The United States is famous for its beautiful women, but even in that country where beauty is the common heritage of her daughters, Lucy Dunlap’s loveliness of face and figure shone as some transcendent planet in the bright heavens of femininity where all are stars.
“How can you be so cruel, Jack, as to run away to sea again so soon and when I need you so much?”
The great hazel eyes looked so pleadingly into poor Jack’s that he could not even stammer out an excuse for his departure.
Sailors possibly appreciate women more than all other classes of men. They are so much without their society that they never seem to regard them as landsmen do, and Lucy Dunlap was an exceptional example of womankind to even the mostblaselandsman. Small wonder thenthat sailor Jack, confused, could only gaze at the lovely being before him.
Lucy Dunlap, though of the average height of women, seemed taller, so round, supple and elastic were the proportions of her perfect figure. The charm of intellectual power gave added beauty to a face whose features would have caused an artist to realize that the ideal model did not exist alone in the land of dreams.
In the spacious drawing-room of Dunlap’s mansion were gathered those who had enjoyed the sumptuous dinner served that evening in honor of their seafaring kinsman. Mr. John Dunlap was relating his experiences in Port au Prince to his old friend, Mrs. Church, while his brother, with that old-fashioned courtliness that became him so well, was playing the cavalier to Miss Winthrop, one of his granddaughter’s pretty friends. Walter Burton was bending over Miss Stanhope, a talented young musician, who, seated before the piano, was scanning a new piece of music.
There seemed a mutual understanding between all of those present that Lucy should monopolizeher cousin’s attention on this the first occasion that she had seen him for two years, and probably the last for a like period of time. In a far corner of the great room Jack and Lucy were seated when she asked the question mentioned, to which Jack finally made awkward answer by saying:
“Oh! well, Lucy, I am not of much account at social functions. I should only be in some one’s way. I fancy my proper place is the quarter-deck of a ship at sea.”
“Don’t be absurd, Jack! You know much better than that,” said his cousin, glancing at the manly, frank face beside her, the handsome, curly blonde head carried high and firm, and the grand chest and shoulders of the man, made more noticeable by the close fitting dress coat that he wore.
“Why, half the women of our set in Boston will be in love with you if you remain for my wedding. Please do, Jack. I will find you the prettiest sweetheart that your sailor-heart ever pictured.”
“I am awfully sorry, little cousin, to disappointyou, as you seem to have expected me to be present at your wedding,” said Jack manfully, attempting to appear cheerful.
“And as for the sweetheart part of your suggestion, it may be ungallant to say so, but I don’t believe there is any place in my log for that kind of an entry.”
“How odd it is, Jack, that you have never been in love; why, any woman could love you, you big-hearted handsome sailor.”
Lucy’s admiring glances rested upon the face of her cousin as innocently as when a little maid she had kissed him and said that she loved him.
“Yes, it is rather odd for a man never to love some woman, but I can’t say that I agree that any woman could or would love me,” answered Jack dryly, as he smiled at the earnest face turned toward him.
Miss Stanhope played a magnificent symphony as only that clever artist could; Walter Burton’s clear tenor voice rang out in an incomparable solo from the latest opera, but Lucy and Jack, oblivious to all else, in low and confidential tones conversed in the far corner of the room.
As of old when she was a child, Lucy had nestled down close to her cousin and resting one small hand upon his arm was artlessly pouring out the whole story of her love for Walter Burton, her bright hopes and expectations, the joy that filled her soul, the happiness that she saw along the vista of the future; all with that freedom from reserve that marks the exchange of confidences between loving sisters.
The day of the rack and stake has passed, but as long as human hearts shall beat, the day of torture can never come to a close; Jack listened to the heart story of the innocent, confiding woman beside him, who, all unaware of the torture she was inflicting, painted the future in words that wrung more agony from his soul than rack or stake could have caused his body.
How bravely he battled against the pain that every word brought to his breast! Pierced by a hundred darts he still could meet the artless gaze of those bright, trusting, hazel eyes and smile in assurance of his interest and sympathy.
“But of course my being married must make no difference with you, Cousin Jack. You mustlove me as you always have,” she said, as if the thought of losing something she was accustomed to have just occurred to her mind.
“I shall always love you, Lucy, as I ever have.” The sailor’s voice came hoarse and deep from the broad breast that rose and fell like heaving billows.
“You know, Jack, that you were always my refuge and strength in time of trouble or danger when I was a child, and even with dear Walter for my husband I still should feel lost had I not you to call upon.” Lucy’s voice trembled a little and she grasped Jack’s strong arm with the hand that rested there while they had been talking.
“You may call me from the end of the earth, my dear, and feel sure that I shall come to you,” said Jack simply, but the earnest manner was more convincing to the woman at his side than fine phrases would have been.
“Oh! Jack! what a comfort you are, and how much I rely upon you. It makes me quite strong and brave to know that my marriage will make no change in your love for me.”
“As long as life shall last, my cousin, I shalllove you,” replied the man almost sadly, as he placed his hand over hers that held his arm.
“Or until some day you marry and your wife becomes jealous,” added Lucy laughing.
“Or until I marry and my wife is jealous,” repeated Dunlap with the faintest kind of emphasis upon “until.”
Miss Stanhope began to play a waltz of the inspiring nature that almost makes old and gouty feet to tingle, and is perfectly irresistible to the young and joyous. Burton and Miss Winthrop in a minute were whirling around the drawing-room. How perfectly Burton could dance; his easy rythmic steps were the very poetry of motion. Lucy and Jack paused to watch the handsome couple as they glided gracefully through the room.
“Does not Walter dance beautifully?” exclaimed Lucy as she followed the dancers with admiring glances.
“Bertie Winthrop, who was at Harvard with Walter, says that when they were students and had their stag parties if they could catch Walter in what Bertie calls ‘a gay mood,’ he would astonishthem with his wonderful dancing. Bertie vows that Walter can dance any kind of thing from a vulgar gig to an exquisite ballet, but he is so awfully modest about it that he denies Bertie’s story and will not dance anything but the conventional,” continued Lucy.
“Take a turn, Jack!” called Burton as he and his partner swept by the corner where the sailor and his cousin were seated, and added as he passed, “It is your last chance for some time.”
“Come on, Jack,” cried Lucy springing up and extending her hands. A moment more and Jack was holding near his bosom the woman for whom his heart would beat until death should still it forever.
Oft midst the howling winds and angry waves, when storm tossed on the sea, will Jack dream o’er again the heavenly bliss of those few moments when close to his heart rested she who was the beacon light of his sailor’s soul.
When the music of the waltz ended, Jack and his fair partner found themselves just in front of the settee where John Dunlap and Mrs. Church were seated.
“Uncle John, I have been trying to induce Jack to stay ashore until after my wedding,” said Lucy addressing Mr. John Dunlap who had been following her and her partner with his eyes, in which was a pained expression, as they had circled about the room.
“Won’t you help me, Uncle John?” added the young woman in that pleading seductive tone that always brought immediate surrender on the part of both her grandfather and granduncle.
“I am afraid, Lucy, that I can’t aid you this time,” replied the old gentleman and there was so much seriousness in his sunburnt face that Lucy exclaimed anxiously:
“Why? What is the matter that the house must send Cousin Jack away almost as soon as he gets home?”
“Nothing is the matter, dear, but it is an opportunity for your cousin to make an advancement in his profession, and you must not be selfish in thinking only of your own happiness, my child. You know men must work and women must wait,” replied her uncle.
“Oh! Is that it? Then I must resign myselfwith good grace to the disappointment. I would not for the world have any whim of mine mar dear old Jack’s prospects,” and Lucy clasped both of her dimpled white hands affectionately on her cousin’s arm, which she still retained after the waltz ended, as she uttered these sentiments.
“I know Jack would make any sacrifice for me if I really insisted.”
“I am sure that he would, Lucy, so don’t insist,” said John Dunlap very seriously and positively.
Just then Burton began singing a mournfully sweet song, full of sadness and pathos, accompanying himself on a guitar that had been lying on the music stand. All conversation ceased. Every one turned to look at the singer. What a mellow, rich voice had Walter Burton. What expression he put into the music and words!
What a handsome man he was! As he leaned forward holding the instrument, and lightly touching the strings as he sang, Lucy thought him a perfect Apollo. Her eyes beamed with pride and love as she regarded her future husband.
None noticed the flush and troubled frown on old John Dunlap’s face. Burton’s crossed legs had drawn his trousers tightly around the limb below the knee, revealing an almost total absence of calf and that the little existing was placed higher up than usually is the case. That peculiarity or something never to be explained had brought some Haitian scene back to the memory of the flushed and frowning old man and sent a pang of regret and fear through his kind heart.
“God bless and keep you, lad! Jack, you are the last of the Dunlaps,” said Mr. John Dunlap solemnly as they all stood in the hall when the sailor was leaving.
“Amen! most earnestly, Amen!” added Mr. James Dunlap, placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Good-by! dear Jack,” said Lucy sorrowfully while tears filled her eyes, when she stood at the outer door of the hall holding her cousin’s hand.
“Think of me on the twentieth of next month, my wedding day,” she added, and then drawing the hand that she held close to her breast as if still clinging to some old remembrance and anxiousto keep fast hold of the past, fearful that it would escape her, she exclaimed:
“Remember, you are still my trusty knight and champion, Jack!”
“Until death, Lucy,” replied the man, as he raised the little white hand to his lips and reverently kissed it.
She stood watching the retreating figure until it was hidden by the gloom of the ghostly elms that lined the avenue. As she turned Burton was at her side.
“How horribly lonely Jack must be, Walter,” she said in pitying tones.
“More so than even you realize, Lucy,” rejoined Burton sadly.
Alone through the darkness strode a man with a dull, hard, crushing pain in his brave, faithful heart.
“The child will be ruined,” said all the old ladies of the Dunlaps’ acquaintance when they learned that it had been determined by the child’s grandfather to keep the motherless and fatherless little creature at home with him, rather thansend her to reside with some remote female members of her mother’s family.
“Those two old gentlemen will surely spoil her to that degree that she will be unendurable when she becomes a young woman,” asserted the women with feminine positiveness.
“They will make her Princess of the house of Dunlap, I suppose,” added the most acrimonious.
To a degree these predictions were verified by the result, but only to a degree. The twin brothers almost worshiped the beautiful little maiden, and did in very fact make her their Princess, and so, too, was she often called; but possibly through no merit in the management of the brothers, probably simply because Lucy was not spoilable was the desirable end arrived at that she grew to be a most amiable and agreeable woman.
The son of Mr. John Dunlap, the father of Lucy, survived but one year the death of his wife, which occurred when Lucy was born. Thus her grandfather and uncle became sole protectors and guardians of the child; that is until the lad, Jack Dunlap, came to live at the house of his godfather.
Young Jack was the only child of a second cousin of the twin brothers; his father had been lost at sea when Jack was yet a baby. His mother, Martha Dunlap, had gladly availed herself of the kind offer of the boy’s kinsman and godfather, when he proposed that the boy should come and live with him in Boston, where he could obtain better opportunities for securing an education than he could in the old town of Bedford.
Jack was twelve years of age when he became an inmate of the Dunlap mansion, and a robust, sturdy little curly haired chap he was; Princess Lucy’s conquest was instantaneous. Jack immediately enrolled himself as the chief henchman, servitor and guard of the pretty fairy-like maid of six years. No slave was ever more obedient and humble.
Great games awoke the echoes through Dunlap’s stately old dwelling; in winter the lawn was converted into a slide, the fish-pond into a skating-rink; in summer New Hampshire’s hills reverberated with the merry shouts of Jack and “Princess” Lucy or flying over the blue waters of the bay in the yacht that his godfather hadgiven him. Jack, aided by Lucy’s fresh young voice, sang rollicking songs of the sea.
The old gentlemen dubbed Jack, “Lucy’s Knight,” and were always perfectly satisfied when the little girl was with her cousin.
“He is more careful of her than we are ourselves,” they would reply when speaking of Jack and his guardianship.
All the fuming of Miss Lucy’s maids and the complaints of Miss Lucy’s governess availed nothing, for even good old Mrs. Church joined in the conspiracy of the grandfather and uncle, saying:
“She is perfectly safe in Jack’s care, and I wish to see rosy cheeks rather than hear Emersonian philosophy from our pet.”
Notwithstanding the “lots of fun,” as Jack used to call their frolics, Lucy and Jack did good hard work with their books, music and “all the rest of it,” as the young people called drawing and dancing.
When Jack became twenty years of age, and was prepared to enter Harvard college, where Mr. John Dunlap proposed to send him, he madehis appearance one day in the city and asked to see his kind kinsman.
“I thank you, sir, for your great kindness in offering to place me in Harvard College, as I do for all the countless things you have done for me, but I can’t accept your generous proposition. You will not be angry, I am sure, for you know, I hope, how grateful I am for all you have done. But, sir, I have a widowed mother and I wish to go to work that I may earn money for her and obtain a start in life for myself,” said Jack with boyish enthusiasm when admitted to the presence of Mr. John Dunlap.
Though the old gentleman urged every argument to alter Jack’s determination, the boy stood firmly by what he had said.
“You are my namesake, the only male representative of our family; neither you nor your mother shall ever want. I have more money than I need.” Many other inducements were offered still the young man insisted upon the course that he laid out for himself.
“I am a sailor’s son and have a sailor’s soul; I wish to go to sea,” Jack finally exclaimed.
Both of the twins loved Jack. He had been so long in their house and so closely associated with Lucy that he seemed more to them than a remote young kinsman.
Finding Jack’s decision unalterable, a compromise was effected on the subject. Jack should sail in one of their coasting ships, and when on shore at Boston continue to make their house his home.
Great was the grief of Lucy at parting with her Jack, as she called him. But consoling herself with the thought that she should see him often and that the next autumn she should be obliged to leave Boston for some dreadful seminary and thus they would be separated under any circumstances, she dried her eyes and entered with enthusiasm into his preparations for sea, saying, “I have a good mind to dress up as a boy and go with Jack! I declare I would do it, were it not for grandfather and Uncle John.”
Jack’s kit on his first voyage was a marvel in the way of a sailor’s outfit; Lucy had made a bankrupt of herself in the purchase of the most extraordinary handkerchiefs, caps, shirts and things of that kind that could be found in Boston,saying proudly to Mrs. Church when displaying the assortment:
“Nothing is too good for my sailor boy.”
After several years of sea service Mr. James Dunlap, during the residence of his brother in Haiti, had tendered to Jack a position in the office, hoping that having seen enough of the ocean he would be willing to remain ashore and possibly with a half-formed hope that Jack would win Lucy’s hand and thus the house of Dunlap continue to survive for other generations.
Much to the chagrin of Lucy’s grandfather, Jack absolutely refused to entertain the proposition, saying:
“I should be of no earthly use in the office. I am not competent to fill any position there, and I positively will not accept a sinecure. If you wish to advance me, do so in the line of my profession! Make me master of your ship Lucy and let me take her for a two years’ cruise in Eastern waters.”
Thus it happened that Jack was absent from Boston for two years and returned to find that he had lost that, that all the gold of El Dorado could not replace—the woman whom he loved.
“Mother Sybella, Mother Sybella! May I approach?” yelled every few minutes the man seated on a rock half way up the hill that rose steep from the Port au Prince highway.
The neglected and broken pavement of the road that remained as a monument to the long-departed French governors of Haiti was almost hidden by the rank, luxurious growth of tropical plants on either side of it. As seen from the hillside, where the man was sitting, it seemed an impracticable path for even the slowly moving donkeys which here and there crawled between the overhanging vegetation.
The man looked neither to the right nor to the left, but throwing back his head, at intervals of possibly fifteen minutes, as if addressing the blazing sun above, bawled out at the top of his voice:
“Mother Sybella! Mother Sybella! May I approach?”
The man was a mulatto, though with features markedly of the negro type; around his head he wore a much soiled white handkerchief. His body was fairly bursting out of a tight-fitting blue coat of military fashion, adorned with immense brass buttons. His bare feet and long thin shanks appeared below dirty duck trousers that once had been white.
There evidently was something awe-inspiring about the name that he shouted even though the rest of the words were unintelligible to the natives. The man shouted his request in the English language; the natives of Haiti used a jargon of French, English and native dialect difficult to understand and impossible to describe or reproduce in writing.
If, when the man called, a native were passing along the highway, as sometimes happened, he would spring forward so violently as to endanger the safety of the huge basket of fruit or vegetables that he carried upon his head, and glancing over his shoulder with dread in his distended,white and rolling eyes, would break into a run and speed forward as if in mortal terror.
The man had just given utterance to a louder howl than usual when he felt the grip of bony claw-like fingers on his shoulder; with one unearthly yell he sprang to his feet, turned and fell upon his knees before the figure that so silently had stolen to his side.
“Has the yellow dog brought a bone to his mother?” The words were spoken in the patois of the native Haitians with which the man was familiar.
The speaker was a living, animated but mummified black crone of a woman. She leaned upon a staff made of three human thigh bones, joined firmly together by wire. Her fleshless fingers looked like the talons of a vulture as she gripped the top of her horrid prop and bent forward toward the man.
Her age seemed incalculable in decades; centuries appeared to have passed since she was born. The wrinkles in her face were as gashes in black and aged parchment, so deep were they. The skin over her toothless jaws was so drawnand stretched by untold time that the very hinges of the jaw were plainly traced; in cavernous, inky holes dug deep beneath the retreating forehead sparkled, like points of flame, eyes so bright and glittering that sparks of electric fire shot forth in the gaze by which she transfixed the groveling wretch at her feet.
“Answer, Manuel; what have you brought for Mother Sybella?”
Finally the startled and fearful Manuel found courage to reply:
“The coffee, sugar, ham and calico are in that bundle lying over there, Mother Sybella,” and the man pointed to a roll of matting near him.
“And I told you to gather all the gossip and news of Port au Prince. Have you done so?” queried the hag with a menacing gesture.
“Yes! yes! Mother; every command has been obeyed. I have learned what people are talking of, and, too, I have brought some printed talk from among the Yankees,” cried the mulatto quickly, anxious to propitiate the crone.
“Fool, you know I can’t make out the Yankee printed talk,” snarled the sunken lips.
“I can though, Mother Sybella; I lived among the Yankees many years. I will tell you what they talk of concerning our country,” said the man rising from his knees.
“I will listen here in the sun’s rays; I am cold. Sit there at my feet,” mumbled the hag, crouching down on the rock that had been occupied by Manuel.
“Begin,” she commanded fiercely, fixing her keen gaze upon the yellow face below her.
“Dictator Dupree is unable to obtain money to pay the army; the Yankees and English will not make a loan unless concessions be made to the whites.”
“What says Dupree?” muttered the old woman.
“Dupree fears an insurrection of the people if he make concessions to the whites, and an outbreak by the army if he fail to pay the arrears due to it. He is distracted and knows not which move to make,” answered the yellow man at the hag’s feet.
“Dupree is a coward! Let him come to me and see how quickly his difficulties disappear!The army is worthless, the people powerful,” cried Sybella.
“Go on! Squash-head,” she ordered.
“Twenty priests, with a Bishop at their head, have come from France, and go among the people urging them to attend the churches, and threatening them with awful punishment hereafter if they fail to heed the commands of the priests,” continued Manuel.
“Much good may it do the black-gowns,” chuckled the old creature, making a horrible grimace in so doing.
“My children fear Sybella more than the black-gowns’ hell,” she cackled exultantly.
“The priests are trying to persuade the Dictator to give them permission to re-open those schools that have been closed so long, but Dupree has not consented yet. He seems to fear the anger of the black party in Haiti,” said the witch’s newsman.
“He does well to hesitate!” exclaimed Sybella.
“If he consent, I shall set up my altar, call my children around me and then! and then! No matter, he is a coward; he will never dare consent,”she added. The mulatto here drew from his bosom a newspaper. Shading his eyes from the sun’s glare, he began searching for any item of news in the Boston paper that he had secured in Port au Prince, which might interest his terrifying auditor.
“Do you wish to know about the Yankee President and Congress?” he asked humbly, pausing as he turned the sheet of the newspaper.
“No! you ape, unless they mention our island,” replied the woman, her watchful eyes looking curiously at the printed paper that the man held.
“About the ships coming and going between the United States and Haiti?” he asked anxiously, as if fearing that he might miss something of importance to the black seeress.
“No! That is an old story; the accursed Yankees are ever coming and going, restless fools,” said the woman.
“Here is a long account of a grand wedding of a wealthy Haitien that has just taken place in Boston. He married the granddaughter and heiress of J. Dunlap, who is largely interested in our island,” remarked Manuel interrogatively.
“His name! fool, his name!” almost screamed the hag, springing to her feet with an agility fearful to contemplate in one so decrepit, suggesting supernatural power to the beholder. Manuel, with trembling lip, cried, as she fastened him in the shoulder with her claws:
“Burton! Walter Burton!”
Without changing, by even a line her fingers from the place where she had first fixed them in the flesh of the frightened man, she dragged him, bulky as he was, to his feet, and up the steep, pathless hillside with a celerity that was awful to the frightened mulatto.
A deep ravine cutting into the back of the hill formed a precipice. Along the face of the rocky wall thus formed a narrow, ill-defined footway ran, almost unsafe for a mountain goat. Nearly a thousand feet below, dark and forbidding in the gloom of jungle and spectral moss-festooned trees, roared the sullen mutterings of a mountain torrent.
When near the top of the hill, with a quick whirl the black crone darted aside and around the elbow of the hill, dragging Manuel along ata furious pace, she dashed down the precipitous path with the swiftness and confidence of an Alpine chamois.
Half way down the cliff, a ledge of rock made scanty foundation for a hut of roughly hewn saplings, thatched with the palm plants of the ravine below. So scarce was room for the hovel that but one step was necessary to reach the brink of the declivity.
As the excited hag reached the aperture that served as the doorway of her den, a hideous, blear-eyed owl, who like an evil spirit kept watch and ward at the witch’s castle, gave forth a ghostly “Hoot! Hoot!” of welcome to his mistress. At the unexpected sound the mulatto’s quivering knees collapsed and he sank down, nearly rolling over the edge of the precipice.
Sybella seemed not to feel the weight of the prostrate man whom she still clutched and hauled into the dark interior of her lair.
Dropping the almost senseless man, she threw some resinous dry brush upon a fire that was smouldering in the center of the hut. As the flame shot up Manuel opened his eyes. With ashriek he sprang to his feet, terror shaking his every limb as he stared about him.
Two giant rats were tugging at some bone, most human in shape; each trying to tear it from the teeth of the other, as squealing they circled around the fire. In corners toads blinked their bead-like eyes, while darting lizards flashed across the floor. Slowly crawling along between the unplastered logs of the walls snakes of many colors moved about or coiled in the thatch of the roof hung head downward and hissed as they waved their heads from side to side.
Along the wall a bark shelf stood. On it were two small skulls with handles made of cane. These ghastly vessels were filled with milk. Conch shells and utensils made of dried gourds were scattered on the shelf, among which a huge and ugly buzzard stalked about.
An immense red drum hung from a pole fixed in a crevice of the rock and by its side dangled a long and shining knife. A curtain of woven grass hanging at the rear of the hovel seemed to conceal the entrance to some cavern within the hill’s rock-ribbed breast.
When the blaze of the burning fagots cast a glow over the grewsome interior of this temple of Voo Doo, Sybella, the High Priestess, turned upon the cowering man, upon whose ashy-hued face stood great drops of ice-cold sweat, tearing from her head the scarlet turban that had hidden her bare, deathly skull, and beckoning him with her skeleton hand to approach, in guttural, hissing voice commanded:
“Say over what you told me on the hill! Say, if you dare, you dog, here in my lair where Tu Konk dwells, that my daughter’s grandson, the last of my blood, has mated with a white cow.”
Benumbed by the dazzling light that poured from the black pits in her naked, fleshless skull, the mulatto could not walk, but falling on his hands and knees he moved toward her; prostrate at her feet, overcome by fear, he whined faintly:
“Burton, Walter Burton, married a white woman in Boston the twentieth of last month.”
The hag grasping his ears drew his head up toward her face, and thrusting her terrible head forward she plunged her gaze like sword points down into the man’s very soul.
With a cry like that of a wounded wild-cat, she jumped back and throwing her skinny arms up in the air began waving them above her head, screaming:
“He does not lie! It is true! It is true!”
In impotent rage she dug the sharp nails of her fingers into the skin of her bald head and tore long ridges across its smooth bare surface.
Suddenly she seized the mulatto, now half-dead from terror, crying:
“Come! Goat without horns, let us tell Tu Konk.”
Manuel, limp, scarcely breathing, staggered to his feet. The hag held him by the bleeding ears that she had half torn from his head. Pushing him before her they passed behind the curtain suspended against the rock wall at the rear of the room.
The cave they entered was of small dimensions. It was illuminated by four large candles, which stood at each of the four corners of a baby’s cradle. This misplaced article occupied the center of the space walled in by the rocky sides of the apartment. The place otherwise was bare.
Sybella as soon as the curtain fell behind her began a monotonous chant. Moving slowly with shuffling side-long steps around the cradle, sang:
“Awake, my Tu Konk, awake and listen;Hear my story;My blood long gone to white dogs;Daughter, granddaughter, all gone to white dogs;One drop left to me now gone to white cow;Tu Konk, Tu Konk, awake and avenge me.”
“Awake, my Tu Konk, awake and listen;Hear my story;My blood long gone to white dogs;Daughter, granddaughter, all gone to white dogs;One drop left to me now gone to white cow;Tu Konk, Tu Konk, awake and avenge me.”
“Awake, my Tu Konk, awake and listen;
Hear my story;
My blood long gone to white dogs;
Daughter, granddaughter, all gone to white dogs;
One drop left to me now gone to white cow;
Tu Konk, Tu Konk, awake and avenge me.”
Manuel saw something move beneath the covering in the cradle.
“Awake, Oh! my Tu Konk;Awake and avenge me!”
“Awake, Oh! my Tu Konk;Awake and avenge me!”
“Awake, Oh! my Tu Konk;
Awake and avenge me!”
Manuel saw a black head thrust itself from below the cover, and rest upon the dainty pillow in the cradle. The head was covered by an infant’s lacy cap.
Sybella saw the head appear. Dashing under the curtain and seizing one of the skull-cups she returned and filled a nursing bottle that lay in the cradle.
The head covered with its cap of lace rose from the pillow. Sybella, on her knees, withbowed head and adoring gestures, crept to the side of the cradle and extended the bottle. King of terrors! By all that is Horrible!
The nipple disappeared in the scarlet flaming mouth of an immense, fiery eyed, hissing black-snake. It was Tu Konk!
“Drink, my Tu Konk.”“Bring back my black blood.”“Leave me not childless.”“Curse then the white cow.”“Send her the black goat.”“Give her black kids.”“Black kids and white teats.”“Serve thus the white cow.”
“Drink, my Tu Konk.”“Bring back my black blood.”“Leave me not childless.”“Curse then the white cow.”“Send her the black goat.”“Give her black kids.”“Black kids and white teats.”“Serve thus the white cow.”
“Drink, my Tu Konk.”
“Bring back my black blood.”
“Leave me not childless.”
“Curse then the white cow.”
“Send her the black goat.”
“Give her black kids.”
“Black kids and white teats.”
“Serve thus the white cow.”
Chanting these words, the Voo Doo priestess struck her head repeatedly upon the hard surface of the floor of the cave. Blood ran down her face to mingle with the froth that dropped from her shriveled and distorted lips.
The mulatto with bursting, straining eye-balls and chattering teeth gasped for breath. The hideous grotesqueness of the scene had frozen the very life-blood in his veins. The vestments of an angel adorning a fiend! Paralyzed by fear,with bulging eyes nearly popping from their sockets, the man stared at the horrible head surrounded by those trappings most closely associated with innocence.
Human nature could stand no more! With one frenzied shriek Manuel broke the spell that held him helpless. Tearing aside the curtain he leaped out of this Temple of Terrors; heedless of the danger of plunging over the precipice he raced along the treacherous path nor paused for breath until miles intervened between Tu Konk, Sybella and himself.
No social event of the season equalled the Burton-Dunlap wedding. For weeks prior to the date of the ceremony it had been the one all-engrossing theme of conversation with everybody; that is, everybody who was anybody, in the metropolis of the Old Bay State.
The immense settlement, the magnificent gifts, the exquisite trousseau from Paris, the surpassing beauty of the bride, the culture and accomplishments of the handsome groom, the exalted position of the Dunlap family, these formed the almost exclusive topics of Boston’s most exclusive set for many weeks before the wedding.
What a grand church wedding it was! The church was a perfect mass of flowers and plants of the rarest and most expensive kind. The music grandissimo beyond expression. A bishop assisted by two clergymen performed the ceremony.The bride, a dream of loveliness in lace, satin and orange blossoms; the groom a model of grace and chivalry; the tiny maids, earth-born angels; the ushers Boston’s bluest blooded scions of the Pilgrim Fathers, and finally everybody who was anybody was there.
And the reception! The Dunlap mansion and grounds were resplendent in a blaze of light; the beauty, talent, wealth and great names of New England were gathered there to congratulate the happy bride, Dunlap’s heiress, and the fortunate groom.
“A most appropriate match! How fortunate for all concerned! How delightful for the two old gentlemen!” declared everybody who was anybody.
Four special policemen guarded the glittering array of almost priceless wedding presents; in the splendid refreshment room, brilliant in glittering glass and silver, Boston’s best and gentlest pledged the happy bride and groom in many a glass of rarest wine and wished long life and happiness to that charming, well-mated pair.
The bride, radiant in her glorious beauty, rejectingas adornment for this occasion, diamond necklace and tiara, gifts of the groom, selected a simple coil of snowy pearls.
“The gift of my Cousin Jack,” she proudly said. “My earliest lover and most steadfast friend.”
The savings of years of sailor life had been expended ungrudgingly to lay this tribute of love on that fair bosom.
How well assured was the future of this fortunate couple! The prospect stretched before them like one long, joyous journey of uninterrupted bliss. Life’s pathway all lined with thornless roses beneath summer’s smiling sky.
Naught seemed lacking to make assurance of the future doubly sure. Youth, health, wealth, social position, culture, refinement, intelligence, amiability.
Soft strains of music floated on the perfumed air, bright eyes “spake love to eyes that spake again,” midst palms and in flower-garlanded recesses gentle voices whispered words of love to willing ears; in the center of this unalloyed blissfulness were Burton and his bride.
“Old bachelors are as excitable concerning marriage as old spinsters can possibly be. See Mr. John Dunlap, how flushed and nervous he seems! He hovers about the bride like an anxious mother!” So said two elderly grand-dames behind their fans while watching the group about Burton’s fair young wife.
Among that gay and gallant company moved one restless figure and peering face. David Chapman, leaving his sister, Miss Arabella, under the protecting care of Mrs. Church, lest during the confusion of so large a gathering, some daring cavalier, enamored of her maiden-charms, should elope with the guileless creature, mingled with the throng of guests, unobtrusive, but ever vigilant and watchful.
Chapman’s countenance bore an odd expression, a mixture of satisfied curiosity, vindictiveness and regret.
That very day a superannuated sailor who for years had served the house of Dunlap, and now acted as ship-keeper for vessels in its employ, called to report to the superintendent some trifling loss. Before leaving he asked respectfully, knuckling his forehead.
“Is the manager goin’ to marry ter’day?”
“Yes; why?” said Chapman sharply.
“Nothin’ ’cept I’ve often seen his mother and took notice of him here,” replied the man.
“Where did you see Mr. Burton’s mother? Who was she?” Chapman asked eagerly in his keen way.
“In Port au Prince, mor’n twenty-five year er’go. She was Ducros’, the sugar planter’s darter, and the puttiest quadroon I ever seen. Yea, the puttiest woman of any kind I ever seen,” answered the old ship-keeper in a reminiscent tone.
Chapman’s eyes fairly sparkled with pleasure as he thus secured a clew for future investigation, but without asking other questions he dismissed the retired seaman. It was this information that gave to his face that singular expression during the reception.
A private palace car stood on the track in the station waiting for the coming of the bridal party. Naught less than a special train could be considered when it was decided that Florida should be the favored spot where the wealthyHaitien and his bride, the Dunlap heiress, would spend their honeymoon.
Soft and balmy are the breezes, that pouring through the open windows of the car, flood the interior with odors of pine cones and orange blooms, as Burton’s special train speeds through the Flower State of the Union.
The car is decked with the fresh and gorgeous blossoms of this snowless land; yet of all the fairest is that sweet bud that rests on Burton’s breast.
“Walter, how sweet is life when one loves and is beloved,” said Burton’s young wife dreamily, raising her head from his breast and gazing fondly into her husband’s eyes.
“Yes, love, life then is heaven on earth, sweet wife,” whispered the husband clasping closely the yielding figure in his arms.
“I am so happy, dearest Walter, I love you so dearly,” murmured Lucy clinging still closer to her lover.
“You will always love me thus, I hope, my darling,” said Walter, as he kissed the white forehead of his bride.
“Of course I shall, my own dear husband,” answered unhesitatingly the happy, trusting woman.
“Could nothing, no matter what, however unexpected and unforeseen, shake your faith in me, or take from me that love I hold so sacred and so dear?” asked Burton earnestly, pressing his wife to his heart.
“Nothing could alter my love for you, my husband,” answered Lucy quickly, as she raised her head and kissed him.
The special train slows up at a small station. Put on breaks! The whistle calls, and the train stops until the dispatcher can get a “clear track” message from the next station.
The crowd of negroes, male and female, large and small, stare with wondering admiration at the beautiful being who appears on the rear platform of the car accompanied by such a perfect Adonis of a man.
Lucy Burton was an object not likely to escape attention. Her full round form, slender, yet molded into most delicious curves, was shown to perfection by the tight-fitting traveling gown ofsome kind of soft stuff that she wore; her happy, beautiful face, bright with the love-light in her hazel eyes, presented a picture calculated to cause even the most fastidious to stare. To the ignorant black people she was a revelation of loveliness.
As the negroes, in opened-mouthed wonder, came closer and clustered about the steps of the car, their great eyes wide and white, Lucy drew back a little and somewhat timidly slipped her hand into her husband’s, whispering:
“I am afraid of them, they are so black and shocking with their rolling eyes and thick lips.”
“Nonsense! sweetheart,” said Walter with a laugh not all together spontaneous.
“They are a merry, gentle folk, gay and good-natured; the Southern people would have no other nurses for their babies. I thought New England people had long since ceased to notice the color of mankind’s skin.”
“But, Walter, how horrid they are! We see so few of them in New England that they don’t seem like these. How dreadfully black and brutal they are. Let us go inside, I really amafraid!” cried Lucy in a low voice and started to retreat.
At that moment a tall and very black woman who held a baby at her breast, negro-like, carried away by thoughtless good nature and admiration for the lovely stranger, raised her ink-colored picaninny, and in motherly pride thrust it forward until its little wooly black head almost touched Lucy’s bosom.
With one glance of loathing, terror and unconcealed horror at the object resting nearly on her breast, Lucy gave a scream of fear and fled. Throwing herself on one of the settees in the car she buried her face among the cushions and wept solely from fright and nervousness.
“Why! sweetheart, what is the matter? There is nothing to fear. Those poor people were only admiring you, my darling,” cried Burton hurrying to his young wife’s side and seeking to quiet her fears.
“I can’t help it, Walter, all those black faces crowded together near to me was awful, and that dreadful little black thing almost touched me,” sobbed Lucy nervously.
“Darling, the dreadful little black thing was only a harmless baby,” replied the husband soothingly.
“Baby!” cried the astonished young woman, lifting her head from the cushions and regarding her companion through her undried tears with doubt, as if suspecting him of joking. “I thought it was an ape or some hideous little imp! Baby!” and seeing that there was no joke about what her husband said, she added:
“I didn’t know negroes looked like that when babies. I would not touch that loathsome, horrid thing for worlds. It made my flesh fairly quiver to see it even near me.”
Walter Burton succeeded in allaying the alarm of his wife only after the train had resumed its rapid journey southward. When Lucy, lulled to sleep by the low music of the guitar which he played to distract her attention from the unpleasant recollection, no longer demanded his presence, Burton sought the smoking-room of the car and passed an hour in solemn, profound meditation, as he puffed continuously fragrant Havanas.
“I was wrong! She did not know. Now shenever shall if I can prevent it.” Such were the words of Lucy’s husband when throwing away his cigar he arose to rejoin his young wife.
Many hundred miles from flowery Florida across a watery way, a ship was wildly tossing upon an angry, sullen sea. For three days and nights with ceaseless toil, in constant danger, the weary crew had battled with howling winds and tempestuous waves.
A storm of awe-inspiring fury had burst upon the good ship “Adams,” of Boston, bound for Melbourne, on the night of December the nineteenth in that good year of our Lord.
The superb seamanship of the skipper, combined with the prompt alacrity of the willing crew, alone saved the ship from adding her broken frame to that countless multitude which rest beneath the waves.
The wind was still blowing a gale, but there was perceptibly less force in it, as shrieking it tore through the rigging and against the almost bare masts, than there had been in three days.
Two men stood in the cabin, enveloped in oil-skins,with rubber boots reaching above their knees. Their eyes were red from wind and watching, while they answered the heave of the ship wearily as if worn out with the excessive labor of the last seventy-two hours. The men were the two mates of the “Adams.” The captain had sent them below for a glass of grog and a biscuit. There had been no fire in the galley for the three days that the storm had beaten upon the ship.
“The skipper must be made of iron,” said the shorter man, Morgan, the second officer.
“He has hardly left the deck a minute since the squall struck us, and he is as quick and strong as a shark,” he continued, munching on the biscuit and balancing himself carefully as he raised his glass of grog.
“Every inch a sailor is the skipper,” growled the larger man hoarsely.
“Sailed with Captain Dunlap in the ‘Lucy,’ and no better master ever trod a quarter-deck,” added Mr. Brice, the first officer of the “Adams.”
“He surely knows his business and handles the ship with the ease a Chinaman does his chopsticks,but he’s the surliest, most silent skipper I ever sailed with. You told us, Mr. Brice, when you came aboard that he was the jolliest; was he like this when you were with him on the ‘Lucy’?” said the second mate inquiringly.
“No, he wasn’t!” mumbled old Brice in answer.
“Somethin’ went wrong with him ashore,” adding angrily as he turned and glared at his young companion:
“But ’tis none of your blamed business or mine neither what’s up with the skipper; you didn’t ship for society, did you?”
“That’s right enough, Mr. Brice, but I tell you what ’tis, the men think the captain a little out of trim in the sky-sail. They say he walks about ship at night like a ghost and does queer things. Second day of the storm, the twentieth, in the evening, while it was blowing great guns and ship pitching like she’d stick her nose under forever, I was standin’ by to help Collins at the wheel; we see the skipper come staggering along aft balancing himself careful as a rope walker an a holdin’ a glass of wine in his hand. Whenhe gets to the rail at the stern he holds up high the glass and talks to wind, Davy Jones or somethin’, drinks the wine and hurls the glass to hell and gone into the sea. How’s that, mate? Collins looks at me and shakes his head, and I feels creepy myself.”
For a minute Brice, with red and angry eyes, stared at the second mate, then he burst out in a roar:
“I’ll knock the head off ’er Collins, and marlin spike the rest ’er the bloomin’ sea lawyers in the for’castle if I catch them talkin’ erbout the skipper, and I tell you, Mr. Second Mate, you keep your mouth well shut or you’ll get such ’er keel haulin’ you won’t fergit. Captain Dunlap is no man to projec’k with and he’s mighty rough in er shindy.”
With that closing admonition the first officer turned and climbed the reeling stairs that led to the deck. As he emerged from the companion-way a great wave struck the side of ship heeling her over and hurling the mate against the man who had formed the topic of discussion in the cabin below.
The skipper was wet to the skin; he had thrown aside his oil-skins to enable him to move more nimbly, his face was worn, drawn and almost of leaden hue. Deep lines and the dark circles around his eyes told a story of loss of sleep, fatigue and anxiety. How much of this was due to an aching pain in the heart only Him to whom all things are revealed could know.
Morgan’s story was true. He had described when, how and under what conditions Jack had pledged Lucy in a glass of wine on her wedding day, praying God to send blessings and happiness to his lost love.
Sing sweet mocking birds! Shine genial sun! Bloom fairest flowers of Sunny Florida! Bliss be thine, loved Lucy! Dream not of the ocean’s angry roar! The tempest’s cruel blast!
“I really can hardly realize, grandfather, that I have been married one year and that today is the anniversary of my wedding,” exclaimed Mrs. Walter Burton to her grandfather, as lingering over a late breakfast, they chatted in a desultory manner on many subjects.
The breakfast-room of the Dunlap mansion was one of the prettiest apartments in the house; bright and airy, with great windows reaching from ceiling to floor, which flooded the place with sunshine and cheerfulness this brilliant snowy New England morning.
Surely it had been difficult to find anything prettier than the young matron who presided over the sparkling service with the grace of the school-girl still visible notwithstanding the recently assumed dignity of wife.
Lucy Burton’s face and form possessed thatrare quality of seeming always displayed to best advantage in the last costume she wore. Nothing could be more becoming than the lace-trimmed breakfast gown of a clinging silky, pink fabric worn by her this morning.
The tete-a-tete between grandfather and granddaughter each morning over the breakfast-table was an established and, to both, a cherished custom that had grown up since Lucy’s marriage.
Mr. James Dunlap carried his seventy-three years as lightly as many men of less rugged constitutions carry fifty. His was a fresh, healthy, kindly old face, the white hair resting like the snow on some Alpine peak served but to heighten the charm of those goodly features below.
“A year to young people means very little, I judge, daughter, but we old folk regard it differently. You have been away from me during the last year so much that old man as I am, the time has dragged,” the grandfather replied laying aside his morning paper and adjusting his glasses that he might see better the pretty face across the table.
“Now, that I look at you, my dear, apparently you have not aged to any alarming extent since you have become a matron,” jocosely added the old gentleman, his eyes beaming lovingly on his granddaughter.
“I may not show it, still I have my troubles.” Lucy’s attempt to wrinkle her smooth brow and draw down the corners of her sweet mouth while she tried to muster up a sigh was so ridiculous that her companion began to laugh.
“Don’t laugh at me, grandfather; it’s unkind,” cried Lucy, with the childish manner that still crept out when alone with him who had been both father and mother to her.
“Very well, deary, I shall not laugh. Tell me of those dire troubles that afflict you,” rejoined her still smiling grandfather.
“Well! now there is Walter, obliged to run away so early to that horrid old office that I never see him at the breakfast-table,” began the young creature with pretty pettishness.
“Sad! indeed sad!” said Mr. Dunlap in affected sorrow. “A gay young couple attend some social function or the theatre nightly andare up late; the unfortunate young husband is obliged to be at his office at ten o’clock in the morning to save an old man of seventy odd from routine labor; the young wife who is fond of a morning nap must breakfast alone, save the companionship of an old fogy of a grandfather; ’tis the saddest situation I ever heard of.”
The laughter in the old gentleman’s throat gurgled like good wine poured for welcome guest as Lucy puckered up her lips at him.
“Then that hateful old ‘Eyrie.’ When we were married and you insisted that we should live here with you, which, of course, I expected to do, I thought Walter would sell or lease that lonely bachelor den of his, but he has done no such thing; says he keeps up the establishment for the sake of the conservatory, which is the finest in the State,” proceeded the wife ruefully recounting her alleged woes.
“Walter speaks truly concerning the conservatory at the ‘Eyrie.’ Mr. Foster Agnew, who is authority on the subject, says that he has never seen a finer collection of rare and beautiful plants and flowers in any private conservatory in thiscountry,” replied Mr. Dunlap in defense of Burton’s action in maintaining his former home.
“Yes, but there is no reason for Walter’s running up there at all hours of the night, and sometimes even staying there all night, telling me that he is anxious about the temperature; that Leopold may fall asleep or neglect something. I hate that miserable conservatory,” rejoined Lucy with flushed face and flashing eyes.
“Oh! Pshaw! you exacting little witch! You are fearfully neglected by reason of the ‘Eyrie’s’ conservatory, are you? Now, let me see. You were in Florida and California two months of the last year, and in Europe four more, leaving just six months that you have spent in Boston since your marriage. I suppose Walter has spent a half dozen nights at the ‘Eyrie.’ Great tribulation and trial,” rejoined the amused grandfather.
“Well, but Walter knows I don’t like his going there at night. Something might happen to him,” persisted Lucy, woman-like seizing any argument to gain her point.