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