THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPÉ
"A very little more than eight years ago," began Honoré--but not only
Honoré, but Raoul also; and not only they, but another, earlier on the
same day,--Honoré, the f.m.c. But we shall not exactly follow the words
of any one of these.
Bras-Coupé, they said, had been, in Africa and under another name, a
prince among his people. In a certain war of conquest, to which he had
been driven by _ennui_, he was captured, stripped of his royalty,
marched down upon the beach of the Atlantic, and, attired as a true son
of Adam, with two goodly arms intact, became a commodity. Passing out of
first hands in barter for a looking-glass, he was shipped in good order
and condition on board the good schooner _Égalité_, whereof Blank was
master, to be delivered without delay at the port of Nouvelle Orléans
(the dangers of fire and navigation excepted), unto Blank Blank. In
witness whereof, He that made men's skins of different colors, but all
blood of one, hath entered the same upon His book, and sealed it to the
day of judgment.
Of the voyage little is recorded--here below; the less the better. Part
of the living merchandise failed to keep; the weather was rough, the
cargo large, the vessel small. However, the captain discovered there was
room over the side, and there--all flesh is grass--from time to time
during the voyage he jettisoned the unmerchantable.
Yet, when the reopened hatches let in the sweet smell of the land,
Bras-Coupé had come to the upper--the favored--the buttered side of the
world; the anchor slid with a rumble of relief down through the muddy
fathoms of the Mississippi, and the prince could hear through the
schooner's side the savage current of the river, leaping and licking
about the bows, and whimpering low welcomes home. A splendid picture to
the eyes of the royal captive, as his head came up out of the hatchway,
was the little Franco-Spanish-American city that lay on the low,
brimming bank. There were little forts that showed their whitewashed
teeth; there was a green parade-ground, and yellow barracks, and
cabildo, and hospital, and cavalry stables, and custom-house, and a most
inviting jail, convenient to the cathedral--all of dazzling white and
yellow, with a black stripe marking the track of the conflagration of
1794, and here and there among the low roofs a lofty one with
round-topped dormer windows and a breezy belvidere looking out upon the
plantations of coffee and indigo beyond the town.
When Bras-Coupé staggered ashore, he stood but a moment among a drove
of "likely boys," before Agricola Fusilier, managing the business
adventures of the Grandissime estate, as well as the residents thereon,
and struck with admiration for the physical beauties of the chieftain (a
man may even fancy a negro--as a negro), bought the lot, and, both to
resell him with the rest to some unappreciative 'Cadian, induced Don
José Martinez' overseer to become his purchaser.
Down in the rich parish of St. Bernard (whose boundary line now touches
that of the distended city) lay the plantation, known before Bras-Coupé
passed away as La Renaissance. Here it was that he entered at once upon
a chapter of agreeable surprises. He was humanely met, presented with a
clean garment, lifted into a cart drawn by oxen, taken to a whitewashed
cabin of logs, finer than his palace at home, and made to comprehend
that it was a free gift. He was also given some clean food, whereupon he
fell sick. At home it would have been the part of piety for the magnate
next the throne to launch him heavenward at once; but now, healing doses
were administered, and to his amazement he recovered. It reminded him
that he was no longer king.
His name, he replied to an inquiry touching that subject, was --------,
something in the Jaloff tongue, which he by and by condescended to
render into Congo: Mioko-Koanga; in French Bras-Coupé; the Arm Cut Off.
Truly it would have been easy to admit, had this been his meaning, that
his tribe, in losing him, had lost its strong right arm close off at the
shoulder; not so easy for his high-paying purchaser to allow, if this
other was his intent: that the arm which might no longer shake the spear
or swing the wooden sword was no better than a useless stump never to be
lifted for aught else. But whether easy to allow or not, that was his
meaning. He made himself a type of all Slavery, turning into flesh and
blood the truth that all Slavery is maiming.
He beheld more luxury in a week than all his subjects had seen in a
century. Here Congo girls were dressed in cottons and flannels worth,
where he came from, an elephant's tusk apiece. Everybody wore
clothes--children and lads alone excepted. Not a lion had invaded the
settlement since his immigration. The serpents were as nothing; an
occasional one coming up through the floor--that was all. True, there
was more emaciation than unassisted conjecture could explain--a
profusion of enlarged joints and diminished muscles, which, thank God,
was even then confined to a narrow section and disappeared with Spanish
rule. He had no experimental knowledge of it; nay, regular meals, on the
contrary, gave him anxious concern, yet had the effect--spite of his
apprehension that he was being fattened for a purpose--of restoring the
herculean puissance which formerly in Africa had made him the terror of
the battle.
When one day he had come to be quite himself, he was invited out into
the sunshine, and escorted by the driver (a sort of foreman to the
overseer), went forth dimly wondering. They reached a field where some
men and women were hoeing. He had seen men and women--subjects of
his--labor--a little--in Africa. The driver handed him a hoe; he
examined it with silent interest--until by signs he was requested to
join the pastime.
"What?"
He spoke, not with his lips, but with the recoil of his splendid frame
and the ferocious expansion of his eyes. This invitation was a cataract
of lightning leaping down an ink-black sky. In one instant of
all-pervading clearness he read his sentence--WORK.
Bras-Coupé was six feet five. With a sweep as quick as instinct the back
of the hoe smote the driver full in the head. Next, the prince lifted
the nearest Congo crosswise, brought thirty-two teeth together in his
wildly kicking leg and cast him away as a bad morsel; then, throwing
another into the branches of a willow, and a woman over his head into a
draining-ditch, he made one bound for freedom, and fell to his knees,
rocking from side to side under the effect of a pistol-ball from the
overseer. It had struck him in the forehead, and running around the
skull in search of a penetrable spot, tradition--which sometimes
jests--says came out despairingly, exactly where it had entered.
It so happened that, except the overseer, the whole company were black.
Why should the trivial scandal be blabbed? A plaster or two made
everything even in a short time, except in the driver's case--for the
driver died. The woman whom Bras-Coupé had thrown over his head lived to
sell _calas_ to Joseph Frowenfeld.
Don José, young and austere, knew nothing about agriculture and cared as
much about human nature. The overseer often thought this, but never said
it; he would not trust even himself with the dangerous criticism. When
he ventured to reveal the foregoing incidents to the señor he laid all
the blame possible upon the man whom death had removed beyond the reach
of correction, and brought his account to a climax by hazarding the
asserting that Bras-Coupé was an animal that could not be whipped.
"Caramba!" exclaimed the master, with gentle emphasis, "how so?"
"Perhaps señor had better ride down to the quarters," replied the
overseer.
It was a great sacrifice of dignity, but the master made it.
"Bring him out."
They brought him out--chains on his feet, chains on his wrists, an iron
yoke on his neck. The Spanish Creole master had often seen the bull,
with his long, keen horns and blazing eye, standing in the arena; but
this was as though he had come face to face with a rhinoceros.
"This man is not a Congo," he said.
"He is a Jaloff," replied the encouraged overseer. "See his fine,
straight nose; moreover, he is a _candio_--a prince. If I whip him he
will die."
The dauntless captive and fearless master stood looking into each
other's eyes until each recognized in the other his peer in physical
courage, and each was struck with an admiration for the other which no
after difference was sufficient entirely to destroy. Had Bras-Coupé's
eye quailed but once--just for one little instant--he would have got the
lash; but, as it was--
"Get an interpreter," said Don José; then, more privately, "and come to
an understanding. I shall require it of you."
Where might one find an interpreter--one not merely able to render a
Jaloff's meaning into Creole French, or Spanish, but with such a turn
for diplomatic correspondence as would bring about an "understanding"
with this African buffalo? The overseer was left standing and thinking,
and Clemence, who had not forgotten who threw her into the
draining-ditch, cunningly passed by.
"Ah, Clemence--"
"_Mo pas capabe! Mo pas capabe!_ (I cannot, I cannot!) _Ya, ya, ya! 'oir
Miché Agricol' Fusilier! ouala yune bon monture, oui!_"--which was to
signify that Agricola could interpret the very Papa Lébat.
"Agricola Fusilier! The last man on earth to make peace."
But there seemed to be no choice, and to Agricola the overseer went. It
was but a little ride to the Grandissime place.
"I, Agricola Fusilier, stand as an interpreter to a negro? H-sir!"
"But I thought you might know of some person," said the weakening
applicant, rubbing his ear with his hand.
"Ah!" replied Agricola, addressing the surrounding scenery, "if I did
not--who would? You may take Palmyre."
The overseer softly smote his hands together at the happy thought.
"Yes," said Agricola, "take Palmyre; she has picked up as many negro
dialects as I know European languages."
And she went to the don's plantation as interpreter, followed by
Agricola's prayer to Fate that she might in some way be overtaken by
disaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. He
knew not only her pride, but her passion for the absent Honoré. He hated
her, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stood
with her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was more
offensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chief
object of her silent detestation.
It was Palmyre's habit to do nothing without painstaking. "When
Mademoiselle comes to be Señora," thought she--she knew that her
mistress and the don were affianced--"it will be well to have a Señor's
esteem. I shall endeavor to succeed." It was from this motive, then,
that with the aid of her mistress she attired herself in a resplendence
of scarlet and beads and feathers that could not fail the double purpose
of connecting her with the children of Ethiopia and commanding the
captive's instant admiration.
Alas for those who succeed too well! No sooner did the African turn his
tiger glance upon her than the fire of his eyes died out; and when she
spoke to him in the dear accents of his native tongue, the matter of
strife vanished from his mind. He loved.
He sat down tamely in his irons and listened to Palmyre's argument as a
wrecked mariner would listen to ghostly church-bells. He would give a
short assent, feast his eyes, again assent, and feast his ears; but when
at length she made bold to approach the actual issue, and finally
uttered the loathed word, _Work_, he rose up, six feet five, a statue of
indignation in black marble.
And then Palmyre, too, rose up, glorying in him, and went to explain to
master and overseer. Bras-Coupé understood, she said, that he was a
slave--it was the fortune of war, and he was a warrior; but, according
to a generally recognized principle in African international law, he
could not reasonably be expected to work.
"As Señor will remember I told him," remarked the overseer; "how can a
man expect to plow with a zebra?"
Here he recalled a fact in his earlier experience. An African of this
stripe had been found to answer admirably as a "driver" to make others
work. A second and third parley, extending through two or three days,
were held with the prince, looking to his appointment to the vacant
office of driver; yet what was the master's amazement to learn at length
that his Highness declined the proffered honor.
"Stop!" spoke the overseer again, detecting a look of alarm in Palmyre's
face as she turned away, "he doesn't do any such thing. If Señor will
let me take the man to Agricola--"
"No!" cried Palmyre, with an agonized look, "I will tell. He will take
the place and fill it if you will give me to him for his own--but oh,
messieurs, for the love of God--I do not want to be his wife!"
The overseer looked at the Señor, ready to approve whatever he should
decide. Bras-Coupé's intrepid audacity took the Spaniard's heart by
irresistible assault.
"I leave it entirely with Señor Fusilier," he said.
"But he is not my master; he has no right--"
"Silence!"
And she was silent; and so, sometimes, is fire in the wall.
Agricola's consent was given with malicious promptness, and as
Bras-Coupé's fetters fell off it was decreed that, should he fill his
office efficiently, there should be a wedding on the rear veranda of the
Grandissime mansion simultaneously with the one already appointed to
take place in the grand hall of the same house six months from that
present day. In the meanwhile Palmyre should remain with Mademoiselle,
who had promptly but quietly made up her mind that Palmyre should not be
wed unless she wished to be. Bras-Coupé made no objection, was royally
worthless for a time, but learned fast, mastered the "gumbo" dialect in
a few weeks, and in six months was the most valuable man ever bought for
gourde dollars. Nevertheless, there were but three persons within as
many square miles who were not most vividly afraid of him.
The first was Palmyre. His bearing in her presence was ever one of
solemn, exalted respect, which, whether from pure magnanimity in
himself, or by reason of her magnetic eye, was something worth being
there to see. "It was royal!" said the overseer.
The second was not that official. When Bras-Coupé said--as, at stated
intervals, he did say--"_Mo courri c'ez Agricole Fusilier pou' 'oir
'namourouse_ (I go to Agricola Fusilier to see my betrothed,)" the
overseer would sooner have intercepted a score of painted Chickasaws
than that one lover. He would look after him and shake a prophetic head.
"Trouble coming; better not deceive that fellow;" yet that was the very
thing Palmyre dared do. Her admiration for Bras-Coupé was almost
boundless. She rejoiced in his stature; she revelled in the
contemplation of his untamable spirit; he seemed to her the gigantic
embodiment of her own dark, fierce will, the expanded realization of
her lifetime longing for terrible strength. But the single deficiency
in all this impassioned regard was--what so many fairer loves have found
impossible to explain to so many gentler lovers--an entire absence of
preference; her heart she could not give him--she did not have it. Yet
after her first prayer to the Spaniard and his overseer for deliverance,
to the secret surprise and chagrin of her young mistress, she simulated
content. It was artifice; she knew Agricola's power, and to seem to
consent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into
withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's
promise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment;
and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certain
hard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which she
knew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulée. The word had reached
there that love had conquered--that, despite all hard words, and rancor,
and positive injury, the Grandissime hand--the fairest of Grandissime
hands--was about to be laid into that of one who without much stretch
might be called a De Grapion; that there was, moreover, positive effort
being made to induce a restitution of old gaming-table spoils. Honoré
and Mademoiselle, his sister, one on each side of the Atlantic, were
striving for this end. Don José sent this intelligence to his kinsman as
glad tidings (a lover never imagines there are two sides to that which
makes him happy), and, to add a touch of humor, told how Palmyre, also,
was given to the chieftain. The letter that came back to the young
Spaniard did not blame him so much: _he_ was ignorant of all the facts;
but a very formal one to Agricola begged to notify him that if Palmyre's
union with Bras-Coupé should be completed, as sure as there was a God in
heaven, the writer would have the life of the man who knowingly had thus
endeavored to dishonor one who _shared the blood of the De Grapions_.
Thereupon Agricola, contrary to his general character, began to drop
hints to Don José that the engagement of Bras-Coupé and Palmyre need not
be considered irreversible; but the don was not desirous of
disappointing his terrible pet. Palmyre, unluckily, played her game a
little too deeply. She thought the moment had come for herself to insist
on the match, and thus provoke Agricola to forbid it. To her
incalculable dismay she saw him a second time reconsider and
become silent.
The second person who did not fear Bras-Coupé was Mademoiselle. On one
of the giant's earliest visits to see Palmyre he obeyed the summons
which she brought him, to appear before the lady. A more artificial man
might have objected on the score of dress, his attire being a single
gaudy garment tightly enveloping the waist and thighs. As his eyes fell
upon the beautiful white lady he prostrated himself upon the ground, his
arms outstretched before him. He would not move till she was gone. Then
he arose like a hermit who has seen a vision. "_Bras-Coupé n' pas oulé
oir zombis_ (Bras-Coupé dares not look upon a spirit)." From that hour
he worshipped. He saw her often; every time, after one glance at her
countenance, he would prostrate his gigantic length with his face in
the dust.
The third person who did not fear him was--Agricola? Nay, it was the
Spaniard--a man whose capability to fear anything in nature or beyond
had never been discovered.
Long before the end of his probation Bras-Coupé would have slipped the
entanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels a
spider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a little
affectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day
did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal
swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and
bear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican;
when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of the
other. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drew
nigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The
bride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza,
which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, was
Palmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to the
last, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm of
their having been worn once, and once only, by her beloved Mademoiselle.
[Footnote 3: An over-zealous Franciscan once complained bitterly to the
bishop of Havana, that people were being married in Louisiana in their
own houses after dark and thinking nothing of it. It is not certain that
he had reference to the Grandissime mansion; at any rate he was tittered
down by the whole community.]
But where was Bras-Coupé?
The question was asked of Palmyre by Agricola with a gaze that meant in
English, "No tricks, girl!"
Among the servants who huddled at the windows and door to see the inner
magnificence a frightened whisper was already going round.
"We have made a sad discovery, Miché Fusilier," said the overseer.
"Bras-Coupé is here; we have him in a room just yonder. But--the truth
is, sir, Bras-Coupé is a voudou."
"Well, and suppose he is; what of it? Only hush; do not let his master
know it. It is nothing; all the blacks are voudous, more or less."
"But he declines to dress himself--has painted himself all rings and
stripes, antelope fashion."
"Tell him Agricola Fusilier says, 'dress immediately!'"
"Oh, Miché, we have said that five times already, and his answer--you
will pardon me--his answer is--spitting on the ground--that you are a
contemptible _dotchian_ (white trash)."
There is nothing to do but privily to call the very bride--the lady
herself. She comes forth in all her glory, small, but oh, so beautiful!
Slam! Bras-Coupé is upon his face, his finger-tips touching the tips of
her snowy slippers. She gently bids him go and dress, and at once
he goes.
Ah! now the question may be answered without whispering. There is
Bras-Coupé, towering above all heads, in ridiculous red and blue
regimentals, but with a look of savage dignity upon him that keeps every
one from laughing. The murmur of admiration that passed along the
thronged gallery leaped up into a shout in the bosom of Palmyre. Oh,
Bras-Coupé--heroic soul! She would not falter. She would let the silly
priest say his say--then her cunning should help her _not to be_ his
wife, yet to show his mighty arm how and when to strike.
"He is looking for Palmyre," said some, and at that moment he saw her.
"Ho-o-o-o-o!"
Agricola's best roar was a penny trumpet to Bras-Coupé's note of joy.
The whole masculine half of the indoor company flocked out to see what
the matter was. Bras-Coupé was taking her hand in one of his and laying
his other upon her head; and as some one made an unnecessary gesture for
silence, he sang, beating slow and solemn time with his naked foot and
with the hand that dropped hers to smite his breast:
"'_En haut la montagne, zami,
Mo pé coupé canne, zami,
Pou' fé l'a'zen' zami,
Pou' mo baille Palmyre.
Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre mo c'ere,
Mo l'aimé 'ou'--mo l'aimé 'ou'_.'"
"_Montagne?_" asked one slave of another, "_qui est çà, montagne? gnia
pas quiç 'ose comme çà dans la Louisiana?_ (What's a mountain?" We
haven't such things in Louisiana.)"
"_Mein ye gagnein plein montagnes dans l'Afrique_, listen!"
"'_Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo' piti zozo,'
Mo l'aimé 'ou'--mo l'aimé, l'aimé 'ou'_.'"
"Bravissimo!--" but just then a counter-attraction drew the white
company back into the house. An old French priest with sandalled feet
and a dirty face had arrived. There was a moment of handshaking with the
good father, then a moment of palpitation and holding of the breath, and
then--you would have known it by the turning away of two or three
feminine heads in tears--the lily hand became the don's, to have and to
hold, by authority of the Church and the Spanish king. And all was
merry, save that outside there was coming up as villanous a night as
ever cast black looks in through snug windows.
It was just as the newly-wed Spaniard, with Agricola and all the guests,
were concluding the byplay of marrying the darker couple, that the
hurricane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faint
pretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons,
etc.,--though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse--were beginning to
laugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right and
left, when Bras-Coupé, tardily realizing the consummation of his hopes,
stepped forward to embrace his wife.
"Bras-Coupé!"
The voice was that of Palmyre's mistress. She had not been able to
comprehend her maid's behavior, but now Palmyre had darted upon her an
appealing look.
The warrior stopped as if a javelin had flashed over his head and stuck
in the wall.
"Bras-Coupé must wait till I give him his wife."
He sank, with hidden face, slowly to the floor.
"Bras-Coupé hears the voice of zombis; the voice is sweet, but the words
are very strong; from the same sugar-cane comes _sirop_ and _tafia_;
Bras-Coupé says to zombis, 'Bras-Coupé will wait; but if the _dotchians_
deceive Bras-Coupé--" he rose to his feet with his eyes closed and his
great black fist lifted over his head--"Bras-Coupé will call
Voudou-Magnan!"
The crowd retreated and the storm fell like a burst of infernal
applause. A whiff like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain of
the gallery and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak,
belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground; a peal
of thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, the
great oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awful
blast. Every lip held its breath for a minute--or an hour, no one
knew--there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down.
Have you heard it thunder and rain in those Louisiana lowlands? Every
clap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment; you peer through
the black pane--your house is an island, all the land is sea.
However, the supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guests
were filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement,
below stairs, the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls of
the air upon a rice-field, and Bras-Coupé, throwing his heels about with
the joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in his
life tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time he
tasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it ten
times more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was like
stealing a tiger's kittens.
The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he
presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through the
dark company; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrative
tone, he repeated the petition--splitting the table with his fist by way
of punctuation--there ensued a hustling up staircases and a cramming
into dim corners that left him alone at the banquet.
Leaving the table, he strode upstairs and into the chirruping and
dancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hush
of amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupé strode straight
to his master, laid his paw upon his fellow-bridegroom's shoulder and in
a thunder-tone demanded:
"More!"
The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and--fell, beneath the
terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra.
Dolorous stroke!--for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him--poor,
tipsy savage--in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by a
small fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupé the death
of a felon; such was the old _Code Noir_. (We have a _Code Noir_ now,
but the new one is a mental reservation, not an enactment.)
The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the
instant expectation of insurrection, conflagration and rapine (just as
we do to-day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist and
gets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted in
a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange
signs and passes and rolling out in wrathful words of his mother tongue
what it needed no interpreter to tell his swarming enemies was a voudou
malediction.
"_Nous sommes grigis!_" screamed two or three ladies, "we are
bewitched!"
"Look to your wives and daughters!" shouted a Brahmin-Mandarin.
"Shoot the black devils without mercy!" cried a Mandarin-Fusilier,
unconsciously putting into a single outflash of words the whole Creole
treatment of race troubles.
With a single bound Bras-Coupé reached the drawing-room door; his gaudy
regimentals made a red and blue streak down the hall; there was a rush
of frilled and powdered gentlemen to the rear veranda, an avalanche of
lightning with Bras-Coupé in the midst making for the swamp, and then
all without was blackness of darkness and all within was a wild
commingled chatter of Creole, French, and Spanish tongues,--in the midst
of which the reluctant Agricola returned his dresssword to its scabbard.
While the wet lanterns swung on crazily in the trees along the way by
which the bridegroom was to have borne his bride; while Madame
Grandissime prepared an impromptu bridalchamber; while the Spaniard
bathed his eye and the blue gash on his cheek-bone; while Palmyre paced
her room in a fever and wild tremor of conflicting emotions throughout
the night, and the guests splashed home after the storm as best they
could, Bras-Coupé was practically declaring his independence on a slight
rise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce
above the water in the inmost depths of the swamp.
And amid what surroundings! Endless colonnades of cypresses; long,
motionless drapings of gray moss; broad sheets of noisome waters, pitchy
black, resting on bottomless ooze; cypress knees studding the surface;
patches of floating green, gleaming brilliantly here and there; yonder
where the sunbeams wedge themselves in, constellations of water-lilies,
the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers that no man had named;
here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and the
dull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer
recesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; turtles a century
old; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures
of like vileness; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in
deadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous
dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane,
the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow; a
solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call
or whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventriloquous note of the
rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear but
lifeless bayou.
The pack of Cuban hounds that howl from Don José's kennels cannot snuff
the trail of the stolen canoe that glides through the sombre blue vapors
of the African's fastnesses. His arrows send no telltale reverberations
to the distant clearing. Many a wretch in his native wilderness has
Bras-Coupé himself, in palmier days, driven to just such an existence,
to escape the chains and horrors of the barracoons; therefore not a whit
broods he over man's inhumanity, but, taking the affair as a matter of
course, casts about him for a future.