses
the power of extending its empire to a
degree never before possessed by mortals.
But what power can fix the fugitive?
It flies, and with it vanishes all D5r 57
that gives value to woman—that lends
enchantment to beauty, and fascination
to grace.”

“But there are charms,” said Belmont,
“whose power survives the mere
fading lustre of personal beauty,—that
can fix the soul when the loveliness that
first attracted the eye has become familiar.”

“Oh!” replied St. Louis, “we creoles
are mussulmans in faith, and allow no
souls to our women. We live for
pleasure only,—pleasures that succeed
each other like waves of the summer
sea. As one object loses its power to
charm, a new object, as sweet and as
shining, replaces it; and the love that
expires gives birth to another, more D5 D5r 58
rich in charms,—promising more lasting
bliss.”

“And yet, Madame St. Louis is full
of soul,” observed Belmont. “Soul
beams in her eyes, and shines resplendent
in every feature of her face.”

“My wife, when I married her,” replied
St. Louis, “was, indeed, a rose in
beauty. She had all the sweetness, all
the eclat, of the queen of flowers. She
was what Zelica is now,—enchanting all
hearts by her resistless magic.”

“And she is,” replied Belmont, “what
Zelica would be, should success crown
your wishes, when the dulled edge of
sated appetite destroys on your tasteless
soul the effect of her charms. How I D6v 59
pity the folly that thus foregoes the
happiness that is in its possession—
knows not how to value the bliss attending
a union of hearts, formed by the ties
of affection, warmed by a love that adversity
cannot weaken, nor death itself
entirely destroy. One hour of a passion
so sacred, is it not worth whole ages
of the heartless bliss that is ever
changing its object? ever wandering
and ever discontented? whose praises
you vaunt?—”

“My device,” returned St. Louis,
laughing, “is ‘Faithful, thought at liberty;’
and, whilst my eyes and thoughts
wander over the living parterre of beauthat
adorn this planet, my heart
ever cherishes the purpose of returning
to the herd of sweets its home contains.”

D6 D6v 60

“But do you not fear that the heart
of your wife may follow your example?”

“For my wife,” replied St. Louis, “I
feel no apprehension. She is cold as a
vestal: even the presence of a rival
cannot animate her to think of avenging
herself; therefore, she will never err.
Her principles are formed on a basis
immovable as the pillars of—”

“Be not too confident,” returned Belmont;
“you know the chaste Camilla
yielded:Open note a001-rota Vide Don Quixote. and Madame St. Louis, though
she has approached as near the perfection
of an angel as mortality can
attain, is still a woman. In my opinion
she is sacred. I would not, even by a D7r 61
thought, diminish the lustre of that
purity which now forms her brightest
ornament for all the joys the most complete
success could yield,—joys too
fugitive to be purchased by the degradation
of a celestial being. But in the
fleet now rolling in that bay, are a thousand
souls of fire devoted to the service
of beauty,—formed by nature, and accomplished
by art, to please, seduce,
and enchant, the female heart; and, if
your wife passes unhurt through the
ordeal that is preparing for every fine
woman in the country, she will merit
the brightest crown ever offered to
virtue.”

For his wife, St. Louis felt, as he declared,
no apprehension; but for Zelica,
whom he wished to interest with all the D7v 62
ardour of newly-awakened feelings that
had long slumbered in apathy, he was
full of solicitude. The lustre of her
beauty was sufficient to captivate him,
but the spell of novelty rendered her irresistibly
attractive; and, if from aught
she derived an additional charm, it was
from the coldness with which she
viewed him,—the absolute indifference
she shewed to all his advances. To
awaken her sensibility,—to animate her
with the passion she had inspired him
with, was an object worthy of all his
efforts, and a desire to accomplish this
end occupied all his thoughts.

Chapter III.

Whilst Belmont and St. Louis were
conversing on a subject that would have
been for them full of interest, if they
had been even surrounded by instruments
of torture, the ladies had wandered
into the wood. Zelica retired beneath
the shelter of a thicket, and,
seated at the foot of a tree, had taken
a small case from her bosom and was
weeping over it. Madame St. Louis,
who observed her from a distance, and D8v 64
felt that sympathy with her sorrow which
such artless and profound grief never
fails to awaken in bosoms that have kept
amid the rude shocks of worldly contact
the finer feelings of the soul unblunted,
said to Madame Senat, “From
whatever source flows the sorrow of that
poor Zelica, I deeply regret that one so
young and so transcendently lovely
should be its prey.”

“She will cause you more serious
grief than that she is so ostentatiously
displaying to excite your sympathy,”
replied Madame Senat, who was enraged
at the effect Zelica has too visibly
produced on St. Louis, and determined
to pour into the bosom of his wife all
the tortures of jealousy that rioted in
her own.

D9r 65

“What pain can this fair creature,
who appears to represent the image of
all goodness, cause me?” asked Clara.

“She can enchant your husband;
and though she may not fix his volatile
heart, she will, whilst her empire lasts,
make him commit a thousand follies.”

Clara looked at her, who had effrontery
enough to make this observation,
steadfastly, to see whether the expression
she threw into her eyes could call a
blush to her cheek; but finding that it
kept its hue unchanged, she said—
“Zelica will never designedly attract
my husband, and I will not be so unjust
as to condemn her for an involuntary
fault; if that volatile being offers her the
homage that he has lavished on so many, D9v 66
she will, I am persuaded, disdain it;
and though unfortunately that will not
restore to me the affections of a heart
that all its wanderings has not rendered
less dear to me, I shall respect the
purity of her intentions, and not rank
her with those who have disputed with
me the possession of my husband’s
heart, employed wiles to entrap, and
artifice to retain it.”

Madame St. Louis still fixed as she
spoke her large blue eyes, full of meaning,
on the face of her whom she knew
had been this artful—this successful
rival; but the well-practised eyes of Justine
shrunk not beneath her gaze; they
returned it with an arch expression of
pleasantry, that said as plain as eyes
could say it, “Let who will be the object D10r 67
of his pursuit, you are always the
victim.”

The ladies, actuated by very different
motives, approached Zelica. Clara, full
of sympathy, with grief that she did not
doubt was deeply planted in the breast
of the youthful sufferer by early misfortune,
Madame Senat burning with
all the rancour of jealousy.

Zelica closed the casket and returned
it to her bosom; but she could not so
hastily dry her tears, and covering her
face with her hood to conceal them, they
trickled in crystal drops through her
long and lovely fingers, whilst convulsive
sobs heaved her bosom.

Madame Senat, with a contemptuous D10v 68
motion of her head, walked away; and
Clara, with all the kindness of affection
in her voice and manner, addressed
Zelica.

“The companionship of misfortune
will, I hope, excuse the sympathy offered
by a stranger to your grief. Dear Zelica,
we are all enveloped in the same
wide-spreading calamity; let us all indulge
the hope of better days.”

“Think me not ungrateful, or insensible
to the soothing power of your consoling
voice, my angelic friend, when I
tell you that my grief is, I fear, beyond
the power of sympathy to soothe or of
friendship to alleviate,” replied Zelica.

“This despondence in one so young D11r 69
and so lovely is unpardonable,” said
Clara. “If you are now separated from
your friends, indulge the hope that you
will again meet them, and in the joy of
that meeting your present sufferings will
be forgotten.”

“I have no friends,” replied Zelica
in a mournful voice; “except yourself
there is no being in this western world
to whom my heart would dare to expand
in confidence. Pardon me, dear lady;
I would not obtrude my sorrows on your
notice, but I would remove from your
mind the impression it appears to have
received, that they are of a nature to
admit of consolation.”

“This gloom is so foreign to the French
character, and so unpardonable at your D11v 70
age,” returned Clara, “that you must
allow me to condemn and combat it. If
by inevitable misfortune you have been
deprived of your friends, can you with
all your charms, with all your merit,
despair of finding those who will replace
them? And though the heart long dwells
with painful tenacity on the memory of
those for whom it first beat in fond
affection, it cannot for ever pine in melancholy;
or, infolded in the dark veil
of sorrow, refuse to open itself to the
approaches of sympathy.”

““Cold, indeed, must be the heart,”
[Gap in transcription—damaged4–6 letters]ed Zelica, “that could be insensible
to sympathy offered by a voice of sweetness
like that to which I now listen with
sensations of inexpressible gratefulness;
that voice whispers hope to a heart that D12r 71
has long been the seat of despair, and
my heart, though still trembling with
apprehension, expands to welcome the
enchanting visitant. In another clime I
would not for an instant refuse the hope
thus offered, that your friendship would
save me from danger, soothe and protect
me; but in this country, hope itself
which comes to all, cannot come to me;
my foe is here all powerful, and against
him the efforts of friendship, or the
energy of benevolence would be of no
avail.”

“But why,” asked Clara, “do you
remain in a country where an enemy so
powerful besets your path? I can find
you a thousand means of escaping to
one where all his efforts would be powerless;
and, if it is as I conceive, one D12v 72
of these sable chiefs, who is your tormentor,
you may rejoice in the idea of
his power being at an end; our journey
to the mountain is, I hope, the last gasp
of their despotism.”

“Escape!” said Zelica, “what delight
is there comprised in that word.
Oh if I could breathe the air of another
country!—if I could indulge the most
distant hope of escaping from persecution
—of enjoying the bright sunshine
and the pure air without having my
sight shocked by a being that my soul
shrinks from in pangs of aversion; without
being forced to seek a refuge in the
appalling regions of despair from his
power—a power authorized by one
whose claims to my obedience left me
no alternative but compliance or death; E1r 73
but the thought is vain—such vision can
never be realized.”

Zelica pressed to her eyes a bright
cluster of ringlets to dry her falling
tears; then kissing the hand of Clara,
said—“Pardon me, lovely stranger, for
thus yielding to my sorrow; I know it
is weak, but this fair world is so full of
delight, that however bruised by misfortune,
the heart still clings to it; and
to leave that world where beings such
as you exist, must be a determination
that only despair could oblige one so
sensible of worth as I am to adopt.”

“Talk not thus of despair of death,
dear Zelica; we have all our share of
pain; allow my friendship to supply the
place of those friends whose loss you Vol. I. E E1v 74
mourn—you shall be my friend—my
sister—we will unite our efforts to resist
the misfortunes that assail you, and we
will succeed;—relate to me the story
of your sufferings, and you will find
that in reposing your sorrows, in the
bosom of friendship they will lose their
poignancy.”

“Hail, celestial power of sympathy,
that thus illumines with hope my desolated
bosom, and ushers joy to my
wounded heart—before your soothing
voice sorrow vanishes, and the black
imagery of despair is changed into
visions of delight!” Zelica pressed her
lips to the forehead of Clara, and commenced
her narrative:—

“To begin at the very source of my E2r 75
misfortunes, they proceeded from the
beauty of my mother.”

Madame Senat here approaching the
lovely friends, interrupted the narrative
of Zelica, who, in order to conceal the
profound emotions that agitated her
soul, took from her bosom a flageolet
and played a variety of lively airs,
such as the Savoyard plays to cheer
his pilgrimage from his native country,
when he leaves it to seek for fortune
in distant climes. The taste and
execution of Zelica on this simple instrument
arrested the attention of the
gentlemen. St. Louis ceased to speak,
and listened to the celestial sounds as
they were prolonged and repeated by
the mountain echoes, whilst the negroes
danced their savage dances with wild E2 E2v 76
gestures of joy to the enchanting
strains.

When Zelica ceased to play, Clara
pressed her affectionately to her bosom
—the music had soothed her irritated
feelings that had been wounded by the
want of delicacy betrayed by every
action of her rival, and tortured by the
inconstancy of her husband, she had
been long a stranger to peace, and she
now considered this fair Creole, as a
blessing sent from heaven to pour into
her heart the balm of friendship—a heart
that had beheld all its hopes of happiness
blighted by him on whom they had
reposed.

Madame Senat beheld this growing
friendship with extreme pain. If Clara E3r 77
adopted the fair stranger, she knew,
from the romantic warmth of her heart,
as she was pleased to call it, that she
would take her to her house, and be
incapable of living without her; and
this intimacy would be but too propitious
to the ever-varying heart of St.
Louis, who, though he loudly declared
that his wife was the most lovely of her
sex, rendered her the most wretched of
women by making an idol of every being
who, by the charm of novelty, drew his
attention. She revolved, as she reclined
on the grass, near the friends whose conversation
her presence had interrupted, a
thousand plans for destroying in its bud
this dangerous intimacy; but felt the
extreme difficulty of the task, whilst she
was forced to acknowledge that she
neither possessed, nor deserved to possess,E3 E3v 78
any influence over the feelings of
Clara.

When the prisoners were summoned
to resume their march, General Glaude,
the commander of the guards that formed
their escort, placed himself by the side
of Clara, who, grateful for the attention
he had shewn to her requests, and full
of joy for having possessed the power of
serving Zelica, sought to appear more
sensible of the advantage of being the
prisoner of a chief so generous, than of
regret for the liberty of which she was
deprived.

Glaude had been among the first to
hail the dawn of freedom on the land of
which the vile dealers in slaves, after
having torn him from his native clime, E4r 79
had forced him to become a denizen,
and to raise the war-cry of extermination
against the oppressors of his countrymen;
—but it was not with the generous
design of rescuing them from the bondage
in which they groaned; it was not
to extend to the sons of slavery, the
freedom for which they had so long
panted, that he made the effort. He
beheld in the possession of that first of
blessings, liberty, only the surer means
of indulging his wishes—of gratifying
without restraint his boundless ambition.
Glaude would not have felt more than
satisfied, if he could have devoted to
destruction the whole race of white
men; but as he could not promise to his
vengeance so ample a gratification, he
regarded every individual of that hated
colour who fell into his power as victims E4 E4v 80
doomed to suffer all that his cruelty
could inflict on them; and he received
from Christophe with savage joy the
order to destroy St. Louis—a joy that
was heightened by the new-felt delight
with which he listened to the soft tones
of Clara’s voice, that stole with resistless
magic into the inmost recesses of his
ferocious soul; he listened in an ecstasy
of rapture that glowed in every vein,
rioted in every pulse; and he formed
designs of appropriating to himself a
being who possessed such powers of
enchantment. He gazed on her with the
admiration of a savage for its idol; and,
as he gazed, resolved to remove every
obstacle that opposed itself to his happiness;
for, in the rude sincerity of his
uncultivated nature, he was a stranger
to the cold refinement of polished life, E5r 81
that can support the idea of sharing the
affection, or the caresses of the object of
its passion with a husband or a lover,
and be content with a part where the
whole cannot be obtained. As he walked
by the side of Clara, and viewed the
graceful ease, the native elegance of all
her movements, and listened to the delicacy
of her slightest remarks uttered
in the most perfect harmony of tone, he
acknowledged the advantages of civilization
over savage life, as he compared
her to the females of his own colour that
he had known, and determined to possess
the bright model of perfection that
thus absorbed his soul.

Belmont discovered in his conversation
with Zelica that her heart was preoccupied.
Her averted looks,—her ever E5 E5v 82
downcast eyes,—the deep sighs that
broke from her bosom, convinced him
that she was deeply prepossessed in
favour of some fondly-cherished object,
he had been accustomed to the changing
loves, the fugitive attachments of Paris:
he had no faith in the unalterable affection
of a woman; and to relinquish the
fair prize without an effort to win her
favour was not in the nature of a young
Frenchman: but, by a look of unaffected
and decided sincerity, Zelica repelled
his first advances, and he was too well
acquainted with the female heart to
confirm its final decision by not yielding
to it in apparent submission. His tone
of passion he changed to one of sympathy;
soothed with the utmost kindness
her melancholy; and sought to
lead her attention from the gloom that E6r 83
surrounded her to the brilliant season
that was approaching, when the island
would be again tranquil, and the public
safety secured by the brave troops that
had been sent to reduce the revolted
slaves, and reinstate the proprietors in
their violated rights.

“These are fair visions,” said Zelica;
“I fear too bright to be realized.”

“You do not imagine,” replied Belmont,
“that these undisciplined and
uninformed negroes will make any effectual
resistance, even if they should
presume to attempt resisting the French
army. If they do, their fate cannot be
doubtful.—They will be crushed like the
busy inhabitants of a mole-hill beneath
the tread of a lion.”

E6 E6v 84

“How little are you acquainted with
the character of the people you thus
dispose of,” returned Zelica. “They
may be swept from the surface of the
earth,—they may be overpowered by
numbers and perish, but they will never
be reduced to slavery. Their souls are
fired by a love of liberty; their arms
are nerved by a desire of vengeance—a
desire cherished and nurtured in their
hearts’ closest folds, for wrongs that
have pressed on them for ages. You
may exterminate, but you will never
conquer, them.”

“Whatever may have been their sufferings
or their wrongs,” replied Belmont,
“I can only think them too
fortunate in having interested so fair an
advocate. Whence arises an enthusiasm E7r 85
so extraordinary for a race that has
scarcely been considered by the creoles
as possessing a claim to the commonest
rights of humanity?”

“I was prevented from imbibing the
prejudices that prevail in my country
against this unfortunate race,” said Zelica,
“by having been sent at a very
early period of my life out of the island:
but, though their advocate, I am not
their admirer; and whilst I think that
they have an indisputable right to the
freedom that they are struggling to obtain,
I feel an involuntary sensation of
horror at the sight of a black, and never
behold one without shuddering.”

“And does regret for that Belle
France,” asked Belmont, “render you E7v 86
insensible to all the charms and advantages
of this enchanting island, with
its ever-verdant retreats,—its unfading
shades?”

“Do not revive the recollection of a
country where the happiest—the only
happy—days of my life were passed.
Its most steril corner would be more
delightful to me than the gardens of
Armida, if offered to me in this
island.”

“But,” returned Belmont, “in a
fondly-remembered landscape, the imagination
of a lady usually places a figure
that gives it all its charms.—May I ask
if it is thus embellished, that the vales
of France present themselves to your
memory?”

E8r 87

“Is it merely to the locality, independent
of moral association, that the
heart attaches itself?” said Zelica. “Is
it, do you imagine, the trackless waste
of snow, or the long gloom of a six-
months’ night, that leads the Laplander
to think his dreary country the fairest
that was formed by the hand of Nature?
Is it not the recollection of the fondness
that reared his infancy, and the ardour
of that passion that, in his riper years,
animated his breast for a still dearer
object than the mother that cherished
his childhood, or the nurse that sustained
it? I was too young when I
was sent from my country to have
formed in it any very lasting attachments,
and the impression I received
in the country to which I was sent,
were too deeply engraven by time E8v 88
to give any hope of their being ever
effaced.”

St. Louis, who was vexed at seeing
Glaude hovering familiarly round his
wife, and who envied Belmont the pleasure
he derived from his long, and apparently
interesting, conversation with
Zelica, who was sufficiently ungallant to shew
his impatience without restraint to the
fair siren who exhausted all her powers
to amuse him; till at length, wearied by
his rudeness, she said, “Vous êtes bien
maussade, this evening.—It is pusillanimous
thus to suffer your spirits to droop
in the midst of danger. How different
is the manner of Belmont.”

“Belmont,” replied St. Louis, “has
not the agreeable prospect continually E9r 89
before him of being ordered for execution
in the first moment of caprice that
may dispose our black chief to amuse
himself with such a spectacle.”

“What an absurd idea!” returned
Justine. “You know that the danger,
of which you speak, cannot exist.—Why
would these monsters now commit an
act that they did not dare to attempt
when in the plenitude of their power?”

“The plenitude of their power,” replied
St. Louis, “is, in my opinion, very
far from being passed; and I apprehend
that the arrival of the European army
will greatly tend to increase it.”

Madame Senat, mortified by the ill-
humour of St. Louis, secretly wished E9v 90
that any event, even the horrible one
that she had asserted could not happen,
would leave her at liberty to direct the
whole force of her charms against the
amiable stranger, whose vivacity, gallantry,
and inexhaustible spirits, kept
constantly on the alert by a lovely
woman whom he ardently desired to
please, was strikingly contrasted by the
carelessness and captiousness of St.
Louis, who was at no pains to conceal
his desire to be freed from the presence
of one who had but a short time before
constituted his happiness.

Justine, who, even in the ardour of
her desire to captivate the new object
that enchanted her, could not behold
one of her captives throw off her chains
without feeling excessively mortified, E10r 91
wept with rage at the rudeness of St.
Louis. “Why,” said she, “did I not
remain and perish in the Cape? I
should then have died in the charming
illusion, fondly cherished till the last
moment of my life, of living in your
memory,—of sharing your regret.”

St. Louis was capricious, but not
cruel: he could not behold the tears of
a lovely woman, without feeling some
regret for having caused them to flow.
He soothed her with tenderness, and
ascribed his want of spirits to the awkward
situation in which he was placed.

“You are not sincere,” replied Justine;
“nor am I deceived by your want
of sincerity. You, who can laugh even
when surrounded by danger, would not E10v 92
suffer it, when thus distant, to overwhelm
you. The source of your inquietude
is the passion you feel for
Zelica. Attracted by the charm of novelty,
the only charm whose power you
acknowledge, you forget—”

“I forget nothing,” said St. Louis,
interrupting her impatiently, “I do not
even forget that I am not possessed of
the philosophy of La Bruyère, ‘Qui
nous fait vivre sans une femme; ou
nous fait supporter cella avec qui nous
vivons.’”

Madame Senat, feeling that she had
already gone too far, was silent, and
her bosom resembled the region over
which she was then passing. Whilst
volcanic fires raged within, its surface E11r 93
was embellished by the calm beauties
of spring.

The glories of the setting sun had
long been obscured by the shadows of
evening, when the guards, halting for
the night, prepared to pitch their tents
beneath a group of palm trees that raised
their verdant dome over a rocky platform.
Clara and Zelica, wandering in
this wilderness of flowers, amused themselves
with admiring its beauties, and
sought a spot on which they might renew
the conversation that Justine had
interrupted. There was a sympathy of
thought and feeling between these two
lovely females that united their souls.—
This sympathy did not require the slow
movement of time to call it forth; a look
discovered, a glance imparted it.

E11v 94

St. Louis inquired of Belmont whether
he had made any progress in the
favour of Zelica?

“None whatever,” was the reply:
“the heart of that lovely maid is no
longer free. She loves,” he added; “and
she is unhappy: and, though she utters
no complaint, the half-suppressed sigh,
the ever-starting tear, more eloquently
than words, declare that she suffers.”

“And what a delight-imparting task
it would be,” said St. Louis “to arrest on
those rosy lips, the stealing sigh,—to dry,
with burning kisses, those tears,—to remove
the blight that fades her cheek,—
and to re-animate the rays of those full
floating dark eyes. I cannot regret the
ties that bind me to Clara; yet, if I
was free,—”

E12r 95

“And, as you are not free, pray Heaven
to guard you from the power of
those eyes,” replied Belmont; but neither
the thoughts nor the wishes of St. Louis
were influenced by the counsel.

Chapter IV.

General Glaude, leaning against a
rock, with his eyes fixed on Clara, could
with difficulty resist the desire he felt
to seize her at once, and bear down all
the obstacles that opposed themselves
to his happiness. During the day, his
ever-ready hand had assisted her in
moments of weariness. The guards F1r 97
were by his order continually seeking
the finest fruit—the clearest spring to
refresh her; and whilst love softened
into an approach to civilization his wild
and haughty character—his passion,
hourly increasing in violence, resembled
a torrent breaking down all the barriers
that impeded its course. He beheld
with impatience the most trifling attentions
of St. Louis for his wife, and felt
as if every look she directed to him was
stolen from his own stock of happiness.

The fate of her husband had been
pronounced by Christophe, though the
time of executing the sentence had been
left to the discretion of Glaude; and, in
the violence of his desire to possess the
object of his love, it was not difficult for
him to discover something to condemn Vol. I. F F1v 98
in the slightest action of his intended
victim.

It is certain that the manners of St.
Louis at this dangerous crisis were
nothing less than conciliating; he was
indignant at being thus dragged to the
mountain by those he so infinitely despised
—he was wearied by the constantly
irritating attacks of Justine, and
anxious to enter the lists as a candidate
for the favour of Zelica—all these considerations,
to which may be added the
continual vexations caused by the impertinence
of his guards, deprived him
of the small portion of self-possession
that had fallen to his share; and, forgetting
that his life was in the hands of
those whom he haughtily insulted, he
insisted upon having some change made F2r 99
in the position of the tent in which he
was to pass the night.

The negro obstinately continued to
fix the tent in the way he had begun it.

“Dog!” said St. Louis, rudely pushing
him, and seizing the pole that supported
the tent.

The negro uttered a loud yell, and
St. Louis was instantly surrounded and
seized by the guards.

Glaude, who had regarded with malignant
pleasure a scene that accorded
so well with his wishes, issued an order
for St. Louis to be loaded with irons
during the night, and positively commanded
him to be shot at sun-rise.

F2 F2v 100

Clara, wild with affright and terror at
this inhuman order, flew to the general,
whom she had never found inaccessible,
and who, at her intercession, had on
several trifling occasions relaxed in his
severity; but she was received at the
entrance of his tent by a sentinel, who,
with his bayonet pointed at her breast,
commanded her to retreat. With the
swiftness of distraction she sought the
place where her husband was guarded,
but a hedge of bayonets surrounded him
on every side, and prevented her approach;
she returned to the retreat of
Glaude, sunk on her knees at a small distance
from his tent, and with her hands
clasped to her eyes, remained fixed in
that attitude, a lovely image of woe.

Madame Senat had thrown herself F3r 101
into the arms of Belmont, and lay fainting
on his bosom; but Glaude, who felt
for her the hatred that was felt by every
negro for the former oppressors of his
race, sent a soldier to seize her. She
was awakened by his rude grasp from
her well-feigned swoon, and clung in
real terror to Belmont; but it was in
vain that she sought from him the protection
that he had not the power to
bestow; she was torn from his arms,
and they were both hurried away at the
same time in different directions.

Though Glaude possessed sufficient
firmness thus to decide the fate of St.
Louis, he could not rely on his resolution
to resist the despair—the entreaties
—the tears of Clara; for whom he
burned with the fury of a tiger panting F3 F3v 102
for his prey. He had therefore resolved
to avoid exposing himself to the danger
of witnessing her anguish, and gave
orders to the guards to prevent her
approach; and, as he beheld her from
behind the curtains of his tent, he
anticipated such exquisite delight in
drying her tears, that he could feel
no regret for having caused them to
flow.

Clara remained before the tent of the
barbarian, who thus doomed her husband
to death and herself to a fate that
she would have considered with more
horror than the cruellest torture; through
the solemn stillness of the night resounded
the cries of anguish that broke
from her convulsed bosom, and gave a
momentary relief to the agonies that F4r 103
wrung it—whilst the negroes, who had
lighted a large fire at a small distance
from the spot she was bedewing with
her tears, danced round it with songs of
exultation and savage cries of joy. The
wrongs he had received from her husband
—his infidelity—his neglect, were
in that moment forgotten; she thought
only of the first happy hours of their
early love, when the torments of jealousy
were still unknown—where her breast
was unharrowed by the pangs of disappointment;
and whilst memory retraced
those soft recollections, she felt
that life would be insupportable if she
was deprived of him who gave it all its
charm. Zelica, kneeling by the side of
the fair mourner, supported her head,
mingled her tears with those of Clara,
and re-echoed her sighs.

F4 F4v 104

St. Louis, though he was in these
trying moments deprived of consolation
of his wife’s presence, was attended
by one whose grief for his danger
yielded not in depth or sincerity even
to that of Clara. Madelaine, an aged
slave, who had received him in her arms
on his entrance into the world—who had
been his nurse, and had followed him
through all the changes of his fortune,
now stood by his side, and sought to
inspire him with a hope which she could
not disguise from herself was fallacious.
The guards, who had rudely repelled the
approach of Clara to her husband, had
not dared to exercise the same authority
when Madelaine, whom they regarded
as possessed of supernatural powers,
advanced; and whilst profiting by this
prepossession in her favour, she sought F5r 105
to increase it by muttering imprecations
against those who thus wantonly abused
their power; she prayed that her own
life might not be protracted one moment
beyond that of the child of her
affection.

The short night of a tropical sky passed
rapidly away, and the glorious morning,
glowing in tints of richest crimson
and brightest gold, gave life and light
and joy to all nature, except to the
poor sufferer, who, exhausted with grief,
rested on the bosom of Zelica, and beheld
with horror the return of that light
that was to witness the eyes of her
husband for ever closed in darkness.
One soldier with slow steps paced before
the general’s tent, the others were
slumbering on the grass; a flood of light F5 F5v 106
announced the appearance of the sun—
of that sun that was to rise no more for
St. Louis; and when the first rays of the
luminary emerged from the ocean, deriving
courage from despair, the wretched
Clara rushed into the tent, and threw
herself at the feet of Glaude. He had
just risen from the moss-covered couch
on which he had passed the night—not
in sleep, but in the anticipation of gratified
wishes—successful hopes.

Clara seized his hand—what a contrast
did that hand present to the beauty,
the whiteness, the delicacy of her own?
At the feet of a man on whose uncontrolled
passions no principle of morality
imposed restraint, she bent in unutterable
anguish; and the gracefulness of her
attitude, the intense feeling expressed F6r 107
in her eloquent face, whilst they rivetted
on her the attention of the destroyer
of her husband, rendered that doom irreversible
that would, by leaving her
wholly in his power, without an arm to
sustain or protect her, secure to him the
possession of an object who was, in his
opinion, the most perfect being the universe
contained.

“She will be mine—she will be mine,”
he thought in the wild excess of his extravagant
fancy; “she is the only object
of my soul’s idolatry, and I will
worship her as only Gods are worshipped,
till, won by this fervent adoration,
she will yield—will bless me with
her fondness. She will feel and confess
the vast difference between a soul
of fire, concentrating on one loved object F6 F6v 108
all its ardour, and the lukewarm feelings
of a husband, whose feeble passion,
whose exhausted affections require the
constant stimulus of novelty to re-animate
them. I will wage war with all
his race to obtain her, woo her in the
jaws of danger—guard her whilst life
gives power to his arm—hold her even
in death.”

Such were the thoughts that occupied
the mind of Glaude; whilst Clara, thinking
of nought but her husband—of her
husband at that moment in the hands of
an executioner, trembled at the idea of
every passing moment being the last in
which he should be allowed to live;—
her face, paler than ashes, was shaded
by the wild luxuriance of her dark hair
—her tears streamed on the sable hand F7r 109
she held, but they could as soon have
acquired the power of changing its hue
to the fair colouring of her own, as have
changed the purpose of him who could
not be merciful without relinquishing the
hope of delights which were heightened
by the power of an ardent imagination,
and desired with all the energy of a
nature that scorned control.

“Be merciful, general; spare, oh!
spare the life of my husband, or pass on
us both the same cruel sentence—let
us share the same fate—spare me the
misery of surviving him a few agonizing
hours. Pardon him, or unite us in the
same moment in the arms of death.”

“Over your life, I have no power—
no harmful power,” said Glaude, trembling F7v 110
with the transport her touch thrilled
to his inmost soul. “If your life was
in danger, I would defend it at the hazard
of my own; but I cannot disobey the
command of my chief, nor defer longer
the execution of his orders.”

“Why will you obey the barbarous
commands of a chief who thus abuses
his power? and who is, in fact, chief no
longer; his cruel efforts are suggested
by the last efforts of his despair—be
generous—disregard commands that
your better sense must disavow—enjoy
the gratification of having saved the life
of a man from whom no mortal ever
received an injury; you will have claims
on St. Louis, who is the very soul of
generosity, that he can never forget; or,
if he could forget, to devote to you a life F8r 111
received from your hands—my gratitude
will be eternal.”

“What favour can I require from the
hand of St. Louis?” asked Glaude in a
haughty tone; “till I return to the abject
condition of a slave, can I want or
receive any thing from the hands of a
white man?”

“Without being slaves,” replied Clara,
“men always require the good offices of
their fellow-creatures; and the time is
perhaps rapidly approaching, when to
have saved the life of my husband will
be an act that you will recollect with
feelings far removed from regret.”

The implied meaning of Clara’s observation
awakened in the heart of Glaude F8v 112
augmented rage. The struggles for
freedom that had deluged St. Domingo
with blood, and been hitherto crowned
with success, were they to be of no
avail? Were men, who had enjoyed the
blessings of liberty to be again loaded
with chains? Men, who had raised their
heads in proud defiance to their oppressors,
were they to be again bowed
beneath the galling yoke!—the thought
carried with it madness, and the irritated
soul of Glaude breathing nought but vengeance,
which even love could not soften,
bound itself by the direst imprecations
to be for ever inaccessible to pity.

“Never,” he cried, “will the hour
arrive in which I shall regret having destroyed
one of that detested race—one?
are they not all devoted to destruction?”

F9r 113

“If you think yourself exempt from
the casualties of life,” returned Clara,
“let not that belief divest you of humanity.
Grant my husband his life—for
mercy—for pity grant it; I would say
for me, but I also am of the fatal colour
that is the signal for destruction.”

“For you,” said Glaude, grasping the
hands that were raised to him in supplication;
“for you—and why should
I listen to you?—to you who would
spurn me—turn from me with horror—
scorn my prayers, however ardently or
humbly offered.”

“Oh, say not so!” replied Clara,
earnestly; “what could you ask that
I would not grant? Oh! if wealth could
purchase your pity, or if I had power to F9v 114
command it—but alas! I can only address
myself to your feelings, or your
heart; if that heart is closed against the
voice of mercy, I am lost.”

“To my heart!” exclaimed Glaude,
in a voice that would have betrayed the
emotions that agitated him to a less occupied
observer, “must my heart melt
for the sufferings of one of the race that
has for ages inflicted tortures on my
countrymen? Even if your tears could
awaken that heart to pity, I would not
listen to its dictates. St. Louis must
die, and you must live to forget him—
live to be happy.”

“Live, and see my husband perish?
Live, and be happy when he is no more?
Never, never.”

F10r 115

“Listen to me,” said Glaude, raising
the weeping suppliant from the earth
with the strong grasp of passion: the
idea of deceiving the unhappy Clara
with the promise of granting her husband’s
life, on condition of receiving as a
reward for all his daring passion presumed
to ask, suggested itself for a moment;
but his proud soul disdained to employ
artifice, and the happiness he could resolve
to obtain by force, he could not
stoop to possess by duplicity. His
looks, less obedient to restraint than his
words fixed on her face, expressed the intensity
of his feelings, and he resolved,
when the tragic fate of her husband was
decided, to bear her to the interior of
the country, and there, either by persuasion
or force, obtain the happiness
that he figured to himself she only could F10v 116
impart. Even if its attainment was followed
by her immediate destruction,
what torrents of inexpressible delight
flowed through his breast and rioted in
his heart, as thus for a transporting moment
he held in his arms the fair creature
that, trembling with terror for her
husband, was unconscious of the danger
that menaced herself. If thus to hold
her was delight to which the wildest
dreams of his fancy had never approached,
what must be the bliss of him
on whom her heart lavished all the treasures
of her fondness?

The loud beating of drums, the clangour
of trumpets, the heavy marching of
the soldiers near the tent, restored the
recollection of Clara; she broke from
the hold of Glaude, whose trembling F11r 117
arms could no longer support her—she
rushed through the guards, who involuntarily
made way to give her a passage,
and threw herself on the breast of her
husband, who was already at the place
of execution.

“Tear her away,” said the officer
who commanded the guard.

“Never, never,” cried Clara, clinging
still closer to her husband and hiding in
his bosom her agonized face.

“Then they must both perish,” exclaimed
the ferocious soldier. The
pieces were levelled, but till the last
orders of the general arrived the fatal
signal was not given. Madelaine threw
herself on her knees before her mistress, F11v 118
and entreated her to be calm. St. Louis
endeavoured to free himself from the
embrace of Clara, but he tried in vain;
she held him with the force of one whose
last hope is in the grasp—she felt as if
the hour was approaching that would
terminate her sorrows and her life at
once—a life that she would have resigned
with transports of joy to save
that of her husband. Her soul, sinking
beneath the continual shocks it received,
sighed for repose; and where was repose
so tranquil, so unbroken, to be
found, as in the grave! Her mingled
sensations of grief for the fate of her
husband, and of joy at thus sharing that
fate, were at once so exquisitely painful
and so fraught with thrilling delight
that she was only sensible of rapture
glowing as that felt by martyrs when F12r 119
heaven opening to their view, shews the
bright reward of their sufferings.

Zelica had discovered the true source
of Glaude’s enmity to St. Louis in the
burning glances he directed to Clara,
and trembled for her safety whilst she
remained in the interior of his tent; but,
when she rushed forth and clasped her
husband in all the wildness of despair,
she resolved to make an effort to save the
unhappy victims, even if it should cost her
the sacrifice of all that she most highly
prized. She entered the tent where
Glaude, in the utmost agitation, awaited
the sound of the volley that would deprive
Clara of a husband, and leave her
wholly in his power. At the appearance
of a female, he started; but the
voice of Zelica calmed the perturbation F12v 120
of his spirits, and obliged him involuntarily
to collect his scattered thoughts.

“General,” said Zelica, “I request
you to suspend the order for the execution
of Monsieur de St. Louis, till
a messenger can be sent to Christophe,
who will, at my prayer, pardon
him.”

“And who is the person that honours
me with this request?—who would thus
prevent me from performing my duty,
and thinks she possesses sufficient influence
with General Christophe to induce
him to reverse a sentence that he has
declared unchangeable?” asked Glaude,
in a tone of the most pointed irony. “If
I grant her request, will she also exonerate
me from the crime of having G1r 121
disobeyed his orders respecting the
prisoner?”

“If the orders of General Christophe
were positive concerning the execution
of the prisoner,” returned Zelica, “the
time, at least, was not fixed; and, having
admitted of delay, it may still be delayed.
He cannot escape you. Guard
him closely. If, with the return of the
messenger, his pardon does not arrive,
his fate will still be in your power; and
my life, valueless as it is, may be offered
as an atonement for my presumption.”

There was a dignified gracefulness in
the manner of Zelica, and a tone of
blended sweetness and firmness in her
voice, that commanded the respectful
attention of all those who approached Vol. I. G G1v 122
her. Glaude abhorred all the race to
which, from her colour, he concluded
she belonged, but he could not divest
himself of a sentiment of involuntary
respect for one who seemed born to
command; and, changing his ironical
tone to one of respect, he again asked
“who it was that imagined she possessed
sufficient influence with the general to
cause so great a change in his decision
as would be evinced by the pardon of
St. Louis?”

“I am the daughter of De la Riviere,”
replied Zelica, her whole frame shaking
with agony, her voice almost inarticulate
from the violence of her emotions.

Glaude bowed without reply. To
have refused the request of Zelica would G2r 123
have given to his conduct an appearance
of deliberate cruelty which he wished
to avoid, and he was unwilling to increase
the repugnance Clara was naturally
supposed to feel for him, by being
thus deaf to the voice of humanity. St.
Louis was restored to that life on whose
extremest verge he stood a few moments
before; and his wife, slowly recovering
her senses, was almost wholly deprived
of them when she received the joyful
intelligence.

Zelica, supplied by General Glaude
with materials for writing, instantly despatched
a letter to Christophe; then,
hastily leaving the tent, she sought the
shelter of a neighbouring wood, and,
throwing herself on the ground, yielded
to the grief which her heart was G2 G2v 124
overcharged. The sobs that broke from
that bursting heart—the cries of anguish
that she could not suppress,—reached
the ears of Clara, who, restored to life,
to love, and joy, reclined in the arms of
her husband, rejoiced at his unlooked-for
escape and revelled in the ecstasy of the
moment, forgetful or regardless of the
evils that still menaced her. That anguish
existed in the world appeared to
her surprising, since its weight had been
removed from her own breast. Her
husband, from the very brink of the
grave, was restored to her,—could there,
then, be cause of sorrow? yet, symptoms
of sorrow she had heard, and her compassionate
soul felt no wish more pressing
than that of relieving it. She flew
to the spot from whence the sad sounds
proceeded, and saw the lovely Zelica G3r 125
extended on the grass, in all the bitterness
of overwhelming anguish. That
she wept for the fate of St. Louis was
the first idea that presented itself to
Clara: the next was, the joyful thought
that such cause of sorrow no longer
existed.

“Weep no more, dearest Zelica; St.
Louis is no longer in danger. At the
very moment when the fatal signal was
to be given, that would have deprived
him of life, he was reprieved, and that
act of mercy—oh! may blessings attend
him who gave it—has restored me also
to life and happiness. Nay, whence this
sorrow? Weep no more, but congratulate
me. Share my joy and welcome
back my husband to that life whose
threshold he was passing.”

G3 G3v 126

“I do, I do congratulate you,” replied
Zelica, concealing her face beneath the
shining folds of her hair, “but I cannot
tranquillize feelings that have been too
powerfully excited by late events. Pardon
this indulgence of sorrow that you
will think inexcusable, but that misery
has rendered insupportably acute, dearest
Clara, and suffer me to be alone till
the tumult of my mind has subsided.”
She plunged into the wood, leaving
Clara surprised at her emotions.—The
flood of joy that irradiated her own
breast was so bright, so radiant, that
she was astonished at beholding sadness
that did not yield to its effulgence.

Zelica fled from the presence of the
beings whose happiness she had secured,
not to regret having performed a heroic G4r 127
act, but to weep over the fatal necessity
that had obliged her to solicit aught
from the hand of Christophe. Seated
in a small cavern, formed by a projecting
rock that overhung the very summit
of the mountain,—concealed from view
on all sides by the thick masses of jessamine
and wild-rose that grew in rich
luxuriance, wasting their fragrance in
the desert, and only open to the sea, of
which it commanded a boundless prospect,
—Zelica, wishing that this retreat
would hide her for ever from the universe,
reflected on her melancholy fate.
By requesting Christophe to spare the
life of St. Louis, she had departed from
a resolution she had formed never to
have any voluntary communication with
him, and given him a right to claim from
her the performance of duties that had G4 G4v 128
been imposed on her by her father, and
which, in the first moment of despair
and horror, she had vowed never to acknowledge.
She reproached herself with
having yielded to the influence of pity—
for having destroyed herself to save the
life of another, but her better feelings
instantly repelled the selfish regret.
Could she see that good—that amiable
Clara, with all her virtues—with all her
brilliant qualities, perish, nor make one
effort to save her? Yet, what an effort!
and again, the magnitude of the interests
it involved pressed on her tortured heart.
“Oh! that I was floating on the surface
of that ocean,” she cried, “freed from
the horrid fate that awaits me,—and
which I can only escape in death,—freed
from this land of slavery,—floating towards
that dear country where all the G5r 129
happiness of my life was enjoyed,
—where the best wishes of my heart
repose.—Vain thought! why do I indulge
you? Do I not know that the
hopes of the wretched Zelica are for
ever destroyed.”

When the declining sun announced
the approach of evening, Zelica rose to
rejoin Clara, whose joy for the life of
St. Louis—so dearly purchased by an
enormous sacrifice on her part—she
could not, without a violent effort, force
herself to witness. When turning to
descend from the rock, she observed
three sentinels stationed near it; one
of whom, advancing with a respectful
air, said it was the command of the
general that she should not join the
prisoners, but proceed under their escort G5 G5v 130
to the Gonaïves. They presented her
at the same time with a basket filled
with provisions, and told her that at a
short distance from the place where she
now rested she would find all the accommodations
that she could desire.

Zelica knew that resistance would be
vain. She thought also that Glaude
probably resented her interference, and
had thus removed a troublesome observer
of his conduct. She had discovered
the passion that Clara had excited
in his breast, and trembled for her
safety: but all the reflections of Zelica
only served to shew the danger of those
she loved and wished to protect; but
she could devise no means of preserving
them from it. She followed her guards,
observing a profound silence, convinced G6r 131
that either resistance or complaint would
be wholly useless.

The messenger that had been sent
with Zelica’s letter to Christophe, met
him as he retreated from the Cape. The
sable chief, in the midst of the horrors
of war, felt a glow of transport thrill
through every nerve as he read the lines
traced by her hand. He immediately
issued orders to Glaude to respect the
life of St. Louis, and to separate Zelica
from the prisoners. These orders were
implicitly obeyed, and Zelica was conducted
towards the Gonaïves without
being suffered to say adieu to those on
whose affections she had acquired such
strong claims.

Glaude viewed with pleasure the departureG6 G6v 132
of Zelica, but his enjoyment was
speedily damped by the arrival of an
officer, with a large body of troops, who
took charge of Clara and St. Louis; and
Glaude received orders that he could
not disobey, to proceed immediately to
the heights of Plaisance.

A command that thus destroyed all
the visions of bliss that he had indulged,
and deferred to an indefinite period the
delight he had anticipated in his views
on Clara, was received with rage, and
submitted to with reluctance, by the
haughty chief. “Mankind are slaves,
—eternally slaves,” he exclaimed, in the
bitterness of his rage. “We have
broken the chains by which we were
bound by white men, but we are still
enslaved by chiefs who bend us to their G7r 133
purposes, under the slight pretence of
the general good. There is no good but
unrestrained freedom; there is no happiness
but uncontrolled enjoyment.”
Glaude, whilst thus murmuring at the
power that restrained the licentious
liberty in which he sighed to luxuriate,
submitted for the moment to a force
which he could not oppose, but which
he formed a firm resolution to resist,
and either finally to possess the supreme
power that would make him uncontrolled
master of his own, and the
actions of others, or perish in the attempt.
He viewed with jealous eyes
the power to which Christophe had
attained, and ascribed it to the influence
of Zelica, and he felt how infinitely
superior Clara was in charms to Zelica,
and how much greater would be his own G7v 134
influence than that of Christophe if he
could win her to crown his passion.
Clara, a native of the United States,—
a daughter of that land of liberty!—if
he was in possession of her heart no
obstacles could oppose themselves to
his attaining to the supreme rank in the
island; for his ardent imagination pictured
all the force of her country rising
at her voice to assist the blacks in
struggle for freedom, and to crown her
queen of the island.

Chapter V.

The people of colour, after burning
the Cape, had precipitately evacuated
the place, and the French commander
prepared to land his troops. Whilst all
on board the fleet was in the tumult of
preparation for this important event,
two gentlemen, who had concealed
in a cavern beneath the rocks of fort
Picolet, as soon as they could leave their
retreat with safety, went in a canoe to
meet the admiral’s vessel, and fortunately
arrived in time to prevent a horrible
catastrophe.

G8v 136

General Le Clerc, when he beheld
numbers of people descending the mountain,
imagined that the negroes had only
feigned a retreat, and that, having assembled
their forces, they intended to
oppose his landing. Irritated by the unexpected
resistance he had already met,
—surprised at the decided spirit they
had shewn in burning the Cape, and at
the audacity with which they appeared
to brave the destructive power of his
cannon, he was preparing to receive
them with a broadside, when he learned
from the two gentlemen who arrived
from the shore, that the crowds he saw
were the females belonging to the Cape
who had been sent to the mountain; and
this information was given in time to
prevent a misfortune, too melancholy to
be imagined.

G9r 137

When the female fugitives descended
to the plain, they sought among the
smoking ruins of the town, the objects
of their affectionate solicitude, from
whom, by a refinement in cruelty, they
had been separated. Christophe had
thrown desolation into every family in
the Cape, whilst he was still undecided
on the fate he intended for the whole;
and, when the hour of re-union arrived,
and these unfortunate beings again met
the surviving objects of their tenderest
interest, they forgot their sufferings in
the joy of meeting those whom they had
despaired of beholding. General Le
Clerc, on entering the city, if he had
not been blinded by a presumptuous
reliance on his own powers, might have
formed, from the aspect it presented to
him, an idea of the resistance that would
be opposed to him by the slaves, whom G9v 138
he had imagined would so readily resume
their chains.

A servant belonging to Madame Le
Clerc approached a group of women
who were sitting on a heap of ashes,
and asked them where he could find
some fruit for his mistress.

“Here is the fruit your arrival has
brought us,” said one of the women, offering
a handful of the still warm ashes, to
which her dwelling had been reduced.
“Take your mistress that,” said another,
pale, emaciated female, throwing into
his basket a child that had just expired
in her arms. The man, affrighted, fled,
leaving the basket on the ground.

On all sides, the burned and blackened
walls presented melancholy proofs G10r 139
of the opposition of the people of colour
to the establishment of the ancient order
of things. The white inhabitants of
the country deprecated the presence of
these ill-omened strangers, from a twofold
motive: the first proceeded from
the natural antipathy of the creoles to
the Europeans; the second, and the
most reasonable one, arose from the
conviction that the injudicious measures
of General Le Clerc had precipitated the
country into irretrievable ruin. Though
great numbers of the inhabitants of St.
Domingo had emigrated, at the commencement
of the revolution, numbers
had remained; and, with the exception
of being mortified by the continual view
of their former slaves enjoying the advantages
of freedom, they were very
happy. The country offered such immense G10v 140
commercial resources that all
those who commenced business, with
however small a capital, soon attained
ease; and, in the new route through
which they so successfully pursued Fortune,
they ceased to regret the one
from which they had been driven; and,
though it is to be presumed that the
planters who were reduced to this state
of comparative poverty secretly hoped
for a change, they had no confidence in
the soldiers of Napoleon, being fully
persuaded that if the island was freed
by them from the dominion of the blacks,
that they would consider it as a conquered
country, and divide it among
themselves.

The unhealthy season now approached,
—that season so fatal to strangers, G11r 141
in a climate where the heat is insupportable.
Numbers of the soldiers who
were exposed to the ardour of the sun,
without even the shelter of a tent, perished
miserably, and the survivors had
more the appearance of spectres than of
living creatures. At this period, when
all was discontent and dismay, St. Louis
and Clara descended from the mountain.
They had been set at liberty immediately
after the departure of Glaude,
but had delayed returning to the city
till a house was prepared for them. The
apartments of Clara were fitted up with
all that taste and splendour could devise,
to render them enchanting; and in
this temple of elegance, she was surrounded
by slaves possessed of every
talent that could amuse and delight.
Their soft voices lulled her to repose, as G11v 142
she sunk on the silken sofa in noon-day
slumbers; the perfumed bath awaited
her awaking; and, wherever she cast
her eyes, her own beautiful image was
reflected by superb mirrors. But, in
the midst of this splendour, Clara was
wholly a stranger to domestic happiness,
and she regretted, in the magnificence
that surrounded her, the solitude
of the mountain, and the savage
retreats through which she had passed,
where, if she had been deprived of the
comforts that attend on civilization, she
had met no traces of the falsehood and
the duplicity of mankind.

St. Louis, after his return from the
mountain, appeared to have forgotten
the vows of fidelity he had made to
Clara when under the conviction that G12r 143
he owed his life to her energy and her
affection. He had renewed his intercourse
with the perfidious Justine, though
convinced that to Clara it was a continual
source of pain and mortification.
He frequently regretted that the lovely
Zelica was so entirely lost to his view.
He was unacquainted with the claims
that she had on his gratitude; but, if he
had known that it was to her he owed
his life, it would have been, in his opinion,
an additional motive for him to
offer her his homage, nor would he have
been persuaded that all the interest she
had shewn for him had been inspired by
her attachment to Clara.

But, since the object that he would
have considered most worthy of his admiration
was no longer visible, he was G12v 144
not of a disposition to waste his days in
useless repining; he adored Madame
Senat with renovated ardour, and shewed
only cold neglect to the being most
worthy of his adoration.

Clara, in the midst of her domestic
misery, was grateful for the mercy that
had spared the life of her husband. She
was frequently eloquent in expressions
of that gratefulness, and fervently desired
that an opportunity of declaring to
Glaude how deeply she was sensible of
his goodness would present itself. She
had not the most distant idea that the
life of St. Louis had been granted to the
prayer of Zelica; and, though, as she
retraced the terrible scene in the tent,
the recollection of Glaude’s ardent looks,
—his vehement gestures, terrified her, H1r 145
she did not imagine that they proceeded
from any other cause than his aversion
to the unpleasant task he was obliged,
in obedience to the commands of Christophe
to perform. In conversation with
Madame Senat, Clara introduced that
ever-interesting subject: spoke of her
own gratitude, and her admiration of
Glaude’s benevolence.

“With all the discernment you possess,”
replied Justine, “you are only
sensible of effects, and wholly blind to
the causes that produce them. Glaude
had but one motive for granting your
prayers; and though, in following its
impulse, he acted against his own interest
for the moment, it was no doubt
with a view ultimately to ensure his
success.”

Vol. I. H H1v 146

“You speak in riddles,” replied Clara.
“What interest could Glaude feel?—
what ultimate success could he have in
view? You should have heard with
what contempt he spoke of any possible
good that he could ever receive from
St. Louis.”

“Oh! it is not from the hand of St.
Louis that he expects his reward,” replied
Justine; “nor is he of a disposition
to forego the immediate gratification of
his vengeance for any distant good that
he may derive from forbearance. A
softer sentiment,—more gentle feelings,
than St. Louis could inspire, actuated
him.—He loves,—and is sufficiently
civilized to know that you would shrink
from a lover whose hands were stained
with the blood of your husband.”

H2r 147

Clara turned pale as she received this
horrible information, and she felt almost
as much horror for the one who thus
calmly gave it, as she could have been
sensible of in the presence of that
Glaude who was now presented to her
view in a new character.

Justine, who marked the changes of
her countenance, and saw the extreme
disgust that predominated over every
other feature, laughed. “And so,” she
said, “you did not know, or even suspect,
the sentiments with which you
had inspired Glaude? I am not so
blind. I marked it at its dawn,—watched
its progress,—saw passion gleaming
in his glance of fire,—heard it trembling
on his faltering accents. I was convinced
that this impetuous passion had H2 H2v 148
precipitated the fate of St. Louis: I
now think it preserved him; but, how it
thus operated on his burning soul, I
confess I cannot explain: that remains
a secret between him and yourself?”

Clara, overpowered by the chill of
terror, remained silent. To consider
herself as the object of an unhallowed
passion,—to be loved by a half-civilized
negro, who had sufficient cause to pursue,
with unmitigated hatred, all those
whose colour she bore, was appalling;
and, to be marked for destruction by
his love was more dreadful than to be
pursued by his bitterest aversion. Death
must be the result of both; but more
humiliating, more excruciating, tortures,
attended those distinguished by his
withering preference. Clara talked no H3r 149
more of her gratitude: the name of
Glaude she on no occasion uttered, but
his gloomy image frequently pursued
her, and she was filled with a presentiment
that he would be to her a cause of
sorrow. Her rival thus added an additional
thorn to the many she had already
planted in her breast; she could
not refuse her belief to what a thousand
nameless incidents now forcibly recollected,
convinced her was true; she
shuddered at his name, and felt as if
surrounded by a baleful spell from which
only a miracle could release her.

General Le Clerc, who was neither
possessed of the art of vanquishing in
the saloon or in the field, had not made
a favourable impression on the inhabitants
of St. Domingo; they viewed with H3 H3v 150
indignation his manners, at once haughty
and indifferent; they reprobated his
conduct, which, from the commencement,
was neither sufficiently conciliatory
nor sufficiently firm, condemned all the
measures he adopted with the negroes,
and loudly expressed their dissatisfaction.
To this undissembled dislike the
general opposed a very dignified insensibility;
he did not stoop to court the
favour of the Creoles, but very evidently
sought the good-will of the negroes, from
whom he expected to draw his future
revenue; but he cultivated assiduously
the friendship of St. Louis, whose extensive
commercial relations with the
United States gave him the power of rendering
important services to the army.

Clara had frequently expressed a desire H4r 151
to see the general-in-chief, and had
at length an opportunity of enjoying that
pleasure. He made her a visit accompanied
by all his staff; the quick glance
of Clara that passed over the general as
he entered the room returned with disappointment
to her fancy; he had not
the appearance of a hero, yet he was
distinguished by the friendship of that
gigantic genius who governed a land
where all were heroes.

“Whence proceeds your dissatisfaction,”
asked Preval, who was standing
by Clara, and learned from her
eyes her disappointment; “by what
standard do you measure heroes?—
if you judge of their merit by their
size, nothing is more fallacious; Alexander
the Great was small—the great H4 H4v 152
Frederick was small—Napoleon is
small.”

“How you mistake me,” replied
Clara; “it is not the size, but the air—
the expression; but, alas! my ideas of a
man who was destined to be the deliverer
of a country was formed on a
model that I can never hope to see
equalled. The hero of my country received
from nature a form worthy of the
soul that animated it—the dignity of an
elevated mind—the majesty of a superior
soul were represented in every motion—
delineated in every feature of the pride
of his nation, the glory of the human
race, the immortal Washington.”

But, though disappointed by the appearance
of the general-in-chief, Clara H5r 153
received from him with pleasure an invitation
to visit his wife, who lived at a
plantation on the mountain till the palace,
that had been burned by Christophe
and was repairing, should be ready to
receive her. The expectation of seeing
something extraordinary that the presence
of the general-in-chief had not
satisfied, was excited with increased
ardour by this intended visit to his wife;
she was the sister of Napoleon, and said
greatly to resemble him; but above all,
she was a stranger in the country were
public spirit and private feeling were
alike inimical to her.

The Creoles, who had remained firm
in their loyalty and attachment to their
king, loudly uttered their abhorrence of
the faction that at that period governed H5 H5v 154
France; and, whilst the best sympathy
of their souls was given to the royal
family then suffering in a foreign land
all the sorrows of exile and its attendant
misery, they execrated every branch of
the new dynasty that had began to
reign in France, and said loudly that
St. Domingo, if conquered, was to be
erected in a viceroyalty for General
Le Clerc, and that it had been given to
his wife as a marriage portion.

Whilst on the other hand the Creoles,
who had adopted the principles of the
revolution, and were favourable to the
cause of freedom, were revolted at seeing
a foreign and unknown race rise to the
supreme dominion on the ruin of the
shrines that had been erected to liberty,
and determined to resist all the attempts H6r 155
that should be made to extend to St.
Domingo the despotism beneath which
France bowed its vanquished head.
These opposite parties, divided from
each other by the bitterest enmity, were
prevented by that enmity from combining
their efforts for the advantage of
their country; they were also prevented
by the same feeling of animosity from
joining the Europeans. To have softened
the fierce contentions that thus
divided the white population of St. Domingo
into different parties, and rendered
them implacable enemies, would
have required talents very superior to
those General Le Clerc was supposed
to possess—at least, to effect that purpose,
it would have been necessary to
adopt very opposite measures to those
he employed.

H6 H6v 156

Clara, who had heard all these points
argued over and over, till attention sickened
at the endless and hopeless discussion,
and had listened to the subject
as it was examined in every possible
point of view, and coloured by every
prejudice that can give a bias to the
human heart, did not suffer the opinions
of any of the parties interested to change
her determination of visiting Madame
Le Clerc; she had felt the heart-chilling
effects of neglect, and was sensible of
the balmy influence of kindness on the
heart that feels itself a stranger; she
figured to herself Madame Le Clerc condemned
to solitude during the frequent
absence of her husband, and felt that
it would be unpardonable to suffer political
feuds, that were to her so unimportant,
to chill her benevolence; she H7r 157
hastened to make the visit as if impelled
by an indispensible duty, and requested
several ladies to accompany her, but
they all refused; some expressing unqualified
aversion to the lady on account
of her family—others excusing
themselves because, having lost all their
clothes and jewels, they could not make
a splendid appearance. These objections
were combated by Clara without
success. The first was founded on prejudices
that could not be removed; the
last was the offspring of a principle of
self-love that would not submit to acknowledge
a change of fortune. Accompanied
by only one lady and several
gentlemen, Clara ascended the mountain
to the dwelling of Madame Le Clerc.
Every step reminded her of the sad
journey she had made over the same H7v 158
ground when she was the prisoner of
Glaude. With these recollections the
image of Zelica was inseparably associated;
and, as she thought of the sudden
disappearance of that fair stranger
without explanation or adieu, she regretted
their separation, and breathed
a hope that some fortunate accident would
again bring them in contact. The shades
beneath which she passed were still the
same; for, in these fortunate countries,
change of season only produces a change
of beauties; the orange trees perfumed
the air with their fragrance, whilst the
same branch waved at once with the
snowy blossoms and golden fruit. How
different were the feelings of Clara from
those with which she first beheld these
shades; she was then a prisoner, the
most frightful danger menaced the life H8r 159
of her husband—she was now free, and
St. Louis was in safety, but she was
still unhappy.

As she followed the windings of the
road up the sides of the mountain, a
small tower rising amid a thick grove
presented itself in a point of view so
picturesque, that Clara stopped to admire
it, whilst the companions of her
walk proceeded on their way. The
grove was surrounded by a high wall
that was in many places falling to ruin,
and through one wide breach she had a
fine view of the beautiful, but neglected,
grounds, that still bore traces of high
cultivation. Near the spot where she
stood was a slight bower formed of rose-
laurel and myrtle entwined; within it
was a female almost covered with a large H8v 160
veil, yet the elegant form that it shaded,
but did not conceal, could belong to
none but Zelica—it was Zelica; but
when she heard the voice of Clara gently
pronounce her name, wrapping her veil
closely round her, she fled into the
thickest shades of the garden unobserved
by all except Clara, who, surprised
by this flight, resolved to enter
the garden at her return and seek the
fugitive.

When the visitors were announced to
Madame Le Clerc, she at first shewed
some symptoms of an intention to refuse
the tardy homage of the ladies of the
Cape; but, on learning that one of the
party was a native of the United States,
she consented to receive an object that
she probably imagined was a savage. H9r 161
The ladies were shewn into an apartment
that appeared like the temple of
the genius that presides over the ever-
varying taste of a petite maitresse. It
was shaded on all sides by persiennes
that only admitted a soft light; on
marble tables of elegant form stood
gilded cages, in which the delicate bird
of golden hue, native of the Canary
Isles, lamented his captivity in melodious
strains. These cages were surmounted
by globes, where fish of every
hue—of pearl, of scarlet, and of gold,
darted in graceful motion through the water
purer than the crystal that enclosed it.
The globes supported vases filled with
the flowery treasures of the mountain;
and thus the air, the earth, and the
water, offered at once their tribute to
the divinity of this splendid boudoir, H9v 162
who was reclining on a Grecian couch,
from which she half rose to receive the
strangers, but resumed immediately her
recumbent posture, and continued to
converse in a low voice with General
Boyer, who was seated near her. Refreshments
were handed round in profusion,
of which Madame Le Clerc partook
as if she also had been a guest;
her eyes had glanced at the group as it
entered the room, and frequently during
the visit were fixed on Clara; she even
whispered to General Boyer something,
in which the name of Madame Tallien
was pronounced; and Clara, having been
told more than once that she resembled
that lady, though that Madame Le Clerc
had also discovered the resemblance.

Clara looked at her with surprise; H10r 163
the singularity of her manner prevented
any mortification from being felt by her
absolute neglect of her guests; there
was nothing in it that indicated a design
to offend; it appeared to be the result of
a total absence of thought; she was
very small, extremely fair, her eyes blue,
her hair flaxen, nothing could exceed it
in beauty; the expression of her face
was all sweetness and unruffled serenity,
but without spirit or intelligence. A voluptuous
smile played round her mouth,
and an air of languor that was spread
over her whole frame excused the want
of interest she shewed for all that surrounded
her; yet it resembled more the
listlessness of inoccupation than that
arising from ill-health. Clara endeavoured
in vain to draw her into a conversation;
and, in hopes of exciting H10v 164
some interest, gave her one of the beautiful
medals made by Reich. Madame
Le Clerc took it as a child takes a toy,
wholly unconscious of its value, nor
shewed the least curiosity to learn who
the medal represented. General Boyer
endeavoured to explain the subject, but
she listened apparently only to his voice,
regardless of the subject he explained.

The lady that accompanied Clara on
this extraordinary visit was offended and
mortified by Madame Le Clerc’s neglect;
but Clara, considering her as an object
of curiosity, only sought to discover in
the fair automaton some traces of the
energy or talents of her brother, whom
she was said greatly to resemble; but
no effort could draw her from the silence
she so strictly observed. Her hair hung
H11r 165
dishevelled over the cushion on which
she reclined; and the smallest slipper in
the world, which appeared a world too
wide for the prettiest foot in the universe,
fell at intervals on the carpet,
and the indefatigable General Boyer
replaced it with an air of as much
triumph as he could have shewn at
planting his standard on the walls of a
vanquished city.

“Is it possible”, thought Clara, “that
this is the sister of that man so active
—so full of energy—so restless? I
had hoped to hear her seize with delight
this occasion of talking of her
brother, of describing him in his domestic
circle, or speaking of him with
the increased delight always inspired
by absence. How insipid does she appear H11v 166
compared to the sweet—the interesting
Zelica?”

To hasten the interview which Clara
was determined to seek with Zelica in
the garden of the ruined tower, she
abridged a visit whose results were so
different from those she had anticipated.

General Boyer, who accompanied the
ladies on their return some distance
down the mountain, excused the silence
of Madame Le Clerc, and ascribed it to
the inquietude she felt for her husband,
who had gone to Fort Dauphin. “He
never visits quarters that are in the
vicinity of these hostile savages,” said
the general, “without filling Madame
with mortal alarms; she is this morning
exceedingly out of spirits; all her efforts
can extend no farther than to conceal H12r 167
her sadness; it was wholly impossible
for her to be cheerful.”

These assertions accorded so ill with
the perpetual smiles and sparkling eyes
of the lady, that Clara could scarcely
forbear laughing outright when she heard
them; she saw evidently that the presence
of General Boyer was considered
by Madame Le Clerc as an ample
consolation for the absence of her
husband.

As the party approached the ruined
tower, Clara was at a loss to discover
how she should explore the gardens
alone, when the lady by whom she was
accompanied, seating herself on the fragment
of a rock, entered into a warm
political discussion with the gentleman; H12v 168
and Clara, gliding through the broken
wall, sought among the winding walks
that presented new beauties at every
step, the fairer form of Zelica. That
she had beheld her she could not for a
moment doubt, and that Zelica had fled
from her was as certain; but it was undoubtedly
from the strangers who had
accompanied her, and not from one by
whom she was so fondly beloved, that
Zelica had concealed herself; and in
that persuasion, regardless of the danger
that probably lurked in that sequestered
spot, she continued her pursuit.

How sweet—how full of delight are
the sensations felt by those who, united
to each other by the closest bonds of
sympathy, and animated by an affection
at once ardent and delicate, meet after I1r 169
a separation to which they could foresee
no term, and over which mystery had
thrown an impenetrable veil. Clara
forgot in the anticipated delight she was
on the point of enjoying, the reproaches
she had prepared for Zelica on her
unkind silence—her unbroken reserve:
she felt that in the joyful moment that
was rapidly approaching all causes of
complaint would be forgotten, but she
sought the fair object of her affection
through the perfumed shades in vain—
she called her friend—no voice replied
to her call, and she began to think that
the form she had seen in the rustic
bower was the creation of her own vivid
fancy. The garden planted on the side
of the mountain was in terraces, and
Clara still pursuing her object, though
almost hopeless of obtaining it, descendedVol. I. I I1v 170
a flight of marble steps, over
which the jessamine and the wild vine
had spread a carpet of curious network,
when she was arrested by the
sound of voices, and, pausing, perceived
through the branches of the trees the
dazzling lustre of bayonets reflecting
back the resplendent light of the sun;
they were borne by soldiers who passed
through a chasm in the rock and disappeared
from the view. To advance
was probably dangerous; yet she could
not resolve to abandon her researches—
her heart—her fond affectionate heart,
whose love was idolatry—whose friendship
was passion, sighed to behold again
the object that had awakened all its
fondness; and whilst thus floating in
uncertainty, she saw Zelica come out of
a cavern, in earnest conversation with a I2r 171
man dressed in the splendid uniform
worn by the officers of Toussaint.

They were too distant, and spoke in
a voice too low for Clara to learn the
subject of their conversation; but the
form of Zelica, graceful as the silvered
willow that floated its flexible branches
over her head, was thrown forward—
her arms extended—her hands were
clasped—her eyes raised to the face of
the officer, who appeared to fluctuate
between firmness and hesitation. As he
turned towards the spot on which Clara
stood, she discovered with surprise and
horror that he was black; he descended
among the rocks in the direction the
soldiers had taken, and a winding of the
path soon concealed him from her view.
Whilst Clara stood uncertain whether to I2 I2v 172
advance or to recede, Zelica leaned
against a tree pressing her veil to her
eyes—the voice of Clara awakened her
from her reverie.

In the first moment of surprise, the
predominating sensation was joy; she
threw her arms around Clara, and
pressed her to a bosom in which her
image was enshrined by affection—then
instantly restraining her emotions, she
said—“This is indeed an unexpected
pleasure; let me in one full delicious moment
enjoy it; for, unfortunate that I am,
I dare not ask more than a moment’s indulgence;
you must leave me, dearest
Clara—my sweet, my best-loved friend
—you must fly from these fatal shades.”

“Leave you!” returned Clara, whose I3r 173
heart was deeply wounded by this reception.
“Unkind Zelica, is it thus
we meet? Why do you force me from
you? Have I lost your friendship?” or
she would have added, “do you no
longer merit mine,” but was silent.

“You, who are all goodness—you,
whom above all creatures, I love and
honour; could you forfeit a friendship
that can never change whilst one life-
pulse warms my breast—your fondly-
cherished image has cheered the dreary
solitude to which I am doomed; but I
must fly from the pleasure your presence
imparts—I must yield to my sad destiny,
and be alone.”

“Alone,” resumed Clara; “you were
not alone when I approached you.”

I3 I3v 174

The paleness of Zelica increased as
she heard this observation made by
Clara, but after a moment’s pause she
said, “Suspend all opinion of me,
dearest Clara, till the moment arrives
when I can explain what is now enveloped
in the veil of mystery. How
gladly would I seize this moment to
open to you my whole heart—to confide
to you the secret of my life and my
misfortunes; but it cannot be—this hour
is not propitious, and I must forego the
happiness that would be so dear to me,
that of ensuring your friendship by convincing
you that I merit all your sympathy
—all your compassion. At some
future period, and it is probably not far
distant, I will explain to you all; but
leave me now—retire from this spot,
and return to it no more.”

I4r 175

“I respect your wishes too much
not to yield,” replied Clara. “Adieu:
should you ever require the services of
a friend, think of me.” There was in
the manner of Clara, as she uttered these
words, an expression of coldness that
chilled the soul of Zelica. “Oh!” she
mentally exclaimed, “if she knew all
she owes me,—if she knew how dearly
I purchased the happiness she now
enjoys, would she treat me thus?—But
I do her wrong; it is the mystery that
surrounds me that causes this change in
her manner; till I can remove it I must
be content to suffer.”

Voices at a distance were heard calling
Madame St. Louis, and Zelica, with
strong symptoms of terror, hastened her
away. Beneath a thick shade of rose I4 I4v 176
and orange trees, rendered impervious
by the entwining branches of the jessamine,
she pressed, as if for the last time,
her friend to her bosom. “Withdraw
not from me,” she said, in a low earnest
voice; “your sympathy,—your esteem,
—your friendship;—I merit them all,
for, with my heart’s fondest affection, I
love you; and, though I now refuse to
enjoy the happiness that accident has
thrown in my lonely way, believe me
—she looked fearfully round her as she
spoke—believe me, it is because you
are not safe in these shades. Fly
from the danger that awaits you beneath
them; but look not thus coldly
on me. Remember that you are in a
land of peril, encompassed by war and
all its attendant horrors; and, when
increasing dangers approach, or evils I5r 177
menace you, I will be near to shield and
protect you. You will probably meet
me under most extraordinary circumstances,
but let me entreat you never to
recognize me except I salute you; and
never, on any occasion, pronounce my
name. This appearance of mystery, I
see, revolts you: alas! it is not more
detestable to you than it is to myself;
but my unfortunate fate has imposed on
me this sad necessity,—and yet perhaps
I ought not to complain of a fate that
gives me the power of being useful to
you: this life, that has no longer a
charm for me, is still devoted to you;
and if, by sacrificing it, I can save you,
I shall not have lived in vain.”

“I will in all obey you,” replied Clara;
“but tell me, I entreat you, what are the I5 I5v 178
dangers that threaten me? Whose enmity
can my harmless life have provoked?”

“Love, more direful in its effects than
hatred, pursues you,” replied Zelica;
“the love of a monster who would seek
his dearest pleasure in your destruction.
The emissaries of Glaude watch all your
steps: if they met you in this solitude
you would behold your home no more.
He will employ all the resources of his
subtil spirit,—exhaust all the energy
of his daring soul, to gratify his wishes.
I have the power of counteracting his
designs at present; but, if he seizes
you, no power in the island will rescue
from his grasp the victim that he considers
as the destined reward of all his
former sufferings,—of all his active exertions.”

I6r 179

“Let me fly from this worst of dangers,”
said Clara; “but, dear Zelica,
why will you not fly with me? Why do
you thus willingly devote yourself to
this dreary solitude, and submit to a
fate so unworthy of you, and which with
so much facility you can change? Fly
from this retreat where you must be,—
where you acknowledge that you are,
wretched. Seek the security that the
city can afford you.—Fly to me.—I will
protect and cherish you.”

“Forbear,” replied Zelica, in a voice
of despair. “tempt me not with a prospect
of happiness that I never can
enjoy. I am bound to these ruins by
the most sacred ties;—held by duties
from which I cannot be freed; nor
could any power, at present on the I6 I6v 180
island, protect me from the vengeance
that would follow their violation. Return
no more to the mountain; every
path through it teems with danger for you.
In the town you are still secure; but,
should peril approach, I may even there
have the power of rescuing you from it.”

“And must we thus part, dear Zelica?
must we exist in the same country,—
breathe the same air, yet live divided
from each other by a mysterious spell
that only requires courage on your part
to dissolve it? You are acquainted with
the dangers that threaten me: you watch
over me,—you protect me, yet conceal
from me the cares that corrode your
own heart, that make you miserable,
and render you a stranger to peace.
One word would explain all this, and I7r 181
that word you will not pronounce.
Yield to my wishes, I beseech you, and
tell me what is your motive for remaining
in this solitude?”

“Have I not thrown myself on your
compassion? Have I not entreated you
to spare me?” replied Zelica. “The
duties that bind me here, I can neither
violate nor explain.”

“You talk of duties: What are the
duties that you thus cover with the veil
of mystery? How can I rely on the protection
of one thus wrapped in clouds?
will you have the courage to protect me
from one with whose friends you live
in apparent amity? Will you not finally
adopt the views of those who abhor,
and have vowed destruction, to all your
colour, since you abandon the people I7v 182
of your own race, and fix your abode
among these monsters? Oh! Zelica,
my heart bleeds for you: it bleeds when
I recollect that as I fondly sought you
in this garden, I beheld you in conversation
with a man. Who was that man?”

Zelica, whose varying colour had betrayed
the variety of emotions that filled
her bosom as Clara spoke, at length replied:
“I pardon your suspicions,—but
spare me. Seek not to learn what I dare
not reveal. I cannot; I have sworn not
to disclose that fatal secret,—not to pronounce
that name.”

The friends of Madame St. Louis were
again heard calling her. Clara threw on
Zelica a look of reproach, who, wringing
the hand of her friend, was, in a moment,
out of sight.

I8r 183

The lady who had accompanied Clara,
was terrified at her long absence; and
the gentleman had advanced into the
garden to seek her; but it bore, in every
part, such evident marks of recent devastation
that they could not advance
rapidly, and Clara had time to recover
a degree of composure before she joined
them. They all agreed in blaming her
imprudence in wandering alone in a
place so desolate; but no one had the
most distant idea that she had been conducted
there by any other motive than
curiosity. Clara, not disposed to enter
into explanations, heard these remarks
without reply, and they proceeded down
the mountain to the Cape.

The mysterious fate of Zelica furnished
Clara with abundant sources of reflection. I8v 184
That she was unhappy was evident
from her altered looks,—her hurried
and agitated manner,—and the dreary
solitude in which she lived. But Christophe
was admitted to share that solitude;
for Clara was convinced that it
was him she had seen in conversation
with her on the terrace. There was
something revolting in the thought, particularly
in the air of familiarity—almost
of fondness—with which Zelica addressed
him. She could not, without infinite
pain, suffer the slightest shade to obscure
the bright impression Zelica had
traced on her mind; but, till the mystery
that hung over her was removed,
the warmest friendship could not wholly
exclude the intrusion of doubt.

At the foot of the mountain, they I9r 185
passed the gate leading to the Hospital
des Pères de la Charité: Clara complaining
of extreme fatigue, a gentleman
proposed that they should enter the
garden of these good fathers, and repose
herself after the fatigues of the morning
in their tranquil shades.

This Hospital, built by voluntary contribution,
when the island was in the
brilliant season of its prosperity, was
destined to be an asylum for the poor,
the sick, and the unfortunate. The
gardens, ornamented with statues, and
embellished with fountains, displayed at
every step a combination of taste and
magnificence. The city had been twice
burned, and this consecrated retreat had
been spared; but the explosion of the
powder-magazine had shaken its walls, I9v 186
and the noble building now presented
to the eye a mass of ruins. Some of its
ancient masters still wandered beneath
its now desolate shades, and, in a small
pavilion of the garden, administered to
the unfortunate who demanded their
succour, all that was left them—their
counsel and their prayers. The good
fathers, still delighting in performing
the duties of hospitality, offered to Clara
and her companions, who were exhausted
with fatigue, fruit of the most delicious
kind, and the pure water that
fell in crystal streams from their marble
fountains. The serene air of these pious
men,—the tranquility in which they
dwelt, far removed from the cares that
agitate mankind, was a relief to the
soul of Clara, that had been chilled by
the apathetic indifference of Madame I10r 187
Le Clerc, and shocked by all that passed
in her interview with Zelica.

Clara found Madame Senat awaiting
her return from the mountain. She was
extended on a sofa, attended by three
beautiful slaves: one was disposing her
luxuriant hair into a thousand tresses; another
gently agitated the air with a fan of
plumes; and a third, with hands softer
than the cygnet’s down, rubbed the
ivory feet of the voluptuous creole: St.
Louis, seated on a tabouret near her,
played with a chaplet of pearls that was
twisted round her arm. This scene, so
truly characteristic of the country, was
not disturbed by the entrance of Clara,
whose pride assisted her to conceal the
pain she felt at the devotion of St. Louis
to her rival, and thus rendered the triumph I10v 188
of that rival less complete. She
entered with great apparent ease into a
description of her visit to Madame Le
Clerc; for, fully persuaded that she
would have combated in vain the inclination
of her husband, she had no other
means of concealing the sufferings it occasioned
her, than by affecting indifference
that was foreign to her heart.

“Since against all advice,” said Madame
Senat, “you would climb the
mountain to see that strange creature, I
am rejoiced to hear that she was so
rude. It will probably prevent you
from exposing your life to repeat the
folly. The mountain is haunted by Brigands,
and I should have heard without
surprise that you had been carried off
by the soldiers of Glaude.”

I11r 189

“And probably without pain?” returned
Clara.

“Why, as you have a passion for
heroes, and a taste for romantic adventures,
a visit to the cave of a robber
would be, doubtless, more interesting
than the insipid conversation, or languid
silence of Madame Le Clerc.”

“I shall not encounter the hazards of
the mountain again,” said Clara, “to
visit Madame Le Clerc; not because I
received no pleasure from the visit, but
because I gave none. If at this moment
I heard of a stranger whom I fancied
that kindness could soothe, or affection
please, I would go to a much greater
distance to hold her to my heart; and
I had hoped to find some sympathy I11v 190
with this feeling in Madame Le Clerc;
she is far distant from her country, and
how often do I think with a sigh how far
I am from mine: to me the name of
stranger has become sacred, since I have
felt the pains that strangers feel.”

“How romantic,” said Madame Senat,
addressing her observations to St. Louis;
“to hear her talk, one would think that
she is the most desolate creature in existence;
yet she is the wife of St. Louis,
and surrounded with splendour.” This
observation was uttered with a half-
breathed sigh, and in a tone that seemed
to say, can there be happiness on earth
equal to the bliss of belonging to you?
Yet it was not the distinction that Clara
derived from being the wife of St. Louis
that excited her envy, but she envied I12r 191
her indisputable claims on his fortune,
which she would have preferred infinitely
to the sole possession of his heart.

St. Louis, who listened in silence to
this conversation, found an excuse for
his conduct in the indifference of Clara
and the ardour of Justine; yet both
were assumed—the apparent coldness
of Clara was a veil thrown by pride over
her wounded feelings—the ardour of Justine
was the effort of consummate art.

Clara, glad to escape from a scene
that she could scarcely support, said,
“I must leave you; this is the hour that
I devote to my master, or will you assist
at my lesson?”

“Heaven forbid! nothing could induce I12v 192
me to support the weariness of
hearing you decline nouns and conjugate
verbs; you must have the patience
of an angel to submit to such
labour, and I cannot figure to myself
your motive.”

Justine, who ascribed to concealed
motives the most innocent actions, could
not conceive the possibility of Clara’s
devoting whole hours to an interesting
young man merely to learn his language.
“A pretty woman,” she continued, “can
always make herself understood, and
you are allowed by all to be quite a
prodigy in French. Nothing less than
a very amiable master would determine
me to become a scholar.”

“And in my lessons even that motive K1r 193
is not wanting,” returned Clara; “for
my master is very amiable.”

Justine turned her head contemptuously.

“I know what you think,” said Clara;
“he is poor, he is unknown, he is unmarried.
I can neither derive eclat from
his rank, nor, through him, inflict torment
on others; but, simply as a master
of languages, in which light only I
regard him, he is not without merit.”

“You abandon the character you seek
to support, when you become sarcastic,”
replied Justine.

“But from the bosom of innocence
even the shafts of malignity fall pointless,Vol. I. K K1v 194”
said Clara; and without listening
to the reply, she hastened from the saloon
to the closet, where the French
master attended her.

Chapter VI.

When the first tumults attending the
arrival of the French fleet in St. Domingo
had subsided, and the domestic
establishment of St. Louis began to assume
a tone of tranquility, to continue
the literary pursuits that had hitherto
formed her most agreeable occupation
became the wish of Clara. Perhaps, in
the uncontrolled indulgence of this inclination,
she sinned against the devoted attachment
she felt for her husband; she K2 K2v 196
sought in the charms of literature for
relief from the pain caused by his
neglect. Without reflecting that by
thus estranging herself from him, she
left the field open to the arts of her rival,
who turned even the solitude in which
the wounded heart sought to conceal its
sufferings into arms that assisted her
own triumphs.

Clara, who wished to perfect herself
in the French language, and to read the
productions of the celebrated authors of
that country, requested some of her
friends to recommend her a teacher.
Numbers of young men had followed
the army to St. Domingo without any
determinate object; but, in the intention
of awaiting events and profiting by any
advantage that would present itself; one K3r 197
of this number was recommended to
Clara as a person well acquainted with
his language, and who could teach it
with great facility.

Clara was enchanted with her master;
she read with him the polished numbers
of Racine, and the glowing pages of
Rousseau; and whilst the modest reserve,
almost bordering on timidity, of
the amiable teacher proclaimed the absence
of all vanity or pretensions to
please, the inflexions of his voice frequently
betrayed the profound sensibility
of his soul. After the first week
his lessons were insensibly lengthened,
and Preval sought occasions of gliding
into them at intervals a word of himself;
he recalled the time when in his own
country he was surrounded by all “les K3 K3v 198
prestiges de la fortuna;” his voice was
almost inarticulate as he dictated to
Clara the verb “aímer,” and his emotions
were evident when he told her to
repeat “je vous aime.”

These emotions, and this agitation,
Clara ascribed to his ruined fortune;
and, with the sympathy that in her
breast was ever on the wing to soothe
sorrow and soften the pangs of misfortune,
she listened to his complaints, and
though frequently fatigued with the protracted
lesson, she feared to shorten it
lest she should appear to be wanting in
sympathy with one who was unfortunate.

He had chosen on this day the verb
“rendre,” and when he repeated “je me
suis rendre,” his agitation was remarkable. K4r 199
Clara rose from her seat—Preval
insisted upon finishing the lesson—“tu
te rendras,” he said with increased emotion;
then endeavouring to repeat more
calmly the words that still appeared to
tremble on his lips, but finding the attempt
vain, he withdrew.

The profound sensibility betrayed by
her teacher excited the pity of Clara,
but she felt that all expression of her
sympathy would be dangerous to the
peace of him who so powerfully excited
it. In the solitude of her apartment, that
was never cheered by the presence of
her husband—reposing on the superb
bergue that ornamented her boudoir—
surrounded by slaves, all distinguished
for their beauty or their talents—forming
no wish that wealth could gratify— K4 K4v 200
desiring nothing that fortune could procure
that was not instantly in her possession,
she was unhappy—all the finer
feelings of her heart were blighted by
disappointment. Madame Senat, whose
life she had saved, was repaying the
benefit with the blackest ingratitude;
she had alienated the heart of her husband,
and gloried in her success.

The recollection of Zelica was also
a source of pain; it was too probable
that the fair and enchanting Zelica no
longer merited her friendship—every
thing in this country is false—every
thing delusive she thought; and in the
midst of these sad reflections Clara felt
the painful conviction more forcibly impressed
on her mind by experience,
than it can ever be by precept, that K5r 201
wealth cannot give peace to the wounded
heart, nor splendour prevent the approaches
of care.

General Le Clerc, who thought all
means to attain an end legitimate that
were crowned with success, had continued
to correspond with Christophe,
and one of his letters contained the following
proposal:

“If you have the intention of submitting
to France, the greatest service
you can render that country, a service
that will be rewarded with wealth and
honour, will be to point out to us the
means of seizing the person of Toussaint.”

To this proposal Christophe replied,

K5 K5v 202

“You desire me, general, to procure
you the means of seizing the person of
Toussaint; and in proposing to me an
act of perfidy that would be so degrading,
you give me a strong proof of the
invincible repugnance you feel to believe
me capable of delicate or honourable
sentiments. Toussaint is my chief, and
my friend—is the crime you ask me to
commit, compatible with the honour of a
soldier or the feelings of friendship?”

General Le Clerc, who probably
laughed at these assertions, was furnished
by the imprudence of Toussaint
himself with an opportunity of carrying
his design into execution. Toussaint
had entered into a treaty with General
Le Clerc, which was universally blamed,
and only productive of dissatisfaction K6r 203
to all parties. The Blacks would
talk of no terms that did not accord
them absolute freedom; the Creoles
would listen to no modification of their
claims—their cry was for unconditional
submission; the Europeans, alike indifferent
to all interests but their own,
thought only of adopting the measures
by which those interests could be most
securely promoted.

In the midst of these jarring sentiments,
in which the public good was
entirely forgotten, Toussaint, whose
naturally suspicious temper was lulled
by the well-feigned sincerity of the Europeans,
accepted an invitation from the
French officers, with whom he had been
so long negotiating, to dine with them.
Relying on their good faith, contrary to K6 K6v 204
the prayers and entreaties of his wife,
he went to their quarters; and, at the
convivial board, where all on one side
was confidence, and all on the other
falsehood, he was surrounded, seized,
loaded with irons, carried on board an
armed vessel, and embarked for France.

This was an act of treachery that the
historian would blush to record, but
falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as
they may seem to the dignity of public
transactions, offend us in them with a
less degrading idea of meanness than
when they are found in the intercourse
of private life. To the statesman the
world has granted a very liberal allowance
of craft and dissimulation; and
this act, that would have been, under
other circumstances, highly blamed, was K7r 205
applauded by all those who imagined,
that in the person of Toussaint the very
head and spirit of the insurrection was
crushed. The blackened walls of the
half-consumed houses in the Cape, were
lighted up as if in mockery of their desolateness
by a splendid illumination;
the city re-echoed with rejoicing, and no
further doubt was entertained by the
Europeans of obtaining the most complete
success.

The wives of Toussaint, who, in the simplicity
of her uncultivated nature, cherished
two passions equally ardent—love
of her husband and hatred of the white
people, had employed, unfortunately for
him in vain, all the arguments that these
two opposite passions could suggest, to
prevent her husband from accepting the K7v 206
fatal invitation. Toussaint loved his
wife, but he would not submit to be
guided, much less governed by her; he
derided all her fears, and laughed at her
predictions; but these predictions were
immediately verified, and she received
the information with grief, but without
surprise. She sent for Christophe, the
faithful friend of her unfortunate husband,
and to him imparted her despair
and her hopes of vengeance.

“These monsters,” she said, “are
resolved on your destruction, and you
can only prevent it by destroying them;
if you suffer them to remain on the
island, they will employ all means to
reduce you to the slavery from which
you have escaped. To prevent it—to
preserve your freedom, you have but K8r 207
one resource, and that is war—eternal
war with white men. If you lose sight
of it for a moment you are lost; let no
proposals of peace allure you—let no
treaties founded on their promised good
faith deceive you—behold how they have
kept their faith with my husband—let
your cry be ever, Liberty or death!”

But a degree of mercy that this unfortunate
woman did not expect from
those whom she regarded as monsters,
to whom every species of cruelty was
sport, allowed her to follow her husband
to France, where imprisonment, from
which he was only freed by death,
awaited him.

The Creoles laughed at the premature
exultation of the Europeans on the K8v 208
seizure of Toussaint, and spoke loudly
of the unimportance of the event, persuaded
that the snake was “scotch’d,
not kill’d;” and they predicted the approach
of great calamity. In one consequence
of this breach of good faith on
which General Le Clerc had counted, he
was completely disappointed. In seizing
the person of Toussaint he had hoped
to obtain possession of his treasures, and
they were said to be immense; but a
short time before he was seized, as if foreseeing
the possibility of such an event,
he caused all his treasures to be buried
on a spot that was never discovered—
for the negroes that he employed on the
expedition were shot on their return
without being suffered to utter a word.

The views of the chief who succeeded K9r 209
Toussaint in the command of the army
of St. Domingo were less pure—less
patriotic than those by which he had
been actuated; his soul glowed with the
purest love of liberty, and was indignant
at the oppression under which the people
of colour had groaned for ages—miserable
victims of cupidity and cruelty.
He had resolved to lead them to freedom,
and would have rejoiced if he could
have conducted them to the attainment
of this blessing through paths unstained
with blood; it would have been his pride
and his glory to have been the Washington
of his country, but his destiny
was not so propitious as that of the
immortal hero he wished to imitate.
Toussaint had desired to emancipate
permanently the people of colour from
the bonds of slavery, and to establish K9v 210
them in the rights of which they had
been deprived. Dessalines, who succeeded
to the supreme power, had always
derided the peaceable views and
mild measures of Toussaint; to throw
off the dominion of white men was the
avowed resolution of this dauntless chief,
but to restore freedom to the people of
his own colour did not enter into his
thoughts. He, whose ambitious and
sanguinary soul would have seized and
sold to slavery his countrymen on the
burning plains of Africa, and rioted in
the pleasures procured by the price of
their blood, entertained no thought of
restoring them to freedom in St. Domingo;
but his intention was to reign
unrivalled in that country, and avenge
on every white man the wrongs he had
in his own person sustained from some K10r 211
of their colour. The seizure of Toussaint,
whose influence alone he feared,
was most propitious to his designs, and
his joy at that event, though concealed,
was as sincere as that of General Le
Clerc.

St. Louis, though he did not share all
the prejudices of his countrymen against
the Europeans, felt that they had great
reason to be dissatisfied. The principal
inhabitants of the town assembled at his
house every night, and loudly uttered
their complaints and their disapprobation
of the general-in-chief.

“General Le Clerc places too much
confidence in the negroes,” said an old
planter, who, from having possessed a
very large fortune, found himself reduced K10v 212
to the very smallest pittance that could
sustain life.

“When Toussaint was seized he had
all the black chiefs in his power,” continued
the old man, “and by embarking
them all for France at the same time, he
would have spread terror throughout the
island, and the negroes, deprived of their
leader, would have been easily subdued.
But, instead of adopting this measure,
that would have secured the tranquillity
of the country, he suffered the propitious
moment to pass, and now appears to
court their friendship. He has them
continually at his house, at his table,
talks loudly of his reliance on their good
faith, and wastes in conferences, that are
equally disgraceful and useless, the time
that should be employed in destroying K11r 213
them. The object of these artful slaves
is, to gain time till disease shall have
wasted the strength of the army, and
they have brought their designs to maturity.”

“It is much to be regretted that this
army ever landed on our shores,” replied
an old officer who had been commandant
of the Cape before the revolution:
“they have destroyed the hopes
of the colonists; and I predict that the
island will be irrecoverably lost to the
white inhabitants in consequence of this
expedition.”

“And what but ruin can be expected
from those who will not listen to the
counsels of experience?” observed another
officer of the ancien regime; “who K11v 214
obstinately reject the advice of those
accustomed to the climate, and acquainted
with the manner of fighting the negroes?
When we speak, do they favour
us with the slightest attention? Are
not all places of honour or emolument
given to Europeans, who appear to consider
the island as a place to be conquered
and divided among the victors?
and, as the avowed intention of these
strangers is to make a fortune here and
return to France to spend it, you must
not imagine that they will be very delicate
in their choice of the means they
employ to accomplish their purpose.—
But they will not accomplish it; for I
see, on the political horizon, a cloud
forming—forerunner of the storm that
will sweep them all from the earth.
General Le Clerc is the dupe of Dessalines, K12r 215
and the other black chiefs with
whom he holds such friendly intercourse:
they observe him narrowly;
and are, no doubt, prepared to counteract
all his plans. Their first object was
to implant in his breast distrust of the
creoles. They found him more credulous
than they could have expected,
and they have succeeded beyond their
hopes.”

Whilst this conversation was passing
in the saloon of St. Louis, who, with his
friends, was engaged at a Bouillote table,
Clara and some ladies, seated near a
window, through which the sea-breeze
wafted refreshing coolness, were amusing
themselves with more agreeable subjects.
Some gentlemen had joined them,
and they were earnestly discussing the K12v 216
merits of a bonnet that had just arrived
from Paris, when Belmont was announced.
—Belmont, who had shared
the dangers of her journey over the
mountain,—witnessed, without having
the power of softening her despair; and
who, having been separated from her at
the moment that the intervention of
Zelica had saved the life of St. Louis,
had, till this evening, remained unacquainted
with the fate of Clara, for whom
he was in the highest degree interested.
Arriving from Port-au-Prince, where
he had been conducted by order of
Christophe, his first inquiry was for the
family of St. Louis, and he lost no time
in hastening to his house.

A cry of joy burst from the lips of
Clara, when she perceived her companion L1r 217
in misfortune. “This is, indeed,
an unexpected pleasure,” she said: “I
had thought that nothing could augment
the satisfaction I feel at being in safety,
but I feel that even the enjoyment of
security can receive an additional charm
from the presence of those who have
shared our danger. How different is
the scene in which we now meet, from
the savage one on the mountain in which
we parted? With what pleasure the eye
reposes on the ‘human face divine,’ after
having been shocked by the presence of
beings who bore so little resemblance to
humanity.”

“It is, indeed, widely different, and I
am fully sensible of its advantages,” replied
Belmont; “but here, in the midst
of security,—surrounded by friends,— Vol. I. L L1v 218
I think you are less interesting than on
that fatal moment, when kneeling before
the tent of Glaude—”

“No more of these painful recollections,”
returned Clara; “let us enjoy
the present moment, forgetful of the
past; and, if you listen to our friends
at the card-table, there, you will not feel
greatly disposed to cast your eyes on
the future.”

“They have jaundiced eyes, and all
they look at appears discoloured,” replied
Belmont. “We, who have gayer
hearts and more youthful hopes, look
forward, with confidence, to a brilliant
season of success and triumph. But
your fair Zelica,—how have the Fates
disposed of her?”

L2r 219

“Still enamoured?” asked St. Louis.
“What a miracle of constancy!”

“Oh! no,” replied Belmont; “only
interested for the fairest and most mysterious
of beings. She gave no encouragement
to hope.”

“The command that separated us
all,” said Clara, “was like a stroke from
the wand of a magician. You were
conducted to Port-au-Prince; Madame
Senat had unheard-of adventures on the
mountain; Zelica disappeared, and is
still concealed by the veil of mystery.”

“Apropos, of Madame Senat,” said
Belmont, “is she also enveloped in the
magic cloud that renders Zelica invisible?”

L2 L2v 220

“On the contrary,” replied Clara,
“she is a star of the first magnitude on
our horizon at present.”

As if she took no pleasure in talking
of this lady, Clara changed the subject,
and inquired of Belmont whether Port-
au-Prince was perfectly tranquil.

“Tranquility is entirely established
at Port-au-Prince,” he replied, “and the
people are much less dissatisfied there
than here, if I may judge of the state of
public opinion from the conversation in
your saloon: but, notwithstanding these
discontents, I hope all will still go well,
even here. We are to have a grand review
next week, at which you will undoubtedly
assist. The colonial forces
are to be organized.—General Le Clerc L3r 221
will address the troops when they are
assembled, and announce the reinforcements
that are daily expected from
France.—You have, no doubt, heard
that he is very eloquent.”

“He may enjoy, and even deserve,
the reputation of eloquence,” said a
creole lady, “but he will find it extremely
difficult, however distinguished
he may be in that divine art, to persuade
the people he has ruined, into approbation
of his measures. His hostilities are
evidently directed against the class and
the colour he came to protect, and not
against those monsters, the revolted
slaves, who are covered with every
crime at which humanity shudders.—
They are the objects of his protection,
whilst he crushes with oppression the L3 L3v 222
white inhabitants; and he has shocked
the best feelings of the people by ordering
a service of plate to be made out of
the money destined to pay the army;
whilst the poor soldiers, badly clothed,
and still more badly fed, are perishing
with want, and asking alms in the
street.”

“A beggar,” observed another lady,
“was unknown in this country before
the arrival of the French army; and now
to behold them in such numbers fills us
with horror.—But, it is very true that
such trifling considerations as the preservation
of soldiers should not prevent
a general-in-chief from eating out of
silver dishes.”

Clara, perceiving that these remarks L4r 223
were not agreeable to Belmont, talked
of the want of amusement that rendered
the town of Cape François the very
centre of dullness. “We have nothing,”
she said, “to keep us from petrifying
but a little scandal. The most in fashion
at present holds up Madame Le Clerc
to the notice of the public. Her beauty,
though she had remained absolutely invisible
to all the world since her arrival,
is a continual subject of dispute;—some
declaring that from certain reports they
have heard, she must be an angel; others
asserting that she has no pretensions to
the palm of beauty; but all agree that
she is highly sensible of the powers of
pleasing possessed by General Boyer.”

Belmont, appearing to dislike this subject
of conversation even more than that L4 L4v 224
which was previously upon the carpet,
made no reply; but a gentleman who
was present gave his audience the most
ample information concerning the lady.

“Madame Le Clerc,” he said, “whom
I have long known, betrayed, even from
her earliest youth, a disposition to gallantry;
and, when she was very young,
had some adventures of eclat at Marseilles.
Her brother, whose favourite
she is, married her to General Le Clerc,
to whom he gave the command of the
army intended to reduce St. Domingo;
but her reluctance to come to this
country was so great that it was almost
necessary to use force to oblige her to
embark.”

“I am not surprised,” observed Belmont, L5r 225
“that a lovely woman should feel
reluctance to abandon Paris for this
island; but I hear with surprise, in a
country where every passion has been
indulged to the most criminal excess,
the levity of the beautiful Pauline spoken
of with severity.”

“You must not judge of St. Domingo
in its former state of prosperity, from
that in which you now behold it,” replied
a lady; “and its unfortunate inhabitants
are as much changed as the customs of
the country. Every planter was a sovereign
on his estate, ruling his slaves with
undisputed sway. We were then the
spoiled children of Fortune.—Pleasures,
ever varied, ever new, followed our steps.
—Our lives had no pursuit but happiness.
—This island was the island of Calypso,L5 L5v 226
and every female was a goddess,
to whose slightest wishes every will
bowed in obedience. I have been in
France since the revolution drove us
from our homes, and can assure you that
you have there no idea of the wealth,
the hospitality, the magnificence, that
once reigned in our country.”

“I can form a very correct idea of
it,” replied Belmont, “from what I have
seen since my arrival in it. I know that
the creole is naturally hospitable, generous,
magnificent; but he was spoiled
by prosperity:—he thought himself invulnerable
to the attacks of Fortune;
and, whilst he considered his slaves as
beings who had no other destiny than to
toil for his support, he was himself the
slave of furious and ungovernable passions. L6r 227
In this Cyprian isle, the senses
only governed,—mind, soul, feeling, were
powers wholly unknown,—whose influence
was unfelt,—whose existence was
unacknowledged; but Providence, ever
just in its dispensations, avenged the
cruelty with which you treated your
slaves, by making them the objects of
your jealousy; and, when one white
man, attracted by the charms of a beautiful
African, devoted to her his heart—
or at least made her the idol of his
homage, she revenged on the hearts of
her implacable rivals the sufferings of
all her race.”

“A beautiful African!” said the fair
creole, with a laugh of mockery; “where
have you sought that ridiculous idea?
Is not the name of African sufficient to L6 L6v 228
give the portrait of all that is hideous
upon earth?”

“With all deference to your opinion,”
replied Belmont, “I must beg leave to
observe that you are in an error.—The
most beautiful creature I ever beheld is
a young slave belonging to Madame St.
Louis.”

“It is very true,” replied Clara, “that
my poor Felicienne is a model of all that
is enchanting in the female form; and,
if you can imagine the Venus de Medicis
made out of black marble, and animated
by the soul of the Graces, you will have
some idea of her. SeShe was the daughter
of an African prince.—She was torn
from her native woods by slave-stealers;
but every motion and every look proclaims L7r 229
that she was born to reign, and
the negroes acknowledge her royal
origin, and almost render her divine
honours.”

“She is fortunate to be in the hands
of a mistress so liberal,” said Belmont,
“or she would pay with her life the
distinction she has received from the
hand of Nature; for, in these abodes of
pleasure and luxurious ease, jealousy
reigned with infernal despotism.”

The creole lady, without deigning to
reply, approached the card-table; and
Clara told Belmont that he had been
too severe.

“Not more severe,” he replied, “than
the creoles, who ascribe to our arrival L7v 230
the ruin of the island. But I have become
acquainted with facts concerning
them that must render them for ever
detestable.—Their jealousy was only
equalled by their licentiousness; and a
woman who indulged in the most unblushing
license, pursued with relentless
fury the unhappy slave who was so unfortunate
as to attract the notice of her
husband or her lover.”

“A lady fancied she discovered some
symptoms of tenderness in the eyes of
her husband for a beautiful slave who
was continually about her person; and
all the furies of jealousy seized her soul.
She ordered a negro to cut off the head
of the wretched victim, which was immediately
done. At dinner her husband
complained of being ill; and said he L8r 231
felt no disposition to eat. His wife,
with the air of a demon, replied, ‘Perhaps
I can give you something that will
excite your appetite: it has at least had
that effect before.’ She rose from the
table and drew from a closet the head
of Coomba. The husband, shocked beyond
all expression, left his house, and,
abandoning all his property, sailed immediately
for France, in order never
again to behold a monster stained with
a crime so enormous.”

“Monstrous, indeed,” said Clara,
“but this act of cruelty is, perhaps, a
solitary one,—let us hope that it is without
example.”

“I was talking with a lady this evening,”
continued Clara, “and she is now L8v 232
in the room, on that never-ending topic
with the creoles,—the former prosperity
of the island; and, though she drew
tears from my eyes, by relating her sufferings,
I could not forbear laughing at
the naïveté of her conclusion.”

“My husband,” said the lady, “who
had been the most indulgent of masters,
was stabbed in my arms by a slave who
had been his particular favourite. My
house was burned amid the fierce yellings
of the savage troop that had doomed
us all to destruction.—My children were
destroyed, and I also should have perished,
but there was among the horrid
band a faithful slave who preserved a
life that it would have been mercy to
have taken. He conducted me, after
innumerable sufferings, and through incredible L9r 233
dangers, to the Cape; the same
slave,” added the lady, and the idea
seemed to console her for every other
misfortune, “saved all my Madrass
handkerchiefs!”

The lady who had thus found consolation
in a bundle of Madrass handkerchiefs
for the loss of all that could
give life a charm, now approached them;
she was a model of Creole beauty—of
that voluptuous beauty for which the
Creole ladies were ever remarkable;
they were rendered interesting by an air
of languor spread over them by the heat
of the climate—their eyes, their teeth,
and their hair, were of singular beauty;
and from the constant habit of commanding
their slaves, they acquired an air of
dignity that added to their charms; L9v 234
almost too indolent to pronounce their
words, they spoke with a slow and
hesitating accent that always pleased,
for their chief study was to say nothing
but what was agreeable; and when
they were deprived by the vicissitudes
of the revolution of all the advantages of
fortune, and thrown among strangers
without resource, many of them employed
their talents for their support,
and found refuge from distress in the
energy of their own exertions, which,
from their former habits, it would have
been thought impossible for them to
make.

“I have, indeed,” replied Belmont,
“found many of the ladies of the island,
particularly those of Port au Prince,
exceedingly amiable; they dance with L10r 235
a lightness, an elegance, a grace that is
unrivalled; and those who, having been
educated in France, unite French vivacity
to Creole softness, are the most
irresistible creatures that the imagination
can conceive. In the ordinary intercourse
of life they are enchanting;
but if I was making choice of a friend,
I would not venture to rely on their
stability—always making an honourable
exception in favour of your enchantress
Zelica.”

Clara faintly smiled at the name of
Zelica, and changing the conversation
from one shaded by the doubtful veil of
mystery, to a being bright in all the
purity of innocence, glowing with youth,
radiant in beauty, she told Belmont
that she had been inconstant enough L10v 236
to share her affection for Zelica with
another object.

“Is it possible,” said Belmont, “that
you are inconstant? that you have suffered
the image that Zelica had engraved
on your heart to be effaced, and given the
place to another—is it possible? Who will
in future vouch for the fidelity of a woman,
if you, whom I have considered as
the very model of your sex, thus fail?”

“Suspend all observation till you see
my new favourite,” replied Clara, “and
you will allow that even Zelica herself
would pardon me.”

“But where is this wonder concealed?”
asked Belmont; “why am I
not admitted to her presence?”

L11r 237

“She is seldom fixed to one spot,”
said Clara, “but flutters like a papillion
through the apartments; you will see
her, perhaps, too soon for your peace.”

The party that surrounded the card-
table no longer occupied by the insipid
routine of the bouillote, talked loudly of
the dangerous state of public affairs in
the island.

“These strangers are unacquainted
with the manner of fighting the negroes,”
said an old officer; “the wily foe knows
this, and is rejoiced that no Creole is
employed;—indeed, by planting suspicion
of the ancient inhabitants of the
island in the breast of the commander-in-
chief, they obtain the only object that is
necessary to their own ultimate success. L11v 238
Delay, the climate, and bad food, will
destroy—has destroyed the flower of the
army, and the remainder will fall an
easy prey to the forces that, inured to
the heat, and accustomed to hardships
that white men cannot endure, are accumulating
on the mountains.”

Belmont, who had approached this
group of politicians, observed to them
that the negroes had already made all
reasonable concessions, and that they
would, no doubt, be speedily reduced
to order.

“They will, no doubt, speedily establish
the order they desire,” replied the
old man; “the order of universal destruction.
Whilst Dessalines, Christophe,
and the other black chiefs, are L12r 239
received on the most friendly footing by
General Le Clerc, you may observe that
they have not yielded for the accommodation
of the French troops an inch of
the plain; the towns is as closely surrounded
as if it was besieged; and
whilst the camp of the negroes is plentifully
supplied, the inhabitants of the
city are suffering for want of provisions.
These, and many other things, that are
unremarked or considered trifling by the
strangers, are to me convincing proofs
of the hostile intentions of the negroes,
with whom it was the extreme of folly
to negotiate. The only hope of succeeding
was to have followed the first
consternation that was spread among
them by a vigorous coup de main.”

“And have given the command,” said L12v 240
Belmont, laughing, “to one of your ancient
Croix de St. Louis.”

“And why not,” said the old man,
haughtily; “do you think it a dishonour
to wear the Croix de St. Louis?”

“By no means,” replied Belmont;
“however it was obtained, it was, no
doubt, formerly considered as a mark of
distinction, and he who received it as a
compensation for thirty years’ residence
in the colony, was as proud of it as the
warrior who, at the first institution of
the order, was rewarded by that mark
of distinction for having taken in battle
the standard of the enemy, or for displaying
the most unequivocal proofs of
valour. Those who in St. Domingo
were decorated with the cross of St. M1r 241
Louis were generally of the first class,
and though passive courage may have
its merit, we have great distinction
between the two in France.”

These disputes that always took place
when the Creoles and the Europeans met,
and which all the urbanity of the French
could not keep under control, nor even
the presence of ladies calm, indicated
the impossibility of restoring tranquillity
to a country in which such opposing
interests and opinions existed. The negroes,
with the cunning for which they
have ever been distinguished, took advantage
of these dissensions, and by
flattering the Europeans, and infusing
into them on all occasions an unfavourable
opinion of the Creoles, destroyed
all confidence between the two parties, Vol. I. M M1v 242
whose only hope of success was founded
on the most perfect union of interests
and opinions; and thus, by slow degrees,
ultimately secured their own triumph.

Neither French politeness nor Creole
indolence could soften their disputes;
and Belmont, to avoid continuing that
in which he had engaged, walked into
an apartment which joined the saloon,
and which appeared filled with fragrant
shrubs; he heard the sound of a guitar
slightly touched, and turning to discover
by whom the half-formed notes were
produced, saw lying on a couch a very
young female, whose delicate fingers
passing over the strings of the guitar she
held, appeared as if she could neither
quite pursue, nor quite resist, the impulse M2r 243
that led her to accompany words
she was uttering in a very low voice
with the sound of the instrument. She
was loveliness in miniature; but, though
formed on the very smallest scale of
feminine perfection, she was decidedly
not a child. Belmont was contemplating
the fair being, whose head turned
from him, had not perceived his approach,
when Clara entering hastily disturbed
the repose of Louisa, and laughed
at the surprise of Belmont. “This,”
said Clara, “is the sister of St. Louis,
the new favourite I announced to you,
Louise de St. Louis.”

End of Vol. I.

M2