"CAULDRON BUBBLE"
The excitement and alarm produced by the practical threat of voudou
curses upon Agricola was one thing, Creole lethargy was quite another;
and when, three mornings later, a full quartette of voudou charms was
found in the four corners of Agricola's pillow, the great Grandissime
family were ignorant of how they could have come there. Let us examine
these terrible engines of mischief. In one corner was an acorn drilled
through with two holes at right angles to each other, a small feather
run through each hole; in the second a joint of cornstalk with a cavity
scooped from the middle, the pith left intact at the ends, and the space
filled with parings from that small callous spot near the knee of the
horse, called the "nail;" in the third corner a bunch of parti-colored
feathers; something equally meaningless in the fourth. No thread was
used in any of them. All fastening was done with the gum of trees. It
was no easy task for his kindred to prevent Agricola, beside himself
with rage and fright, from going straight to Palmyre's house and
shooting her down in open day.
"We shall have to watch our house by night," said a gentleman of the
household, when they had at length restored the Citizen to a condition
of mind which enabled them to hold him in a chair.
"Watch this house?" cried a chorus. "You don't suppose she comes near
here, do you? She does it all from a distance. No, no; watch
_her_ house."
Did Agricola believe in the supernatural potency of these gimcracks? No,
and yes. Not to be foolhardy, he quietly slipped down every day to the
levee, had a slave-boy row him across the river in a skiff, landed,
re-embarked, and in the middle of the stream surreptitiously cast a
picayune over his shoulder into the river. Monsieur D'Embarras, the imp
of death thus placated, must have been a sort of spiritual Cheap John.
Several more nights passed. The house of Palmyre, closely watched,
revealed nothing. No one came out, no one went in, no light was seen.
They should have watched in broad daylight. At last, one midnight,
'Polyte Grandissime stepped cautiously up to one of the batten doors
with an auger, and succeeded, without arousing any one, in boring a
hole. He discovered a lighted candle standing in a glass of water.
"Nothing but a bedroom light," said one.
"Ah, bah!" whispered the other; "it is to make the spell work strong."
"We will not tell Agricola first; we had better tell Honoré," said
Sylvestre.
"You forget," said 'Polyte, "that I no longer have any acquaintance with
Monsieur Honoré Grandissime."
They told Agamemnon; and it would have gone hard with the
"_milatraise_" but for the additional fact that suspicion had fastened
upon another person; but now this person in turn had to be identified.
It was decided not to report progress to old Agricola, but to wait and
seek further developments. Agricola, having lost all ability to sleep in
the mansion, moved into a small cottage in a grove near the house. But
the very next morning, he turned cold with horror to find on his
doorstep a small black-coffined doll, with pins run through the heart, a
burned-out candle at the head and another at the feet.
"You know it is Palmyre, do you?" asked Agamemnon, seizing the old man
as he was going at a headlong pace through the garden gate. "What if I
should tell you that by watching the Congo dancing-ground at midnight
to-night, you will see the real author of this mischief--eh?"
"And why to-night?"
"Because the moon rises at midnight."
There was firing that night in the deserted Congo dancing-grounds under
the ruins of Fort St. Joseph, or, as we would say now, in Congo Square,
from three pistols--Agricola's, 'Polyte's, and the weapon of an
ill-defined, retreating figure answering the description of the person
who had stabbed Agricola the preceding February. "And yet," said
'Polyte, "I would have sworn that it was Palmyre doing this work."
Through Raoul these events came to the ear of Frowenfield. It was about
the time that Raoul's fishing party, after a few days' mishaps, had
returned home. Palmyre, on several later dates, had craved further
audiences and shown other letters from the hidden f.m.c. She had heard
them calmly, and steadfastly preserved the one attitude of refusal. But
it could not escape Frowenfeld's notice that she encouraged the sending
of additional letters. He easily guessed the courier to be Clemence; and
now, as he came to ponder these revelations of Raoul, he found that
within twenty-four hours after every visit of Clemence to the house of
Palmyre, Agricola suffered a visitation.