ed into lilac, yellow, and a faint
blushing red, till the start, barren crags appeared bathed in the hues
of the soft yielding clouds which opened to let forth the sun. The
mists were then seen to be stirring,--rising, curling, sailing, rolling,
as if the breezes were imprisoned among them, and struggling to come
forth. The breezes came, and, as it seemed, from those peaks. The
woods bent before them at one sweep. The banyan-tree, a grove in
itself, trembled through all its leafy columns, and shook off its dews
in a wide circle, like the return shower of a playing fountain. Myriads
of palms which covered the uplands, till now still as a sleeping host
beneath the stars, bowed their plumed heads as the winds went forth, and
shook off dews and slumber from the gorgeous parasitic beauties which
they sustained. With the first ray that the sun levelled among the
woods, these matted creepers shook their flowery festoons, their twined,
green ropes, studded with opening blossoms and bells, more gay than the
burnished insects and gorgeous birds which flitted among their tangles.
In the plain, the river no longer glimmered grey through the mists, but
glittered golden among the meadows, upon which the wild cattle were
descending from the clefts of the hills. Back to the north the river
led the eye, past the cluster of hunters' huts on the margin,--past the
post where the Spanish flag was flying, and whence the early drum was
sounding--past a slope of arrowy ferns here, a grove of lofty cocoa-nut
trees there, once more to the bay, now diamond-strewn, and rocking on
its bosom the boats, whose sails were now specks of light in contrast
with the black islets of the Seven Brothers, which caught the eye as if
just risen from the sea.

"No windmills here! No cattle-mills!" the negroes were heard saying to
one another. "No canes, no sugar-houses, no teams, no overseers'
houses, no overseers! By God, it is a fine place, this! So we are
going down there to be soldiers to the king! those cattle are wild, and
yonder are the hunters going out! By God, it is a fine place!"

In somewhat different ways, every one present, but Papalier and Therese,
was indulging the same mood of thought. There was a wildness in the
scene which made the heart beat high with the sense of freedom. For
some the emotion seemed too strong. Toussaint pointed out to his boys
the path on the other side of the river which would lead them to the
point of the s