AT THE BIG HOUSE
The fire lay gray in ashes at the dawn, when Eddring awoke, and the
gray reek of the cane-brake mist was over everything. The leaves of
the trees and of the cane dripped moisture, and the dew stood also in
heavy beads upon the roof of the little green-thatched house. A short
distance apart Eddring built another fire. Presently the sleepers in
the little house awoke, and he saw emerge madame, tucking at her
hair, and Miss Lady, in spite of all fresh and rosy in the wondrous
possession of youth, as though she were a Dryad born of these
surrounding trees. There seemed to sit upon her the primeval vigor of
the wilderness. She came to him gaily enough and said good morning as
though there had been but recent friendship and not aloofness. She
pushed back her hair, and smoothed down her skirt and combed out with
her fingers the bunch of bright ribbons at her waist. She and madame,
having made ablutions at the island brink, returned, all the fresher
and more laughing. Eddring's heart quickened in his bosom as he saw
Miss Lady smile once more.
"Come," said she, "let's explore our desert island; yonder's such a
pretty little path,"--and she pointed down the path which Eddring had
already investigated.
"No," he said, "the cane is very wet; you'd better sit close by the
fire, so that you will not feel the damp. Now, I will get the
breakfast; and I promise you, this is to be our last meal in the
forest."
"Our last?" said madame. "What you mean?"
"In a couple of hours we shall be at the Big House," said Eddring. "I
have looked about, and I know this place perfectly. We are only four
or five miles from the station, and the way will be plain."
"Monsieur," said madame, "I shall be almost sorry. It is the fine
peek-_neek._ Never have I slept so before."
"I, too, have slept nicely," said Miss Lady, "and I want to thank
you. Shall we be out of the wood so soon?" There was small elation in
her own voice, after all. In her soul there was a wild, inexplicable
longing that this present hour might endure. Fear was gone, in some
way, she knew not how. What there might be ahead, Miss Lady did not
know. Here in the forest she felt safe.
The hurried breakfast was soon despatched and Eddring, taking aboard
his passengers once more, pushed out into the broad sea which lay
through all the heavy forest. The nearest road to the station was
under water, and, as it offered few obstructions, Eddring for the
most part followed its curves for the remainder of his boat journey.
At length, as he had said, he brought up within sight of the
telegraph poles along the railway. He passed by boat even beyond the
little station-house, and landed at the edge of what had been the Big
House lawn.
On every side there was ruin and desolation. The rude fence of the
railway track had caught and held a certain amount of wreckage. Most
of the field cabins were above the water, but others were half out of
sight, deep in the flood. Fences were well-nigh obliterated. Half of
the Big House plantation was under water. Above all this scene of
ruin, high, strong and grim, the Big House itself stood, now silent
and apparently deserted. Toward it the voyagers hurried. It was not
until they knocked at the door that they met signs of life.
In response to repeated summons there appeared at the door the gaunt
figure of Colonel Calvin Blount himself, shirt-sleeved, unshaven,
pale, his left arm tightly bandaged to his side, his hawk-like eye
alone showing the wonted fire of his disposition. Each man threw an
arm over the other's shoulder after their hands had met in silent
grasp.
"I am not too late," said Eddring. "Thank God!"
"No, not quite too late," said Blount. "There is a little left--not
much. Who's with you?"
"The one you sent for," said Eddring, stepping aside, "and this is
Madame Delchasse, the one woman, Colonel, whom you and I ought to
thank with all our hearts. She has been the friend of Miss Lady when
certainly she needed one."
Blount stepped forward, a smile softening his grim face. "Oh, Miss
Lady, Miss Lady," he cried, extending his unhampered hand. "You ran
away from us! You didn't do right! What made you? Where have you
been? What have you been doing?" Miss Lady's eyes only filled, and
she found no speech.
"But now you're back," Blount went on. "You need friends, and you've
come back to the right place. Here are three friends of yours. Madame
Delchasse--" this as Miss Lady drew her companion toward him with one
hand, "I am glad to see you. It you ever befriended this girl, you
are our friend here. Come in, and we will take care of you the best
we can, though we've not much left--not much left.
"You see," said he, turning toward Eddring, "that boy Jack of yours
came down with the news of this uprising that I mentioned in my
message. He brought along his woman; and I must say that though I
don't much mind this--"--he pointed to his injured arm--"if I have
to eat that woman's cooking much longer, I'm going to die."
Then it was that Clarisse Delchasse arose grandly to the occasion.
"Monsieur Colonel," she said, as she divested herself of her bonnet,
"I have swear I would cook no more; but me? I am once the best cook
in New Orleans. I cook not for money, ah, _non!_ but from pity!
Sir, humanity it is so outrage' by the poor cook that I have pity!
So, Monsieur, I have pity also of you. Show me this girl that can not
cook, and show me also the kitshen. Ah, we shall see whether Clarisse
Delchasse have forget!"
"Show her, Miss Lady," said Blount. "Show her. The place is yours.
Oh, girl, we're glad enough to have you back. Go get that gold-
toothed woman of Jack's, go get 'em all, if you can find any of 'em
around. Get Bill, he's around somewhere--get any of 'em you can find,
and tell 'em to take care of you. Child, child, it's glad enough we
all are to have you back again. Ah, Miss Lady, what made you go
away?"
Even as he spoke, Madame Delchasse, rolling up her cuffs, was
marching down the hall. "By jinks!" said Blount, looking after her
admiringly. "By jinks! It looks like things were going to happen,
don't it?" His strained features relaxed into a smile.
"But now come on, son," he said, turning to Eddring, "you and I have
got to have a talk. I'll tell you about some of the things that
_have_ happened. We've been busy here in Tullahoma."
Drawing apart into another room, Blount met Eddring's hurried queries
as to his own safety, and heard in turn the strange story of the late
voyage and the incidents immediately preceding it. He told Blount of
the discovery of Miss Lady living in the care of the old Frenchwoman,
Madame Delchasse--Miss Lady, as they had both more than suspected,
none other than Louise Loisson, the mysterious dancer in the city of
New Orleans; told of the plot which he was satisfied had been the
motive of Henry Decherd in inducing Miss Lady to accompany him upon
the steamer. Blount added rapid confirmation here and there, and
presently they came to a topic which could no longer be avoided.
"I know what was done," said Eddring at length, after a slight pause
in the conversation. "I found the place where it all happened. That's
where we spent the night, on the ridge, near the house."
"Did they see? Did they know?" asked Blount, nodding toward the place
where the two women had disappeared.
"No," said Eddring. "I did not tell them. Blount, it's awful. Where's
the law gone in this country?"
"Law?" cried Blount, fiercely, "_we_ were the law! We sent for
that nigger sheriff--the one they elected for a joke--hell of a joke,
wasn't it?--and he wouldn't come. We had with us the old sheriff, Jim
Peters, a good officer in this county, as you know, before now. We
had with us every white voter in this precinct, every tax-payer. We
found them, these levee-cutting, house-burning fools, right at their
work. We left some of them dead there, and run some into the cane,
and we took the balance over to that church of theirs which you saw.
The water wasn't so high then as you say it is now. There was a
regular fight, and the niggers were plumb desperate. They had guns.
Jim Bowles, down below here, was shot pretty bad, though I reckon
he'll get well. I was shot, too--not bad, but enough to make me some
dizzy. Jim Peters--and I reckon he was the real officer of the law--
was shot, too, so bad that he died pretty soon. Now I reckon you can
tell what we found to be at the bottom of this, and who it was that's
been making all this deviltry here for years."
"Delphine!"
"It was nobody else," said Blount. "You talk about human tigers, and
fiends, and all that kind of thing; that woman beat anything I ever
did see or hear of. She was brave as a lion. Peters and Bowles and I
closed in on her, wanting to take her, but she fought like a man, and
a brave one. She had two six-shooters, and she dropped us, all three
of us; and then before the others could close in on her, she turned
loose on herself, and killed herself dead as hell. She didn't see the
finish of the others."
Eddring buried his face in his hands and inwardly thanked Providence
that he himself had not been present at such a scene.
Blount resumed presently. "Peters didn't die right away," said he.
"He lay there with his head propped on a coat rolled up for a piller,
and he talked to us all like we was at home in the parlor. 'Keep on
with it, boys,' said he. 'Do this thorough. Make this a white man's
country; or if you kain't, don't leave no white men alive in it.'
Then after a while he turns to me and says he, 'Colonel, you know I'm
not a rich man. Now I've got a couple of mighty fine b'ah-dogs, and I
want to give 'em to you; but if you don't mind, I'd like mighty well
if you'd send my wife over a good cow. She's going to be left in
pretty poor shape, I'm afraid, for you know how things have been
going on the plantations,' I told him I would. We was both laying on
the ground together. I told him I would take care of his folks, for
he was a friend of mine, and the right kind of man. He talked on a
while like that, and finally he says, 'Well, boys, I'm not going to
live, and you've got a heap to do right now, and I mustn't keep you
from it. Jake,' says he, 'you Jake, come here.'--Jake was his nigger
boy that he always kept around with him. We had three or four good
darkies with us. My boy Bill, out there, was along, and this Jake and
some others. 'Jake,' says Jim Peters to this boy, 'come around here
an' take this piller out from under my head. Lay me down, and lemme
die!' Jake he didn't want to, but Jim says to him again, 'Jake, damn
you,' says he,'do like I tell you'; so then Jake he took the piller
out, and Jim he just lay back and gasped once, 'Oh!' like that, and
he was gone. I call that dying like a gentleman," said Blount.
"The poor fools," presently went on the firm voice of the man who was
recounting these commonplaces of the recent savage scenes, "they
think, and they told us, some of them, that they've got the North
behind them. They think the time is going to come when they won't
have to work any more. They want to make all this Delta black, and
not white. If we could give it to them and fence them in we would be
well rid of the whole proposition, North and South alike. These poor
fools say that the North will make another war and set them free
again! There'll never be another war between the South and the North.
Next time it will be North and South together, against the slaves,
white and black. But as to the Delta going black, while we men in
here are left alive--well, I want to say we'll never live to see it.
If the people up North could only know the trouble they make--could
only know that that trouble lands hardest on the niggers, I think
maybe they'd change a few of their theories. They don't understand.
They think that maybe after a while they can make us people think
that black is white, and white is black. Carry that out, and it means
extermination, on the one side or the other.
"Law?" he went on bitterly; "I wish you'd tell me what _is_ the law.
Good God, we white men in this country are anxious enough in our
hearts to settle all these things. We want to be law-abiding, but how
can we, unless we begin everything all over again? Law? You tell me,
what _is_ the law!"