o be gone to a place where he could not come.

Before noon, L'Ouverture, with Placide riding by his side, and followed
by some officers, who were themselves followed by a few soldiers, was
among the heights which commanded the plain of the Artibonite on one
side, and on the other the valleys which lay between their party and the
Gros Morne. They had visited Le Zephyr, and were now about to examine
the pass where their post was to be established.

"This heat, Placide," said his father, as the sun beat down upon their
heads, "is it not too much for you? Perhaps you had better--But I beg
your pardon," he added, smiling; "I had forgotten that you are no longer
my growing boy, Placide, whom I must take care of. I beg your pardon,
Placide; but it is so new to me to have a manly son beside me--!"

And he looked at him with eyes of pride.

Placide told how often at Paris he had longed to bask in such a sunshine
as this, tempered by the fragrant breezes from the mountain-side. He
was transported now to hear the blows of the axe in the woods, and the
shock of the falling trunks, as the hewers of the logwood and the
mahogany trees were at their hidden work. He was charmed with the songs
of the cultivators which rose from the hot plain below, where they were
preparing the furrows for the indigo-sowing. He greeted every housewife
who, with her children about her, was on her knees by the
mountain-stream, washing linen, and splashing her little ones in sport.
All these native sights and sounds, so unlike Paris, exhilarated Placide
in the highest degree. He was willing to brave either heats or
hurricanes on the mountains, for the sake of thus feeling himself once
more in his tropical home.

"One would think it a time of peace," said he, "with the wood-cutters
and cultivators all about us. Where will be the first cropping from
those indigo-fields? And, if that is saved, where will be the second!"

"Of that last question, ask me again when we are alone," replied his
father. "As for the rest, it is by no will of mine that our people are
to be called off from their wood-cutting and their tillage. To the last
moment, you see, I encourage the pursuits of peace. But, if you could
see closely these men in the forest and the fields, you would find that,
as formerly, they have the cutlass at their belt, and the rifle slung
across their shoulders. They are my most trusty soldiery."

"Because they love you best, and owe most to