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“I have already told you.”

“But you had secret arrangements with them which you have not admitted.”

“Sir, I did not. I made two treaties with the English, and strictly to arrange terms for their departure from Saint Domingue.”

“The English suggested that you yourself might place the colony under protection of their crown.”

Toussaint inclined his head.

“You entertained those proposals with a certain favor.”

“Oh,” said Toussaint. “There were some agents of the English who tried to place that idea in my head. I amused myself by making fun of them.”

“And at the same time you accepted their gifts.”

Toussaint let out a whispering laugh. “I had no gifts from the English.” He considered. “I had some twenty barrels of powder from General Maitland, but nothing more.”

Both men were silent while the castle clock tolled the hour.

“Yes,” Toussaint said, “and once General Maitland presented me with a saddle and trappings for my horse, which I at first refused. But when pressed to accept it as a token from himself, rather than his government, I did so.”

“Commendable,” Caffarelli said drily, but Toussaint did not react to the prick.

“And your secret treaty, signed with Maitland. What were its terms?”

“I have already told you.”

“You have not told all.”

“I agreed not to attack the English at Jamaica,” Toussaint said with an air of fatigue. “The English were to have the right to enter the ports at Le Cap and Port-au-Prince, but no other. They promised not to molest the ships of the French Republic in the coastal waters of Saint Domingue.”

Caffarelli affected a sigh.

“Not all the English officers kept the bargain,” Toussaint said irritably. “Their corsairs took four of our ships after it was signed. That was done by Admiral Farker and the governor of Jamaica, who complained that Maitland had let himself be deceived by a Negro.”

“As perhaps he had,” said Caffarelli.

Again Toussaint declined to react.

“And the other terms of the secret treaty?”

“I have already told you.”

The castle bells rang two more times while the conversation continued to follow these same circular pathways. In the intervals, the ticking of Toussaint’s watch buried in his clothes was just barely audible. The damp seeped glossily on the inner wall. Caffarelli veered to a new subject.

“And the treasure that you hid in Saint Domingue. Spirited away from the coffers of the French Republic.”

Toussaint clicked his tongue. “The government treasury was reduced by the wars. I had no fortune, not in money. I spent what I had on the same cause, and the rest of my property was in land. There is Habitation d’Héricourt, near Le Cap, and at Ennery three plantations which I bought from the colons and joined together. Also Habitation Rousinière, which is the property of my wife. On the Spanish side of the island I had land where I raised livestock for the army.”

“You sent a ship to the North American Republic, loaded with gold and precious things, and your aide-de-camp who conducted the cargo was shot when he returned.”

Toussaint ran his tongue around the loose teeth at the front of his jaw. “It is true that I ordered the man shot, but that was because he had tried to debauch some young women of my household.” He paused. “All you white men are always dreaming of gold in the mountains of Saint Domingue. There was gold once, but the Spaniards took it all away a very long time ago.”

“Then what of the six men who went out from Le Cap to bury your treasure in the mountains, and who were shot on their return?”

Toussaint’s heels cracked against the concrete floor, and his eyes grew round and white as he surged against the edge of the table. “That is a lie! A calumny, sir, which my enemies invented to dishonor me. They said I had killed men from my own guard on such a mission, but I called out my guard to prove the lie, and all were present. I would not put the shame of such an act upon my spirit.”

“No,” said Caffarelli softly. “No, perhaps you would not.”

Toussaint subsided. Caffarelli produced his own watch and examined its face. The cry of a circling hawk came