CHAPTER XXVIII
THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPE
"A very little more than eight years ago," began Honore--but not onlyHonore, but Raoul also; and not only they, but another, earlier on thesame day,--Honore, the f.m.c. But we shall not exactly follow the wordsof any one of these.
Bras-Coupe, they said, had been, in Africa and under another name, aprince among his people. In a certain war of conquest, to which he hadbeen driven by _ennui_, he was captured, stripped of his royalty,marched down upon the beach of the Atlantic, and, attired as a true sonof Adam, with two goodly arms intact, became a commodity. Passing out offirst hands in barter for a looking-glass, he was shipped in good orderand condition on board the good schooner _Egalite_, whereof Blank wasmaster, to be delivered without delay at the port of Nouvelle Orleans(the dangers of fire and navigation excepted), unto Blank Blank. Inwitness whereof, He that made men's skins of different colors, but allblood of one, hath entered the same upon His book, and sealed it to theday of judgment.
Of the voyage little is recorded--here below; the less the better. Partof the living merchandise failed to keep; the weather was rough, thecargo large, the vessel small. However, the captain discovered there wasroom over the side, and there--all flesh is grass--from time to timeduring the voyage he jettisoned the unmerchantable.
Yet, when the reopened hatches let in the sweet smell of the land,Bras-Coupe had come to the upper--the favored--the buttered side of theworld; the anchor slid with a rumble of relief down through the muddyfathoms of the Mississippi, and the prince could hear through theschooner's side the savage current of the river, leaping and lickingabout the bows, and whimpering low welcomes home. A splendid picture tothe eyes of the royal captive, as his head came up out of the hatchway,was the little Franco-Spanish-American city that lay on the low,brimming bank. There were little forts that showed their whitewashedteeth; there was a green parade-ground, and yellow barracks, andcabildo, and hospital, and cavalry stables, and custom-house, and a mostinviting jail, convenient to the cathedral--all of dazzling white andyellow, with a black stripe marking the track of the conflagration of1794, and here and there among the low roofs a lofty one withround-topped dormer windows and a breezy belvidere looking out upon theplantations of coffee and indigo beyond the town.
When Bras-Coupe staggered ashore, he stood but a moment among a droveof "likely boys," before Agricola Fusilier, managing the businessadventures of the Grandissime estate, as well as the residents thereon,and struck with admiration for the physical beauties of the chieftain (aman may even fancy a negro--as a negro), bought the lot, and, both toresell him with the rest to some unappreciative 'Cadian, induced DonJose Martinez' overseer to become his purchaser.
Down in the rich parish of St. Bernard (whose boundary line now touchesthat of the distended city) lay the plantation, known before Bras-Coupepassed away as La Renaissance. Here it was that he entered at once upona chapter of agreeable surprises. He was humanely met, presented with aclean garment, lifted into a cart drawn by oxen, taken to a whitewashedcabin of logs, finer than his palace at home, and made to comprehendthat it was a free gift. He was also given some clean food, whereupon hefell sick. At home it would have been the part of piety for the magnatenext the throne to launch him heavenward at once; but now, healing doseswere administered, and to his amazement he recovered. It reminded himthat he was no longer king.
His name, he replied to an inquiry touching that subject, was --------,something in the Jaloff tongue, which he by and by condescended torender into Congo: Mioko-Koanga; in French Bras-Coupe; the Arm Cut Off.Truly it would have been easy to admit, had this been his meaning, thathis tribe, in losing him, had lost its strong right arm close off at theshoulder; not so easy for his high-paying purchaser to allow, if thisother was his intent: that the arm which might no longer shake the spearor swing the wooden sword was no better than a useless stump never to belifted for aught else. But whether easy to allow or not, that was hismeaning. He made himself a type of all Slavery, turning into flesh andblood the truth that all Slavery is maiming.
He beheld more luxury in a week than all his subjects had seen in acentury. Here Congo girls were dressed in cottons and flannels worth,where he came from, an elephant's tusk apiece. Everybody woreclothes--children and lads alone excepted. Not a lion had invaded thesettlement since his immigration. The serpents were as nothing; anoccasional one coming up through the floor--that was all. True, therewas more emaciation than unassisted conjecture could explain--aprofusion of enlarged joints and diminished muscles, which, thank God,was even then confined to a narrow section and disappeared with Spanishrule. He had no experimental knowledge of it; nay, regular meals, on thecontrary, gave him anxious concern, yet had the effect--spite of hisapprehension that he was being fattened for a purpose--of restoring theherculean puissance which formerly in Africa had made him the terror ofthe battle.
When one day he had come to be quite himself, he was invited out intothe sunshine, and escorted by the driver (a sort of foreman to theoverseer), went forth dimly wondering. They reached a field where somemen and women were hoeing. He had seen men and women--subjects ofhis--labor--a little--in Africa. The driver handed him a hoe; heexamined it with silent interest--until by signs he was requested tojoin the pastime.
"What?"
He spoke, not with his lips, but with the recoil of his splendid frameand the ferocious expansion of his eyes. This invitation was a cataractof lightning leaping down an ink-black sky. In one instant ofall-pervading clearness he read his sentence--WORK.
Bras-Coupe was six feet five. With a sweep as quick as instinct the backof the hoe smote the driver full in the head. Next, the prince liftedthe nearest Congo crosswise, brought thirty-two teeth together in hiswildly kicking leg and cast him away as a bad morsel; then, throwinganother into the branches of a willow, and a woman over his head into adraining-ditch, he made one bound for freedom, and fell to his knees,rocking from side to side under the effect of a pistol-ball from theoverseer. It had struck him in the forehead, and running around theskull in search of a penetrable spot, tradition--which sometimesjests--says came out despairingly, exactly where it had entered.
It so happened that, except the overseer, the whole company were black.Why should the trivial scandal be blabbed? A plaster or two madeeverything even in a short time, except in the driver's case--for thedriver died. The woman whom Bras-Coupe had thrown over his head lived tosell _calas_ to Joseph Frowenfeld.
Don Jose, young and austere, knew nothing about agriculture and cared asmuch about human nature. The overseer often thought this, but never saidit; he would not trust even himself with the dangerous criticism. Whenhe ventured to reveal the foregoing incidents to the senor he laid allthe blame possible upon the man whom death had removed beyond the reachof correction, and brought his account to a climax by hazarding theasserting that Bras-Coupe was an animal that could not be whipped.
"Caramba!" exclaimed the master, with gentle emphasis, "how so?"
"Perhaps senor had better ride down to the quarters," replied theoverseer.
It was a great sacrifice of dignity, but the master made it.
"Bring him out."
They brought him out--chains on his feet, chains on his wrists, an ironyoke on his neck. The Spanish Creole master had often seen the bull,with his long, keen horns and blazing eye, standing in the arena; butthis was as though he had come face to face with a rhinoceros.
"This man is not a Congo," he said.
"He is a Jaloff," replied the encouraged overseer. "See his fine,straight nose; moreover, he is a _candio_--a prince. If I whip him hewill die."
The dauntless captive and fearless master stood looking into eachother's eyes until each recognized in the other his peer in physicalcourage, and each was struck with an admiration for the other which noafter difference was sufficient entirely to destroy. Had Bras-Coupe'seye quailed but once--just for one little instant--he would have got thelash; but, as it was--
"Get an interpreter," said D
on Jose; then, more privately, "and come toan understanding. I shall require it of you."
Where might one find an interpreter--one not merely able to render aJaloff's meaning into Creole French, or Spanish, but with such a turnfor diplomatic correspondence as would bring about an "understanding"with this African buffalo? The overseer was left standing and thinking,and Clemence, who had not forgotten who threw her into thedraining-ditch, cunningly passed by.
"Ah, Clemence--"
"_Mo pas capabe! Mo pas capabe!_ (I cannot, I cannot!) _Ya, ya, ya! 'oirMiche Agricol' Fusilier! ouala yune bon monture, oui!_"--which was tosignify that Agricola could interpret the very Papa Lebat.
"Agricola Fusilier! The last man on earth to make peace."
But there seemed to be no choice, and to Agricola the overseer went. Itwas but a little ride to the Grandissime place.
"I, Agricola Fusilier, stand as an interpreter to a negro? H-sir!"
"But I thought you might know of some person," said the weakeningapplicant, rubbing his ear with his hand.
"Ah!" replied Agricola, addressing the surrounding scenery, "if I didnot--who would? You may take Palmyre."
The overseer softly smote his hands together at the happy thought.
"Yes," said Agricola, "take Palmyre; she has picked up as many negrodialects as I know European languages."
And she went to the don's plantation as interpreter, followed byAgricola's prayer to Fate that she might in some way be overtaken bydisaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. Heknew not only her pride, but her passion for the absent Honore. He hatedher, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stoodwith her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was moreoffensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chiefobject of her silent detestation.
It was Palmyre's habit to do nothing without painstaking. "WhenMademoiselle comes to be Senora," thought she--she knew that hermistress and the don were affianced--"it will be well to have a Senor'sesteem. I shall endeavor to succeed." It was from this motive, then,that with the aid of her mistress she attired herself in a resplendenceof scarlet and beads and feathers that could not fail the double purposeof connecting her with the children of Ethiopia and commanding thecaptive's instant admiration.
Alas for those who succeed too well! No sooner did the African turn histiger glance upon her than the fire of his eyes died out; and when shespoke to him in the dear accents of his native tongue, the matter ofstrife vanished from his mind. He loved.
He sat down tamely in his irons and listened to Palmyre's argument as awrecked mariner would listen to ghostly church-bells. He would give ashort assent, feast his eyes, again assent, and feast his ears; but whenat length she made bold to approach the actual issue, and finallyuttered the loathed word, _Work_, he rose up, six feet five, a statue ofindignation in black marble.
And then Palmyre, too, rose up, glorying in him, and went to explain tomaster and overseer. Bras-Coupe understood, she said, that he was aslave--it was the fortune of war, and he was a warrior; but, accordingto a generally recognized principle in African international law, hecould not reasonably be expected to work.
"As Senor will remember I told him," remarked the overseer; "how can aman expect to plow with a zebra?"
Here he recalled a fact in his earlier experience. An African of thisstripe had been found to answer admirably as a "driver" to make otherswork. A second and third parley, extending through two or three days,were held with the prince, looking to his appointment to the vacantoffice of driver; yet what was the master's amazement to learn at lengththat his Highness declined the proffered honor.
"Stop!" spoke the overseer again, detecting a look of alarm in Palmyre'sface as she turned away, "he doesn't do any such thing. If Senor willlet me take the man to Agricola--"
"No!" cried Palmyre, with an agonized look, "I will tell. He will takethe place and fill it if you will give me to him for his own--but oh,messieurs, for the love of God--I do not want to be his wife!"
The overseer looked at the Senor, ready to approve whatever he shoulddecide. Bras-Coupe's intrepid audacity took the Spaniard's heart byirresistible assault.
"I leave it entirely with Senor Fusilier," he said.
"But he is not my master; he has no right--"
"Silence!"
And she was silent; and so, sometimes, is fire in the wall.
Agricola's consent was given with malicious promptness, and asBras-Coupe's fetters fell off it was decreed that, should he fill hisoffice efficiently, there should be a wedding on the rear veranda of theGrandissime mansion simultaneously with the one already appointed totake place in the grand hall of the same house six months from thatpresent day. In the meanwhile Palmyre should remain with Mademoiselle,who had promptly but quietly made up her mind that Palmyre should not bewed unless she wished to be. Bras-Coupe made no objection, was royallyworthless for a time, but learned fast, mastered the "gumbo" dialect ina few weeks, and in six months was the most valuable man ever bought forgourde dollars. Nevertheless, there were but three persons within asmany square miles who were not most vividly afraid of him.
The first was Palmyre. His bearing in her presence was ever one ofsolemn, exalted respect, which, whether from pure magnanimity inhimself, or by reason of her magnetic eye, was something worth beingthere to see. "It was royal!" said the overseer.
The second was not that official. When Bras-Coupe said--as, at statedintervals, he did say--"_Mo courri c'ez Agricole Fusilier pou' 'oir'namourouse_ (I go to Agricola Fusilier to see my betrothed,)" theoverseer would sooner have intercepted a score of painted Chickasawsthan that one lover. He would look after him and shake a prophetic head."Trouble coming; better not deceive that fellow;" yet that was the verything Palmyre dared do. Her admiration for Bras-Coupe was almostboundless. She rejoiced in his stature; she revelled in thecontemplation of his untamable spirit; he seemed to her the giganticembodiment of her own dark, fierce will, the expanded realization ofher lifetime longing for terrible strength. But the single deficiencyin all this impassioned regard was--what so many fairer loves have foundimpossible to explain to so many gentler lovers--an entire absence ofpreference; her heart she could not give him--she did not have it. Yetafter her first prayer to the Spaniard and his overseer for deliverance,to the secret surprise and chagrin of her young mistress, she simulatedcontent. It was artifice; she knew Agricola's power, and to seem toconsent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled intowithdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle'spromise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment;and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certainhard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which sheknew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulee. The word had reachedthere that love had conquered--that, despite all hard words, and rancor,and positive injury, the Grandissime hand--the fairest of Grandissimehands--was about to be laid into that of one who without much stretchmight be called a De Grapion; that there was, moreover, positive effortbeing made to induce a restitution of old gaming-table spoils. Honoreand Mademoiselle, his sister, one on each side of the Atlantic, werestriving for this end. Don Jose sent this intelligence to his kinsman asglad tidings (a lover never imagines there are two sides to that whichmakes him happy), and, to add a touch of humor, told how Palmyre, also,was given to the chieftain. The letter that came back to the youngSpaniard did not blame him so much: _he_ was ignorant of all the facts;but a very formal one to Agricola begged to notify him that if Palmyre'sunion with Bras-Coupe should be completed, as sure as there was a God inheaven, the writer would have the life of the man who knowingly had thusendeavored to dishonor one who _shared the blood of the De Grapions_.Thereupon Agricola, contrary to his general character, began to drophints to Don Jose that the engagement of Bras-Coupe and Palmyre need notbe considered irreversible; but the don was not desirous ofdisappointing his terrible pet. Palmyre, unluckily, played her game alittle too deeply. She thought the moment had co
me for herself to insiston the match, and thus provoke Agricola to forbid it. To herincalculable dismay she saw him a second time reconsider andbecome silent.
The second person who did not fear Bras-Coupe was Mademoiselle. On oneof the giant's earliest visits to see Palmyre he obeyed the summonswhich she brought him, to appear before the lady. A more artificial manmight have objected on the score of dress, his attire being a singlegaudy garment tightly enveloping the waist and thighs. As his eyes fellupon the beautiful white lady he prostrated himself upon the ground, hisarms outstretched before him. He would not move till she was gone. Thenhe arose like a hermit who has seen a vision. "_Bras-Coupe n' pas ouleoir zombis_ (Bras-Coupe dares not look upon a spirit)." From that hourhe worshipped. He saw her often; every time, after one glance at hercountenance, he would prostrate his gigantic length with his face inthe dust.
The third person who did not fear him was--Agricola? Nay, it was theSpaniard--a man whose capability to fear anything in nature or beyondhad never been discovered.
Long before the end of his probation Bras-Coupe would have slipped theentanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels aspider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a littleaffectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a daydid these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismalswamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer andbear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican;when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of theother. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drewnigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. Thebride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza,which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, wasPalmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to thelast, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm oftheir having been worn once, and once only, by her beloved Mademoiselle.
[Footnote 3: An over-zealous Franciscan once complained bitterly to thebishop of Havana, that people were being married in Louisiana in theirown houses after dark and thinking nothing of it. It is not certain thathe had reference to the Grandissime mansion; at any rate he was tittereddown by the whole community.]
But where was Bras-Coupe?
The question was asked of Palmyre by Agricola with a gaze that meant inEnglish, "No tricks, girl!"
Among the servants who huddled at the windows and door to see the innermagnificence a frightened whisper was already going round.
"We have made a sad discovery, Miche Fusilier," said the overseer."Bras-Coupe is here; we have him in a room just yonder. But--the truthis, sir, Bras-Coupe is a voudou."
"Well, and suppose he is; what of it? Only hush; do not let his masterknow it. It is nothing; all the blacks are voudous, more or less."
"But he declines to dress himself--has painted himself all rings andstripes, antelope fashion."
"Tell him Agricola Fusilier says, 'dress immediately!'"
"Oh, Miche, we have said that five times already, and his answer--youwill pardon me--his answer is--spitting on the ground--that you are acontemptible _dotchian_ (white trash)."
There is nothing to do but privily to call the very bride--the ladyherself. She comes forth in all her glory, small, but oh, so beautiful!Slam! Bras-Coupe is upon his face, his finger-tips touching the tips ofher snowy slippers. She gently bids him go and dress, and at oncehe goes.
Ah! now the question may be answered without whispering. There isBras-Coupe, towering above all heads, in ridiculous red and blueregimentals, but with a look of savage dignity upon him that keeps everyone from laughing. The murmur of admiration that passed along thethronged gallery leaped up into a shout in the bosom of Palmyre. Oh,Bras-Coupe--heroic soul! She would not falter. She would let the sillypriest say his say--then her cunning should help her _not to be_ hiswife, yet to show his mighty arm how and when to strike.
"He is looking for Palmyre," said some, and at that moment he saw her.
"Ho-o-o-o-o!"
Agricola's best roar was a penny trumpet to Bras-Coupe's note of joy.The whole masculine half of the indoor company flocked out to see whatthe matter was. Bras-Coupe was taking her hand in one of his and layinghis other upon her head; and as some one made an unnecessary gesture forsilence, he sang, beating slow and solemn time with his naked foot andwith the hand that dropped hers to smite his breast:
"'_En haut la montagne, zami, Mo pe coupe canne, zami, Pou' fe l'a'zen' zami, Pou' mo baille Palmyre. Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre mo c'ere, Mo l'aime 'ou'--mo l'aime 'ou'_.'"
"_Montagne?_" asked one slave of another, "_qui est ca, montagne? gniapas quic 'ose comme ca dans la Louisiana?_ (What's a mountain?" Wehaven't such things in Louisiana.)"
"_Mein ye gagnein plein montagnes dans l'Afrique_, listen!"
"'_Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo' piti zozo,' Mo l'aime 'ou'--mo l'aime, l'aime 'ou'_.'"
"Bravissimo!--" but just then a counter-attraction drew the whitecompany back into the house. An old French priest with sandalled feetand a dirty face had arrived. There was a moment of handshaking with thegood father, then a moment of palpitation and holding of the breath, andthen--you would have known it by the turning away of two or threefeminine heads in tears--the lily hand became the don's, to have and tohold, by authority of the Church and the Spanish king. And all wasmerry, save that outside there was coming up as villanous a night asever cast black looks in through snug windows.
It was just as the newly-wed Spaniard, with Agricola and all the guests,were concluding the byplay of marrying the darker couple, that thehurricane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faintpretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons,etc.,--though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse--were beginning tolaugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right andleft, when Bras-Coupe, tardily realizing the consummation of his hopes,stepped forward to embrace his wife.
"Bras-Coupe!"
The voice was that of Palmyre's mistress. She had not been able tocomprehend her maid's behavior, but now Palmyre had darted upon her anappealing look.
The warrior stopped as if a javelin had flashed over his head and stuckin the wall.
"Bras-Coupe must wait till I give him his wife."
He sank, with hidden face, slowly to the floor.
"Bras-Coupe hears the voice of zombis; the voice is sweet, but the wordsare very strong; from the same sugar-cane comes _sirop_ and _tafia_;Bras-Coupe says to zombis, 'Bras-Coupe will wait; but if the _dotchians_deceive Bras-Coupe--" he rose to his feet with his eyes closed and hisgreat black fist lifted over his head--"Bras-Coupe will callVoudou-Magnan!"
The crowd retreated and the storm fell like a burst of infernalapplause. A whiff like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain ofthe gallery and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak,belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground; a pealof thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, thegreat oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awfulblast. Every lip held its breath for a minute--or an hour, no oneknew--there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down.Have you heard it thunder and rain in those Louisiana lowlands? Everyclap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment; you peer throughthe black pane--your house is an island, all the land is sea.
However, the supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guestswere filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement,below stairs, the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls ofthe air upon a rice-field, and Bras-Coupe, throwing his heels about withthe joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in hislife tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time hetasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it tentimes more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was likestealing a tiger's kittens.
The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he
presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through thedark company; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrativetone, he repeated the petition--splitting the table with his fist by wayof punctuation--there ensued a hustling up staircases and a cramminginto dim corners that left him alone at the banquet.
Leaving the table, he strode upstairs and into the chirruping anddancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hushof amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupe strode straightto his master, laid his paw upon his fellow-bridegroom's shoulder and ina thunder-tone demanded:
"More!"
The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and--fell, beneath theterrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra.Dolorous stroke!--for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him--poor,tipsy savage--in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by asmall fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupe the deathof a felon; such was the old _Code Noir_. (We have a _Code Noir_ now,but the new one is a mental reservation, not an enactment.)
The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with theinstant expectation of insurrection, conflagration and rapine (just aswe do to-day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist andgets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted ina room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strangesigns and passes and rolling out in wrathful words of his mother tonguewhat it needed no interpreter to tell his swarming enemies was a voudoumalediction.
"_Nous sommes grigis!_" screamed two or three ladies, "we arebewitched!"
"Look to your wives and daughters!" shouted a Brahmin-Mandarin.
"Shoot the black devils without mercy!" cried a Mandarin-Fusilier,unconsciously putting into a single outflash of words the whole Creoletreatment of race troubles.
With a single bound Bras-Coupe reached the drawing-room door; his gaudyregimentals made a red and blue streak down the hall; there was a rushof frilled and powdered gentlemen to the rear veranda, an avalanche oflightning with Bras-Coupe in the midst making for the swamp, and thenall without was blackness of darkness and all within was a wildcommingled chatter of Creole, French, and Spanish tongues,--in the midstof which the reluctant Agricola returned his dresssword to its scabbard.
While the wet lanterns swung on crazily in the trees along the way bywhich the bridegroom was to have borne his bride; while MadameGrandissime prepared an impromptu bridalchamber; while the Spaniardbathed his eye and the blue gash on his cheek-bone; while Palmyre pacedher room in a fever and wild tremor of conflicting emotions throughoutthe night, and the guests splashed home after the storm as best theycould, Bras-Coupe was practically declaring his independence on a slightrise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarceabove the water in the inmost depths of the swamp.
And amid what surroundings! Endless colonnades of cypresses; long,motionless drapings of gray moss; broad sheets of noisome waters, pitchyblack, resting on bottomless ooze; cypress knees studding the surface;patches of floating green, gleaming brilliantly here and there; yonderwhere the sunbeams wedge themselves in, constellations of water-lilies,the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers that no man had named;here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and thedull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmerrecesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; turtles a centuryold; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creaturesof like vileness; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit indeadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeousdragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane,the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow; asolemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the callor whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventriloquous note of therain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear butlifeless bayou.
The pack of Cuban hounds that howl from Don Jose's kennels cannot snuffthe trail of the stolen canoe that glides through the sombre blue vaporsof the African's fastnesses. His arrows send no telltale reverberationsto the distant clearing. Many a wretch in his native wilderness hasBras-Coupe himself, in palmier days, driven to just such an existence,to escape the chains and horrors of the barracoons; therefore not a whitbroods he over man's inhumanity, but, taking the affair as a matter ofcourse, casts about him for a future.