Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/228

 These troublous times! What a blessing to be rich; not to be harassed by cares of business!"

Dessalines spent a pleasant evening. As they were about to retire early, according to local custom, Calisthène remarked with a half smile:

"You are to be envied, Aristide; one does not come back to Hayti every day, and from England. Tiens. But what a change."

With a quick movement he arose and threw wide the French windows. From without there came in swelling chorus the soft diapason of insect orchestra; the night air was heavy with dew-cooled, tropic perfumes.

"Hear it," said Calisthene. "Smell it! Ah, Hayti is only Hayti, is it not? Justitian, cher petit, come bid our guest bon soir."

Dessalines slept ill that night; the depth of fantasy which in the negro fills the place of sentient imagination had been more stirred by the events of this day of his arrival in his native country than at any time since the first formation of his ambitious projects. The night before he had been stirred to deep religious fervor, a proper emotion; this night it was different. The glamour of the black, voluptuous island lay upon his chest; the first sight of the vivid foliage ablaze in the sensuous sunlight; the first inhalations of honey-sweet odors of jasmine and Stephanotis had sent his senses reeling; all of the animalism in him seemed to awake and stretch, yawning, then glare about with bright, eager, interested eyes; a tiger, his prototype in the lower animal world, rousing from the lap of the verdant springtide. Old memories set his muscles atwitch; old desires set his nerves atingle; his flesh throbbed. 218