ications through Dessalines' line of scouts."

La Plume withdrew, and Toussaint gazed after him in reverie, till he was
out of sight.

"And I?" said Clerveaux, the only general officer now left in
attendance.

"Your pardon, General Clerveaux. This your department in the east is
likely at present to remain tranquil, as I forewarned you. I now
forewarn you that it may hereafter become the seat of war, when you will
have your day. Meantime, I may at any time call upon your reserve; and
you will take care that the enemy shall find no solace in your
department, if they should visit it. Let it be bare as the desert
before them. Farewell; I leave you in command of the east."

Clerveaux made his obeisance with an alacrity which caused Toussaint to
say to himself, as he mounted--

"Is he glad that the hour is come, or that his post is in the rear of
the battle?"

Toussaint's own road lay homewards, where he had assembled the choicest
troops, to be ready for action on any point where they might first be
wanted, and where the great body of the cultivators, by whom his
personal influence was most needed, were collected under his eye. As he
now sped like the lightning through the shortest tracks, his trompettes
proclaiming the invasion through all the valleys, and over all the
plains as they went, he felt strong and buoyant in heart, like the eagle
overhead, which was scared from its eyrie in Cibao by the proclamation
of war. For ever, as he rode, the thought recurred to fire his soul,
"He is my rival now, and no longer my chief. I am free. It is his own
act, but Bonaparte has me for a rival now."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

MANY GUESTS.

For some weeks after the appearance of the fleet upon the coast, nothing
took place which could be called war. Toussaint was resolved not to be
the aggressor. Prepared at all points, he waited till those whom he
still regarded as his fellow-citizens should strike the first blow. He
was the more willing to leave an opening for peace till the last, that
he heard that ladies were on board--ladies from the court of France,
come to enjoy the delights of this tropical paradise. The sister of
Bonaparte, Madame Leclerc, the wife of the commander of the expedition,
was there. It seemed scarcely conceivable that she and her train of
ladies could have come with any expectation of witnessing such a warfare
as, ten years before, had shown how much more savage than the beasts of
the for