Out of the Sea's Strength
I.
There are regions of Louisiana coast whose aspect seems not of thepresent, but of the immemorial past--of that epoch when low flatreaches of primordial continent first rose into form above a SilurianSea. To indulge this geologic dream, any fervid and breezeless daythere, it is only necessary to ignore the evolutional protests of a fewblue asters or a few composite flowers of the coryopsis sort, whichcontrive to display their rare flashes of color through the generalwaving of cat-heads, blood-weeds, wild cane, and marsh grasses. For,at a hasty glance, the general appearance of this marsh verdure isvague enough, as it ranges away towards the sand, to convey the idea ofamphibious vegetation,--a primitive flora as yet undecided whether toretain marine habits and forms, or to assume terrestrial ones;--and theoccasional inspection of surprising shapes might strengthen this fancy.Queer flat-lying and many-branching things, which resemble sea-weeds injuiciness and color and consistency, crackle under your feet from timeto time; the moist and weighty air seems heated rather from below thanfrom above,--less by the sun than by the radiation of a cooling world;and the mists of morning or evening appear to simulate the vaporyexhalation of volcanic forces,--latent, but only dozing, anduncomfortably close to the surface. And indeed geologists haveactually averred that those rare elevations of the soil,--which, withtheir heavy coronets of evergreen foliage, not only look like islands,but are so called in the French nomenclature of the coast,--have beenprominences created by ancient mud volcanoes.
The family of a Spanish fisherman, Feliu Viosca, once occupied and gaveits name to such an islet, quite close to the Gulf-shore,--the loftiestbit of land along fourteen miles of just such marshy coast as I havespoken of. Landward, it dominated a desolation that wearied the eye tolook at, a wilderness of reedy sloughs, patched at intervals withranges of bitter-weed, tufts of elbow-bushes, and broad reaches ofsaw-grass, stretching away to a bluish-green line of woods that closedthe horizon, and imperfectly drained in the driest season by a slimylittle bayou that continually vomited foul water into the sea. Thepoint had been much discussed by geologists; it proved a godsend toUnited States surveyors weary of attempting to take observations amongquagmires, moccasins, and arborescent weeds from fifteen to twenty feethigh. Savage fishermen, at some unrecorded time, had heaped upon theeminence a hill of clam-shells,--refuse of a million feasts; earthagain had been formed over these, perhaps by the blind agency of wormsworking through centuries unnumbered; and the new soil had given birthto a luxuriant vegetation. Millennial oaks interknotted their rootsbelow its surface, and vouchsafed protection to many a frailer growthof shrub or tree,--wild orange, water-willow, palmetto, locust,pomegranate, and many trailing tendrilled things, both green and gray.Then,--perhaps about half a century ago,--a few white fishermen cleareda place for themselves in this grove, and built a few palmettocottages, with boat-houses and a wharf, facing the bayou. Later onthis temporary fishing station became a permanent settlement: homesconstructed of heavy timber and plaster mixed with the trailing moss ofthe oaks and cypresses took the places of the frail and fragrant hutsof palmetto. Still the population itself retained a floating character:it ebbed and came, according to season and circumstances, according toluck or loss in the tilling of the sea. Viosca, the founder of thesettlement, always remained; he always managed to do well.
He owned several luggers and sloops, which were hired out uponexcellent terms; he could make large and profitable contracts with NewOrleans fish-dealers; and he was vaguely suspected of possessing moreoccult resources. There were some confused stories current about hishaving once been a daring smuggler, and having only been reformed bythe pleadings of his wife Carmen,--a little brown woman who hadfollowed him from Barcelona to share his fortunes in the western world.
On hot days, when the shade was full of thin sweet scents, the placehad a tropical charm, a drowsy peace. Nothing except the peculiarappearance of the line of oaks facing the Gulf could have conveyed tothe visitor any suggestion of days in which the trilling of cricketsand the fluting of birds had ceased, of nights when the voices of themarsh had been hushed for fear. In one enormous rank the veteran treesstood shoulder to shoulder, but in the attitude of giants overmastered,--forced backward towards the marsh,--made to recoil by themight of the ghostly enemy with whom they had striven a thousandyears,--the Shrieker, the Sky-Sweeper, the awful Sea-Wind!
Never had he given them so terrible a wrestle as on the night of thetenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. All the waves of theexcited Gulf thronged in as if to see, and lifted up their voices, andpushed, and roared, until the cheniere was islanded by such a billowingas no white man's eyes had ever looked upon before. Grandly the oaksbore themselves, but every fibre of their knotted thews was strained inthe unequal contest, and two of the giants were overthrown, upturning,as they fell, roots coiled and huge as the serpent-limbs of Titans.Moved to its entrails, all the islet trembled, while the sea magnifiedits menace, and reached out whitely to the prostrate trees; but therest of the oaks stood on, and strove in line, and saved thehabitations defended by them ...
II.
Before a little waxen image of the Mother and Child,--an odd littleVirgin with an Indian face, brought home by Feliu as a gift after oneof his Mexican voyages,--Carmen Viosca had burned candles and prayed;sometimes telling her beads; sometimes murmuring the litanies she knewby heart; sometimes also reading from a prayer-book worn and greasy asa long-used pack of cards. It was particularly stained at one page, apage on which her tears had fallen many a lonely night--a page with aclumsy wood cut representing a celestial lamp, a symbolic radiance,shining through darkness, and on either side a kneeling angel withfolded wings. And beneath this rudely wrought symbol of the PerpetualCalm appeared in big, coarse type the title of a prayer that has beenoffered up through many a century, doubtless, by wives of Spanishmariners,--Contra las Tempestades.
Once she became very much frightened. After a partial lull the stormhad suddenly redoubled its force: the ground shook; the house quiveredand creaked; the wind brayed and screamed and pushed and scuffled atthe door; and the water, which had been whipping in through everycrevice, all at once rose over the threshold and flooded the dwelling.Carmen dipped her finger in the water and tasted it. It was salt!
And none of Feliu's boats had yet come in;--doubtless they had beendriven into some far-away bayous by the storm. The only boat at thesettlement, the Carmencita, had been almost wrecked by running upon asnag three days before;--there was at least a fortnight's work for theship-carpenter of Dead Cypress Point. And Feliu was sleeping as ifnothing unusual had happened--the heavy sleep of a sailor, heedless ofcommotions and voices. And his men, Miguel and Mateo, were at theother end of the cheniere.
With a scream Carmen aroused Feliu. He raised himself upon his elbow,rubbed his eyes, and asked her, with exasperating calmness, "Quetienes? que tienes?" (What ails thee?)
--"Oh, Feliu! the sea is coming upon us!" she answered, in the sametongue. But she screamed out a word inspired by her fear: she did notcry, "Se nos viene el mar encima!" but "Se nos viene LA ALTURA!"--thename that conveys the terrible thought of depth swallowed up inheight,--the height of the high sea.
"No lo creo!" muttered Feliu, looking at the floor; then in a quiet,deep voice he said, pointing to an oar in the corner of the room,"Echame ese remo."
She gave it to him. Still reclining upon one elbow, Feliu measured thedepth of the water with his thumb nail upon the blade of the oar, andthen bade Carmen light his pipe for him. His calmness reassured her.For half an hour more, undismayed by the clamoring of the wind or thecalling of the sea, Feliu silently smoked his pipe and watched his oar.The water rose a little higher, and he made another mark;--then itclimbed a little more, but not so rapidly; and he smiled at Carmen ashe made a third mark. "Como creia!" he exclaimed, "no hay porqueasustarse: el agua baja!" And as Carmen would have continued to pray,he rebuked her fears, and bade her try to obtain some rest:
"Bas
ta ya de plegarios, querida!--vete y duerme." His tone, thoughkindly, was imperative; and Carmen, accustomed to obey him, laidherself down by his side, and soon, for very weariness, slept.
It was a feverish sleep, nevertheless, shattered at brief intervals byterrible sounds, sounds magnified by her nervous condition--a sleepvisited by dreams that mingled in a strange way with the impressions ofthe storm, and more than once made her heart stop, and start again atits own stopping. One of these fancies she never could forget--a dreamabout little Concha,--Conchita, her firstborn, who now slept far awayin the old churchyard at Barcelona. She had tried to becomeresigned,--not to think. But the child would come back night afternight, though the earth lay heavy upon her--night after night, throughlong distances of Time and Space. Oh! the fancied clinging ofinfant-lips!--the thrilling touch of little ghostly hands!--thosephantom-caresses that torture mothers' hearts!