foreigner will come from over the sea and will talk love to you, but if
you listen to him and become his wife, a sudden and awful death will
overtake you; you will leave him a widow while yet he is a bridegroom.
Love and wifedom are not for you. I put a curse upon you.”’
In spite of the fact that dear Juliette told me this with moving
solemnity and gravity, I burst into laughter, and taking her in my arms
said:
‘Juliette, my beloved, what nonsense all this is! Surely you, with
your high intelligence and great learning, do not attach the slightest
importance to the malicious and spiteful utterances of an ignorant old
crone. No, no, I am sure you don’t. You are too sensible. Put these
phantom fears away, darling, and trust to my great love to shield you
from all harm. Say you love me; say you will be my bride. Do not send
me from you on this wonderful night of beauty with a great load of
sorrow at my heart. Speak, Juliette, my love, my life--comfort me. Tell
me you will link your fate with mine.’
She sighed in response to my appeal. Then pressing her soft, fair cheek
against mine, she tightened her arms around my neck and murmured low
and sweetly:
‘Yes, beloved, you are right. I will put the foolish, superstitious
fear behind me. Old Joanna has long been dead, and I ought never to
have allowed her empty, spiteful words to have influenced me. Take me,
dear, when you will. I am yours only. I will be your wife! I will be
faithful unto death!’
Scarcely had she uttered the words when she broke from me, and uttering
a shrill scream of terror, sank into her chair, and, pointing to the
far end of the veranda like one distraught, cried:
‘There she is, there she is! Take her away, take her away, for I am
horrified!’
Naturally my eyes turned to where she pointed, and though I was
neither a nervous nor a superstitious man, I started with a feeling of
horror, for I beheld the shadowy form of an old negress. The moonlight
fell full upon her repulsive face, which was filled with a look of
hatred, while her eyes, glowing like a wild cat’s, glared at me with a
spite that would be difficult to describe. In a few moments her lips
parted, revealing the white teeth that glistened in the pale light, and
distinctly and unmistakably I heard these words: ‘Shun her, the curse
is on her! She will die as I foretold.’
Juliette heard this too, and with a pitiable scream of fright she fell
in a swoon on the floor. The scream brought the servants and her father
rushing from the house, and as they raised the prostrate lady up, they
directed angry glances at me, as though they thought that I had done
some wrong.
I was confused and trembling. I glanced towards the end of the veranda
to where I had seen the vision, but there was nothing in sight, and I
was recalled to my senses by the voice of Senhor Souza, who somewhat
peremptorily demanded to know what had caused his daughter’s illness.
‘Senhor Souza,’ I answered, thinking it was better to be perfectly
frank with him, ‘as you know, Juliette and I love each other. To-night
I have asked her to be my wife. She consented. Immediately afterwards
we heard a sigh, and turning beheld a vision which so alarmed your
daughter that she screamed and fainted.’
‘This is a strange story, very strange,’ he muttered; ‘and it is
ominous. Tell me more about it?’ The Brazilians are all more or less
superstitious, and Senhor Souza was no exception. Having seen his
daughter borne into the house and attended to by her maid and the
female servants, he returned to me and made me relate minutely all that
had passed.
As I felt that I ought not to conceal anything I gave him a plain,
straightforward statement of the facts. He was much impressed and
evidently uneasy. Again and again he asked me if I had seen the vision.
Of course I had no alternative but to assure him that I could not have
been mistaken, although I had no explanation to offer. I told him I was
not given to seeing visions, that up to that night I had always been
very sceptical; but now I was either a victim of a trick of the brain
or I had seen what I had described. Moreover, I was certain, I said,
that Juliette had seen it too. Otherwise, why did she scream and faint?
Senhor Souza showed decided reluctance to discuss the subject further
that night, for he was evidently deeply affected, and much concerned
about his daughter. So when I had been assured that Juliette was
recovering, and would probably be all right in the morning, I returned
to the town. As I drove along in the moonlight, I recalled all that had
transpired, and I confess to a feeling of decided uneasiness. The fact
is, I was unnerved a little. I had received a shock and its effects
were not easily shaken off.
I did not sleep very well that night, but with the coming day my fears
dispelled, and I quite recovered my wonted buoyancy when a special
messenger brought me a little note from my Juliette to say that she was
much better. That cheered me, and I was inclined to rate myself for
having been so weak. But, of course, we are always brave in the day.
Darkness makes cowards of us.
As soon as my duties permitted I rode out to Senhor Souza’s villa and
was pleased at being met on the threshold by Juliette. She looked pale
and anxious, and a trace of fear still lingered in her beautiful eyes.
We wandered into the garden together, and when the psychological moment
had arrived, as I thought, I renewed my love-vows, and again urged
her to consent to become my wife. Something of the previous night’s
agitation affected her, and as she clung to my arm as though she was
afraid an unseen force might attempt to pluck her from my side, she
said:
‘Are we justified, think you, in defying fate, and in linking our lives
together in spite of the curse?’
‘Yes, undoubtedly,’ I answered. ‘The curse is nonsense. We can afford
to laugh at the curse of a human being.’
‘You saw the vision last night?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And heard it speak?’
‘I did.’
‘You know then that I am not the victim of a delusion. At least, if I
am so are you.’
‘Beloved,’ I cried, ‘we are both victims of a delusion. It is well that
we should think so. Curses avail not, neither can the dead harm us.
Our happiness is in each other’s keeping. Why should we throw it away?
Surely we are strong-minded enough to be indifferent to the meaningless
croakings of a spiteful and imbecile old woman. Hesitate, therefore, no
longer; say that you will be my wife.’
Although my argument evidently told with her, she could not quite
make up her mind, and she murmured, like one who was still under the
influence of a great fear:
‘I should like to, I should like to, dear one; but supposing that
dreadful prophecy _should_ come true?’
‘It won’t, my own love,’ I answered. ‘We have nothing to fear from the
living, and the dead--well, the dead are done with.’
‘Ah, you don’t know. Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows, who can tell?
It may be that those who have passed away may still have the power to
injure us. The old nurse hated me, and I fear that she has carried her
hate beyond the grave.’
I used every argument I could to comfort and calm her. I urged her
again and again to speak the word that would make my happiness
complete. I told her that I was then suffering in health as a result
of the climate, and weakened as I was, her refusal to comply with my
request would probably have a fatal effect.
This latter argument appealed so forcibly to her that even her
superstitious fears were overcome, and she said at last that if her
father offered no objection she would not. Speaking for myself,
although the night previous I had been much impressed, I was no longer
so; nor was I inclined to attach any importance to the supernatural
incident which had so alarmed us, consequently I felt perfectly
justified in leaving nothing undone to overcome Juliette’s scruples and
fears. And now, as I had gained her consent, I suggested that we should
go at once to her father and get his sanction, for the time had come
when the state of my health demanded imperatively that I should seek a
change; that I should go away into the highlands to recoup. But I was
resolved not to go alone.
By this time I had completely won her, and so we went to Senhor Souza
and told him of our wishes and desires. I noticed that his olive cheeks
blanched a little, and a look of ineffable love and tenderness filled
his eyes as he gazed on his child, whose beauty at that moment seemed
to me the beauty of heaven, not of earth. The Senhor appealed to her to
speak her mind freely and candidly, holding nothing in reserve. So she
turned to me, and laid both her soft white hands in mine, saying:
‘Father, this man has my heart. My body, therefore, belongs to him.
Give me to him with your blessing, for I love him.’
The Senhor was deeply affected, and his voice was broken by emotion as
he spoke. He stepped towards us and placed one hand on my head and the
other on hers, and looking at me with misty eyes, said:
‘I give her to you; take her. Guard her, watch over her, for she is my
life; she is the core of my heart, the apple of my eye. Be good to each
other, be true, loyal, and upright; and may God in His infinite mercy
and wisdom bless and prosper you, and give you long years of peace,
joy, and contentment. God bless you, God bless you,’ he repeated with
great fervency.
The old man ceased. He could say no more, emotion choked him. Juliette
and I muttered a fervent ‘Amen, amen!’ and then we were alone; the
Senhor had hurried from the room. I took my affianced wife in my arms,
and kissing her passionately, told her that every dark cloud had gone.
She sighed a sigh of joy, and nestled to me; but instantly the joy was
turned to a cry of horror and alarm, for a mocking, bitter, fiendish
laugh broke on our ears, and turning from whence the sound came, we saw
a nebulous form defined against a background of velvet curtain that
hung as a portière before a door. It was impossible to recognise the
figure, and it faded in a few moments like a passing shadow. The laugh,
however, was unmistakable. We both heard it. It struck against our
hearts; it beat in on our brains.
‘My love, my love!’ I whispered in Juliette’s ear, as she seemed as if
she would swoon in my arms; ‘be strong, be brave. God will smile upon
us. The saints will watch over us.’
‘Ah, dear one,’ she exclaimed; ‘let me go from you for ever, for it is
destined I shall bring you woe and life-long sorrow.’
‘Juliette, not all the fiends in the nether world shall part me from
you,’ I answered firmly. ‘We are pledged to each other, and your father
has blessed us. We will have no fear, but go on our way with light
hearts, and put our trust in God.’
She seemed comforted, and I remained there until late. The morrow was
to see the commencement of the preparations for our nuptials.
During the ensuing weeks Juliette quite recovered her spirits. Or, at
any rate, whatever her feelings and thoughts were, she was at pains to
conceal them. It was arranged that our honeymoon was to be spent in the
highlands, at the Senhor’s orchid station. I was looking forward to
the time of my departure from Rio with intense joy, as I was terribly
enervated, and yearned to breathe the pure and bracing air of the
mountain lands.
At length our marriage morning came, as bright and brilliant a day as
ever broke on the fair earth. A few fleecy clouds flecked the deep blue
sky, and a fresh wind blowing in from the sea tempered the great heat
of the sun. Surely no woman ever looked more divinely beautiful than
did my sweet wife on that her bridal morn. It seemed to me that she was
touched with a spiritual beauty that was not of the earth. The pure
white lilies that lay upon her heaving bosom were not more wondrous
fair than she. When the ceremony had ended, she expressed a wish to
retire with me to a little chapel. There for a brief space we might
offer up silent prayer, and commune with our hearts. Devoutly did she
cross herself, and fervently did she pray that she might make me happy.
Ah, sweet Juliette, as I think, even at this far-off time, of that
morning, my heart turns to lead, and my brain would give way, were it
not that your sweet and gentle spirit is ever near me, and bids me be
of good cheer.
When we had done justice to the sumptuous repast provided for us by my
father-in-law at the principal Rio hotel, we left by the railway known
as the _Estrada de Ferro Dom Pedro_, and travelled for many hours to
the extreme northern limit of the line, a place called Carandahy. My
father-in-law was to follow us in a few days. He would have started
with us, but was compelled to remain behind to settle up certain
business matters. My love and I remained that night at Carandahy, at
the house of Senhor Oliveira, a great friend of my wife’s father, who
had kindly placed his house at our disposal.
We spent three days in that bracing mountain station, where every
breath I drew seemed to put new life into my enervated frame. And my
dear wife had now quite recovered her spirits, and was as blithe and
happy as a lark. Everyone was so kind; the scenery was so wonderful;
the air so invigorating, and we twain were so perfectly happy that we
felt a thankfulness which could find no expression in mere words. But
there is a dumb eloquence which is greater than speech; and there are
moments of ecstasy when one can only express one’s feelings by silence.
Such moments were those we passed at the mountain station of Carandahy.
The joy was great; alas! too great to last, as was soon to be proved.
As our destination was Paraúna, on the banks of the river of the same
name, we left Carandahy on horseback, with a number of servants and
attendants, while our baggage was to be brought on by ox waggon.
At Paraúna Senhor Souza had one of his orchid collecting stations, and
in due course we arrived at the place, which is magnificently situated,
while the dense forests in the neighbourhood are the homes of some of
the most beautiful orchids in the world. It is a small town, but of
no small importance, as in the neighbouring mountains there are some
mines of precious stones which, though worked in a very desultory and
half-hearted way, produce considerable wealth.
The Senhor’s station was situated a little distance from the town, in
a rather lonely spot on the banks of the river. It was in charge of a
foreman named Chrispiniano Soares, and he had under him five or six
Brazilian packers, and many orchid hunters, mostly Indians, who were
intimately acquainted with the country round about for leagues and
leagues.
My dear Juliette knew the place well also, as she had been there
before; and now she displayed the greatest interest in the work that
was being carried on, while her knowledge of the various species of
plants brought in was wonderful. She could classify and name every
plant.
Those were long delightful happy days. I was her willing, loving,
devoted student, and she was my worshipped teacher. It made her so
happy to explain to me the names and habits of the plants; and it
filled me with happiness to see her happy. Neither of us ever reverted
to the strange visitation in Rio, nor to the prophecy of the old
nurse. Indeed, I don’t think we thought of it--at least I didn’t--our
happiness was too great. No shadow fell upon it, and yet an awful,
damnable shadow was creeping up. Oh, if I had only had some faint
warning! Why was there no angel in heaven to give me some sign so
that I might have saved my darling. But no sound came. No sign arose.
It seemed as if all the people worshipped my sweet wife. She was so
beautiful, so kind, so gentle, so womanly. But no one was possessed
with prescience to utter a word of alarm to put me on my guard, so that
I might have striven to avert the awful doom.
One day it chanced that a mule I was riding stumbled over a piece
of timber and threw me, somewhat injuring my right leg, so that I
had to lay up for a little while. I urged my dear one not to let my
enforced imprisonment--which I was assured would only be of a few
days’ duration--prevent her from taking her accustomed exercise. She
said that she should remain by my side; but, oh, poor blind being
that I was, the fiend prompted me to insist that she should go out
and enjoy herself. It was not the custom of the country for ladies to
go out alone, but in Juliette’s case the circumstances were somewhat
different. Firstly, her father, who had travelled a good deal, had
brought her up more in the English fashion, and she was accorded
vastly more liberty than is generally accorded to Brazilian girls. And
secondly, she had proved herself so useful in the orchid branch of her
father’s business that he had allowed her to do much as she liked; and
she had on more than one occasion gone out with some of the hunters
into the very depths of the virgin forests, braving all the terrible
dangers incidental to the pursuit of the blooms, and braving the
hardships inseparable from it. In many ways Juliette was a wonderful
woman. She was as clever as she was beautiful, and I who pen these
lines declare solemnly that she was without a fault. Of course you will
say I speak with a lover’s enthusiasm. Very well, let it be so. But I
think of her, and I see her, as an angel of God, with the golden light
of heaven upon her wings. In the first hours of my awful sorrow, when
my heart was rent in twain and my poor brain was bursting, I think I
cursed God, and called impiously upon Heaven to justify the act which
plunged me suddenly from the happiest man on earth to the depths of a
blank, maddening, damnable despair. But Heaven was silent, and God in
His infinite wisdom let me suffer until the awful revelation was made
to me which I shall presently record. Then I bowed my head and prayed
to Him to smite me. But I lived. And it is only now, when long years
have passed, and I draw nearer and nearer to the hour when I shall take
my departure to my love, who waits for me with outstretched arms on
heaven’s frontiers, that I am able to write calmly and think calmly.
In this necessarily brief record I have shown no disposition to
moralise; but I would venture to observe here that some lives are
mysteries from their beginning to their end. The majority of people
perhaps lead common, humdrum, vulgar, unemotional lives. And they die,
never having known what it is to live; but few I fancy could be found
who will venture to deny that in the words of the great English poet,
‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our
philosophy.’ We are after all but poor weak things, with but a limited
vision, and to few only is it given to pierce the veil that screens us
from Sheol. But to return to the thread of my story.
Juliette yielded to my persuasions, and one morning she said, if I
could spare her, she was going with an old and faithful attendant, one
Jocelino who all his life had been in her father’s employ, to a fazenda
(farm), about a two leagues’ ride, to see a negro who, according
to a report, had secured a specimen of an orchid not at that time
classified. In my sweet love’s interest, as I thought then, I bade her
go. And so her dear lips pressed mine, and promising that before the
sun was below the horizon she would be at my side again, she went from
me, and I looked upon her living face for the last time.
The sun gradually declined, and sank in gold and blood-red glory,
but my love came not. One by one the great stars defined themselves
in the deep blue heavens, but my love came not. The moon climbed up
and flooded the earth with a mystic silver sheen, and yet she who
was my heart and soul was still absent. A deadly fear stole upon me,
and a strange foreboding turned me cold. I summoned Chrispiniano to
my side and commanded him to get as many of his men together as he
could, and, dividing them into parties, send them out to search for my
missing love. He tried to reassure me that all was well. She had been
benighted, he said, and had found refuge at some fazenda. Old Jocelino,
he declared, knew every inch of the country for scores of leagues, and
was so devotedly attached to the young mistress that he would gladly
yield up his life for her.
‘Yes, Senhor,’ continued Chrispiniano, ‘take my word for it. Your dear
lady is safe with old Jocelino, and the morrow will be but young when
your eyes will again be gladdened with the sight of your wife.’
I admit that the foreman’s words did afford me some comfort. Juliette,
I thought, had allowed her enthusiasm to make her forgetful of the
flight of time; and as night travelling in that country is out of the
question, owing to the hundred and one dangers that beset the traveller
who ventures to go forth in the darkness, she had sought the shelter
of some hospitable roof, and so I countermanded the order for the
search parties. But I passed an awful, restless night. No sleep came
to me, and when the morning dawned I uttered a fervent ‘Thank God!’
But that day was to prove worse than the preceding night--a day of
awful, brain-corroding suspense. Instead of my love coming to me with
the golden morn, no tidings of her were obtainable when the day was
darkening to its close. Crippled as I was, I insisted on a horse being
saddled, as I was determined to go and seek her; but when I attempted
to mount into the saddle I found it to be physically impossible. So I
had myself lifted up, but was unable to grip with my legs, and fell off
again. I was therefore perforce compelled to desist in my attempt, but
I sent into the town of Paraúna and offered a big reward to anyone who
would go in search of my dear one, and bring me tidings. In less than
an hour a party of two dozen mounted men was formed, and, dividing into
sixes, each set off in a different direction.
I will make no attempt to describe the horrible suspense of that
night. When the sun began to glow again in the heavens it found me
feverish and well nigh distraught. The people at the station did their
best to comfort me. They tried to cheer me; they spoke hopefully;
they expressed themselves as certain that all would be well. But all
their good-intentioned efforts were fruitless; some strange foreboding
possessed me. If I looked up to the heavens it seemed to me as if
I were looking through smoked glass; and during those heavy hours I
fancied I heard a weird and hollow voice repeating in my ears these
words:
‘At last it is fulfilled! At last it is fulfilled!’
I had had myself placed on a couch in the veranda which commanded a
view of the wood, and there I sat, and endured and suffered--not from
the physical pain of my injured limb, for I felt nothing of it, but
from mental torture.
As the afternoon waned I suddenly saw an Indian rushing down the road
in an excited state. My heart leapt into my mouth, for I was sure he
was the bearer of tidings. He tore up the steps of the veranda without
any ceremony, and falling at my feet began to smite his breast, as is
the custom of these people when they are the bearers of bad news. Then
he wailed out his message:
‘They have been found, and are being brought here; but they are both
dead.’
The words beat in upon my tortured brain like the blows from a
sledge-hammer. I have only a vague, dream-like knowledge of what
followed. In my frenzy I rose like a giant in wrath, and I hurled the
poor Indian from me with such terrific force that concussion of the
brain, as I understand, ensued, and for days his life was despaired
of. But I knew naught of all this. A merciful Providence stunned me,
and day after day went by and I lay like one entranced. During this
blank, my sweet wife and old Jocelino were hidden from the sight of men
for ever and ever, for quick burial in that climate is imperatively
necessary.
Senhor Souza, my father-in-law, arrived in time to attend to the
funeral of his child, but the poor old man’s heart was broken. They
aver that when he turned from the graveside he looked twenty years
older. All the light had gone out of his eyes, his back was bent, and
he tottered and reeled and staggered like one who had the palsy. But
a strong will power upheld him for a time, because he had a duty to
fulfil, which was to endeavour to bring the murderer or murderers to
justice, for my dear one and Jocelino were both barbarously done to
death.
You who have never suffered a great wrong at the hands of your fellow
man may preach against vengeance; but as it is no virtue for a man to
be honest when he has well-filled coffers, so he who decries vengeance
when he has not been wronged is but an idle preacher. Let someone rob
you of your most precious inheritance, and see then if you can sit
calmly and exclaim ‘Kismet!’