AN OVATION
other. Then there is this débauché, Killik, who commands the Crête-à-Pierrot. He is not to be feared as he has no backing, no money, and will soon be out of coal and supplies, unless he attempts to take them by force from some vessel of a foreign power, and this he will hardly be fool enough to do. My supplies will be dropped at the different places where my men are located. My plan is to sail at once for Hayti; next I shall destroy or capture the Crête-à-Pierrot, and storm Port au Prince by sea and land."
Dessalines' eyes sparkled; his voice rang with enthusiasm; one could never have believed that this was the same man who, five minutes before, had bewailed his inefficiency.
"And then?" asked Virginia eagerly.
"Then—" the eyes flashed, the sable face glowed, the massive chest arched. "My victorious troops shall acclaim me Dessalines the Second, Liberator, Empereur de Haiti!"
Virginia's eyes glistened; tremors ran through her; her cheeks were flushed. She tried to speak, stammered, laughed hysterically.
Dessalines' face was radiant, his whole great physique vibrant, exhilarated, semiintoxicated at the rush of emotion with which his eloquence inspired him.
"Ah, but you give me courage!" he cried. "You make me feel that I am indeed like the great tyrant Napoleon, a man of destiny! You seem to point out to me my star as it hangs high in the zenith!" His opaque eyes rested on the beautiful, intense face of the girl, and Virginia meeting them with her own saw the pupils dilate … they held her strangely.
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