Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [146]
When Captain Cyprien learned from Granville that the latter was charged with a letter from Toussaint to Leclerc, he said that they must set out at once.
“But the lobsters!” Daspir burst out, his stomach fisting at the news.
“Lobsters!” Cyprien said. “You may dream of lobsters on the road. No, don’t trouble to dismount, we are leaving as soon as our own horses are brought up—now where are Toussaint’s elder sons?”
Though Daspir did doze in the saddle through the afternoon and night as they rode through the mountain passes, no lobsters were featured in his dreams, though their imagined aroma did torment his waking thoughts. They did not stop for any meal at all, but ate dry, slightly molded ship’s biscuit found in one of their saddlebags. There was little talk along the way, only Granville muttering that the citizens of Gonaives were all inspired with a terrible fear for their lives and property, by the news from the Le Cap refugees who’d begun to flood the town, in combination with Toussaint’s inscrutable aspect when he’d passed rapidly, briefly among them on his way from headquarters to the church and back. Placide and Isaac said nothing at all. They were both bedraggled from exhaustion, and Daspir thought that nervousness had drained the blood from their dark faces.
The waxing moon lit their way from Limbé down to Le Cap. In the small hours of the morning they roused Leclerc from his camp in the scorched shell of the Governor’s residence (where some reconstruction had already begun, Daspir noted). The Captain-General patted down his hair with one hand, smoothed back his silky blond sidewhiskers. He broke the seal on the letter and read Toussaint’s reproaches—that Leclerc had come to replace him with cannon fire, and failed to deliver the letter of the First Consul until it was months out of date—these actions made doubtful, Toussaint complained, both his own services and the rights of his color.
Those rights impose upon me duties higher than those of nature; I am prepared to sacrifice my children to my color; I send them back to you in order that you will not believe that I am bound by their presence. Should they remain among the French, that will not hinder me from acting in the best interests of the inhabitants of Saint Domingue. It will require some time to decide which course I am to take; meanwhile I beg you—stop the march of your troops, that we may spare the effusion of blood, of which too much has already been spilled.
Leclerc crumpled the paper and threw it from him. He began to shout and stamp his foot, though his bare heel made no sound on the stone floor.
“This is nothing but a mask for outright rebellion—Toussaint is the most false and deceiving man who has ever lived on the earth. Does he not know that the south has submitted, and the northwest peninsula must soon yield to our attack? My General Boudet is on the march from Port-au-Prince and will not stop till he has reached the banks of the Artibonite. And Toussaint would give me his brats again—well, I send them back to him, but let him beware that I will come for them when it pleases me—with God’s plenty of cannon fire, indeed. Take them away!”
Then Pauline’s voice was heard from behind the curtain. “My dear, can you not speak more softly?—if you must speak at all. Or take your councils elsewhere—at this hour, really. You make it quite impossible for me to rest, and if Dermide wakes he will not sleep again before morning.”
Leclerc wilted when he heard this; he looked at Placide and Isaac as if he’d take back a part of what he’d said. But Coisnon and Daspir were already leading them out of the room. Only Cyprien and Granville remained with the