“DOWN with Théodor! Death to Black Oscar!” It was the raucous, horrifying yell of the inevitable Haitian mob as it assembled in the historic Champs de Mars outside the palace in Port au Prince, the scene of hundreds of such meetings that had never meant less than murders and gutters flowing red with human blood. The rapacious rule of President Théodor and his favorite general, Black Oscar, was tottering to its fall. That day Théodor had violated a sacred session of the Senate and dissolved it at the point of the bayonet because it had, for the second time, refused to support him in a dastardly measure to filch more money from the already pauper citizenry.
As night came on, aged senators lay cringing in the filthy prison, in the courtyard of the palace, and double sentinels paced the flagstones outside. In the domed council chamber of the palace sat Papillon, the favorite senator of the common people, bound hand and foot, subjected to the jeers and insults of the two beasts. Théodor, lean and emaciated, his yellow, pock-marked face pinched with terror, fingered nervously some loose papers that lay on the table. Oscar, a giant in stature, with a waxed mustache curling up crescent-shaped till the two points almost met above his gaping, black nostrils, pounded his huge fist on the table and fixed his sinister gaze on Papillon.
“Do you think we sleep, idiot?” he stormed. “It is your tongue that has sown the seeds of unrest among the populace and stirred them to rebellion against our authority. What have you to say to this—and this?” He thrust two papers into the face of Papillon, and his black face twitched with rage.
“I should think it would be unnecessary for le général to rob the mails for the same information he might easily obtain by listening to any group of citizens conversing on our street corners. It is the sentiment of all true Haitians. You have robbed the coffers of the treasury; you have murdered our best citizens; and now you seek the aid of the Senate in carrying out your cursed schemes,” sarcastically answered Papillon.
Stung by the truth of this remark, Oscar lifted his great fist and crashed it against the thin lips of the helpless prisoner. Blood streamed from the cracked lips, ran down the chin and stained the white bosom of the senator’s shirt. Papillon, still holding high his proud head, mumbled through his bleeding lips:
“ ’Tis no better nor redder than that you spilled at Mole St. Nicholas when you shot down Vilbrun, or when you butchered the patriot, Céléstin, at Jacmel. It is the blood of Haiti.”
As Papillon finished speaking, in through the window shone the baleful red glare of the torches of the mob, and through the casement came fren-
