ation: As Floreal rose from his father's body he heard a shot
and saw the soldiers of the Republic charging him.]

When Colonel Laguerre arrived upon the scene they were still loading and
firing without aim, and he had some difficulty in restoring them to
order. Blood they were accustomed to, but blood of their own letting.
This was very different. This was a blow at the government, at their own
established authority. Such an appalling loss of life seldom occurred to
regular troops of the Republic; it was worse than a pitched battle with
the Dominicans, and it excited the troopers terribly.

Perhaps he had been mistaken and there was no money, thought the
colonel, as he returned to his quarters after a time. Of course the girl
still remained, and he could soon force the truth from her, but she was
the only source of information left now that Floreal had escaped, for
Laguerre had noted carelessly that the body of Julien had hung too long.
It was annoying to be deceived in this way, but perhaps the day had not
been without some profit, after all, he mused.

The road to the Dominican frontier was rough and wild. All Hayti was
aflame; every village was peopled by raging blacks who had risen against
their lighter-hued brethren. Among the fugitives who slunk along the
winding bridle-paths that once had been roads there was a mulatto youth
of scarcely twenty, who carried a machete beneath his arm. In his eyes
there was a lurking horror; his wrists were bound with rags torn from
his cotton shirt; he spoke but seldom, and when he did it was to curse
the name of Petithomme Laguerre.

II

Floreal took up his residence across the border. The countries had long
been at war, so he found reason to change his name. He likewise changed
his language, although that was not so easily accomplished, and then,
since he had been born of the sea, he returned to it. But he could not
bring himself to utterly forsake the island of his birth, for twice a
year, when the seasons changed, when the trades died and the hot lands
sent their odors reeking through the night, he felt a hungry yearning
for Hayti. During these periods of lifeless heat his impulses ran wild;
at these times his habits changed and he became violent, nocturnal. As
he thought of Petithomme Laguerre he bit his wrists in an agony of
recollection. Women shunned him, men said to one another:

"This Inocencio is a person of uncertain temper. He has a bad eye."

"Whence d