CHAPTER XXXIII.
TRISTAN.
A deathly and terrible gloom reigned in the Villa Moraquitos after the awful catastrophe which had closed the life of Don Juan.
It was impossible to keep the entire truth from Camillia. She was told that she was fatherless, but that the report which she had heard was the result of an accident. The poor girl was made to believe that Don Juan had perished through an accident which had occurred to him while cleaning the fire-arms that ornamented his study. Pauline Corsi watched over her with the tenderness of an elder sister; but the stricken girl abandoned herself to a grief which seemed almost inconsolable.
Late in the afternoon, Paul Crivelli left the house of death, and proceeded to the hotel at which Armand Tremlay was staying.
He was the bearer of a letter from Pauline Corsi; and he informed the artist of the terrible event which had happened since that morning.
"It will be, therefore, some months before I can hope that my cousin Camillia will assume the right to a still dearer name," said Paul, after they had talked for some time of the awful event.
"I imagine so," answered Armand; "and Pauline tells me that I must be patient, as she will not consent to our marriage taking place on any day but that appointed for yours."
The two young men left the hotel and walked through the more retired streets, until they left the city behind them, and emerged upon the banks of the river.
Armand Tremlay and Paul Crivelli were eminently suited to each other.
So much, too, had the terrible event of the day broken down the barriers of ceremony and restraint, that they seemed already like old friends.
They walked on, talking of the singular occurrences which had checkered their two lives, until the sun was sinking into the bosom of the Mississippi, and until they found themselves at a considerable distance from the city.
In order to regain New Orleans by a shorter route, they struck into a wood that bordered the river.
The sun was fading behind the trunks of the trees, and the wood was lonely as some primeval forest.
They had walked for some little distance, when they came suddenly upon the figure of a negro, reclining at the foot of an immense American oak.
He started to his feet as they approached, and Paul recognized the man with whom he had that morning struggled, Tristan, the slave belonging to the late Don Juan.
The negro glared at him with a savage expression in his distended eyeballs.
"It is you," he cried, "you—you! You haunt me wherever I go. I had come here to die."
"To die?"
"Yes. I have poison here," he said, clutching at some object in the breast of his shirt. "I overheard all this morning, and I should have been your ruin, had you not overpowered me. I would have burnt the evidence of your birth. I would have prevented your union with Camillia Moraquitos—with her I love?"
"You are mad, Tristan."
"Yes, I am mad. What can that slave be but mad who dares to love his mistress? I would grovel upon the earth, and suffer her foot to trample upon my neck. I would die a thousand deaths, but I am mad, and I love her. I have loved her from those happy hours when she was a little child by yonder sunny river, and I was her plaything, her dog, her slave, but still her companion; and now she loathes and despises the wretched slave, and loves another, and mad Tristan has come into this forest to die."
The glaring eyes of the negro had so much of the fire of insanity in their savage light that the two young men thought he was indeed mad.
"Tristan, Tristan!" said Paul, imploringly.
"Beware," cried the slave, snatching a knife from his breast. "Beware how you cross my path! You are unarmed, and, strong as you are, feeble against the strength of madness. Avoid me, if you value your own safety; you, Paul Crivelli, above all others, should shun me, for I hate you. Avoid me, then, if you would not tempt me to destroy you."
He uttered a wild cry, and sprang toward Paul, with the knife uplifted in his powerful right hand, but the two young men were prepared for the blow, and while Armand Tremlay seized the hand holding the dagger, Paul twisted a silk handkerchief into a bandage, with which they bound the arms of the negro.
Secured thus, they conveyed him back to New Orleans.
The violent paroxysm of madness had passed, and the wretched man was as quiet as a child.
They took him to the Villa Moraquitos, where they placed him under the care of his mother, assisted by a powerful negro, belonging to the household.
"Restore him to reason, Zarah," said Paul, "and as soon as he has recovered, I will give you both your liberty."
"Good, generous massa, and we shall go back to Africa?"
"You shall."