In a piece of waste ground where offal and rubbish was cast, and where the bodies of the few malefactors who were ever brought to justice, as well as those of dogs and other animals, were deposited, they had ordered our poor friend to be interred. He had been placed there, fastened up in a piece of canvas, without a coffin and without ceremony of any sort. We stood with mournful countenances and with hearts full of bitterness and indignation over the foul spot, discussing among ourselves whether we ought not to dig up the body and carry it to the churchyard of Ou Trou, there to bury it among others who at all events had called themselves Christians. Our intentions must have been suspected, for in a few minutes a guard of soldiers made their appearance, and, threatening us with their pikes or halberds, made us desist. We then determined to go at once to the commandant. He received us with a look of haughty contempt. He remarked that our countryman was a heretic--that the priests considered that he had died out of the pale of their true Church like a dog, and that like a dog he must be buried. "Does the holy religion of Christ teach you thus to treat your enemies?" exclaimed Delisle, indignantly. "We are Christians, as you call yourselves, and have, as such, a right to Christian burial." "I know nothing about that matter," answered the commandant. "The priests say that you are not, that you are cut off from the only true Church, and are thus condemned to everlasting punishment. This being the case--and I am bound to believe it--what matters it where your bodies are placed?" Such was the tenor of the reply we received from an officer holding a commission under the government of a nation which prided itself on being the most enlightened and civilised in the world. Though in France the outward signs of religion were still adhered to, the _savants_ and _literati_ were already paving the way by their false philosophy for that terrific outbreak of popular fury which deluged their country in blood, and well-nigh rooted out all that was noble and good and worthy in the land. At this time in Saint Domingo, and probably in the other French dependencies, there was an ostentatious show of religion which was sadly belied by the manners and customs of the people. At all events, a person bearing his Britannic Majesty's commission was entitled, as a prisoner of war according to the law of nations, to all the respect due to his rank as an officer and a gentleman.