man, and with the
quietness which became their superior force. Jean Francais and Biasson
were left with scarcely twenty followers each; and those few would do
nothing. The whites felt themselves powerless amidst the noonday heats,
and opposed to threefold numbers: and their officers found that nothing
was to be done but to allow them to look on quietly, while Jacques led
away his little army, with loud music and a streaming white flag. A few
horsemen led the van, and closed in the rear. The rest marched, as if
on a holiday trip, now singing to the music of the band, and now making
the hills ring again with the name of Toussaint Breda.

As General Hermona, entirely indisposed for his siesta, watched the
march through his glass from the entrance of his tent, while the notes
of the wind-instruments swelled and died away in the still air, one of
his aides was overheard by him to say to another--

"The General has probably changed his opinion since he said to you this
morning, of Toussaint Breda, that God could not visit a soul more pure.
We have all had to change our minds rather more rapidly than suits such
a warm climate."

"You may have changed your opinions since the sun rose, gentlemen," said
Hermona; "but I am not sure that I have."

"How! Is it possible? We do not understand you, my lord."

"Do you suppose that you understand him? Have we been of a degraded
race, slaves, and suddenly offered restoration to full manhood and
citizenship? How otherwise can we understand this man? I do not
profess to do so."

"You think well of him, my lord?"

"I am so disposed. Time, however, will show. He has gone away
magnanimously enough, alone, and believing, I am confident, from what
Father Laxabon tells me, that his career is closed; but I rather think
we shall hear more of him."

"How these people revel in music!" observed one of the staff. "How they
are pouring it forth now!"

"And not without reason, surely," said Hermona. "It is their exodus
that we are watching."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

BREDA AGAIN.

The French proclamation was efficiently published along the line of
march of the blacks. They shouted and sang the tidings of their
freedom, joining with them the name of Toussaint Breda. These tidings
of freedom rang through the ravines, and echoed up the sides of the
hills, and through the depths of the forests, startling the wild birds
on the mountain-ponds and the deer among the high ferns; and br