ACT III. SCENE 1. [Isaiah]

ACT III. SCENE 1. (CAMP OF THE MULATRES. TIME, 10:30 P. M. Tent or RIGAUD, INSIDE VIEW. TABLE, UPON WHICH BURNS CANDLE. SENTINEL PACES IN REAR. RIGAUD SEATED AT TABLE PERUSING DOCUMENTS. REAR SCENE, MOUNTAINS AND CLIFFS.] 

RIGAUD. 

Thus is it twice, as I am about to give battle to the blacks and dislodge them from their stronghold, orders are sent me to await in camp, the further orders of the chef. This inactivity will lose to France her cause, and with it is lost all our confréres hoped to gain. These letters—there is much in them gives serious cause for thought: [Reads] “We have imported ten thousand of the fiercest Siberian bloodhounds, and these dogs will be a reserve corps to the army. Monsieur Lagarde, surgeon general, advises the canines' teeth be filed to a jagged edge, and then their work will be more effective. Employing dogs in warfare may not be exactly civilized mode”—I should think not—“but we are dealing with rebellious slaves—black barbarians, and not civilized men. France need have no compunction of conscience in adopting the most drastic remedies for the blacks' disorder"—when did France ever have a conscience—“Have it well understood by all of your officers that the peremptory order of Count de Rochambeau is that NO QUARTER be shown the rebellious blacks. Neither spare young nor old. France desires no black prisoners.” Mon Dieu ! Can this be possible! France, the home of chivalry and song; the home of culture and brave men, can engage in a warfare so barbarous—so inhuman! Never did I regret more than I do now that I buckled on the sword and swore allegiance to my father's government. 

SENTINEL.

Who goes there?

[Enter LEFEBRE ; grasps hand of RIGAUD. 

LEFEBRE. 

Again, mon comrade, after a five month's separation we meet. My lengthy communication reached you some time ago, and from its length I judge you thought I had plenty of spare time. 

RIGAUD. 

The obstacles to forwarding post direct caused your kind letter to reach me only today. I have read it over several times; but the portion I have read most carefully, is the orders sent out by General Leclerc to the generals of arrondissements. The orders are worthy the brain and invention of the originator of the thumb screw and English maiden. It is barbarous, Lefebre—it is infernal ! 

LEFEBRE. 

Such is war. You have not then heard the latest news from Aux Cayes in reference to the French dog-soldiers, as the blacks very appropriately call the Siberian hounds ? 

RIGAUD. 

I have not. The couriers I have sent out from this camp have never returned. Every mountain pass and every thicket between here and Port Au Prince contains a maroon sharpshooter. So all you tell me must be news. 

LEFEBRE. 

Allons ! As you already learn by my letter, the count general has imported a large number of blood hounds. These dogs are naturally fierce, but in order to make them more ferocious they are half starved. Twenty-five hundred of these dogs were sent to the commander at Aux Cayes. When Dessalines, who has a marauding army of blacks encamped within a few miles of Aux Cayes, learned of the presence and purpose of these dog-soldiers, he swore a heathenish oath that he would yet make the French eat their dogs. On the night of August 25th, a descent was made on the town by a large force of blacks, led by Dessalines. The dogs were turned loose and rushed furiously on the blacks. To the astonishment of the garrison and its commander the whole scene was suddenly illuminated; every black had a pitch torch and rushed upon the dogs yelling like so many demons, and so affrighted the hounds—the dogs became panic stricken and rushed back pell-mell to the garrison uttering fearful yelps. Since that memorable night the dogs refuse to make a charge. The blacks have gradually drawn a cordon about the town. All roads to Aux Cayes are blocked ; the supplies and provisions are cut off, and today the inhabitants of that unhappy city are forced to eat their dogs to ward off a miserable death by starvation! Thus has  kept his word-and fresh dog meat at Aux Cayes is at a premium. 

RIGAUD. 

France will yet learn two can play at the same game! 

LEFEBRE. 

I believe you. France has not a great advantage in this fight, surrounded as she is by a thoroughly united foe. To the honor of the blacks it at least can be said they have yet to hang a black traitor. How different with us? Ah then! Men in war, as they are in the less sanguinary walks of life, are always anxious to protect self-interest. I am told this  is somewhat of a wit. 

RIGAUD. 

A savage beast who has not yet thrown off the wolfish covering given him by his mother in his native jungles ! He wears an amulet of python teeth about his sable neck. 

LEFEBRE. 

True, Rigaud, but withal he is a humorous fellow. A bloody kind of barbaric humor, it is true. As an instance of this—a remarkable one—I've heard, is that since the successful charge on the garrison of Aux Cayes he hath adopted for his soldier's battle cry a very good imitation of a dog bark. When asked the meaning of such a peculiar rallying cry, he answered : “We have appealed to the Frenchman's heart and head; it has proven fruitless. We will now try his stomach.” Morbleu! This Dessalines is a good one! But why so serious, mon ami ? 

RIGAUD. 

So serious! There is little else in this war, to affect me otherwise. I think of our slaughtered brethren; our devastated plantations and the smoldering ruins of our once luxurious homes. What have the blacks to lose in this fight? If the event of battle go against them, they but return to their former state of servitude. Their treatment cannot prove more rigorous than it was formerly. Whereas, Lefebre, if France lose the fight, the mulattos of Haïti will be a people without a home—hated by the blacks and persecuted by the government he is striving so hard and honestly to uphold on this island. Indeed, I see no humorous side to these fighting times—an epoch in the history of the world which will figure in its darkest and bloodiest s. And with all your debonair, ami chéri, I know that no one more than you comprehends these appalling truths that existing circumstances make so plain. 

LEFEBRE. 

Indeed, I do. I see the situation plainly; but I see it from a less gloomy view. If France win—ah bien—it will be the old time practice with her of breaking promises. If France lose—why French soil is good enough for me. 

RIGAUD. 

Yes, I fear it is with you as it is with many of our brethren, who prefer to saunter on the Boulevardes, loll in the foyers of the varieties and drive spirited horses on Bois de Boulogne, ogling fair women and exchanging bon mots with the shop girls, than to re- main in Haiti contesting for the rights of men. 

LEFEBRE. 

Every man to his trade. Fighting a lot of savages,at least, is not mine. Of one thing you can rest assured—I am with you to the end. In defeat or victory c'est toujour la même. But for the sake of health, if that alone, come into my sunshine. RIGAUD. My friend, you forget. 

LEFEBRE. 

Forget? 

RIGAUD. 

Aye, that Clarisse, my sister, is still the captive of that black brute, . No sleep is there for me; no dreams of pleasantry, such as you would picture in our enforced exile from our native land, until I have rescued Clarisse, who, next to my honor, is most dear to me. 

LEFEBRE. 

Ah, Rigaud, the very name of Clarisse awakens within me the most tender emotions. You love her with a brother's love; think not that love for mother, sister or the laughing dimpled image of yourself can measure the height and breadth of my love for your sister. There is a flower which thrives as well in the humble fisherman's cot as in the artificial atmosphere of the gilded salons of Paris. Its perfume is redolent—all absorbing—overmastering. It makes earth a hell or earth a heaven, and makes man an angel or changes him to a fiend! The cowardly become brave; the bravest oft become the most arrant cowards.—I have basked in the sunshine of love, and the only flower that thrives in this sterile heart of mine is memory and—Clarisse. With thee I pledge my life and honor she shall be free, and then perchance-she'll be my own! 

RIGAUD. 

Enough! Thy hand. Let us step without and watch, as I often have, the descent of the moon behind the wood clad summit of yonder cliffs. [Both leave tent. SENTINEL wearily nods with back to tree and permits them to pass unnoticed.] Poor fellow, he needs no discipline ; he needs a surcease from this monotonous inactivity. 

LEFEBRE. 

Look, Rigaud ! Do you not see a moving form on yonder summit, walking as if in a trance? See, he nears the edge most dangerously ;—he pauses ;—note his majestic form. Now he unwinds his cloak from about him ;-he is a black. Soldier, thy gun—he is a spy! 

RIGAUD. 

Nay wait, he sees us not! He speaks and though his features can not be plainly seen; we will move closer and hear his words.

DESSALINES.

[Oblivious of his surroundings, speaks.] It is cruel, Dessalines —’tis barbarous, Dessalines; but no more cruel, no more barbarous than my examplers in this war! My cause is just and their cause is wrong. Mine are the deeds of the avenging gods that follow in the wake of crime. Their battles are to enslave and make of men beasts; my battles are for human rights, and it is just my blows should fall the hardier. Then, 'tis meet in these fierce and bloody times men's nerves should be iron and their blood run colder than the trickling of yonder spring. Call me cruel; call me barbarous; but remember, Dessalines lives in times when warfare should be the trade of fiends, and I'll see to it the sharpened fangs of the Frankish bloodhounds are filed no keener than my wits to study cruel deeds of vengeance—and why not? I ask my heart, when these Franks harnessed in all contrivances of their boasted civilization, with bottomless mines of saltpetre wrung from the innermost bowels of the earth; with weapons of steel tempered in the heat of the lightning's flash; with engines of war that belch forth death- destroying hundreds with the bare lighting of a fuse !—With all these arts, the result of centuries of study, the Franks have yet to learn the meaning of justice. Cruel, barbarous Dessalines —and why not! They build temples to their gods by the stolen sweat of other's brows, and call them sacred! Then 'tis but in reason with them to enslave a weaker race and prove, by sundry testaments of their gods, 'tis justice ! Ah ! to them, I will prove an apt and worthy pupil, for out of the fertility of my brain shall spring a thousand cruel tortures, and every torture shall be as a hundred deaths. No quarter ! cries the Frank; no quarter for the young; no quarter for the grey haired stooping sire; no quarter for the devoted mother, even to whose breast they clung in helpless infancy; nay, no quarter for the suckling babe ; for the maidens of the race no quarter !— Brave men have sought the schools of beasts and learned their lessons of humanity in the dens of wolves! From the graves of the slaughtered dead a hundred thousand voices cry revenge! Methinks that in the stillness of the night the foul owls of rapine cry revenge, while nature hides her face behind the rolling clouds and echoes in her mountain passes and in the deep recesses of the forests—revenge! Ah! Then to the Franks, shall I–I, Dessalines—be their instrument of fate. In me—in me, Dessalines—shall they find the embodiment of hatred-the never ceasing, sleepless enemy to their race, who shall turn their engines of war back on themselves, and out of their every deed of violence, shall spring a score of bloodier incarnations! Oh, France ! Pile up thy deeds of ruthless violence! Dig at the feet of every black a grave so deep that the odor of his stenching carcass can not spoil the pure breath of heaven. Mow down his ranks; bind him as the reaper binds his sheaves; make every stone a head stone that marks a grave; let every blade of grass mature in the rottenness of his black manes.—Aye ! use stealth and perfidy; use torch and treachery, and bring your basest means to gain your bases tends, and then—pause ere the combat's over. Oh, France, go count thy victories! I—I, Dessalines, , will count thy dead. 

DESSALINES turns to retrace his footsteps, SENTINEL steps forward, takes deliberate aim and prepares to fire. 

RIGAUD. 

At thy peril! Rigaud is a soldier—not an assassin ! 

CURTAIN.