CHAPTER XLVI.

I fled away, and plunged into the depths of the forest, following the tracks that we had left but a short time before, and not daring to cast a last glance behind me.

To stifle the grief which oppressed my heart, I dashed, without a moment’s pause, through the thickets, past hill and plain, until I reached the crest of a rock from which I could see the camp of Biassou, with its lines of waggons and huts swarming with life, and looking in the distance like a vast ant-hill.

Then I halted, for I felt that I had reached the end of my journey, and my life at the same time. Fatigue and emotion had weakened my physical powers, and I leaned against a tree to save myself from falling, and allowed my eyes to wander over the plain, which was to be my place of execution.

Up to this moment I had imagined that I had drained the cup of bitterness and gall to the dregs, but I had not until then tasted the most cruel of all misfortunes, that of being constrained by powerful moral force to voluntarily renounce life when it appeared most sweet. Some hours before I cared not for the world; extreme despair is a simulation of death which makes the reality more earnestly desired.

Marie had been restored to me, my dead happiness had been resuscitated, my past had become my future, and all my overshadowed hopes had beamed forth more gloriously than ever, and again had a new life, a life of youth, and love, and enchantment, showed gloriously upon the horizon. I was ready to enter upon this life, everything invited me to it; no material obstacle, no hindrance, was apparent; I was free, I was happy, and yet—I was about to die. I had made but one step into paradise and a hidden duty compelled me to retrace it, and to enter upon a path the goal of which was Death!

Death has but few terrors for the crushed and broken spirit, but how heavy and icy is his hand when it grasps the heart which has just begun to live and revel in the joys of life. I felt that I had emerged from the tomb, and had for a moment enjoyed the greatest delights of life, love, friendship, and liberty, and now the door of the sepulchre was again opened, and an unseen force compelled me once more to enter it for ever.