ave you thoughts of taking your soldiers with you?"

"No."

"But what is right for you is right for them."

"If they so decide for themselves. My power over them is great. They
would follow me with a word. I shall therefore avoid speaking that
word, as it would be a false first step in a career of freedom, to make
them enter upon it as slaves to my opinion and my will."

"But you will at least address them, that they may understand the course
you pursue. The festival of this morning will afford an opportunity--
after mass. Have you thought of this?--I do not say that I am advising
it, or sanctioning any part of your plan, but have you thought of this?"

"I have, and dismissed the thought. The proclamation will speak for
itself. I act from no information which is not open to them all. They
can act, thank God, for themselves; and I will not seduce them into
subservience, or haste, or passion."

"But you will be giving up everything. What can make you think that the
French at Cap, all in the interest of the planters, will receive you?"

"I do not think it; and I shall not offer myself."

"Then you will sink into nothing. You will no longer be an officer, nor
even a soldier. You will be a mere negro, where negroes are wholly
despised. After all that you have been, you will be nothing."

"I shall be a true man."

"You will sink to less than nothing. You will be worse than useless
before God and man. You will be held a traitor."

"I shall; but it will be for the sake of a higher fidelity."

There was a long pause, after which Laxabon said, in a tone half severe,
and half doubting--

"So, here ends your career! You will dig a piece of ground to grow
maize and plantains for your family; you will read history in your
piazza, and see your daughters dance in the shade, while your name will
never be mentioned but as that of a traitor. So here ends your career!"

"From no one so often as you, father, have I heard that man's career
never ends."

The priest made no reply.

"How lately was it," pursued Toussaint, "that you encouraged my
children, when they, who fear neither the wild bull nor the tornado,
looked somewhat fearfully up to the eclipsed moon? Who was it but you
who told them, that though that blessed light seemed blotted out from
the sky, it was not so; but that behind the black shadow, God's hand was
still leading her on, through the heaven, still pouring radiance into
her lamp, not the