ur Bayou.

When the family understood that the Breda estate was to be attacked this
night, there was no need to hasten their preparations for departure. In
the midst of the hurry, Aimee consulted Isaac about an enterprise which
had occurred to her, on her father's behalf; and the result was, that
they ventured up to the house, and as far as Monsieur Bayou's
book-shelves, to bring away the volumes they had been accustomed to see
their father read. This thought entered Aimee's mind when she saw him,
busy as he was, carefully pocket the Epictetus he had been reading the
night before. Monsieur Papalier was reading, while Therese was making
packages of comforts for him. He observed the boy and girl, and when he
found that the books they took were for their father, he muttered over
the volume he held--

"Bayou was a fool to allow it. I always told him so. When our negroes
get to read like so many gentlemen, no wonder the world is turned upside
down."

"Do your negroes read, Monsieur Papalier?" asked Isaac.

"No, indeed! not one of them."

"Where are they all, then?"

Aimee put in her word.

"Why do they not take care of you, as father did of Monsieur Bayou?"

CHAPTER FOUR.

WHITHER AWAY?

Monsieur Papalier did not much relish the idea of roosting in a tree for
the night; especially as, on coming down in the morning, there would be
no friend or helper near, to care for or minister to him. Habitually
and thoroughly as he despised the negroes, he preferred travelling in
their company to hiding among the monkeys; and he therefore decided at
once to do as Toussaint concluded he would--accompany him to the Spanish
frontier.

The river Massacre, the boundary at the north between the French and
Spanish portions of the island, was about thirty miles distant from
Breda. These thirty miles must be traversed between sunset and sunrise.
Three or four horses, and two mules which were left on the plantation,
were sufficient for the conveyance of the women, boys, and girls; and
Placide ran, of his own accord, to Monsieur Papalier's deserted stables,
and brought thence a saddled horse for the gentleman, who was less able
than the women to walk thirty miles in the course of a tropical summer's
night.

"What will your Spanish friends think of our bringing so many women and
children to their post?" said Papalier to Toussaint, as soon as they
were on their way. "They will not think you worth having, with all the
incu