"Shall I
again see my husband?"
"You will see him again," exclaimed the prophetess, "but hasten to
go to him."
"Is he threatened with any danger?" demanded Josephine.
"Not yet!--not at once!" said the old negress. "They now applaud
your husband and recognize his services. But he has powerful
enemies, and one day they will threaten his life, and will lead him
to the scaffold and murder him!"
Before Josephine left Martinique, a portion of these prophecies of
the old negro woman were to be fulfilled. The wicked and
bloodthirsty fiends, of whom she said they were ready with fire and
sword to rush upon the colony--those fiends did light the firebrand
and destroy the peace of Martinique.
The resounding cries for freedom uttered in the National Assembly,
and which shook the whole continent, had rushed along across the
ocean to Martinique. The storm-wind of the revolution had on its
wings borne the wondrous story to Martinique--the wondrous story of
man's sacred rights, which Lafayette had proclaimed in the National
Assembly, the wondrous story that man was born free, that he ought
to remain free, that there were to be no more slaves in the land of
liberty, in France, and in her colonies.
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