CHAPTER XV.

KYRIE ELEISON.

The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp

burning before the tabernacle in Père Jerome's little church might have

hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.

Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more

completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended

in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,

with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door

which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the

confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and

rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one

entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band

of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence

that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,

would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing

and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.

The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;

then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some

projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house

of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and

re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The

search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would

tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and

belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an

unexceptionable eye-witness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)

Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding

in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's vision

now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of

man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and

feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome

eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots

of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean

Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his

tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one

expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking

female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She

sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the

small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted

face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the

recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,

nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired

priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of

invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to

confession this afternoon."

By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any

glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from

station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly

going the way of the cross. Yet Père Jerome tarried.

"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would

come."

A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a

subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt

noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,

in the voice he had waited to hear:

"_Bénissez-moin, mo' Père, pa'ce que mo péché._" (Bless me, father, for

I have sinned.)

He gave his blessing.

"Ainsi soit-il--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft

accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:

"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to

blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy

Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned

exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my

fault, through my most grievous fault._' I confessed on Saturday, three

weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance

enjoined. Since then"--There she stopped.

There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she

rose up again, and in a moment she said:

"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the

half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She

is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh, Olive, my

own daughter!"

She ceased, and was still. Père Jerome waited, but no sound came. He

looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting

on her arms--motionless.

He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.

"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not move.

He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and

called her by name:

"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there

was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from

his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to

heaven and cried:

"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"

CAFÉ DES EXILÉS.

That which in 1835--I think he said thirty-five--was a reality in the

Rue Burgundy--I think he said Burgundy--is now but a reminiscence. Yet

so vividly was its story told me, that at this moment the old Café des

Exilés appears before my eye, floating in the clouds of revery, and I

doubt not I see it just as it was in the old times.

An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the

banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and

life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view

the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops

over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco,

which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old café was

stripping for the plunge into oblivion--disrobing for its execution. I

see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude

awning of clapboards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her

wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh for the image of the maiden,

were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her

mocking-bird and looking down into the garden,--where, above the barrier

of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of

bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two

orange-trees holding up their bands toward the window, heavy with the

promises of autumn; the broad, crimson mass of the many-stemmed

oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled

apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.

The Café des Exilés, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped

it long ago--or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve,

came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden

burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne

its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter

growth. I believe it would set every tooth on edge should I go by there

now,--now that I have heard the story,--and see the old site covered by

the "Shoo-fly Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call to

view the unpretentious portals of the old café, with her children--for

such those exiles seem to me--dragging their rocking-chairs out, and

sitting in their wonted group under the long, out-reaching eaves which

shaded the banquette of the Rue Burgundy.

It was in 1835 that the Café des Exilés was, as one might say, in full

blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the café,

himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause--at least the human

cause--of its opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded,

emitting a little puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was like the

bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like bees, pushing

into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of tropical sirups, its

lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, its barley-waters, and its

outlandish wines, while they talked of dear home--that is to say, of

Barbadoes, of Martinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba.

There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and Francisco, and Benito.

Benito was a tall, swarthy man, with immense gray moustachios, and hair

as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his

cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous voice, and

with a wrinkled smile that he was "a-t-thorty-seveng."

There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, always sitting

with one leg curled under him and holding the back of his head in his

knitted fingers against the back of his rocking-chair. Father, mother,

brother, sisters, all, had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and

'22; he alone was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that

strange, infantile insensibility to the solemnity of his bereavement so

peculiar to Latin people.

But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in

particular, around whom all the story of the Café des Exilés, of old M.

D'Hemecourt and of Pauline, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel

Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and bright as those of

a mouse, whose light talk became his dark girlish face, and whose

redundant locks curled so prettily and so wonderfully black under the

fine white brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, save

that the nails were stained with the smoke of cigarettes. He could play

the guitar delightfully, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar.

The second was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in

his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt

peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning

lightly against the door-post of the Café des Exilés as a child leans

against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant

limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the

fifth rib with a good old Irish joke.

Old D'Hemecourt drew him close to his bosom. The Spanish Creoles were,

as the old man termed it, both cold and hot, but never warm. Major

Shaughnessy was warm, and it was no uncommon thing to find those two

apart from the others, talking in an undertone, and playing at

confidantes like two schoolgirls. The kind old man was at this time

drifting close up to his sixtieth year. There was much he could tell of

San Domingo, whither he had been carried from Martinique in his

childhood, whence he had become a refugee to Cuba, and thence to New

Orleans in the flight of 1809.

It fell one day to Manuel Mazaro's lot to discover, by sauntering within

earshot, that to Galahad Shaughnessy only, of all the children of the

Café des Exilés, the good host spoke long and confidentially concerning

his daughter. The words, half heard and magnified like objects seem in a

fog, meaning Manuel Mazaro knew not what, but made portentous by his

suspicious nature, were but the old man's recital of the grinding he had

got between the millstones of his poverty and his pride, in trying so

long to sustain, for little Pauline's sake, that attitude before society

which earns respect from a surface-viewing world. It was while he was

telling this that Manuel Mazaro drew near; the old man paused in an

embarrassed way; the Major, sitting sidewise in his chair, lifted his

cheek from its resting-place on his elbow; and Mazaro, after standing an

awkward moment, turned away with such an inward feeling as one may guess

would arise in a heart full of Cuban blood, not unmixed with Indian.

As he moved off, M. D'Hemecourt resumed: that in a last extremity he had

opened, partly from dire want, partly for very love to homeless souls,

the Café des Exilés. He had hoped that, as strong drink and high words

were to be alike unknown to it, it might not prejudice sensible people;

but it had. He had no doubt they said among themselves, "She is an

excellent and beautiful girl and deserving all respect;" and respect

they accorded, but their _respects_ they never came to pay.

"A café is a café," said the old gentleman. "It is nod possib' to ezcape

him, aldough de Café des Exilés is differen from de rez."

"It's different from the Café des Réfugiés," suggested the Irishman.

"Differen' as possib'," replied M. D'Hemecourt He looked about upon the

walls. The shelves were luscious with ranks of cooling sirups which he

alone knew how to make. The expression of his face changed from sadness

to a gentle pride, which spoke without words, saying--and let our story

pause a moment to hear it say:

"If any poor exile, from any island where guavas or mangoes or plantains

grow, wants a draught which will make him see his home among the

cocoa-palms, behold the Café des Exilés ready to take the poor child up

and give him the breast! And if gold or silver he has them not, why

Heaven and Santa Maria, and Saint Christopher bless him! It makes no

difference. Here is a rocking-chair, here a cigarette, and here a light

from the host's own tinder. He will pay when he can."

As this easily pardoned pride said, so it often occurred; and if the

newly come exile said his father was a Spaniard--"Come!" old M.

D'Hemecourt would cry; "another glass; it is an innocent drink; my

mother was a Castilian." But, if the exile said his mother was a

Frenchwoman, the glasses would be forthcoming all the same, for "My

father," the old man would say, "was a Frenchman of Martinique, with

blood as pure as that wine and a heart as sweet as this honey; come, a

glass of orgeat;" and he would bring it himself in a quart tumbler.

Now, there are jealousies and jealousies. There are people who rise up

quickly and kill, and there are others who turn their hot thoughts over

silently in their minds as a brooding bird turns her eggs in the nest.

Thus did Manuel Mazaro, and took it ill that Galahad should see a vision

in the temple while he and all the brethren tarried without. Pauline had

been to the Café des Exilés in some degree what the image of the Virgin

was to their churches at home; and for her father to whisper her name to

one and not to another was, it seemed to Mazaro, as if the old man, were

he a sacristan, should say to some single worshiper, "Here, you may have

this madonna; I make it a present to you." Or, if such was not the

handsome young Cuban's feeling, such, at least, was the disguise his

jealousy put on. If Pauline was to be handed down from her niche, why,

then, farewell Café des Exilés. She was its preserving influence, she

made the place holy; she was the burning candles on the altar. Surely

the reader will pardon the pen that lingers in the mention of her.

And yet I know not how to describe the forbearing, unspoken tenderness

with which all these exiles regarded the maiden. In the balmy

afternoons, as I have said, they gathered about their mother's knee,

that is to say, upon the banquette outside the door. There, lolling back

in their rocking-chairs, they would pass the evening hours with

oft-repeated tales of home; and the moon would come out and glide among

the clouds like a silver barge among islands wrapped in mist, and they

loved the silently gliding orb with a sort of worship, because from her

soaring height she looked down at the same moment upon them and upon

their homes in the far Antilles. It was somewhat thus that they looked

upon Pauline as she seemed to them held up half way to heaven, they knew

not how. Ah, those who have been pilgrims; who have wandered out beyond

harbor and light; whom fate hath led in lonely paths strewn with thorns

and briers not of their own sowing; who, homeless in a land of homes,

see windows gleaming and doors ajar, but not for them,--it is they who

well understand what the worship is that cries to any daughter of our

dear mother Eve whose footsteps chance may draw across the path, the

silent, beseeching cry, "Stay a little instant that I may look upon you.

Oh, woman, beautifier of the earth! Stay till I recall the face of my

sister; stay yet a moment while I look from afar, with helpless-hanging

hands, upon the softness of thy cheek, upon the folded coils of thy

shining hair; and my spirit shall fall down and say those prayers which

I may never again--God knoweth--say at home."

She was seldom seen; but sometimes, when the lounging exiles would be

sitting in their afternoon circle under the eaves, and some old man

would tell his tale of fire and blood and capture and escape, and the

heads would lean forward from the chair-backs and a great stillness

would follow the ending of the story, old M. D'Hemecourt would all at

once speak up and say, laying his hands upon the narrator's knee,

"Comrade, your throat is dry, here are fresh limes; let my dear child

herself come and mix you a lemonade." Then the neighbors over the way,

sitting about their doors, would by and by softly say, "See, see! there

is Pauline!" and all the exiles would rise from their rocking-chairs,

take off their hats and stand as men stand in church, while Pauline came

out like the moon from a cloud, descended the three steps of the café

door, and stood with waiter and glass, a new Rebecca with her pitcher,

before the swarthy wanderer.

What tales that would have been tear-compelling, nay, heart-rending, had

they not been palpable inventions, the pretty, womanish Mazaro from time

to time poured forth, in the ever ungratified hope that the goddess

might come down with a draught of nectar for him, it profiteth not to

recount; but I should fail to show a family feature of the Café des

Exilés did I omit to say that these make-believe adventures were heard

with every mark of respect and credence; while, on the other hand, they

were never attempted in the presence of the Irishman. He would have

moved an eyebrow, or made some barely audible sound, or dropped some

seemingly innocent word, and the whole company, spite of themselves,

would have smiled. Wherefore, it may be doubted whether at any time the

curly-haired young Cuban had that playful affection for his Celtic

comrade, which a habit of giving little velvet taps to Galahad's cheek

made a show of.

Such was the Café des Exilés, such its inmates, such its guests, when

certain apparently trivial events began to fall around it as germs of

blight fall upon corn, and to bring about that end which cometh to all

things.

The little seed of jealousy, dropped into the heart of Manuel Mazaro, we

have already taken into account.

Galahad Shaughnessy began to be specially active in organizing a society

of Spanish Americans, the design of which, as set forth in its

manuscript constitution, was to provide proper funeral honors to such of

their membership as might be overtaken by death; and, whenever it was

practicable, to send their ashes to their native land. Next to Galahad

in this movement was an elegant old Mexican physician, Dr.--,--his name

escapes me--whom the Café des Exilés sometimes took upon her lap--that

is to say door-step--but whose favorite resort was the old Café des

Réfugiés in the Rue Royale (Royal Street, as it was beginning to be

called). Manuel Mazaro was made secretary.

It was for some reason thought judicious for the society to hold its

meetings in various places, now here, now there; but the most frequent

rendezvous was the Café des Exilés; it was quiet; those Spanish Creoles,

however they may afterward cackle, like to lay their plans noiselessly,

like a hen in a barn. There was a very general confidence in this old

institution, a kind of inward assurance that "mother wouldn't tell;"

though, after all, what great secrets could there be connected with a

mere burial society?

Before the hour of meeting, the Café des Exilés always sent away her

children and closed her door. Presently they would commence returning,

one by one, as a flock of wild fowl will do, that has been startled up

from its accustomed haunt. Frequenters of the Café des Réfugiés also

would appear. A small gate in the close garden-fence let them into a

room behind the café proper, and by and by the apartment would be full

of dark-visaged men conversing in the low, courteous tone common to

their race. The shutters of doors and windows were closed and the chinks

stopped with cotton; some people are so jealous of observation.

On a certain night after one of these meetings had dispersed in its

peculiar way, the members retiring two by two at intervals, Manuel

Mazaro and M. D'Hemecourt were left alone, sitting close together in the

dimly lighted room, the former speaking, the other, with no pleasant

countenance, attending. It seemed to the young Cuban a proper

precaution--he was made of precautions--to speak in English. His voice

was barely audible.

"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, she t-theeng I want-n to marry hore.' Senor,

you shouth 'ave see' him laugh!"

M. D'Hemecourt lifted up his head, and laid his hand upon the young

man's arm.

"Manuel Mazaro," he began, "iv dad w'ad you say is nod"--

The Cuban interrupted.

"If is no' t-thrue you will keel Manuel Mazaro?--a' r-r-right-a!"

"No," said the tender old man, "no, bud h-I am positeef dad de Madjor

will shood you."

Mazaro nodded, and lifted one finger for attention.

"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, you goin' tell-a Senor D'Hemecourt, I fin'-a

you some nigh' an' cut-a you' heart ou'. An' I sayce to heem-a, 'Boat-a

if Senor D'Hemecourt he fin'-in' ou' frone Pauline'"--

"_Silence!_" fiercely cried the old man. "My God! 'Sieur Mazaro, neider

you, neider somebody helse s'all h'use de nem of me daughter. It is nod

possib' dad you s'all spick him! I cannot pearmid thad."

While the old man was speaking these vehement words, the Cuban was

emphatically nodding approval.

"Co-rect-a, co-rect-a, Senor," he replied. "Senor, you' r-r-right-a;

escuse-a me, Senor, escuse-a me. Senor D'Hemecourt, Mayor Shanghness',

when he talkin' wi' me he usin' hore-a name o the t-thime-a!"

"My fren'," said M. D'Hemecourt, rising and speaking with labored

control, "I muz tell you good nighd. You 'ave sooprise me a verry gred

deal. I s'all _in_vestigade doze ting; an', Manuel Mazaro, h-I am a hole

man; bud I will requez you, iv dad wad you say is nod de true, my God!

not to h-ever ritturn again ad de Café des Exilés."

Mazaro smiled and nodded. His host opened the door into the garden, and,

as the young man stepped out, noticed even then how handsome was his

face and figure, and how the odor of the night jasmine was filling the

air with an almost insupportable sweetness. The Cuban paused a moment,

as if to speak, but checked himself, lifted his girlish face, and looked

up to where the daggers of the palmetto-tree were crossed upon the face

of the moon, dropped his glance, touched his Panama, and silently

followed by the bare-headed old man, drew open the little garden-gate,

looked cautiously out, said good-night, and stepped into the street.

As M. D'Hemecourt returned to the door through which he had come, he

uttered an ejaculation of astonishment. Pauline stood before him. She

spoke hurriedly in French.

"Papa, papa, it is not true."

"No, my child," he responded, "I am sure it is not true: I am sure it is

all false; but why do I find you out of bed so late, little bird? The

night is nearly gone."

He laid his hand upon her cheek.

"Ah, papa, I cannot deceive you. I thought Manuel would tell you

something of this kind, and I listened."

The father's face immediately betrayed a new and deeper distress.

"Pauline, my child," he said with tremulous voice, "if Manuel's story is

all false, in the name of Heaven how could you think he was going to

tell it?"

He unconsciously clasped his hands. The good child had one trait which

she could not have inherited from her father; she was quick-witted and

discerning; yet now she stood confounded.

"Speak, my child," cried the alarmed old man; "speak! let me live, and

not die."

"Oh, papa," she cried, "I do not know!"

The old man groaned.

"Papa, papa," she cried again, "I felt it; I know not how; something

told me."

"Alas!" exclaimed the old man, "if it was your conscience!"

"No, no, no, papa," cried Pauline, "but I was afraid of Manuel Mazaro,

and I think he hates him--and I think he will hurt him in any way he

can--and I _know_ he will even try to kill him. Oh! my God!"

She struck her hands together above her head, and burst into a flood of

tears. Her father looked upon her with such sad sternness as his tender

nature was capable of. He laid hold of one of her arms to draw a hand

from the face whither both hands had gone.

"You know something else," he said; "you know that the Major loves you,

or you think so: is it not true?"

She dropped both hands, and, lifting her streaming eyes that had nothing

to hide straight to his, suddenly said:

"I would give worlds to think so!" and sunk upon the floor.

He was melted and convinced in one instant.

"Oh, my child, my child," he cried, trying to lift her. "Oh, my poor

little Pauline, your papa is not angry. Rise, my little one; so; kiss

me; Heaven bless thee. Pauline, treasure, what shall I do with thee?

Where shall I hide thee?"

"You have my counsel already, papa."

"Yes, my child, and you were right. The Café des Exilés never should

have been opened. It is no place for you; no place at all."

"Let us leave it," said Pauline.

"Ah! Pauline, I would close it to-morrow if I could, but now it is too

late; I cannot."

"Why?" asked Pauline, pleadingly.

She had cast an arm about his neck. Her tears sparkled with a smile.

"My daughter, I cannot tell you; you must go now to bed; good-night--or

good-morning; God keep you!"

"Well, then, papa," she said, "have no fear; you need not hide me; I

have my prayer-book, and my altar, and my garden, and my window; my

garden is my fenced city, and my window my watch-tower; do you see?"

"Ah! Pauline," responded the father, "but I have been letting the enemy

in and out at pleasure."

"Good-night," she answered, and kissed him three times on either cheek;

"the blessed Virgin will take care of us; good-night; _he_ never said

those things; not he; good-night."

The next evening Galahad Shaughnessy and Manuel Mazaro met at that "very

different" place, the Café des Réfugiés. There was much free talk going

on about Texan annexation, about chances of war with Mexico, about San

Domingan affairs, about Cuba and many et-ceteras. Galahad was in his

usual gay mood. He strode about among a mixed company of Louisianais,

Cubans, and Américains, keeping them in a great laugh with his account

of one of Ole Bull's concerts, and how he had there extorted an

invitation from M. and Mme. Devoti to attend one of their famous

children's fancy dress balls.

"Halloo!" said he as Mazaro approached, "heer's the etheerial Angelica

herself. Look-ut heer, sissy, why ar'n't ye in the maternal arms of the

Café des Exilés?"

Mazaro smiled amiably and sat down. A moment after, the Irishman,

stepping away from his companions, stood before the young Cuban, and

asked with a quiet business air:

"D'ye want to see me, Mazaro?"

The Cuban nodded, and they went aside. Mazaro, in a few quick words,

looking at his pretty foot the while, told the other on no account to go

near the Café des Exilés, as there were two men hanging about there,

evidently watching for him, and--

"Wut's the use o' that?" asked Galahad; "I say, wut's the use o' that?"

Major Shaughnessy's habit of repeating part of his words arose from

another, of interrupting any person who might be speaking.

"They must know--I say they must know that whenever I'm nowhurs else I'm

heer. What do they want?"

Mazaro made a gesture, signifying caution and secrecy, and smiled, as if

to say, "You ought to know."

"Aha!" said the Irishman softly. "Why don't they come here?"

"Z-afrai'," said Mazaro; "d'they frai' to do an'teen een d-these-a

crowth."

"That's so," said the Irishman; "I say, that's so. If I don't feel very

much like go-un, I'll not go; I say, I'll not go. We've no business

to-night, eh Mazaro?"

"No, Senor."

A second evening was much the same, Mazaro repeating his warning. But

when, on the third evening, the Irishman again repeated his willingness

to stay away from the Café des Exilés unless he should feel strongly

impelled to go, it was with the mental reservation that he did feel very

much in that humor, and, unknown to Mazaro, should thither repair, if

only to see whether some of those deep old fellows were not contriving a

practical joke.

"Mazaro," said he, "I'm go-un around the caurnur a bit; I want ye to

wait heer till I come back. I say I want ye to wait heer till I come

back; I'll be gone about three-quarters of an hour."

Mazaro assented. He saw with satisfaction the Irishman start in a

direction opposite that in which lay the Café des Exilés, tarried

fifteen or twenty minutes, and then, thinking he could step around to

the Café des Exilés and return before the expiration of the allotted

time, hurried out.

Meanwhile that peaceful habitation sat in the moonlight with her

children about her feet. The company outside the door was somewhat

thinner than common. M. D'Hemecourt was not among them, but was sitting

in the room behind the café. The long table which the burial society

used at their meetings extended across the apartment, and a lamp had

been placed upon it. M. D'Hemecourt sat by the lamp. Opposite him was a

chair, which seemed awaiting an expected occupant. Beside the old man

sat Pauline. They were talking in cautious undertones, and in French.

"No," she seemed to insist; "we do not know that he refuses to come. We

only know that Manuel says so."

The father shook his head sadly. "When has he ever staid away three

nights together before?" he asked. "No, my child; it is intentional.

Manuel urges him to come, but he only sends poor excuses."

"But," said the girl, shading her face from the lamp and speaking with

some suddenness, "why have you not sent word to him by some other

person?"

M. D'Hemecourt looked up at his daughter a moment, and then smiled at

his own simplicity.

"Ah!" he said. "Certainly; and that is what I will--run away, Pauline.

There is Manuel, now, ahead of time!"

A step was heard inside the café. The maiden, though she knew the step

was not Mazaro's, rose hastily, opened the nearest door, and

disappeared. She had barely closed it behind her when Galahad

Shaughnessy entered the apartment.

M'Hemecourt rose up, both surprised and confused.

"Good-evening, Munsher D'Himecourt," said the Irishman. "Munsher

D'Himecourt, I know it's against rules--I say, I know it's against rules

to come in here, but"--smiling,--"I want to have a private wurd with ye.

I say, I want to have a private wurd with ye."

In the closet of bottles the maiden smiled triumphantly. She also wiped

the dew from her forehead, for the place was very close and warm.

With her father was no triumph. In him sadness and doubt were so mingled

with anger that he dared not lift his eyes, but gazed at the knot in the

wood of the table, which looked like a caterpillar curled up.

Mazaro, he concluded, had really asked the Major to come.

"Mazaro tol' you?" he asked.

"Yes," answered the Irishman. "Mazaro told me I was watched, and

asked"--

"Madjor," unluckily interrupted the old man, suddenly looking up and

speaking with subdued fervor, "for w'y--iv Mazaro tol' you--for w'y you

din come more sooner? Dad is one 'eavy charge again' you."

"Didn't Mazaro tell ye why I didn't come?" asked the other, beginning to

be puzzled at his host's meaning.

"Yez," replied M. D'Hemecourt, "bud one brev zhenteman should not be

afraid of"--

The young man stopped him with a quiet laugh, "Munsher D'Himecourt,"

said he, "I'm nor afraid of any two men living--I say I'm nor afraid of

any two men living, and certainly not of the two that's bean a-watchin'

me lately, if they're the two I think they are."

M. D'Hemecourt flushed in a way quite incomprehensible to the speaker,

who nevertheless continued:

"It was the charges," he said, with some slyness in his smile. "They

_are_ heavy, as ye say, and that's the very reason--I say that's the

very reason why I staid away, ye see, eh? I say that's the very reason I

staid away."

Then, indeed, there was a dew for the maiden to wipe from her brow,

unconscious that every word that was being said bore a different

significance in the mind of each of the three. The old man was agitated.

"Bud, sir," he began, shaking his head and lifting his hand.

"Bless yer soul, Munsher D'Himecourt," interrupted the Irishman. "Wut's

the use o' grapplin' two cut-throats, when"--

"Madjor Shaughnessy!" cried M. D'Hemecourt, losing all self-control.

"H-I am nod a cud-troad, Madjor Shaughnessy, h-an I 'ave a r-r-righd to

wadge you."

The Major rose from his chair.

"What d'ye mean?" he asked vacantly, and then: "Look-ut here, Munsher

D'Himecourt, one of uz is crazy. I say one"--

"No, sar-r-r!" cried the other, rising and clenching his trembling fist.

"H-I am not crezzy. I 'ave de righd to wadge dad man wad mague rimark

aboud me dotter."

"I never did no such a thing."

"You did."

"I never did no such a thing."

"Bud you 'ave jus hacknowledge'--"

"I never did no such a _thing_, I tell ye, and the man that's told ye so

is a liur!"

"Ah-h-h-h!" said the old man, wagging his finger "Ah-h-h-h! You call

Manuel Mazaro one liar?"

The Irishman laughed out.

"Well, I should say so!"

He motioned the old man into his chair, and both sat down again.

"Why, Munsher D'Himecourt, Mazaro's been keepin' me away from heer with

a yarn about two Spaniards watchin' for me. That's what I came in to ask

ye about. My dear sur, do ye s'pose I wud talk about the goddess--I

mean, yer daughter--to the likes o' Mazaro--I say to the likes o'

Mazaro?"

To say the old man was at sea would be too feeble an expression--he was

in the trough of the sea, with a hurricane of doubts and fears whirling

around him. Somebody had told a lie, and he, having struck upon its

sunken surface, was dazed and stunned. He opened his lips to say he knew

not what, when his ear caught the voice of Manuel Mazaro, replying to

the greeting of some of his comrades outside the front door.

"He is comin'!" cried the old man. "Mague you'sev hide, Madjor; do not

led 'im kedge you, Mon Dieu!"

The Irishman smiled.

"The little yellow wretch!" said he quietly, his blue eyes dancing. "I'm

goin' to catch _him_."

A certain hidden hearer instantly made up her mind to rush out between

the two young men and be a heroine.

"_Non, non!_" exclaimed M. D'Hemecourt excitedly. "Nod in de Café des

Exilés--nod now, Madjor. Go in dad door, hif you pliz, Madjor. You will

heer 'im w'at he 'ave to say. Mague you'sev de troub'. Nod dad door--diz

one."

The Major laughed again and started toward the door indicated, but in an

instant stopped.

"I can't go in theyre," he said. "That's yer daughter's room."

"_Oui, oui, mais!_" cried the other softly, but Mazaro's step was near.

"I'll just slip in heer," and the amused Shaughnessy tripped lightly to

the closet door, drew it open in spite of a momentary resistance from

within which he had no time to notice, stepped into a small recess full

of shelves and bottles, shut the door, and stood face to face--the broad

moonlight shining upon her through a small, high-grated opening on one

side--with Pauline. At the same instant the voice of the young Cuban

sounded in the room.

Pauline was in a great tremor. She made as if she would have opened the

door and fled, but the Irishman gave a gesture of earnest protest and

re-assurance. The re-opened door might make the back parlor of the Café

des Exilés a scene of blood. Thinking of this, what could she do? She

staid.

"You goth a heap-a thro-vle, Senor," said Manuel Mazaro, taking the seat

so lately vacated. He had patted M. D'Hemecourt tenderly on the back and

the old gentleman had flinched; hence the remark, to which there was no

reply.

"Was a bee crowth a' the _Café the Réfugiés_," continued the young man.

"Bud, w'ere dad Madjor Shaughnessy?" demanded M. D'Hemecourt, with the

little sternness he could command.

"Mayor Shaughness'--yez-a; was there; boat-a," with a disparaging smile

and shake of the head, "_he_ woon-a come-a to you. Senor, oh' no."

The old man smiled bitterly.

"_Non?_" he asked.

"Oh, no, Senor!" Mazaro drew his chair closer. "Senor;" he paused,--"eez

a-vary bath-a fore-a you thaughter, eh?"

"W'at?" asked the host, snapping like a tormented dog.

"D-theze talkin' 'bou'," answered the young man; "d-theze coffee-howces

noth a goo' plaze-a fore hore, eh?"

The Irishman and the maiden looked into each other's eyes an instant, as

people will do when listening; but Pauline's immediately fell, and when

Mazaro's words were understood, her blushes became visible even by

moonlight.

"He's r-right!" emphatically whispered Galahad.

She attempted to draw back a step, but found herself against the

shelves. M. D'Hemecourt had not answered. Mazaro spoke again.

"Boat-a you canno' help-a, eh? I know, 'out-a she gettin' marry, eh?"

Pauline trembled. Her father summoned all his force and rose as if to

ask his questioner to leave him; but the handsome Cuban motioned him

down with a gesture that seemed to beg for only a moment more.

"Senor, if a-was one man whath lo-va you' thaughter, all is possiblee to

lo-va."

Pauline, nervously braiding some bits of wire which she had

unconsciously taken from a shelf, glanced up--against her will,--into

the eyes of Galahad. They were looking so steadily down upon her that

with a great leap of the heart for joy she closed her own and half

turned away. But Mazaro had not ceased.

"All is possiblee to lo-va, Senor, you shouth-a let marry hore an' tak'n

'way frone d'these plaze, Senor."

"Manuel Mazaro," said M. D'Hemecourt, again rising, "you 'ave say

enough."

"No, no, Senor; no, no; I want tell-a you--is a-one man--_whath lo-va_

you' thaughter; an' I _knowce_ him!"

Was there no cause for quarrel, after all? Could it be that Mazaro was

about to speak for Galahad? The old man asked in his simplicity:

"Madjor Shaughnessy?"

Mazaro smiled mockingly.

"Mayor Shaughness'," he said; "oh, no; not Mayor Shaughness'!"

Pauline could stay no longer; escape she must, though it be in Manuel

Mazaro's very face. Turning again and looking up into Galahad's face in

a great fright, she opened her lips to speak, but--

"Mayor Shaughness'," continued the Cuban; "_he_ nev'r-a lo-va you'

thaughter."

Galahad was putting the maiden back from the door with his hand.

"Pauline," he said, "it's a lie!"

"An', Senor," pursued the Cuban, "if a was possiblee you' thaughter to

lo-va heem, a-wouth-a be worse-a kine in worlt; but, Senor, _I_"--

M. D'Hemecourt made a majestic sign for silence. He had resumed his

chair, but be rose up once more, took the Cuban's hat from the table and

tendered it to him.

"Manuel Mazaro, you 'ave"--

"Senor, I goin' tell you"--

"Manuel Mazaro, you"--

"Boat-a Senor"--

"Bud, Manuel Maz"--

"Senor, escuse-a me"--

"Huzh!" cried the old man. "Manuel Mazaro, you ave deceive' me! You 'ave

_mocque_ me, Manu"--

"Senor," cried Mazaro, "I swear-a to you that all-a what I sayin'

ees-a"--

He stopped aghast. Galahad and Pauline stood before him.

"Is what?" asked the blue-eyed man, with a look of quiet delight on his

face, such as Mazaro instantly remembered to have seen on it one night

when Galahad was being shot at in the Sucking Calf Restaurant in St.

Peter Street.

The table was between them, but Mazaro's hand went upward toward the

back of his coat-collar.

"Ah, ah!" cried the Irishman, shaking his head with a broader smile and

thrusting his hand threateningly into his breast; "don't ye do that!

just finish yer speech."

"Was-a notthin'," said the Cuban, trying to smile back.

"Yer a liur," said Galahad.

"No," said Mazaro, still endeavoring to smile through his agony; "z-was

on'y tellin' Senor D'Hemecourt someteen z-was t-thrue."

"And I tell ye," said Galahad, "ye'r a liur, and to be so kind an' get

yersel' to the front stoop, as I'm desiruz o' kickin' ye before the

crowd."

"Madjor!" cried D'Hemecourt--

"Go," said Galahad, advancing a step toward the Cuban.

Had Manuel Mazaro wished to personate the prince of darkness, his

beautiful face had the correct expression for it. He slowly turned,

opened the door into the café, sent one glowering look behind, and

disappeared.

Pauline laid her hand upon her lover's arm.

"Madjor," began her father.

"Oh, Madjor and Madjor," said the Irishman; "Munsher D'Hemecourt, just

say 'Madjor, heer's a gude wife fur ye,' and I'll let the little serpent

go."

Thereupon, sure enough, both M. D'Hemecourt and his daughter, rushing

together, did what I have been hoping all along, for the reader's sake,

they would have dispensed with; they burst into tears; whereupon the

Major, with his Irish appreciation of the ludicrous, turned away to hide

his smirk and began good-humoredly to scratch himself first on the

temple and then on the thigh.

Mazaro passed silently through the group about the door-steps, and not

many minutes afterward, Galahad Shaughnessy, having taken a place among

the exiles, rose with the remark that the old gentleman would doubtless

be willing to tell them good-night. Good-night was accordingly said, the

Café des Exilés closed her windows, then her doors, winked a moment or

two through the cracks in the shutters and then went fast asleep.

The Mexican physician, at Galahad's request, told Mazaro that at the

next meeting of the burial society he might and must occupy his

accustomed seat without fear of molestation; and he did so.

The meeting took place some seven days after the affair in the back

parlor, and on the same ground. Business being finished, Galahad, who

presided, stood up, looking, in his white duck suit among his

darkly-clad companions, like a white sheep among black ones, and begged

leave to order "dlasses" from the front room. I say among black sheep;

yet, I suppose, than that double row of languid, effeminate faces, one

would have been taxed to find a more harmless-looking company. The

glasses were brought and filled.

"Gentlemen," said Galahad, "comrades, this may be the last time we ever

meet together an unbroken body."

Martinez of San Domingo, he of the horrible experience, nodded with a

lurking smile, curled a leg under him and clasped his fingers behind his

head.

"Who knows," continued the speaker, "but Senor Benito, though strong and

sound and har'ly thirty-seven"--here all smiled--"may be taken ill

tomorrow?"

Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad's left, and

he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth

between his moustachios like distant reefs.

"Who knows," the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, "I say, who knows

but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?"

Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an

eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.

"Who knows?" resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had

explained in Spanish to those who did not, "but they may soon need the

services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that

Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to

see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their

beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands

of their people. I say, who knows bur it may be so!"

The company bowed graciously as who should say, "Well-turned phrases,

Senor--well-turned."

"And _amigos_, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will

say:"

He lifted his glass, and the rest did the same.

"I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun

voyadge an' good luck to ye's."

For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured

acknowledgments; Mazaro said: "_Bueno!_" and all around among the long

double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some

white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the grass.

"And now, gentlemen," Galahad recommenced, "fellow-exiles, once more.

Munsher D'Himecourt, it was yer practice, until lately, to reward a good

talker with a dlass from the hands o' yer daughter." (_Si, si!_) "I'm

bur a poor speaker." (_Si, si, Senor, z-a-fine-a kin'-a can be; si!_)

"However, I'll ask ye, not knowun bur it may be the last time we all

meet together, if ye will not let the goddess of the Café des Exilés

grace our company with her presence for just about one minute?" (_Yez-a,

Senor; si; yez-a; oui._)

Every head was turned toward the old man, nodding the echoed request.

"Ye see, friends," said Galahad in a true Irish whisper, as M.

D'Hemecourt left the apartment, "her poseetion has been a-growin' more

and more embarrassin' daily, and the operaytions of our society were

likely to make it wurse in the future; wherefore I have lately taken

steps--I say I tuke steps this morn to relieve the old gentleman's

distresses and his daughter's"--

He paused. M. D'Hemecourt entered with Pauline, and the exiles all rose

up. Ah!--but why say again she was lovely?

Galahad stepped forward to meet her, took her hand, led her to the head

of the board, and turning to the company, said:

"Friends and fellow-patriots, Misthress Shaughnessy."

There was no outburst of astonishment--only the same old bowing,

smiling, and murmuring of compliment. Galahad turned with a puzzled look

to M. D'Hemecourt, and guessed the truth. In the joy of an old man's

heart he had already that afternoon told the truth to each and every man

separately, as a secret too deep for them to reveal, but too sweet for

him to keep. The Major and Pauline were man and wife.

The last laugh that was ever heard in the Café des Exilés sounded softly

through the room.

"Lads," said the Irishman. "Fill yer dlasses. Here's to the Café des

Exilés, God bless her!"

And the meeting slowly adjourned.

Two days later, signs and rumors of sickness began to find place about

the Café des Réfugiés, and the Mexican physician made three calls in one

day. It was said by the people around that the tall Cuban gentleman

named Benito was very sick in one of the back rooms. A similar frequency

of the same physician's calls was noticed about the Café des Exilés.

"The man with one eyebrow," said the neighbors, "is sick. Pauline left

the house yesterday to make room for him."

"Ah! is it possible?"

"Yes, it is really true; she and her husband. She took her mocking-bird

with her; he carried it; he came back alone."

On the next afternoon the children about the Café des Réfugiés enjoyed

the spectacle of the invalid Cuban moved on a trestle to the Café des

Exilés, although he did not look so deathly sick as they could have

liked to see him, and on the fourth morning the doors of the Café des

Exilés remained closed. A black-bordered funeral notice, veiled with

crape, announced that the great Caller-home of exiles had served his

summons upon Don Pedro Hernandez (surname borrowed for the occasion),

and Don Carlos Mendez y Benito.

The hour for the funeral was fixed at four P.M. It never took place.

Down at the Picayune Tier on the river bank there was, about two o'clock

that same day, a slight commotion, and those who stood aimlessly about a

small, neat schooner, said she was "seized." At four there suddenly

appeared before the Café des Exilés a squad of men with silver crescents

on their breasts--police officers. The old cottage sat silent with

closed doors, the crape hanging heavily over the funeral notice like a

widow's veil, the little unseen garden sending up odors from its hidden

censers, and the old weeping-willow bending over all.

"Nobody here?" asks the leader.

The crowd which has gathered stares without answering.

As quietly and peaceably as possible the officers pry open the door.

They enter, and the crowd pushes in after. There are the two coffins,

looking very heavy and solid, lying in state but unguarded.

The crowd draws a breath of astonishment. "Are they going to wrench the

tops off with hatchet and chisel?"

Bap, rap, rap; wrench, rap, wrench. Ah! the cases come open.

"Well kept?" asks the leader flippantly.

"Oh, yes," is the reply. And then all laugh.

One of the lookers-on pushes up and gets a glimpse within.

"What is it?" ask the other idlers.

He tells one quietly.

"What did he say?" ask the rest, one of another.

"He says they are not dead men, but new muskets"--

"Here, clear out!" cries an officer, and the loiterers fall back and by

and by straggle off.

The exiles? What became of them, do you ask? Why, nothing; they were not

troubled, but they never all came together again. Said a chief-of-police

to Major Shaughnessy years afterward:

"Major, there was only one thing that kept your expedition from

succeeding--you were too sly about it. Had you come out flat and said

what you were doing, we'd never a-said a word to you. But that little

fellow gave us the wink, and then we had to stop you."

And was no one punished? Alas! one was. Poor, pretty, curly-headed

traitorous Mazaro! He was drawn out of Carondelet Canal--cold, dead! And

when his wounds were counted--they were just the number of the Café des

Exilés' children, less Galahad. But the mother--that is, the old

café--did not see it; she had gone up the night before in a chariot of

fire.

In the files of the old "Picayune" and "Price-Current" of 1837 may be

seen the mention of Galahad Shaughnessy among the merchants--"our

enterprising and accomplished fellow-townsman," and all that. But old M.

D'Hemecourt's name is cut in marble, and his citizenship is in "a city

whose maker and builder is God."

Only yesterday I dined with the Shaughnessys--fine old couple and

handsome. Their children sat about them and entertained me most

pleasantly. But there isn't one can tell a tale as their father

can--'twas he told me this one, though here and there my enthusiasm may

have taken liberties. He knows the history of every old house in the

French Quarter; or, if he happens not to know a true one, he can make

one up as he goes along.

BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION.

The original grantee was Count----, assume the name to be De Charleu;

the old Creoles never forgive a public mention. He was the French king's

commissary. One day, called to France to explain the lucky accident of

the commissariat having burned down with his account-books inside, he

left his wife, a Choctaw Comptesse, behind.

Arrived at court, his excuses were accepted, and that tract granted him

where afterwards stood Belles Demoiselles Plantation. A man cannot

remember every thing! In a fit of forgetfulness he married a French

gentlewoman, rich and beautiful, and "brought her out." However, "All's

well that ends well;" a famine had been in the colony, and the Choctaw

Comptesse had starved, leaving nought but a half-caste orphan family

lurking on the edge of the settlement, bearing our French gentlewoman's

own new name, and being mentioned in Monsieur's will.

And the new Comptesse--she tarried but a twelvemonth, left Monsieur a

lovely son, and departed, led out of this vain world by the swamp-fever.

From this son sprang the proud Creole family of De Charleu. It rose

straight up, up, up, generation after generation, tall, branchless,

slender, palm-like; and finally, in the time of which I am to tell,

flowered with all the rare beauty of a century-plant, in Artemise,

Innocente, Felicité, the twins Marie and Martha, Leontine and little

Septima; the seven beautiful daughters for whom their home had been

fitly named Belles Demoiselles.

The Count's grant had once been a long Pointe, round which the

Mississippi used to whirl, and seethe, and foam, that it was horrid to

behold. Big whirlpools would open and wheel about in the savage eddies

under the low bank, and close up again, and others open, and spin, and

disappear. Great circles of muddy surface would boil up from hundreds of

feet below, and gloss over, and seem to float away,--sink, come back

again under water, and with only a soft hiss surge up again, and again

drift off, and vanish. Every few minutes the loamy bank would tip down a

great load of earth upon its besieger, and fall back a foot,--sometimes

a yard,--and the writhing river would press after, until at last the

Pointe was quite swallowed up, and the great river glided by in a

majestic curve, and asked no more; the bank stood fast, the "caving"

became a forgotten misfortune, and the diminished grant was a long,

sweeping, willowy bend, rustling with miles of sugar-cane.

Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing craft of those early days,

about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old St.

Louis Cathedral, you would be pretty sure to spy, just over to your

right under the levee, Belles Demoiselles Mansion, with its broad

veranda and red painted cypress roof, peering over the embankment, like

a bird in the nest, half hid by the avenue of willows which one of the

departed De Charleus,--he that married a Marot,--had planted on the

levee's crown.

The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standing

four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of

steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child.

From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass,

near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers;

farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters of

the slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.

The master was old Colonel De Charleu,--Jean Albert Henri Joseph De

Charleu-Marot, and "Colonel" by the grace of the first American

governor. Monsieur,--he would not speak to any one who called him

"Colonel,"--was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm, his form

erect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance classic, serene,

dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his voice musical,

--fascinating. He had had his vices,--all his life; but had borne them,

as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouth

that left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He had

gambled in Royal Street, drunk hard in Orleans Street, run his adversary

through in the duelling-ground at Slaughter-house Point, and danced and

quarrelled at the St. Philippe-street-theatre quadroon balls. Even now,

with all his courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to be

entertaining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down in

his hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and his

motherless children. But these!--their ravishing beauty was all but

excuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father. Against these

seven goddesses he never rebelled. Had they even required him to defraud

old De Carlos--

I can hardly say.

Old De Carlos was his extremely distant relative on the Choctaw side.

With this single exception, the narrow thread-like line of descent from

the Indian wife, diminished to a mere strand by injudicious alliances,

and deaths in the gutters of old New Orleans, was extinct. The name, by

Spanish contact, had become De Carlos; but this one surviving bearer of

it was known to all, and known only, as Injin Charlie.

One thing I never knew a Creole to do. He will not utterly go back on

the ties of blood, no matter what sort of knots those ties may be. For

one reason, he is never ashamed of his or his father's sins; and for

another,--he will tell you--he is "all heart!"

So the different heirs of the De Charleu estate had always strictly

regarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially their

ownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city,

which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be

valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos

through a long and lazy lifetime, and, as his household consisted only

of himself, and an aged and crippled negress, the inference was

irresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by _alias_ an

"Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De

Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by

repute at least, unmerciful.

The Colonel and he always conversed in English. This rare

accomplishment, which the former had learned from his Scotch wife,--the

latter from up-river traders,--they found an admirable medium of

communication, answering, better than French could, a similar purpose to

that of the stick which we fasten to the bit of one horse and

breast-gear of another, whereby each keeps his distance. Once in a

while, too, by way of jest, English found its way among the ladies of

Belles Demoiselles, always signifying that their sire was about to have

business with old Charlie.

Now a long-standing wish to buy out Charlie troubled the Colonel. He had

no desire to oust him unfairly; he was proud of being always fair; yet

he did long to engross the whole estate under one title. Out of his

luxurious idleness he had conceived this desire, and thought little of

so slight an obstacle as being already somewhat in debt to old Charlie

for money borrowed, and for which Belles Demoiselles was, of course,

good, ten times over. Lots, buildings, rents, all, might as well be his,

he thought, to give, keep, or destroy. "Had he but the old man's

heritage. Ah! he might bring that into existence which his _belles

demoiselles_ had been begging for, 'since many years;' a home,--and such

a home,--in the gay city. Here he should tear down this row of cottages,

and make his garden wall; there that long rope-walk should give place to

vine-covered ardors; the bakery yonder should make way for a costly

conservatory; that wine warehouse should come down, and the mansion go

up. It should be the finest in the State. Men should never pass it, but

they should say--'the palace of the De Charleus; a family of grand

descent, a people of elegance and bounty, a line as old as France, a

fine old man, and seven daughters as beautiful as happy; whoever dare

attempt to marry there must leave his own name behind him!'

"The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from the

land of 'les Yankees,' and it should have an airy belvedere, with a

gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should

see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles

Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a

porter's lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground."

Truly they were a family fine enough, and fancy-free enough to have fine

wishes, yet happy enough where they were, to have had no wish but to

live there always.

To those, who, by whatever fortune, wandered into the garden of Belles

Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening towards

evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered out upon the tiled

pavement at the foot of the broad front steps, gayly chatting and

jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes so pleasingly from a

bevy of girls. The father would be found seated in their midst, the

centre of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by

his beautiful children's unanimous appointment, but the single vassal,

too, of seven absolute sovereigns.

Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion of

some new step in the dance, or the adjustment of some rich adornment.

Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldest

fix a bunch of violets in his button-hole. Now the twins would move down

a walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return with

the high pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.

As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternal

centre. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves on

the lower steps, one above another, and surrendered themselves to the

tender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passer

on the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofed

mansion, and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, would

hear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the soft

harmonies of an evening song; swelling clearer and clearer as the thrill

of music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper

tones of the father's voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away,

all would be still, and he would know that the beautiful home had

gathered its nestlings under its wings.

And yet, for mere vagary, it pleased them not to be pleased.

"Arti!" called one sister to another in the broad hall, one

morning,--mock amazement hi her distended eyes,--"something is goin' to

took place!"

"_Comm-e-n-t?_"--long-drawn perplexity.

"Papa is goin' to town!"

The news passed up stairs.

"Inno!"--one to another meeting in a doorway,--"something is goin' to

took place!"

"_Qu'est-ce-que c'est!_"--vain attempt at gruffness.

"Papa is goin' to town!"

The unusual tidings were true. It was afternoon of the same day that the

Colonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old

Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as

was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was

plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation

without trusting himself to his feet.

"Eh, well Charlie!"--the Colonel raised his voice to suit his kinsman's

deafness,--"how is those times with my friend Charlie?"

"Eh?" said Charlie, distractedly.

"Is that goin' well with my friend Charlie?"

"In de house,--call her,"--making a pretence of rising.

"_Non, non!_ I don't want,"--the speaker paused to breathe--"ow is

collection?"

"Oh!" said Charlie, "every day he make me more poorer!"

"What do you hask for it?" asked the planter indifferently, designating

the house by a wave of his whip.

"Ask for w'at?" said Injin Charlie.

"De _house!_ What you ask for it?"

"I don't believe," said Charlie.

"What you would _take_ for it!" cried the planter.

"Wait for w'at?"

"What you would _take_ for the whole block?"

"I don't want to sell him!"

"I'll give you _ten thousand dollah_ for it."

"Ten t'ousand dollah for dis house? Oh, no, dat is no price. He is blame

good old house,--dat old house." (Old Charlie and the Colonel never

swore in presence of each other.) "Forty years dat old house didn't had

to be paint! I easy can get fifty t'ousand dollah for dat old house."

"Fifty thousand picayunes; yes," said the Colonel.

"She's a good house. Can make plenty money," pursued the deaf man.

"That's what make you so rich, eh, Charlie?"

"_Non_, I don't make nothing. Too blame clever, me, dat's de troub'.

She's a good house,--make money fast like a steamboat,--make a barrel

full in a week! Me, I lose money all de days. Too blame clever."

"Charlie!"

"Eh?"

"Tell me what you'll take."

"Make? I don't make _nothing_. Too blame clever."

"What will you _take?_"

"Oh! I got enough already,--half drunk now."

"What will you take for the 'ouse?"

"You want to buy her?"

"I don't know,"--(shrug),--"may_be_,--if you sell it cheap."

"She's a bully old house."

There was a long silence. By and by old Charlies commenced--

"Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog."

"_C'est vrai, oui!_" retorted the Colonel in an undertone.

"He's got Injin blood in him."

"But he's got some blame good blood, too, ain't it?"

The Colonel nodded impatiently.

"_Bien!_ Old Charlie's Injin blood says, 'sell de house, Charlie, you

blame old fool!' _Mais_, old Charlie's good blood says, 'Charlie! if you

sell dat old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what de

Compte De Charleu make for you grace-gran'muzzer, de dev' can eat you,

Charlie, I don't care.'"

"No!" And the _no_ rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on the

Gulf. The incensed old Colonel wheeled and started off.

"Curl!" (Colonel) said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.

The planter turned with an inquiring frown.

"I'll trade with you!" said Charlie.

The Colonel was tempted. "'Ow'l you trade?" he asked.

"My house for yours!"

The old Colonel turned pale with anger. He walked very quickly back, and

came close up to his kinsman.

"Charlie!" he said.

"Injin Charlie,"--with a tipsy nod.

But by this time self-control was returning. "Sell Belles Demoiselles to

you?" he said in a high key, and then laughed "Ho, ho, ho!" and rode

away.

A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of Belles

Demoiselles' plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence had

always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the

bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of

frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his

overseer fretfully.

No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to

it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,--so to call

them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew,

it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to

drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper

was a burden. _Ennui_ was turned into capital; every headache was

interpreted a premonition of ague; and when the native exuberance of a

flock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in the

father's face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their little

hands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehmence vowed and vowed again

that they only laughed at their misery, and should pine to death unless

they could move to the sweet city. "Oh! the theatre! Oh! Orleans Street!

Oh! the masquerade! the Place d'Armes! the ball!" and they would call

upon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into each other's arms,

and whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision and

fall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slippery

floor, that would some day be the death of the whole seven.

Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, by

accident,--business accident,--to see old Charlie and increase his

offer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.

"Eh?" said the deaf and distant relative. "For what you want him, eh?

Why you don't stay where you halways be 'appy? Dis is a blame old

rat-hole,--good for old Injin Charlie,--da's all. Why you don't stay

where you be halways 'appy? Why you don't buy somewheres else?"

"That's none of yonr business," snapped the planter. Truth was, his

reasons were unsatisfactory even to himself.

A sullen silence followed. Then Charlie spoke:

"Well, now, look here; I sell you old Charlie's house."

"_Bien!_ and the whole block," said the Colonel.

"Hold on," said Charlie. "I sell you de 'ouse and de block. Den I go and

git drunk, and go to sleep de dev' comes along and says, 'Charlie! old

Charlie, you blame low-down old dog, wake up! What you doin' here?

Where's de 'ouse what Monsieur le Compte give your grace-gran-muzzer?

Don't you see dat fine gentyman, De Charleu, done gone and tore him down

and make him over new, you blame old fool, Charlie, you low-down old

Injin dog!'"

"I'll give you forty thousand dollars," said the Colonel.

"For de 'ouse?"

"For all."

The deaf man shook his head.

"Forty-five!" said the Colonel.

"What a lie? For what you tell me 'What a lie?' I don't tell you no

lie."

"_Non, non!_ I give you _forty-five!_" shouted the Colonel.

Charlie shook his head again.

"Fifty!"

He shook it again.

The figures rose and rose to--

"Seventy-five!"

The answer was an invitation to go away and let the owner alone, as he

was, in certain specified respects, the vilest of living creatures, and

no company for a fine gentyman.

The "fine gentyman" longed to blaspheme--but before old Charlie!--in the

name of pride, how could he? He mounted and started away.

"Tell you what I'll make wid you," said Charlie.

The other, guessing aright, turned back without dismounting, smiling.

"How much Belles Demoiselles hoes me now?" asked the deaf one.

"One hundred and eighty thousand dollars," said the Colonel, firmly.

"Yass," said Charlie. "I don't want Belle Demoiselles."

The old Colonel's quiet laugh intimated it made no difference either

way.

"But me," continued Charlie, "me,--I'm got le Compte De Charleu's blood

in me, any'ow,--a litt' bit, any'ow, ain't it?"

The Colonel nodded that it was.

"_Bien!_ If I go out of dis place and don't go to Belles Demoiselles, de

peoples will say,--dey will say, 'Old Charlie he been all doze time tell

a blame _lie!_ He ain't no kin to his old grace-gran-muzzer, not a blame

bit! He don't got nary drop of De Charleu blood to save his blame

low-down old Injin soul!' No, sare! What I want wid money, den? No,

sare! My place for yours!"

He turned to go into the house, just too soon to see the Colonel make an

ugly whisk at him with his riding-whip. Then the Colonel, too, moved

off.

Two or three times over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through

his annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and the

presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better

of--not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It

was so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down"

relative, and not unlike his own whim withal--the proposition which went

with it was forgiven.

This last defeat bore so harshly on the master of Belles Demoiselles,

that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. They

loved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretended

dejection harassing him seriously they restrained their complaints,

displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and

ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But

the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his

discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from

any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his

garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy by

the shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easily

have followed, only that the very same ancestral nonsense that kept

Injin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value prevented

him from choosing any other spot for a city home.

But by and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around him

prevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the

year flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.

New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put

on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;

the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich

sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of

last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the

caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the

filling of the river.

How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and

spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how near

shore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windy

nights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with

occupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm

over the levee's top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast,

and, as the summer drifted in, the water sunk down into its banks and

looked quite incapable of harm.

On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean Albert

Henri Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for revery, slipped the

custody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, where

it was his wont to promenade. Presently he sat upon a stone bench,--a

favorite seat. Before him lay his broad-spread fields; near by, his

lordly mansion; and being still,--perhaps by female contact,--somewhat

sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be

proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward

the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him

well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had

dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease

had mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, his

sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; and

yonder and yonder, among the trees and flowers, like angels walking in

Eden, were the seven goddesses of his only worship.

Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast his

eyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank between the

levee's base and the river. There was nothing visible. He paused, with

his ear toward the water, his face full of frightened expectation. Ha!

There came a single plashing sound, like some great beast slipping into

the river, and little waves in a wide semi-circle came out from under

the bank and spread over the water!

"My God!"

He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edge

of the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He did

not stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yards

away, wringing his hands, moaning and weeping, and staring through his

watery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the matted

grass, and curving outward on either hand toward the river.

"My God!" he sobbed aloud; "my God!" and even while he called, his God

answered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the crevice

slowly became a gape, and softly, gradually, with no sound but the

closing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into the

boiling eddy and disappeared.

At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the garden

behind, the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses of

Belles Demoiselles.

The old Colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcing

himself to a more composed movement he hastened into the house and

ordered his horse.

"Tell my children to make merry while I am gone," he left word. "I shall

be back to-night," and the horse's hoofs clattered down a by-road

leading to the city.

"Charlie," said the planter, riding up to a window, from which the old

man's nightcap was thrust out, "what you say, Charlie,--my house for

yours, eh, Charlie--what you say?"

"Ello!" said Charlie; "from where you come from dis time of to-night?"

"I come from the Exchange in St. Louis Street." (A small fraction of the

truth.)

"What you want?" said matter-of-fact Charlie.

"I come to trade."

The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. "Oh! yass," he said

with an uncertain air.

"Well, old man Charlie, what you say: my house for yours,--like you

said,--eh, Charlie?"

"I dunno," said Charlie; "it's nearly mine now. Why you don't stay dare

youse'f?"

"_Because I don't want!_" said the Colonel savagely. "Is dat reason

enough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tell

you,--yes!"

Charlie never winced; but how his answer delighted the Colonel! Quoth

Charlie:

"I don't care--I take him!--_mais_, possession give right off."

"Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only"--

"I don't care," said Charlie; "we easy can fix dat _Mais_, what for you

don't want to keep him? I don't want him. You better keep him."

"Don't you try to make no fool of me, old man," cried the planter.

"Oh, no!" said the other. "Oh, no! but you make a fool of yourself,

ain't it?"

The dumbfounded Colonel stared; Charlie went on:

"Yass! Belles Demoiselles is more wort' dan tree block like dis one. I

pass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pritty Belles Demoiselles! De cane was

wave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was jump

up and down on de river; seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin' on

horses. 'Pritty, pritty, pritty!' says old Charlie. Ah! _Monsieur le

Père_, 'ow 'appy, 'appy, 'appy!"

"Yass!" he continued--the Colonel still staring--"le Compte De Charleu

have two familie. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high up _noblesse_.

He gave the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give Belles

Demoiselles to you gran-fozzer; and now you don't be _satisfait_. What

I'll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She'll break me in two years, yass. And

what you'll do wid old Charlie's house, eh? You'll tear her down and

make you'se'f a blame old fool. I rather wouldn't trade!"

The planter caught a big breathful of anger, but Charlie went straight

on:

"I rather wouldn't, _mais_ I will do it for you;--just the same, like

Monsieur le Compte would say, 'Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange

houses wid you.'"

So long as the Colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie

seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel

conscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but his

lately-discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange,

undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched

his heart. And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had

dug? He hesitated;--no, he would show him the place by broad daylight,

and if he chose to overlook the "caving bank," it would be his own

fault;--a trade's a trade.

"Come," said the planter, "come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look

at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade."

"For what?" said Charlie.

"Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning."

"I don't want," said Charlie. "How I'm goin' to come dere?"

"I git you a horse at the liberty stable."

"Well--anyhow--I don't care--I'll go." And they went.

When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened by

hedges of Cherokee rose, the Colonel called behind him to the "low-down"

scion:

"Keep the road, old man."

"Eh?"

"Keep the road."

"Oh, yes; all right; I keep my word; we don't goin' to play no tricks,

eh?"

But the Colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning

to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness was

prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of

an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the

caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the house

into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it

so, than sell his birthright? Again,--coming back to the first

thought,--to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but had

not the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously he

groaned.

After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear,

and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came

in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark

grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of

luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart,

groaned again.

"What?" asked Charlie.

The Colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically,

contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows

were thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright light

of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia

and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lantern

swayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear, the music

of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted, once

or twice, the shadows of dancers. But oh! the shadows flitting across

the heart of the fair mansion's master!

"Old Charlie," said he, gazing fondly at his house, "You and me is both

old, eh?"

"Yaas," said the stolid Charlie.

"And we has both been bad enough in our times eh, Charlie?"

Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated "Yaas."

"And you and me is mighty close?"

"Blame close, yaas."

"But you never know me to cheat, old man!"

"No,"--impassively.

"And do you think I would cheat you now?"

"I dunno," said Charlie. "I don't believe."

"Well, old man, old man,"--his voice began to quiver,--"I sha'n't cheat

you now. My God!--old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!"

"Because for what?" asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked

quickly toward the house! The Colonel tossed his hands wildly in the

air, rushed forward a step or two, and giving one fearful scream of

agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie

stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden

beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor

and glow of pleasure, suddenly sunk, with one short, wild wail of

terror--sunk, sunk, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable

flood of the Mississippi.

Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father;

when they were only half gone, he took his bed; and every day, and every

night, old Charlie, the "low-down," the "fool," watched him tenderly,

tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his

broken heart. No woman's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber,

whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of old

Charlie's block; Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest,

the other all gentleness, hope, and patience--these only entered by the

door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine,

transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the

rays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sick

man's bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and

often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their

pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.

By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason.

Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day, the light

of reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but withal

there came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said that

monsieur was both better and worse.

One evening, as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless

pipe in his hand, the old Colonel's eyes fell full upon his own, and

rested there.

"Charl--," he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened to

the bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort or

two, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness,--

"We didn't trade."

The truth, in this case, was a secondary matter to Charlie; the main

point was to give a pleasing answer. So he nodded his head decidedly, as

who should say--"Oh yes, we did, it was a bona-fide swap!" but when he

saw the smile vanish, he tried the other expedient and shook his head

with still more vigor, to signify that they had not so much as

approached a bargain; and the smile returned.

Charlie wanted to see the vine recognized. He stepped backward to the

window with a broad smile, shook the foliage, nodded and looked smart.

"I know," said the Colonel, with beaming eyes,"--many weeks."

The next day--

"Charl--"

The best ear went down.

"Send for a priest."

The priest came, and was alone with him a whole afternoon. When he left,

the patient was very haggard and exhausted, but smiled and would not

suffer the crucifix to be removed from his breast.

One more morning came. Just before dawn Charlie, lying on a pallet in

the room, thought he was called, and came to the bedside.

"Old man," whispered the failing invalid, "is it caving yet?"

Charlie nodded.

"It won't pay you out."

"Oh, dat makes not'ing," said Charlie. Two big tears rolled down his

brown face. "Dat makes not'in."

The Colonel whispered once more:

"_Mes belles demoiselles!_ in paradise;--in the garden--I shall be with

them at sunrise;" and so it was.

"POSSON JONE'." [1]

[Footnote 1: Published in Appletons' Journal. Republished by

permission.]

To Jules St.-Ange--elegant little heathen--there yet remained at manhood

a remembrance of having been to school, and of having been taught by a

stony-headed Capuchin that the world is round--for example, like a

cheese. This round world is a cheese to be eaten through, and Jules had

nibbled quite into his cheese-world already at twenty-two.

He realized this as he idled about one Sunday morning where the

intersection of Royal and Conti Streets some seventy years ago formed a

central corner of New Orleans. Yes, yes, the trouble was he had been

wasteful and honest. He discussed the matter with that faithful friend

and confidant, Baptiste, his yellow body-servant. They concluded that,

papa's patience and _tante's_ pin-money having been gnawed away quite to

the rind, there were left open only these few easily-enumerated resorts:

to go to work--they shuddered; to join Major Innerarity's filibustering

expedition; or else--why not?--to try some games of confidence. At

twenty-two one must begin to be something. Nothing else tempted; could

that avail? One could but try. It is noble to try; and, besides, they

were hungry. If one could "make the friendship" of some person from the

country, for instance, with money, not expert at cards or dice, but, as

one would say, willing to learn, one might find cause to say some "Hail

Marys."

The sun broke through a clearing sky, and Baptiste pronounced it good

for luck. There had been a hurricane in the night. The weed-grown

tile-roofs were still dripping, and from lofty brick and low adobe walls

a rising steam responded to the summer sunlight. Up-street, and across

the Rue du Canal, one could get glimpses of the gardens in Faubourg

Ste.-Marie standing in silent wretchedness, so many tearful Lucretias,

tattered victims of the storm. Short remnants of the wind now and then

came down the narrow street in erratic puffs heavily laden with odors of

broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of rain-water

in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, and suddenly went away to

nothing, like a juggler's butterflies or a young man's money.

It was very picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together.

The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the

way, crouching, mendicant-like, in the shadow of a great

importing-house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs.

Light balconies overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for

trade this Sunday morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class

glanced over their savagely-pronged railings upon the passers below. At

some windows hung lace certains, flannel duds at some, and at others

only the scraping and sighing one-hinged shutter groaning toward Paris

after its neglectful master.

M. St.-Ange stood looking up and down the street for nearly an hour. But

few ladies, only the inveterate mass-goers, were out. About the entrance

of the frequent _cafés_ the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes,

with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding

pantomimic hints of the social cup.

M. St.-Ange remarked to his servant without turning his head that

somehow he felt sure he should soon return those _bons_ that the mulatto

had lent him.

"What will you do with them?"

"Me!" said Baptiste, quickly; "I will go and see the bull-fight in the

Place Congo."

"There is to be a bull-fight? But where is M. Cayetano?"

"Ah, got all his affairs wet in the tornado. Instead of his circus, they

are to have a bull-fight--not an ordinary bull-fight with sick horses,

but a buffalo-and-tiger fight. I would not miss it"--

Two or three persons ran to the opposite corner, and commenced striking

at something with their canes. Others followed. Can M. St.-Ange and

servant, who hasten forward--can the Creoles, Cubans, Spaniards, San

Domingo refugees, and other loungers--can they hope it is a fight? They

hurry forward. Is a man in a fit? The crowd pours in from the

side-streets. Have they killed a so-long snake? Bareheaded shopmen leave

their wives, who stand upon chairs. The crowd huddles and packs. Those

on the outside make little leaps into the air, trying to be tall.

"What is the matter?"

"Have they caught a real live rat?"

"Who is hurt?" asks some one in English.

"_Personne_," replies a shopkeeper; "a man's hat blow' in the gutter;

but he has it now. Jules pick' it. See, that is the man, head and

shoulders on top the res'."

"He in the homespun?" asks a second shopkeeper. "Humph! an

_Américain_--a West-Floridian; bah!"

"But wait; 'st! he is speaking; listen!"

"To who is he speak----?"

"Sh-sh-sh! to Jules."

"Jules who?"

"Silence, you! To Jules St.-Ange, what howe me a bill since long time.

Sh-sh-sh!"

Then the voice was heard.

Its owner was a man of giant stature, with a slight stoop in his

shoulders, as if he was making a constant, good-natured attempt to

accommodate himself to ordinary doors and ceilings. His bones were those

of an ox. His face was marked more by weather than age, and his narrow

brow was bald and smooth. He had instantaneously formed an opinion of

Jules St.-Ange, and the multitude of words, most of them lingual

curiosities, with which he was rasping the wide-open ears of his

listeners, signified, in short, that, as sure as his name was Parson

Jones, the little Creole was a "plum gentleman."

M. St.-Ange bowed and smiled, and was about to call attention, by both

gesture and speech, to a singular object on top of the still uncovered

head, when the nervous motion of the _Américain_ anticipated him, as,

throwing up an immense hand, he drew down a large roll of bank-notes.

The crowd laughed, the West-Floridian joining, and began to disperse.

"Why, that money belongs to Smyrny Church," said the giant.

"You are very dengerous to make your money expose like that, Misty

Posson Jone'," said St.-Ange, counting it with his eyes.

The countryman gave a start and smile of surprise.

"How d'dyou know my name was Jones?" he asked; but, without pausing for

the Creole's answer, furnished in his reckless way some further

specimens of West-Floridian English; and the conciseness with which he

presented full intelligence of his home, family, calling, lodging-house,

and present and future plans, might have passed for consummate art, had

it not been the most run-wild nature. "And I've done been to Mobile, you

know, on busi_ness_ for Bethesdy Church. It's the on'yest time I ever

been from home; now you wouldn't of believed that, would you? But I

admire to have saw you, that's so. You've got to come and eat with me.

Me and my boy ain't been fed yit. What might one call yo' name? Jools?

Come on, Jools. Come on, Colossus. That's my niggah--his name's Colossus

of Rhodes. Is that yo' yallah boy, Jools? Fetch him along, Colossus. It

seems like a special provi_dence_.--Jools, do you believe in a special

provi_dence?_"

Jules said he did.

The new-made friends moved briskly off, followed by Baptiste and a

short, square, old negro, very black and grotesque, who had introduced

himself to the mulatto, with many glittering and cavernous smiles, as

"d'body-sarvant of d'Rev'n' Mr. Jones."

Both pairs enlivened their walk with conversation. Parson Jones

descanted upon the doctrine he had mentioned, as illustrated in the

perplexities of cotton-growing, and concluded that there would always be

"a special provi_dence_ again' cotton untell folks quits a-pressin' of

it and haulin' of it on Sundays!"

"_Je dis_," said St.-Ange, in response, "I thing you is juz right. I

believe, me, strong-strong in the improvidence, yes. You know my papa he

hown a sugah-plantation, you know. 'Jules, me son,' he say one time to

me, 'I goin' to make one baril sugah to fedge the moze high price in New

Orleans.' Well, he take his bez baril sugah--I nevah see a so careful

man like me papa always to make a so beautiful sugah _et sirop_. 'Jules,

go at Father Pierre an' ged this lill pitcher fill with holy water, an'

tell him sen' his tin bucket, and I will make it fill with _quitte_.' I

ged the holy-water; my papa sprinkle it over the baril, an' make one

cross on the 'ead of the baril."

"Why, Jools," said Parson Jones, "that didn't do no good."

"Din do no good! Id broughd the so great value! You can strike me dead

if thad baril sugah din fedge the more high cost than any other in the

city. _Parce-que_, the man what buy that baril sugah he make a mistake

of one hundred pound"--falling back--"_Mais_ certainlee!"

"And you think that was growin' out of the holy-water?" asked the

parson.

"_Mais_, what could make it else? Id could not be the _quitte_, because

my papa keep the bucket, an' forget to sen' the _quitte_ to Father

Pierre."

Parson Jones was disappointed.

"Well, now, Jools, you know, I don't think that was right. I reckon you

must be a plum Catholic."

M. St.-Ange shrugged. He would not deny his faith.

"I am a _Catholique, mais_"--brightening as he hoped to recommend

himself anew--"not a good one."

"Well, you know," said Jones--"where's Colossus? Oh! all right. Colossus

strayed off a minute in Mobile, and I plum lost him for two days. Here's

the place; come in. Colossus and this boy can go to the kitchen.--Now,

Colossus, what _air_ you a-beckonin' at me faw?"

He let his servant draw him aside and address him in a whisper.

"Oh, go 'way!" said the parson with a jerk. "Who's goin' to throw me?

What? Speak louder. Why, Colossus, you shayn't talk so, saw. 'Pon my

soul, you're the mightiest fool I ever taken up with. Jest you go down

that alley-way with this yalla boy, and don't show yo' face untell yo'

called!"

The negro begged; the master wrathily insisted.

"Colossus, will you do ez I tell you, or shell I hev to strike you,

saw?"

"O Mahs Jimmy, I--I's gwine; but"--he ventured nearer--"don't on no

account drink nothin', Mahs Jimmy."

Such was the negro's earnestness that he put one foot in the gutter, and

fell heavily against his master. The parson threw him off angrily.

"Thar, now! Why, Colossus, you most of been dosted with sumthin'; yo'

plum crazy.--Humph, come on, Jools, let's eat! Humph! to tell me that

when I never taken a drop, exceptin' for chills, in my life--which he

knows so as well as me!"

The two masters began to ascend a stair.

"_Mais_, he is a sassy; I would sell him, me," said the young Creole.