up close to the wall of the house, his face hidden in his arms.
"What are you doing there?" said Deal, as he passed by, on his way to
put up the tools.
No answer. But Carl had all kinds of whims, and Deal was used to them.
He went across to Scip's chimney.
"Awful time, cap'en," said the old negro, in a low voice. "Soon's you's
gone, dat man make young marse drink, and bot' begin to holler and
fight."
"Drink? They had no liquor."
"Yes, dey hab. Mus' hab brought 'em 'long."
"Where is the man?"
"Oh, he gone long ago--gone at noon."
Deal went to his brother. "Carl," he said, "get up. Dinner is ready."
But the coiled form did not stir.
"Don't be a fool," continued Deal. "I know you've been drinking; Scip
told me. It's a pity. But no reason why you should not eat."
Carl did not move. Deal went off to his dinner, and sent some to Carl.
But the food remained untasted. Then Deal passed into the house to get
some tobacco for his pipe. Then a loud cry was heard. The hiding-place
which his Yankee fingers had skillfully fashioned in the old wall had
been rifled; all his money was gone. No one knew the secret of the spot
but Carl.
"Did he overpower you and take it?" he asked, kneeling down and lifting
Carl by force, so that he could see his face.
"No; I gave it to him," Carl answered, thickly and slowly.
"You _gave_ it to him?"
"I lost it--at cards."
"_Cards_!"
Deal had never thought of that. All at once the whole flashed upon him:
the gambler who was always "around" with the "orchestra fellows"; the
"restaurant" at San Miguel where he helped "entertain" the guests; the
probability that business was slack in the ancient little town,
unaccustomed to such luxuries; and the treasure-trove of an old
acquaintance within a day's journey--an old acquaintance like Carl, who
had come also into happy possession of a rich brother. A rich
brother!--probably that was what Schwartz called him!
At any rate, rich or poor, Schwartz had it all. With the exception of
one hundred dollars which he had left at San Miguel as a deposit, he had
now only five dollars in the world; Carl had gambled away his all.
It was a hard blow.
He lifted his brother in his arms and carried him in to his hammock. A
few minutes later, staff in hand, he started down the live-oak avenue
toward the old road which led northward to San Miguel. The moonlight was
brilliant; he walked all night. At dawn he was searching the little
city.
Yes, the man was known there. He frequented the Esmeralda Parlors. The
Esmeralda Parlors, however, represented by an attendant, a Northern
mulatto, with straight features, long, narrow eyes, and pale-golden
skin, a bronze piece of insolence, who was also more faultlessly dressed
than any one else in San Miguel, suavely replied that Schwartz was no
longer one of their "guests"; he had severed his connection with the
Parlors several days before. Where was he? The Parlors had no idea.
But the men about the docks knew. Schwartz had been seen the previous
evening negotiating passage at the last moment on a coasting schooner
bound South--one of those nondescript little craft engaged in smuggling
and illegal trading, with which the waters of the West Indies are
infested. The schooner had made her way out of the harbor by moonlight.
Although ostensibly bound for Key West, no one could say with any
certainty that she would touch there; bribed by Schwartz, with all the
harbors, inlets, and lagoons of the West Indies open to her, pursuit
would be worse than hopeless. Deal realized this. He ate the food he had
brought with him, drank a cup of coffee, called for his deposit, and
then walked back to the plantation.
When he came into the little plaza, Carl was sitting on the steps of
their small house. His head was clear again; he looked pale and wasted.
"It's all right," said Deal. "I've traced him. In the mean time, don't
worry, Carl. If I don't mind it, why should you?"
Without saying more, he went inside, changed his shoes, then came out,
ordered dinner, talked to Scip, and when the meal was ready called Carl,
and took his place at the table as though nothing had happened. Carl
scarcely spoke; Deal approved his silence. He felt so intensely for the
lad, realized so strongly what he must be feeling--suffering and
feeling--that conversation on the subject would have been at that early
moment unendurable. But waking during the night, and hearing him
stirring, uneasy, and apparently feverish, he went across to the
hammock.
"You are worrying about it, Carl, and you are not strong enough to stand
worry. Look here--I have forgiven you; I would forgive you twice as
much. Have you no idea why I brought you down here with me?"
"Because you're kind-hearted. And perhaps, too, you thought it would be
lonely," answered Carl.
"No, I'm not kind-hearted, and I never was lonely in my life. I didn't
intend to tell you, but--you _must not_ worry. It is your name, Carl,
and--and your blue eyes. I was fond of Eliza."
"Fond of Leeza--Leeza Brenner? Then why on earth didn't you marry her?"
said Carl, sitting up in his hammock, and trying to see his
step-brother's face in the moonlight that came through the chinks in the
shutters.
Mark's face was in shadow. "She liked some one else better," he said.
"Who?"
"Never mind. But--yes, I will tell you--Graves."
"John Graves? That dunce? No, she didn't."
"As it happens, I know she did. But we won't talk about it. I only told
you to show you why I cared for you."
"_I_ wouldn't care about a girl that didn't care for me," said Carl,
still peering curiously through the checkered darkness. The wizened
young violin-player fancied himself an omnipotent power among women. But
Deal had gone to his bed, and would say no more.
Carl had heard something now which deeply astonished him. He had not
been much troubled about the lost money; it was not in his nature to be
much troubled about money at any time. He was sorry; but what was gone
was gone; why waste thought upon it? This he called philosophy. Mark,
out of regard for Carl's supposed distress, had forbidden conversation
on the subject; but he was not shutting out, as he thought, torrents of
shame, remorse, and self-condemnation. Carl kept silence willingly
enough; but, even if the bar had been removed, he would have had little
to say. During the night his head had ached, and he had had some fever;
but it was more the effect of the fiery, rank liquor pressed upon him by
Schwartz than of remorse. But _now_ he had heard what really interested
and aroused him. Mark in love!--hard-working, steady, dull old Mark,
whom he had thought endowed with no fancies at all, save perhaps that of
being thoroughly warmed after his arctic freezing. Old Mark fond of
Leeza--in love with Leeza!
Leeza wasn't much. Carl did not even think his cousin pretty; his fancy
was for something large and Oriental. But, pretty or not, she had
evidently fascinated Mark Deal, coming, a poor little orphan maid, with
her aunt, Carl's mother, to brighten old Abner Deal's farm-house, one
mile from the windy Exton pier. Carl's mother could not hope to keep her
German son in this new home; but she kept little Leeza, or Eliza, as the
neighbors called her. And Mark, a shy, awkward boy, had learned to love
the child, who had sweet blue eyes, and thick braids of flaxen hair
fastened across the back of her head.
"To care all that for Leeza!" thought Carl, laughing silently in his
hammock. "And then to fancy that she liked that Graves! And then to
leave her, and come away off down here, just on the suspicion!"
But Carl was mistaken. A man, be he never so awkward and silent, will
generally make at least one effort to get the woman he loves. Mark had
made two, and failed. After his first, he had gone North; after his
second, he had come South, bringing Leeza's cousin with him.
In the morning a new life began on the old plantation. First, Scipio was
dismissed; then the hunter who had kept the open-air larder supplied
with game, an old man of unknown, or rather mixed descent, having
probably Spanish, African, and Seminole blood in his veins, was told
that his services were required no more.
"But are you going to starve us, then?" asked Carl, with a comical
grimace.
"I am a good shot, myself," replied Deal; "and a fair cook, too."
"But _why_ do you do it?" pursued the other. He had forgotten all about
the money.
The elder man looked at his brother. Could it be possible that he had
forgotten? And, if he had, was it not necessary, in their altered
circumstances, that the truth should be brought plainly before his
careless eyes?
"I am obliged to do it," he answered, gravely. "We must be very saving,
Carl. Things will be easier, I hope, when the fields begin to yield."
"Good heavens, you don't mean to say I took all you had!" said Carl,
with an intonation showing that the fact that the abstracted sum was
"all" was impressing him more than any agency of his own in the matter.
"I told you I did not mind it," answered Mark, going off with his gun
and game-bag.
"But _I_ do, by Jove!" said Carl to himself, watching him disappear.
Musicians, in this world's knowledge and wisdom, are often fools, or
rather they remain always children. The beautiful gift, the divine gift,
the gift which is the nearest to heaven, is accompanied by lacks of
another sort. Carl Brenner, like a child, could not appreciate poverty
unless his dinner was curtailed, his tobacco gone. The petty changes now
made in the small routine of each day touched him acutely, and roused
him at last to the effort of connected, almost practical thought. Old
Mark was troubled--poor. The cook was going, the hunter discharged; the
dinners would be good no longer. This was because he, Carl, had taken
the money. There was no especial harm in the act _per se_; but, as the
sum happened to be all old Mark had, it was unfortunate. Under the
circumstances, what could he, Carl, do to help old Mark?
Mark loved that light-headed little Leeza. Mark had brought him down
here and taken care of him on Leeza's account. Mark, therefore, should
have Leeza. He, Carl, would bring it about. He set to work at once to be
special providence in Mark's affairs. He sat down, wrote a long letter,
sealed it with a stern air, and then laid it on the table, got up, and
surveyed it with decision. There it was--done! Gone! But no; not "gone"
yet. And how could it go? He was now confronted by the difficulty of
mailing it without Mark's knowledge. San Miguel was the nearest
post-office; and San Miguel was miles away. Africanus was half
crippled; the old hunter would come no more; he himself could not walk
half the distance. Then an idea came to him: Africanus, although
dismissed, was not yet gone. He went out to find him.
Mark came home at night with a few birds. "They will last us over one
day," he said, throwing down the spoil. "You still here, Scip? I thought
I sent you off."
"He's going to-morrow," interposed Carl. Scip sat up all night cooking.
"What in the world has got into him?" said Deal, as the light from the
old chimney made their sleeping-room bright.
"He wants to leave us well supplied, I suppose," said Carl, from his
hammock. "Things keep better down here when they're cooked, you know."
This was true; but it was unusual for Carl to interest himself in such
matters.
The next morning Deal started on a hunting expedition, intending to be
absent two days. Game was plenty in the high lands farther west. He had
good luck, and came back at the end of the second day loaded, having
left also several caches behind to be visited on the morrow. But there
was no one in the house, or on the plantation; both Scip and Carl were
gone.
A slip of paper was pinned to the red cotton door. It contained these
words: "It's all right, old fellow. If I'm not back at the end of three
days, counting this as one, come into South Devil after me. You'll find
a trail."
"Confound the boy!" said Deal, in high vexation. "He's crazy." He took a
torch, went to the causeway, and there saw from the foot-prints that two
had crossed. "Scip went with him," he thought, somewhat comforted. "The
old black rascal used to declare that he knew every inch of the swamp."
He went back, cooked his supper, and slept. In the matter of provisions,
there was little left save what he kept under lock and key. Scipio had
started with a good supply. At dawn he rose, made a fire under the old
chimney, cooked some venison, baked some corn-bread, and, placing them
in his bag, started into South Devil, a bundle of torches slung on his
back as before, his gun in his hand, his revolver and knife in his belt.
"They have already been gone two days," he said to himself; "they must
be coming toward home, now." He thought Carl was carrying out his
cherished design of exploring the swamp. There was a trail--hatchet
marks on the trees, and broken boughs. "That's old Scip. Carl would
never have been so systematic," he thought.
He went on until noon, and then suddenly found himself on the bank of a
sluggish stream. "The Branch," he said--"South Devil Branch. It joins
West Devil, and the two make the San Juan Bautista (a queer origin for a
saint!) three miles below Miguel. But where does the trail go now?" It
went nowhere. He searched and searched, and could not find it. It ended
at the Branch. Standing there in perplexity, he happened to raise his
eyes. Small attention had he hitherto paid to the tangled vines and
blossoms swinging above him. He hated the beauty of South Devil. But now
he saw a slip of paper hanging from a vine, and, seizing it, he read as
follows: "We take boat here; wait for me if not returned."
Mark stood, the paper in his hand, thinking. There was only one boat in
the neighborhood, a canoe belonging to the mongrel old hunter, who
occasionally went into the swamp. Carl must have obtained this in some
way; probably the mongrel had brought it in by the Branch, or one of its
tributaries, and this was the rendezvous. One comfort--the old hunter
must then be of the party, too. But why should he, Mark, wait, if Carl
had two persons with him? Still, the boy had asked. It ended in his
waiting.
He began to prepare for the night. There was a knoll near by, and here
he made a camp-fire, spending the time before sunset in gathering the
wood by the slow process of climbing the trees and vines, and breaking
off dead twigs and branches; everything near the ground was wet and
sogged. He planted his four torches, ate his supper, examined his gun
and revolver, and then, as darkness fell, having nothing else to do, he
made a plot on the ground with twigs and long splinters of light-wood,
and played, one hand against the other, a swamp game of fox-and-geese.
He played standing (his fox-and-geese were two feet high), so that he
could keep a lookout for every sort of creature. There were wild-cats
and bears in the interior of South Devil, and in the Branch, alligators.
He did not fear the large creatures, however; his especial guard, as
before, was against the silent snakes. He lighted the fire and torches
early, so that whatever uncanny inhabitants there might be in the near
trees could have an opportunity of coming down and seeking
night-quarters elsewhere. He played game after game of fox-and-geese;
and this time he sang "Sweet Afton." He felt that he had exhausted the
"Troubadour" on the previous occasion. He shot five snakes, and saw (or
rather it seemed to him that he saw) five thousand others coiling and
gliding over the roots of the cypresses all around. He made a rule not
to look at them if he could help it, as long as they did not approach.
"Otherwise," he thought, "I shall lose my senses, and think the very
trees are squirming."
It was a long, long night. The knoll was dented all over with holes made
by the long splinters representing his fox-and-geese. Dizziness was
creeping over him at intervals. His voice, singing "Sweet Afton," had
become hoarse and broken, and his steps uneven, as he moved to and fro,
still playing the game dully, when at last dawn came. But, although the
flat tops of the great cypresses far above were bathed in the golden
sunshine, it was long before the radiance penetrated to the dark glades
below. The dank, watery aisles were still in gray shadow, when the
watcher heard a sound--a real sound now, not an imaginary one--and at
the same moment his glazed eyes saw a boat coming up the Branch. It was
a white canoe, and paddled by a wraith; at least, the creature who sat
within looked so grayly pale, and its eyes in its still, white face so
large and unearthly, that it seemed like a shade returned from the halls
of death.
"Why, Carl!" said Mark, in a loud, unsteady voice, breaking through his
own lethargy by main force. "It's you, Carl, isn't it?"
He tramped down to the water's edge, each step seeming to him a rod
long, and now a valley, and now a hill. The canoe touched the bank, and
Carl fell forward; not with violence, but softly, and without strength.
What little consciousness he had kept was now gone.
Dawn was coming down from above; the air was slightly stirred. The elder
man's head grew more steady, as he lifted his step-brother, gave him
brandy, rubbed his temples and chest, and then, as he came slowly back
to life again, stood thinking what he should do. They were a half-day's
journey from home, and Carl could not walk. If he attempted to carry
him, he was fearful that they should not reach pure air outside before
darkness fell again, and a second night in the thick air might be death
for both of them; but there was the boat. It had come into South Devil
in some way; by that way it should go out again. He laid Carl in one
end, putting his own coat under his head for a pillow, and then stepped
in himself, took the paddle, and moved off. Of course he must ascend the
Branch; as long as there were no tributaries, he could not err. But
presently he came to an everglade--a broadening of the stream with
apparently twenty different outlets, all equally dark and tangled. He
paddled around the border, looking first at one, then at another. The
matted water-vines caught at his boat like hundreds of hands; the great
lily-leaves slowly sank and let the light bow glide over them. Carl
slept; there was no use trying to rouse him; but probably he would
remember nothing, even if awake. The elder brother took out his compass,
and had decided by it which outlet to take, when his eye rested upon the
skin of a moccasin nailed to a cypress on the other side of the pond. It
was the mongrel's way of making a guide-post. Without hesitation,
although the direction was the exact opposite of the one he had
selected, Deal pushed the canoe across and entered the stream thus
indicated. At the next pool he found another snake-skin; and so on out
of the swamp. Twenty-five snakes had died in the cause. He came to firm
land at noon, two miles from the plantation. Carl was awake now, but
weak and wandering. Deal lifted him on shore, built a fire, heated some
meat, toasted corn-bread, and made him eat. Then, leaning upon his
brother's arm, walking slowly, and often pausing to rest, the blue-eyed
ghost reached home at sunset--two miles in five hours.
Ten days now passed; the mind of the young violin player did not regain
its poise. He rose and dressed himself each morning, and slept in the
sunshine as before. He went to the place of tombs, carrying his violin,
but forgot to play. Instead, he sat looking dreamily at the swamp. He
said little, and that little was disconnected. The only sentence which
seemed to have meaning, and to be spoken earnestly, was, "It's all
right, old fellow. Just you wait fifteen days--fifteen days!" But, when
Mark questioned him, he could get no definite reply, only a repetition
of the exhortation to "wait fifteen days."
Deal went over to one of the mongrel's haunts, and, by good luck, found
him at home. The mongrel had a number of camps, which he occupied
according to convenience. The old man acknowledged that he had lent his
canoe, and that he had accompanied Carl and Scip part of the way through
South Devil. But only part of the way; then he left them, and struck
across to the west. Where were they going? Why, straight to San Miguel;
the Branch brought them to the King's Road crossing, and the rest of the
way they went on foot. What were they going to do in San Miguel? The
mongrel had no idea; he had not many ideas. Scip was to stay up there;
Brenner was to return alone in the canoe, they having made a trail all
the way.
Deal returned to the plantation. He still thought that Carl's idea had
been merely to explore the swamp.
Twelve days had passed, and had grown to fourteen; Carl was no stronger.
He was very gentle now, like a sick child. Deal was seized with a fear
that this soft quiet was the peace that often comes before the last to
the poor racked frame of the consumptive. He gave up all but the
necessary work, and stayed with Carl all day. The blue-eyed ghost
smiled, but said little; into its clouded mind penetrated but one
ray--"Wait fifteen days." Mark had decided that the sentence meant
nothing but some wandering fancy. Spring in all her superb luxuriance
was now wreathing Florida with flowers; the spring flowers met the old
flowers, the spring leaves met the old leaves. The yellow jessamine
climbed over miles of thicket; the myriad purple balls of the
sensitive-plant starred the ground; the atamasco lilies grew whitely,
each one shining all alone, in the wet woods; chocolate-hued orchids
nodded, and the rose-colored ones rang their bells, at the edge of the
barren. The old causeway across the sugar waste was blue with violets,
and Mark carried Carl thither; he would lie there contentedly in the
sunshine for hours, his pale fingers toying with the blue blossoms, his
eyes lifted to the green line of South Devil across the sapphire sky.
One afternoon he fell asleep there, and Mark left him, to cook their
dinner. When he came back, his step-brother's eyes had reason in them
once more, or rather remembrance.
"Old fellow," he said, as Mark, surprised and somewhat alarmed at the
change, sat down beside him, "you got me out of the swamp, I suppose? I
don't remember getting myself out. Now I want to ask something. I'm
going to leave this world in a few days, and try it in another; better
luck next time, you know. What I want to ask is that you'll take me up
and bury me at San Miguel in a little old burying-ground they have
there, on a knoll overlooking the ocean. I don't want to lie here with
the Dons and the Aztecs; and, besides, I particularly want to be carried
through the swamp. Take me through in the canoe, as I went the last
time; it's the easiest way, and there's a trail. And I want to go. And
do not cover my face, either; I want to see. Promise."
Mark promised, and Carl closed his eyes. Then he roused himself again.
"Inquire at the post-office in San Miguel for a letter," he said
drowsily. "Promise." Again Mark promised. He seemed to sleep for some
minutes; then he spoke again.
"I heard that music, you know--heard it all out plainly and clearly," he
said, looking quietly at his brother. "I know the whole, and have sung
it over to myself a thousand times since. I can not write it down _now_.
But it will not be lost."
"Music is never lost, I suppose," answered Mark, somewhat at random.
"Certainly not," said Carl, with decision. "My song will be heard some
time. I'm sure of that. And it will be much admired."
"I hope so."
"You try to be kind always, don't you, old fellow, whether you
comprehend or not?" said the boy, with his old superior smile--the smile
of the artist, who, although he be a failure and a pauper, yet always
pities the wise. Then he slept again. At dawn, peacefully and with a
smile, he died.
It should not have been expected, perhaps, that he could live. But in
some way Mark had expected it.