A PROLONGED quavering note upon the guitar, like a sob, concluded the
song. I was beside myself with rage. King—black—slave! A thousand
incoherent ideas were awakened by this extraordinary and mysterious
song. A maddening desire to finish for once and all with this unknown
being, who dared to mingle the name of Marie with songs of love and
menace, took possession of me. I grasped my rifle convulsively and
rushed from the summer-house. Marie stretched out her arms to detain me,
but I was already in the thicket from which the voice appeared to have
come. I searched the little wood thoroughly, I beat the bushes with the
barrel of my rifle, I crept behind the trunks of the large trees, and
walked through the high grass.
Nothing—nothing—always nothing! This fruitless search added fuel to
the fire of my anger. Was this insolent rival always to escape from me
like a supernatural being? Was I never to be able to find out who he
was, or to meet him? At this moment the tinkling of bells roused me from
my reverie. I turned sharply round, the dwarf Habibrah was at my side.
“Good day, master,” said he, with a sidelong glance full of triumphant
malice at the anxiety which was imprinted on my face.
“Tell me,” exclaimed I, roughly, “have you seen any one about here?”
“No one except yourself, señor mio,” answered he, calmly.
“Did you hear no voice?” continued I.
The slave remained silent, as though seeking for an evasive reply.
My passion burst forth. “Quick, quick!” I exclaimed. “Answer me quickly,
wretch! did you hear a voice?”
He fixed his eyes boldly upon mine; they were small and round, and
gleamed like those of a wild cat.
“What do you mean by a voice, master? There are voices everywhere—the
voice of the birds, the voice of the stream, the voice of the wind in
the trees——”
I shook him roughly. “Miserable buffoon,” I cried, “cease your
quibbling, or you shall hear another voice from the barrel of my rifle.
Answer at once; did you hear a man singing a Spanish song?”
“Yes, señor,” answered he, calmly. “Listen, and I will tell you all
about it. I was walking on the outskirts of the wood listening to what
the silver bells of my _gorra_ (cap) were telling me, when the wind
brought to my ears some Spanish words, the first language that I heard
when my age could have been counted by months, and my mother carried me
slung at her back in a hammock of red and yellow wool. I love the
language, it recalls to me the time when I was little without being a
dwarf, a little child, and not a buffoon; and so I listened to the
song.”
“Is that all that you have to say?” cried I, impatiently.
“Yes, handsome master; but if you like I can tell you what the man was
who sang.”
I felt inclined to clasp him in my arms.
“Oh, speak!” I exclaimed; “speak! here is my purse, and ten others
fuller than that shall be yours if you will tell me his name.”
He took the purse, opened it, and smiled.
“Ten purses fuller than this,” murmured he; “that will make a fine heap
of good gold coins; but do not be impatient, young master, I am going to
tell you all. Do you remember the last verse of his song, something
about ‘I am black, and you are white, and the union of the two produces
the beautiful light’? Well, if this song is true, Habibrah, your humble
slave, was born of a negress and a white, and must be more beautiful
than you, master; I am the offspring of day and night, therefore I am
more beautiful than a white man, and——”
He accompanied this rhapsody with bursts of laughter.
“Enough of buffoonery,” cried I; “tell me who was singing in the wood.”
“Certainly, master, the man who sang such buffooneries, as you rightly
term them, could only have been—a fool like me! Have I not gained my
ten purses?”
I raised my hand to chastise his insolence, when a wild shriek rang
through the wood from the direction of the summer-house.
It was Marie’s voice.
Like an arrow I darted to the spot, wondering what fresh misfortune
could be in store for us, and in a few moments arrived, out of breath,
at the door of the pavilion. A terrible spectacle presented itself to my
eyes.
An enormous alligator, whose body was half concealed by the reeds and
water plants, had thrust his monstrous head through one of the leafy
sides of the summer-house; his hideous widely opened mouth threatened a
young negro of colossal height, who with one arm sustained Marie’s
fainting form, whilst with the other he had plunged the iron portion of
a hoe between the sharp and pointed teeth of the monster. The reptile
struggled fiercely against the bold and courageous hand that held him at
bay.
As I appeared at the door, Marie uttered a cry of joy, and extricating
herself from the support of the negro, threw herself into my arms with
“I am saved, I am saved!” cried she.
At the movement and exclamation of Marie the negro turned abruptly
round, crossed his arms on his breast, and casting a look of infinite
sorrow upon my betrothed, remained immovable, taking no heed of the
alligator, which, having freed itself from the hoe, was advancing on him
in a threatening manner.
There would have been a speedy end of the courageous negro, had I not
rapidly placed Marie on the knees of her nurse, who, more dead than
alive, was gazing upon the scene, and, coming close to the monster,
discharged my carbine into its yawning mouth. The huge reptile staggered
back, its bleeding jaws opened and shut convulsively, its eyes closed,
and after one or two unavailing efforts it rolled over upon its back,
with its scaly feet stiffening in the air. It was dead. The negro whose
life I had so happily preserved turned his head and saw the last
convulsive struggles of the monster, then he fixed his eyes upon Marie,
who had again cast herself into my arms, and in accents of the deepest
despair, he exclaimed in Spanish, “Why did you kill him?” and, without
waiting for a reply, leaped into the thicket and disappeared.