ld despair: "It is then all over; my cruel
enemies have gained their victory! They have taken from me the bread
which I earned with the sweat of my brow to support my children; they
have sacrificed my family to their implacable hate; let them now come
and enjoy the fruit of their malice with a sight of the victim they have
immolated! let them come to satiate their fury with the scene of misery
in which they have plunged us! O cruel S----, thy barbarous heart cannot
be that of a Frenchman!" On uttering these words, he rushed out, and
seated himself under a gallery which was at the door of the house in
which we lived. He there remained a long while buried in profound
meditation, during which time we could not get him to utter one word. At
last, about six o'clock in the morning the physician came, and was
surprised on hearing of the death of Laura; then went to my father, who
seemed to be insensible to every thing around him, and inquired at him
concerning his health. "I am very well," replied he, "and I am going to
return to Safal; for I always find myself best there." The Doctor told
him his own condition, as well as that of his family, would not allow
him to leave Senegal; but he was inflexible. Seeing nothing would induce
him to remain at St Louis, I arose, weak as I was, and went to search
for a negro and a canoe to carry us to Safal. In the meanwhile a friend
of ours took the charge of burying the body of my sister; but my father
wished to inter it beside the others in his island, and determined to
take it thither along with us. Not to have, however, such a melancholy
sight before our eyes during our journey, I hired a second canoe to
carry the corpse of poor Laura; and attaching it to the one in which we
were, we took our young brothers in our arms and set off. Having
arrived opposite the house possessed by M. Thomas, my father felt
himself greatly indisposed. I profited by the circumstance, by getting
him to go to the house of his friend; hoping we would persuade him
against returning to Safal. He consented without difficulty; but we had
scarcely entered the house, when he was again taken very ill. We
instantly called a physician, who found in him the seeds of a most
malignant fever. We laid him down, and all the family wept around his
bed, whilst the canoe which carried the remains of our young sister
proceeded to Safal. M. Thomas undertook to procure us a house more
healthy than that we had quitted; but the conditi