"And Honoré Grandissime is going to introduce it on his lands," said Don José.
"That is true," said Agricola Fusilier, coming in. Honoré, the indefatigable peacemaker, had brought his uncle and his brother-in-law for the moment not only to speaking, but to friendly, terms.
The señor smiled.
"I have some good tidings, too," he said; "my beloved lady has borne me a son."
"Another scion of the house of Grand--I mean Martinez!" exclaimed Agricola. "And now, Don José, let me say thatIhave an item of rare intelligence!"
The don lifted his feeble head and opened his inquiring eyes with a sudden, savage light in them.
"No," said Agricola, "he is not exactly taken yet, but they are on his track."
"Who?"
"The police. We may say he is virtually in our grasp."
It was on a Sabbath afternoon that a band of Choctaws having just played a game of racquette behind the city and a similar game being about to end between the white champions of two rival faubourgs, the beating of tom-toms, rattling of mules' jawbones and sounding of wooden horns drew the populace across the fields to a spot whose present name of Congo Square still preserves a reminder of its old barbaric pastimes. On a grassy plain under the ramparts, the performers of these hideous discords sat upon the ground facing each other, and in their midst the dancers danced. They gyrated in couples, a few at a time, throwing their bodies into the most startling attitudes and the wildest contortions, while the whole company of black lookers-on, incited by the tones of the weird music and the violent posturing of the dancers, swayed and writhed in passionate sympathy, beating their breasts, palms and thighs in time with the bones and drums, and at frequent intervals lifting, in that wild African unison no more to be described than forgotten, the unutterable songs of the Babouille and Counjaille dances, with their ejaculatory burdens of "Aie! Aie! Voudou Magnan!" and "Aie Calinda! Dancé Calinda!" The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentation or diminution of the dancers' extravagances. Now a fresh man, young and supple, bounding into the ring, revived the flagging rattlers, drummers and trumpeters; now a wearied dancer, finding his strength going, gathered all his force at the cry of "Dancé zisqu'a mort!" rallied to a grand finale and with one magnificent antic fell, foaming at the mouth.
The amusement had reached its height. Many participants had been lugged out by the neck to avoid their being danced on, and the enthusiasm had risen to a frenzy, when there bounded into the ring the blackest of black men, an athlete of superb figure, in breeches of "Indienne"--the stuff used for slave women's best dresses--jingling with bells, his feet in moccasins, his tight, crisp hair decked out with feathers, a necklace of alligator's teeth rattling on his breast and a living serpent twined about his neck.
It chanced that but one couple was dancing. Whether they had been sent there by advice of Agricola is not certain. Snatching a tambourine from a bystander as he entered, the stranger thrust the male dancer aside, faced the woman and began a series of saturnalian antics, compared with which all that had gone before was tame and sluggish; and as he finally leaped, with tinkling heels, clean over his bewildered partner's head, the multitude howled with rapture.
Ill-starred Bras-Coupé. He was in that extra-hazardous and irresponsible condition of mind and body known in the undignified present as "drunk again."
By the strangest fortune, if not, as we have just hinted, by some design, the man whom he had once deposited in the willow bushes, and the woman Clemence, were the very two dancers, and no other, whom he had interrupted. The man first stupidly regarded, next admiringly gazed upon, and then distinctly recognized, his whilom driver. Five minutes later the Spanish police were putting their heads together to devise a quick and permanent capture; and in the midst of the sixth minute, as the wonderful fellow was rising in a yet more astounding leap than his last, a lasso fell about his neck and brought him, crashing like a burnt tree, face upward upon the turf.
"The runaway slave," said the old French code, continued in force by the Spaniards, "the runaway slave who shall continue to be so for one month from the day of his being denounced to the officers of justice shall have his ears cut off and shall be branded with the flower de luce on the shoulder; and on a second offence of the same nature, persisted in during one month of his being denounced, he shall be hamstrung, and be marked with the flower de luce on the other shoulder. On the third offence he shall die." Bras-Coupé had run away only twice. "But," said Agricola, "these 'bossals' must be taught their place. Besides, there is Article 27 of the same code: 'The slave who, having struck his master, shall have produced a bruise, shall suffer capital punishment'--a very necessary law!" He concluded with a scowl upon Palmyre, who shot back a glance which he never forgot.
The Spaniard showed himself very merciful--for a Spaniard; he spared the captive's life. He might have been more merciful still; but Honoré Grandissime said some indignant things in the African's favor, and as much to teach the Grandissimes a lesson as to punish the runaway, he would have repented his clemency, as he repented the momentary truce with Agricola, but for the tearful pleading of the señora and the hot, dry eyes of her maid. Because of these he overlooked the offence against his person and estate, and delivered Bras-Coupé to the law to suffer only the penalties of the crime he had committed against society by attempting to be a free man.
We repeat it for the credit of Palmyre, that she pleaded for Bras-Coupé. But what it cost her to make that intercession, knowing that his death would leave her free, and that if he lived she must be his wife, let us not attempt to say.
In the midst of the ancient town, in a part which is now crumbling away, stood the Calaboza, with its humid vaults and grated cells, its iron cages and its whips; and there, soon enough, they strapped Bras-Coupé face downward and laid on the lash. And yet not a sound came from the mutilated but unconquered African to annoy the ear of the sleeping city.
("And you suffered this thing to take place?" asked Joseph Frowenfeld of Honoré Grandissime.
"My-de'-seh!" exclaimed the Creole, "they lied to me--said they would not harm him!")
He was brought at sunrise to the plantation. The air was sweet with the smell of the weed-grown fields. The long-horned oxen that drew him and the naked boy that drove the team stopped before his cabin.
"You cannot put that creature in there," said the thoughtful overseer. "He would suffocate under a roof--he has been too long out-of-doors for that. Put him on my cottage porch." There, at last, Palmyre burst into tears and sank down, while before her, on a soft bed of dry grass, rested the helpless form of the captive giant, a cloth thrown over his galled back, his ears shorn from his head, and the tendons behind his knees severed. His eyes were dry, but there was in them that unspeakable despair that fills the eye of the charger when, fallen in battle, he gazes with sidewise-bended neck on the ruin wrought upon him. His eye turned sometimes slowly to his wife. He need not demand her now--she was always by him.
There was much talk over him--much idle talk. He merely lay still under it with a fixed frown; but once some incautious tongue dropped the name of Agricola. The black man's eyes came so quickly round to Palmyre that she thought he would speak; but no; his words were all in his eyes. She answered their gleam with a fierce affirmative glance, whereupon he slowly bent his head and spat upon the floor.
There was yet one more trial of his wild nature. The mandate came from his master's sick-bed that he must lift the curse.
Bras-Coupé merely smiled. God keep thy enemy from such a smile!
The overseer, with a policy less Spanish than his master's, endeavored to use persuasion. But the fallen prince would not so much as turn one glance from his parted hamstrings. Palmyre was then besought to intercede. She made one poor attempt, but her husband was nearer doing her an unkindness than ever he had been before; he made a slow sign for silence--with his fist; and every mouth was stopped.
At midnight following, there came, on the breeze that blew from the mansion, a sound of running here and there, of wailing and sobbing--another Bridegroom was coming, and the Spaniard, with much such a lamp in hand as most of us shall be found with, neither burning brightly nor wholly gone out, went forth to meet Him.
"Bras-Coupé," said Palmyre, next evening, speaking low in his mangled ear, "the master is dead; he is just buried. As he was dying, Bras-Coupé, he asked that you would forgive him."
The maimed man looked steadfastly at his wife. He had not spoken since the lash struck him, and he spoke not now; but in those large, clear eyes, where his remaining strength seemed to have taken refuge as in a citadel, the old fierceness flared up for a moment, and then, like an expiring beacon, went out.
"Is your mistress well enough by this time to venture here?" whispered the overseer to Palmyre. "Let her come. Tell her not to fear, but to bring the babe--in her own arms, tell her--quickly!"
The lady came, her infant boy in her arms, knelt down beside the bed of sweet grass and set the child within the hollow of the African's arm. Bras-Coupé turned his gaze upon it; it smiled, its mother's smile, and put its hand upon the runaway's face, and the first tears of Bras-Coupé's life, the dying testimony of his humanity, gushed from his eyes and rolled down his cheek upon the infant's hand. He laid his own tenderly upon the babe's forehead, then removing it, waved it abroad, inaudibly moved his lips, dropped his arm, and closed his eyes. The curse was lifted.
"Le pauv' dgiab'!" said the overseer, wiping his eyes and looking fieldward. "Palmyre, you must get the priest."
The priest came, in the identical gown in which he had appeared the night of the two weddings. To the good father's many tender questions Bras-Coupé turned a failing eye that gave no answers; until, at length:
"Do you know where you are going?" asked the holy man.
"Yes," answered his eyes, brightening.
"Where?"
He did not reply; he was lost in contemplation, and seemed looking far away.
So the question was repeated.
"Do you know where you are going?"
And again the answer of the eyes. He knew.
"Where?"
The overseer at the edge of the porch, the widow with her babe, and Palmyre and the priest bending over the dying bed, turned an eager ear to catch the answer.
"To--" the voice failed a moment; the departing hero essayed again; again it failed; he tried once more, lifted his hand, and with an ecstatic, upward smile, whispered, "To--Africa"--and was gone.
As we have said, the story of Bras-Coupé was told that day three times: to the Grandissime beauties once, to Frowenfeld twice. The fair Grandissimes all agreed, at the close; that it was pitiful. Specially, that it was a great pity to have hamstrung Bras-Coupé, a man who even in his cursing had made an exception in favor of the ladies. True, they could suggest no alternative; it was undeniable that he had deserved his fate; still, it seemed a pity. They dispersed, retired and went to sleep confirmed in this sentiment. In Frowenfeld the story stirred deeper feelings.
On this same day, while it was still early morning, Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c., with more than even his wonted slowness of step and propriety of rich attire, had reappeared in the shop of the rue Royale. He did not need to say he desired another private interview. Frowenfeld ushered him silently and at once into his rear room, offered him a chair (which he accepted), and sat down before him.
In his labored way the quadroon stated his knowledge that Frowenfeld had been three times to the dwelling of Palmyre Philosophe. Why, he further intimated, he knew not, nor would he ask; buthe--whenhehad applied for admission--had been refused. He had laid open his heart to the apothecary's eyes--"It may have been unwisely--"
Frowenfeld interrupted him; Palmyre had been ill for several days; Doctor Keene--who, Mr. Grandissime probably knew, was her physician--
The landlord bowed, and Frowenfeld went on to explain that Doctor Keene, while attending her, had also fallen sick and had asked him to take the care of this one case until he could himself resume it. So there, in a word, was the reason why Joseph had, and others had not, been admitted to her presence.
As obviously to the apothecary's eyes as anything intangible could be, a load of suffering was lifted from the quadroon's mind, as this explanation was concluded. Yet he only sat in meditation before his tenant, who regarded him long and sadly. Then, seized with one of his energetic impulses, he suddenly said:
"Mr. Grandissime, you are a man of intelligence, accomplishments, leisure and wealth; why" (clenchings his fists and frowning), "why do you not give yourself--your time--wealth--attainments--energies--everything--to the cause of the downtrodden race with which this community's scorn unjustly compels you to rank yourself?"
The quadroon did not meet Frowenfeld's kindled eyes for a moment, and when he did, it was slowly and dejectedly.
"He canno' be," he said, and then, seeing his words were not understood, he added: "He 'ave no Cause. Dad peop' 'ave no Cause." He went on from this with many pauses and gropings after words and idiom, to tell, with a plaintiveness that seemed to Frowenfeld almost unmanly, the reasons why the people, a little of whose blood had been enough to blast his life, would never be free by the force of their own arm. Reduced to the meanings which he vainly tried to convey in words, his statement was this: that that people was not a people. Their cause--was in Africa. They upheld it there--they lost it there--and to those that are here the struggle was over; they were, one and all, prisoners of war.
"You speak of them in the third person," said Frowenfeld.
"Ah ham nod a slev."
"Are you certain of that?" asked the tenant.
His landlord looked at him.
"It seems to me," said Frowenfeld, "that you--your class--the free quadroons--are the saddest slaves of all. Your men, for a little property, and your women, for a little amorous attention, let themselves be shorn even of the virtue of discontent, and for a paltry bait of sham freedom have consented to endure a tyrannous contumely which flattens them into the dirt like grass under a slab. I would rather be a runaway in the swamps than content myself with such a freedom. As your class stands before the world to-day--free in form but slaves in spirit--you are--I do not know but I was almost ready to say--a warning to philanthropists!"
The free man of color slowly arose.
"I trust you know," said Frowenfeld, "that I say nothing in offence."
"Havery word is tru'," replied the sad man.
"Mr. Grandissime," said the apothecary, as his landlord sank back again into his seat, "I know you are a broken-hearted man."
The quadroon laid his fist upon his heart and looked up.
"And being broken-hearted, you are thus specially fitted for a work of patient and sustained self-sacrifice. You have only those things to lose which grief has taught you to despise--ease, money, display. Give yourself to your people--to those, I mean, who groan, or should groan, under the degraded lot which is theirs and yours in common."
The quadroon shook his head, and after a moment's silence, answered:
"Ah cannod be one Toussaint l'Ouverture. Ah cannod trah to be. Hiv I trah, I h-only s'all soogceed to be one Bras-Coupé."
"You entirely misunderstand me," said Frowenfeld in quick response. "I have no stronger disbelief than my disbelief in insurrection. I believe that to every desirable end there are two roads, the way of strife and the way of peace. I can imagine a man in your place, going about among his people, stirring up their minds to a noble discontent, laying out his means, sparingly here and bountifully there, as in each case might seem wisest, for their enlightenment, their moral elevation, their training in skilled work; going, too, among the men of the prouder caste, among such as have a spirit of fairness, and seeking to prevail with them for a public recognition of the rights of all; using all his cunning to show them the double damage of all oppression, both great and petty--"
The quadroon motioned "enough." There was a heat in his eyes which Frowenfeld had never seen before.
"M'sieu'," he said, "waid till Agricola Fusilier ees keel."
"Do you mean 'dies'?"
"No," insisted the quadroon; "listen." And with slow, painstaking phrase this man of strong feeling and feeble will (the trait of his caste) told--as Frowenfeld felt he would do the moment he said "listen"--such part of the story of Bras-Coupé as showed how he came by his deadly hatred of Agricola.
"Tale me," said the landlord, as he concluded the recital, "w'y deen Bras Coupé mague dad curze on Agricola Fusilier? Becoze Agricola ees one sorcier! Elz 'e bin dade sinz long tamm."
The speaker's gestures seemed to imply that his own hand, if need be, would have brought the event to pass.
As he rose to say adieu, Frowenfeld, without previous intention, laid a hand upon his visitor's arm.
"Is there no one who can make peace between you?"
The landlord shook his head.
"'Tis impossib'. We don' wand."
"I mean," insisted Frowenfeld, "Is there no man who can stand between you and those who wrong you, and effect a peaceful reparation?"
The landlord slowly moved away, neither he nor his tenant speaking, but each knowing that the one man in the minds of both, as a possible peacemaker, was Honoré Grandissime.
"Should the opportunity offer," continued Joseph, "may I speak a word for you myself?"
The quadroon paused a moment, smiled politely though bitterly, and departed repeating again:
"'Tis impossib'. We don' wand."
"Palsied," murmured Frowenfeld, looking after him, regretfully,--"like all of them."
Frowenfeld's thoughts were still on the same theme when, the day having passed, the hour was approaching wherein Innerarity was exhorted to tell his good-night story in the merry circle at the distant Grandissime mansion. As the apothecary was closing his last door for the night, the fairer Honoré called him out into the moonlight.
"Withered," the student was saying audibly to himself, "not in the shadow of the Ethiopian, but in the glare of the white man."
"Who is withered?" pleasantly demanded Honoré. The apothecary started slightly.
"Did I speak? How do you do, sir? I meant the free quadroons."
"Including the gentleman from whom you rent your store?"
"Yes, him especially; he told me this morning the story of Bras-Coupé."
M. Grandissime laughed. Joseph did not see why, nor did the laugh sound entirely genuine.
"Do not open the door, Mr Frowenfeld," said the Creole, "Get your greatcoat and cane and come take a walk with me; I will tell you the same story."
It was two hours before they approached this door again on their return. Just before they reached it, Honoré stopped under the huge street-lamp, whose light had gone out, where a large stone lay before him on the ground in the narrow, moonlit street. There was a tall, unfinished building at his back.
"Mr Frowenfeld,"--he struck the stone with his cane,--"this stone is Bras-Coupé--we cast it aside because it turns the edge of our tools."
He laughed. He had laughed to-night more than was comfortable to a man of Frowenfeld's quiet mind.
As the apothecary thrust his shopkey into the lock and so paused to hear his companion, who had begun again to speak, he wondered what it could be--for M. Grandissime had not disclosed it--that induced such a man as he to roam aimlessly, as it seemed, in deserted streets at such chill and dangerous hours. "What does he want with me?" The thought was so natural that it was no miracle the Creole read it.
"Well," said he, smiling and taking an attitude, "you are a great man for causes, Mr. Frowenfeld; but me, I am for results, ha, ha! You may ponder the philosophy of Bras-Coupé in your study, butIhave got to get rid of his results, me. You know them."
"You tell me it revived a war where you had made a peace," said Frowenfeld.
"Yes--yes--that is his results; but good night, Mr. Frowenfeld."
"Good night, sir."
Each day found Doctor Keene's strength increasing, and on the morning following the incidents last recorded he was imprudently projecting an outdoor promenade. An announcement from Honoré Grandissime, who had paid an early call, had, to that gentleman's no small surprise, produced a sudden and violent effect on the little man's temper.
He was sitting alone by his window, looking out upon the levee, when the apothecary entered the apartment.
"Frowenfeld," he instantly began, with evident displeasure most unaccountable to Joseph, "I hear you have been visiting the Nancanous."
"Yes, I have been there."
"Well, you had no business to go!"
Doctor Keene smote the arm of his chair with his fist.
Frowenfeld reddened with indignation, but suppressed his retort. He stood still in the middle of the floor, and Doctor Keene looked out of the window.
"Doctor Keene," said the visitor, when his attitude was no longer tolerable, "have you anything more to say to me before I leave you?"
"No, sir."
"It is necessary for me, then, to say that in fulfilment of my promise, I am going from here to the house of Palmyre, and that she will need no further attention after to-day. As to your present manner toward me, I shall endeavor to suspend judgment until I have some knowledge of its cause."
The doctor made no reply, but went on looking out of the window, and Frowenfeld turned and left him.
As he arrived in the philosophe's sick-chamber--where he found her sitting in a chair set well back from a small fire--she half-whispered "Miché" with a fine, greeting smile, as if to a brother after a week's absence. To a person forced to lie abed, shut away from occupation and events, a day is ten, three are a month: not merely in the wear and tear upon the patience, but also in the amount of thinking and recollecting done. It was to be expected, then, that on this, the apothecary's fourth visit, Palmyre would have learned to take pleasure in his coming.
But the smile was followed by a faint, momentary frown, as if Frowenfeld had hardly returned it in kind. Likely enough, he had not. He was not distinctively a man of smiles; and as he engaged in his appointed task she presently thought of this.
"This wound is doing so well," said Joseph, still engaged with the bandages, "that I shall not need to come again." He was not looking at her as he spoke, but he felt her give a sudden start. "What is this?" he thought, but presently said very quietly: "With the assistance of your slave woman, you can now attend to it yourself."
She made no answer.
When, with a bow, he would have bade her good morning, she held out her hand for his. After a barely perceptible hesitation, he gave it, whereupon she held it fast, in a way to indicate that there was something to be said which he must stay and hear.
She looked up into his face. She may have been merely framing in her mind the word or two of English she was about to utter; but an excitement shone through her eyes and reddened her lips, and something sent out from her countenance a look of wild distress.
"You goin' tell 'im?" she asked.
"Who? Agricola?"
"Non!"
He spoke the next name more softly.
"Honoré?"
Her eyes looked deeply into his for a moment, then dropped, and she made a sign of assent.
He was about to say that Honoré knew already, but saw no necessity for doing so, and changed his answer.
"I will never tell any one."
"You know?" she asked, lifting her eyes for an instant. She meant to ask if he knew the motive that had prompted her murderous intent.
"I know your whole sad history."
She looked at him for a moment, fixedly; then, still holding his hand with one of hers, she threw the other to her face and turned away her head. He thought she moaned.
Thus she remained for a few moments, then suddenly she turned, clasped both hands about his, her face flamed up and she opened her lips to speak, but speech failed. An expression of pain and supplication came upon her countenance, and the cry burst from her:
"Meg 'im to love me!"
He tried to withdraw his hand, but she held it fast, and, looking up imploringly with her wide, electric eyes, cried:
"Vous pouvez le faire, vous pouvez le faire(You can do it, you can do it);vous êtes sorcier, mo conné bien vous êtes sorcier(you are a sorcerer, I know)."
However harmless or healthful Joseph's touch might be to the philosophe, he felt now that hers, to him, was poisonous. He dared encounter her eyes, her touch, her voice, no longer. The better man in him was suffocating. He scarce had power left to liberate his right hand with his left, to seize his hat and go.
Instantly she rose from her chair, threw herself on her knees in his path, and found command of his language sufficient to cry as she lifted her arms, bared of their drapery:
"Oh, my God! don' rif-used me--don' rif-used me!"
There was no time to know whether Frowenfeld wavered or not. The thought flashed into his mind that in all probability all the care and skill he had spent upon the wound was being brought to naught in this moment of wild posturing and excitement; but before it could have effect upon his movements, a stunning blow fell upon the back of his head, and Palmyre's slave woman, the Congo dwarf, under the impression that it was the most timely of strokes, stood brandishing a billet of pine and preparing to repeat the blow.
He hurled her, snarling and gnashing like an ape, against the farther wall, cast the bar from the street door and plunged out, hatless, bleeding and stunned.
About the same time of day, three gentlemen (we use the term gentlemen in its petrified state) were walking down the rue Royale from the direction of the Faubourg Ste. Marie.
They were coming down toward Palmyre's corner. The middle one, tall and shapely, might have been mistaken at first glance for Honoré Grandissime, but was taller and broader, and wore a cocked hat, which Honoré did not. It was Valentine. The short, black-bearded man in buckskin breeches on his right was Jean-Baptiste Grandissime, and the slight one on the left, who, with the prettiest and most graceful gestures and balancings, was leading the conversation, was Hippolyte Brahmin-Mandarin, a cousin and counterpart of that sturdy-hearted challenger of Agricola, Sylvestre.
"But after all," he was saying in Louisiana French, "there is no spot comparable, for comfortable seclusion, to the old orange grove under the levee on the Point; twenty minutes in a skiff, five minutes for preliminaries--you would not want more, the ground has been measured off five hundred times--'are you ready?'--"
"Ah, bah!" said Valentine, tossing his head, "the Yankees would be down on us before you could count one."
"Well, then, behind the Jesuits' warehouses, if you insist. I don't care. Perdition take such a government! I am almost sorry I went to the governor's reception."
"It was quiet, I hear; a sort of quiet ball, all promenading and no contra-dances. One quadroon ball is worth five of such."
This was the opinion of Jean-Baptiste.
"No, it was fine, anyhow. There was a contra-dance. The music was--tárata joonc, tará, tará--tárata joonc, tarárata joonc, tará--oh! it was the finest thing--and composed here. They compose as fine things here as they do anywhere in the--look there! That man came out of Palmyre's house; see how he staggered just then!"
"Drunk," said Jean-Baptiste.
"No, he seems to be hurt. He has been struck on the head. Oho, I tell you, gentlemen, that same Palmyre is a wonderful animal! Do you see? She not only defends herself and ejects the wretch, but she puts her mark upon him; she identifies him, ha, ha, ha! Look at the high art of the thing; she keeps his hat as a small souvenir and gives him a receipt for it on the back of his head. Ah! but hasn't she taught him a lesson? Why, gentlemen,--it is--if it isn't that sorcerer of an apothecary!"
"What?" exclaimed the other two; "well, well, but this is too good! Caught at last, ha, ha, ha, the saintly villain! Ah, ha, ha! Will not Honoré be proud of him now?Ah! voilà un joli Joseph!What did I tell you? Didn't Ialwaystell you so?"
"But the beauty of it is, he is caught so cleverly. No escape--no possible explanation. There he is, gentlemen, as plain as a rat in a barrel, and with as plain a case. Ha, ha, ha! Isn't it just glorious?"
And all three laughed in such an ecstasy of glee that Frowenfeld looked back, saw them, and knew forthwith that his good name was gone. The three gentlemen, with tears of merriment still in their eyes, reached a corner and disappeared.
"Mister," said a child, trotting along under Frowenfeld's elbow,--the odd English of the New Orleans street-urchin was at that day just beginning to be heard--"Mister, dey got some blood on de back of you' hade!"
But Frowenfeld hurried on groaning with mental anguish.
It was the year 1804. The world was trembling under the tread of the dread Corsican. It was but now that he had tossed away the whole Valley of the Mississippi, dropping it overboard as a little sand from a balloon, and Christendom in a pale agony of suspense was watching the turn of his eye; yet when a gibbering black fool here on the edge of civilization merely swings a pine-knot, the swinging of that pine-knot becomes to Joseph Frowenfeld, student of man, a matter of greater moment than the destination of the Boulogne Flotilla. For it now became for the moment the foremost necessity of his life to show, to that minute fraction of the earth's population which our terror misnames "the world," that a man may leap forth hatless and bleeding from the house of a New Orleans quadroon into the open street and yet be pure white within. Would it answer to tell the truth? Parts of that truth he was pledged not to tell; and even if he could tell it all it was incredible--bore all the features of a flimsy lie.
"Mister," repeated the same child who had spoken before, reinforced by another under the other elbow, "dey got somebloodon de back of you' hade."
And the other added the suggestion:
"Dey got one drug-sto', yondah."
Frowenfeld groaned again. The knock had been a hard one, the ground and sky went round not a little, but he retained withal a white-hot process of thought that kept before him his hopeless inability to explain. He was coffined alive. The world (so-called) would bury him in utter loathing, and write on his headstone the one word--hypocrite. And he should lie there and helplessly contemplate Honoré pushing forward those purposes which he had begun to hope he was to have had the honor of furthering. But instead of so doing he would now be the by-word of the street.
"Mister," interposed the child once more, spokesman this time for a dozen blacks and whites of all sizes trailing along before and behind, "dey got some bloodon de back of you'hade."
That same morning Clotilde had given a music-scholar her appointed lesson, and at its conclusion had borrowed of her patroness (how pleasant it must have been to have such things to lend!) a little yellow maid, in order that, with more propriety, she might make a business call. It was that matter of the rent--one that had of late occasioned her great secret distress. "It is plain," she had begun to say to herself, unable to comprehend Aurora's peculiar trust in Providence, "that if the money is to be got I must get it." A possibility had flashed upon her mind; she had nurtured it into a project, had submitted it to her father-confessor in the cathedral, and received his unqualified approval of it, and was ready this morning to put it into execution. A great merit of the plan was its simplicity. It was merely to find for her heaviest bracelet a purchaser in time, and a price sufficient, to pay to-morrow's "maturities." See there again!--to her, her little secret was of greater import than the collision of almost any pine-knot with almost any head.
It must not be accepted as evidence either of her unwillingness to sell or of the amount of gold in the bracelet, that it took the total of Clotilde's moral and physical strength to carry it to the shop where she hoped--against hope--to dispose of it.
'Sieur Frowenfeld, M. Innerarity said, was out, but would certainly be in in a few minutes, and she was persuaded to take a chair against the half-hidden door at the bottom of the shop with the little borrowed maid crouched at her feet.
She had twice or thrice felt a regret that she had undertaken to wait, and was about to rise and go, when suddenly she saw before her Joseph Frowenfeld, wiping the sweat of anguish from his brow and smeared with blood from his forehead down. She rose quickly and silently, turned sick and blind, and laid her hand upon the back of the chair for support. Frowenfeld stood an instant before her, groaned, and disappeared through the door. The little maid, retreating backward against her from the direction of the street-door, drew to her attention a crowd of sight-seers which had rushed up to the doors and against which Raoul was hurriedly closing the shop.
Was it worse to stay, or to fly? The decision must be instantaneous. But Raoul made it easy by crying in their common tongue, as he slammed a massive shutter and shot its bolt:
"Go to him! he is down--I heard him fall. Go to him!"
At this rallying cry she seized her shield--that is to say, the little yellow attendant--and hurried into the room. Joseph lay just beyond the middle of the apartment, face downward. She found water and a basin, wet her own handkerchief, and dropped to her knees beside his head; but the moment he felt the small feminine hands he stood up. She took him by the arm.
"Asseyez-vous, Monsieu'--pliz to give you'sev de pens to seet down, 'Sieu' Frowenfel'."
She spoke with a nervous tenderness in contrast with her alarmed and entreating expression of face, and gently pushed him into a chair.
The child ran behind the bed and burst into frightened sobs, but ceased when Clotilde turned for an instant and glared at her.
"Mague yo' 'ead back," said Clotilde, and with tremulous tenderness she softly pressed back his brow and began wiping off the blood. "W'ere you is 'urted?"
But while she was asking her question she had found the gash and was growing alarmed at its ugliness, when Raoul, having made everything fast, came in with:
"Wat's de mattah, 'Sieur Frowenfel'? w'at's de mattah wid you? Oo done dat, 'Sieur Frowen fel'?"
Joseph lifted his head and drew away from it the small hand and wet handkerchief, and without letting go the hand, looked again into Clotilde's eyes, and said:
"Go home; oh, go home!"
"Oh! no," protested Raoul, whereupon Clotilde turned upon him with a perfectly amiable, nurse's grimace for silence.
"I goin' rad now," she said.
Raoul's silence was only momentary.
"Were you lef you' hat, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" he asked, and stole an artist's glance at Clotilde, while Joseph straightened up, and nerving himself to a tolerable calmness of speech, said:
"I have been struck with a stick of wood by a half-witted person under a misunderstanding of my intentions; but the circumstances are such as to blacken my character hopelessly; but I am innocent!" he cried, stretching forward both arms and quite losing his momentary self-control.
"'Sieu' Frowenfel'!" cried Clotilde, tears leaping to her eyes, "I am shoe of it!"
"I believe you! I believe you, 'Sieur Frowenfel'!" exclaimed Raoul with sincerity.
"You will not believe me," said Joseph. "You will not; it will be impossible."
"Mais" cried Clotilde, "id shall nod be impossib'!"
But the apothecary shook his head.
"All I can be suspected of will seem probable; the truth only is incredible."
His head began to sink and a pallor to overspread his face.
"Allez, Monsieur, allez," cried Clotilde to Raoul, a picture of beautiful terror which he tried afterward to paint from memory, "appelezDoctah Kin!"
Raoul made a dash for his hat, and the next moment she heard, with unpleasant distinctness, his impetuous hand slam the shop door and lock her in.
"Baille ma do l'eau" she called to the little mulattress, who responded by searching wildly for a cup and presently bringing a measuring-glass full of water.
Clotilde gave it to the wounded man, and he rose at once and stood on his feet.
"Raoul."
"'E gone at Doctah Kin."
"I do not need Doctor Keene; I am not badly hurt. Raoul should not have left you here in this manner. You must not stay."
"Bud, 'Sieur Frowenfel', I am afred to paz dad gangue!"
A new distress seized Joseph in view of this additional complication. But, unmindful of this suggestion, the fair Creole suddenly exclaimed:
"'Sieu' Frowenfel', you har a hinnocen' man! Go, hopen yo' do's an' stan juz as you har ub biffo dad crowd and sesso! My God! 'Sieu' Frowenfel', iv you cannod stan' ub by you'sev--"
She ceased suddenly with a wild look, as if another word would have broken the levees of her eyes, and in that instant Frowenfeld recovered the full stature of a man.
"God bless you!" he cried. "I will do it!" He started, then turned again toward her, dumb for an instant, and said: "And God reward you! You believe in me, and you do not even know me."
Her eyes became wilder still as she looked up into his face with the words:
"Mais, I does know you--betteh'n you know annyt'in' boud it!" and turned away, blushing violently.
Frowenfeld gave a start. She had given him too much light. He recognized her, and she knew it. For another instant he gazed at her averted face, and then with forced quietness said:
"Please go into the shop."
The whole time that had elapsed since the shutting of the doors had not exceeded five minutes; a sixth sufficed for Clotilde and her attendant to resume their original position in the nook by the private door and for Frowenfeld to wash his face and hands. Then the alert and numerous ears without heard a drawing of bolts at the door next to that which Raoul had issued, its leaves opened outward, and first the pale hands and then the white, weakened face and still bloody hair and apparel of the apothecary made their appearance. He opened a window and another door. The one locked by Raoul, when unbolted, yielded without a key, and the shop stood open.
"My friends," said the trembling proprietor, "if any of you wishes to buy anything, I am ready to serve him. The rest will please move away."
The invitation, though probably understood, was responded to by only a few at the banquette's edge, where a respectable face or two wore scrutinizing frowns. The remainder persisted in silently standing and gazing in at the bloody man.
Frowenfeld bore the gaze. There was one element of emphatic satisfaction in it--it drew their observation from Clotilde at the other end of the shop. He stole a glance backward; she was not there. She had watched her chance, safely escaped through the side door, and was gone.
Raoul returned.
"'Sieur Frowenfel', Doctor Keene is took worse ag'in. 'E is in bed; but 'e say to tell you in dat lill troubl' of dis mawnin' it is himseff w'at is inti'lie wrong, an' 'e hass you poddon. 'E says sen' fo' Doctor Conrotte, but I din go fo' him; dat ole scoun'rel--he believe in puttin' de niggas fre'."
Frowenfeld said he would not consult professional advisers; with a little assistance from Raoul, he could give the cut the slight attention it needed. He went back into his room, while Raoul turned back to the door and addressed the public.
"Pray, Messieurs, come in and be seated." He spoke in the Creole French of the gutters. "Come in. M. Frowenfeld is dressing, and desires that you will have a little patience. Come in. Take chairs. You will not come in? No? Nor you, Monsieur? No? I will set some chairs outside, eh? No?"
They moved by twos and threes away, and Raoul, retiring, gave his employer such momentary aid as was required. When Joseph, in changed dress, once more appeared, only a child or two lingered to see him, and he had nothing to do but sit down and, as far as he felt at liberty to do so, answer his assistant's questions.
During the recital, Raoul was obliged to exercise the severest self-restraint to avoid laughing,--a feeling which was modified by the desire to assure his employer that he understood this sort of thing perfectly, had run the same risks himself, and thought no less of a man,providing he was a gentleman, because of an unlucky retributive knock on the head. But he feared laughter would overclimb speech; and, indeed, with all expression of sympathy stifled, he did not succeed so completely in hiding the conflicting emotion but that Joseph did once turn his pale, grave face surprisedly, hearing a snuffling sound, suddenly stifled in a drawer of corks. Said Raoul, with an unsteady utterance, as he slammed the drawer:
"H-h-dat makes me dat I can't 'elp to laugh w'en I t'ink of dat fool yesse'dy w'at want to buy my pigshoe for honly one 'undred dolla'--ha, ha ha, ha!"
He laughed almost indecorously.
"Raoul," said Frowenfeld, rising and closing his eyes, "I am going back for my hat. It would make matters worse for that person to send it to me, and it would be something like a vindication for me to go back to the house and get it."
Mr. Innerarity was about to make strenuous objection, when there came in one whom he recognized as an attaché of his cousin Honoré's counting-room, and handed the apothecary a note. It contained Honoré's request that if Frowenfeld was in his shop he would have the goodness to wait there until the writer could call and see him.
"I will wait," was the reply.