be so. It is merely a decree of the
Convention, confirming and proclaiming the liberty of the negroes, and
declaring the colony henceforth an integrant part of France. It is a
piece of folly and nonsense, as you will see at once; for it can never
be enforced. No one of any sense will regard it; but just at present it
has the effect, you see, of making it out of the question for me to
cross the frontier."

"True," said Toussaint, in a voice which made Papalier look in his face,
which was working with some strong emotion. He turned away from the
light, and desired Therese to follow him. He would commit her to the
charge of one of the suttlers' wives for the night.

Having put on the table such fruit, bread, and wine as remained from his
own meal (Papalier forbidding further preparation, for fear of exciting
observation without), Toussaint went out with Therese, committed her to
safe hands, and then entered the tent next his own, inhabited by his
sons, and gave them his accustomed blessing. On his return, he found
that Papalier had retired.

Toussaint was glad to be alone. Never had he more needed solitude; for
rarely, if ever, in the course of his life, had his calm soul been so
disturbed. During the last words spoken by Papalier, a conviction had
flashed across him, more vivid and more tremendous than any lightning
which the skies of December had sent forth to startle the bodily eye;
and amidst the storm which those words had roused within him, that
conviction continued to glare forth at intervals, refusing to be
quenched. It was this--that if it were indeed true that the
revolutionary government of France had decreed to the negroes the
freedom and rights of citizenship, to tight against the revolutionary
government would be henceforth to fight against the freedom and rights
of his race. The consequences of such a conviction were overpowering to
his imagination. As one inference after another presented itself before
him--as a long array of humiliations and perplexities showed themselves
in the future--he felt as if his heart were bursting. For hour after
hour of that night he paced the floor of his tent; and if he rested his
limbs, so unused to tremble with fear or toil, it was while covering his
face with his hands, as if even the light of the lamp disturbed the
intensity of his meditation. A few hours may, at certain crises of the
human mind and lot, do the work of years; and this night carried on the