not, apparently, on their way to the
plantation, but engaged in some search among the hills. Others spoke
tidings which would not have been told for hours but for the
determination of Madame Bellair to set out in search of her children,
whatever foe might be in the path. It became necessary to relate that
it was too late to save her children. They had been seen lying in a
track of the wood, torn in pieces by the bloodhounds, whose cry was
heard now close at hand. Though there was no one who would at first
undertake to tell the mother this, there were none who, in the end,
could conceal it from her. They need not have feared that their work of
defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a
cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that
the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha's
nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful
defence of Le Zephyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and
superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage,
executed. From that hour to the day when she and her husband expired in
tortures, the forces of the First Consul had no more vindictive and
mischievous enemy than the wife of Charles Bellair. Never propitiated,
and long unsubdued, Charles Bellair and his wife lived henceforth in the
fastnesses of the interior; and never for a day desisted from harassing
the foe, and laying low every Frenchman on whom a sleepless, and
apparently ubiquitous vengeance, could fix its grasp.

Deesha was not the only woman who seemed to bear a foeman's soul.
Therese looked as few had seen her look before; and, busy as was her
husband with his arrangements for the defence of the house, he could not
but smile in the face which expressed so much. To her, and any
companions she could find among the women, was confided the charge of
Sabes and Martin, who, locked into a room whence they must hear the
firing of their comrades outside, could not be supposed likely to make a
desperate attempt to escape. Therese answered for their detention, if
she had arms for herself and two companions. Whoever these heroines
might be, the prisoners were found safe, after the French had decamped.

There were doubts which, at any other time, would have needed
deliberation. It was a doubt, for a moment, whether to imprison
Vincent, whose good faith was now extremely questionable: but there was
no one to