It was a perfect West Indian day. My friend the notary and I were
crossing the island by a wonderful road which wound up through tropic
forest to the clouds, and thence looped down again, through gold-green
slopes of cane, and scenery amazing of violet and blue and ghost-gray
peaks, to the roaring coast of the trade winds. All the morning we had
been ascending,--walking after our carriage, most of the time, for the
sake of the brave little mule;--and the sea had been climbing behind
us till it looked like a monstrous wall of blue, pansy-blue, under the
ever heightening horizon. The heat was like the heat of a vapor-bath,
but the air was good to breathe with its tropical odor,--an odor made
up of smells of strange saps, queer spicy scents of mould, exhalations
of aromatic decay. Moreover, the views were glimpses of Paradise; and
it was a joy to watch the torrents roaring down their gorges under
shadows of tree-fern and bamboo.
My friend stopped the carriage before a gateway set into a hedge full
of flowers that looked like pink-and-white butterflies. "I have to
make a call here," he said;--"come in with me." We dismounted, and he
knocked on the gate with the butt of his whip. Within, at the end of
a shady garden, I could see the porch of a planter's house; beyond
were rows of cocoa palms, and glimpses of yellowing cane. Presently
a negro, wearing only a pair of canvas trousers and a great straw
hat, came hobbling to open the gate,--followed by a multitude, an
astonishing multitude, of chippering chickens. Under the shadow of
that huge straw hat I could not see the negro's face; but I noticed
that his limbs and body were strangely shrunken,--looked as if
withered to the bone. A weirder creature I had never beheld; and I
wondered at his following of chickens.
"Eh!" exclaimed the notary, "your chickens are as lively as ever!... I
want to see Madame Floran."
"_Moin ké di_," the goblin responded huskily, in his patois; and he
limped on before us, all the chickens hopping and cheeping at his
withered heels.
"That fellow," my friend observed, "was bitten by a _fer-de-lance_
about eight or nine years ago. He got cured, or at least half-cured,
in some extraordinary way; but ever since then he has been a skeleton.
See how he limps!"
The skeleton passed out of sight behind the house, and we waited a
while at the front porch. Then a métisse--turbaned in wasp colors, and
robed in iris colors, and wonderful to behold--came to tell us that
Madame hoped we would rest ourselves in the garden, as the house was
very warm. Chairs and a little table were then set for us in a shady
place, and the métisse brought out lemons, sugar-syrup, a bottle of
the clear plantation rum that smells like apple juice, and ice-cold
water in a _dobanne_ of thick red clay. My friend prepared the
refreshments; and then our hostess came to greet us, and to sit with
us,--a nice old lady with hair like newly minted silver. I had never
seen a smile sweeter than that with which she bade us welcome; and I
wondered whether she could ever have been more charming in her Creole
girlhood than she now appeared,--with her kindly wrinkles, and argent
hair, and frank, black, sparkling eyes....
* * * * *
In the conversation that followed I was not able to take part, as
it related only to some question of title. The notary soon arranged
whatever there was to arrange; and, after some charmingly spoken words
of farewell from the gentle lady, we took our departure. Again the
mummified negro hobbled before us, to open the gate,--followed by
all his callow rabble of chickens. As we resumed our places in the
carriage we could still hear the chippering of the creatures, pursuing
after that ancient scarecrow.
"Is it African sorcery?" I queried.... "How does he bewitch those
chickens?"
"Queer--is it not?" the notary responded as we drove away. "That negro
must now be at least eighty years old; and he may live for twenty
years more,--the wretch!"
The tone in which my friend uttered this epithet--_le
miserable!_--somewhat surprised me, as I knew him to be one of the
kindliest men in the world, and singularly free from prejudice. I
suspected that a story was coming, and I waited for it in silence.
"Listen," said the notary, after a pause, during which we left the
plantation well behind us; "that old sorcerer, as you call him, was
born upon the estate, a slave. The estate belonged to M. Floran,--the
husband of the lady whom we visited; and she was a cousin, and the
marriage was a love-match. They had been married about two years when
the revolt occurred (fortunately there were no children),--the black
revolt of eighteen hundred and forty-eight. Several planters were
murdered; and M. Floran was one of the first to be killed. And the old
negro whom we saw to-day--the old sorcerer, as you call him--left the
plantation, and joined the rising: do you understand?"
"Yes," I said; "but he might have done that through fear of the mob."
"Certainly: the other hands did the same. But it was he that killed M.
Floran,--for no reason whatever,--cut him up with a cutlass. M. Floran
was riding home when the attack was made,--about a mile below the
plantation.... Sober, that negro would not have dared to face M.
Floran: the scoundrel was drunk, of course,--raving drunk. Most of
the blacks had been drinking tafia, with dead wasps in it, to give
themselves courage."
"But," I interrupted, "how does it happen that the fellow is still on
the Floran plantation?"
"Wait a moment!... When the military got control of the mob, search
was made everywhere for the murderer of M. Floran; but he could not
be found. He was lying out in the cane,--in M. Floran's cane!--like a
field-rat, like a snake. One morning, while the gendarmes were still
looking for him, he rushed into the house, and threw himself down in
front of Madame, weeping and screaming, '_Aïe-yaïe-yaïe-yaïe!--moin
té tchoué y! moin té tchoué y!--aïe-yaïe-yaïe!_' Those were his very
words:--'I killed him! I killed him!' And he begged for mercy. When
he was asked why he killed M. Floran, he cried out that it was the
devil--_diabe-à_--that had made him do it!... Well, Madame forgave
him!"
"But how could she?" I queried.
"Oh, she had always been very religious," my friend
responded,--"sincerely religious. She only said, 'May God pardon me
as I now pardon you!' She made her servants hide the creature and feed
him; and they kept him hidden until the excitement was over. Then she
sent him back to work; and he has been working for her ever since. Of
course he is now too old to be of any use in the field;--he only takes
care of the chickens."
"But how," I persisted, "could the relatives allow Madame to forgive
him?"
"Well, Madame insisted that he was not mentally responsible,--that he
was only a poor fool who had killed without knowing what he was doing;
and she argued that if _she_ could forgive him, others could more
easily do the same. There was a consultation; and the relatives
decided so to arrange matters that Madame could have her own way."
"But why?"
"Because they knew that she found a sort of religious consolation--a
kind of religious comfort--in forgiving the wretch. She imagined
that it was her duty as a Christian, not only to forgive him, but to
take care of him. We thought that she was mistaken,--but we could
understand.... Well, there is an example of what religion can do."...
* * * * *
The surprise of a new fact, or the sudden perception of something
never before imagined, may cause an involuntary smile. Unconsciously
I smiled, while my friend was yet speaking; and the good notary's brow
darkened.
"Ah, you laugh!" he exclaimed,--"you laugh! That is wrong!--that is a
mistake!... But you do not believe: you do not know what it is,--the
true religion,--the real Christianity!"