The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance. Harriet Martineau

of wind now set swinging, so as to attract the child’s eye. What child ever saw a humming-bird thus rocking—its bill sticking out like a long needle on one side, and its tail at the other, without longing to clutch it? So Denis cried out imperiously to be lifted up. His father set him on the shelf within the piazza, where the calabashes were kept—a station whence he could see into the nest, and watch the bird, without being able to touch it. This was not altogether satisfactory. The little fellow looked about him for a calabash to throw at the nest; but his mother had carried in all her cups for the service of the supper-table. As no more wind came at his call, he could only blow with all his might, to swing the tendril again; and he was amusing himself thus when his father laid down his book, and stepped out to see once more whether Jean was approaching.

      “Lift me down,” said the boy to his sister, when his head was giddy with blowing. Génifrède would fain have let him stay where he was, out of the way of mischief; but she saw that he was really afraid of falling, and she offered her shoulders for him to descend upon. When down, she would not let him touch her work; she took her scissors from his busy hands, and shook him off when he tried to pull the snowberries out of her hair; so that there was nothing left for the child to play with but his father’s book. He was turning it over, when Toussaint re-appeared.

      “Ha! boy, a book in your hands already? I hope you may have as much comfort out of that book as I have had, Denis.”

      “What is it? what is it about?” said the boy, who had heard many a story out of books from his father.

      “What is it? Let us see. I think you know letters enough to spell it out for yourself. Come and try.”

      The child knew the letter E, and, with a good deal of help, made out, at last, Epictetus.

      “What is that?” asked the boy.

      “Epictetus was a negro,” said Génifrède, complacently.

      “Not a negro,” said her father, smiling. “He was a slave; but he was a white.”

      “Is that the reason you read that book so much more than any other?”

      “Partly; but partly because I like what is in it.”

      “What is in it—any stories?” asked Denis.

      “It is all about bearing and forbearing. It has taught me many things which you will have to learn by-and-by. I shall teach you some of them out of this book.”

      Denis made all haste away from the promised instruction, and his father was presently again absorbed in his book. From respect to him, Génifrède kept Denis quiet by signs of admonition; and for some little time nothing was heard but the sounds that in the plains of Saint Domingo never cease—the humming and buzzing of myriads of insects, the occasional chattering of monkeys in a neighbouring wood, and, with a passing gust, a chorus of frogs from a distant swamp. Unconscious of this din, from being accustomed always to hear more or less of it, the boy amused himself with chasing the fireflies, whose light began to glance around as darkness descended. His sister was poring over her work, which she was just finishing, when a gleam of greenish light made both look up. It came from a large meteor which sailed past towards the mountains, whither were tending also the huge masses of cloud which gather about the high peaks previous to the season of rain and hurricanes. There was nothing surprising in this meteor, for the sky was full of them in August nights; but it was very beautiful. The globe of green light floated on till it burst above the mountains, illuminating the lower clouds, and revealing along the slopes of the uplands the coffee-groves, waving and bowing their heads in the wandering winds of that high region. Génifrède shivered at the sight, and her brother threw himself upon her lap. Before he had asked half his questions about the lights of the sky, the short twilight was gone, and the evening star cast a faint shadow from the tufted posts of the piazza upon the white wall of the cottage. In a low tone, full of awe, Génifrède told the boy such stories as she had heard from her father of the mysteries of the heavens. He felt that she trembled as she told of the northern lights, which had been actually seen by some travelled persons now in Cap Français. It took some time and argument to give him an idea of cold countries; but his uncle Paul, the fisherman, had seen hail on the coast, only thirty miles from hence; and this was a great step in the evidence. Denis listened with all due belief to his sister’s description of those pale lights shooting up over the sky, till he cried out vehemently, “There they are! look!”

      Génifrède screamed, and covered her face with her hands; while the boy shouted to his father, and ran to call his mother to see the lights.

      What they saw, however, was little like the pale, cold rays of the aurora borealis. It was a fiery red, which, shining to some height in the air, was covered in by a canopy of smoke.

      “Look up, Génifrède,” said her father, laying his hand upon her head. “It is a fire—a cane-field on fire.”

      “And houses, too—the sugar-house, no doubt,” said Margot, who had come out to look. “It burns too red to be canes only. Can it be at Latour’s? That would keep Jean from coming.—It was the best supper I ever got ready for him.”

      “Latour’s is over that way,” said Toussaint, pointing some distance further to the south-east. “But see! there is fire there, too! God have mercy!”

      He was silent, in mournful fear that he knew now too well the reason why Jean had not come, and the nature of the conversation Jean had desired to have with him. As he stood with folded arms looking from the one conflagration to the other, Génifrède clung to him trembling with terror. In a quarter of an hour another blaze appeared on the horizon; and soon after, a fourth.

      “The sky is on fire,” cried Denis, in more delight than fear. “Look at the clouds!” And the clouds did indeed show, throughout their huge pile, some a mild flame colour, and others a hard crimson edge, as during a stormy sunset.

      “Alas! alas! this is rebellion,” said Toussaint; “rebellion against God and man. God have mercy! The whites have risen against their king; and now the blacks rise against them, in turn. It is a great sin. God have mercy!”

      Margot wept bitterly. “Oh, what shall we do?” she cried, “What will become of us, if there is a rebellion?”

      “Be cheerful, and fear nothing,” replied her husband. “I have not rebelled, and I shall not. Monsieur Bayou has taught me to bear and forbear—yes, my boy, as this book says, and as the book of God says: We will be faithful, and fear nothing.”

      “But they may burn this plantation,” cried Margot. “They may come here, and take you away. They may ruin Monsieur Bayou, and then we may be sold away; we may be parted—”

      Her grief choked her words.

      “Fear nothing,” said her husband, with calm authority. “We are in God’s hand; and it is a sin to fear His will. But see! there is another fire, over towards the town.”

      And he called aloud the name of his eldest son, saying he should send the boy with a horse to meet his master. He himself must remain to watch at home.

      Placide did not come when called, nor was he at the stables. He was gone some way off, to cut fresh grass for the cattle—a common night-labour on the plantation.

      “Call Isaac, then,” said Toussaint.

      “Run, Génifrède,” said her mother. “Isaac and Aimée are in the wood. Run, Génifrède.”

      Génifrède did not obey. She was too much terrified to leave the piazza alone; though her father gently asked when she, his eldest daughter, and almost a woman, would leave off being scared on all occasions like a child. Margot went herself; so far infected with her daughter’s fears as to be glad to take little Denis in her hand. She was not long gone. As soon as she entered the wood she heard the sound of her children’s laughter above the noise the monkeys made; and she was guided by it to the well. There, in the midst of the opening which let in the starlight, stood the well, surrounded by the only grass on the Breda estate that was always fresh and green; and there were Isaac and his inseparable companion,