Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/318

 door had taken to be the respiration of profound sleep, had been the fathomless sighs of a spirit crushed beneath an agony of dread, paralyzed to all emotion save that of primitive fear; the terror of the naked pagan of an early age who fled howling as the lava flowed into the recesses of his Cambrian fen.

From that, Dessalines had passed to the dull stage of inert hopelessness which characterizes the negro race. The arrival of the vigilantes had partially aroused him from this dull lethargy; it had awakened no further fears; this emotion, taxed beyond its powers of translation in the still hours of darkness, had, like a sensory nerve subjected to crushing force, undergone anæsthesia, paralysis. In its place had come the depression of profound self-pity, as impersonal as if referred to another entity; a childish sense of the overpowering pathos of his condition, and with this the pitiful generosity of the honest, true-hearted if erring child. He had committed a fault; it was unavoidable that he be punished for it. His conscience was guilty, yet he felt that if the thing could be understood as it appeared to him, all would be forgiven. Yet, in a dumb way, he realized the hopelessness of this. Punishment was inevitable. Very well, but his playmates should not be punished for his fault.

The deep voice quavered out again. "Here I am," it said, and there was a heart-breaking cadence which pierced. "Here I am," he repeated. "Shoot me if you wish, but don't shoot Giles. Giles has done no harm."

A silence fell. The men wavered, puzzled, disturbed, oddly moved, swept by an emotion which they could feel 308