CHAPTER XII
JULES, "THE RAVEN"
GILES looked up with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Dessalines was still standing, leaning against a post, his great shoulders drooping, head pitched forward, mouth slightly agape; there was a dull, dazed, troubled look in his blue-black eyes, and the thick skin across his forehead was furrowed. The trained but primitive brain was striving to grasp the countless problems contained in that simple slip of paper; dazed, bewildered before the contemplation of the numberless tasks, conditions, responsibilities with which he found himself suddenly beset.
Giles, glancing up at him, misinterpreted the expression. He accepted it as one of deep and powerful thought; he felt suddenly shy, as such a nature does in the presence of an intimate, personal crisis.
He moved slightly. Dessalines' dull, lack-luster eyes fell upon him; the sable face cleared and the brain, with a mental sigh at the relief of the pressure, flew back to the present, to words, which with the negro are so essential to the crystallizing of a thought.
"Ah, Giles, it has come; this paper!" He took it from Giles's hand. "Think, my friend, what it represents; it is a call, a summons; the appeal of a groping people." The ring of the great voice, inspiring to Giles was likewise inspiring to Dessalines. "The time has
143
