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THE GRANDISSIMES

BY GEORGE W. CABLE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALBERT HERTER

MDCCCXCIX

1899




CONTENTS

      I. Masked Batteries.
     II. The Fate of the Immigrant.
    III. "And who is my Neighbor?"
     IV. Family Trees.
      V. A Maiden who will not Marry.
     VI. Lost Opportunities.
    VII. Was it Honoré Grandissime?
   VIII. Signed--Honoré Grandissime.
     IX. Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil.
      X. "Oo dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"
     XI. Sudden Flashes of Light.
    XII. The Philosophe.
   XIII. A Call from the Rent-Spectre.
    XIV. Before Sunset.
     XV. Rolled in the Dust.
    XVI. Starlight in the rue Chartres.
   XVII. That Night.
  XVIII. New Light upon Dark Places.
    XIX. Art and Commerce.
     XX. A very Natural Mistake.
    XXI. Doctor Keene Recovers his Bullet.
   XXII. Wars within the Breast.
  XXIII. Frowenfeld Keeps his Appointment.
   XXIV. Frowenfeld Makes an Argument.
    XXV. Aurora as a Historian.
   XXVI. A Ride and a Rescue.
  XXVII. The Fête de Grandpère.
 XXVIII. The Story of Bras-Coupé.
   XXIX. The Story of Bras-Coupé, Continued.
    XXX. Paralysis.
   XXXI. Another Wound in a New Place.
  XXXII. Interrupted Preliminaries.
 XXXIII. Unkindest Cut of All.
  XXXIV. Clotilde as a Surgeon.
   XXXV. "Fo' wad you Cryne?"
  XXXVI. Aurora's Last Picayune.
 XXXVII. Honoré Makes some Confessions.
XXXVIII. Tests of Friendship.
  XXXIX. Louisiana States her Wants.
     XL. Frowenfeld Finds Sylvestre.
    XLI. To Come to the Point.
   XLII. An Inheritance of Wrong.
  XLIII. The Eagle Visits the Doves in their Nest.
   XLIV. Bad for Charlie Keene.
    XLV. More Reparation.
   XLVI. The Pique-en-terre Loses One of her Crew.
  XLVII. The News.
 XLVIII. An Indignant Family and a Smashed Shop.
   XLIX. Over the New Store.
      L. A Proposal of Marriage.
     LI. Business Changes.
    LII. Love Lies-a-Bleeding.
   LIII. Frowenfeld at the Grandissime Mansion.
    LIV. "Cauldron Bubble".
     LV. Caught.
    LVI. Blood for a Blow.
   LVII. Voudou Cured.
  LVIII. Dying Words.
    LIX. Where some Creole Money Goes.
     LX. "All Right".
    LXI. "No!".




PHOTOGRAVURES

"They paused a little within the obscurity of the corridor, and just to
reassure themselves that everything _was_ 'all right'" _Frontispiece_.

"She looked upon an unmasked, noble countenance, lifted her own mask a
little, and then a little more; and then shut it quickly".

"The daughter of the Natchez sitting in majesty, clothed in many-colored
robes of shining feathers crossed and recrossed with girdles of
serpent-skins and of wampum".

"Aurora,--alas! alas!--went down upon her knees with her gaze fixed upon
the candle's flame".

"The young man with auburn curls rested the edge of his burden upon the
counter, tore away its wrappings and disclosed a painting".

"Silently regarding the intruder with a pair of eyes that sent an icy
chill through him and fastened him where he stood, lay Palmyre
Philosophe".

"On their part, they would sit in deep attention, shielding their faces
from the fire, and responding to enunciations directly contrary to their
convictions with an occasional 'yes-seh,' or 'ceddenly,' or 'of coze,'
or,--prettier affirmation still,--a solemn drooping of the eyelids".

"Bras-Coupé was practically declaring his independence on a slight rise
of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce above the
water in the inmost depths of the swamp".

"'Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry? Iv you will tell me wad dad
mague you cry, I will tell you--on ma _second word of honor_'--she
rolled up her fist--'juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel!'".

"His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell down upon his dark,
frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his staff, the other his
knee, and both trembled violently".

"The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her
eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost
all knowledge of place or of human presence".

"They turned in a direction opposite to the entrance and took chairs in
a cool nook of the paved court, at a small table where the hospitality
of Clemence had placed glasses of lemonade".

_In addition to the foregoing, the stories are illustrated with eight
smaller photogravures from drawings by Mr. Herter_.




CHAPTER I

MASKED BATTERIES


It was in the Théatre St. Philippe (they had laid a temporary floor over
the parquette seats) in the city we now call New Orleans, in the month
of September, and in the year 1803. Under the twinkle of numberless
candles, and in a perfumed air thrilled with the wailing ecstasy of
violins, the little Creole capital's proudest and best were offering up
the first cool night of the languidly departing summer to the divine
Terpsichore. For summer there, bear in mind, is a loitering gossip, that
only begins to talk of leaving when September rises to go. It was like
hustling her out, it is true, to give a select _bal masqué_ at such a
very early--such an amusingly early date; but it was fitting that
something should be done for the sick and the destitute; and why not
this? Everybody knows the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.

And so, to repeat, it was in the Théatre St. Philippe (the oldest, the
first one), and, as may have been noticed, in the year in which the
First Consul of France gave away Louisiana. Some might call it "sold."
Old Agricola Fusilier in the rumbling pomp of his natural voice--for he
had an hour ago forgotten that he was in mask and domino--called it
"gave away." Not that he believed it had been done; for, look you, how
could it be? The pretended treaty contained, for instance, no provision
relative to the great family of Brahmin Mandarin Fusilier de
Grandissime. It was evidently spurious.

Being bumped against, he moved a step or two aside, and was going on to
denounce further the detestable rumor, when a masker--one of four who
had just finished the contra-dance and were moving away in the column of
promenaders--brought him smartly around with the salutation:

"_Comment to yé, Citoyen Agricola!_"

"H-you young kitten!" said the old man in a growling voice, and with the
teased, half laugh of aged vanity as he bent a baffled scrutiny at the
back-turned face of an ideal Indian Queen. It was not merely the
_tutoiement_ that struck him as saucy, but the further familiarity of
using the slave dialect. His French was unprovincial.

"H-the cool rascal!" he added laughingly, and, only half to himself;
"get into the garb of your true sex, sir, h-and I will guess who
you are!"

But the Queen, in the same feigned voice as before, retorted:

"_Ah! mo piti fils, to pas connais to zancestres?_ Don't you know your
ancestors, my little son!"

"H-the g-hods preserve us!" said Agricola, with a pompous laugh muffled
under his mask, "the queen of the Tchoupitoulas I proudly acknowledge,
and my great-grandfather, Epaminondas Fusilier, lieutenant of dragoons
under Bienville; but,"--he laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed to
the other two figures, whose smaller stature betrayed the gentler
sex--"pardon me, ladies, neither Monks nor _Filles à la Cassette_ grow
on our family tree."

The four maskers at once turned their glance upon the old man in the
domino; but if any retort was intended it gave way as the violins burst
into an agony of laughter. The floor was immediately filled with
waltzers and the four figures disappeared.

"I wonder," murmured Agricola to himself, "if that Dragoon can possibly
be Honoré Grandissime."

Wherever those four maskers went there were cries of delight: "Ho, ho,
ho! see there! here! there! a group of first colonists! One of
Iberville's Dragoons! don't you remember great-great grandfather
Fusilier's portrait--the gilded casque and heron plumes? And that one
behind in the fawn-skin leggings and shirt of birds' skins is an Indian
Queen. As sure as sure can be, they are intended for Epaminondas and his
wife, Lufki-Humma!" All, of course, in Louisiana French.

"But why, then, does he not walk with her?"

"Why, because, Simplicity, both of them are men, while the little Monk
on his arm is a lady, as you can see, and so is the masque that has the
arm of the Indian Queen; look at their little hands."

In another part of the room the four were greeted with, "Ha, ha, ha!
well, that is magnificent! But see that Huguenotte Girl on the Indian
Queen's arm! Isn't that fine! Ha, ha! she carries a little trunk. She is
a _Fille à la Cassette!_"

Two partners in a cotillion were speaking in an undertone, behind a fan.

"And you think you know who it is?" asked one.

"Know?" replied the other. "Do I know I have a head on my shoulders? If
that Dragoon is not our cousin Honoré Grandissime--well--"

"Honoré in mask? he is too sober-sided to do such a thing."

"I tell you it is he! Listen. Yesterday I heard Doctor Charlie Keene
begging him to go, and telling him there were two ladies, strangers,
newly arrived in the city, who would be there, and whom he wished him to
meet. Depend upon it the Dragoon is Honoré, Lufki-Humma is Charlie
Keene, and the Monk and the Huguenotte are those two ladies."

But all this is an outside view; let us draw nearer and see what chance
may discover to us behind those four masks.

An hour has passed by. The dance goes on; hearts are beating, wit is
flashing, eyes encounter eyes with the leveled lances of their beams,
merriment and joy and sudden bright surprises thrill the breast, voices
are throwing off disguise, and beauty's coy ear is bending with a
venturesome docility; here love is baffled, there deceived, yonder takes
prisoners and here surrenders. The very air seems to breathe, to sigh,
to laugh, while the musicians, with disheveled locks, streaming brows
and furious bows, strike, draw, drive, scatter from the anguished
violins a never-ending rout of screaming harmonies. But the Monk and the
Huguenotte are not on the floor. They are sitting where they have been
left by their two companions, in one of the boxes of the theater,
looking out upon the unwearied whirl and flash of gauze and light
and color.

"Oh, _chérie, chérie!_" murmured the little lady in the Monk's disguise
to her quieter companion, and speaking in the soft dialect of old
Louisiana, "now you get a good idea of heaven!"

The _Fille à la Cassette_ replied with a sudden turn of her masked face
and a murmur of surprise and protest against this impiety. A low, merry
laugh came out of the Monk's cowl, and the Huguenotte let her form sink
a little in her chair with a gentle sigh.

"Ah, for shame, tired!" softly laughed the other; then suddenly, with
her eyes fixed across the room, she seized her companion's hand and
pressed it tightly. "Do you not see it?" she whispered eagerly, "just by
the door--the casque with the heron feathers. Ah, Clotilde, I _cannot_
believe he is one of those Grandissimes!"

"Well," replied the Huguenotte, "Doctor Keene says he is not."

Doctor Charlie Keene, speaking from under the disguise of the Indian
Queen, had indeed so said; but the Recording Angel, whom we understand
to be particular about those things, had immediately made a memorandum
of it to the debit of Doctor Keene's account.

"If I had believed that it was he," continued the whisperer, "I would
have turned about and left him in the midst of the contra-dance!"

Behind them sat unmasked a well-aged pair, "_bredouillé_," as they used
to say of the wall-flowers, with that look of blissful repose which
marks the married and established Creole. The lady in monk's attire
turned about in her chair and leaned back to laugh with these. The
passing maskers looked that way, with a certain instinct that there was
beauty under those two costumes. As they did so, they saw the _Fille à
la Cassette_ join in this over-shoulder conversation. A moment later,
they saw the old gentleman protector and the _Fille à la Cassette_
rising to the dance. And when presently the distant passers took a final
backward glance, that same Lieutenant of Dragoons had returned and he
and the little Monk were once more upon the floor, waiting for
the music.

"But your late companion?" said the voice in the cowl.

"My Indian Queen?" asked the Creole Epaminondas.

"Say, rather, your Medicine-Man," archly replied the Monk.

"In these times," responded the Cavalier, "a medicine-man cannot dance
long without professional interruption, even when he dances for a
charitable object. He has been called to two relapsed patients." The
music struck up; the speaker addressed himself to the dance; but the
lady did not respond.

"Do dragoons ever moralize?" she asked.

"They do more," replied her partner; "sometimes, when beauty's enjoyment
of the ball is drawing toward its twilight, they catch its pleasant
melancholy, and confess; will the good father sit in the confessional?"

The pair turned slowly about and moved toward the box from which they
had come, the lady remaining silent; but just as they were entering she
half withdrew her arm from his, and, confronting him with a rich sparkle
of the eyes within the immobile mask of the monk, said:

"Why should the conscience of one poor little monk carry all the
frivolity of this ball? I have a right to dance, if I wish. I give you
my word, Monsieur Dragoon, I dance only for the benefit of the sick and
the destitute. It is you men--you dragoons and others--who will not help
them without a compensation in this sort of nonsense. Why should we
shrive you when you ought to burn?"

"Then lead us to the altar," said the Dragoon.

"Pardon, sir," she retorted, her words entangled with a musical,
open-hearted laugh, "I am not going in that direction." She cast her
glance around the ball-room. "As you say, it is the twilight of the
ball; I am looking for the evening star,--that is, my little
Huguenotte."

"Then you are well mated."

"How?"

"For you are Aurora."

The lady gave a displeased start.

"Sir!"

"Pardon," said the Cavalier, "if by accident I have hit upon your real
name--"

She laughed again--a laugh which was as exultantly joyous as it was
high-bred.

"Ah, my name? Oh no, indeed!" (More work for the Recording Angel.)

She turned to her protectress.

"Madame, I know you think we should be going home."

The senior lady replied in amiable speech, but with sleepy eyes, and the
Monk began to lift and unfold a wrapping. As the Cavalier' drew it into
his own possession, and, agreeably to his gesture, the Monk and he sat
down side by side, he said, in a low tone:

"One more laugh before we part."

"A monk cannot laugh for nothing."

"I will pay for it."

"But with nothing to laugh at?" The thought of laughing at nothing made
her laugh a little on the spot.

"We will make something to laugh at," said the Cavalier; "we will unmask
to each other, and when we find each other first cousins, the laugh will
come of itself."

"Ah! we will unmask?--no! I have no cousins. I am certain we are
strangers."

"Then we will laugh to think that I paid for the disappointment."

Much more of this childlike badinage followed, and by and by they came
around again to the same last statement. Another little laugh escaped
from the cowl.

"You will pay? Let us see; how much will you give to the sick and
destitute?"

"To see who it is I am laughing with, I will give whatever you ask."

"Two hundred and fifty dollars, cash, into the hands of the managers!"

"A bargain!"

The Monk laughed, and her chaperon opened her eyes and smiled
apologetically. The Cavalier laughed, too, and said:

"Good! That was the laugh; now the unmasking."

"And you positively will give the money to the managers not later than
to-morrow evening?"

"Not later. It shall be done without fail."

"Well, wait till I put on my wrappings; I must be ready to run."

This delightful nonsense was interrupted by the return of the _Fille à
la Cassette_ and her aged, but sprightly, escort, from a circuit of the
floor. Madame again opened her eyes, and the four prepared to depart.
The Dragoon helped the Monk to fortify herself against the outer air.
She was ready before the others. There was a pause, a low laugh, a
whispered "Now!" She looked upon an unmasked, noble countenance, lifted
her own mask a little, and then a little more; and then shut it quickly
down again upon a face whose beauty was more than even those fascinating
graces had promised which Honoré Grandissime had fitly named the
Morning; but it was a face he had never seen before.

"Hush!" she said, "the enemies of religion are watching us; the
Huguenotte saw me. Adieu"--and they were gone.

M. Honoré Grandissime turned on his heel and very soon left the ball.

"Now, sir," thought he to himself, "we'll return to our senses."

"Now I'll put my feathers on again," says the plucked bird.




CHAPTER II

THE FATE OF THE IMMIGRANT


It was just a fortnight after the ball, that one Joseph Frowenfeld
opened his eyes upon Louisiana. He was an American by birth, rearing and
sentiment, yet German enough through his parents, and the only son in a
family consisting of father, mother, self, and two sisters, new-blown
flowers of womanhood. It was an October dawn, when, long wearied of the
ocean, and with bright anticipations of verdure, and fragrance, and
tropical gorgeousness, this simple-hearted family awoke to find the bark
that had borne them from their far northern home already entering upon
the ascent of the Mississippi.

We may easily imagine the grave group, as they came up one by one from
below, that morning of first disappointment, and stood (with a whirligig
of jubilant mosquitoes spinning about each head) looking out across the
waste, seeing the sky and the marsh meet in the east, the north, and the
west, and receiving with patient silence the father's suggestion that
the hills would, no doubt, rise into view after a while.

"My children, we may turn this disappointment into a lesson; if the good
people of this country could speak to us now, they might well ask us not
to judge them or their land upon one or two hasty glances, or by the
experiences of a few short days or weeks."

But no hills rose. However, by and by they found solace in the
appearance of distant forest, and in the afternoon they entered a
land--but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic
cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay.

"The captain told father, when we went to engage passage, that New
Orleans was on high land," said the younger daughter, with a tremor in
the voice, and ignoring the remonstrative touch of her sister.

"On high land?" said the captain, turning from the pilot; "well, so it
is--higher than the swamp, but not higher than the river," and he
checked a broadening smile.

But the Frowenfelds were not a family to complain. It was characteristic
of them to recognize the bright as well as the solemn virtues, and to
keep each other reminded of the duty of cheerfulness. A smile, starting
from the quiet elder sister, went around the group, directed against the
abstracted and somewhat rueful countenance of Joseph, whereat he turned
with a better face and said that what the Creator had pronounced very
good they could hardly feel free to condemn. The old father was still
more stout of heart.

"These mosquitoes, children, are thought by some to keep the air pure,"
he said.

"Better keep out of it after sunset," put in the captain.

After that day and night, the prospect grew less repellent. A gradually
matured conviction that New Orleans would not be found standing on
stilts in the quagmire enabled the eye to become educated to a better
appreciation of the solemn landscape. Nor was the landscape always
solemn. There were long openings, now and then, to right and left, of
emerald-green savannah, with the dazzling blue of the Gulf far beyond,
waving a thousand white-handed good-byes as the funereal swamps slowly
shut out again the horizon. How sweet the soft breezes off the moist
prairies! How weird, how very near, the crimson and green and black and
yellow sunsets! How dream-like the land and the great, whispering river!
The profound stillness and breath reminded the old German, so he said,
of that early time when the evenings and mornings were the first days of
the half-built world. The barking of a dog in Fort Plaquemines seemed to
come before its turn in the panorama of creation--before the earth was
ready for the dog's master.

But he was assured that to live in those swamps was not entirely
impossible to man--"if one may call a negro a man." Runaway slaves were
not so rare in them as one--a lost hunter, for example--might wish. His
informant was a new passenger, taken aboard at the fort. He
spoke English.

"Yes, sir! Didn' I had to run from Bras-Coupé in de haidge of de swamp
be'ine de 'abitation of my cousin Honoré, one time? You can hask 'oo you
like!" (A Creole always provides against incredulity.) At this point he
digressed a moment: "You know my cousin, Honoré Grandissime, w'at give
two hund' fifty dolla' to de 'ospill laz mont'? An' juz because my
cousin Honoré give it, somebody helse give de semm. Fo' w'y don't he
give his nemm?"

The reason (which this person did not know) was that the second donor
was the first one over again, resolved that the little unknown Monk
should not know whom she had baffled.

"Who was Bras-Coupé?" the good German asked in French.

The stranger sat upon the capstan, and, in the shadow of the cypress
forest, where the vessel lay moored for a change of wind, told in a
_patois_ difficult, but not impossible, to understand, the story of a
man who chose rather to be hunted like a wild beast among those awful
labyrinths, than to be yoked and beaten like a tame one. Joseph, drawing
near as the story was coming to a close, overheard the following
English:

"Friend, if you dislike heated discussion, do not tell that to my son."

The nights were strangely beautiful. The immigrants almost consumed them
on deck, the mother and daughters attending in silent delight while the
father and son, facing south, rejoiced in learned recognition of stars
and constellations hitherto known to them only on globes and charts.

"Yes, my dear son," said the father, in a moment of ecstatic admiration,
"wherever man may go, around this globe--however uninviting his lateral
surroundings may be, the heavens are ever over his head, and I am glad
to find the stars your favorite objects of study."

So passed the time as the vessel, hour by hour, now slowly pushed by the
wind against the turbid current, now warping along the fragrant
precincts of orange or magnolia groves or fields of sugar-cane, or
moored by night in the deep shade of mighty willow-jungles, patiently
crept toward the end of their pilgrimage; and in the length of time
which would at present be consumed in making the whole journey from
their Northern home to their Southern goal, accomplished the distance of
ninety-eight miles, and found themselves before the little, hybrid city
of "Nouvelle Orléans." There was the cathedral, and standing beside it,
like Sancho beside Don Quixote, the squat hall of the Cabildo with the
calabozo in the rear. There were the forts, the military bakery, the
hospitals, the plaza, the Almonaster stores, and the busy rue Toulouse;
and, for the rest of the town, a pleasant confusion of green tree-tops,
red and gray roofs, and glimpses of white or yellow wall, spreading back
a few hundred yards behind the cathedral, and tapering into a single
rank of gardened and belvedered villas, that studded either horn of the
river's crescent with a style of home than which there is probably
nothing in the world more maternally homelike.

"And now," said the "captain," bidding the immigrants good-by, "keep out
of the sun and stay in after dark; you're not 'acclimated,' as they
call it, you know, and the city is full of the fever."

Such were the Frowenfelds. Out of such a mold and into such a place came
the young Américain, whom even Agricola Fusilier, as we shall see, by
and by thought worthy to be made an exception of, and honored with his
recognition.

The family rented a two-story brick house in the rue Bienville, No. 17,
it seems. The third day after, at daybreak, Joseph called his father to
his bedside to say that he had had a chill, and was suffering such pains
in his head and back that he would like to lie quiet until they passed
off. The gentle father replied that it was undoubtedly best to do so,
and preserved an outward calm. He looked at his son's eyes; their pupils
were contracted to tiny beads. He felt his pulse and his brow; there was
no room for doubt; it was the dreaded scourge--the fever. We say,
sometimes, of hearts that they sink like lead; it does not express
the agony.

On the second day, while the unsated fever was running through every
vein and artery, like soldiery through the streets of a burning city,
and far down in the caverns of the body the poison was ransacking every
palpitating corner, the poor immigrant fell into a moment's sleep. But
what of that? The enemy that moment had mounted to the brain. And then
there happened to Joseph an experience rare to the sufferer by this
disease, but not entirely unknown,--a delirium of mingled pleasures and
distresses. He seemed to awake somewhere between heaven and earth,
reclining in a gorgeous barge, which was draped in curtains of
interwoven silver and silk, cushioned with rich stuffs of every
beautiful dye, and perfumed _ad nauseam_ with orange-leaf tea. The crew
was a single old negress, whose head was wound about with a blue Madras
handkerchief, and who stood at the prow, and by a singular rotary
motion, rowed the barge with a teaspoon. He could not get his head out
of the hot sun; and the barge went continually round and round with a
heavy, throbbing motion, in the regular beat of which certain spirits of
the air--one of whom appeared to be a beautiful girl and another a
small, red-haired man,--confronted each other with the continual call
and response:

"Keep the bedclothes on him and the room shut tight, keep the bedclothes
on him and the room shut tight,"--"An' don' give 'im some watta, an'
don' give 'im some watta."

During what lapse of time--whether moments or days--this lasted, Joseph
could not then know; but at last these things faded away, and there came
to him a positive knowledge that he was on a sick-bed, where unless
something could be done for him he should be dead in an hour. Then a
spoon touched his lips, and a taste of brandy and water went all through
him; and when he fell into sweet slumber and awoke, and found the
teaspoon ready at his lips again, he had to lift a little the two hands
lying before him on the coverlet to know that they were his--they were
so wasted and yellow. He turned his eyes, and through the white gauze of
the mosquito-bar saw, for an instant, a strange and beautiful young
face; but the lids fell over his eyes, and when he raised them again the
blue-turbaned black nurse was tucking the covering about his feet.

"Sister!"

No answer.

"Where is my mother?"

The negress shook her head.

He was too weak to speak again, but asked with his eyes so persistently,
and so pleadingly, that by and by she gave him an audible answer. He
tried hard to understand it, but could not, it being in these words:

"_Li pa' oulé vini 'ci--li pas capabe_."

Thrice a day, for three days more, came a little man with a large head
surrounded by short, red curls and with small freckles in a fine skin,
and sat down by the bed with a word of good cheer and the air of a
commander. At length they had something like an extended conversation.

"So you concluded not to die, eh? Yes, I'm the doctor--Doctor Keene. A
young lady? What young lady? No, sir, there has been no young lady here.
You're mistaken. Vagary of your fever. There has been no one here but
this black girl and me. No, my dear fellow, your father and mother can't
see you yet; you don't want them to catch the fever, do you? Good-bye.
Do as your nurse tells you, and next week you may raise your head and
shoulders a little; but if you don't mind her you'll have a backset, and
the devil himself wouldn't engage to cure you."

The patient had been sitting up a little at a time for several days,
when at length the doctor came to pay a final call, "as a matter of
form;" but, after a few pleasantries, he drew his chair up gravely, and,
in a tender tone--need we say it? He had come to tell Joseph that his
father, mother, sisters, all, were gone on a second--a longer--voyage,
to shores where there could be no disappointments and no
fevers, forever.

"And, Frowenfeld," he said, at the end of their long and painful talk,
"if there is any blame attached to not letting you go with them, I think
I can take part of it; but if you ever want a friend,--one who is
courteous to strangers and ill-mannered only to those he likes,--you can
call for Charlie Keene. I'll drop in to see you, anyhow, from time to
time, till you get stronger. I have taken a heap of trouble to keep you
alive, and if you should relapse now and give us the slip, it would be a
deal of good physic wasted; so keep in the house."

The polite neighbors who lifted their cocked hats to Joseph, as he spent
a slow convalescence just within his open door, were not bound to know
how or when he might have suffered. There were no "Howards" or
"Y.M.C.A.'s" in those days; no "Peabody Reliefs." Even had the neighbors
chosen to take cognizance of those bereavements, they were not so
unusual as to fix upon him any extraordinary interests an object of
sight; and he was beginning most distressfully to realize that "great
solitude" which the philosopher attributes to towns, when matters took a
decided turn.




CHAPTER III

"AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"


We say matters took a turn; or, better, that Frowenfeld's interest in
affairs received a new life. This had its beginning in Doctor Keene's
making himself specially entertaining in an old-family-history way, with
a view to keeping his patient within doors for a safe period. He had
conceived a great liking for Frowenfeld, and often, of an afternoon,
would drift in to challenge him to a game of chess--a game, by the way,
for which neither of them cared a farthing. The immigrant had learned
its moves to gratify his father, and the doctor--the truth is, the
doctor had never quite learned them; but he was one of those men who
cannot easily consent to acknowledge a mere affection for one, least of
all one of their own sex. It may safely be supposed, then, that the
board often displayed an arrangement of pieces that would have
bewildered Morphy himself.

"By the by, Frowenfeld," he said one evening, after the one preliminary
move with which he invariably opened his game, "you haven't made the
acquaintance of your pretty neighbors next door."

Frowenfeld knew of no specially pretty neighbors next door on either
side--had noticed no ladies.

"Well, I will take you in to see them some time." The doctor laughed a
little, rubbing his face and his thin, red curls with one hand, as
he laughed.

The convalescent wondered what there could be to laugh at.

"Who are they?" he inquired.

"Their name is De Grapion--oh, De Grapion, says I! their name is
Nancanou. They are, without exception, the finest women--the brightest,
the best, and the bravest--that I know in New Orleans." The doctor
resumed a cigar which lay against the edge of the chess-board, found it
extinguished, and proceeded to relight it. "Best blood of the province;
good as the Grandissimes. Blood is a great thing here, in certain odd
ways," he went on. "Very curious sometimes." He stooped to the floor
where his coat had fallen, and took his handkerchief from a
breast-pocket. "At a grand mask ball about two months ago, where I had a
bewilderingly fine time with those ladies, the proudest old turkey in
the theater was an old fellow whose Indian blood shows in his very
behavior, and yet--ha, ha! I saw that same old man, at a quadroon ball a
few years ago, walk up to the handsomest, best dressed man in the
house, a man with a skin whiter than his own,--a perfect gentleman as to
looks and manners,--and without a word slap him in the face."

"You laugh?" asked Frowenfeld.

"Laugh? Why shouldn't I? The fellow had no business there. Those balls
are not given to quadroon _males_, my friend. He was lucky to get out
alive, and that was about all he did.

"They are right!" the doctor persisted, in response to Frowenfeld's
puzzled look. "The people here have got to be particular. However, that
is not what we were talking about. Quadroon balls are not to be
mentioned in connection. Those ladies--" He addressed himself to the
resuscitation of his cigar. "Singular people in this country," he
resumed; but his cigar would not revive. He was a poor story-teller. To
Frowenfeld--as it would have been to any one, except a Creole or the
most thoroughly Creoleized Américain--his narrative, when it was done,
was little more than a thick mist of strange names, places and events;
yet there shone a light of romance upon it that filled it with color and
populated it with phantoms. Frowenfeld's interest rose--was allured into
this mist--and there was left befogged. As a physician, Doctor Keene
thus accomplished his end,--the mental diversion of his late
patient,--for in the midst of the mist Frowenfeld encountered and
grappled a problem of human life in Creole type, the possible
correlations of whose quantities we shall presently find him revolving
in a studious and sympathetic mind, as the poet of to-day ponders the

     "Flower in the crannied wall."

The quantities in that problem were the ancestral--the maternal--roots
of those two rival and hostile families whose descendants--some brave,
others fair--we find unwittingly thrown together at the ball, and with
whom we are shortly to have the honor of an unmasked acquaintance.




CHAPTER IV

FAMILY TREES


In the year 1673, and in the royal hovel of a Tchoupitoulas village not
far removed from that "Buffalo's Grazing-ground," now better known as
New Orleans, was born Lufki-Humma, otherwise Red Clay. The mother of Red
Clay was a princess by birth as well as by marriage. For the father,
with that devotion to his people's interests presumably common to
rulers, had ten moons before ventured northward into the territory of
the proud and exclusive Natchez nation, and had so prevailed with--so
outsmoked--their "Great Sun," as to find himself, as he finally knocked
the ashes from his successful calumet, possessor of a wife whose
pedigree included a long line of royal mothers--fathers being of little
account in Natchez heraldry--extending back beyond the Mexican origin
of her nation, and disappearing only in the effulgence of her great
original, the orb of day himself. As to Red Clay's paternal ancestry, we
must content ourselves with the fact that the father was not only the
diplomate we have already found him, but a chief of considerable
eminence; that is to say, of seven feet stature.

It scarce need be said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose
at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the
neighboring bayou and bathed it--not for singularity, nor for
independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling
conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of
holy things, an Indian mother.

Outside the lodge door sat and continued to sit, as she passed out, her
master or husband. His interest in the trivialities of the moment may be
summed up in this, that he was as fully prepared as some men are in more
civilized times and places to hold his queen to strict account for the
sex of her offspring. Girls for the Natchez, if they preferred them, but
the chief of the Tchoupitoulas wanted a son. She returned from the
water, came near, sank upon her knees, laid the infant at his feet, and
lo! a daughter.

Then she fell forward heavily upon her face. It may have been muscular
exhaustion, it may have been the mere wind of her hasty-tempered
matrimonial master's stone hatchet as it whiffed by her skull; an
inquest now would be too great an irony; but something blew out her
"vile candle."

Among the squaws who came to offer the accustomed funeral howlings, and
seize mementoes from the deceased lady's scant leavings, was one who had
in her own palmetto hut an empty cradle scarcely cold, and therefore a
necessity at her breast, if not a place in her heart, for the
unfortunate Lufki-Humma; and thus it was that this little waif came to
be tossed, a droll hypothesis of flesh, blood, nerve and brain, into the
hands of wild nature with _carte blanche_ as to the disposal of it. And
now, since this was Agricola's most boasted ancestor--since it appears
the darkness of her cheek had no effect to make him less white, or
qualify his right to smite the fairest and most distant descendant of an
African on the face, and since this proud station and right could not
have sprung from the squalid surroundings of her birth, let us for a
moment contemplate these crude materials.

As for the flesh, it was indeed only some of that "one flesh" of which
we all are made; but the blood--to go into finer distinctions--the
blood, as distinguished from the milk of her Alibamon foster-mother, was
the blood of the royal caste of the great Toltec mother-race, which,
before it yielded its Mexican splendors to the conquering Aztec, throned
the jeweled and gold-laden Inca in the South, and sent the sacred fire
of its temples into the North by the hand of the Natchez. For it is a
short way of expressing the truth concerning Red Clay's tissues to say
she had the blood of her mother and the nerve of her father, the nerve
of the true North American Indian, and had it in its finest strength.

As to her infantine bones, they were such as needed not to fail of
straightness in the limbs, compactness in the body, smallness in hands
and feet, and exceeding symmetry and comeliness throughout. Possibly
between the two sides of the occipital profile there may have been an
Incaean tendency to inequality; but if by any good fortune her
impressible little cranium should escape the cradle-straps, the
shapeliness that nature loves would soon appear. And this very fortune
befell her. Her father's detestation of an infant that had not consulted
his wishes as to sex prompted a verbal decree which, among other
prohibitions, forbade her skull the distortions that ambitious and
fashionable Indian mothers delighted to produce upon their offspring.

And as to her brain: what can we say? The casket in which Nature sealed
that brain, and in which Nature's great step-sister, Death, finally laid
it away, has never fallen into the delighted fingers--and the remarkable
fineness of its texture will never kindle admiration in the triumphant
eyes--of those whose scientific hunger drives them to dig for _crania
Americana_; nor yet will all their learned excavatings ever draw forth
one of those pale souvenirs of mortality with walls of shapelier contour
or more delicate fineness, or an interior of more admirable
spaciousness, than the fair council-chamber under whose dome the mind
of Lufki-Humma used, about two centuries ago, to sit in frequent
conclave with high thoughts.

"I have these facts," it was Agricola Fusilier's habit to say, "by
family tradition; but you know, sir, h-tradition is much more authentic
than history!"

Listening Crane, the tribal medicine-man, one day stepped softly into
the lodge of the giant chief, sat down opposite him on a mat of plaited
rushes, accepted a lighted calumet, and, after the silence of a decent
hour, broken at length by the warrior's intimation that "the ear of
Raging Buffalo listened for the voice of his brother," said, in effect,
that if that ear would turn toward the village play-ground, it would
catch a murmur like the pleasing sound of bees among the blossoms of the
catalpa, albeit the catalpa was now dropping her leaves, for it was the
moon of turkeys. No, it was the repressed laughter of squaws, wallowing
with their young ones about the village pole, wondering at the
Natchez-Tchoupitoulas child, whose eye was the eye of the panther, and
whose words were the words of an aged chief in council.

There was more added; we record only enough to indicate the direction of
Listening Crane's aim. The eye of Raging Buffalo was opened to see a
vision: the daughter of the Natchez sitting in majesty, clothed in
many-colored robes of shining feathers crossed and recrossed with
girdles of serpent-skins and of wampum, her feet in quilled and painted
moccasins, her head under a glory of plumes, the carpet of
buffalo-robes about her throne covered with the trophies of conquest,
and the atmosphere of her lodge blue with the smoke of embassadors'
calumets; and this extravagant dream the capricious chief at once
resolved should eventually become reality. "Let her be taken to the
village temple," he said to his prime-minister, "and be fed by warriors
on the flesh of wolves."

The Listening Crane was a patient man; he was the "man that waits" of
the old French proverb; all things came to him. He had waited for an
opportunity to change his brother's mind, and it had come. Again, he
waited for him to die; and, like Methuselah and others, he died. He had
heard of a race more powerful than the Natchez--a white race; he waited
for them; and when the year 1682 saw a humble "black gown" dragging and
splashing his way, with La Salle and Tonti, through the swamps of
Louisiana, holding forth the crucifix and backed by French carbines and
Mohican tomahawks, among the marvels of that wilderness was found this:
a child of nine sitting, and--with some unostentatious aid from her
medicine-man--ruling; queen of her tribe and high-priestess of their
temple. Fortified by the acumen and self-collected ambition of Listening
Crane, confirmed in her regal title by the white man's Manitou through
the medium of the "black gown," and inheriting her father's
fear-compelling frown, she ruled with majesty and wisdom, sometimes a
decreer of bloody justice, sometimes an Amazonian counselor of
warriors, and at all times--year after year, until she had reached the
perfect womanhood of twenty-six--a virgin queen.

On the 11th of March, 1699, two overbold young Frenchmen of M.
D'Iberville's little exploring party tossed guns on shoulder, and
ventured away from their canoes on the bank of the Mississippi into the
wilderness. Two men they were whom an explorer would have been justified
in hoarding up, rather than in letting out at such risks; a pair to lean
on, noble and strong. They hunted, killed nothing, were overtaken by
rain, then by night, hunger, alarm, despair.

And when they had lain down to die, and had only succeeded in falling
asleep, the Diana of the Tchoupitoulas, ranging the magnolia groves with
bow and quiver, came upon them in all the poetry of their hope-forsaken
strength and beauty, and fell sick of love. We say not whether with
Zephyr Grandissime or Epaminondas Fusilier; that, for the time being,
was her secret.

The two captives were made guests. Listening Crane rejoiced in them as
representatives of the great gift-making race, and indulged himself in a
dream of pipe-smoking, orations, treaties, presents and alliances,
finding its climax in the marriage of his virgin queen to the king of
France, and unvaryingly tending to the swiftly increasing aggrandizement
of Listening Crane. They sat down to bear's meat, sagamite and beans.
The queen sat down with them, clothed in her entire wardrobe: vest of
swan's skin, with facings of purple and green from the neck of the
mallard; petticoat of plaited hair, with embroideries of quills;
leggings of fawn-skin; garters of wampum; black and green serpent-skin
moccasins, that rested on pelts of tiger-cat and buffalo; armlets of
gars' scales, necklaces of bears' claws and alligators' teeth, plaited
tresses, plumes of raven and flamingo, wing of the pink curlew, and
odors of bay and sassafras. Young men danced before them, blowing upon
reeds, hooting, yelling, rattling beans in gourds and touching hands and
feet. One day was like another, and the nights were made brilliant with
flambeau dances and processions.

Some days later M. D'Iberville's canoe fleet, returning down the river,
found and took from the shore the two men, whom they had given up for
dead, and with them, by her own request, the abdicating queen, who left
behind her a crowd of weeping and howling squaws and warriors. Three
canoes that put off in their wake, at a word from her, turned back; but
one old man leaped into the water, swam after them a little way, and
then unexpectedly sank. It was that cautious wader but inexperienced
swimmer, the Listening Crane.

When the expedition reached Biloxi, there were two suitors for the hand
of Agricola's great ancestress. Neither of them was Zephyr Grandissime.
(Ah! the strong heads of those Grandissimes.)

They threw dice for her. Demosthenes De Grapion--he who, tradition
says, first hoisted the flag of France over the little fort--seemed to
think he ought to have a chance, and being accorded it, cast an
astonishingly high number; but Epaminondas cast a number higher by one
(which Demosthenes never could quite understand), and got a wife who had
loved him from first sight.

Thus, while the pilgrim fathers of the Mississippi Delta with Gallic
recklessness were taking wives and moot-wives from the ill specimens of
three races, arose, with the church's benediction, the royal house of
the Fusiliers in Louisiana. But the true, main Grandissime stock, on
which the Fusiliers did early, ever, and yet do, love to marry, has kept
itself lily-white ever since France has loved lilies--as to marriage,
that is; as to less responsible entanglements, why, of course--

After a little, the disappointed Demosthenes, with due ecclesiastical
sanction, also took a most excellent wife, from the first cargo of House
of Correction girls. Her biography, too, is as short as Methuselah's, or
shorter; she died. Zephyr Grandissime married, still later, a lady of
rank, a widow without children, sent from France to Biloxi under a
_lettre de cachet_. Demosthenes De Grapion, himself an only son, left
but one son, who also left but one. Yet they were prone to early
marriages.

So also were the Grandissimes, or, as the name is signed in all the old
notarial papers, the Brahmin Mandarin de Grandissimes. That was one
thing that kept their many-stranded family line so free from knots and
kinks. Once the leisurely Zephyr gave them a start, generation followed
generation with a rapidity that kept the competing De Grapions
incessantly exasperated, and new-made Grandissime fathers continually
throwing themselves into the fond arms and upon the proud necks of
congratulatory grandsires. Verily it seemed as though their family tree
was a fig-tree; you could not look for blossoms on it, but there,
instead, was the fruit full of seed. And with all their speed they were
for the most part fine of stature, strong of limb and fair of face. The
old nobility of their stock, including particularly the unnamed blood of
her of the _lettre de cachet_, showed forth in a gracefulness of
carriage, that almost identified a De Grandissime wherever you saw him,
and in a transparency of flesh and classic beauty of feature, that made
their daughters extra-marriageable in a land and day which was bearing a
wide reproach for a male celibacy not of the pious sort.

In a flock of Grandissimes might always be seen a Fusilier or two;
fierce-eyed, strong-beaked, dark, heavy-taloned birds, who, if they
could not sing, were of rich plumage, and could talk, and bite, and
strike, and keep up a ruffled crest and a self-exalting bad humor. They
early learned one favorite cry, with which they greeted all strangers,
crying the louder the more the endeavor was made to appease them:
"Invaders! Invaders!"

There was a real pathos in the contrast offered to this family line by
that other which sprang up, as slenderly as a stalk of wild oats, from
the loins of Demosthenes De Grapion. A lone son following a lone son,
and he another--it was sad to contemplate, in that colonial beginning of
days, three generations of good, Gallic blood tripping jocundly along in
attenuated Indian file. It made it no less pathetic to see that they
were brilliant, gallant, much-loved, early epauletted fellows, who did
not let twenty-one catch them without wives sealed with the authentic
wedding kiss, nor allow twenty-two to find them without an heir. But
they had a sad aptness for dying young. It was altogether supposable
that they would have spread out broadly in the land; but they were such
inveterate duelists, such brave Indian-fighters, such adventurous
swamp-rangers, and such lively free-livers, that, however numerously
their half-kin may have been scattered about in an unacknowledged way,
the avowed name of De Grapion had become less and less frequent in lists
where leading citizens subscribed their signatures, and was not to be
seen in the list of managers of the late ball.

It is not at all certain that so hot a blood would not have boiled away
entirely before the night of the _bal masqué_, but for an event which
led to the union of that blood with a stream equally clear and ruddy,
but of a milder vintage. This event fell out some fifty-two years after
that cast of the dice which made the princess Lufki-Humma the mother of
all the Fusiliers and of none of the De Grapions. Clotilde, the
Casket-Girl, the little maid who would not marry, was one of an heroic
sort, worth--the De Grapions maintained--whole swampfuls of Indian
queens. And yet the portrait of this great ancestress, which served as a
pattern to one who, at the ball, personated the long-deceased heroine
_en masque_, is hopelessly lost in some garret. Those Creoles have such
a shocking way of filing their family relics and records in rat-holes.

One fact alone remains to be stated: that the De Grapions, try to spurn
it as they would, never could quite suppress a hard feeling in the face
of the record, that from the two young men, who, when lost in the
horrors of Louisiana's swamps, had been esteemed as good as dead, and
particularly from him who married at his leisure,--from Zephyr de
Grandissime,--sprang there so many as the sands of the Mississippi
innumerable.




CHAPTER V

A MAIDEN WHO WILL NOT MARRY


Midway between the times of Lufki-Humma and those of her proud
descendant, Agricola Fusilier, fifty-two years lying on either side,
were the days of Pierre Rigaut, the magnificent, the "Grand Marquis,"
the Governor, De Vaudreuil. He was the Solomon of Louisiana. For
splendor, however, not for wisdom. Those were the gala days of license,
extravagance and pomp. He made paper money to be as the leaves of the
forest for multitude; it was nothing accounted of in the days of the
Grand Marquis. For Louis Quinze was king.

Clotilde, orphan of a murdered Huguenot, was one of sixty, the last
royal allotment to Louisiana, of imported wives. The king's agents had
inveigled her away from France with fair stories: "They will give you a
quiet home with some lady of the colony. Have to marry?--not unless it
pleases you. The king himself pays your passage and gives you a casket
of clothes. Think of that these times, fillette; and passage free,
withal, to--the garden of Eden, as you may call it--what more, say you,
can a poor girl want? Without doubt, too, like a model colonist, you
will accept a good husband and have a great many beautiful children, who
will say with pride, 'Me, I am no House-of-Correction-girl stock; my
mother'--or 'grandmother,' as the case may be--'was a _fille à la
cassette!_'"

The sixty were landed in New Orleans and given into the care of the
Ursuline nuns; and, before many days had elapsed, fifty-nine soldiers of
the king were well wived and ready to settle upon their riparian
land-grants. The residuum in the nuns' hands was one stiff-necked little
heretic, named, in part, Clotilde. They bore with her for sixty days,
and then complained to the Grand Marquis. But the Grand Marquis, with
all his pomp, was gracious and kind-hearted, and loved his ease almost
as much as his marchioness loved money. He bade them try her another
month. They did so, and then returned with her; she would neither marry
nor pray to Mary.

Here is the way they talked in New Orleans in those days. If you care to
understand why Louisiana has grown up so out of joint, note the tone of
those who governed her in the middle of the last century:

"What, my child," the Grand Marquis said, "you a _fille à la cassette?_
France, for shame! Come here by my side. Will you take a little advice
from an old soldier? It is in one word--submit. Whatever is inevitable,
submit to it. If you want to live easy and sleep easy, do as other
people do--submit. Consider submission in the present case; how easy,
how comfortable, and how little it amounts to! A little hearing of mass,
a little telling of beads, a little crossing of one's self--what is
that? One need not believe in them. Don't shake your head. Take my
example; look at me; all these things go in at this ear and out at this.
Do king or clergy trouble me? Not at all. For how does the king in these
matters of religion? I shall not even tell you, he is such a bad boy. Do
you not know that all the _noblesse_, and all the _savants_, and
especially all the archbishops and cardinals,--all, in a word, but such
silly little chicks as yourself,--have found out that this religious
business is a joke? Actually a joke, every whit; except, to be sure,
this heresy phase; that is a joke they cannot take. Now, I wish you
well, pretty child; so if you--eh?--truly, my pet, I fear we shall have
to call you unreasonable. Stop; they can spare me here a moment; I will
take you to the Marquise: she is in the next room.... Behold," said he,
as he entered the presence of his marchioness, "the little maid who will
not marry!"

The Marquise was as cold and hard-hearted as the Marquis was loose and
kind; but we need not recount the slow tortures of the _fille à la
cassette's_ second verbal temptation. The colony had to have soldiers,
she was given to understand, and the soldiers must have wives. "Why, I
am a soldier's wife, myself!" said the gorgeously attired lady, laying
her hand upon the governor-general's epaulet. She explained, further,
that he was rather softhearted, while she was a business woman; also
that the royal commissary's rolls did not comprehend such a thing as a
spinster, and--incidentally--that living by principle was rather out of
fashion in the province just then.

After she had offered much torment of this sort, a definite notion
seemed to take her; she turned her lord by a touch of the elbow, and
exchanged two or three business-like whispers with him at a window
overlooking the Levee.

"Fillette," she said, returning, "you are going to live on the
sea-coast. I am sending an aged lady there to gather the wax of the wild
myrtle. This good soldier of mine buys it for our king at twelve livres
the pound. Do you not know that women can make money? The place is not
safe; but there are no safe places in Louisiana. There are no nuns to
trouble you there; only a few Indians and soldiers. You and Madame will
live together, quite to yourselves, and can pray as you like."

"And not marry a soldier," said the Grand Marquis.

"No," said the lady, "not if you can gather enough myrtle-berries to
afford me a profit and you a living."

It was some thirty leagues or more eastward to the country of the
Biloxis, a beautiful land of low, evergreen hills looking out across the
pine-covered sand-keys of Mississippi Sound to the Gulf of Mexico. The
northern shore of Biloxi Bay was rich in candleberry-myrtle. In
Clotilde's day, though Biloxi was no longer the capital of the
Mississippi Valley, the fort which D'Iberville had built in 1699, and
the first timber of which is said to have been lifted by Zephyr
Grandissime at one end and Epaminondas Fusilier at the other, was still
there, making brave against the possible advent of corsairs, with a few
old culverines and one wooden mortar.

And did the orphan, in despite of Indians and soldiers and wilderness,
settle down here and make a moderate fortune? Alas, she never gathered a
berry! When she--with the aged lady, her appointed companion in exile,
the young commandant of the fort, in whose pinnace they had come, and
two or three French sailors and Canadians--stepped out upon the white
sand of Biloxi beach, she was bound with invisible fetters hand and
foot, by that Olympian rogue of a boy, who likes no better prey than a
little maiden who thinks she will never marry.

The officer's name was De Grapion--Georges De Grapion. The Marquis gave
him a choice grant of land on that part of the Mississippi river "coast"
known as the Cannes Brulées.

"Of course you know where Cannes Brulées is, don't you?" asked Doctor
Keene of Joseph Frowenfeld.

"Yes," said Joseph, with a twinge of reminiscence that recalled the
study of Louisiana on paper with his father and sisters.

There Georges De Grapion settled, with the laudable determination to
make a fresh start against the mortifyingly numerous Grandissimes.

"My father's policy was every way bad," he said to his spouse; "it is
useless, and probably wrong, this trying to thin them out by duels; we
will try another plan. Thank you," he added, as she handed his coat back
to him, with the shoulder-straps cut off. In pursuance of the new plan,
Madame De Grapion,--the precious little heroine!--before the myrtles
offered another crop of berries, bore him a boy not much smaller (saith
tradition) than herself.

Only one thing qualified the father's elation. On that very day Numa
Grandissime (Brahmin-Mandarin de Grandissime), a mere child, received
from Governor de Vaudreuil a cadetship.

"Never mind, Messieurs Grandissime, go on with your tricks; we shall
see! Ha! we shall see!"

"We shall see what?" asked a remote relative of that family. "Will
Monsieur be so good as to explain himself?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Bang! bang!

Alas, Madame De Grapion!

It may be recorded that no affair of honor in Louisiana ever left a
braver little widow. When Joseph and his doctor pretended to play chess
together, but little more than a half-century had elapsed since the
_fille à la cassette_ stood before the Grand Marquis and refused to wed.
Yet she had been long gone into the skies, leaving a worthy example
behind her in twenty years of beautiful widowhood. Her son, the heir and
resident of the plantation at Cannes Brulées, at the age of--they do
say--eighteen, had married a blithe and pretty lady of Franco-Spanish
extraction, and, after a fair length of life divided between campaigning
under the brilliant young Galvez and raising unremunerative
indigo crops, had lately lain down to sleep, leaving only two
descendants--females--how shall we describe them?--a Monk and a _Fille à
la Cassette_. It was very hard to have to go leaving his family name
snuffed out and certain Grandissime-ward grievances burning.

       *       *       *       *       *

"There are so many Grandissimes," said the weary-eyed Frowenfeld, "I
cannot distinguish between--I can scarcely count them."

"Well, now," said the doctor, "let me tell you, don't try. They can't
do it themselves. Take them in the mass--as you would shrimps."




CHAPTER VI

LOST OPPORTUNITIES


The little doctor tipped his chair back against the wall, drew up his
knees, and laughed whimperingly in his freckled hands.

"I had to do some prodigious lying at that ball. I didn't dare let the
De Grapion ladies know they were in company with a Grandissime."

"I thought you said their name was Nancanou."

"Well, certainly--De Grapion-Nancanou. You see, that is one of their
charms: one is a widow, the other is her daughter, and both as young and
beautiful as Hebe. Ask Honoré Grandissime; he has seen the little widow;
but then he don't know who she is. He will not ask me, and I will not
tell him. Oh, yes; it is about eighteen years now since old De
Grapion--elegant, high-stepping old fellow--married her, then only
sixteen years of age, to young Nancanou, an indigo-planter on the Fausse
Rivière--the old bend, you know, behind Pointe Coupée. The young couple
went there to live. I have been told they had one of the prettiest
places in Louisiana. He was a man of cultivated tastes, educated in
Paris, spoke English, was handsome (convivial, of course), and of
perfectly pure blood. But there was one thing old De Grapion overlooked:
he and his son-in-law were the last of their names. In Louisiana a man
needs kinsfolk. He ought to have married his daughter into a strong
house. They say that Numa Grandissime (Honoré's father) and he had
patched up a peace between the two families that included even old
Agricola, and that he could have married her to a Grandissime. However,
he is supposed to have known what he was about.

"A matter of business called young Nancanou to New Orleans. He had no
friends here; he was a Creole, but what part of his life had not been
spent on his plantation he had passed in Europe. He could not leave his
young girl of a wife alone in that exiled sort of plantation life, so he
brought her and the child (a girl) down with him as far as to her
father's place, left them there, and came on to the city alone.

"Now, what does the old man do but give him a letter of introduction to
old Agricole Fusilier! (His name is Agricola, but we shorten it to
Agricole.) It seems that old De Grapion and Agricole had had the
indiscretion to scrape up a mutually complimentary correspondence. And
to Agricole the young man went.

"They became intimate at once, drank together, danced with the quadroons
together, and got into as much mischief in three days as I ever did in a
fortnight. So affairs went on until by and by they were gambling
together. One night they were at the Piety Club, playing hard, and the
planter lost his last quarti. He became desperate, and did a thing I
have known more than one planter to do: wrote his pledge for every
arpent of his land and every slave on it, and staked that. Agricole
refused to play. 'You shall play,' said Nancanou, and when the game was
ended he said: 'Monsieur Agricola Fusilier, you cheated.' You see? Just
as I have frequently been tempted to remark to my friend, Mr.
Frowenfeld.

"But, Frowenfeld, you must know, withal the Creoles are such gamblers,
they never cheat; they play absolutely fair. So Agricole had to
challenge the planter. He could not be blamed for that; there was no
choice--oh, now, Frowenfeld, keep quiet! I tell you there was no choice.
And the fellow was no coward. He sent Agricole a clear title to the real
estate and slaves,--lacking only the wife's signature,--accepted the
challenge and fell dead at the first fire.

"Stop, now, and let me finish. Agricole sat down and wrote to the widow
that he did not wish to deprive her of her home, and that if she would
state in writing her belief that the stakes had been won fairly, he
would give back the whole estate, slaves and all; but that if she would
not, he should feel compelled to retain it in vindication of his honor.
Now wasn't that drawing a fine point?" The doctor laughed according to
his habit, with his face down in his hands. "You see, he wanted to
stand before all creation--the Creator did not make so much
difference--in the most exquisitely proper light; so he puts the laws of
humanity under his feet, and anoints himself from head to foot with
Creole punctilio."

"Did she sign the paper?" asked Joseph.

"She? Wait till you know her! No, indeed; she had the true scorn. She
and her father sent down another and a better title. Creole-like, they
managed to bestir themselves to that extent and there they stopped.

"And the airs with which they did it! They kept all their rage to
themselves, and sent the polite word, that they were not acquainted with
the merits of the case, that they were not disposed to make the long and
arduous trip to the city and back, and that if M. Fusilier de
Grandissime thought he could find any pleasure or profit in owning the
place, he was welcome; that the widow of _his late friend_ was not
disposed to live on it, but would remain with her father at the paternal
home at Cannes Brulées.

"Did you ever hear of a more perfect specimen of Creole pride? That is
the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles,
in any sort of contest, and right down at the foundation of it all, I
will find you this same preposterous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal
pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the
Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De
Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a
Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands
but at the risk of his life.

"But I will finish the story: and here is the really sad part. Not many
months ago old De Grapion--'old,' said I; they don't grow old; I call
him old--a few months ago he died. He must have left everything
smothered in debt; for, like his race, he had stuck to indigo because
his father planted it, and it is a crop that has lost money steadily for
years and years. His daughter and granddaughter were left like babes in
the wood; and, to crown their disasters, have now made the grave mistake
of coming to the city, where they find they haven't a friend--not one,
sir! They called me in to prescribe for a trivial indisposition, shortly
after their arrival; and I tell you, Frowenfeld, it made me shiver to
see two such beautiful women in such a town as this without a male
protector, and even"--the doctor lowered his voice--"without adequate
support. The mother says they are perfectly comfortable; tells the old
couple so who took them to the ball, and whose little girl is their
embroidery scholar; but you cannot believe a Creole on that subject, and
I don't believe her. Would you like to make their acquaintance?"

Frowenfeld hesitated, disliking to say no to his friend, and then shook
his head.

"After a while--at least not now, sir, if you please."

The doctor made a gesture of disappointment.

"Um-hum," he said grumly--"the only man in New Orleans I would honor
with an invitation!--but all right; I'll go alone."

He laughed a little at himself, and left Frowenfeld, if ever he should
desire it, to make the acquaintance of his pretty neighbors as best
he could.




CHAPTER VII

WAS IT HONORÉ GRANDISSIME?


A Creole gentleman, on horseback one morning with some practical object
in view,--drainage, possibly,--had got what he sought,--the evidence of
his own eyes on certain points,--and now moved quietly across some old
fields toward the town, where more absorbing interests awaited him in
the Rue Toulouse; for this Creole gentleman was a merchant, and because
he would presently find himself among the appointments and restraints of
the counting-room, he heartily gave himself up, for the moment, to the
surrounding influences of nature.

It was late in November; but the air was mild and the grass and foliage
green and dewy. Wild flowers bloomed plentifully and in all directions;
the bushes were hung, and often covered, with vines of sprightly green,
sprinkled thickly with smart-looking little worthless berries, whose
sparkling complacency the combined contempt of man, beast and bird
could not dim. The call of the field-lark came continually out of the
grass, where now and then could be seen his yellow breast; the orchard
oriole was executing his fantasias in every tree; a covey of partridges
ran across the path close under the horse's feet, and stopped to look
back almost within reach of the riding-whip; clouds of starlings, in
their odd, irresolute way, rose from the high bulrushes and settled
again, without discernible cause; little wandering companies of sparrows
undulated from hedge to hedge; a great rabbit-hawk sat alone in the top
of a lofty pecan-tree; that petted rowdy, the mocking-bird, dropped down
into the path to offer fight to the horse, and, failing in that, flew up
again and drove a crow into ignominious retirement beyond the plain;
from a place of flags and reeds a white crane shot upward, turned, and
then, with the slow and stately beat peculiar to her wing, sped away
until, against the tallest cypress of the distant forest, she became a
tiny white speck on its black, and suddenly disappeared, like one
flake of snow.

The scene was altogether such as to fill any hearty soul with impulses
of genial friendliness and gentle candor; such a scene as will sometimes
prepare a man of the world, upon the least direct incentive, to throw
open the windows of his private thought with a freedom which the
atmosphere of no counting-room or drawing-room tends to induce.

The young merchant--he was young--felt this. Moreover, the matter of
business which had brought him out had responded to his inquiring eye
with a somewhat golden radiance; and your true man of business--he who
has reached that elevated pitch of serene, good-natured reserve which is
of the high art of his calling--is never so generous with his
pennyworths of thought as when newly in possession of some little secret
worth many pounds.

By and by the behavior of the horse indicated the near presence of a
stranger; and the next moment the rider drew rein under an immense
live-oak where there was a bit of paling about some graves, and
raised his hat.

"Good-morning, sir." But for the silent r's, his pronunciation was
exact, yet evidently an acquired one. While he spoke his salutation in
English, he was thinking in French: "Without doubt, this rather
oversized, bareheaded, interrupted-looking convalescent who stands
before me, wondering how I should know in what language to address him,
is Joseph Frowenfeld, of whom Doctor Keene has had so much to say to me.
A good face--unsophisticated, but intelligent, mettlesome and honest. He
will make his mark; it will probably be a white one; I will subscribe to
the adventure.

"You will excuse me, sir?" he asked after a pause, dismounting, and
noticing, as he did so, that Frowenfeld's knees showed recent contact
with the turf; "I have, myself, some interest in two of these graves,
sir, as I suppose--you will pardon my freedom--you have in the
other four."

He approached the old but newly whitened paling, which encircled the
tree's trunk as well as the six graves about it. There was in his face
and manner a sort of impersonal human kindness, well calculated to
engage a diffident and sensitive stranger, standing in dread of
gratuitous benevolence or pity.

"Yes, sir," said the convalescent, and ceased; but the other leaned
against the palings in an attitude of attention, and he felt induced to
add: "I have buried here my father, mother, and two sisters,"--he had
expected to continue in an unemotional tone; but a deep respiration
usurped the place of speech. He stooped quickly to pick up his hat, and,
as he rose again and looked into his listener's face, the respectful,
unobtrusive sympathy there expressed went directly to his heart.

"Victims of the fever," said the Creole with great gravity. "How did
that happen?"

As Frowenfeld, after a moment's hesitation, began to speak, the stranger
let go the bridle of his horse and sat down upon the turf. Joseph
appreciated the courtesy and sat down, too; and thus the ice was broken.

The immigrant told his story; he was young--often younger than his
years--and his listener several years his senior; but the Creole, true
to his blood, was able at any time to make himself as young as need be,
and possessed the rare magic of drawing one's confidence without seeming
to do more than merely pay attention. It followed that the story was
told in full detail, including grateful acknowledgment of the goodness
of an unknown friend, who had granted this burial-place on condition
that he should not be sought out for the purpose of thanking him.

So a considerable time passed by, in which acquaintance grew with
delightful rapidity.

"What will you do now?" asked the stranger, when a short silence had
followed the conclusion of the story.

"I hardly know. I am taken somewhat by surprise. I have not chosen a
definite course in life--as yet. I have been a general student, but have
not prepared myself for any profession; I am not sure what I shall be."

A certain energy in the immigrant's face half redeemed this childlike
speech. Yet the Creole's lips, as he opened them to reply, betrayed
amusement; so he hastened to say:

"I appreciate your position, Mr. Frowenfeld,--excuse me, I believe you
said that was your father's name. And yet,"--the shadow of an amused
smile lurked another instant about a corner of his mouth,--"if you would
understand me kindly I would say, take care--"

What little blood the convalescent had rushed violently to his face, and
the Creole added:

"I do not insinuate you would willingly be idle. I think I know what you
want. You want to make up your mind _now_ what you will _do_, and at
your leisure what you will _be_; eh? To be, it seems to me," he said in
summing up,--"that to be is not so necessary as to do, eh? or am
I wrong?"

"No, sir," replied Joseph, still red, "I was feeling that just now. I
will do the first thing that offers; I can dig."

The Creole shrugged and pouted.

"And be called a _dos brile_--a 'burnt-back.'"

"But"--began the immigrant, with overmuch warmth.

The other interrupted him, shaking his head slowly and smiling as he
spoke.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, it is of no use to talk; you may hold in contempt the
Creole scorn of toil--just as I do, myself, but in theory, my-de'-seh,
not too much in practice. You cannot afford to be _entirely_ different
from the community in which you live; is that not so?"

"A friend of mine," said Frowenfeld, "has told me I must 'compromise.'"

"You must get acclimated," responded the Creole; "not in body only, that
you have done; but in mind--in taste--in conversation--and in
convictions too, yes, ha, ha! They all do it--all who come. They hold
out a little while--a very little; then they open their stores on
Sunday, they import cargoes of Africans, they bribe the officials, they
smuggle goods, they have colored housekeepers. My-de'-seh, the water
must expect to take the shape of the bucket; eh?"

"One need not be water!" said the immigrant.

"Ah!" said the Creole, with another amiable shrug, and a wave of his
hand; "certainly you do not suppose that is my advice--that those things
have my approval."

Must we repeat already that Frowenfeld was abnormally young? "Why have
they not your condemnation?" cried he with an earnestness that made the
Creole's horse drop the grass from his teeth and wheel half around.

The answer came slowly and gently.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, my habit is to buy cheap and sell at a profit. My
condemnation? My-de'-seh, there is no sa-a-ale for it! it spoils the
sale of other goods my-de'-seh. It is not to condemn that you want; you
want to suc-_ceed_. Ha, ha, ha! you see I am a merchant, eh? My-de'-seh,
can _you_ afford not to succeed?"

The speaker had grown very much in earnest in the course of these few
words, and as he asked the closing question, arose, arranged his horse's
bridle and, with his elbow in the saddle, leaned his handsome head on
his equally beautiful hand. His whole appearance was a dazzling
contradiction of the notion that a Creole is a person of mixed blood.

"I think I can!" replied the convalescent, with much spirit, rising with
more haste than was good, and staggering a moment.

The horseman laughed outright.

"Your principle is the best, I cannot dispute that; but whether you can
act it out--reformers do not make money, you know." He examined his
saddle-girth and began to tighten it. "One can condemn--too
cautiously--by a kind of--elevated cowardice (I have that fault); but
one can also condemn too rashly; I remember when I did so. One of the
occupants of those two graves you see yonder side by side--I think might
have lived longer if I had not spoken so rashly for his rights. Did you
ever hear of Bras-Coupé, Mr. Frowenfeld?"

"I have heard only the name."

"Ah! Mr. Frowenfeld, _there_ was a bold man's chance to denounce wrong
and oppression! Why, that negro's death changed the whole channel of my
convictions."

The speaker had turned and thrown up his arm with frowning earnestness;
he dropped it and smiled at himself.

"Do not mistake me for one of your new-fashioned Philadelphia
'_negrophiles_'; I am a merchant, my-de'-seh, a good subject of His
Catholic Majesty, a Creole of the Creoles, and so forth, and so
forth. Come!"

He slapped the saddle.

To have seen and heard them a little later as they moved toward the
city, the Creole walking before the horse, and Frowenfeld sitting in the
saddle, you might have supposed them old acquaintances. Yet the
immigrant was wondering who his companion might be. He had not
introduced himself--seemed to think that even an immigrant might know
his name without asking. Was it Honoré Grandissime? Joseph was tempted
to guess so; but the initials inscribed on the silver-mounted pommel of
the fine old Spanish saddle did not bear out that conjecture.

The stranger talked freely. The sun's rays seemed to set all the
sweetness in him a-working, and his pleasant worldly wisdom foamed up
and out like fermenting honey.

By and by the way led through a broad, grassy lane where the path turned
alternately to right and left among some wild acacias. The Creole waved
his hand toward one of them and said:

"Now, Mr. Frowenfeld, you see? one man walks where he sees another's
track; that is what makes a path; but you want a man, instead of passing
around this prickly bush, to lay hold of it with his naked hands and
pull it up by the roots."

"But a man armed with the truth is far from being barehanded," replied
the convalescent, and they went on, more and more interested at every
step,--one in this very raw imported material for an excellent man, the
other in so striking an exponent of a unique land and people.

They came at length to the crossing of two streets, and the Creole,
pausing in his speech, laid his hand upon the bridle.

Frowenfeld dismounted.

"Do we part here?" asked the Creole. "Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I hope to
meet you soon again."

"Indeed, I thank you, sir," said Joseph, "and I hope we shall,
although--"

The Creole paused with a foot in the stirrup and interrupted him with a
playful gesture; then as the horse stirred, he mounted and drew in
the rein.

"I know; you want to say you cannot accept my philosophy and I cannot
appreciate yours; but I appreciate it more than you think, my-de'-seh."

The convalescent's smile showed much fatigue.

The Creole extended his hand; the immigrant seized it, wished to ask his
name, but did not; and the next moment he was gone.

The convalescent walked meditatively toward his quarters, with a faint
feeling of having been found asleep on duty and awakened by a passing
stranger. It was an unpleasant feeling, and he caught himself more than
once shaking his head. He stopped, at length, and looked back; but the
Creole was long since out of sight. The mortified self-accuser little
knew how very similar a feeling that vanished person was carrying away
with him. He turned and resumed his walk, wondering who Monsieur might
be, and a little impatient with himself that he had not asked.

"It is Honoré Grandissime; it must be he!" he said.

Yet see how soon he felt obliged to change his mind.




CHAPTER VIII

SIGNED--HONORÉ GRANDISSIME


On the afternoon of the same day, having decided what he would "do," he
started out in search of new quarters. He found nothing then, but next
morning came upon a small, single-story building in the rue
Royale,--corner of Conti,--which he thought would suit his plans. There
were a door and show-window in the rue Royale, two doors in the
intersecting street, and a small apartment in the rear which would
answer for sleeping, eating, and studying purposes, and which connected
with the front apartment by a door in the left-hand corner. This
connection he would partially conceal by a prescription-desk. A counter
would run lengthwise toward the rue Royale, along the wall opposite the
side-doors. Such was the spot that soon became known as
"Frowenfeld's Corner."

The notice "À Louer" directed him to inquire at numero--rue Condé. Here
he was ushered through the wicket of a _porte cochère_ into a broad,
paved corridor, and up a stair into a large, cool room, and into the
presence of a man who seemed, in some respects, the most remarkable
figure he had yet seen in this little city of strange people. A strong,
clear, olive complexion; features that were faultless (unless a
woman-like delicacy, that was yet not effeminate, was a fault); hair _en
queue_, the handsomer for its premature streakings of gray; a tall, well
knit form, attired in cloth, linen and leather of the utmost fineness;
manners Castilian, with a gravity almost oriental,--made him one of
those rare masculine figures which, on the public promenade, men look
back at and ladies inquire about.

Now, who might _this_ be? The rent poster had given no name. Even the
incurious Frowenfeld would fain guess a little. For a man to be just of
this sort, it seemed plain that he must live in an isolated ease upon
the unceasing droppings of coupons, rents, and like receivables. Such
was the immigrant's first conjecture; and, as with slow, scant questions
and answers they made their bargain, every new glance strengthened it;
he was evidently a _rentier_. What, then, was his astonishment when
Monsieur bent down and made himself Frowenfeld's landlord, by writing
what the universal mind esteemed the synonym of enterprise and
activity--the name of Honoré Grandissime. The landlord did not see, or
ignored, his tenant's glance of surprise, and the tenant asked no
questions.

       *       *       *       *       *

We may add here an incident which seemed, when it took place, as
unimportant as a single fact well could be.

The little sum that Frowenfeld had inherited from his father had been
sadly depleted by the expenses of four funerals; yet he was still able
to pay a month's rent in advance, to supply his shop with a scant stock
of drugs, to purchase a celestial globe and some scientific apparatus,
and to buy a dinner or two of sausages and crackers; but after this
there was no necessity of hiding his purse.

His landlord early contracted a fondness for dropping in upon him, and
conversing with him, as best the few and labored English phrases at his
command would allow. Frowenfeld soon noticed that he never entered the
shop unless its proprietor was alone, never sat down, and always, with
the same perfection of dignity that characterized all his movements,
departed immediately upon the arrival of any third person. One day, when
the landlord was making one of these standing calls,--he always stood'
beside a high glass case, on the side of the shop opposite the
counter,--he noticed in Joseph's hand a sprig of basil, and spoke of it.

"You ligue?"

The tenant did not understand. "You--find--dad--nize?"

Frowenfeld replied that it had been left by the oversight of a customer,
and expressed a liking for its odor.

"I sand you," said the landlord,--a speech whose meaning Frowenfeld was
not sure of until the next morning, when a small, nearly naked black
boy, who could not speak a word of English, brought to the apothecary a
luxuriant bunch of this basil, growing in a rough box.




CHAPTER IX

ILLUSTRATING THE TRACTIVE POWER OF BASIL


On the twenty-fourth day of December, 1803, at two o'clock, P.M., the
thermometer standing at 79, hygrometer 17, barometer 29.880, sky partly
clouded, wind west, light, the apothecary of the rue Royale, now
something more than a month established in his calling, might have been
seen standing behind his counter and beginning to show embarrassment in
the presence of a lady, who, since she had got her prescription filled
and had paid for it, ought in the conventional course of things to have
hurried out, followed by the pathetically ugly black woman who tarried
at the door as her attendant; for to be in an apothecary's shop at all
was unconventional. She was heavily veiled; but the sparkle of her eyes,
which no multiplication of veils could quite extinguish, her symmetrical
and well-fitted figure, just escaping smallness, her grace of movement,
and a soft, joyous voice, had several days before led Frowenfeld to the
confident conclusion that she was young and beautiful.

For this was now the third time she had come to buy; and, though the
purchases were unaccountably trivial, the purchaser seemed not so. On
the two previous occasions she had been accompanied by a slender girl,
somewhat taller than she, veiled also, of graver movement, a bearing
that seemed to Joseph almost too regal, and a discernible unwillingness
to enter or tarry. There seemed a certain family resemblance between her
voice and that of the other, which proclaimed them--he incautiously
assumed--sisters. This time, as we see, the smaller, and probably elder,
came alone.

She still held in her hand the small silver which Frowenfeld had given
her in change, and sighed after the laugh they had just enjoyed together
over a slip in her English. A very grateful sip of sweet the laugh was
to the all but friendless apothecary, and the embarrassment that rushed
in after it may have arisen in part from a conscious casting about in
his mind for something--anything--that might prolong her stay an
instant. He opened his lips to speak; but she was quicker than he, and
said, in a stealthy way that seemed oddly unnecessary:

"You 'ave some basilic?"

She accompanied her words with a little peeping movement, directing his
attention, through the open door, to his box of basil, on the floor in
the rear room.

Frowenfeld stepped back to it, cut half the bunch and returned, with the
bold intention of making her a present of it; but as he hastened back to
the spot he had left, he was astonished to see the lady disappearing
from his farthest front door, followed by her negress.

"Did she change her mind, or did she misunderstand me?" he asked
himself; and, in the hope that she might return for the basil, he put it
in water in his back room.

The day being, as the figures have already shown, an unusually mild one,
even for a Louisiana December, and the finger of the clock drawing by
and by toward the last hour of sunlight, some half dozen of Frowenfeld's
townsmen had gathered, inside and out, some standing, some sitting,
about his front door, and all discussing the popular topics of the day.
For it might have been anticipated that, in a city where so very little
English was spoken and no newspaper published except that beneficiary
of eighty subscribers, the "Moniteur de la Louisiane," the apothecary's
shop in the rue Royale would be the rendezvous for a select company of
English-speaking gentlemen, with a smart majority of physicians.

The Cession had become an accomplished fact. With due drum-beatings and
act-reading, flag-raising, cannonading and galloping of aides-de-camp,
Nouvelle Orléans had become New Orleans, and Louisiane was Louisiana.
This afternoon, the first week of American jurisdiction was only
something over half gone, and the main topic of public debate was still
the Cession. Was it genuine? and, if so, would it stand?

"Mark my words," said one, "the British flag will be floating over this
town within ninety days!" and he went on whittling the back of
his chair.

From this main question, the conversation branched out to the subject of
land titles. Would that great majority of Spanish titles, derived from
the concessions of post-commandants and others of minor authority,
hold good?

"I suppose you know what ---- thinks about it?"

"No."

"Well, he has quietly purchased the grant made by Carondelet to the
Marquis of ----, thirty thousand acres, and now says the grant is two
hundred _and_ thirty thousand. That is one style of men Governor
Claiborne is going to have on his hands. The town will presently be as
full of them as my pocket is of tobacco crumbs,--every one of them with
a Spanish grant as long as Clark's ropewalk and made up since the rumor
of the Cession."

"I hear that some of Honoré Grandissime's titles are likely to turn out
bad,--some of the old Brahmin properties and some of the
Mandarin lands."

"Fudge!" said Dr. Keene.

There was also the subject of rotation in office. Would this provisional
governor-general himself be able to stand fast? Had not a man better
temporize a while, and see what Ex-Governor-general Casa Calvo and
Trudeau were going to do? Would not men who sacrificed old prejudices,
braved the popular contumely, and came forward and gave in their
allegiance to the President's appointee, have to take the chances of
losing their official positions at last? Men like Camille Brahmin, for
instance, or Charlie Mandarin: suppose Spain or France should get the
province back, then where would they be?

"One of the things I pity most in this vain world," drawled Doctor
Keene, "is a hive of patriots who don't know where to swarm."

The apothecary was drawn into the discussion--at least he thought he
was. Inexperience is apt to think that Truth will be knocked down and
murdered unless she comes to the rescue. Somehow, Frowenfeld's really
excellent arguments seemed to give out more heat than light. They were
merciless; their principles were not only lofty to dizziness, but
precipitous, and their heights unoccupied, and--to the common
sight--unattainable. In consequence, they provoked hostility and even
resentment. With the kindest, the most honest, and even the most modest,
intentions, he found himself--to his bewilderment and surprise--sniffed
at by the ungenerous, frowned upon by the impatient, and smiled down by
the good-natured in a manner that brought sudden blushes of exasperation
to his face, and often made him ashamed to find himself going over these
sham battles again in much savageness of spirit, when alone with his
books; or, in moments of weakness, casting about for such unworthy
weapons as irony and satire. In the present debate, he had just provoked
a sneer that made his blood leap and his friends laugh, when Doctor
Keene, suddenly rising and beckoning across the street, exclaimed:

"Oh! Agricole! Agricole! _venez ici_; we want you."

A murmur of vexed protest arose from two or three.

"He's coming," said the whittler, who had also beckoned.

"Good evening, Citizen Fusilier," said Doctor Keene. "Citizen Fusilier,
allow me to present my friend, Professor Frowenfeld--yes, you are a
professor--yes, you are. He is one of your sort, Citizen Fusilier, a man
of thorough scientific education. I believe on my soul, sir, he knows
nearly as much as you do!"

The person who confronted the apothecary was a large, heavily built, but
well-molded and vigorous man, of whom one might say that he was adorned
with old age. His brow was dark, and furrowed partly by time and partly
by a persistent, ostentatious frown. His eyes were large, black and
bold, and the gray locks above them curled short and harsh like the
front of a bull. His nose was fine and strong, and if there was any
deficiency in mouth or chin, it was hidden by a beard that swept down
over his broad breast like the beard of a prophet. In his dress, which
was noticeably soiled, the fashions of three decades were hinted at; he
seemed to have donned whatever he thought his friends would most have
liked him to leave off.

"Professor," said the old man, extending something like the paw of a
lion, and giving Frowenfeld plenty of time to become thoroughly awed,
"this is a pleasure as magnificent as unexpected! A scientific man?--in
Louisiana?" He looked around upon the doctors as upon a
graduating class.

"Professor, I am rejoiced!" He paused again, shaking the apothecary's
hand with great ceremony. "I do assure you, sir, I dislike to relinquish
your grasp. Do me the honor to allow me to become your friend! I
congratulate my downtrodden country on the acquisition of such a
citizen! I hope, sir,--at least I might have hoped, had not Louisiana
just passed into the hands of the most clap-trap government in the
universe, notwithstanding it pretends to be a republic,--I might have
hoped that you had come among us to fasten the lie direct upon a late
author, who writes of us that 'the air of this region is deadly to
the Muses.'"

"He didn't say that?" asked one of the debaters, with pretended
indignation.

"He did, sir, after eating our bread!"

"And sucking our sugar-cane, too, no doubt!" said the wag; but the old
man took no notice.

Frowenfeld, naturally, was not anxious to reply, and was greatly
relieved to be touched on the elbow by a child with a picayune in one
hand and a tumbler in the other. He escaped behind the counter and
gladly remained there.

"Citizen Fusilier," asked one of the gossips, "what has the new
government to do with the health of the Muses?"

"It introduces the English tongue," said the old man, scowling.

"Oh, well," replied the questioner, "the Creoles will soon learn the
language."

"English is not a language, sir; it is a jargon! And when this young
simpleton, Claiborne, attempts to cram it down the public windpipe in
the courts, as I understand he intends, he will fail! Hah! sir, I know
men in this city who would rather eat a dog than speak English! I speak
it, but I also speak Choctaw."

"The new land titles will be in English."

"They will spurn his rotten titles. And if he attempts to invalidate
their old ones, why, let him do it! Napoleon Buonaparte" (Italian
pronounciation) "will make good every arpent within the next two years.
_Think so?_ I know it! _How?_ H-I perceive it! H-I hope the yellow fever
may spare you to witness it."

A sullen grunt from the circle showed the "citizen" that he had presumed
too much upon the license commonly accorded his advanced age, and by way
of a diversion he looked around for Frowenfeld to pour new flatteries
upon. But Joseph, behind his counter, unaware of either the offense or
the resentment, was blushing with pleasure before a visitor who had
entered by the side door farthest from the company.

"Gentlemen," said Agricola, "h-my dear friends, you must not expect an
old Creole to like anything in comparison with _la belle langue_."

"Which language do you call _la belle?_" asked Doctor Keene, with
pretended simplicity.

The old man bent upon him a look of unspeakable contempt, which nobody
noticed. The gossips were one by one stealing a glance toward that which
ever was, is and must be an irresistible lodestone to the eyes of all
the sons of Adam, to wit, a chaste and graceful complement of--skirts.
Then in a lower tone they resumed their desultory conversation.

It was the seeker after basil who stood before the counter, holding in
her hand, with her purse, the heavy veil whose folds had before
concealed her features.




CHAPTER X

"OO DAD IS, 'SIEUR FROWENFEL'?"


Whether the removal of the veil was because of the milder light of the
evening, or the result of accident, or of haste, or both, or whether, by
reason of some exciting or absorbing course of thought, the wearer had
withdrawn it unconsciously, was a matter that occupied the apothecary as
little as did Agricola's continued harangue. As he looked upon the fair
face through the light gauze which still overhung but not obscured it,
he readily perceived, despite the sprightly smile, something like
distress, and as she spoke this became still more evident in her hurried
undertone.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', I want you to sell me doze _basilic_."

As she slipped the rings of her purse apart her fingers trembled.

"It is waiting for you," said Frowenfeld; but the lady did not hear him;
she was giving her attention to the loud voice of Agricola saying in the
course of discussion:

"The Louisiana Creole is the noblest variety of enlightened man!"

"Oo dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" she asked, softly, but with an excited
eye.

"That is Mr. Agricola Fusilier," answered Joseph in the same tone, his
heart leaping inexplicably as he met her glance. With an angry flush
she looked quickly around, scrutinized the old man in an instantaneous,
thorough way, and then glanced back at the apothecary again, as if
asking him to fulfil her request the quicker.

He hesitated, in doubt as to her meaning.

"Wrap it yonder," she almost whispered.

He went, and in a moment returned, with the basil only partially hid in
a paper covering.

But the lady, muffled again in her manifold veil, had once more lost her
eagerness for it; at least, instead of taking it, she moved aside,
offering room for a masculine figure just entering. She did not look to
see who it might be--plenty of time to do that by accident, by and by.
There she made a mistake; for the new-comer, with a silent bow of
thanks, declined the place made for him, moved across the shop, and
occupied his eyes with the contents of the glass case, his back being
turned to the lady and Frowenfeld. The apothecary recognized the Creole
whom he had met under the live-oak.

The lady put forth her hand suddenly to receive the package. As she took
it and turned to depart, another small hand was laid upon it and it was
returned to the counter. Something was said in a low-pitched undertone,
and the two sisters--if Frowenfeld's guess was right--confronted each
other. For a single instant only they stood so; an earnest and hurried
murmur of French words passed between them, and they turned together,
bowed with great suavity, and were gone.

"The Cession is a mere temporary political manoeuvre!" growled M.
Fusilier.

Frowenfeld's merchant friend came from his place of waiting, and spoke
twice before he attracted the attention of the bewildered apothecary.

"Good-day, Mr. Frowenfeld; I have been told that--"

Joseph gazed after the two ladies crossing the street, and felt
uncomfortable that the group of gossips did the same. So did the black
attendant who glanced furtively back.

"Good-day, Mr. Frowenfeld; I--"

"Oh! how do you do, sir?" exclaimed the apothecary, with great
pleasantness, of face. It seemed the most natural thing that they should
resume their late conversation just where they had left off, and that
would certainly be pleasant. But the man of more experience showed an
unresponsive expression, that was as if he remembered no conversation
of any note.

"I have been told that you might be able to replace the glass in this
thing out of your private stock."

He presented a small, leather-covered case, evidently containing some
optical instrument. "It will give me a pretext for going," he had said
to himself, as he put it into his pocket in his counting-room. He was
not going to let the apothecary know he had taken such a fancy to him.

"I do not know," replied Frowenfeld, as he touched the spring of the
case; "I will see what I have."

He passed into the back room, more than willing to get out of sight
till he might better collect himself.

"I do not keep these things for sale," said he as he went.

"Sir?" asked the Creole, as if he had not understood, and followed
through the open door.

"Is this what that lady was getting?" he asked, touching the remnant of
the basil in the box.

"Yes, sir," said the apothecary, with his face in the drawer of a table.

"They had no carriage with them." The Creole spoke with his back turned,
at the same time running his eyes along a shelf of books. Frowenfeld
made only the sound of rejecting bits of crystal and taking up others.
"I do not know who they are," ventured the merchant.

Joseph still gave no answer, but a moment after approached, with the
instrument in his extended hand.

"You had it? I am glad," said the owner, receiving it, but keeping one
hand still on the books.

Frowenfeld put up his materials.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, are these your books? I mean do you use these books?"

"Yes, sir."

The Creole stepped back to the door.

"Agricola!"

"_Quoi_!"

"_Vien ici_."

Citizen Fusilier entered, followed by a small volley of retorts from
those with whom he had been disputing, and who rose as he did. The
stranger said something very sprightly in French, running the back of
one finger down the rank of books, and a lively dialogue followed.

"You must be a great scholar," said the unknown by and by, addressing
the apothecary.

"He is a professor of chimistry," said the old man.

"I am nothing, as yet, but a student," said Joseph, as the three
returned into the shop; "certainly not a scholar, and still less a
professor." He spoke with a new quietness of manner that made the
younger Creole turn upon him a pleasant look.

"H-my young friend," said the patriarch, turning toward Joseph with a
tremendous frown, "when I, Agricola Fusilier, pronounce you a professor,
you are a professor. Louisiana will not look to _you_ for your
credentials; she will look to me!"

He stumbled upon some slight impediment under foot. There were times
when it took but little to make Agricola stumble.

Looking to see what it was, Joseph picked up a silken purse. There was a
name embroidered on it.




CHAPTER XI

SUDDEN FLASHES OF LIGHT


The day was nearly gone. The company that had been chatting at the front
door, and which in warmer weather would have tarried until bedtime, had
wandered off; however, by stepping toward the light the young merchant
could decipher the letters on the purse. Citizen Fusilier drew out a
pair of spectacles, looked over his junior's shoulder, read aloud,
"_Aurore De G. Nanca_--," and uttered an imprecation.

"Do not speak to me!" he thundered; "do not approach me! she did it
maliciously!"

"Sir!" began Frowenfeld.

But the old man uttered another tremendous malediction and hurried into
the street and away.

"Let him pass," said the other Creole calmly.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Frowenfeld.

"He is getting old." The Creole extended the purse carelessly to the
apothecary. "Has it anything inside?"

"But a single pistareen."

"That is why she wanted the _basilic_, eh?"

"I do not understand you, sir."

"Do you not know what she was going to do with it?"

"With the basil? No sir."

"May be she was going to make a little tisane, eh?" said the Creole,
forcing down a smile.

But a portion of the smile would come when Frowenfeld answered, with
unnecessary resentment:

"She was going to make some proper use of it, which need not concern
me."

"Without doubt."

The Creole quietly walked a step or two forward and back and looked idly
into the glass case. "Is this young man in love with her?" he asked
himself. He turned around.

"Do you know those ladies, Mr. Frowenfeld? Do you visit them at home?"

He drew out his porte-monnaie.

"No, sir."

"I will pay you for the repair of this instrument; have you change
for--"

"I will see," said the apothecary.

As he spoke he laid the purse on a stool, till he should light his shop,
and then went to his till without again taking it.

The Creole sauntered across to the counter and nipped the herb which
still lay there.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, you know what some very excellent people do with this?
They rub it on the sill of the door to make the money come into
the house."

Joseph stopped aghast with the drawer half drawn.

"Not persons of intelligence and--"

"All kinds. It is only some of the foolishness which they take from the
slaves. Many of your best people consult the voudou horses."

"Horses?"

"Priestesses, you might call them," explained the Creole, "like Momselle
Marcelline or 'Zabeth Philosophe."

"Witches!" whispered Frowenfeld.

"Oh no," said the other with a shrug; "that is too hard a name; say
fortune-tellers. But Mr. Frowenfeld, I wish you to lend me your good
offices. Just supposing the possi_bil_ity that that lady may be in need
of money, you know, and will send back or come back for the purse, you
know, knowing that she most likely lost it here, I ask you the favor
that you will not let her know I have filled it with gold. In fact, if
she mentions my name--"

"To confess the truth, sir, I am not acquainted with your name."

The Creole smiled a genuine surprise.

"I thought you knew it." He laughed a little at himself. "We have
nevertheless become very good friends--I believe? Well, in fact then,
Mr. Frowenfeld, you might say you do not know who put the money in." He
extended his open palm with the purse hanging across it. Joseph was
about to object to this statement, but the Creole, putting on an
expression of anxious desire, said: "I mean, not by name. It is somewhat
important to me, Mr. Frowenfeld, that that lady should not know my
present action. If you want to do those two ladies a favor, you may
rest assured the way to do it is to say you do not know who put this
gold." The Creole in his earnestness slipped in his idiom. "You will
excuse me if I do not tell you my name; you can find it out at any time
from Agricola. Ah! I am glad she did not see me! You must not tell
anybody about this little event, eh?"

"No, sir," said Joseph, as he finally accepted the purse. "I shall say
nothing to any one else, and only what I cannot avoid saying to the lady
and her sister."

"_'Tis not her sister_" responded the Creole, "_'tis her daughter_."

The italics signify, not how the words were said, but how they sounded
to Joseph. As if a dark lantern were suddenly turned full upon it, he
saw the significance of Citizen Fusilier's transport. The fair strangers
were the widow and daughter of the man whom Agricola had killed in
duel--the ladies with whom Doctor Keene had desired to make him
acquainted.

"Well, good evening, Mr. Frowenfeld." The Creole extended his hand (his
people are great hand-shakers). "Ah--" and then, for the first time, he
came to the true object of his visit. "The conversation we had some
weeks ago, Mr. Frowenfeld, has started a train of thought in my
mind"--he began to smile as if to convey the idea that Joseph would find
the subject a trivial one--"which has almost brought me to the--"

A light footfall accompanied with the soft sweep of robes cut short his
words. There had been two or three entrances and exits during the time
the Creole had tarried, but he had not allowed them to disturb him. Now,
however, he had no sooner turned and fixed his glance upon this last
comer, than without so much as the invariable Creole leave-taking of
"Well, good evening, sir," he hurried out.




CHAPTER XII

THE PHILOSOPHE


The apothecary felt an inward nervous start as there advanced into the
light of his hanging lamp and toward the spot where he had halted, just
outside the counter, a woman of the quadroon caste, of superb stature
and poise, severely handsome features, clear, tawny skin and large,
passionate black eyes.

"_Bon soi', Miché_." [Monsieur.] A rather hard, yet not repellent smile
showed her faultless teeth.

Frowenfeld bowed.

"_Mo vien c'erc'er la bourse de Madame_."

She spoke the best French at her command, but it was not understood.

The apothecary could only shake his head.

"_La bourse_" she repeated, softly smiling, but with a scintillation of
the eyes in resentment of his scrutiny. "_La bourse_" she reiterated.

"Purse?"

"_Oui, Miché_."

"You are sent for it?"

"_Oui, Miché_."

He drew it from his breast pocket and marked the sudden glisten of her
eyes, reflecting the glisten of the gold in the silken mesh.

"_Oui, c'est ça_," said she, putting her hand out eagerly.

"I am afraid to give you this to-night," said Joseph.

"_Oui_," ventured she, dubiously, the lightning playing deep back in her
eyes.

"You might be robbed," said Frowenfeld. "It is very dangerous for you to
be out alone. It will not be long, now, until gun-fire." (Eight o'clock
P.M.--the gun to warn slaves to be in-doors, under pain of arrest and
imprisonment.)

The object of this solicitude shook her head with a smile at its
gratuitousness. The smile showed determination also.

"_Mo pas compren_'," she said.

"Tell the lady to send for it to-morrow."

She smiled helplessly and somewhat vexedly, shrugged and again shook her
head. As she did so she heard footsteps and voices in the door at
her back.

"_C'est ça_" she said again with a hurried attempt at extreme
amiability; "Dat it; _oui_;" and lifting her hand with some rapidity
made a sudden eager reach for the purse, but failed.

"No!" said Frowenfeld, indignantly.

"Hello!" said Charlie Keene amusedly, as he approached from the door.

The woman turned, and in one or two rapid sentences in the Creole
dialect offered her explanation.

"Give her the purse, Joe; I will answer for its being all right."

Frowenfeld handed it to her. She started to pass through the door in the
rue Royale by which Doctor Keene had entered; but on seeing on its
threshold Agricola frowning upon her, she turned quickly with evident
trepidation, and hurried out into the darkness of the other street.

Agricola entered. Doctor Keene looked about the shop.

"I tell you, Agricole, you didn't have it with you; Frowenfeld, you
haven't seen a big knotted walking-stick?"

Frowenfeld was sure no walking-stick had been left there.

"Oh, yes, Frowenfeld," said Doctor Keene, with a little laugh, as the
three sat down, "I'd a'most as soon trust that woman as if she
was white."

The apothecary said nothing.

"How free," said Agricola, beginning with a meditative gaze at the sky
without, and ending with a philosopher's smile upon his two
companions,--"how free we people are from prejudice against the negro!"

"The white people," said Frowenfeld, half abstractedly, half
inquiringly.

"H-my young friend, when we say, 'we people,' we _always_ mean we white
people. The non-mention of color always implies pure white; and whatever
is not pure white is to all intents and purposes pure black. When I say
the 'whole community,' I mean the whole white portion; when I speak of
the 'undivided public sentiment,' I mean the sentiment of the white
population. What else could I mean? Could you suppose, sir, the
expression which you may have heard me use--'my downtrodden
country'--includes blacks and mulattoes? What is that up yonder in the
sky? The moon. The new moon, or the old moon, or the moon in her third
quarter, but always the moon! Which part of it? Why, the shining
part--the white part, always and only! Not that there is a prejudice
against the negro. By no means. Wherever he can be of any service in a
strictly menial capacity we kindly and generously tolerate his
presence."

Was the immigrant growing wise, or weak, that he remained silent?

Agricola rose as he concluded and said he would go home. Doctor Keene
gave him his hand lazily, without rising.

"Frowenfeld," he said, with a smile and in an undertone, as Agricola's
footsteps died away, "don't you know who that woman is?"

"No."

"Well, I'll tell you."

He told him.

       *       *       *       *       *

On that lonely plantation at the Cannes Brulées, where Aurore Nancanou's
childhood had been passed without brothers or sisters, there had been
given her, according to the well-known custom of plantation life, a
little quadroon slave-maid as her constant and only playmate. This maid
began early to show herself in many ways remarkable. While yet a child
she grew tall, lithe, agile; her eyes were large and black, and rolled
and sparkled if she but turned to answer to her name. Her pale yellow
forehead, low and shapely, with the jet hair above it, the heavily
pencilled eyebrows and long lashes below, the faint red tinge that
blushed with a kind of cold passion through the clear yellow skin of the
cheek, the fulness of the red, voluptuous lips and the roundness of her
perfect neck, gave her, even at fourteen, a barbaric and magnetic
beauty, that startled the beholder like an unexpected drawing out of a
jewelled sword. Such a type could have sprung only from high Latin
ancestry on the one side and--we might venture--Jaloff African on the
other. To these charms of person she added mental acuteness,
conversational adroitness, concealed cunning, and noiseless but visible
strength of will; and to these, that rarest of gifts in one of her
tincture, the purity of true womanhood.

At fourteen a necessity which had been parleyed with for two years or
more became imperative, and Aurore's maid was taken from her.
Explanation is almost superfluous. Aurore was to become a lady and her
playmate a lady's maid; but not _her_ maid, because the maid had become,
of the two, the ruling spirit. It was a question of grave debate in the
mind of M. De Grapion what disposition to make of her.

About this time the Grandissimes and De Grapions, through certain
efforts of Honoré's father (since dead) were making some feeble
pretences of mutual good feeling, and one of those Kentuckian dealers in
corn and tobacco whose flatboat fleets were always drifting down the
Mississippi, becoming one day M. De Grapion's transient guest,
accidentally mentioned a wish of Agricola Fusilier. Agricola, it
appeared, had commissioned him to buy the most beautiful lady's maid
that in his extended journeyings he might be able to find; he wanted to
make her a gift to his niece, Honoré's sister. The Kentuckian saw the
demand met in Aurore's playmate. M. De Grapion would not sell her.
(Trade with a Grandissime? Let them suspect he needed money?) No; but he
would ask Agricola to accept the services of the waiting-maid for, say,
ten years. The Kentuckian accepted the proposition on the spot and it
was by and by carried out. She was never recalled to the Cannes Brulées,
but in subsequent years received her freedom from her master, and in New
Orleans became Palmyre la Philosophe, as they say in the corrupt French
of the old Creoles, or Palmyre Philosophe, noted for her taste and skill
as a hair-dresser, for the efficiency of her spells and the sagacity of
her divinations, but most of all for the chaste austerity with which she
practised the less baleful rites of the voudous.

"That's the woman," said Doctor Keene, rising to go, as he concluded
the narrative,--"that's she, Palmyre Philosophe. Now you get a view of
the vastness of Agricole's generosity; he tolerates her even though she
does not present herself in the 'strictly menial capacity.' Reason
why--_he's afraid of her_."

Time passed, if that may be called time which we have to measure with a
clock. The apothecary of the rue Royale found better ways of
measurement. As quietly as a spider he was spinning information into
knowledge and knowledge into what is supposed to be wisdom; whether it
was or not we shall see. His unidentified merchant friend who had
adjured him to become acclimated as "they all did" had also exhorted him
to study the human mass of which he had become a unit; but whether that
study, if pursued, was sweetening and ripening, or whether it was
corrupting him, that friend did not come to see; it was the busy time of
year. Certainly so young a solitary, coming among a people whose
conventionalities were so at variance with his own door-yard ethics, was
in sad danger of being unduly--as we might say--Timonized. His
acquaintances continued to be few in number.

During this fermenting period he chronicled much wet and some cold
weather. This may in part account for the uneventfulness of its passage;
events do not happen rapidly among the Creoles in bad weather. However,
trade was good.

But the weather cleared; and when it was getting well on into the
Creole spring and approaching the spring of the almanacs, something did
occur that extended Frowenfeld's acquaintance without Doctor Keene's
assistance.




CHAPTER XIII

A CALL FROM THE RENT-SPECTRE


It is nearly noon of a balmy morning late in February. Aurore Nancanou
and her daughter have only this moment ceased sewing, in the small front
room of No. 19 rue Bienville. Number 19 is the right-hand half of a
single-story, low-roofed tenement, washed with yellow ochre, which it
shares generously with whoever leans against it. It sits as fast on the
ground as a toad. There is a kitchen belonging to it somewhere among the
weeds in the back yard, and besides this room where the ladies are,
there is, directly behind it, a sleeping apartment. Somewhere back of
this there is a little nook where in pleasant weather they eat. Their
cook and housemaid is the plain person who attends them on the street.
Her bedchamber is the kitchen and her bed the floor. The house's only
other protector is a hound, the aim of whose life is to get thrust out
of the ladies' apartments every fifteen minutes.

Yet if you hastily picture to yourself a forlorn-looking establishment,
you will be moving straight away from the fact. Neatness, order,
excellence, are prevalent qualities in all the details of the main
house's inward garniture. The furniture is old-fashioned, rich, French,
imported. The carpets, if not new, are not cheap, either. Bits of
crystal and silver, visible here and there, are as bright as they are
antiquated; and one or two portraits, and the picture of Our Lady of
Many Sorrows, are passably good productions. The brass work, of which
there is much, is brilliantly burnished, and the front room is bright
and cheery.

At the street door of this room somebody has just knocked. Aurore has
risen from her seat. The other still sits on a low chair with her hands
and sewing dropped into her lap, looking up steadfastly into her
mother's face with a mingled expression of fondness and dismayed
expectation. Aurore hesitates beside her chair, desirous of resuming her
seat, even lifts her sewing from it; but tarries a moment, her alert
suspense showing in her eyes. Her daughter still looks up into them. It
is not strange that the dwellers round about dispute as to which is the
fairer, nor that in the six months during which the two have occupied
Number 19 the neighbors have reached no conclusion on this subject. If
some young enthusiast compares the daughter--in her eighteenth year--to
a bursting blush rosebud full of promise, some older one immediately
retorts that the other--in her thirty-fifth--is the red, red,
full-blown, faultless joy of the garden. If one says the maiden has the
dew of youth,--"But!" cry two or three mothers in a breath, "that other
one, child, will never grow old. With her it will always be morning.
That woman is going to last forever; ha-a-a-a!--even longer!"

There was one direction in which the widow evidently had the advantage;
you could see from the street or the opposite windows that she was a
wise householder. On the day they moved into Number 19 she had been seen
to enter in advance of all her other movables, carrying into the empty
house a new broom, a looking-glass, and a silver coin. Every morning
since, a little watching would have discovered her at the hour of
sunrise sprinkling water from her side casement, and her opposite
neighbors often had occasion to notice that, sitting at her sewing by
the front window, she never pricked her finger but she quickly ran it up
behind her ear, and then went on with her work. Would anybody but Joseph
Frowenfeld ever have lived in and moved away from the two-story brick
next them on the right and not have known of the existence of such
a marvel?

"Ha!" they said, "she knows how to keep off bad luck, that Madame
yonder. And the younger one seems not to like it. Girls think themselves
so smart these days."

Ah, there was the knock again, right there on the street-door, as loud
as if it had been given with a joint of sugar-cane!

The daughter's hand, which had just resumed the needle, stood still in
mid-course with the white thread half-drawn. Aurore tiptoed slowly over
the carpeted floor. There came a shuffling sound, and the corner of a
folded white paper commenced appearing and disappearing under the door.
She mounted a chair and peeped through that odd little _jalousie_ which
formerly was in almost all New Orleans street-doors; but the missive had
meantime found its way across the sill, and she saw only the
unpicturesque back of a departing errand-boy. But that was well. She had
a pride, to maintain which--and a poverty, to conceal which--she felt to
be necessary to her self-respect; and this made her of necessity a
trifle unsocial in her own castle. Do you suppose she was going to put
on the face of having been born or married to this degraded condition
of things?

Who knows?--the knock might have been from 'Sieur Frowenfel'--ha, ha! He
might be just silly enough to call so early; or it might have been from
that _polisson_ of a Grandissime,--which one didn't matter, they were
all detestable,--coming to collect the rent. That was her original fear;
or, worse still, it might have been, had it been softer, the knock of
some possible lady visitor. She had no intention of admitting any
feminine eyes to detect this carefully covered up indigence. Besides, it
was Monday. There is no sense in trifling with bad luck. The reception
of Monday callers is a source of misfortune never known to fail, save in
rare cases when good luck has already been secured by smearing the
front walk or the banquette with Venetian red.

Before the daughter could dart up and disengage herself from her work
her mother had pounced upon the paper. She was standing and reading, her
rich black lashes curtaining their downcast eyes, her infant waist and
round, close-fitted, childish arms harmonizing prettily with her mock
frown of infantile perplexity, and her long, limp robe heightening the
grace of her posture, when the younger started from her seat with the
air of determining not to be left at a disadvantage.

But what is that on the dark eyelash? With a sudden additional energy
the daughter dashes the sewing and chair to right and left, bounds up,
and in a moment has Aurore weeping in her embrace and has snatched the
note from her hand.

"_Ah! maman! Ah! ma chère mère_!"

The mother forced a laugh. She was not to be mothered by her daughter;
so she made a dash at Clotilde's uplifted hand to recover the note,
which was unavailing. Immediately there arose in colonial French the
loveliest of contentions, the issue of which was that the pair sat down
side by side, like two sisters over one love-letter, and undertook to
decipher the paper. It read as follows:

     "NEW ORLEANS, 20 Feb're, 1804.

     "MADAME NANCANOU: I muss oblige to ass you for rent of that
     house whare you living, it is at number 19 Bienville street
     whare I do not received thos rent from you not since tree
     mons and I demand you this is mabe thirteen time. And I give
     to you notice of 19 das writen in Anglish as the new law
     requi. That witch the law make necessare only for 15 das, and
     when you not pay me those rent in 19 das till the tense of
     Marh I will rekes you to move out. That witch make me to be
     verry sorry. I have the honor to remain, Madam,

     "Your humble servant,
     "H. Grandissime.
     "_per_ Z.F."

There was a short French postscript on the opposite page signed only by
M. Zénon François, explaining that he, who had allowed them in the past
to address him as their landlord and by his name, was but the landlord's
agent; that the landlord was a far better-dressed man than he could
afford to be; that the writing opposite was a notice for them to quit
the premises they had rented (not leased), or pay up; that it gave the
writer great pain to send it, although it was but the necessary legal
form and he only an irresponsible drawer of an inadequate salary, with
thirteen children to support; and that he implored them to tear off and
burn up this postscript immediately they had read it.

"Ah, the miserable!" was all the comment made upon it as the two ladies
addressed their energies to the previous English. They had never
suspected him of being M. Grandissime.

Their eyes dragged slowly and ineffectually along the lines to the
signature.

"H. Grandissime! Loog ad 'im!" cried the widow, with a sudden short
laugh, that brought the tears after it like a wind-gust in a rose-tree.
She held the letter out before them as if she was lifting something
alive by the back of the neck, and to intensify her scorn spoke in the
hated tongue prescribed by the new courts. "Loog ad 'im! dad ridge
gen'leman oo give so mudge money to de 'ozpill!"

"Bud, _maman_," said the daughter, laying her hand appeasingly upon her
mother's knee, "_ee_ do nod know 'ow we is poor."

"Ah!" retorted Aurore, "_par example! Non?_ Ee thingue we is ridge, eh?
Ligue his oncle, eh? Ee thing so, too, eh?" She cast upon her daughter
the look of burning scorn intended for Agricola Fusilier. "You wan' to
tague the pard of dose Grandissime'?"

The daughter returned a look of agony.

"No," she said, "bud a man wad godd some 'ouses to rend, muz ee nod
boun' to ged 'is rend?"

"Boun' to ged--ah! yez ee muz do 'is possible to ged 'is rend. Oh!
certain_lee_. Ee is ridge, bud ee need a lill money, bad, bad. Fo'
w'at?" The excited speaker rose to her feet under a sudden inspiration.
"_Tenez, Mademoiselle!_" She began to make great show of unfastening
her dress.

"_Mais, comment?_" demanded the suffering daughter.

"Yez!" continued Aurore, keeping up the demonstration, "you wand 'im to
'ave 'is rend so bad! An' I godd honely my cloze; so you juz tague diz
to you' fine gen'lemen, 'Sieur Honoré Grandissime."

"Ah-h-h-h!" cried the martyr.

"An' you is righd," persisted the tormentor, still unfastening; but the
daughter's tears gushed forth, and the repentant tease threw herself
upon her knees, drew her child's head into her bosom and wept afresh.

Half an hour was passed in council; at the end of which they stood
beneath their lofty mantelshelf, each with a foot on a brazen fire-dog,
and no conclusion reached.

"Ah, my child!"--they had come to themselves now and were speaking in
their peculiar French--"if we had here in these hands but the tenth part
of what your papa often played away in one night without once getting
angry! But we have not. Ah! but your father was a fine fellow; if he
could have lived for you to know him! So accomplished! Ha, ha, ha! I can
never avoid laughing, when I remember him teaching me to speak English;
I used to enrage him so!"

The daughter brought the conversation back to the subject of discussion.
There were nineteen days yet allowed them. God knows--by the expiration
of that time they might be able to pay. With the two music scholars whom
she then had and three more whom she had some hope to get, she made bold
to say they could pay the rent.

"Ah, Clotilde, my child," exclaimed Aurore, with sudden brightness, "you
don't need a mask and costume to resemble your great-grandmother, the
casket-girl!" Aurore felt sure, on her part, that with the one
embroidery scholar then under her tutelage, and the three others who had
declined to take lessons, they could easily pay the rent--and how kind
it was of Monsieur, the aged father of that one embroidery scholar, to
procure those invitations to the ball! The dear old man! He said he must
see one more ball before he should die.

Aurore looked so pretty in the reverie into which she fell that her
daughter was content to admire her silently.

"Clotilde," said the mother, presently looking up, "do you remember the
evening you treated me so ill?"

The daughter smiled at the preposterous charge.

"I did not treat you ill."

"Yes, don't you know--the evening you made me lose my purse?"

"Certainly, I know!" The daughter took her foot from the andiron; her
eyes lighted up aggressively. "For losing your purse blame yourself. For
the way you found it again--which was far worse--thank Palmyre. If you
had not asked her to find it and shared the gold with her we could have
returned with it to 'Sieur Frowenfel'; but now we are ashamed to let him
see us. I do not doubt he filled the purse."

"He? He never knew it was empty. It was Nobody who filled it. Palmyre
says that Papa Lébat--"

"Ha!" exclaimed Clotilde at this superstitious mention.

The mother tossed her head and turned her back, swallowing the
unendurable bitterness of being rebuked by her daughter. But the cloud
hung over but a moment.

"Clotilde," she said, a minute after, turning with a look of sun-bright
resolve, "I am going to see him."

"To see whom?" asked the other, looking back from the window, whither
she had gone to recover from a reactionary trembling.

"To whom, my child? Why--"

"You do not expect mercy from Honoré Grandissime? You would not ask it?"

"No. There is no mercy in the Grandissime blood; but cannot I demand
justice? Ha! it is justice that I shall demand!"

"And you will really go and see him?"

"You will see, Mademoiselle," replied Aurore, dropping a broom with
which she had begun to sweep up some spilled buttons.

"And I with you?"

"No! To a counting-room? To the presence of the chief of that detestable
race? No!"

"But you don't know where his office is."

"Anybody can tell me."

Preparation began at once. By and by--

"Clotilde."

Clotilde was stooping behind her mother, with a ribbon between her lips,
arranging a flounce.

"M-m-m."

"You must not watch me go out of sight; do you hear? ... But it _is_
dangerous. I knew of a gentleman who watched his wife go out of his
sight and she never came back!"

"Hold still!" said Clotilde.

"But when my hand itches," retorted Aurore in a high key, "haven't I got
to put it instantly into my pocket if I want the money to come there?
Well, then!"

The daughter proposed to go to the kitchen and tell Alphonsina to put on
her shoes.

"My child," cried Aurore, "you are crazy! Do you want Alphonsina to be
seized for the rent?"

"But you cannot go alone--and on foot!"

"I must go alone; and--can you lend me your carriage? Ah, you have none?
Certainly I must go alone and on foot if I am to say I cannot pay the
rent. It is no indiscretion of mine. If anything happens to me it is M.
Grandissime who is responsible."

Now she is ready for the adventurous errand. She darts to the mirror.
The high-water marks are gone from her eyes. She wheels half around and
looks over her shoulder. The flaring bonnet and loose ribbons gave her a
more girlish look than ever.

"Now which is the older, little old woman?" she chirrups, and smites her
daughter's cheek softly with her palm.

"And you are not afraid to go alone?"

"No; but remember! look at that dog!"

The brute sinks apologetically to the floor. Clotilde opens the street
door, hands Aurore the note, Aurore lays a frantic kiss upon her lips,
pressing it on tight so as to get it again when she comes back,
and--while Clotilde calls the cook to gather up the buttons and take
away the broom, and while the cook, to make one trip of it, gathers the
hound into her bosom and carries broom and dog out together--Aurore
sallies forth, leaving Clotilde to resume her sewing and await the
coming of a guitar scholar.

"It will keep her fully an hour," thought the girl, far from imagining
that Aurore had set about a little private business which she proposed
to herself to accomplish before she even started in the direction of M.
Grandissime's counting-rooms.




CHAPTER XIV

BEFORE SUNSET


In old times, most of the sidewalks of New Orleans not in the heart of
town were only a rough, rank turf, lined on the side next the ditch with
the gunwales of broken-up flatboats--ugly, narrow, slippery objects. As
Aurora--it sounds so much pleasanter to anglicize her name--as Aurora
gained a corner where two of these gunwales met, she stopped and looked
back to make sure that Clotilde was not watching her. That others had
noticed her here and there she did not care; that was something beauty
would have to endure, and it only made her smile to herself.

"Everybody sees I am from the country--walking on the street without a
waiting-maid."

A boy passed, hushing his whistle, and gazing at the lone lady until his
turning neck could twist no farther. She was so dewy fresh! After he had
got across the street he turned to look again. Where could she have
disappeared?

The only object to be seen on the corner from which she had vanished was
a small, yellow-washed house much like the one Aurora occupied, as it
was like hundreds that then characterized and still characterize the
town, only that now they are of brick instead of adobe. They showed in
those days, even more than now, the wide contrast between their homely
exteriors and the often elegant apartments within. However, in this
house the front room was merely neat. The furniture was of rude, heavy
pattern, Creole-made, and the walls were unadorned; the day of cheap
pictures had not come. The lofty bedstead which filled one corner was
spread and hung with a blue stuff showing through a web of white
needlework. The brazen feet of the chairs were brightly burnished, as
were the brass mountings of the bedstead and the brass globes on the
cold andirons. Curtains of blue and white hung at the single window. The
floor, from habitual scrubbing with the common weed which politeness
has to call _Helenium autumnale_, was stained a bright, clean yellow.
On it were, here and there in places, white mats woven of bleached
palmetto-leaf. Such were the room's appointments; there was but one
thing more, a singular bit of fantastic carving,--a small table of dark
mahogany supported on the upward-writhing images of three
scaly serpents.

Aurora sat down beside this table. A dwarf Congo woman, as black as
soot, had ushered her in, and, having barred the door, had disappeared,
and now the mistress of the house entered.

February though it was, she was dressed--and looked comfortable--in
white. That barbaric beauty which had begun to bud twenty years before
was now in perfect bloom. The united grace and pride of her movement was
inspiring but--what shall we say?--feline? It was a femininity without
humanity,--something that made her, with all her superbness, a creature
that one would want to find chained. It was the woman who had received
the gold from Frowenfeld--Palmyre Philosophe.

The moment her eyes fell upon Aurora her whole appearance changed. A
girlish smile lighted up her face, and as Aurora rose up reflecting it
back, they simultaneously clapped hands, laughed and advanced joyously
toward each other, talking rapidly without regard to each other's words.

"Sit down," said Palmyre, in the plantation French of their childhood,
as they shook hands.

They took chairs and drew up face to face as close as they could come,
then sighed and smiled a moment, and then looked grave and were silent.
For in the nature of things, and notwithstanding the amusing familiarity
common between Creole ladies and the menial class, the unprotected
little widow should have had a very serious errand to bring her to the
voudou's house.

"Palmyre," began the lady, in a sad tone.

"Momselle Aurore."

"I want you to help me." The former mistress not only cast her hands
into her lap, lifted her eyes supplicatingly and dropped them again, but
actually locked her fingers to keep them from trembling.

"Momselle Aurore--" began Palmyre, solemnly.

"Now, I know what you are going to say--but it is of no use to say it;
do this much for me this one time and then I will let voudou alone as
much as you wish--forever!"

"You have not lost your purse _again?_"

"Ah! foolishness, no."

Both laughed a little, the philosophe feebly, and Aurora with an excited
tremor.

"Well?" demanded the quadroon, looking grave again.

Aurora did not answer.

"Do you wish me to work a spell for you?"

The widow nodded, with her eyes cast down.

Both sat quite still for some time; then the philosophe gently drew the
landlord's letter from between Aurora's hands.

"What is this?" She could not read in any language.

"I must pay my rent within nineteen days."

"Have you not paid it?"

The delinquent shook her head.

"Where is the gold that came into your purse? All gone?"

"For rice and potatoes," said Aurora, and for the first time she uttered
a genuine laugh, under that condition of mind which Latins usually
substitute for fortitude. Palmyre laughed too, very properly.

Another silence followed. The lady could not return the quadroon's
searching gaze.

"Momselle Aurore," suddenly said Palmyre, "you want me to work a spell
for something else."

Aurora started, looked up for an instant in a frightened way, and then
dropped her eyes and let her head droop, murmuring:

"No, I do not."

Palmyre fixed a long look upon her former mistress. She saw that though
Aurora might be distressed about the rent, there was something else,--a
deeper feeling,--impelling her upon a course the very thought of which
drove the color from her lips and made her tremble.

"You are wearing red," said the philosophe.

Aurora's hand went nervously to the red ribbon about her neck.

"It is an accident; I had nothing else convenient."

"Miché Agoussou loves red," persisted Palmyre. (Monsieur Agoussou is
the demon upon whom the voudous call in matters of love.)

The color that came into Aurora's cheek ought to have suited Monsieur
precisely.

"It is an accident," she feebly insisted.

"Well," presently said Palmyre, with a pretence of abandoning her
impression, "then you want me to work you a spell for money, do you?"

Aurora nodded, while she still avoided the quadroon's glance.

"I know better," thought the philosophe. "You shall have the sort you
want."

The widow stole an upward glance.

"Oh!" said Palmyre, with the manner of one making a decided digression,
"I have been wanting to ask you something. That evening at the
pharmacy--was there a tall, handsome gentleman standing by the counter?"

"He was standing on the other side."

"Did you see his face?"

"No; his back was turned."

"Momselle Aurore," said Palmyre, dropping her elbows upon her knees and
taking the lady's hand as if the better to secure the truth, "was that
the gentleman you met at the ball?"

"My faith!" said Aurora, stretching her eyebrows upward. "I did not
think to look. Who was it?"

But Palmyre Philosophe was not going to give more than she got, even to
her old-time Momselle; she merely straightened back into her chair with
an amiable face.

"Who do you think he is?" persisted Aurora, after a pause, smiling
downward and toying with her rings.

The quadroon shrugged.

They both sat in reverie for a moment--a long moment for such sprightly
natures--and Palmyre's mien took on a professional gravity. She
presently pushed the landlord's letter under the lady's hands as they
lay clasped in her lap, and a moment after drew Aurora's glance with her
large, strong eyes and asked:

"What shall we do?"

The lady immediately looked startled and alarmed and again dropped her
eyes in silence. The quadroon had to speak again.

"We will burn a candle."

Aurora trembled.

"No," she succeeded in saying.

"Yes," said Palmyre, "you must get your rent money." But the charm which
she was meditating had no reference to rent money. "She knows that,"
thought the voudou.

As she rose and called her Congo slave-woman, Aurora made as if to
protest further; but utterance failed her. She clenched her hands and
prayed to fate for Clotilde to come and lead her away as she had done at
the apothecary's. And well she might.

The articles brought in by the servant were simply a little pound-cake
and cordial, a tumbler half-filled with the _sirop naturelle_ of the
sugar-cane, and a small piece of candle of the kind made from the
fragrant green wax of the candleberry myrtle. These were set upon the
small table, the bit of candle standing, lighted, in the tumbler of
sirup, the cake on a plate, the cordial in a wine-glass. This feeble
child's play was all; except that as Palmyre closed out all daylight
from the room and received the offering of silver that "paid the floor"
and averted _guillons_ (interferences of outside imps), Aurora,--alas!
alas!--went down upon her knees with her gaze fixed upon the candle's
flame, and silently called on Assonquer (the imp of good fortune) to
cast his snare in her behalf around the mind and heart of--she knew
not whom.

By and by her lips, which had moved at first, were still and she only
watched the burning wax. When the flame rose clear and long it was a
sign that Assonquer was enlisted in the coveted endeavor. When the wick
sputtered, the devotee trembled in fear of failure. Its charred end
curled down and twisted away from her and her heart sank; but the tall
figure of Palmyre for a moment came between, the wick was snuffed, the
flame tapered up again, and for a long time burned, a bright, tremulous
cone. Again the wick turned down, but this time toward her,--a
propitious omen,--and suddenly fell through the expended wax and went
out in the sirup.

The daylight, as Palmyre let it once more into the apartment, showed
Aurora sadly agitated. In evidence of the innocence of her fluttering
heart, guilt, at least for the moment, lay on it, an appalling burden.

"That is all, Palmyre, is it not? I am sure that is all--it must be all.
I cannot stay any longer. I wish I was with Clotilde; I have stayed
too long."

"Yes; all for the present," replied the quadroon. "Here, here is some
charmed basil; hold it between your lips as you walk--"

"But I am going to my landlord's office!"

"Office? Nobody is at his office now; it is too late. You would find
that your landlord had gone to dinner. I will tell you, though, where
you _must_ go. First go home; eat your dinner; and this evening [the
Creoles never say afternoon], about a half-hour before sunset, walk down
Royale to the lower corner of the Place d'Armes, pass entirely around
the square and return up Royale. Never look behind until you get into
your house again."

Aurora blushed with shame.

"Alone?" she exclaimed, quite unnerved and tremulous.

"You will seem to be alone; but I will follow behind you when you pass
here. Nothing shall hurt you. If you do that, the charm will certainly
work; if you do not--"

The quadroon's intentions were good. She was determined to see who it
was that could so infatuate her dear little Momselle; and, as on such an
evening as the present afternoon promised to merge into all New Orleans
promenaded on the Place d'Armes and the levee, her charm was a very
practical one.

"And that will bring the money, will it?" asked Aurora.

"It will bring anything you want."

"Possible?"

"These things that _you_ want, Momselle Aurore, are easy to bring. You
have no charms working against you. But, oh, I wish to God I could work
the _curse_ I want to work!" The woman's eyes blazed, her bosom heaved,
she lifted her clenched hand above her head and looked upward, crying:
"I would give this right hand off at the wrist to catch Agricola
Fusilier where I could work him a curse! But I shall; I shall some day
be revenged!" She pitched her voice still higher. "I cannot die till I
have been! There is nothing that could kill me, I want my revenge so
bad!" As suddenly as she had broken out, she hushed, unbarred the door,
and with a stern farewell smile saw Aurora turn homeward.

"Give me something to eat, _chérie_," cried the exhausted lady, dropping
into Clotilde's chair and trying to die.

"Ah! _maman_, what makes you look so sick?"

Aurora waved her hand contemptuously and gasped.

"Did you see him? What kept you so long--so long?"

"Ask me nothing; I am so enraged with disappointment. He was gone to
dinner!"

"Ah! my poor mother!"

"And I must go back as soon as I can take a little _sieste_. I am
determined to see him this very day."

"Ah! my poor mother!"




CHAPTER XV

ROLLED IN THE DUST


"No, Frowenfeld," said little Doctor Keene, speaking for the
after-dinner loungers, "you must take a little human advice. Go, get the
air on the Plaza. We will keep shop for you. Stay as long as you like
and come home in any condition you think best." And Joseph, tormented
into this course, put on his hat and went out.

"Hard to move as a cow in the moonlight," continued Doctor Keene, "and
knows just about as much of the world. He wasn't aware, until I told him
to-day, that there are two Honoré Grandissimes." [Laughter.]

"Why did you tell him?"

"I didn't give him anything but the bare fact. I want to see how long it
will take him to find out the rest."

The Place d'Armes offered amusement to every one else rather than to the
immigrant. The family relation, the most noticeable feature of its'
well-pleased groups, was to him too painful a reminder of his late
losses, and, after an honest endeavor to flutter out of the inner
twilight of himself into the outer glare of a moving world, he had given
up the effort and had passed beyond the square and seated himself upon a
rude bench which encircled the trunk of a willow on the levee.

The negress, who, resting near by with a tray of cakes before her, has
been for some time contemplating the three-quarter face of her
unconscious neighbor, drops her head at last with a small, Ethiopian,
feminine laugh. It is a self-confession that, pleasant as the study of
his countenance is, to resolve that study into knowledge is beyond her
powers; and very pardonably so it is, she being but a _marchande des
gâteaux_ (an itinerant cake-vender), and he, she concludes, a man of
parts. There is a purpose, too, as well as an admission, in the laugh.
She would like to engage him in conversation. But he does not notice.
Little supposing he is the object of even a cake-merchant's attention,
he is lost in idle meditation.

One would guess his age to be as much as twenty-six. His face is
beardless, of course, like almost everybody's around him, and of a
German kind of seriousness. A certain diffidence in his look may tend to
render him unattractive to careless eyes, the more so since he has a
slight appearance of self-neglect. On a second glance, his refinement
shows out more distinctly, and one also sees that he is not shabby. The
little that seems lacking is woman's care, the brush of attentive
fingers here and there, the turning of a fold in the high-collared coat,
and a mere touch on the neckerchief and shirt-frill. He has a decidedly
good forehead. His blue eyes, while they are both strong and modest, are
noticeable, too, as betraying fatigue, and the shade of gravity in them
is deepened by a certain worn look of excess--in books; a most unusual
look in New Orleans in those days, and pointedly out of keeping with the
scene which was absorbing his attention.

You might mistake the time for mid-May. Before the view lies the Place
d'Armes in its green-breasted uniform of new spring grass crossed
diagonally with white shell walks for facings, and dotted with the
_élite_ of the city for decorations. Over the line of shade-trees which
marks its farther boundary, the white-topped twin turrets of St. Louis
Cathedral look across it and beyond the bared site of the removed
battery (built by the busy Carondelet to protect Louisiana from herself
and Kentucky, and razed by his immediate successors) and out upon the
Mississippi, the color of whose surface is beginning to change with the
changing sky of this beautiful and now departing day. A breeze, which is
almost early June, and which has been hovering over the bosom of the
great river and above the turf-covered levee, ceases, as if it sank
exhausted under its burden of spring odors, and in the profound calm the
cathedral bell strikes the sunset hour. From its neighboring garden, the
convent of the Ursulines responds in a tone of devoutness, while from
the parapet of the less pious little Fort St. Charles, the evening gun
sends a solemn ejaculation rumbling down the "coast;" a drum rolls, the
air rises again from the water like a flock of birds, and many in the
square and on the levee's crown turn and accept its gentle blowing.
Rising over the levee willows, and sinking into the streets,--which are
lower than the water,--it flutters among the balconies and in and out of
dim Spanish arcades, and finally drifts away toward that part of the sky
where the sun is sinking behind the low, unbroken line of forest. There
is such seduction in the evening air, such sweetness of flowers on its
every motion, such lack of cold, or heat, or dust, or wet, that the
people have no heart to stay in-doors; nor is there any reason why they
should. The levee road is dotted with horsemen, and the willow avenue on
the levee's crown, the whole short mile between Terre aux Boeufs gate on
the right and Tchoupitoulas gate on the left, is bright with
promenaders, although the hour is brief and there will be no twilight;
for, so far from being May, it is merely that same nineteenth of which
we have already spoken,--the nineteenth of Louisiana's delicious
February.

Among the throng were many whose names were going to be written large in
history. There was Casa Calvo,--Sebastian de Casa Calvo de la Puerta y
O'Farril, Marquis of Casa Calvo,--a man then at the fine age of
fifty-three, elegant, fascinating, perfect in Spanish courtesy and
Spanish diplomacy, rolling by in a showy equipage surrounded by a
clanking body-guard of the Catholic king's cavalry. There was young
Daniel Clark, already beginning to amass those riches which an age of
litigation has not to this day consumed; it was he whom the French
colonial prefect, Laussat, in a late letter to France, had extolled as a
man whose "talents for intrigue were carried to a rare degree of
excellence." There was Laussat himself, in the flower of his years, sour
with pride, conscious of great official insignificance and full of petty
spites--he yet tarried in a land where his beautiful wife was the "model
of taste." There was that convivial old fox, Wilkinson, who had plotted
for years with Miro and did not sell himself and his country to Spain
because--as we now say--"he found he could do better;" who modestly
confessed himself in a traitor's letter to the Spanish king as a man
"whose head may err, but whose heart cannot deceive!" and who brought
Governor Gayoso to an early death-bed by simply out-drinking him. There
also was Edward Livingston, attorney-at-law, inseparably joined to the
mention of the famous Batture cases--though that was later. There also
was that terror of colonial peculators, the old ex-Intendant Morales,
who, having quarrelled with every governor of Louisiana he ever saw, was
now snarling at Casa Calvo from force of habit.

And the Creoles--the Knickerbockers of Louisiana--but time would fail
us. The Villeres and Destrehans--patriots and patriots' sons; the De La
Chaise family in mourning for young Auguste La Chaise of
Kentuckian-Louisianian-San Domingan history; the Livaudaises, _père et
fils_, of Haunted House fame, descendants of the first pilot of the
Belize; the pirate brothers Lafitte, moving among the best; Marigny de
Mandeville, afterwards the marquis member of Congress; the Davezacs, the
Mossys, the Boulignys, the Labatuts, the Bringiers, the De Trudeaus, the
De Macartys, the De la Houssayes, the De Lavilleboeuvres, the Grandprés,
the Forstalls; and the proselyted Creoles: Étienne de Boré (he was the
father of all such as handle the sugar-kettle); old man Pitot, who
became mayor; Madame Pontalba and her unsuccessful suitor, John
McDonough; the three Girods, the two Graviers, or the lone Julian
Poydras, godfather of orphan girls. Besides these, and among them as
shining fractions of the community, the numerous representatives of the
not only noble, but noticeable and ubiquitous, family of Grandissime:
Grandissimes simple and Grandissimes compound; Brahmins, Mandarins and
Fusiliers. One, 'Polyte by name, a light, gay fellow, with classic
features, hair turning gray, is standing and conversing with this group
here by the mock-cannon inclosure of the grounds. Another, his cousin,
Charlie Mandarin, a tall, very slender, bronzed gentleman in a flannel
hunting-shirt and buckskin leggings, is walking, in moccasins, with a
sweet lady in whose tasteful attire feminine scrutiny, but such only,
might detect economy, but whose marked beauty of yesterday is retreating
and reappearing in the flock of children who are noisily running round
and round them, nominally in the care of three fat and venerable black
nurses. Another, yonder, Théophile Grandissime, is whipping his
stockings with his cane, a lithe youngster in the height of the fashion
(be it understood the fashion in New Orleans was five years or so behind
Paris), with a joyous, noble face, a merry tongue and giddy laugh, and a
confession of experiences which these pages, fortunately for their moral
tone, need not recount. All these were there and many others.

This throng, shifting like the fragments of colored glass in the
kaleidoscope, had its far-away interest to the contemplative Joseph. To
them he was of little interest, or none. Of the many passers, scarcely
an occasional one greeted him, and such only with an extremely polite
and silent dignity which seemed to him like saying something of this
sort: "Most noble alien, give you good-day--stay where you are.
Profoundly yours--"

Two men came through the Place d'Armes on conspicuously fine horses. One
it is not necessary to describe. The other, a man of perhaps
thirty-three or thirty-four years of age, was extremely handsome and
well dressed, the martial fashion of the day showing his tall and finely
knit figure to much advantage. He sat his horse with an uncommon grace,
and, as he rode beside his companion, spoke and gave ear by turns with
an easy dignity sufficient of itself to have attracted popular
observation. It was the apothecary's unknown friend. Frowenfeld noticed
them while they were yet in the middle of the grounds. He could hardly
have failed to do so, for some one close beside his bench in undoubted
allusion to one of the approaching figures exclaimed:

"Here comes Honoré Grandissime."

Moreover, at that moment there was a slight unwonted stir on the Place
d'Armes. It began at the farther corner of the square, hard by the
Principal, and spread so quickly through the groups near about, that in
a minute the entire company were quietly made aware of something going
notably wrong in their immediate presence. There was no running to see
it. There seemed to be not so much as any verbal communication of the
matter from mouth to mouth. Rather a consciousness appeared to catch
noiselessly from one to another as the knowledge of human intrusion
comes to groups of deer in a park. There was the same elevating of the
head here and there, the same rounding of beautiful eyes. Some stared,
others slowly approached, while others turned and moved away; but a
common indignation was in the breast of that thing dreadful everywhere,
but terrible in Louisiana, the Majority. For there, in the presence of
those good citizens, before the eyes of the proudest and fairest mothers
and daughters of New Orleans, glaringly, on the open Plaza, the Creole
whom Joseph had met by the graves in the field, Honoré Grandissime, the
uttermost flower on the topmost branch of the tallest family tree ever
transplanted from France to Louisiana, Honoré,--the worshiped, the
magnificent,--in the broad light of the sun's going down, rode side by
side with the Yankee governor and was not ashamed!

Joseph, on his bench, sat contemplating the two parties to this scandal
as they came toward him. Their horses' flanks were damp from some
pleasant gallop, but their present gait was the soft, mettlesome
movement of animals who will even submit to walk if their masters
insist. As they wheeled out of the broad diagonal path that crossed the
square, and turned toward him in the highway, he fancied that the Creole
observed him. He was not mistaken. As they seemed about to pass the spot
where he sat, M. Grandissime interrupted the governor with a word and,
turning his horse's head, rode up to the bench, lifting his hat as
he came.

"Good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld."

Joseph, looking brighter than when he sat unaccosted, rose and blushed.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, you know my uncle very well, I believe--Agricole
Fusilier--long beard?"

"Oh! yes, sir, certainly."

"Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I shall be much obliged if you will tell
him--that is, should you meet him this evening--that I wish to see him.
If you will be so kind?"

"Oh! yes, sir, certainly."

Frowenfeld's diffidence made itself evident in this reiterated phrase.

"I do not know that you will see him, but if you should, you know--"

"Oh, certainly, sir!"

The two paused a single instant, exchanging a smile of amiable reminder
from the horseman and of bashful but pleased acknowledgment from the one
who saw his precepts being reduced to practice.

"Well, good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld."

M. Grandissime lifted his hat and turned. Frowenfeld sat down.

"_Bou zou, Miché Honoré!_" called the _marchande_.

"_Comment to yé, Clemence?_"

The merchant waved his hand as he rode away with his companion.

"_Beau Miché, là_," said the _marchande_, catching Joseph's eye.

He smiled his ignorance and shook his head.

"Dass one fine gen'leman," she repeated. "_Mo pa'lé Anglé_," she added
with a chuckle.

"You know him?"

"Oh! yass, sah; Mawse Honoré knows me, yass. All de gen'lemens knows me.
I sell de _calas;_ mawnin's sell _calas_, evenin's sell zinzer-cake.
_You_ know me" (a fact which Joseph had all along been aware of). "Dat
me w'at pass in rue Royale ev'y mawnin' holl'in' '_Bé calas touts
chauds_,' an' singin'; don't you know?"

The enthusiasm of an artist overcame any timidity she might have been
supposed to possess, and, waiving the formality of an invitation, she
began, to Frowenfeld's consternation, to sing, in a loud, nasal voice.

But the performance, long familiar, attracted no public attention, and
he for whose special delight it was intended had taken an attitude of
disclaimer and was again contemplating the quiet groups of the Place
d'Armes and the pleasant hurry of the levee road.

"Don't you know?" persisted the woman. "Yass, sah, dass me; I's
Clemence."

But Frowenfeld was looking another way.

"You know my boy," suddenly said she.

Frowenfeld looked at her.

"Yass, sah. Dat boy w'at bring you de box of _basilic_ lass Chrismus;
dass my boy."

She straightened her cakes on the tray and made some changes in their
arrangement that possibly were important.

"I learned to speak English in Fijinny. Bawn dah."

She looked steadily into the apothecary's absorbed countenance for a
full minute, then let her eyes wander down the highway. The human tide
was turning cityward. Presently she spoke again.

"Folks comin' home a'ready, yass."

Her hearer looked down the road.

Suddenly a voice that, once heard, was always known,--deep and pompous,
as if a lion roared,--sounded so close behind him as to startle him half
from his seat.

"Is this a corporeal man, or must I doubt my eyes? Hah! Professor
Frowenfeld!" it said.

"Mr. Fusilier!" exclaimed Frowenfeld in a subdued voice, while he
blushed again and looked at the new-comer with that sort of awe which
children experience in a menagerie.

"_Citizen_ Fusilier," said the lion.

Agricola indulged to excess the grim hypocrisy of brandishing the
catchwords of new-fangled reforms; they served to spice a breath that
was strong with the praise of the "superior liberties of Europe,"--those
old, cast-iron tyrannies to get rid of which America was settled.

Frowenfeld smiled amusedly and apologetically at the same moment.

"I am glad to meet you. I--"

He was going on to give Honoré Grandissime's message, but was
interrupted.

"My young friend," rumbled the old man in his deepest key, smiling
emotionally and holding and solemning continuing to shake Joseph's hand,
"I am sure you are. You ought to thank God that you have my
acquaintance."

Frowenfeld colored to the temples.

"I must acknowledge--" he began.

"Ah!" growled the lion, "your beautiful modesty leads you to misconstrue
me, sir. You pay my judgment no compliment. I know your worth, sir; I
merely meant, sir, that in me--poor, humble me--you have secured a
sympathizer in your tastes and plans. Agricola Fusilier, sir, is not a
cock on a dunghill, to find a jewel and then scratch it aside."

The smile of diffidence, but not the flush, passed from the young man's
face, and he sat down forcibly.

"You jest," he said.

The reply was a majestic growl.

"I _never_ jest!" The speaker half sat down, then straightened up again.
"Ah, the Marquis of Caso Calvo!--I must bow to him, though an honest
man's bow is more than he deserves."

"More than he deserves?" was Frowenfeld's query.

"More than he deserves!" was the response.

"What has he done? I have never heard--"

The denunciator turned upon Frowenfeld his most royal frown, and
retorted with a question which still grows wild in Louisiana:

"What"--he seemed to shake his mane--"what has he _not_ done, sir?" and
then he withdrew his frown slowly, as if to add, "You'll be careful next
time how you cast doubt upon a public official's guilt."

The marquis's cavalcade came briskly jingling by. Frowenfeld saw within
the carriage two men, one in citizen's dress, the other in a brilliant
uniform. The latter leaned forward, and, with a cordiality which struck
the young spectator as delightful, bowed. The immigrant glanced at
Citizen Fusilier, expecting to see the greeting returned with great
haughtiness; instead of which that person uncovered his leonine head,
and, with a solemn sweep of his cocked hat, bowed half his length. Nay,
he more than bowed, he bowed down--so that the action hurt Frowenfeld
from head to foot.

"What large gentlemen was that sitting on the other side?" asked the
young man, as his companion sat down with the air of having finished
an oration.

"No gentleman at all!" thundered the citizen. "That fellow" (beetling
frown), "that _fellow_ is Edward Livingston."

"The great lawyer?"

"The great villain!"

Frowenfeld himself frowned.

The old man laid a hand upon his junior's shoulder and growled
benignantly:

"My young friend, your displeasure delights me!"

The patience with which Frowenfeld was bearing all this forced a chuckle
and shake of the head from the _marchande_.

Citizen Fusilier went on speaking in a manner that might be construed
either as address or soliloquy, gesticulating much and occasionally
letting out a fervent word that made passers look around and Joseph
inwardly wince. With eyes closed and hands folded on the top of the
knotted staff which he carried but never used, he delivered an
apostrophe to the "spotless soul of youth," enticed by the "spirit of
adventure" to "launch away upon the unploughed sea of the future!" He
lifted one hand and smote the back of the other solemnly, once, twice,
and again, nodding his head faintly several times without opening his
eyes, as who should say, "Very impressive; go on," and so resumed; spoke
of this spotless soul of youth searching under unknown latitudes for the
"sunken treasures of experience"; indulged, as the reporters of our day
would say, in "many beautiful nights of rhetoric," and finally depicted
the loathing with which the spotless soul of youth "recoils!"--suiting
the action to the word so emphatically as to make a pretty little boy
who stood gaping at him start back--"on encountering in the holy
chambers of public office the vultures hatched in the nests of ambition
and avarice!"

Three or four persons lingered carelessly near by with ears wide open.
Frowenfeld felt that he must bring this to an end, and, like any young
person who has learned neither deceit nor disrespect to seniors, he
attempted to reason it down.

"You do not think many of our public men are dishonest!"

"Sir!" replied the rhetorician, with a patronizing smile, "h-you must be
thinking of France!"

"No, sir; of Louisiana."

"Louisiana! Dishonest? All, sir, all. They are all as corrupt as
Olympus, sir!"

"Well," said Frowenfeld, with more feeling than was called for, "there
is one who, I feel sure, is pure. I know it by his face!"

The old man gave a look of stern interrogation.

"Governor Claiborne."

"Ye-e-e g-hods! Claiborne! _Claiborne!_ Why, he is a Yankee!"

The lion glowered over the lamb like a thundercloud.

"He is a Virginian," said Frowenfeld.

"He is an American, and no American can be honest."

"You are prejudiced," exclaimed the young man.

Citizen Fusilier made himself larger.

"What is prejudice? I do not know."

"I am an American myself," said Frowenfeld, rising up with his face
burning.

The citizen rose up also, but unruffled.

"My beloved young friend," laying his hand heavily upon the other's
shoulder, "you are not. You were merely born in America."

But Frowenfeld was not appeased.

"Hear me through," persisted the flatterer. "You were merely born in
America. I, too, was born in America--but will any man responsible for
his opinion mistake me--Agricola Fusilier--for an American?"

He clutched his cane in the middle and glared around, but no person
seemed to be making the mistake to which he so scornfully alluded, and
he was about to speak again when an outcry of alarm coming
simultaneously from Joseph and the _marchande_ directed his attention to
a lady in danger.

The scene, as afterward recalled to the mind of the un-American citizen,
included the figures of his nephew and the new governor returning up
the road at a canter; but, at the time, he knew only that a lady of
unmistakable gentility, her back toward him, had just gathered her robes
and started to cross the road, when there was a general cry of warning,
and the _marchande_ cried, "_Garde choual!_" while the lady leaped
directly into the danger and his nephew's horse knocked her to
the earth!

Though there was a rush to the rescue from every direction, she was on
her feet before any one could reach her, her lips compressed, nostrils
dilated, cheek burning, and eyes flashing a lady's wrath upon a
dismounted horseman. It was the governor. As the crowd had rushed in,
the startled horses, from whom the two riders had instantly leaped, drew
violently back, jerking their masters with them and leaving only the
governor in range of the lady's angry eye.

"Mademoiselle!" he cried, striving to reach her.

She pointed him in gasping indignation to his empty saddle, and, as the
crowd farther separated them, waved away all permission to apologize and
turned her back.

"Hah!" cried the crowd, echoing her humor.

"Lady," interposed the governor, "do not drive us to the rudeness of
leaving--"

"_Animal, vous!_" cried half a dozen, and the lady gave him such a look
of scorn that he did not finish his sentence.

"Open the way, there," called a voice in French.

It was Honoré Grandissime. But just then he saw that the lady had found
the best of protectors, and the two horsemen, having no choice,
remounted and rode away. As they did so, M. Grandissime called something
hurriedly to Frowenfeld, on whose arm the lady hung, concerning the care
of her; but his words were lost in the short yell of derision sent after
himself and his companion by the crowd.

Old Agricola, meanwhile, was having a trouble of his own. He had
followed Joseph's wake as he pushed through the throng; but as the lady
turned her face he wheeled abruptly away. This brought again into view
the bench he had just left, whereupon he, in turn, cried out, and,
dashing through all obstructions, rushed back to it, lifting his ugly
staff as he went and flourishing it in the face of Palmyre Philosophe.

She stood beside the seat with the smile of one foiled and intensely
conscious of peril, but neither frightened nor suppliant, holding back
with her eyes the execution of Agricola's threat against her life.

Presently she drew a short step backward, then another, then a third,
and then turned and moved away down the avenue of willows, followed for
a few steps by the lion and by the laughing comment of the _marchande_,
who stood looking after them with her tray balanced on her head.

"_Ya, ya! ye connais voudou bien!_[1]"

[Footnote 1: "They're up in the voudou arts."]

The old man turned to rejoin his companion. The day was rapidly giving
place to night and the people were withdrawing to their homes. He
crossed the levee, passed through the Place d'Armes and on into the
city without meeting the object of his search. For Joseph and the lady
had hurried off together.

As the populace floated away in knots of three, four and five, those who
had witnessed mademoiselle's (?) mishap told it to those who had not;
explaining that it was the accursed Yankee governor who had designedly
driven his horse at his utmost speed against the fair victim (some of
them butted against their hearers by way of illustration); that the
fiend had then maliciously laughed; that this was all the Yankees came
to New Orleans for, and that there was an understanding among
them--"Understanding, indeed!" exclaimed one, "They have instructions
from the President!"--that unprotected ladies should be run down
wherever overtaken. If you didn't believe it you could ask the tyrant,
Claiborne, himself; he made no secret of it. One or two--but they were
considered by others extravagant--testified that, as the lady fell, they
had seen his face distorted with a horrid delight, and had heard him
cry: "Daz de way to knog them!"

"But how came a lady to be out on the levee, at sunset, on foot and
alone?" asked a citizen, and another replied--both using the French of
the late province:

"As for being on foot"--a shrug. "But she was not alone; she had a
_milatraisse_ behind her."

"Ah! so; that was well."

"But--ha, ha!--the _milatraisse_, seeing her mistress out of danger,
takes the opportunity to try to bring the curse upon Agricola Fusilier
by sitting down where he had just risen up, and had to get away from him
as quickly as possible to save her own skull."

"And left the lady?"

"Yes; and who took her to her home at last, but Frowenfeld, the
apothecary!"

"Ho, ho! the astrologer! We ought to hang that fellow."

"With his books tied to his feet," suggested a third citizen. "It is no
more than we owe to the community to go and smash his show-window. He
had better behave himself. Come, gentlemen, a little _taffia_ will do us
good. When shall we ever get through these exciting times?"




CHAPTER XVI

STARLIGHT IN THE RUE CHARTRES


"Oh! M'sieur Frowenfel', tague me ad home!"

It was Aurora, who caught the apothecary's arm vehemently in both her
hands with a look of beautiful terror. And whatever Joseph's astronomy
might have previously taught him to the contrary, he knew by his senses
that the earth thereupon turned entirely over three times in
two seconds.

His confused response, though unintelligible, answered all purposes, as
the lady found herself the next moment hurrying across the Place d'Armes
close to his side, and as they by-and-by passed its farther limits she
began to be conscious that she was clinging to her protector as though
she would climb up and hide under his elbow. As they turned up the rue
Chartres she broke the silence.

"Oh!-h!"--breathlessly,--"'h!--M'sieur Frowenf'--you walkin' so faz!"

"Oh!" echoed Frowenfeld, "I did not know what I was doing."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the lady, "me, too, juz de sem lag you!
_attendez_; wait."

They halted; a moment's deft manipulation of a veil turned it into a
wrapping for her neck.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', oo dad man was? You know 'im?"

She returned her hand to Frowenfeld's arm and they moved on.

"The one who spoke to you, or--you know the one who got near enough to
apologize is not the one whose horse struck you!"

"I din know. But oo dad odder one? I saw h-only 'is back, bud I thing it
is de sem--"

She identified it with the back that was turned to her during her last
visit to Frowenfeld's shop; but finding herself about to mention a
matter so nearly connected with the purse of gold, she checked herself;
but Frowenfeld, eager to say a good word for his acquaintance, ventured
to extol his character while he concealed his name.

"While I have never been introduced to him, I have some acquaintance
with him, and esteem him a noble gentleman."

"W'ere you meet him?"

"I met him first," he said, "at the graves of my parents and sisters."

There was a kind of hush after the mention, and the lady made no reply.

"It was some weeks after my loss," resumed Frowenfeld.

"In wad _cimetière_ dad was?"

"In no cemetery--being Protestants, you know--"

"Ah, yes, sir?" with a gentle sigh.

"The physician who attended me procured permission to bury them on some
private land below the city."

"Not in de groun'[2]?"

[Footnote 2: Only Jews and paupers are buried in the ground in New
Orleans.]

"Yes; that was my father's expressed wish when he died."

"You 'ad de fivver? Oo nurse you w'en you was sick?"

"An old hired negress."

"Dad was all?"

"Yes."

"Hm-m-m!" she said piteously, and laughed in her sleeve.

Who could hope to catch and reproduce the continuous lively thrill which
traversed the frame of the escaped book-worm as every moment there was
repeated to his consciousness the knowledge that he was walking across
the vault of heaven with the evening star on his arm--at least, that he
was, at her instigation, killing time along the dim, ill-lighted
_trottoirs_ of the rue Chartres, with Aurora listening sympathetically
at his side. But let it go; also the sweet broken English with which she
now and then interrupted him; also the inward, hidden sparkle of her
dancing Gallic blood; her low, merry laugh; the roguish mental
reservation that lurked behind her graver speeches; the droll bravados
she uttered against the powers that be, as with timid fingers he brushed
from her shoulder a little remaining dust of the late encounter--these
things, we say, we let go,--as we let butterflies go rather than pin
them to paper.

They had turned into the rue Bienville, and were walking toward the
river, Frowenfeld in the midst of a long sentence, when a low cry of
tearful delight sounded in front of them, some one in long robes glided
forward, and he found his arm relieved of its burden and that burden
transferred to the bosom and passionate embrace of another--we had
almost said a fairer--Creole, amid a bewildering interchange of kisses
and a pelting shower of Creole French.

A moment after, Frowenfeld found himself introduced to "my dotter,
Clotilde," who all at once ceased her demonstrations of affection and
bowed to him with a majestic sweetness, that seemed one instant grateful
and the next, distant.

"I can hardly understand that you are not sisters," said Frowenfeld, a
little awkwardly.

"Ah! _ecoutez!_" exclaimed the younger.

"Ah! _par exemple!_" cried the elder, and they laughed down each other's
throats, while the immigrant blushed.

This encounter was presently followed by a silent surprise when they
stopped and turned before the door of Number 19, and Frowenfeld
contrasted the women with their painfully humble dwelling. But therein
is where your true Creole was, and still continues to be, properly, yea,
delightfully un-American; the outside of his house may be as rough as
the outside of a bird's nest; it is the inside that is for the birds;
and the front room of this house, when the daughter presently threw open
the batten shutters of its single street door, looked as bright and
happy, with its candelabra glittering on the mantel, and its curtains of
snowy lace, as its bright-eyed tenants.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', if you pliz to come in," said Aurora, and the timid
apothecary would have bravely accepted the invitation, but for a quick
look which he saw the daughter give the mother; whereupon he asked,
instead, permission to call at some future day, and received the cordial
leave of Aurora and another bow from Clotilde.




CHAPTER XVII

THAT NIGHT


Do we not fail to accord to our nights their true value? We are ever
giving to our days the credit and blame of all we do and mis-do,
forgetting those silent, glimmering hours when plans--and sometimes
plots--are laid; when resolutions are formed or changed; when heaven,
and sometimes heaven's enemies, are invoked; when anger and evil
thoughts are recalled, and sometimes hate made to inflame and fester;
when problems are solved, riddles guessed, and things made apparent in
the dark, which day refused to reveal. Our nights are the keys to our
days. They explain them. They are also the day's correctors. Night's
leisure untangles the mistakes of day's haste. We should not attempt to
comprise our pasts in the phrase, "in those days;" we should rather say
"in those days and nights."

That night was a long-remembered one to the apothecary of the rue
Royale. But it was after he had closed his shop, and in his back room
sat pondering the unusual experiences of the evening, that it began to
be, in a higher degree, a night of events to most of those persons who
had a part in its earlier incidents.

That Honoré Grandissime whom Frowenfeld had only this day learned to
know as _the_ Honoré Grandissime and the young governor-general were
closeted together.

"What can you expect, my-de'-seh?" the Creole was asking, as they
confronted each other in the smoke of their choice tobacco. "Remember,
they are citizens by compulsion. You say your best and wisest law is
that one prohibiting the slave-trade; my-de'-seh, I assure you,
privately, I agree with you; but they abhor your law!

"Your principal danger--at least, I mean difficulty--is this: that the
Louisianais themselves, some in pure lawlessness, some through loss of
office, some in a vague hope of preserving the old condition of things,
will not only hold off from all participation in your government, but
will make all sympathy with it, all advocacy of its principles, and
especially all office-holding under it, odious--disreputable--infamous.
You may find yourself constrained to fill your offices with men who can
face down the contumely of a whole people. You know what such men
generally are. One out of a hundred may be a moral hero--the ninety-nine
will be scamps; and the moral hero will most likely get his brains blown
out early in the day.

"Count O'Reilly, when he established the Spanish power here thirty-five
years ago, cut a similar knot with the executioner's sword; but,
my-de'-seh, you are here to establish a _free_ government; and how can
you make it freer than the people wish it? There is your riddle! They
hold off and say, 'Make your government as free as you can, but do not
ask us to help you;' and before you know it you have no retainers but a
gang of shameless mercenaries, who will desert you whenever the
indignation of this people overbalances their indolence; and you will
fall the victim of what you may call our mutinous patriotism."

The governor made a very quiet, unappreciative remark about a
"patriotism that lets its government get choked up with corruption and
then blows it out with gunpowder!"

The Creole shrugged.

"And repeats the operation indefinitely," he said.

The governor said something often heard, before and since, to the effect
that communities will not sacrifice themselves for mere ideas.

"My-de'-seh," replied the Creole, "you speak like a true Anglo-Saxon;
but, sir! how many communities have _committed_ suicide. And this
one?--why, it is _just_ the kind to do it!"

"Well," said the governor, smilingly, "you have pointed out what you
consider to be the breakers, now can you point out the channel?"

"Channel? There is none! And you, nor I, cannot dig one. Two great
forces _may_ ultimately do it, Religion and Education--as I was telling
you I said to my young friend, the apothecary,--but still I am free to
say what would be my first and principal step, if I was in your
place--as I thank God I am not."

The listener asked him what that was.

"Wherever I could find a Creole that I could venture to trust,
my-de'-seh, I would put him in office. Never mind a little political
heterodoxy, you know; almost any man can be trusted to shoot away from
the uniform he has on. And then--"

"But," said the other, "I have offered you--"

"Oh!" replied the Creole, like a true merchant, "me, I am too busy; it
is impossible! But, I say, I would _compel_, my-de'-seh, this people to
govern themselves!"

"And pray, how would you give a people a free government and then compel
them to administer it?"

"My-de'-seh, you should not give one poor Creole the puzzle which
belongs to your whole Congress; but you may depend on this, that the
worst thing for all parties--and I say it only because it is worst for
all--would be a feeble and dilatory punishment of bad faith."

When this interview finally drew to a close the governor had made a
memorandum of some fifteen or twenty Grandissimes, scattered through
different cantons of Louisiana, who, their kinsman Honoré thought, would
not decline appointments.

       *       *       *       *       *

Certain of the Muses were abroad that night. Faintly audible to the
apothecary of the rue Royale through that deserted stillness which is
yet the marked peculiarity of New Orleans streets by night, came from a
neighboring slave-yard the monotonous chant and machine-like tune-beat
of an African dance. There our lately met _marchande_ (albeit she was
but a guest, fortified against the street-watch with her master's
written "pass") led the ancient Calinda dance with that well-known song
of derision, in whose ever multiplying stanzas the helpless satire of a
feeble race still continues to celebrate the personal failings of each
newly prominent figure among the dominant caste. There was a new distich
to the song to-night, signifying that the pride of the Grandissimes must
find his friends now among the Yankees:

      "Miché Hon'ré, allé! h-allé!
      Trouvé to zamis parmi les Yankis.
     Dancé calinda, bou-joum! bou-joum!
     Dancé calinda, bou-joum! bou-joum!

Frowenfeld, as we have already said, had closed his shop, and was
sitting in the room behind it with one arm on his table and the other on
his celestial globe, watching the flicker of his small fire and musing
upon the unusual experiences of the evening. Upon every side there
seemed to start away from his turning glance the multiplied shadows of
something wrong. The melancholy face of that Honoré Grandissime, his
landlord, at whose mention Dr. Keene had thought it fair to laugh
without explaining; the tall, bright-eyed _milatraisse_; old Agricola;
the lady of the basil; the newly identified merchant friend, now the
more satisfactory Honoré,--they all came before him in his meditation,
provoking among themselves a certain discord, faint but persistent, to
which he strove to close his ear. For he was brain-weary. Even in the
bright recollection of the lady and her talk he became involved among
shadows, and going from bad to worse, seemed at length almost to gasp in
an atmosphere of hints, allusions, faint unspoken admissions,
ill-concealed antipathies, unfinished speeches, mistaken identities and
whisperings of hidden strife. The cathedral clock struck twelve and was
answered again from the convent belfry; and as the notes died away he
suddenly became aware that the weird, drowsy throb of the African song
and dance had been swinging drowsily in his brain for an unknown
lapse of time.

The apothecary nodded once or twice, and thereupon rose up and prepared
for bed, thinking to sleep till morning.

       *       *       *       *       *

Aurora and her daughter had long ago put out their chamber light. Early
in the evening the younger had made favorable mention of retiring, to
which the elder replied by asking to be left awhile to her own thoughts.
Clotilde, after some tender protestations, consented, and passed through
the open door that showed, beyond it, their couch. The air had grown
just cool and humid enough to make the warmth of one small brand on the
hearth acceptable, and before this the fair widow settled herself to
gaze beyond her tiny, slippered feet into its wavering flame, and think.
Her thoughts were such as to bestow upon her face that enhancement of
beauty that comes of pleasant reverie, and to make it certain that that
little city afforded no fairer sight,--unless, indeed, it was the figure
of Clotilde just beyond the open door, as in her white nightdress,
enriched with the work of a diligent needle, she knelt upon the low
_prie-Dieu_ before the little family altar, and committed her pure soul
to the Divine keeping.

Clotilde could not have been many minutes asleep when Aurora changed her
mind and decided to follow. The shade upon her face had deepened for a
moment into a look of trouble; but a bright philosophy, which was part
of her paternal birthright, quickly chased it away, and she passed to
her room, disrobed, lay softly down beside the beauty already there and
smiled herself to sleep,--

     "Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
     As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again."

But she also wakened again, and lay beside her unconscious bedmate,
occupied with the company of her own thoughts. "Why should these little
concealments ruffle my bosom? Does not even Nature herself practise
wiles? Look at the innocent birds; do they build where everybody can
count their eggs? And shall a poor human creature try to be better than
a bird? Didn't I say my prayers under the blanket just now?"

Her companion stirred in her sleep, and she rose upon one elbow to bend
upon the sleeper a gaze of ardent admiration. "Ah, beautiful little
chick! how guileless! indeed, how deficient in that respect!" She sat
up in the bed and hearkened; the bell struck for midnight. Was that the
hour? The fates were smiling! Surely M. Assonquer himself must have
wakened her to so choice an opportunity. She ought not to despise it.
Now, by the application of another and easily wrought charm, that
darkened hour lately spent with Palmyre would have, as it were, its
colors set.

The night had grown much cooler. Stealthily, by degrees, she rose and
left the couch. The openings of the room were a window and two doors,
and these, with much caution, she contrived to open without noise. None
of them exposed her to the possibility of public view. One door looked
into the dim front room; the window let in only a flood of moonlight
over the top of a high house which was without openings on that side;
the other door revealed a weed-grown back yard, and that invaluable
protector, the cook's hound, lying fast asleep.

In her night-clothes as she was, she stood a moment in the centre of the
chamber, then sank upon one knee, rapped the floor gently but audibly
thrice, rose, drew a step backward, sank upon the other knee, rapped
thrice, rose again, stepped backward, knelt the third time, the third
time rapped, and then, rising, murmured a vow to pour upon the ground
next day an oblation of champagne--then closed the doors and window and
crept back to bed. Then she knew how cold she had become. It seemed as
though her very marrow was frozen. She was seized with such an
uncontrollable shivering that Clotilde presently opened her eyes, threw
her arm about her mother's neck, and said:

"Ah! my sweet mother, are you so cold?"

"The blanket was all off of me," said the mother, returning the embrace,
and the two sank into unconsciousness together.

       *       *       *       *       *

Into slumber sank almost at the same moment Joseph Frowenfeld. He awoke,
not a great while later, to find himself standing in the middle of the
floor. Three or four men had shouted at once, and three pistol-shots,
almost in one instant, had resounded just outside his shop. He had
barely time to throw himself into half his garments when the knocker
sounded on his street door, and when he opened it Agricola Fusilier
entered, supported by his nephew Honoré on one side and Doctor Keene on
the other. The latter's right hand was pressed hard against a bloody
place in Agricola's side.

"Give us plenty of light, Frowenfeld," said the doctor, "and a chair and
some lint, and some Castile soap, and some towels and sticking-plaster,
and anything else you can think of. Agricola's about scared to death--"

"Professor Frowenfeld," groaned the aged citizen, "I am basely and
mortally stabbed!"

"Right on, Frowenfeld," continued the doctor, "right on into the back
room. Fasten that front door. Here, Agricola, sit down here. That's
right, Frow., stir up a little fire. Give me--never mind, I'll just cut
the cloth open."

There was a moment of silent suspense while the wound was being
reached, and then the doctor spoke again.

"Just as I thought; only a safe and comfortable gash that will keep you
in-doors a while with your arm in a sling. You are more scared than
hurt, I think, old gentleman."

"You think an infernal falsehood, sir!"

"See here, sir," said the doctor, without ceasing to ply his dexterous
hands in his art, "I'll jab these scissors into your back if you say
that again."

"I suppose," growled the "citizen," "it is just the thing your
professional researches have qualified you for, sir!"

"Just stand here, Mr. Frowenfeld," said the little doctor, settling down
to a professional tone, "and hand me things as I ask for them. Honoré,
please hold this arm; so." And so, after a moderate lapse of time, the
treatment that medical science of those days dictated was
applied--whatever that was. Let those who do not know give thanks.

M. Grandissime explained to Frowenfeld what had occurred.

"You see, I succeeded in meeting my uncle, and we went together to my
office. My uncle keeps his accounts with me. Sometimes we look them
over. We stayed until midnight; I dismissed my carriage. As we walked
homeward we met some friends coming out of the rooms of the Bagatelle
Club; five or six of my uncles and cousins, and also Doctor Keene. We
all fell a-talking of my grandfather's _fête de grandpère_ of next
month, and went to have some coffee. When we separated, and my uncle and
my cousin Achille Grandissime and Doctor Keene and myself came down
Royal street, out from that dark alley behind your shop jumped a little
man and stuck my uncle with a knife. If I had not caught his arm he
would have killed my uncle."

"And he escaped," said the apothecary.

"No, sir!" said Agricola, with his back turned.

"I think he did. I do not think he was struck."

"And Mr. ----, your cousin?"

"Achille? I have sent him for a carriage."

"Why, Agricola," said the doctor, snipping the loose ravellings from his
patient's bandages, "an old man like you should not have enemies."

"I am _not_ an old man, sir!"

"I said _young_ man."

"I am not a _young_ man, sir!"

"I wonder who the fellow was," continued Doctor Keene, as he readjusted
the ripped sleeve.

"That is _my_ affair, sir; I know who it was."

       *       *       *       *       *

"And yet she insists," M. Grandissime was asking Frowenfeld, standing
with his leg thrown across the celestial globe, "that I knocked her down
intentionally?"

Frowenfeld, about to answer, was interrupted by a rap on the door.

"That is my cousin, with the carriage," said M. Grandissime, following
the apothecary into the shop.

Frowenfeld opened to a young man,--a rather poor specimen of the
Grandissime type, deficient in stature but not in stage manner.

"_Est il mort_?" he cried at the threshold.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, let me make you acquainted with my cousin, Achille
Grandissime."

Mr. Achille Grandissime gave Frowenfeld such a bow as we see now only in
pictures.

"Ve'y 'appe to meck, yo' acquaintenz!"

Agricola entered, followed by the doctor, and demanded in indignant
thunder-tones, as he entered:

"Who--ordered--that--carriage?"

"I did," said Honoré. "Will you please get into it at once."

"Ah! dear Honoré!" exclaimed the old man, "always too kind! I go in it
purely to please you."

Good-night was exchanged; Honoré entered the vehicle and Agricola was
helped in. Achille touched his hat, bowed and waved his hand to Joseph,
and shook hands with the doctor, and saying, "Well, good-night. Doctor
Keene," he shut himself out of the shop with another low bow. "Think I
am going to shake hands with an apothecary?" thought M. Achille.

Doctor Keene had refused Honoré's invitation to go with them.

"Frowenfeld," he said, as he stood in the middle of the shop wiping a
ring with a towel and looking at his delicate, freckled hand, "I
propose, before going to bed with you, to eat some of your bread and
cheese. Aren't you glad?"

"I shall be, Doctor," replied the apothecary, "if you will tell me what
all this means."

"Indeed I will not,--that is, not to-night. What? Why, it would take
until breakfast to tell what 'all this means,'--the story of that
pestiferous darky Bras Coupé, with the rest? Oh, no, sir. I would sooner
not have any bread and cheese. What on earth has waked your curiosity so
suddenly, anyhow?"

"Have you any idea who stabbed Citizen Fusilier?" was Joseph's response.

"Why, at first I thought it was the other Honoré Grandissime; but when I
saw how small the fellow was, I was at a loss, completely. But, whoever
it is, he has my bullet in him, whatever Honoré may think."

"Will Mr. Fusilier's wound give him much trouble?" asked Joseph, as they
sat down to a luncheon at the fire.

"Hardly; he has too much of the blood of Lufki-Humma in him. But I need
not say that; for the Grandissime blood is just as strong. A wonderful
family, those Grandissimes! They are an old, illustrious line, and the
strength that was once in the intellect and will is going down into the
muscles. I have an idea that their greatness began, hundreds of years
ago, in ponderosity of arm,--of frame, say,--and developed from
generation to generation, in a rising scale, first into fineness of
sinew, then, we will say, into force of will, then into power of mind,
then into subtleties of genius. Now they are going back down the
incline. Look at Honoré; he is high up on the scale, intellectual and
sagacious. But look at him physically, too. What an exquisite mold! What
compact strength! I should not wonder if he gets that from the Indian
Queen. What endurance he has! He will probably go to his business by and
by and not see his bed for seventeen or eighteen hours. He is the flower
of the family, and possibly the last one. Now, old Agricola shows the
downward grade better. Seventy-five, if he is a day, with, maybe,
one-fourth the attainments he pretends to have, and still less good
sense; but strong--as an orang-outang. Shall we go to bed?"




CHAPTER XVIII

NEW LIGHT UPON DARK PLACES


When the long, wakeful night was over, and the doctor gone, Frowenfeld
seated himself to record his usual observations of the weather; but his
mind was elsewhere--here, there, yonder. There are understandings that
expand, not imperceptibly hour by hour, but as certain flowers do, by
little explosive ruptures, with periods of quiescence between. After
this night of experiences it was natural that Frowenfeld should find the
circumference of his perceptions consciously enlarged. The daylight
shone, not into his shop alone, but into his heart as well. The face of
Aurora, which had been the dawn to him before, was now a perfect
sunrise, while in pleasant timeliness had come in this Apollo of a
Honoré Grandissime. The young immigrant was dazzled. He felt a longing
to rise up and run forward in this flood of beams. He was unconscious of
fatigue, or nearly so--would, have been wholly so but for the return by
and by of that same dim shadow, or shadows, still rising and darting
across every motion of the fancy that grouped again the actors in last
night's scenes; not such shadows as naturally go with sunlight to make
it seem brighter, but a something which qualified the light's perfection
and the air's freshness.

Wherefore, resolved: that he would compound his life, from this time
forward, by a new formula: books, so much; observation, so much; social
intercourse, so much; love--as to that, time enough for that in the
future (if he was in love with anybody, he certainly did not know it);
of love, therefore, amount not yet necessary to state, but probably
(when it should be introduced), in the generous proportion in which
physicians prescribe _aqua_. Resolved, in other words, without ceasing
to be Frowenfeld the studious, to begin at once the perusal of this
newly found book, the Community of New Orleans. True, he knew he should
find it a difficult task--not only that much of it was in a strange
tongue, but that it was a volume whose displaced leaves would have to be
lifted tenderly, blown free of much dust, re-arranged, some torn
fragments laid together again with much painstaking, and even the
purport of some pages guessed out. Obviously, the place to commence at
was that brightly illuminated title-page, the ladies Nancanou.

As the sun rose and diffused its beams in an atmosphere whose
temperature had just been recorded as 50° F., the apothecary stepped
half out of his shop-door to face the bracing air that came blowing upon
his tired forehead from the north. As he did so, he said to himself:

"How are these two Honoré Grandissimes related to each other, and why
should one be thought capable of attempting the life of Agricola?"

The answer was on its way to him.

There is left to our eyes but a poor vestige of the picturesque view
presented to those who looked down the rue Royale before the garish day
that changed the rue Enghien into Ingine street, and dropped the 'e'
from Royale. It was a long, narrowing perspective of arcades, lattices,
balconies, _zaguans_, dormer windows, and blue sky--of low, tiled roofs,
red and wrinkled, huddled down into their own shadows; of canvas awnings
with fluttering borders, and of grimy lamp-posts twenty feet in height,
each reaching out a gaunt iron arm over the narrow street and dangling a
lamp from its end. The human life which dotted the view displayed a
variety of tints and costumes such as a painter would be glad to take
just as he found them: the gayly feathered Indian, the slashed and
tinselled Mexican, the leather-breeched raftsmen, the blue-or
yellow-turbaned _négresse_, the sugar-planter in white flannel and
moccasins, the average townsman in the last suit of clothes of the
lately deceased century, and now and then a fashionable man in that
costume whose union of tight-buttoned martial severity, swathed throat,
and effeminate superabundance of fine linen seemed to offer a sort of
state's evidence against the pompous tyrannies and frivolities of
the times.

The _marchande des calas_ was out. She came toward Joseph's shop,
singing in a high-pitched nasal tone this new song:

     "Dé'tit zozos--yé té assis--
     Dé'tit zozos--si la barrier.
     Dé'tit zozos, qui zabotté;
     Qui ça yé di' mo pas conné.

     "Manzeur-poulet vini simin,
     Croupé si yé et croqué yé;
     Personn' pli' 'tend' yé zabotté--
     Dé'tit zozos si la barrier."

"You lak dat song?" she asked, with a chuckle, as she let down from her
turbaned head a flat Indian basket of warm rice cakes.

"What does it mean?"

She laughed again--more than the questioner could see occasion for.

"Dat mean--two lill birds; dey was sittin' on de fence an' gabblin'
togeddah, you know, lak you see two young gals sometime', an' you can't
mek out w'at dey sayin', even ef dey know demself? H-ya! Chicken-hawk
come 'long dat road an' jes' set down an' munch 'em, an' nobody can't no
mo' hea' deir lill gabblin' on de fence, you know."

Here she laughed again.

Joseph looked at her with severe suspicion, but she found refuge in
benevolence.

"Honey, you ought to be asleep dis werry minit; look lak folks been
a-worr'in' you. I's gwine to pick out de werry bes' _calas_ I's got
for you."

As she delivered them she courtesied, first to Joseph and then, lower
and with hushed gravity, to a person who passed into the shop behind
him, bowing and murmuring politely as he passed. She followed the
new-comer with her eyes, hastily accepted the price of the cakes,
whispered, "Dat's my mawstah," lifted her basket to her head and went
away. Her master was Frowenfeld's landlord.

Frowenfeld entered after him, calas in hand, and with a grave
"Good-morning, sir."

"--m'sieu'," responded the landlord, with a low bow.

Frowenfeld waited in silence.

The landlord hesitated, looked around him, seemed about to speak,
smiled, and said, in his soft, solemn voice, feeling his way word by
word through the unfamiliar language:

"Ah lag to teg you apar'."

"See me alone?"

The landlord recognized his error by a fleeting smile.

"Alone," said he.

"Shall we go into my room?"

"_S'il vous plait, m'sieu'_."

Frowenfeld's breakfast, furnished by contract from a neighboring
kitchen, stood on the table. It was a frugal one, but more comfortable
than formerly, and included coffee, that subject of just pride in Creole
cookery. Joseph deposited his _calas_ with these things and made haste
to produce a chair, which his visitor, as usual, declined.

"Idd you' bregfuz, m'sieu'."

"I can do that afterward," said Frowenfeld; but the landlord insisted
and turned away from him to look up at the books on the wall, precisely
as that other of the same name had done a few weeks before.

Frowenfeld, as he broke his loaf, noticed this, and, as the landlord
turned his face to speak, wondered that he had not before seen the
common likeness.

"Dez stog," said the sombre man.

"What, sir? Oh!--dead stock? But how can the materials of an education
be dead stock?"

The landlord shrugged. He would not argue the point. One American trait
which the Creole is never entirely ready to encounter is this gratuitous
Yankee way of going straight to the root of things.

"Dead stock in a mercantile sense, you mean," continued the apothecary;
"but are men right in measuring such things only by their present
market value?"

The landlord had no reply. It was little to him, his manner intimated;
his contemplation dwelt on deeper flaws in human right and wrong;
yet--but it was needless to discuss it. However, he did speak.

"Ah was elevade in Pariz."

"Educated in Paris," exclaimed Joseph, admiringly. "Then you certainly
cannot find your education dead stock."

The grave, not amused, smile which was the landlord's only rejoinder,
though perfectly courteous, intimated that his tenant was sailing over
depths of the question that he was little aware of. But the smile in a
moment gave way for the look of one who was engrossed with
another subject.

"M'sieu'," he began; but just then Joseph made an apologetic gesture and
went forward to wait upon an inquirer after "Godfrey's Cordial;" for
that comforter was known to be obtainable at "Frowenfeld's." The
business of the American drug-store was daily increasing. When
Frowenfeld returned his landlord stood ready to address him, with the
air of having decided to make short of a matter.

"M'sieu' ----"

"Have a seat, sir," urged the apothecary.

His visitor again declined, with his uniform melancholy grace. He drew
close to Frowenfeld.

"Ah wand you mague me one _ouangan_," he said.

Joseph shook his head. He remembered Doctor Keene's expressed suspicion
concerning the assault of the night before.

"I do not understand you, sir; what is that?"

"You know."

The landlord offered a heavy, persuading smile.

"An unguent? Is that what you mean--an ointment?"

"M'sieu'," said the applicant, with a not-to-be-deceived expression,
"_vous êtes astrologue--magicien--"

"God forbid!"

The landlord was grossly incredulous.

"You godd one 'P'tit Albert.'"

He dropped his forefinger upon an iron-clasped book on the table, whose
title much use had effaced.

"That is the Bible. I do not know what the Tee Albare is!"

Frowenfeld darted an aroused glance into the ever-courteous eyes of his
visitor, who said without a motion:

"You di'n't gave Agricola Fusilier _une ouangan, la nuit passé_?"

"Sir?"

"Ee was yeh?--laz nighd?"

"Mr. Fusilier was here last night--yes. He had been attacked by an
assassin and slightly wounded. He was accompanied by his nephew, who, I
suppose, is your cousin: he has the same name."

Frowenfeld, hoping he had changed the subject, concluded with a
propitiatory smile, which, however, was not reflected.

"Ma bruzzah," said the visitor.

"Your brother!"

"Ma whide bruzzah; ah ham nod whide, m'sieu'."

Joseph said nothing. He was too much awed to speak; the ejaculation
that started toward his lips turned back and rushed into his heart, and
it was the quadroon who, after a moment, broke the silence:

"Ah ham de holdez son of Numa Grandissime."

"Yes--yes," said Frowenfeld, as if he would wave away something
terrible.

"Nod sell me--_ouangan_?" asked the landlord, again.

"Sir," exclaimed Frowenfeld, taking a step backward, "pardon me if I
offend you; that mixture of blood which draws upon you the scorn of this
community is to me nothing--nothing! And every invidious distinction
made against you on that account I despise! But, sir, whatever may be
either your private wrongs, or the wrongs you suffer in common with your
class, if you have it in your mind to employ any manner of secret art
against the interests or person of any one--"

The landlord was making silent protestations, and his tenant, lost in a
wilderness of indignant emotions, stopped.

"M'sieu'," began the quadroon, but ceased and stood with an expression
of annoyance every moment deepening on his face, until he finally shook
his head slowly, and said with a baffled smile: "Ah can nod
spig Engliss."

"Write it," said Frowenfeld, lifting forward a chair.

The landlord, for the first time in their acquaintance, accepted a
seat, bowing low as he did so, with a demonstration of profound
gratitude that just perceptibly heightened his even dignity. Paper,
quills, and ink were handed down from a shelf and Joseph retired
into the shop.

Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c. (these initials could hardly have come into
use until some months later, but the convenience covers the sin of the
slight anachronism), Honoré Grandissime, free man of color, entered from
the rear room so silently that Joseph was first made aware of his
presence by feeling him at his elbow. He handed the apothecary--but a
few words in time, lest we misjudge.

       *       *       *       *       *

The father of the two Honorés was that Numa Grandissime--that mere
child--whom the Grand Marquis, to the great chagrin of the De Grapions,
had so early cadetted. The commission seems not to have been thrown
away. While the province was still in first hands, Numa's was a shining
name in the annals of Kerlerec's unsatisfactory Indian wars; and in 1768
(when the colonists, ill-informed, inflammable, and long ill-governed,
resisted the transfer of Louisiana to Spain), at a time of life when
most young men absorb all the political extravagances of their day, he
had stood by the side of law and government, though the popular cry was
a frenzied one for "liberty." Moreover, he had held back his whole
chafing and stamping tribe from a precipice of disaster, and had secured
valuable recognition of their office-holding capacities from that
really good governor and princely Irishman whose one act of summary
vengeance upon a few insurgent office-coveters has branded him in
history as Cruel O'Reilly. But the experience of those days turned Numa
gray, and withal he was not satisfied with their outcome. In the midst
of the struggle he had weakened in one manly resolve--against his will
he married. The lady was a Fusilier, Agricola's sister, a person of rare
intelligence and beauty, whom, from early childhood, the secret counsels
of his seniors had assigned to him. Despite this, he had said he would
never marry; he made, he said, no pretensions to severe
conscientiousness, or to being better than others, but--as between his
Maker and himself--he had forfeited the right to wed, they all knew how.
But the Fusiliers had become very angry and Numa, finding strife about
to ensue just when without unity he could not bring an undivided clan
through the torrent of the revolution, had "nobly sacrificed a little
sentimental feeling," as his family defined it, by breaking faith with
the mother of the man now standing at Joseph Frowenfeld's elbow, and who
was then a little toddling boy. It was necessary to save the party--nay,
that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not a
parable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins;
and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, he
indulged the hope that--the ambition and pride of all the various
Grandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all strife being
lulled--he should yet see this Honoré right the wrongs which he had not
quite dared to uproot. And Honoré inherited the hope and began to make
it an intention and aim even before his departure (with his half-brother
the other Honoré) for school in Paris, at the early age of fifteen. Numa
soon after died, and Honoré, after various fortunes in Paris, London,
and elsewhere, in the care, or at least company, of a pious uncle in
holy orders, returned to the ancestral mansion. The father's will--by
the law they might have set it aside, but that was not their way--left
the darker Honoré the bulk of his fortune, the younger a competency. The
latter--instead of taking office, as an ancient Grandissime should have
done--to the dismay and mortification of his kindred, established
himself in a prosperous commercial business. The elder bought houses and
became a _rentier_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The landlord handed the apothecary the following writing:

     MR. JOSEPH FROWENFELD:

     Think not that anybody is to be either poisoned by me nor yet
     to be made a sufferer by the exercise of anything by me of
     the character of what is generally known as grigri, otherwise
     magique. This, sir, I do beg your permission to offer my
     assurance to you of the same. Ah, no! it is not for that! I
     am the victim of another entirely and a far differente and
     dissimilar passion, _i.e._, Love. Esteemed sir, speaking or
     writing to you as unto the only man of exclusively white
     blood whom I believe is in Louisiana willing to do my dumb,
     suffering race the real justice, I love Palmyre la Philosophe
     with a madness which is by the human lips or tongues not
     possible to be exclaimed (as, I may add, that I have in the
     same like manner since exactley nine years and seven months
     and some days). Alas! heavens! I can't help it in the least
     particles at all! What, what shall I do, for ah! it is
     pitiful! She loves me not at all, but, on the other hand, is
     (if I suspicion not wrongfully) wrapped up head and ears in
     devotion of one who does not love her, either, so cold and
     incapable of appreciation is he. I allude to Honoré
     Grandissime.

     Ah! well do I remember the day when we returned--he and
     me--from the France. She was there when we landed on that
     levee, she was among that throng of kindreds and domestiques,
     she shind like the evening star as she stood there (it was
     the first time I saw her, but she was known to him when at
     fifteen he left his home, but I resided not under my own
     white father's roof--not at all--far from that). She cried
     out "A la fin to vini!" and leap herself with both
     resplendant arm around his neck and kist him twice on the one
     cheek and the other, and her resplendant eyes shining with a
     so great beauty.

     If you will give me a _poudre d'amour_ such as I doubt not
     your great knowledge enable you to make of a power that
     cannot to be resist, while still at the same time of a
     harmless character toward the life or the health of such that
     I shall succeed in its use to gain the affections of that
     emperice of my soul, I hesitate not to give you such price as
     it may please you to nominate up as high as to $l,000--nay,
     more. Sir, will you do that?

     I have the honor to remain, sir,

     Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

     H. Grandissime.

Frowenfeld slowly transferred his gaze from the paper to his landlord's
face. Dejection and hope struggled with each other in the gaze that was
returned; but when Joseph said, with a countenance full of pity, "I have
no power to help you," the disappointed lover merely looked fixedly for
a moment in the direction of the street, then lifted his hat toward his
head, bowed, and departed.




CHAPTER XIX

ART AND COMMERCE


It was some two or three days after the interview just related that the
apothecary of the rue Royale found it necessary to ask a friend to sit
in the shop a few minutes while he should go on a short errand. He was
kept away somewhat longer than he had intended to stay, for, as they
were coming out of the cathedral, he met Aurora and Clotilde. Both the
ladies greeted him with a cordiality which was almost inebriating,
Aurora even extending her hand. He stood but a moment, responding
blushingly to two or three trivial questions from her; yet even in so
short a time, and although Clotilde gave ear with the sweetest smiles
and loveliest changes of countenance, he experienced a lively renewal of
a conviction that this young lady was most unjustly harboring toward him
a vague disrelish, if not a positive distrust. That she had some mental
reservation was certain.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, as he raised his hat for good-day,
"you din come home yet."

He did not understand until he had crimsoned and answered he knew not
what--something about having intended every day. He felt lifted he knew
not where, Paradise opened, there was a flood of glory, and then he was
alone; the ladies, leaving adieus sweeter than the perfume they carried
away with them, floated into the south and were gone. Why was it that
the elder, though plainly regarded by the younger with admiration,
dependence, and overflowing affection, seemed sometimes to be, one might
almost say, watched by her? He liked Aurora the better.

On his return to the shop his friend remarked that if he received many
such visitors as the one who had called during his absence, he might be
permitted to be vain. It was Honoré Grandissime, and he had left
no message.

"Frowenfeld," said his friend, "it would pay you to employ a regular
assistant."

Joseph was in an abstracted mood.

"I have some thought of doing so."

Unlucky slip! As he pushed open his door next morning, what was his
dismay to find himself confronted by some forty men. Five of them leaped
up from the door-sill, and some thirty-five from the edge of the
_trottoir_, brushed that part of their wearing-apparel which always fits
with great neatness on a Creole, and trooped into the shop. The
apothecary fell behind his defences, that is to say, his prescription
desk, and explained to them in a short and spirited address that he did
not wish to employ any of them on any terms. Nine-tenths of them
understood not a word of English; but his gesture was unmistakable. They
bowed gratefully, and said good-day.

Now Frowenfeld did these young men an injustice; and though they were
far from letting him know it, some of them felt it and interchanged
expressions of feeling reproachful to him as they stopped on the next
corner to watch a man painting a sign. He had treated them as if they
all wanted situations. Was this so? Far from it. Only twenty men were
applicants; the other twenty were friends who had come to see them get
the place. And again, though, as the apothecary had said, none of them
knew anything about the drug business--no, nor about any other business
under the heavens--they were all willing that he should teach
them--except one. A young man of patrician softness and costly apparel
tarried a moment after the general exodus, and quickly concluded that on
Frowenfeld's account it was probably as well that he could not qualify,
since he was expecting from France an important government appointment
as soon as these troubles should be settled and Louisiana restored to
her former happy condition. But he had a friend--a cousin--whom he would
recommend, just the man for the position; a splendid fellow; popular,
accomplished--what? the best trainer of dogs that M. Frowenfeld might
ever hope to look upon; a "so good fisherman as I never saw! "--the
marvel of the ball-room--could handle a partner of twice his weight; the
speaker had seen him take a lady so tall that his head hardly came up to
her bosom, whirl her in the waltz from right to left--this way! and
then, as quick as lightning, turn and whirl her this way, from left to
right--"so grezful ligue a peajohn! He could read and write, and knew
more comig song!"--the speaker would hasten to secure him before he
should take some other situation.

The wonderful waltzer never appeared upon the scene; yet Joseph made
shift to get along, and by and by found a man who partially met his
requirements. The way of it was this: With his forefinger in a book
which he had been reading, he was one day pacing his shop floor in deep
thought. There were two loose threads hanging from the web of incident
weaving around him which ought to connect somewhere; but where? They
were the two visits made to his shop by the young merchant, Honoré
Grandissime. He stopped still to think; what "train of thought" could he
have started in the mind of such a man?

He was about to resume his walk, when there came in, or more strictly
speaking, there shot in, a young, auburn-curled, blue-eyed man, whose
adolescent buoyancy, as much as his delicate, silver-buckled feet and
clothes of perfect fit, pronounced him all-pure Creole. His name, when
it was presently heard, accounted for the blond type by revealing a
Franco-Celtic origin.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," he said, advancing like a boy coming in after
recess, "I 'ave somet'ing beauteeful to place into yo' window."

He wheeled half around as he spoke and seized from a naked black boy,
who at that instant entered, a rectangular object enveloped in paper.

Frowenfeld's window was fast growing to be a place of art exposition. A
pair of statuettes, a golden tobacco-box, a costly jewel-casket, or a
pair of richly gemmed horse-pistols--the property of some ancient
gentleman or dame of emaciated fortune, and which must be sold to keep
up the bravery of good clothes and pomade that hid slow starvation--went
into the shop-window of the ever-obliging apothecary, to be disposed of
by _tombola_. And it is worthy of note in passing, concerning the moral
education of one who proposed to make no conscious compromise with any
sort of evil, that in this drivelling species of gambling he saw nothing
hurtful or improper. But "in Frowenfeld's window" appeared also articles
for simple sale or mere transient exhibition; as, for instance, the
wonderful tapestries of a blind widow of ninety; tremulous little
bunches of flowers, proudly stated to have been made entirely of the
bones of the ordinary catfish; others, large and spreading, the sight of
which would make any botanist fall down "and die as mad as the wild
waves be," whose ticketed merit was that they were composed exclusively
of materials produced upon Creole soil; a picture of the Ursulines'
convent and chapel, done in forty-five minutes by a child of ten years,
the daughter of the widow Felicie Grandissime; and the siege of Troy, in
ordinary ink, done entirely with the pen, the labor of twenty years, by
"a citizen of New Orleans." It was natural that these things should come
to "Frowenfeld's corner," for there, oftener than elsewhere, the critics
were gathered together. Ah! wonderful men, those critics; and,
fortunately, we have a few still left.

The young man with auburn curls rested the edge of his burden upon the
counter, tore away its wrappings and disclosed a painting.

He said nothing--with his mouth; but stood at arm's length balancing the
painting and casting now upon it and now upon Joseph Frowenfeld a look
more replete with triumph than Caesar's three-worded dispatch.

The apothecary fixed upon it long and silently the gaze of a
somnambulist. At length he spoke:

"What is it?"

"Louisiana rif-using to hanter de h-Union!" replied the Creole, with an
ecstasy that threatened to burst forth in hip-hurrahs.

Joseph said nothing, but silently wondered at Louisiana's anatomy.

"Gran' subjec'!" said the Creole.

"Allegorical," replied the hard-pressed apothecary.

"Allegoricon? No, sir! Allegoricon never saw dat pigshoe. If you insist
to know who make dat pigshoe--de hartis' stan' bif-ore you!"

"It is your work?"

"'Tis de work of me, Raoul Innerarity, cousin to de disting-wish Honoré
Grandissime. I swear to you, sir, on stack of Bible' as 'igh as
yo' head!"

He smote his breast.

"Do you wish to put it in the window?"

"Yes, seh."

"For sale?"

M. Raoul Innerarity hesitated a moment before replying:

"'Sieur Frowenfel', I think it is a foolishness to be too proud, eh? I
want you to say, 'My frien', 'Sieur Innerarity, never care to sell
anything; 'tis for egs-hibby-shun'; _mais_--when somebody
look at it, so," the artist cast upon his work a look of languishing
covetousness, "'you say, _foudre tonnerre!_ what de dev'!--I take dat
ris-pon-sibble-ty--you can have her for two hun'red fifty dollah!'
Better not be too proud, eh, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"

"No, sir," said Joseph, proceeding to place it in the window, his new
friend following him about spanielwise; "but you had better let me say
plainly that it is for sale."

"Oh--I don't care--_mais_--my rillation' will never forgive me!
_Mais_--go-ahead-I-don't-care! 'T is for sale."

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," he resumed, as they came away from the window, "one
week ago"--he held up one finger--"what I was doing? Makin' bill of
ladin', my faith!--for my cousin Honoré! an' now, I ham a hartis'! So
soon I foun' dat, I say, 'Cousin Honoré,'"--the eloquent speaker lifted
his foot and administered to the empty air a soft, polite kick--"I never
goin' to do anoder lick o' work so long I live; adieu!"

He lifted a kiss from his lips and wafted it in the direction of his
cousin's office.

"Mr. Innerarity," exclaimed the apothecary, "I fear you are making a
great mistake."

"You tink I hass too much?"

"Well, sir, to be candid, I do; but that is not your greatest mistake."

"What she's worse?"

The apothecary simultaneously smiled and blushed.

"I would rather not say; it is a passably good example of Creole art;
there is but one way by which it can ever be worth what you ask for it."

"What dat is?"

The smile faded and the blush deepened as Frowenfeld replied:

"If it could become the means of reminding this community that crude
ability counts next to nothing in art, and that nothing else in this
world ought to work so hard as genius, it would be worth thousands
of dollars!"

"You tink she is worse a t'ousand dollah?" asked the Creole, shadow and
sunshine chasing each other across his face.

"No, sir."

The unwilling critic strove unnecessarily against his smile.

"Ow much you tink?"

"Mr. Innerarity, as an exercise it is worth whatever truth or skill it
has taught you; to a judge of paintings it is ten dollars' worth of
paint thrown away; but as an article of sale it is worth what it will
bring without misrepresentation."

"Two--hun-rade an'--fifty--dollahs or--not'in'!" said the indignant
Creole, clenching one fist, and with the other hand lifting his hat by
the front corner and slapping it down upon the counter. "Ha, ha, ha! a
pase of waint--a wase of paint! 'Sieur Frowenfel', you don' know not'in'
'bout it! You har a jedge of painting?" he added cautiously.

"No, sir."

"_Eh, bien! foudre tonnerre_!--look yeh! you know? 'Sieur Frowenfel'?
Dat de way de publique halways talk about a hartis's firs' pigshoe. But,
I hass you to pardon me, Monsieur Frowenfel', if I 'ave speak a lill
too warm."

"Then you must forgive me if, in my desire to set you right, I have
spoken with too much liberty. I probably should have said only what I
first intended to say, that unless you are a person of independent
means--"

"You t'ink I would make bill of ladin'? Ah! Hm-m!"

"--that you had made a mistake in throwing up your means of support--"

"But 'e 'as fill de place an' don' want me no mo'. You want a
clerk?--one what can speak fo' lang-widge--French, Eng-lish, Spanish,
_an'_ Italienne? Come! I work for you in de mawnin' an' paint in de
evenin'; come!"

Joseph was taken unaware. He smiled, frowned, passed his hand across his
brow, noticed, for the first time since his delivery of the picture, the
naked little boy standing against the edge of a door, said, "Why--," and
smiled again.

"I riffer you to my cousin Honoré," said Innerarity.

"Have you any knowledge of this business?"

"I 'ave.'

"Can you keep shop in the forenoon or afternoon indifferently, as I may
require?"

"Eh? Forenoon--afternoon?" was the reply.

"Can you paint sometimes in the morning and keep shop in the evening?"

"Yes, seh."

Minor details were arranged on the spot. Raoul dismissed the black boy,
took off his coat and fell to work decanting something, with the
understanding that his salary, a microscopic one, should begin from date
if his cousin should recommend him.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," he called from under the counter, later in the day,
"you t'ink it would be hanny disgrace to paint de pigshoe of a niggah?"

"Certainly not."

"Ah, my soul! what a pigshoe I could paint of Bras-Coupé!"

We have the afflatus in Louisiana, if nothing else.




CHAPTER XX

A VERY NATURAL MISTAKE


MR. Raoul Innerarity proved a treasure. The fact became patent in a few
hours. To a student of the community he was a key, a lamp, a lexicon, a
microscope, a tabulated statement, a book of heraldry, a city directory,
a glass of wine, a Book of Days, a pair of wings, a comic almanac, a
diving bell, a Creole _veritas_. Before the day had had time to cool,
his continual stream of words had done more to elucidate the mysteries
in which his employer had begun to be befogged than half a year of the
apothecary's slow and scrupulous guessing. It was like showing how to
carve a strange fowl. The way he dovetailed story into story and drew
forward in panoramic procession Lufki-Humma and Epaminondas Fusilier,
Zephyr Grandissime and the lady of the _lettre de cachet_, Demosthenes
De Grapion and the _fille à l'hôpital_, Georges De Grapion and the
_fille à la cassette_, Numa Grandissime, father of the two Honorés,
young Nancanou and old Agricola,--the way he made them

     "Knit hands and beat the ground
     In a light, fantastic round,"

would have shamed the skilled volubility of Sheharazade.

"Look!" said the story-teller, summing up; "you take hanny 'istory of
France an' see the hage of my familie. Pipple talk about de Boulignys,
de Sauvés, de Grandprès, de Lemoynes, de St. Maxents,--bla-a-a! De
Grandissimes is as hole as de dev'! What? De mose of de Creole families
is not so hold as plenty of my yallah kinfolks!"

The apothecary found very soon that a little salt improved M. Raoul's
statements.

But here he was, a perfect treasure, and Frowenfeld, fleeing before his
illimitable talking power in order to digest in seclusion the ancestral
episodes of the Grandissimes and De Grapions, laid pleasant plans for
the immediate future. To-morrow morning he would leave the shop in
Raoul's care and call on M. Honoré Grandissime to advise with him
concerning the retention of the born artist as a drug-clerk. To-morrow
evening he would pluck courage and force his large but bashful feet up
to the doorstep of Number 19 rue Bienville. And the next evening he
would go and see what might be the matter with Doctor Keene, who had
looked ill on last parting with the evening group that lounged in
Frowenfeld's door, some three days before. The intermediate hours were
to be devoted, of course, to the prescription desk and his "dead stock."

And yet after this order of movement had been thus compactly planned,
there all the more seemed still to be that abroad which, now on this
side, and now on that, was urging him in a nervous whisper to make
haste. There had escaped into the air, it seemed, and was gliding
about, the expectation of a crisis.

Such a feeling would have been natural enough to the tenants of Number
19 rue Bienville, now spending the tenth of the eighteen days of grace
allowed them in which to save their little fortress. For Palmyre's
assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money
to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was
poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of
impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was,
nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any
really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps
they had not been as diligent as they might have been in canvassing all
possible ways and means for meeting the pecuniary emergency so fast
bearing down upon them. From a Creole standpoint, they were not bad
managers. They could dress delightfully on an incredibly small outlay;
could wear a well-to-do smile over an inward sigh of stifled hunger;
could tell the parents of their one or two scholars to consult their
convenience, and then come home to a table that would make any kind soul
weep; but as to estimating the velocity of bills-payable in their
orbits, such trained sagacity was not theirs. Their economy knew how to
avoid what the Creole-African apothegm calls _commerce Man Lizon--qui
asseté pou' trois picaillons et vend' pou' ein escalin_ (bought for
three picayunes and sold for two); but it was an economy that made
their very hound a Spartan; for, had that economy been half as wise as
it was heroic, his one meal a day would not always have been the cook's
leavings of cold rice and the lickings of the gumbo plates.

On the morning fixed by Joseph Frowenfeld for calling on M. Grandissime,
on the banquette of the rue Toulouse, directly in front of an old
Spanish archway and opposite a blacksmith's shop,--this blacksmith's
shop stood between a jeweller's store and a large, balconied and
dormer-windowed wine-warehouse--Aurore Nancanou, closely veiled, had
halted in a hesitating way and was inquiring of a gigantic negro cartman
the whereabouts of the counting-room of M. Honoré Grandissime.

Before he could respond she descried the name upon a staircase within
the archway, and, thanking the cartman as she would have thanked a
prince, hastened to ascend. An inspiring smell of warm rusks, coming
from a bakery in the paved court below, rushed through the archway and
up the stair and accompanied her into the cemetery-like silence of the
counting-room. There were in the department some fourteen clerks. It was
a den of Grandissimes. More than half of them were men beyond middle
life, and some were yet older. One or two were so handsome, under their
noble silvery locks, that almost any woman--Clotilde, for
instance,--would have thought, "No doubt that one, or that one, is the
head of the house." Aurora approached the railing which shut in the
silent toilers and directed her eyes to the farthest corner of the
room. There sat there at a large desk a thin, sickly-looking man with
very sore eyes and two pairs of spectacles, plying a quill with a
privileged loudness.

"H-h-m-m!" said she, very softly.

A young man laid down his rule and stepped to the rail with a silent
bow. His face showed a jaded look. Night revelry, rather than care or
years, had wrinkled it; but his bow was high-bred.

"Madame,"--in an undertone.

"Monsieur, it is M. Grandissime whom I wish to see," she said in French.

But the young man responded in English.

"You har one tenant, ent it?"

"Yes, seh."

"Zen eet ees M. De Brahmin zat you 'ave to see."

"No, seh; M. Grandissime."

"M. Grandissime nevva see one tenant."

"I muz see M. Grandissime."

Aurora lifted her veil and laid it up on her bonnet.

The clerk immediately crossed the floor to the distant desk. The quill
of the sore-eyed man scratched louder--scratch, scratch--as though it
were trying to scratch under the door of Number 19 rue Bienville--for a
moment, and then ceased. The clerk, with one hand behind him and one
touching the desk, murmured a few words, to which the other, after
glancing under his arm at Aurora, gave a short, low reply and resumed
his pen. The clerk returned, came through a gateway in the railing, led
the way into a rich inner room, and turning with another courtly bow,
handed her a cushioned armchair and retired.

"After eighteen years," thought Aurora, as she found herself alone. It
had been eighteen years since any representative of the De Grapion line
had met a Grandissime face to face, so far as she knew; even that
representative was only her deceased husband, a mere connection by
marriage. How many years it was since her grandfather, Georges De
Grapion, captain of dragoons, had had his fatal meeting with a Mandarin
de Grandissime, she did not remember. There, opposite her on the wall,
was the portrait of a young man in a corslet who might have been M.
Mandarin himself. She felt the blood of her race growing warmer in her
veins. "Insolent tribe," she said, without speaking, "we have no more
men left to fight you; but now wait. See what a woman can do."

These thoughts ran through her mind as her eye passed from one object to
another. Something reminded her of Frowenfeld, and, with mingled
defiance at her inherited enemies and amusement at the apothecary, she
indulged in a quiet smile. The smile was still there as her glance in
its gradual sweep reached a small mirror.

She almost leaped from her seat.

Not because that mirror revealed a recess which she had not previously
noticed; not because behind a costly desk therein sat a youngish man,
reading a letter; not because he might have been observing her, for it
was altogether likely that, to avoid premature interruption, he had
avoided looking up; nor because this was evidently Honoré Grandissime;
but because Honoré Grandissime, if this were he, was the same person
whom she had seen only with his back turned in the pharmacy--the rider
whose horse ten days ago had knocked her down, the Lieutenant of
Dragoons who had unmasked and to whom she had unmasked at the ball! Fly!
But where? How? It was too late; she had not even time to lower her
veil. M. Grandissime looked up at the glass, dropped the letter with a
slight start of consternation and advanced quickly toward her. For an
instant her embarrassment showed itself in a mantling blush and a
distressful yearning to escape; but the next moment she rose, all
a-flutter within, it is true, but with a face as nearly sedate as the
inborn witchery of her eyes would allow.

He spoke in Parisian French:

"Please be seated, madame."

She sank down.

"Do you wish to see me?"

"No, sir."

She did not see her way out of this falsehood, but--she couldn't say
yes.

Silence followed.

"Whom do--"

"I wish to see M. Honoré Grandissime."

"That is my name, madame."

"Ah!"--with an angelic smile; she had collected her wits now, and was
ready for war. "You are not one of his clerks?"

M. Grandissime smiled softly, while he said to himself: "You little
honey-bee, you want to sting me, eh?" and then he answered her question.

"No, madame; I am the gentleman you are looking for."

"The gentleman she was look--" her pride resented the fact.
"Me!"--thought she--"I am the lady whom, I have not a doubt, you have
been longing to meet ever since the ball;" but her look was unmoved
gravity. She touched her handkerchief to her lips and handed him the
rent notice.

"I received that from your office the Monday before last."

There was a slight emphasis in the announcement of the time; it was the
day of the run-over.

Honoré Grandissime, stopping with the rent-notice only half unfolded,
saw the advisability of calling up all the resources of his sagacity and
wit in order to answer wisely; and as they answered his call a brighter
nobility so overspread face and person that Aurora inwardly exclaimed at
it even while she exulted in her thrust.

"Monday before last?"

She slightly bowed.

"A serious misfortune befell me that day," said M. Grandissime.

"Ah?" replied the lady, raising her brows with polite distress, "but
you have entirely recovered, I suppose."

"It was I, madame, who that evening caused you a mortification for which
I fear you will accept no apology."

"On the contrary," said Aurora, with an air of generous protestation,
"it is I who should apologize; I fear I injured your horse."

M. Grandissime only smiled, and opening the rent-notice dropped his
glance upon it while he said in a preoccupied tone:

"My horse is very well, I thank you."

But as he read the paper, his face assumed a serious air and he seemed
to take an unnecessary length of time to reach the bottom of it.

"He is trying to think how he will get rid of me," thought Aurora; "he
is making up some pretext with which to dismiss me, and when the tenth
of March comes we shall be put into the street."

M. Grandissime extended the letter toward her, but she did not lift her
hands.

"I beg to assure you, madame, I could never have permitted this notice
to reach you from my office; I am not the Honoré Grandissime for whom
this is signed."

Aurora smiled in a way to signify clearly that that was just the
subterfuge she had been anticipating. Had she been at home she would
have thrown herself, face downward, upon the bed; but she only smiled
meditatively upward at the picture of an East Indian harbor and made an
unnecessary rearrangement of her handkerchief under her folded hands.

"There are, you know,"--began Honoré, with a smile which changed the
meaning to "You know very well there are"--"two Honoré Grandissimes.
This one who sent you this letter is a man of color--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Aurora, with a sudden malicious sparkle.

"If you will entrust this paper to me," said Honoré, quietly, "I will
see him and do now engage that you shall have no further trouble about
it. Of course, I do not mean that I will pay it, myself; I dare not
offer to take such a liberty."

Then he felt that a warm impulse had carried him a step too far.

Aurora rose up with a refusal as firm as it was silent. She neither
smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable
practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as
she spoke:

"I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice
in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter. I
shall have to attend to it myself."

"Ah! little enchantress," thought her grave-faced listener, as he gave
attention, "this, after all--ball and all--is the mood in which you look
your very, very best"--a fact which nobody knew better than the
enchantress herself.

He walked beside her toward the open door leading back into the
counting-room, and the dozen or more clerks, who, each by some ingenuity
of his own, managed to secure a glimpse of them, could not fail to feel
that they had never before seen quite so fair a couple. But she dropped
her veil, bowed M. Grandissime a polite "No farther," and passed out.

M. Grandissime walked once up and down his private office, gave the door
a soft push with his foot and lighted a cigar.

The clerk who had before acted as usher came in and handed him a slip of
paper with a name written on it. M. Grandissime folded it twice, gazed
out the window, and finally nodded. The clerk disappeared, and Joseph
Frowenfeld paused an instant in the door and then advanced, with a
buoyant good-morning.

"Good-morning," responded M. Grandissime.

He smiled and extended his hand, yet there was a mechanical and
preoccupied air that was not what Joseph felt justified in expecting.

"How can I serve you, Mr. Frhowenfeld?" asked the merchant, glancing
through into the counting-room. His coldness was almost all in Joseph's
imagination, but to the apothecary it seemed such that he was nearly
induced to walk away without answering. However, he replied:

"A young man whom I have employed refers to you to recommend him."

"Yes, sir? Prhay, who is that?"

"Your cousin, I believe, Mr. Raoul Innerarity."

M. Grandissime gave a low, short laugh, and took two steps toward his
desk.

"Rhaoul? Oh yes, I rhecommend Rhaoul to you. As an assistant in yo'
sto'?--the best man you could find."

"Thank you, sir," said Joseph, coldly. "Good-morning!" he added turning
to go.

"Mr. Frhowenfeld," said the other, "do you evva rhide?"

"I used to ride," replied the apothecary, turning, hat in hand, and
wondering what such a question could mean.

"If I send a saddle-hoss to yo' do' on day aftah to-morrhow evening at
fo' o'clock, will you rhide out with me for-h about a hour-h and a
half--just for a little pleasu'e?"

Joseph was yet more astonished than before. He hesitated, accepted the
invitation, and once more said good-morning.




CHAPTER XXI

DOCTOR KEENE RECOVERS HIS BULLET


It early attracted the apothecary's notice, in observing the
civilization around him, that it kept the flimsy false bottoms in its
social errors only by incessant reiteration. As he re-entered the shop,
dissatisfied with himself for accepting M. Grandissime's invitation to
ride, he knew by the fervent words which he overheard from the lips of
his employee that the f.m.c. had been making one of his reconnoisances,
and possibly had ventured in to inquire for his tenant.

"I t'ink, me, dat hanny w'ite man is a gen'leman; but I don't care if a
man are good like a h-angel, if 'e har not pu'e w'ite '_ow can_ 'e be a
gen'leman?"

Raoul's words were addressed to a man who, as he rose up and handed
Frowenfeld a note, ratified the Creole's sentiment by a spurt of tobacco
juice and an affirmative "Hm-m."

The note was a lead-pencil scrawl, without date.

     DEAR JOE: Come and see me some time this evening.
     I am on my back in bed. Want your help in a little
     matter.   Yours,   Keene.

     I have found out who ---- ----"

Frowenfeld pondered: "I have found out who ---- ----" Ah! Doctor Keene
had found out who stabbed Agricola.

Some delays occurred in the afternoon, but toward sunset the apothecary
dressed and went out. From the doctor's bedside in the rue St. Louis, if
not delayed beyond all expectation, he would proceed to visit the ladies
at Number 19 rue Bienville. The air was growing cold and threatening
bad weather.

He found the Doctor prostrate, wasted, hoarse, cross and almost too weak
for speech. He could only whisper, as his friend approached his pillow:

"These vile lungs!"

"Hemorrhage?"

The invalid held up three small, freckled fingers.

Joseph dared not show pity in his gaze, but it seemed savage not to
express some feeling, so after standing a moment he began to say:

"I am very sorry--"

"You needn't bother yourself!" whispered the doctor, who lay frowning
upward. By and by he whispered again.

Frowenfeld bent his ear, and the little man, so merry when well,
repeated, in a savage hiss:

"Sit down!"

It was some time before he again broke the silence.

"Tell you what I want--you to do--for me."

"Well, sir--"

"Hold on!" gasped the invalid, shutting his eyes with impatience,--"till
I get through."

He lay a little while motionless, and then drew from under his pillow a
wallet, and from the wallet a pistol-ball.

"Took that out--a badly neglected wound--last day I saw you." Here a
pause, an appalling cough, and by and by a whisper: "Knew the bullet in
an instant." He smiled wearily. "Peculiar size." He made a feeble
motion. Frowenfeld guessed the meaning of it and handed him a pistol
from a small table. The ball slipped softly home. "Refused two hundred
dollars--those pistols"--with a sigh and closed eyes. By and by
again--"Patient had smart fever--but it will be gone--time you
get--there. Want you to--take care--t' I get up."

"But, Doctor--"

The sick man turned away his face with a petulant frown; but presently,
with an effort at self-control, brought it back and whispered:

"You mean you--not physician?"

"Yes."

"No. No more are half--doc's. You can do it. Simple gun-shot wound in
the shoulder." A rest. "Pretty wound; ranges"--he gave up the effort to
describe it. "You'll see it." Another rest. "You see--this matter has
been kept quiet so far. I don't want any one--else to know--anything
about it." He sighed audibly and looked as though he had gone to sleep,
but whispered again, with his eyes closed--"'specially on culprit's
own account."

Frowenfeld was silent: but the invalid was waiting for an answer, and,
not getting it, stirred peevishly.

"Do you wish me to go to-night?" asked the apothecary.

"To-morrow morning. Will you--?"

"Certainly, Doctor."

The invalid lay quite still for several minutes, looking steadily at his
friend, and finally let a faint smile play about his mouth,--a wan
reminder of his habitual roguery.

"Good boy," he whispered.

Frowenfeld rose and straightened the bedclothes, took a few steps about
the room, and finally returned. The Doctor's restless eye had followed
him at every movement.

"You'll go?"

"Yes," replied the apothecary, hat in hand; "where is it?"

"Corner Bienville and Bourbon,--upper river corner,--yellow one-story
house, doorsteps on street. You know the house?"

"I think I do."

"Good-night. Here!--I wish you would send that black girl in here--as
you go out--make me better fire--Joe!" the call was a ghostly whisper.

Frowenfeld paused in the door.

"You don't mind my--bad manners, Joe?"

The apothecary gave one of his infrequent smiles.

"No, Doctor."

He started toward Number 19 rue Bienville, but a light, cold sprinkle
set in, and he turned back toward his shop. No sooner had the rain got
him there than it stopped, as rain sometimes will do.




CHAPTER XXII

WARS WITHIN THE BREAST


The next morning came in frigid and gray. The unseasonable numerals
which the meteorologist recorded in his tables might have provoked a
superstitious lover of better weather to suppose that Monsieur Danny,
the head imp of discord, had been among the aërial currents. The
passionate southern sky, looking down and seeing some six thousand to
seventy-five hundred of her favorite children disconcerted and
shivering, tried in vain, for two hours, to smile upon them with a
little frozen sunshine, and finally burst into tears.

In thus giving way to despondency, it is sad to say, the sky was closely
imitating the simultaneous behavior of Aurora Nancanou. Never was pretty
lady in cheerier mood than that in which she had come home from Honoré's
counting-room. Hard would it be to find the material with which to build
again the castles-in-air that she founded upon two or three little
discoveries there made. Should she tell them to Clotilde? Ah! and for
what? No, Clotilde was a dear daughter--ha! few women were capable of
having such a daughter as Clotilde; but there were things about which
she was entirely too scrupulous. So, when she came in from that errand
profoundly satisfied that she would in future hear no more about the
rent than she might choose to hear, she had been too shrewd to expose
herself to her daughter's catechising. She would save her little
revelations for disclosure when they might be used to advantage. As she
threw her bonnet upon the bed, she exclaimed, in a tone of gentle and
wearied reproach:

"Why did you not remind me that M. Honoré Grandissime, that precious
somebody-great, has the honor to rejoice in a quadroon half-brother of
the same illustrious name? Why did you not remind me, eh?"

"Ah! and you know it as well as A, B, C," playfully retorted Clotilde.

"Well, guess which one is our landlord?"

"Which one?"

"_Ma foi_! how do _I_ know? I had to wait a shameful long time to see
_Monsieur le prince_,--just because I am a De Grapion, I know. When at
last I saw him, he says, 'Madame, this is the other Honoré Grandissime.'
There, you see we are the victims of a conspiracy; if I go to the other,
he will send me back to the first. But, Clotilde, my darling," cried the
beautiful speaker, beamingly, "dismiss all fear and care; we shall have
no more trouble about it."

"And how, indeed, do you know that?"

"Something tells it to me in my ear. I feel it! Trust in Providence, my
child. Look at me, how happy I am; but you--you never trust in
Providence. That is why we have so much trouble,--because you don't
trust in Providence. Oh! I am so hungry, let us have dinner."

"What sort of a person is M. Grandissime in his appearance?" asked
Clotilde, over their feeble excuse for a dinner.

"What sort? Do you imagine I had nothing better to do than notice
whether a Grandissime is good-looking or not? For all I know to the
contrary, he is--some more rice, please, my dear."

But this light-heartedness did not last long. It was based on an
unutterable secret, all her own, about which she still had trembling
doubts; this, too, notwithstanding her consultation of the dark oracles.
She was going to stop that. In the long run, these charms and spells
themselves bring bad luck. Moreover, the practice, indulged in to
excess, was wicked, and she had promised Clotilde,--that droll little
saint,--to resort to them no more. Hereafter, she should do nothing of
the sort, except, to be sure, to take such ordinary precautions against
misfortune as casting upon the floor a little of whatever she might be
eating or drinking to propitiate M. Assonquer. She would have liked,
could she have done it without fear of detection, to pour upon the front
door-sill an oblation of beer sweetened with black molasses to Papa
Lébat (who keeps the invisible keys of all the doors that admit
suitors), but she dared not; and then, the hound would surely have
licked it up. Ah me! was she forgetting that she was a widow?

She was in poor plight to meet the all but icy gray morning; and, to
make her misery still greater, she found, on dressing, that an accident
had overtaken her, which she knew to be a trustworthy sign of love grown
cold. She had lost--alas! how can we communicate it in English!--a small
piece of lute-string ribbon, about _so long_, which she used for--not a
necktie exactly, but--

And she hunted and hunted, and couldn't bear to give up the search, and
sat down to breakfast and ate nothing, and rose up and searched again
(not that she cared for the omen), and struck the hound with the broom,
and broke the broom, and hunted again, and looked out the front window,
and saw the rain beginning to fall, and dropped into a chair--crying,
"Oh! Clotilde, my child, my child! the rent collector will be here
Saturday and turn us into the street!" and so fell a-weeping.

A little tear-letting lightened her unrevealable burden, and she rose,
rejoicing that Clotilde had happened to be out of eye-and-ear-shot. The
scanty fire in the fireplace was ample to warm the room; the fire within
her made it too insufferably hot! Rain or no rain, she parted the
window-curtains and lifted the sash. What a mark for Love's arrow she
was, as, at the window, she stretched her two arms upward! And, "right
so," who should chance to come cantering by, the big drops of rain
pattering after him, but the knightliest man in that old town, and the
fittest to perfect the fine old-fashioned poetry of the scene!

"Clotilde," said Aurora, turning from her mirror, whither she had
hastened to see if her face showed signs of tears (Clotilde was entering
the room), "we shall never be turned out of this house by Honoré
Grandissime!"

"Why?" asked Clotilde, stopping short in the floor, forgetting Aurora's
trust in Providence, and expecting to hear that M. Grandissime had been
found dead in his bed.

"Because I saw him just now; he rode by on horseback. A man with that
noble face could never _do such a thing_!"

The astonished Clotilde looked at her mother searchingly. This sort of
speech about a Grandissime? But Aurora was the picture of innocence.

Clotilde uttered a derisive laugh.

"_Impertinente_!" exclaimed the other, laboring not to join in it.

"Ah-h-h!" cried Clotilde, in the same mood, "and what face had he when
he wrote that letter?"

"What face?"

"Yes, what face?"

"I do not know what face you mean," said Aurora.

"What face," repeated Clotilde, "had Monsieur Honoré de Grandissime on
the day that he wrote--"

"Ah, f-fah!" cried Aurora, and turned away, "you don't know what you are
talking about! You make me wish sometimes that I were dead!"

Clotilde had gone and shut down the sash, as it began to rain hard and
blow. As she was turning away, her eye was attracted by an object at
a distance.

"What is it?" asked Aurora, from a seat before the fire.

"Nothing," said Clotilde, weary of the sensational,--"a man in the
rain."

It was the apothecary of the rue Royale, turning from that street toward
the rue Bourbon, and bowing his head against the swirling norther.




CHAPTER XXIII

FROWENFELD KEEPS HIS APPOINTMENT


Doctor Keene, his ill-humor slept off, lay in bed in a quiescent state
of great mental enjoyment. At times he would smile and close his eyes,
open them again and murmur to himself, and turn his head languidly and
smile again. And when the rain and wind, all tangled together, came
against the window with a whirl and a slap, his smile broadened almost
to laughter.

"He's in it," he murmured, "he's just reaching there. I would give fifty
dollars to see him when he first gets into the house and sees where
he is."

As this wish was finding expression on the lips of the little sick man,
Joseph Frowenfeld was making room on a narrow doorstep for the outward
opening of a pair of small batten doors, upon which he had knocked with
the vigorous haste of a man in the rain. As they parted, he hurriedly
helped them open, darted within, heedless of the odd black shape which
shuffled out of his way, wheeled and clapped them shut again, swung down
the bar and then turned, and with the good-natured face that properly
goes with a ducking, looked to see where he was.

One object--around which everything else instantly became nothing--set
his gaze. On the high bed, whose hangings of blue we have already
described, silently regarding the intruder with a pair of eyes that sent
an icy thrill through him and fastened him where he stood, lay Palmyre
Philosophe. Her dress was a long, snowy morning-gown, wound loosely
about at the waist with a cord and tassel of scarlet silk; a
bright-colored woollen shawl covered her from the waist down, and a
necklace of red coral heightened to its utmost her untamable beauty.

An instantaneous indignation against Doctor Keene set the face of the
speechless apothecary on fire, and this, being as instantaneously
comprehended by the philosophe, was the best of introductions. Yet her
gaze did not change.

The Congo negress broke the spell with a bristling protest, all in
African b's and k's, but hushed and drew off at a single word of command
from her mistress.

In Frowenfeld's mind an angry determination was taking shape, to be
neither trifled with nor contemned. And this again the quadroon
discerned, before he was himself aware of it.

"Doctor Keene"--he began, but stopped, so uncomfortable were her eyes.

She did not stir or reply.

Then he bethought him with a start, and took off his dripping hat.

At this a perceptible sparkle of imperious approval shot along her
glance; it gave the apothecary speech.

"The doctor is sick, and he asked me to dress your wound."

She made the slightest discernible motion of the head, remained for a
moment silent, and then, still with the same eye, motioned her hand
toward a chair near a comfortable fire.

He sat down. It would be well to dry himself. He drew near the hearth
and let his gaze fall into the fire. When he presently lifted his eyes
and looked full upon the woman with a steady, candid glance, she was
regarding him with apparent coldness, but with secret diligence and
scrutiny, and a yet more inward and secret surprise and admiration. Hard
rubbing was bringing out the grain of the apothecary. But she presently
suppressed the feeling. She hated men.

But Frowenfeld, even while his eyes met hers, could not resent her
hostility. This monument of the shame of two races--this poisonous
blossom of crime growing out of crime--this final, unanswerable white
man's accuser--this would-be murderess--what ranks and companies would
have to stand up in the Great Day with her and answer as accessory
before the fact! He looked again into the fire.

The patient spoke:

"_Eh bi'n, Miché_?" Her look was severe, but less aggressive. The
shuffle of the old negress's feet was heard and she appeared bearing
warm and cold water and fresh bandages; after depositing them
she tarried.

"Your fever is gone," said Frowenfeld, standing by the bed. He had laid
his fingers on her wrist. She brushed them off and once more turned full
upon him the cold hostility of her passionate eyes.

The apothecary, instead of blushing, turned pale.

"You--" he was going to say, "You insult me;" but his lips came tightly
together. Two big cords appeared between his brows, and his blue eyes
spoke for him. Then, as the returning blood rushed even to his forehead,
he said, speaking his words one by one;

"Please understand that you must trust me."

She may not have understood his English, but she comprehended,
nevertheless. She looked up fixedly for a moment, then passively closed
her eyes. Then she turned, and Frowenfeld put out one strong arm, helped
her to a sitting posture on the side of the bed and drew the shawl
about her.

"Zizi," she said, and the negress, who had stood perfectly still since
depositing the water and bandages, came forward and proceeded to bare
the philosophe's superb shoulder. As Frowenfeld again put forward his
hand, she lifted her own as if to prevent him, but he kindly and firmly
put it away and addressed himself with silent diligence to his task; and
by the time he had finished, his womanly touch, his commanding
gentleness, his easy despatch, had inspired Palmyre not only with a
sense of safety, comfort, and repose, but with a pleased wonder.

This woman had stood all her life with dagger drawn, on the defensive
against what certainly was to her an unmerciful world. With possibly
one exception, the man now before her was the only one she had ever
encountered whose speech and gesture were clearly keyed to that profound
respect which is woman's first, foundation claim on man. And yet, by
inexorable decree, she belonged to what we used to call "the happiest
people under the sun." We ought to stop saying that.

So far as Palmyre knew, the entire masculine wing of the mighty and
exalted race, three-fourths of whose blood bequeathed her none of its
prerogatives, regarded her as legitimate prey. The man before her did
not. There lay the fundamental difference that, in her sight, as soon as
she discovered it, glorified him. Before this assurance the cold
fierceness of her eyes gave way, and a friendlier light from them
rewarded the apothecary's final touch. He called for more pillows, made
a nest of them, and, as she let herself softly into it, directed his
next consideration toward his hat and the door.

It was many an hour after he had backed out into the trivial remains of
the rain-storm before he could replace with more tranquillizing images
the vision of the philosophe reclining among her pillows, in the act of
making that uneasy movement of her fingers upon the collar button of her
robe, which women make when they are uncertain about the perfection of
their dishabille, and giving her inaudible adieu with the majesty of
an empress.




CHAPTER XXIV

FROWENFELD MAKES AN ARGUMENT


On the afternoon of the same day on which Frowenfeld visited the house
of the philosophe, the weather, which had been so unfavorable to his
late plans, changed; the rain ceased, the wind drew around to the south,
and the barometer promised a clear sky. Wherefore he decided to leave
his business, when he should have made his evening weather notes, to the
care of M. Raoul Innerarity, and venture to test both Mademoiselle
Clotilde's repellent attitude and Aurora's seeming cordiality at Number
19 rue Bienville.

Why he should go was a question which the apothecary felt himself but
partially prepared to answer. What necessity called him, what good was
to be effected, what was to happen next, were points he would have liked
to be clear upon. That he should be going merely because he was invited
to come--merely for the pleasure of breathing their atmosphere--that he
should be supinely gravitating toward them--this conclusion he
positively could not allow; no, no; the love of books and the fear of
women alike protested.

True, they were a part of that book which is pronounced "the proper
study of mankind,"--indeed, that was probably the reason which he
sought: he was going to contemplate them as a frontispiece to that
unwriteable volume which he had undertaken to con. Also, there was a
charitable motive. Doctor Keene, months before, had expressed a deep
concern regarding their lack of protection and even of daily provision;
he must quietly look into that. Would some unforeseen circumstance shut
him off this evening again from this very proper use of time and
opportunity?

As he was sitting at the table in his back room, registering his sunset
observations, and wondering what would become of him if Aurora should be
out and that other in, he was startled by a loud, deep voice exclaiming,
close behind him:

"_Eh, bien! Monsieur le Professeur!_"

Frowenfeld knew by the tone, before he looked behind him, that he would
find M. Agricola Fusilier very red in the face; and when he looked, the
only qualification he could make was that the citizen's countenance was
not so ruddy as the red handkerchief in which his arm was hanging.

"What have you there?" slowly continued the patriarch, taking his free
hand off his fettered arm and laying it upon the page as Frowenfeld
hurriedly rose, and endeavored to shut the book.

"Some private memoranda," answered the meteorologist, managing to get
one page turned backward, reddening with confusion and indignation, and
noticing that Agricola's spectacles were upside down.

"Private! Eh? No such thing, sir! Professor Frowenfeld, allow me" (a
classic oath) "to say to your face, sir, that you are the most brilliant
and the most valuable man--of your years--in afflicted Louisiana! Ha!"
(reading:) "'Morning observation; Cathedral clock, 7 A.M. Thermometer 70
degrees.' Ha! 'Hygrometer l5'--but this is not to-day's weather? Ah! no.
Ha! 'Barometer 30.380.' Ha! 'Sky cloudy, dark; wind, south, light.' Ha!
'River rising.' Ha! Professor Frowenfeld, when will you give your
splendid services to your section? You must tell me, my son, for I ask
you, my son, not from curiosity, but out of impatient interest."

"I cannot say that I shall ever publish my tables," replied the "son,"
pulling at the book.

"Then, sir, in the name of Louisiana," thundered the old man, clinging
to the book, "I can! They shall be published! Ah! yes, dear Frowenfeld.
The book, of course, will be in French, eh? You would not so affront the
most sacred prejudices of the noble people to whom you owe everything as
to publish it in English? You--ah! have we torn it?"

"I do not write French," said the apothecary, laying the torn edges
together.

"Professor Frowenfeld, men are born for each other. What do I behold
before me? I behold before me, in the person of my gifted young friend,
a supplement to myself! Why has Nature strengthened the soul of Agricola
to hold the crumbling fortress of this body until these eyes--which were
once, my dear boy, as proud and piercing as the battle-steed's--have
become dim?"

Joseph's insurmountable respect for gray hairs kept him standing, but
he did not respond with any conjecture as to Nature's intentions, and
there was a stern silence.

The crumbling fortress resumed, his voice pitched low like the beginning
of the long roll. He knew Nature's design.

"It was in order that you, Professor Frowenfeld, might become my vicar!
Your book shall be in French! We must give it a wide scope! It shall
contain valuable geographical, topographical, biographical, and
historical notes. It shall contain complete lists of all the officials
in the province (I don't say territory, I say province) with their
salaries and perquisites; ah! we will expose that! And--ha! I will write
some political essays for it. Raoul shall illustrate it. Honoré shall
give you money to publish it. Ah! Professor Frowenfeld, the star of your
fame is rising out of the waves of oblivion! Come--I dropped in
purposely to ask you--come across the street and take a glass of
_taffia_ with Agricola Fusilier."

This crowning honor the apothecary was insane enough to decline, and
Agricola went away with many professions of endearment, but secretly
offended because Joseph had not asked about his wound.

All the same the apothecary, without loss of time, departed for the
yellow-washed cottage, Number 19 rue Bienville.

"To-morrow, at four P.M.," he said to himself, "if the weather is
favorable, I ride with M. Grandissime."

He almost saw his books and instruments look up at him reproachfully.

The ladies were at home. Aurora herself opened the door, and Clotilde
came forward from the bright fireplace with a cordiality never before so
unqualified. There was something about these ladies--in their simple,
but noble grace, in their half-Gallic, half-classic beauty, in a jocund
buoyancy mated to an amiable dignity--that made them appear to the
scholar as though they had just bounded into life from the garlanded
procession of some old fresco. The resemblance was not a little helped
on by the costume of the late Revolution (most acceptably chastened and
belated by the distance from Paris). Their black hair, somewhat heavier
on Clotilde's head, where it rippled once or twice, was knotted _en
Grecque_, and adorned only with the spoils of a nosegay given to
Clotilde by a chivalric small boy in the home of her music scholar.

"We was expectin' you since several days," said Clotilde, as the three
sat down before the fire, Frowenfeld in a cushioned chair whose
moth-holes had been carefully darned.

Frowenfeld intimated, with tolerable composure, that matters beyond his
control had delayed his coming, beyond his intention.

"You gedd'n' ridge," said Aurora, dropping her wrists across each other.

Frowenfeld, for once, laughed outright, and it seemed so odd in him to
do so that both the ladies followed his example. The ambition to be rich
had never entered his thought, although in an unemotional, German way,
he was prospering in a little city where wealth was daily pouring in,
and a man had only to keep step, so to say, to march into possessions.

"You hought to 'ave a mo' larger sto' an' some clerque," pursued Aurora.

The apothecary answered that he was contemplating the enlargement of his
present place or removal to a roomier, and that he had already employed
an assistant.

"Oo it is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"

Clotilde turned toward the questioner a remonstrative glance.

"His name," replied Frowenfeld, betraying a slight embarrassment,
"is--Innerarity; Mr. Raoul Innerarity; he is--"

"Ee pain' dad pigtu' w'at 'angin' in yo' window?"

Clotilde's remonstrance rose to a slight movement and a murmur.

Frowenfeld answered in the affirmative, and possibly betrayed the faint
shadow of a smile. The response was a peal of laughter from both ladies.

"He is an excellent drug clerk," said Frowenfeld defensively.

Whereat Aurora laughed again, leaning over and touching Clotilde's knee
with one finger.

"An' excellen' drug cl'--ha, ha, ha! oh!"

"You muz podden uz, M'sieu' Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, with forced
gravity.

Aurora sighed her participation in the apology; and, a few moments
later, the apothecary and both ladies (the one as fond of the abstract
as the other two were ignorant of the concrete) were engaged in an
animated, running discussion on art, society, climate, education,--all
those large, secondary _desiderata_ which seem of first importance to
young ambition and secluded beauty, flying to and fro among these
subjects with all the liveliness and uncertainty of a game of
pussy-wants-a-corner.

Frowenfeld had never before spent such an hour. At its expiration, he
had so well held his own against both the others, that the three had
settled down to this sort of entertainment: Aurora would make an
assertion, or Clotilde would ask a question; and Frowenfeld, moved by
that frankness and ardent zeal for truth which had enlisted the early
friendship of Dr. Keene, amused and attracted Honoré Grandissime, won
the confidence of the f.m.c., and tamed the fiery distrust and enmity of
Palmyre, would present his opinions without the thought of a reservation
either in himself or his hearers. On their part, they would sit in deep
attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and responding to
enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional
"yes-seh," or "ceddenly," or "of coze," or,--prettier affirmation
still,--a solemn drooping of the eyelids, a slight compression of the
lips, and a low, slow declination of the head.

"The bane of all Creole art-effort"--(we take up the apothecary's words
at a point where Clotilde was leaning forward and slightly frowning in
an honest attempt to comprehend his condensed English)--"the bane of all
Creole art-effort, so far as I have seen it, is amateurism."

"Amateu--" murmured Clotilde, a little beclouded on the main word and
distracted by a French difference of meaning, but planting an elbow on
one knee in the genuineness of her attention, and responding with a bow.

"That is to say," said Frowenfeld, apologizing for the homeliness of his
further explanation by a smile, "a kind of ambitious indolence that lays
very large eggs, but can neither see the necessity for building a nest
beforehand, nor command the patience to hatch the eggs afterward."

"Of coze," said Aurora.

"It is a great pity," said the sermonizer, looking at the face of
Clotilde, elongated in the brass andiron; and, after a pause: "Nothing
on earth can take the place of hard and patient labor. But that, in this
community, is not esteemed; most sorts of it are contemned; the humbler
sorts are despised, and the higher are regarded with mingled patronage
and commiseration. Most of those who come to my shop with their efforts
at art hasten to explain, either that they are merely seeking pastime,
or else that they are driven to their course by want; and if I advise
them to take their work back and finish it, they take it back and never
return. Industry is not only despised, but has been degraded and
disgraced, handed over into the hands of African savages."

"Doze Creole' is _lezzy_," said Aurora.

"That is a hard word to apply to those who do not _consciously_ deserve
it," said Frowenfeld; "but if they could only wake up to the fact,--find
it out themselves--"

"Ceddenly," said Clotilde.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, leaning her head on one side, "some
pipple thing it is doze climade; 'ow you lag doze climade?"

"I do not suppose," replied the visitor, "there is a more delightful
climate in the world."

"Ah-h-h!"--both ladies at once, in a low, gracious tone of
acknowledgment.

"I thing Louisiana is a paradize-me!" said Aurora. "W'ere you goin' fin'
sudge a h-air?" She respired a sample of it. "W'ere you goin' fin' sudge
a so ridge groun'? De weed' in my bag yard is twenny-five feet 'igh!"

"Ah! maman!"

"Twenty-six!" said Aurora, correcting herself. "W'ere you fin' sudge a
reever lag dad Mississippi? _On dit_," she said, turning to Clotilde,
"_que ses eaux ont la propriété de contribuer même à multiplier l'espèce
humaine_--ha, ha, ha!"

Clotilde turned away an unmoved countenance to hear Frowenfeld.

Frowenfeld had contracted a habit of falling into meditation whenever
the French language left him out of the conversation.

"Yes," he said, breaking a contemplative pause, "the climate is _too_
comfortable and the soil too rich,--though I do not think it is entirely
on their account that the people who enjoy them are so sadly in arrears
to the civilized world." He blushed with the fear that his talk was
bookish, and felt grateful to Clotilde for seeming to understand
his speech.

"W'ad you fin' de rizzon is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" she asked.

"I do not wish to philosophize," he answered.

"_Mais_, go hon." "_Mais_, go ahade," said both ladies, settling
themselves.

"It is largely owing," exclaimed Frowenfeld, with sudden fervor, "to a
defective organization of society, which keeps this community, and will
continue to keep it for an indefinite time to come, entirely unprepared
and disinclined to follow the course of modern thought."

"Of coze," murmured Aurora, who had lost her bearings almost at the
first word.

"One great general subject of thought now is human rights,--universal
human rights. The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured
with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is
built. Human rights is, of all subjects, the one upon which this
community is most violently determined to hear no discussion. It has
pronounced that slavery and caste are right, and sealed up the whole
subject. What, then, will they do with the world's literature? They will
coldly decline to look at it, and will become, more and more as the
world moves on, a comparatively illiterate people."

"Bud, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, as Frowenfeld paused--Aurora
was stunned to silence,--"de Unitee State' goin' pud doze nigga'
free, aind it?"

Frowenfeld pushed his hair hard back. He was in the stream now, and
might as well go through.

"I have heard that charge made, even by some Americans. I do not know.
But there is a slavery that no legislation can abolish,--the slavery of
caste. That, like all the slaveries on earth, is a double bondage. And
what a bondage it is which compels a community, in order to preserve its
established tyrannies, to walk behind the rest of the intelligent world!
What a bondage is that which incites a people to adopt a system of
social and civil distinctions, possessing all the enormities and none of
the advantages of those systems which Europe is learning to despise!
This system, moreover, is only kept up by a flourish of weapons. We have
here what you may call an armed aristocracy. The class over which these
instruments of main force are held is chosen for its servility,
ignorance, and cowardice; hence, indolence in the ruling class. When a
man's social or civil standing is not dependent on his knowing how to
read, he is not likely to become a scholar."

"Of coze," said Aurora, with a pensive respiration, "I thing id is doze
climade," and the apothecary stopped, as a man should who finds himself
unloading large philosophy in a little parlor.

"I thing, me, dey hought to pud doze quadroon' free?" It was Clotilde
who spoke, ending with the rising inflection to indicate the tentative
character of this daringly premature declaration.

Frowenfeld did not answer hastily.

"The quadroons," said he, "want a great deal more than mere free papers
can secure them. Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right
which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a
mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and good will of
the people--'the people,' did I say? I mean the ruling class." He
stopped again. One must inevitably feel a little silly, setting up
tenpins for ladies who are too polite, even if able, to bowl them down.

Aurora and the visitor began to speak simultaneously; both apologized,
and Aurora said:

"'Sieur Frowenfel', w'en I was a lill girl,"--and Frowenfeld knew that
he was going to hear the story of Palmyre. Clotilde moved, with the
obvious intention to mend the fire. Aurora asked, in French, why she did
not call the cook to do it, and Frowenfeld said, "Let me,"--threw on
some wood, and took a seat nearer Clotilde. Aurora had the floor.




CHAPTER XXV

AURORA AS A HISTORIAN


Alas! the phonograph was invented three-quarters of a century too late.
If type could entrap one-half the pretty oddities of Aurora's
speech,--the arch, the pathetic, the grave, the earnest, the
matter-of-fact, the ecstatic tones of her voice,--nay, could it but
reproduce the movement of her hands, the eloquence of her eyes, or the
shapings of her mouth,--ah! but type--even the phonograph--is such an
inadequate thing! Sometimes she laughed; sometimes Clotilde,
unexpectedly to herself, joined her; and twice or thrice she provoked a
similar demonstration from the ox-like apothecary,--to her own intense
amusement. Sometimes she shook her head in solemn scorn; and, when
Frowenfeld, at a certain point where Palmyre's fate locked hands for a
time with that of Bras-Coupé, asked a fervid question concerning that
strange personage, tears leaped into her eyes, as she said:

"Ah! 'Sieur Frowenfel', iv I tra to tell de sto'y of Bras-Coupé, I goin'
to cry lag a lill bebby."

The account of the childhood days upon the plantation at Cannes Brulées
may be passed by. It was early in Palmyre's fifteenth year that that
Kentuckian, 'mutual friend' of her master and Agricola, prevailed with
M. de Grapion to send her to the paternal Grandissime mansion,--a
complimentary gift, through Agricola, to Mademoiselle, his
niece,--returnable ten years after date.

The journey was made in safety; and, by and by, Palmyre was presented to
her new mistress. The occasion was notable. In a great chair in the
centre sat the _grandpère_, a Chevalier de Grandissime, whose business
had narrowed down to sitting on the front veranda and wearing his
decorations,--the cross of St. Louis being one; on his right, Colonel
Numa Grandissime, with one arm dropped around Honoré, then a boy of
Palmyre's age, expecting to be off in sixty days for France; and on the
left, with Honoré's fair sister nestled against her, "Madame Numa," as
the Creoles would call her, a stately woman and beautiful, a great
admirer of her brother Agricola. (Aurora took pains to explain that she
received these minutiae from Palmyre herself in later years.) One other
member of the group was a young don of some twenty years' age, not an
inmate of the house, but only a cousin of Aurora on her deceased
mother's side. To make the affair complete, and as a seal to this tacit
Grandissime-de-Grapion treaty, this sole available representative of the
"other side" was made a guest for the evening. Like the true Spaniard
that he was, Don José Martinez fell deeply in love with Honoré's sister.
Then there came Agricola leading in Palmyre. There were others, for the
Grandissime mansion was always full of Grandissimes; but this was the
central group.

In this house Palmyre grew to womanhood, retaining without interruption
the place into which she seemed to enter by right of indisputable
superiority over all competitors,--the place of favorite attendant to
the sister of Honoré. Attendant, we say, for servant she never seemed.
She grew tall, arrowy, lithe, imperial, diligent, neat, thorough,
silent. Her new mistress, though scarcely at all her senior, was yet
distinctly her mistress; she had that through her Fusilier blood;
experience was just then beginning to show that the Fusilier Grandissime
was a superb variety; she was a mistress one could wish to obey. Palmyre
loved her, and through her contact ceased, for a time, at least, to be
the pet leopard she had been at the Cannes Brulées.

Honoré went away to Paris only sixty days after Palmyre entered the
house. But even that was not soon enough.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, in her recital, "Palmyre, she never
tole me dad, _mais_ I am shoe, _shoe_ dad she fall in love wid Honoré
Grandissime. 'Sieur Frowenfel', I thing dad Honoré Grandissime is one
bad man, ent it? Whad you thing, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"

"I think, as I said to you the last time, that he is one of the best, as
I know that he is one of the kindest and most enlightened gentlemen in
the city," said the apothecary.

"Ah, 'Sieur Frowenfel'! ha, ha!"

"That is my conviction."

The lady went on with her story.

"Hanny'ow, I know she _con_tinue in love wid 'im all doze ten year'
w'at 'e been gone. She baig Mademoiselle Grandissime to wrad dad ledder
to my papa to ass to kip her two years mo'."

Here Aurora carefully omitted that episode which Doctor Keene had
related to Frowenfeld,--her own marriage and removal to Fausse Rivière,
the visit of her husband to the city, his unfortunate and finally fatal
affair with Agricola, and the surrender of all her land and slaves to
that successful duellist.

M. de Grapion, through all that, stood by his engagement concerning
Palmyre; and, at the end of ten years, to his own astonishment,
responded favorably to a letter from Honoré's sister, irresistible for
its goodness, good sense, and eloquent pleading, asking leave to detain
Palmyre two years longer; but this response came only after the old
master and his pretty, stricken Aurora had wept over it until they were
weak and gentle,--and was not a response either, but only a
silent consent.

Shortly before the return of Honoré--and here it was that Aurora took up
again the thread of her account--while his mother, long-widowed, reigned
in the paternal mansion, with Agricola for her manager, Bras-Coupé
appeared. From that advent, and the long and varied mental sufferings
which its consequences brought upon her, sprang that second change in
Palmyre, which made her finally untamable, and ended in a manumission,
granted her more for fear than for conscience' sake. When Aurora
attempted to tell those experiences, even leaving Bras-Coupé as much as
might be out of the recital, she choked with tears at the very start,
stopped, laughed, and said:

"_C'est tout_--daz all. 'Sieur Frowenfel', oo you fine dad pigtu' to
loog lag, yonnah, hon de wall?"

She spoke as if he might have overlooked it, though twenty times, at
least, in the last hour, she had seen him glance at it.

"It is a good likeness," said the apothecary, turning to Clotilde, yet
showing himself somewhat puzzled in the matter of the costume.

The ladies laughed.

"Daz ma grade-gran'-mamma," said Clotilde.

"Dass one _fille à la cassette_," said Aurora, "my gran'-muzzah; _mais_,
ad de sem tarn id is Clotilde." She touched her daughter under the chin
with a ringed finger. "Clotilde is my gran'-mamma."

Frowenfeld rose to go.

"You muz come again, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said both ladies, in a breath.

What could he say?




CHAPTER XXVI

A RIDE AND A RESCUE


"Douane or Bienville?"

Such was the choice presented by Honoré Grandissime to Joseph
Frowenfeld, as the former on a lively brown colt and the apothecary on a
nervy chestnut fell into a gentle, preliminary trot while yet in the
rue Royale, looked after by that great admirer of both, Raoul
Innerarity.

"Douane?" said Frowenfeld. (It was the street we call Custom-house.)

"It has mud-holes," objected Honoré.

"Well, then, the rue du Canal?"

"The canal--I can smell it from here. Why not rue Bienville?"

Frowenfeld said he did not know. (We give the statement for what it is
worth.)

Notice their route. A spirit of perversity seems to have entered into
the very topography of this quarter. They turned up the rue Bienville
(up is toward the river); reaching the levee, they took their course up
the shore of the Mississippi (almost due south), and broke into a lively
gallop on the Tchoupitoulas road, which in those days skirted that
margin of the river nearest the sunsetting, namely, the _eastern_ bank.

Conversation moved sluggishly for a time, halting upon trite topics or
swinging easily from polite inquiry to mild affirmation, and back again.
They were men of thought, these two, and one of them did not fully
understand why he was in his present position; hence some reticence. It
was one of those afternoons in early March that make one wonder how the
rest of the world avoids emigrating to Louisiana in a body.

"Is not the season early?" asked Frowenfeld.

M. Grandissime believed it was; but then the Creole spring always seemed
so, he said.

The land was an inverted firmament of flowers. The birds were an
innumerable, busy, joy-compelling multitude, darting and fluttering
hither and thither, as one might imagine the babes do in heaven. The
orange-groves were in blossom; their dark-green boughs seemed snowed
upon from a cloud of incense, and a listening ear might catch an
incessant, whispered trickle of falling petals, dropping "as the
honey-comb." The magnolia was beginning to add to its dark and shining
evergreen foliage frequent sprays of pale new leaves and long, slender,
buff buds of others yet to come. The oaks, both the bare-armed and the
"green-robed senators," the willows, and the plaqueminiers, were putting
out their subdued florescence as if they smiled in grave participation
with the laughing gardens. The homes that gave perfection to this beauty
were those old, large, belvidered colonial villas, of which you may
still here and there see one standing, battered into half ruin, high and
broad, among foundries, cotton-and tobacco-sheds, junk-yards, and
longshoremen's hovels, like one unconquered elephant in a wreck of
artillery. In Frowenfeld's day the "smell of their garments was like
Lebanon." They were seen by glimpses through chance openings in lofty
hedges of Cherokee-rose or bois-d'arc, under boughs of cedar or
pride-of-China, above their groves of orange or down their long,
overarched avenues of oleander; and the lemon and the pomegranate, the
banana, the fig, the shaddock, and at times even the mango and the
guava, joined "hands around" and tossed their fragrant locks above the
lilies and roses. Frowenfeld forgot to ask himself further concerning
the probable intent of M. Grandissime's invitation to ride; these
beauties seemed rich enough in good reasons. He felt glad and grateful.

At a certain point the two horses turned of their own impulse, as by
force of habit, and with a few clambering strides mounted to the top of
the levee and stood still, facing the broad, dancing, hurrying,
brimming river.

The Creole stole an amused glance at the elated, self-forgetful look of
his immigrant friend.

"Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as the delighted apothecary turned with
unwonted suddenness and saw his smile, "I believe you like this better
than discussion. You find it easier to be in harmony with Louisiana than
with Louisianians, eh?"

Frowenfeld colored with surprise. Something unpleasant had lately
occurred in his shop. Was this to signify that M. Grandissime had
heard of it?

"I am a Louisianian," replied he, as if this were a point assailed.

"I would not insinuate otherwise," said M. Grandissime, with a kindly
gesture. "I would like you to feel so. We are citizens now of a
different government from that under which we lived the morning we first
met. Yet"--the Creole paused and smiled--"you are not, and I am glad you
are not, what we call a Louisianian."

Frowenfeld's color increased. He turned quickly in his saddle as if to
say something very positive, but hesitated, restrained himself
and asked:

"Mr. Grandissime, is not your Creole 'we' a word that does much damage?"

The Creole's response was at first only a smile, followed by a
thoughtful countenance; but he presently said, with some suddenness:

"My-de'-seh, yes. Yet you see I am, even this moment, forgetting we are
not a separate people. Yes, our Creole 'we' does damage, and our Creole
'you' does more. I assure you, sir, I try hard to get my people to
understand that it is time to stop calling those who come and add
themselves to the community, aliens, interlopers, invaders. That is what
I hear my cousins, 'Polyte and Sylvestre, in the heat of discussion,
called you the other evening; is it so?"

"I brought it upon myself," said Frowenfeld. "I brought it upon myself."

"Ah!" interrupted M. Grandissime, with a broad smile, "excuse me--I am
fully prepared to believe it. But the charge is a false one. I told them
so. My-de'-seh--I know that a citizen of the United States in the United
States has a right to become, and to be called, under the laws governing
the case, a Louisianian, a Vermonter, or a Virginian, as it may suit his
whim; and even if he should be found dishonest or dangerous, he has a
right to be treated just exactly as we treat the knaves and ruffians who
are native born! Every discreet man must admit that."

"But if they do not enforce it, Mr. Grandissime," quickly responded the
sore apothecary, "if they continually forget it--if one must surrender
himself to the errors and crimes of the community as he finds it--"

The Creole uttered a low laugh.

"Party differences, Mr. Frowenfeld; they have them in all countries."

"So your cousins said," said Frowenfeld.

"And how did you answer them?"

"Offensively," said the apothecary, with sincere mortification.

"Oh! that was easy," replied the other, amusedly; "but how?"

"I said that, having here only such party differences as are common
elsewhere, we do not behave as they elsewhere do; that in most civilized
countries the immigrant is welcome, but here he is not. I am afraid I
have not learned the art of courteous debate," said Frowenfeld, with a
smile of apology.

"'Tis a great art," said the Creole, quietly, stroking his horse's neck.
"I suppose my cousins denied your statement with indignation, eh?"

"Yes; they said the honest immigrant is always welcome."

"Well, do you not find that true?"

"But, Mr. Grandissime, that is requiring the immigrant to prove his
innocence!" Frowenfeld spoke from the heart. "And even the honest
immigrant is welcome only when he leaves his peculiar opinions behind
him. Is that right, sir?"

The Creole smiled at Frowenfeld's heat.

"My-de'-seh, my cousins complain that you advocate measures fatal to the
prevailing order of society."

"But," replied the unyielding Frowenfeld, turning redder than ever,
"that is the very thing that American liberty gives me the
right--peaceably--to do! Here is a structure of society defective,
dangerous, erected on views of human relations which the world is
abandoning as false; yet the immigrant's welcome is modified with the
warning not to touch these false foundations with one of his fingers."

"Did you tell my cousins the foundations of society here are false?"

"I regret to say I did, very abruptly. I told them they were privately
aware of the fact."

"You may say," said the ever-amiable Creole, "that you allowed debate to
run into controversy, eh?"

Frowenfeld was silent; he compared the gentleness of this Creole's
rebukes with the asperity of his advocacy of right, and felt humiliated.
But M. Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh?"

"No, sir." The apothecary smiled.

"No, you make them round; cannot you make your doctrines the same way?
My-de'-seh, you will think me impertinent; but the reason I speak is
because I wish very much that you and my cousins would not be offended
with each other. To tell you the truth, my-de'-seh, I hoped to use you
with them--pardon my frankness."

"If Louisiana had more men like you, M. Grandissime," cried the
untrained Frowenfeld, "society would be less sore to the touch."

"My-de'-seh," said the Creole, laying his hand out toward his companion
and turning his horse in such a way as to turn the other also, "do me
one favor; remember that it _is_ sore to the touch."

The animals picked their steps down the inner face of the levee and
resumed their course up the road at a walk.

"Did you see that man just turn the bend of the road, away yonder?" the
Creole asked.

"Yes."

"Did you recognize him?"

"It was--my landlord, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Did he not have a conversation with you lately, too?"

"Yes, sir; why do you ask?"

"It has had a bad effect on him. I wonder why he is out here on foot?"

The horses quickened their paces. The two friends rode along in silence.
Frowenfeld noticed his companion frequently cast an eye up along the
distant sunset shadows of the road with a new anxiety. Yet, when M.
Grandissime broke the silence it was only to say:

"I suppose you find the blemishes in our state of society can all be
attributed to one main defect, Mr. Frowenfeld?"

Frowenfeld was glad of the chance to answer:

"I have not overlooked that this society has disadvantages as well as
blemishes; it is distant from enlightened centres; it has a language and
religion different from that of the great people of which it is now
called to be a part. That it has also positive blemishes of organism--"

"Yes," interrupted the Creole, smiling at the immigrant's sudden
magnanimity, "its positive blemishes; do they all spring from one
main defect?"

"I think not. The climate has its influence, the soil has its
influence--dwellers in swamps cannot be mountaineers."

"But after all," persisted the Creole, "the greater part of our troubles
comes from--"

"Slavery," said Frowenfeld, "or rather caste."

"Exactly," said M. Grandissime.

"You surprise me, sir," said the simple apothecary. "I supposed you
were--"

"My-de'-seh," exclaimed M. Grandissime, suddenly becoming very earnest,
"I am nothing, nothing! There is where you have the advantage of me. I
am but a _dilettante_, whether in politics, in philosophy, morals, or
religion. I am afraid to go deeply into anything, lest it should make
ruin in my name, my family, my property."

He laughed unpleasantly.

The question darted into Frowenfeld's mind, whether this might not be a
hint of the matter that M. Grandissime had been trying to see him about.

"Mr. Grandissime," he said, "I can hardly believe you would neglect a
duty either for family, property, or society."

"Well, you mistake," said the Creole, so coldly that Frowenfeld colored.

They galloped on. M. Grandissime brightened again, almost to the degree
of vivacity. By and by they slackened to a slow trot and were silent.
The gardens had been long left behind, and they were passing between
continuous Cherokee-rose hedges on the right and on the left, along that
bend of the Mississippi where its waters, glancing off three miles above
from the old De Macarty levee (now Carrollton), at the slightest
opposition in the breeze go whirling and leaping like a herd of
dervishes across to the ever-crumbling shore, now marked by the little
yellow depot-house of Westwego. Miles up the broad flood the sun was
disappearing gorgeously. From their saddles, the two horsemen feasted on
the scene without comment.

But presently, M. Grandissime uttered a low ejaculation and spurred his
horse toward a tree hard by, preparing, as he went, to fasten his rein
to an overhanging branch. Frowenfeld, agreeable to his beckon, imitated
the movement.

"I fear he intends to drown himself," whispered M. Grandissime, as they
hurriedly dismounted.

"Who? Not--"

"Yes, your landlord, as you call him. He is on the flatboat; I saw his
hat over the levee. When we get on top the levee, we must get right into
it. But do not follow him into the water in front of the flat; it is
certain death; no power of man could keep you from going under it."

The words were quickly spoken; they scrambled to the levee's crown. Just
abreast of them lay a flatboat, emptied of its cargo and moored to the
levee. They leaped into it. A human figure swerved from the onset of the
Creole and ran toward the bow of the boat, and in an instant more would
have been in the river.

"Stop!" said Frowenfeld, seizing the unresisting f.m.c. firmly by the
collar.

Honoré Grandissime smiled, partly at the apothecary's brief speech, but
much more at his success.

"Let him go, Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as he came near.

The silent man turned away his face with a gesture of shame.

M. Grandissime, in a gentle voice, exchanged a few words with him, and
he turned and walked away, gained the shore, descended the levee, and
took a foot-path which soon hid him behind a hedge.

"He gives his pledge not to try again," said the Creole, as the two
companions proceeded to resume the saddle. "Do not look after him."
(Joseph had cast a searching look over the hedge.)

They turned homeward.

"Ah! Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, suddenly, "if the _immygrant_
has cause of complaint, how much more has _that_ man! True, it is only
love for which he would have just now drowned himself; yet what an
accusation, my-de'-seh, is his whole life against that 'caste' which
shuts him up within its narrow and almost solitary limits! And yet, Mr.
Frowenfeld, this people esteem this very same crime of caste the holiest
and most precious of their virtues. My-de'-seh, it never occurs to us
that in this matter we are interested, and therefore disqualified,
witnesses. We say we are not understood; that the jury (the civilized
world) renders its decision without viewing the body; that we are judged
from a distance. We forget that we ourselves are too _close_ to see
distinctly, and so continue, a spectacle to civilization, sitting in a
horrible darkness, my-de'-seh!" He frowned.

"The shadow of the Ethiopian," said the grave apothecary.

M. Grandissime's quick gesture implied that Frowenfeld had said the very
word.

"Ah! my-de'-seh, when I try sometimes to stand outside and look at it, I
am _ama-aze_ at the length, the blackness of that shadow!" (He was so
deeply in earnest that he took no care of his English.) "It is the
_Némésis_ w'ich, instead of coming afteh, glides along by the side of
this morhal, political, commercial, social mistake! It blanches,
my-de'-seh, ow whole civilization! It drhags us a centurhy behind the
rhes' of the world! It rhetahds and poisons everhy industrhy we
got!--mos' of all our-h immense agrhicultu'e! It brheeds a thousan'
cusses that nevva leave home but jus' flutter-h up an' rhoost,
my-de'-seh, on ow _heads_; an' we nevva know it!--yes, sometimes some of
us know it."

He changed the subject.

They had repassed the ruins of Fort St. Louis, and were well within the
precincts of the little city, when, as they pulled up from a final
gallop, mention was made of Doctor Keene. He was improving; Honoré had
seen him that morning; so, at another hour, had Frowenfeld. Doctor Keene
had told Honoré about Palmyre's wound.

"You was at her house again this morning?" asked the Creole.

"Yes," said Frowenfeld.

M. Grandissime shook his head warningly.

"'Tis a dangerous business. You are almost sure to become the object of
slander. You ought to tell Doctor Keene to make some other arrangement,
or presently you, too, will be under the--" he lowered his voice, for
Frowenfeld was dismounting at the shop door, and three or four
acquaintances stood around--"under the 'shadow of the Ethiopian.'"




CHAPTER XXVII

THE FÊTE DE GRANDPÈRE


Sojourners in New Orleans who take their afternoon drive down Esplanade
street will notice, across on the right, between it and that sorry
streak once fondly known as Champs Élysées, two or three large, old
houses, rising above the general surroundings and displaying
architectural features which identify them with an irrevocable past--a
past when the faithful and true Creole could, without fear of
contradiction, express his religious belief that the antipathy he felt
for the Américain invader was an inborn horror laid lengthwise in his
ante-natal bones by a discriminating and appreciative Providence. There
is, for instance, or was until lately, one house which some hundred and
fifteen years ago was the suburban residence of the old sea-captain
governor, Kerlerec. It stands up among the oranges as silent and gray as
a pelican, and, so far as we know, has never had one cypress plank added
or subtracted since its master was called to France and thrown into the
Bastile. Another has two dormer windows looking out westward, and, when
the setting sun strikes the panes, reminds one of a man with spectacles
standing up in an audience, searching for a friend who is not there and
will never come back. These houses are the last remaining--if, indeed,
they were not pulled down yesterday--of a group that once marked from
afar the direction of the old highway between the city's walls and the
suburb St. Jean. Here clustered the earlier aristocracy of the colony;
all that pretty crew of counts, chevaliers, marquises, colonels, dons,
etc., who loved their kings, and especially their kings' moneys, with an
_abandon_ which affected the accuracy of nearly all their accounts.

Among these stood the great mother-mansion of the Grandissimes. Do not
look for it now; it is quite gone. The round, white-plastered brick
pillars which held the house fifteen feet up from the reeking ground and
rose on loftily to sustain the great overspreading roof, or clustered in
the cool, paved basement; the lofty halls, with their multitudinous
glitter of gilded brass and twinkle of sweet-smelling wax-candles; the
immense encircling veranda, where twenty Creole girls might walk
abreast; the great front stairs, descending from the veranda to the
garden, with a lofty palm on either side, on whose broad steps forty
Grandissimes could gather on a birthday afternoon; and the belvidere,
whence you could see the cathedral, the Ursulines', the governor's
mansion, and the river, far away, shining between the villas of
Tchoupitoulas Coast--all have disappeared as entirely beyond recall as
the flowers that bloomed in the gardens on the day of this _fête de
grandpère_.

Odd to say, it was not the grandpère's birthday that had passed. For
weeks the happy children of the many Grandissime branches--the
Mandarins, the St. Blancards, the Brahmins--had been standing with
their uplifted arms apart, awaiting the signal to clap hands and jump,
and still, from week to week, the appointed day had been made to fall
back, and fall back before--what think you?--an inability to
understand Honoré.

It was a sad paradox in the history of this majestic old house that her
best child gave her the most annoyance; but it had long been so. Even in
Honoré's early youth, a scant two years after she had watched him, over
the tops of her green myrtles and white and crimson oleanders, go away,
a lad of fifteen, supposing he would of course come back a Grandissime
of the Grandissimes--an inflexible of the inflexibles--he was found
"inciting" (so the stately dames and officials who graced her front
veranda called it) a Grandissime-De Grapion reconciliation by means of
transatlantic letters, and reducing the flames of the old feud,
rekindled by the Fusilier-Nancanou duel, to a little foul smoke. The
main difficulty seemed to be that Honoré could not be satisfied with a
clean conscience as to his own deeds and the peace and fellowships of
single households; his longing was, and had ever been--he had inherited
it from his father--to see one unbroken and harmonious Grandissime
family gathering yearly under this venerated roof without reproach
before all persons, classes, and races with whom they had ever had to
do. It was not hard for the old mansion to forgive him once or twice;
but she had had to do it often. It seems no over-stretch of fancy to
say she sometimes gazed down upon his erring ways with a look of patient
sadness in her large and beautiful windows.

And how had that forbearance been rewarded? Take one short instance:
when, seven years before this present _fête de grandpère_, he came back
from Europe, and she (this old home which we cannot help but personify),
though in trouble then--a trouble that sent up the old feud flames
again--opened her halls to rejoice in him with the joy of all her
gathered families, he presently said such strange things in favor of
indiscriminate human freedom that for very shame's sake she hushed them
up, in the fond hope that he would outgrow such heresies. But he? On top
of all the rest, he declined a military commission and engaged in
commerce--"shopkeeping, _parbleu!_"

However, therein was developed a grain of consolation. Honoré became--as
he chose to call it--more prudent. With much tact, Agricola was amiably
crowded off the dictator's chair, to become, instead, a sort of
seneschal. For a time the family peace was perfect, and Honoré, by a
touch here to-day and a word there to-morrow, was ever lifting the name,
and all who bore it, a little and a little higher; when suddenly, as in
his father's day--that dear Numa who knew how to sacrifice his very
soul, as a sort of Iphigenia for the propitiation of the family gods--as
in Numa's day came the cession to Spain, so now fell this other cession,
like an unexpected tornado, threatening the wreck of her children's
slave-schooners and the prostration alike of their slave-made crops and
their Spanish liberties; and just in the fateful moment where Numa would
have stood by her, Honoré had let go. Ah, it was bitter!

"See what foreign education does!" cried a Mandarin de Grandissime of
the Baton Rouge Coast. "I am sorry now"--derisively--"that I never sent
_my_ boy to France, am I not? No! No-o-o! I would rather my son should
never know how to read, than that he should come back from Paris
repudiating the sentiments and prejudices of his own father. Is
education better than family peace? Ah, bah! My son make friends with
Américains and tell me they--that call a negro 'monsieur'--are as good
as his father? But that is what we get for letting Honoré become a
merchant. Ha! the degradation! Shaking hands with men who do not believe
in the slave trade! Shake hands? Yes; associate--fraternize! with
apothecaries and negrophiles. And now we are invited to meet at the
_fête de grandpère_, in the house where he is really the chief--the
_caçique!_"

No! The family would not come together on the first appointment; no, nor
on the second; no, not if the grandpapa did express his wish; no, nor on
the third--nor on the fourth.

"_Non, Messieurs_!" cried both youth and reckless age; and, sometimes,
also, the stronger heads of the family, the men of means, of force and
of influence, urged on from behind by their proud and beautiful wives
and daughters.

Arms, generally, rather than heads, ruled there in those days.
Sentiments (which are the real laws) took shape in accordance with the
poetry, rather than the reason, of things, and the community recognized
the supreme domination of "the gentleman" in questions of right and of
"the ladies" in matters of sentiment. Under such conditions strength
establishes over weakness a showy protection which is the subtlest of
tyrannies, yet which, in the very moment of extending its arm over
woman, confers upon her a power which a truer freedom would only
diminish; constitutes her in a large degree an autocrat of public
sentiment and thus accepts her narrowest prejudices and most belated
errors as veriest need-be's of social life.

The clans classified easily into three groups; there were those who
boiled, those who stewed, and those who merely steamed under a close
cover. The men in the first two groups were, for the most part, those
who were holding office under old Spanish commissions, and were daily
expecting themselves to be displaced and Louisiana thereby ruined. The
steaming ones were a goodly fraction of the family--the timid, the
apathetic, the "conservative." The conservatives found ease better than
exactitude, the trouble of thinking great, the agony of deciding
harrowing, and the alternative of smiling cynically and being liberal so
much easier--and the warm weather coming on with a rapidity-wearying to
contemplate.

"The Yankee was an inferior animal."

"Certainly."

"But Honoré had a right to his convictions."

"Yes, that was so, too."

"It looked very traitorous, however."

"Yes, so it did."

"Nevertheless, it might turn out that Honoré was advancing the true
interests of his people."

"Very likely."

"It would not do to accept office under the Yankee government."

"Of course not."

"Yet it would never do to let the Yankees get the offices, either."

"That was true; nobody could deny that."

"If Spain or France got the country back, they would certainly remember
and reward those who had held out faithfully."

"Certainly! That was an old habit with France and Spain."

"But if they did not get the country back--"

"Yes, that is so; Honoré is a very good fellow, and--"

And, one after another, under the mild coolness of Honoré's amiable
disregard, their indignation trickled back from steam to water, and they
went on drawing their stipends, some in Honoré's counting-room, where
they held positions, some from the provisional government, which had as
yet made but few changes, and some, secretly, from the cunning
Casa-Calvo; for, blow the wind east or blow the wind west, the affinity
of the average Grandissime for a salary abideth forever.

Then, at the right moment, Honoré made a single happy stroke, and even
the hot Grandissimes, they of the interior parishes and they of
Agricola's squadron, slaked and crumbled when he wrote each a letter
saying that the governor was about to send them appointments, and that
it would be well, if they wished to _evade_ them, to write the governor
at once, surrendering their present commissions. Well! Evade? They would
evade nothing! Do you think they would so belittle themselves as to
write to the usurper? They would submit to keep the positions first.

But the next move was Honoré's making the whole town aware of his
apostasy. The great mansion, with the old grandpère sitting out in
front, shivered. As we have seen, he had ridden through the Place
d'Armes with the arch-usurper himself. Yet, after all, a Grandissime
would be a Grandissime still; whatever he did he did openly. And wasn't
that glorious--never to be ashamed of anything, no matter how bad? It
was not everyone who could ride with the governor.

And blood was so much thicker than vinegar that the family, that would
not meet either in January or February, met in the first week of March,
every constituent one of them.

The feast has been eaten. The garden now is joyous with children and
the veranda resplendent with ladies. From among the latter the eye
quickly selects one. She is perceptibly taller than the others; she sits
in their midst near the great hall entrance; and as you look at her
there is no claim of ancestry the Grandissimes can make which you would
not allow. Her hair, once black, now lifted up into a glistening
snow-drift, augments the majesty of a still beautiful face, while her
full stature and stately bearing suggest the finer parts of Agricola,
her brother. It is Madame Grandissime, the mother of Honoré.

One who sits at her left, and is very small, is a favorite cousin. On
her right is her daughter, the widowed señora of José Martinez; she has
wonderful black hair and a white brow as wonderful. The commanding
carriage of the mother is tempered in her to a gentle dignity and calm,
contrasting pointedly with the animated manners of the courtly matrons
among whom she sits, and whose continuous conversation takes this
direction or that, at the pleasure of Madame Grandissime.

But if you can command your powers of attention, despite those children
who are shouting Creole French and sliding down the rails of the front
stair, turn the eye to the laughing squadron of beautiful girls, which
every few minutes, at an end of the veranda, appears, wheels and
disappears, and you note, as it were by flashes, the characteristics of
face and figure that mark the Louisianaises in the perfection of the
new-blown flower. You see that blondes are not impossible; there,
indeed, are two sisters who might be undistinguishable twins but that
one has blue eyes and golden hair. You note the exquisite pencilling of
their eyebrows, here and there some heavier and more velvety, where a
less vivacious expression betrays a share of Spanish blood. As
Grandissimes, you mark their tendency to exceed the medium Creole
stature, an appearance heightened by the fashion of their robes. There
is scarcely a rose in all their cheeks, and a full red-ripeness of the
lips would hardly be in keeping; but there is plenty of life in their
eyes, which glance out between the curtains of their long lashes with a
merry dancing that keeps time to the prattle of tongues. You are not
able to get a straight look into them, and if you could you would see
only your own image cast back in pitiful miniature; but you turn away
and feel, as you fortify yourself with an inward smile, that they know
you, you man, through and through, like a little song. And in turning,
your sight is glad to rest again on the face of Honoré's mother. You
see, this time, that she _is_ his mother, by a charm you had overlooked,
a candid, serene and lovable smile. It is the wonder of those who see
that smile that she can ever be harsh.

The playful, mock-martial tread of the delicate Creole feet is all at
once swallowed up by the sound of many heavier steps in the hall, and
the fathers, grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews of the
great family come out, not a man of them that cannot, with a little
care, keep on his feet. Their descendants of the present day sip from
shallower glasses and with less marked results.

The matrons, rising, offer the chief seat to the first comer, the
great-grandsire--the oldest living Grandissime--Alcibiade, a shaken but
unfallen monument of early colonial days, a browned and corrugated
souvenir of De Vaudreuil's pomps, of O'Reilly's iron rule, of Galvez'
brilliant wars--a man who had seen Bienville and Zephyr Grandissime.
With what splendor of manner Madame Fusilier de Grandissime offers, and
he accepts, the place of honor! Before he sits down he pauses a moment
to hear out the companion on whose arm he had been leaning. But
Théophile, a dark, graceful youth of eighteen, though he is recounting
something with all the oblivious ardor of his kind, becomes instantly
silent, bows with grave deference to the ladies, hands the aged
forefather gracefully to his seat, and turning, recommences the recital
before one who hears all with the same perfect courtesy--his beloved
cousin Honoré.

Meanwhile, the gentlemen throng out. Gallant crew! These are they who
have been pausing proudly week after week in an endeavor (?) to
understand the opaque motives of Numa's son.

In the middle of the veranda pauses a tall, muscular man of fifty, with
the usual smooth face and an iron-gray queue. That is Colonel Agamemnon
Brahmin de Grandissime, purveyor to the family's military pride,
conservator of its military glory, and, after Honoré, the most admired
of the name. Achille Grandissime, he who took Agricola away from
Frowenfeld's shop in the carriage, essays to engage Agamemnon in
conversation, and the colonel, with a glance at his kinsman's nether
limbs and another at his own, and with that placid facility with which
the graver sort of Creoles take up the trivial topics of the lighter,
grapples the subject of boots. A tall, bronzed, slender young man, who
prefixes to Grandissime the maternal St. Blancard, asks where his wife
is, is answered from a distance, throws her a kiss and sits down on a
step, with Jean Baptiste de Grandissime, a piratical-looking
black-beard, above him, and Alphonse Mandarin, an olive-skinned boy,
below. Valentine Grandissime, of Tchoupitoulas, goes quite down to the
bottom of the steps and leans against the balustrade. He is a large,
broad-shouldered, well-built man, and, as he stands smoking a cigar,
with his black-stockinged legs crossed, he glances at the sky with the
eye of a hunter--or, it may be, of a sailor.

"Valentine will not marry," says one of two ladies who lean over the
rail of the veranda above. "I wonder why."

The other fixes on her a meaning look, and she twitches her shoulders
and pouts, seeing she has asked a foolish question, the answer to which
would only put Valentine in a numerous class and do him no credit.

Such were the choice spirits of the family. Agricola had retired. Raoul
was there; his pretty auburn head might have been seen about half-way up
the steps, close to one well sprinkled with premature gray.

"No such thing!" exclaimed his companion.

(The conversation was entirely in Creole French.)

"I give you my sacred word of honor!" cried Raoul.

"That Honoré is having all his business carried on in English?" asked
the incredulous Sylvestre. (Such was his name.)

"I swear--" replied Raoul, resorting to his favorite pledge--"on a stack
of Bibles that high!"

"Ah-h-h-h, pf-f-f-f-f!"

This polite expression of unbelief was further emphasized by a spasmodic
flirt of one hand, with the thumb pointed outward.

"Ask him! ask him!" cried Raoul.

"Honoré!" called Sylvestre, rising up. Two or three persons passed the
call around the corner of the veranda.

Honoré came with a chain of six girls on either arm. By the time he
arrived, there was a Babel of discussion.

"Raoul says you have ordered all your books and accounts to be written
in English," said Sylvestre.

"Well?"

"It is not true, is it?"

"Yes."

The entire veranda of ladies raised one long-drawn, deprecatory "Ah!"
except Honoré's mother. She turned upon him a look of silent but intense
and indignant disappointment.

"Honoré!" cried Sylvestre, desirous of repairing his defeat, "Honoré!"

But Honoré was receiving the clamorous abuse of the two half dozens of
girls.

"Honoré!" cried Sylvestre again, holding up a torn scrap of
writing-paper which bore the marks of the counting-room floor and of a
boot-heel, "how do you spell 'la-dee?'"

There was a moment's hush to hear the answer.

"Ask Valentine," said Honoré.

Everybody laughed aloud. That taciturn man's only retort was to survey
the company above him with an unmoved countenance, and to push the ashes
slowly from his cigar with his little finger. M. Valentine Grandissime,
of Tchoupitoulas, could not read.

"Show it to Agricola," cried two or three, as that great man came out
upon the veranda, heavy-eyed, and with tumbled hair.

Sylvestre, spying Agricola's head beyond the ladies, put the question.

"How is it spelled on that paper?" retorted the king of beasts.

"L-a-y--"

"Ignoramus!" growled the old man.

"I did not spell it," cried Raoul, and attempted to seize the paper. But
Sylvestre throwing his hand behind him, a lady snatched the paper, two
or three cried "Give it to Agricola!" and a pretty boy, whom the
laughter and excitement had lured from the garden, scampered up the
steps and handed it to the old man.

"Honoré!" cried Raoul, "it must not be read. It is one of your private
matters."

But Raoul's insinuation that anybody would entrust him with a private
matter brought another laugh.

Honoré nodded to his uncle to read it out, and those who could not
understand English, as well as those who could, listened. It was a paper
Sylvestre had picked out of a waste-basket on the day of Aurore's visit
to the counting-room. Agricola read:

     "What is that layde want in thare with Honoré?"
     "Honoré is goin giv her bac that proprety--that is
     Aurore De Grapion what Agricola kill the husband."

That was the whole writing, but Agricola never finished. He was reading
aloud--"that is Aurore De Grap--"

At that moment he dropped the paper and blackened with wrath; a sharp
flash of astonishment ran through the company; an instant of silence
followed and Agricola's thundering voice rolled down upon Sylvestre in a
succession of terrible imprecations.

It was painful to see the young man's face as, speechless, he received
this abuse. He stood pale and frightened, with a smile playing about his
mouth, half of distress and half of defiance, that said as plain as a
smile could say, "Uncle Agricola, you will have to pay for
this mistake."

As the old man ceased, Sylvestre turned and cast a look downward to
Valentine Grandissime, then walked up the steps, and passing with a
courteous bow through the group that surrounded Agricola, went into the
house. Valentine looked at the zenith, then at his shoe-buckles, tossed
his cigar quietly into the grass and passed around a corner of the house
to meet Sylvestre in the rear.

Honoré had already nodded to his uncle to come aside with him, and
Agricola had done so. The rest of the company, save a few male figures
down in the garden, after some feeble efforts to keep up their spirits
on the veranda, remarked the growing coolness or the waning daylight,
and singly or in pairs withdrew. It was not long before Raoul, who had
come up upon the veranda, was left alone. He seemed to wait for
something, as, leaning over the rail while the stars came out, he sang
to himself, in a soft undertone, a snatch of a Creole song:

     "La pluie--la pluie tombait,
     Crapaud criait,
     Moustique chantait--"

The moon shone so brightly that the children in the garden did not break
off their hide-and-seek, and now and then Raoul suspended the murmur of
his song, absorbed in the fate of some little elf gliding from one black
shadow to crouch in another. He was himself in the deep shade of a
magnolia, over whose outer boughs the moonlight was trickling, as if the
whole tree had been dipped in quicksilver.

In the broad walk running down to the garden gate some six or seven dark
forms sat in chairs, not too far away for the light of their cigars to
be occasionally seen and their voices to reach his ear; but he did not
listen. In a little while there came a light footstep, and a soft,
mock-startled "Who is that?" and one of that same sparkling group of
girls that had lately hung upon Honoré came so close to Raoul, in her
attempt to discern his lineaments, that their lips accidentally met.
They had but a moment of hand-in-hand converse before they were hustled
forth by a feminine scouting party and thrust along into one of the
great rooms of the house, where the youth and beauty of the Grandissimes
were gathered in an expansive semicircle around a languishing fire,
waiting to hear a story, or a song, or both, or half a dozen of each,
from that master of narrative and melody, Raoul Innerarity.

"But mark," they cried unitedly, "you have got to wind up with the story
of Bras-Coupé!"

"A song! A song!"

"_Une chanson Créole! Une chanson des nègres!_"

"Sing 'yé tolé dancé la doung y doung doung!'" cried a black-eyed girl.

Raoul explained that it had too many objectionable phrases.

"Oh, just hum the objectionable phrases and go right on."

But instead he sang them this:

     "_La prémier' fois mo té 'oir li,
     Li té posé au bord so lit;
     Mo di', Bouzon, bel n'amourèse!
     L'aut' fois li té si' so la saise
     Comme vié Madam dans so fauteil,
     Quand li vivé cóté soleil.

     So giés yé té plis noir passé la nouitte,
     So dé la lev' plis doux passe la quitte!
     Tou' mo la vie, zamein mo oir
     Ein n' amourèse zoli comme ça!
          Mo' blié manzé--mo' blié boir'--
          Mo' blié tout dipi ç' temps-là--
          Mo' blié parlé--mo' blié dormi,
          Quand mo pensé aprés zami!_"

"And you have heard Bras-Coupé sing that, yourself?"

"Once upon a time," said Raoul, warming with his subject, "we were
coming down from Pointe Macarty in three pirogues. We had been three
days fishing and hunting in Lake Salvador. Bras-Coupé had one pirogue
with six paddles--"

"Oh, yes!" cried a youth named Baltazar; "sing that, Raoul!"

And he sang that.

"But oh, Raoul, sing that song the negroes sing when they go out in the
bayous at night, stealing pigs and chickens!"

"That boat song, do you mean, which they sing as a signal to those on
shore?" He hummed.

[Illustration: Music]

     "Dé zabs, dé zabs, dé counou ouaïe ouaïe,
     Dé zabs, dé zabs, dé counou ouaïe ouaïe,
     Counou ouaïe ouaïe ouaïe ouaïe,
     Counou ouaïe ouaïe ouaïe ouaïe,
     Counou ouaïe ouaïe ouaïe, momza;
     Momza, momza, momza, momza,
     Roza, roza, roza-et--momza."

This was followed by another and still another, until the hour began to
grow late. And then they gathered closer around him and heard the
promised story. At the same hour Honoré Grandissime, wrapping himself in
a greatcoat and giving himself up to sad and somewhat bitter
reflections, had wandered from the paternal house, and by and by from
the grounds, not knowing why or whither, but after a time soliciting, at
Frowenfeld's closing door, the favor of his company. He had been feeling
a kind of suffocation. This it was that made him seek and prize the
presence and hand-grasp of the inexperienced apothecary. He led him out
to the edge of the river. Here they sat down, and with a laborious
attempt at a hard and jesting mood, Honoré told the same dark story.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPÉ


"A very little more than eight years ago," began Honoré--but not only
Honoré, but Raoul also; and not only they, but another, earlier on the
same day,--Honoré, the f.m.c. But we shall not exactly follow the words
of any one of these.

Bras-Coupé, they said, had been, in Africa and under another name, a
prince among his people. In a certain war of conquest, to which he had
been driven by _ennui_, he was captured, stripped of his royalty,
marched down upon the beach of the Atlantic, and, attired as a true son
of Adam, with two goodly arms intact, became a commodity. Passing out of
first hands in barter for a looking-glass, he was shipped in good order
and condition on board the good schooner _Égalité_, whereof Blank was
master, to be delivered without delay at the port of Nouvelle Orléans
(the dangers of fire and navigation excepted), unto Blank Blank. In
witness whereof, He that made men's skins of different colors, but all
blood of one, hath entered the same upon His book, and sealed it to the
day of judgment.

Of the voyage little is recorded--here below; the less the better. Part
of the living merchandise failed to keep; the weather was rough, the
cargo large, the vessel small. However, the captain discovered there was
room over the side, and there--all flesh is grass--from time to time
during the voyage he jettisoned the unmerchantable.

Yet, when the reopened hatches let in the sweet smell of the land,
Bras-Coupé had come to the upper--the favored--the buttered side of the
world; the anchor slid with a rumble of relief down through the muddy
fathoms of the Mississippi, and the prince could hear through the
schooner's side the savage current of the river, leaping and licking
about the bows, and whimpering low welcomes home. A splendid picture to
the eyes of the royal captive, as his head came up out of the hatchway,
was the little Franco-Spanish-American city that lay on the low,
brimming bank. There were little forts that showed their whitewashed
teeth; there was a green parade-ground, and yellow barracks, and
cabildo, and hospital, and cavalry stables, and custom-house, and a most
inviting jail, convenient to the cathedral--all of dazzling white and
yellow, with a black stripe marking the track of the conflagration of
1794, and here and there among the low roofs a lofty one with
round-topped dormer windows and a breezy belvidere looking out upon the
plantations of coffee and indigo beyond the town.

When Bras-Coupé staggered ashore, he stood but a moment among a drove
of "likely boys," before Agricola Fusilier, managing the business
adventures of the Grandissime estate, as well as the residents thereon,
and struck with admiration for the physical beauties of the chieftain (a
man may even fancy a negro--as a negro), bought the lot, and, both to
resell him with the rest to some unappreciative 'Cadian, induced Don
José Martinez' overseer to become his purchaser.

Down in the rich parish of St. Bernard (whose boundary line now touches
that of the distended city) lay the plantation, known before Bras-Coupé
passed away as La Renaissance. Here it was that he entered at once upon
a chapter of agreeable surprises. He was humanely met, presented with a
clean garment, lifted into a cart drawn by oxen, taken to a whitewashed
cabin of logs, finer than his palace at home, and made to comprehend
that it was a free gift. He was also given some clean food, whereupon he
fell sick. At home it would have been the part of piety for the magnate
next the throne to launch him heavenward at once; but now, healing doses
were administered, and to his amazement he recovered. It reminded him
that he was no longer king.

His name, he replied to an inquiry touching that subject, was --------,
something in the Jaloff tongue, which he by and by condescended to
render into Congo: Mioko-Koanga; in French Bras-Coupé; the Arm Cut Off.
Truly it would have been easy to admit, had this been his meaning, that
his tribe, in losing him, had lost its strong right arm close off at the
shoulder; not so easy for his high-paying purchaser to allow, if this
other was his intent: that the arm which might no longer shake the spear
or swing the wooden sword was no better than a useless stump never to be
lifted for aught else. But whether easy to allow or not, that was his
meaning. He made himself a type of all Slavery, turning into flesh and
blood the truth that all Slavery is maiming.

He beheld more luxury in a week than all his subjects had seen in a
century. Here Congo girls were dressed in cottons and flannels worth,
where he came from, an elephant's tusk apiece. Everybody wore
clothes--children and lads alone excepted. Not a lion had invaded the
settlement since his immigration. The serpents were as nothing; an
occasional one coming up through the floor--that was all. True, there
was more emaciation than unassisted conjecture could explain--a
profusion of enlarged joints and diminished muscles, which, thank God,
was even then confined to a narrow section and disappeared with Spanish
rule. He had no experimental knowledge of it; nay, regular meals, on the
contrary, gave him anxious concern, yet had the effect--spite of his
apprehension that he was being fattened for a purpose--of restoring the
herculean puissance which formerly in Africa had made him the terror of
the battle.

When one day he had come to be quite himself, he was invited out into
the sunshine, and escorted by the driver (a sort of foreman to the
overseer), went forth dimly wondering. They reached a field where some
men and women were hoeing. He had seen men and women--subjects of
his--labor--a little--in Africa. The driver handed him a hoe; he
examined it with silent interest--until by signs he was requested to
join the pastime.

"What?"

He spoke, not with his lips, but with the recoil of his splendid frame
and the ferocious expansion of his eyes. This invitation was a cataract
of lightning leaping down an ink-black sky. In one instant of
all-pervading clearness he read his sentence--WORK.

Bras-Coupé was six feet five. With a sweep as quick as instinct the back
of the hoe smote the driver full in the head. Next, the prince lifted
the nearest Congo crosswise, brought thirty-two teeth together in his
wildly kicking leg and cast him away as a bad morsel; then, throwing
another into the branches of a willow, and a woman over his head into a
draining-ditch, he made one bound for freedom, and fell to his knees,
rocking from side to side under the effect of a pistol-ball from the
overseer. It had struck him in the forehead, and running around the
skull in search of a penetrable spot, tradition--which sometimes
jests--says came out despairingly, exactly where it had entered.

It so happened that, except the overseer, the whole company were black.
Why should the trivial scandal be blabbed? A plaster or two made
everything even in a short time, except in the driver's case--for the
driver died. The woman whom Bras-Coupé had thrown over his head lived to
sell _calas_ to Joseph Frowenfeld.

Don José, young and austere, knew nothing about agriculture and cared as
much about human nature. The overseer often thought this, but never said
it; he would not trust even himself with the dangerous criticism. When
he ventured to reveal the foregoing incidents to the señor he laid all
the blame possible upon the man whom death had removed beyond the reach
of correction, and brought his account to a climax by hazarding the
asserting that Bras-Coupé was an animal that could not be whipped.

"Caramba!" exclaimed the master, with gentle emphasis, "how so?"

"Perhaps señor had better ride down to the quarters," replied the
overseer.

It was a great sacrifice of dignity, but the master made it.

"Bring him out."

They brought him out--chains on his feet, chains on his wrists, an iron
yoke on his neck. The Spanish Creole master had often seen the bull,
with his long, keen horns and blazing eye, standing in the arena; but
this was as though he had come face to face with a rhinoceros.

"This man is not a Congo," he said.

"He is a Jaloff," replied the encouraged overseer. "See his fine,
straight nose; moreover, he is a _candio_--a prince. If I whip him he
will die."

The dauntless captive and fearless master stood looking into each
other's eyes until each recognized in the other his peer in physical
courage, and each was struck with an admiration for the other which no
after difference was sufficient entirely to destroy. Had Bras-Coupé's
eye quailed but once--just for one little instant--he would have got the
lash; but, as it was--

"Get an interpreter," said Don José; then, more privately, "and come to
an understanding. I shall require it of you."

Where might one find an interpreter--one not merely able to render a
Jaloff's meaning into Creole French, or Spanish, but with such a turn
for diplomatic correspondence as would bring about an "understanding"
with this African buffalo? The overseer was left standing and thinking,
and Clemence, who had not forgotten who threw her into the
draining-ditch, cunningly passed by.

"Ah, Clemence--"

"_Mo pas capabe! Mo pas capabe!_ (I cannot, I cannot!) _Ya, ya, ya! 'oir
Miché Agricol' Fusilier! ouala yune bon monture, oui!_"--which was to
signify that Agricola could interpret the very Papa Lébat.

"Agricola Fusilier! The last man on earth to make peace."

But there seemed to be no choice, and to Agricola the overseer went. It
was but a little ride to the Grandissime place.

"I, Agricola Fusilier, stand as an interpreter to a negro? H-sir!"

"But I thought you might know of some person," said the weakening
applicant, rubbing his ear with his hand.

"Ah!" replied Agricola, addressing the surrounding scenery, "if I did
not--who would? You may take Palmyre."

The overseer softly smote his hands together at the happy thought.

"Yes," said Agricola, "take Palmyre; she has picked up as many negro
dialects as I know European languages."

And she went to the don's plantation as interpreter, followed by
Agricola's prayer to Fate that she might in some way be overtaken by
disaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. He
knew not only her pride, but her passion for the absent Honoré. He hated
her, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stood
with her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was more
offensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chief
object of her silent detestation.

It was Palmyre's habit to do nothing without painstaking. "When
Mademoiselle comes to be Señora," thought she--she knew that her
mistress and the don were affianced--"it will be well to have a Señor's
esteem. I shall endeavor to succeed." It was from this motive, then,
that with the aid of her mistress she attired herself in a resplendence
of scarlet and beads and feathers that could not fail the double purpose
of connecting her with the children of Ethiopia and commanding the
captive's instant admiration.

Alas for those who succeed too well! No sooner did the African turn his
tiger glance upon her than the fire of his eyes died out; and when she
spoke to him in the dear accents of his native tongue, the matter of
strife vanished from his mind. He loved.

He sat down tamely in his irons and listened to Palmyre's argument as a
wrecked mariner would listen to ghostly church-bells. He would give a
short assent, feast his eyes, again assent, and feast his ears; but when
at length she made bold to approach the actual issue, and finally
uttered the loathed word, _Work_, he rose up, six feet five, a statue of
indignation in black marble.

And then Palmyre, too, rose up, glorying in him, and went to explain to
master and overseer. Bras-Coupé understood, she said, that he was a
slave--it was the fortune of war, and he was a warrior; but, according
to a generally recognized principle in African international law, he
could not reasonably be expected to work.

"As Señor will remember I told him," remarked the overseer; "how can a
man expect to plow with a zebra?"

Here he recalled a fact in his earlier experience. An African of this
stripe had been found to answer admirably as a "driver" to make others
work. A second and third parley, extending through two or three days,
were held with the prince, looking to his appointment to the vacant
office of driver; yet what was the master's amazement to learn at length
that his Highness declined the proffered honor.

"Stop!" spoke the overseer again, detecting a look of alarm in Palmyre's
face as she turned away, "he doesn't do any such thing. If Señor will
let me take the man to Agricola--"

"No!" cried Palmyre, with an agonized look, "I will tell. He will take
the place and fill it if you will give me to him for his own--but oh,
messieurs, for the love of God--I do not want to be his wife!"

The overseer looked at the Señor, ready to approve whatever he should
decide. Bras-Coupé's intrepid audacity took the Spaniard's heart by
irresistible assault.

"I leave it entirely with Señor Fusilier," he said.

"But he is not my master; he has no right--"

"Silence!"

And she was silent; and so, sometimes, is fire in the wall.

Agricola's consent was given with malicious promptness, and as
Bras-Coupé's fetters fell off it was decreed that, should he fill his
office efficiently, there should be a wedding on the rear veranda of the
Grandissime mansion simultaneously with the one already appointed to
take place in the grand hall of the same house six months from that
present day. In the meanwhile Palmyre should remain with Mademoiselle,
who had promptly but quietly made up her mind that Palmyre should not be
wed unless she wished to be. Bras-Coupé made no objection, was royally
worthless for a time, but learned fast, mastered the "gumbo" dialect in
a few weeks, and in six months was the most valuable man ever bought for
gourde dollars. Nevertheless, there were but three persons within as
many square miles who were not most vividly afraid of him.

The first was Palmyre. His bearing in her presence was ever one of
solemn, exalted respect, which, whether from pure magnanimity in
himself, or by reason of her magnetic eye, was something worth being
there to see. "It was royal!" said the overseer.

The second was not that official. When Bras-Coupé said--as, at stated
intervals, he did say--"_Mo courri c'ez Agricole Fusilier pou' 'oir
'namourouse_ (I go to Agricola Fusilier to see my betrothed,)" the
overseer would sooner have intercepted a score of painted Chickasaws
than that one lover. He would look after him and shake a prophetic head.
"Trouble coming; better not deceive that fellow;" yet that was the very
thing Palmyre dared do. Her admiration for Bras-Coupé was almost
boundless. She rejoiced in his stature; she revelled in the
contemplation of his untamable spirit; he seemed to her the gigantic
embodiment of her own dark, fierce will, the expanded realization of
her lifetime longing for terrible strength. But the single deficiency
in all this impassioned regard was--what so many fairer loves have found
impossible to explain to so many gentler lovers--an entire absence of
preference; her heart she could not give him--she did not have it. Yet
after her first prayer to the Spaniard and his overseer for deliverance,
to the secret surprise and chagrin of her young mistress, she simulated
content. It was artifice; she knew Agricola's power, and to seem to
consent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into
withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's
promise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment;
and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certain
hard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which she
knew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulée. The word had reached
there that love had conquered--that, despite all hard words, and rancor,
and positive injury, the Grandissime hand--the fairest of Grandissime
hands--was about to be laid into that of one who without much stretch
might be called a De Grapion; that there was, moreover, positive effort
being made to induce a restitution of old gaming-table spoils. Honoré
and Mademoiselle, his sister, one on each side of the Atlantic, were
striving for this end. Don José sent this intelligence to his kinsman as
glad tidings (a lover never imagines there are two sides to that which
makes him happy), and, to add a touch of humor, told how Palmyre, also,
was given to the chieftain. The letter that came back to the young
Spaniard did not blame him so much: _he_ was ignorant of all the facts;
but a very formal one to Agricola begged to notify him that if Palmyre's
union with Bras-Coupé should be completed, as sure as there was a God in
heaven, the writer would have the life of the man who knowingly had thus
endeavored to dishonor one who _shared the blood of the De Grapions_.
Thereupon Agricola, contrary to his general character, began to drop
hints to Don José that the engagement of Bras-Coupé and Palmyre need not
be considered irreversible; but the don was not desirous of
disappointing his terrible pet. Palmyre, unluckily, played her game a
little too deeply. She thought the moment had come for herself to insist
on the match, and thus provoke Agricola to forbid it. To her
incalculable dismay she saw him a second time reconsider and
become silent.

The second person who did not fear Bras-Coupé was Mademoiselle. On one
of the giant's earliest visits to see Palmyre he obeyed the summons
which she brought him, to appear before the lady. A more artificial man
might have objected on the score of dress, his attire being a single
gaudy garment tightly enveloping the waist and thighs. As his eyes fell
upon the beautiful white lady he prostrated himself upon the ground, his
arms outstretched before him. He would not move till she was gone. Then
he arose like a hermit who has seen a vision. "_Bras-Coupé n' pas oulé
oir zombis_ (Bras-Coupé dares not look upon a spirit)." From that hour
he worshipped. He saw her often; every time, after one glance at her
countenance, he would prostrate his gigantic length with his face in
the dust.

The third person who did not fear him was--Agricola? Nay, it was the
Spaniard--a man whose capability to fear anything in nature or beyond
had never been discovered.

Long before the end of his probation Bras-Coupé would have slipped the
entanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels a
spider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a little
affectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day
did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal
swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and
bear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican;
when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of the
other. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drew
nigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The
bride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza,
which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, was
Palmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to the
last, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm of
their having been worn once, and once only, by her beloved Mademoiselle.

[Footnote 3: An over-zealous Franciscan once complained bitterly to the
bishop of Havana, that people were being married in Louisiana in their
own houses after dark and thinking nothing of it. It is not certain that
he had reference to the Grandissime mansion; at any rate he was tittered
down by the whole community.]

But where was Bras-Coupé?

The question was asked of Palmyre by Agricola with a gaze that meant in
English, "No tricks, girl!"

Among the servants who huddled at the windows and door to see the inner
magnificence a frightened whisper was already going round.

"We have made a sad discovery, Miché Fusilier," said the overseer.
"Bras-Coupé is here; we have him in a room just yonder. But--the truth
is, sir, Bras-Coupé is a voudou."

"Well, and suppose he is; what of it? Only hush; do not let his master
know it. It is nothing; all the blacks are voudous, more or less."

"But he declines to dress himself--has painted himself all rings and
stripes, antelope fashion."

"Tell him Agricola Fusilier says, 'dress immediately!'"

"Oh, Miché, we have said that five times already, and his answer--you
will pardon me--his answer is--spitting on the ground--that you are a
contemptible _dotchian_ (white trash)."

There is nothing to do but privily to call the very bride--the lady
herself. She comes forth in all her glory, small, but oh, so beautiful!
Slam! Bras-Coupé is upon his face, his finger-tips touching the tips of
her snowy slippers. She gently bids him go and dress, and at once
he goes.

Ah! now the question may be answered without whispering. There is
Bras-Coupé, towering above all heads, in ridiculous red and blue
regimentals, but with a look of savage dignity upon him that keeps every
one from laughing. The murmur of admiration that passed along the
thronged gallery leaped up into a shout in the bosom of Palmyre. Oh,
Bras-Coupé--heroic soul! She would not falter. She would let the silly
priest say his say--then her cunning should help her _not to be_ his
wife, yet to show his mighty arm how and when to strike.

"He is looking for Palmyre," said some, and at that moment he saw her.

"Ho-o-o-o-o!"

Agricola's best roar was a penny trumpet to Bras-Coupé's note of joy.
The whole masculine half of the indoor company flocked out to see what
the matter was. Bras-Coupé was taking her hand in one of his and laying
his other upon her head; and as some one made an unnecessary gesture for
silence, he sang, beating slow and solemn time with his naked foot and
with the hand that dropped hers to smite his breast:

     "'_En haut la montagne, zami,
     Mo pé coupé canne, zami,
     Pou' fé l'a'zen' zami,
     Pou' mo baille Palmyre.
     Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre mo c'ere,
     Mo l'aimé 'ou'--mo l'aimé 'ou'_.'"

"_Montagne?_" asked one slave of another, "_qui est çà, montagne? gnia
pas quiç 'ose comme çà dans la Louisiana?_ (What's a mountain?" We
haven't such things in Louisiana.)"

"_Mein ye gagnein plein montagnes dans l'Afrique_, listen!"

     "'_Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo' piti zozo,'
     Mo l'aimé 'ou'--mo l'aimé, l'aimé 'ou'_.'"

"Bravissimo!--" but just then a counter-attraction drew the white
company back into the house. An old French priest with sandalled feet
and a dirty face had arrived. There was a moment of handshaking with the
good father, then a moment of palpitation and holding of the breath, and
then--you would have known it by the turning away of two or three
feminine heads in tears--the lily hand became the don's, to have and to
hold, by authority of the Church and the Spanish king. And all was
merry, save that outside there was coming up as villanous a night as
ever cast black looks in through snug windows.

It was just as the newly-wed Spaniard, with Agricola and all the guests,
were concluding the byplay of marrying the darker couple, that the
hurricane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faint
pretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons,
etc.,--though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse--were beginning to
laugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right and
left, when Bras-Coupé, tardily realizing the consummation of his hopes,
stepped forward to embrace his wife.

"Bras-Coupé!"

The voice was that of Palmyre's mistress. She had not been able to
comprehend her maid's behavior, but now Palmyre had darted upon her an
appealing look.

The warrior stopped as if a javelin had flashed over his head and stuck
in the wall.

"Bras-Coupé must wait till I give him his wife."

He sank, with hidden face, slowly to the floor.

"Bras-Coupé hears the voice of zombis; the voice is sweet, but the words
are very strong; from the same sugar-cane comes _sirop_ and _tafia_;
Bras-Coupé says to zombis, 'Bras-Coupé will wait; but if the _dotchians_
deceive Bras-Coupé--" he rose to his feet with his eyes closed and his
great black fist lifted over his head--"Bras-Coupé will call
Voudou-Magnan!"

The crowd retreated and the storm fell like a burst of infernal
applause. A whiff like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain of
the gallery and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak,
belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground; a peal
of thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, the
great oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awful
blast. Every lip held its breath for a minute--or an hour, no one
knew--there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down.
Have you heard it thunder and rain in those Louisiana lowlands? Every
clap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment; you peer through
the black pane--your house is an island, all the land is sea.

However, the supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guests
were filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement,
below stairs, the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls of
the air upon a rice-field, and Bras-Coupé, throwing his heels about with
the joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in his
life tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time he
tasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it ten
times more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was like
stealing a tiger's kittens.

The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he
presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through the
dark company; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrative
tone, he repeated the petition--splitting the table with his fist by way
of punctuation--there ensued a hustling up staircases and a cramming
into dim corners that left him alone at the banquet.

Leaving the table, he strode upstairs and into the chirruping and
dancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hush
of amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupé strode straight
to his master, laid his paw upon his fellow-bridegroom's shoulder and in
a thunder-tone demanded:

"More!"

The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and--fell, beneath the
terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra.
Dolorous stroke!--for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him--poor,
tipsy savage--in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by a
small fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupé the death
of a felon; such was the old _Code Noir_. (We have a _Code Noir_ now,
but the new one is a mental reservation, not an enactment.)

The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the
instant expectation of insurrection, conflagration and rapine (just as
we do to-day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist and
gets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted in
a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange
signs and passes and rolling out in wrathful words of his mother tongue
what it needed no interpreter to tell his swarming enemies was a voudou
malediction.

"_Nous sommes grigis!_" screamed two or three ladies, "we are
bewitched!"

"Look to your wives and daughters!" shouted a Brahmin-Mandarin.

"Shoot the black devils without mercy!" cried a Mandarin-Fusilier,
unconsciously putting into a single outflash of words the whole Creole
treatment of race troubles.

With a single bound Bras-Coupé reached the drawing-room door; his gaudy
regimentals made a red and blue streak down the hall; there was a rush
of frilled and powdered gentlemen to the rear veranda, an avalanche of
lightning with Bras-Coupé in the midst making for the swamp, and then
all without was blackness of darkness and all within was a wild
commingled chatter of Creole, French, and Spanish tongues,--in the midst
of which the reluctant Agricola returned his dresssword to its scabbard.

While the wet lanterns swung on crazily in the trees along the way by
which the bridegroom was to have borne his bride; while Madame
Grandissime prepared an impromptu bridalchamber; while the Spaniard
bathed his eye and the blue gash on his cheek-bone; while Palmyre paced
her room in a fever and wild tremor of conflicting emotions throughout
the night, and the guests splashed home after the storm as best they
could, Bras-Coupé was practically declaring his independence on a slight
rise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce
above the water in the inmost depths of the swamp.

And amid what surroundings! Endless colonnades of cypresses; long,
motionless drapings of gray moss; broad sheets of noisome waters, pitchy
black, resting on bottomless ooze; cypress knees studding the surface;
patches of floating green, gleaming brilliantly here and there; yonder
where the sunbeams wedge themselves in, constellations of water-lilies,
the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers that no man had named;
here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and the
dull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer
recesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; turtles a century
old; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures
of like vileness; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in
deadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous
dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane,
the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow; a
solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call
or whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventriloquous note of the
rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear but
lifeless bayou.

The pack of Cuban hounds that howl from Don José's kennels cannot snuff
the trail of the stolen canoe that glides through the sombre blue vapors
of the African's fastnesses. His arrows send no telltale reverberations
to the distant clearing. Many a wretch in his native wilderness has
Bras-Coupé himself, in palmier days, driven to just such an existence,
to escape the chains and horrors of the barracoons; therefore not a whit
broods he over man's inhumanity, but, taking the affair as a matter of
course, casts about him for a future.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPÉ, CONTINUED


Bras-Coupé let the autumn pass, and wintered in his den.

Don José, in a majestic way, endeavored to be happy. He took his señora
to his hall, and under her rule it took on for a while a look and
feeling which turned it from a hunting-lodge into a home. Wherever the
lady's steps turned--or it is as correct to say wherever the proud tread
of Palmyre turned--the features of bachelor's-hall disappeared; guns,
dogs, oars, saddles, nets, went their way into proper banishment, and
the broad halls and lofty chambers--the floors now muffled with mats of
palmetto-leaf--no longer re-echoed the tread of a lonely master, but
breathed a redolence of flowers and a rippling murmur of
well-contented song.

But the song was not from the throat of Bras-Coupé's "_piti zozo_."
Silent and severe by day, she moaned away whole nights heaping
reproaches upon herself for the impulse--now to her, because it had
failed, inexplicable in its folly--which had permitted her hand to lie
in Bras-Coupé's and the priest to bind them together.

For in the audacity of her pride, or, as Agricola would have said, in
the immensity of her impudence, she had held herself consecrate to a
hopeless love. But now she was a black man's wife! and even he unable
to sit at her feet and learn the lesson she had hoped to teach him. She
had heard of San Domingo; for months the fierce heart within her silent
bosom had been leaping and shouting and seeing visions of fire and
blood, and when she brooded over the nearness of Agricola and the
remoteness of Honoré these visions got from her a sort of mad consent.
The lesson she would have taught the giant was Insurrection. But it was
too late. Letting her dagger sleep in her bosom, and with an undefined
belief in imaginary resources, she had consented to join hands with her
giant hero before the priest; and when the wedding had come and gone
like a white sail, she was seized with a lasting, fierce despair. A wild
aggressiveness that had formerly characterized her glance in moments of
anger--moments which had grown more and more infrequent under the
softening influence of her Mademoiselle's nature--now came back
intensified, and blazed in her eye perpetually. Whatever her secret love
may have been in kind, its sinking beyond hope below the horizon had
left her fifty times the mutineer she had been before--the mutineer who
has nothing to lose.

"She loves her _candio_" said the negroes.

"Simple creatures!" said the overseer, who prided himself on his
discernment, "she loves nothing; she hates Agricola; it's a case of hate
at first sight--the strongest kind."

Both were partly right; her feelings were wonderfully knit to the
African; and she now dedicated herself to Agricola's ruin.

The señor, it has been said, endeavored to be happy; but now his heart
conceived and brought forth its first-born fear, sired by
superstition--the fear that he was bewitched. The negroes said that
Bras-Coupé had cursed the land. Morning after morning the master looked
out with apprehension toward the fields, until one night the worm came
upon the indigo, and between sunset and sunrise every green leaf had
been eaten up and there was nothing left for either insect or
apprehension to feed upon.

And then he said--and the echo came back from the Cannes Brulées--that
the very bottom culpability of this thing rested on the Grandissimes,
and specifically on their fugleman Agricola, through his putting the
hellish African upon him. Moreover, fever and death, to a degree unknown
before, fell upon his slaves. Those to whom life was spared--but to whom
strength did not return--wandered about the place like scarecrows,
looking for shelter, and made the very air dismal with the reiteration,
"_No' ouanga_ (we are bewitched), _Bras-Coupé fé moi des grigis_ (the
voudou's spells are on me)." The ripple of song was hushed and the
flowers fell upon the floor.

"I have heard an English maxim," wrote Colonel De Grapion to his
kinsman, "which I would recommend you to put into practice--'Fight the
devil with fire.'"

No, he would not recognize devils as belligerents.

But if Rome commissioned exorcists, could not he employ one?

No, he would not! If his hounds could not catch Bras-Coupé, why, let him
go. The overseer tried the hounds once more and came home with the best
one across his saddle-bow, an arrow run half through its side.

Once the blacks attempted by certain familiar rum-pourings and nocturnal
charm-singing to lift the curse; but the moment the master heard the
wild monotone of their infernal worship, he stopped it with a word.

Early in February came the spring, and with it some resurrection of hope
and courage. It may have been--it certainly was, in part--because young
Honoré Grandissime had returned. He was like the sun's warmth wherever
he went; and the other Honoré was like his shadow. The fairer one
quickly saw the meaning of these things, hastened to cheer the young don
with hopes of a better future, and to effect, if he could, the
restoration of Bras-Coupé to his master's favor. But this latter effort
was an idle one. He had long sittings with his uncle Agricola to the
same end, but they always ended fruitless and often angrily.

His dark half-brother had seen Palmyre and loved her. Honoré would
gladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable union
in marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza need
be no impediment; all slave-owners understood those things. Following
Honoré's advice, the f.m.c., who had come into possession of his
paternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulées a written offer, to buy Palmyre
at any price that her master might name, stating his intention to free
her and make her his wife. Colonel De Grapion could hardly hope to
settle Palmyre's fate more satisfactorily, yet he could not forego an
opportunity to indulge his pride by following up the threat he had hung
over Agricola to kill whosoever should give Palmyre to a black man. He
referred the subject and the would-be purchaser to him. It would open up
to the old braggart a line of retreat, thought the planter of the
Cannes Brulées.

But the idea of retreat had left Citizen Fusilier.

"She is already married," said he to M. Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c. "She
is the lawful wife of Bras-Coupé; and what God has joined together let
no man put asunder. You know it, sirrah. You did this for impudence, to
make a show of your wealth. You intended it as an insinuation of
equality. I overlook the impertinence for the sake of the man whose
white blood you carry; but h-mark you, if ever you bring your Parisian
airs and self-sufficient face on a level with mine again, h-I will
slap it."

The quadroon, three nights after, was so indiscreet as to give him the
opportunity, and he did it--at that quadroon ball to which Dr. Keene
alluded in talking to Frowenfeld.

But Don José, we say, plucked up new spirit..

"Last year's disasters were but fortune's freaks," he said. "See,
others' crops have failed all about us."

The overseer shook his head.

"_C'est ce maudit cocodri' là bas_ (It is that accursed alligator,
Bras-Coupé, down yonder in the swamp)."

And by and by the master was again smitten with the same belief. He and
his neighbors put in their crops afresh. The spring waned, summer
passed, the fevers returned, the year wore round, but no harvest smiled.
"Alas!" cried the planters, "we are all poor men!" The worst among the
worst were the fields of Bras-Coupé's master--parched and shrivelled.
"He does not understand planting," said his neighbors; "neither does his
overseer. Maybe, too, it is true as he says, that he is voudoued."

One day at high noon the master was taken sick with fever.

The third noon after--the sad wife sitting by the bedside--suddenly,
right in the centre of the room, with the door open behind him, stood
the magnificent, half-nude form of Bras-Coupé. He did not fall down as
the mistress's eyes met his, though all his flesh quivered. The master
was lying with his eyes closed. The fever had done a fearful three
days' work.

"_Mioko-Koanga oulé so' femme_ (Bras-Coupé wants his wife)."

The master started wildly and stared upon his slave.

"_Bras-Coupé oulé so' femme_!" repeated the black.

"Seize him!" cried the sick man, trying to rise.

But, though several servants had ventured in with frightened faces, none
dared molest the giant. The master turned his entreating eyes upon his
wife, but she seemed stunned, and only covered her face with her hands
and sat as if paralyzed by a foreknowledge of what was coming.

Bras-Coupé lifted his great black palm and commenced:

"_Mo cé voudrai que la maison ci là, et tout ça qui pas femme' ici,
s'raient encore maudits_! (May this house, and all in it who are not
women, be accursed)."

The master fell back upon his pillow with a groan of helpless wrath.

The African pointed his finger through the open window.

"May its fields not know the plough nor nourish the herds that overrun
it."

The domestics, who had thus far stood their ground, suddenly rushed from
the room like stampeded cattle, and at that moment appeared Palmyre.

"Speak to him," faintly cried the panting invalid.

She went firmly up to her husband and lifted her hand. With an easy
motion, but quick as lightning, as a lion sets foot on a dog, he caught
her by the arm.

"_Bras-Coupé oulé so' femme_," he said, and just then Palmyre would have
gone with him to the equator.

"You shall not have her!" gasped the master.

The African seemed to rise in height, and still holding his wife at
arm's length, resumed his malediction:

"May weeds cover the ground until the air is full of their odor and the
wild beasts of the forest come and lie down under their cover."

With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow and
extended his clenched fist in speechless defiance; but his brain reeled,
his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress were
bending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupé
was gone.

The plantation became an invalid camp. The words of the voudou found
fulfilment on every side. The plough went not out; the herds wandered
through broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bones
and shrunken sides; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled and
throttled each other in a struggle for standing-room--rag-weed,
smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bindweed, iron-weed--until the burning skies of
midsummer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rank
and dingy flowers.

"Why in the name of--St. Francis," asked the priest of the overseer,
"didn't the señora use her power over the black scoundrel when he stood
and cursed, that day?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, father," said the overseer, in a discreet
whisper, "I can only suppose she thought Bras-Coupé had half a right
to do it."

"Ah, ah, I see; like her brother Honoré--looks at both sides of a
question--a miserable practice; but why couldn't Palmyre use _her_ eyes?
They would have stopped him."

"Palmyre? Why Palmyre has become the best _monture_ (Plutonian medium)
in the parish. Agricola Fusilier himself is afraid of her. Sir, I think
sometimes Bras-Coupé is dead and his spirit has gone into Palmyre. She
would rather add to his curse than take from it."

"Ah!" said the jovial divine, with a fat smile, "castigation would help
her case; the whip is a great sanctifier. I fancy it would even make a
Christian of the inexpugnable Bras-Coupé."

But Bras-Coupé kept beyond the reach alike of the lash and of the Latin
Bible.

By and by came a man with a rumor, whom the overseer brought to the
master's sick-room, to tell that an enterprising Frenchman was
attempting to produce a new staple in Louisiana, one that worms would
not annihilate. It was that year of history when the despairing planters
saw ruin hovering so close over them that they cried to heaven for
succor. Providence raised up Étienne de Boré. "And if Étienne is
successful," cried the news-bearer, "and gets the juice of the
sugar-cane to crystallize, so shall all of us, after him, and shall yet
save our lands and homes. Oh, Señor, it will make you strong again to
see these fields all cane and the long rows of negroes and negresses
cutting it, while they sing their song of those droll African numerals,
counting the canes they cut," and the bearer of good tidings sang them
for very joy:

[Illustration: music]

     An-o-qué, An-o-bia, Bia-tail-la, Qué-re-qué, Nal-le-oua,
     Au-mon-dé, Au-tap-o-té, Au-pé-to-té, Au-qué-ré-qué, Bo.

"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 that _I_ have 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.




CHAPTER XXX

PARALYSIS


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; but _he_--when _he_ had
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, but _I_ have 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."




CHAPTER XXXI

ANOTHER WOUND IN A NEW PLACE


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.




CHAPTER XXXII

INTERRUPTED PRELIMINARIES


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 I _always_ tell 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.




CHAPTER XXXIII

UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL


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 some _blood_ on 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 blood_ on 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.




CHAPTER XXXIV

CLOTILDE AS A SURGEON


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,
"_appelez_ Doctah 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.




CHAPTER XXXV

"FO' WAD YOU CRYNE?"


Clotilde, a step or two from home, dismissed her attendant, and as
Aurora, with anxious haste, opened to her familiar knock, appeared
before her pale and trembling.

"_Ah, ma fille_--"

The overwrought girl dropped her head and wept without restraint upon
her mother's neck. She let herself be guided to a chair, and there,
while Aurora nestled close to her side, yielded a few moments to reverie
before she was called upon to speak. Then Aurora first quietly took
possession of her hands, and after another tender pause asked in
English, which was equivalent to whispering:

"Were you was, _chérie?_"

"'Sieur Frowenfel'--"

Aurora straightened up with angry astonishment and drew in her breath
for an emphatic speech, but Clotilde, liberating her own hands, took
Aurora's, and hurriedly said, turning still paler as she spoke:

"'E godd his 'ead strigue! 'Tis all knog in be'ine! 'E come in
blidding--"

"In w'ere?" cried Aurora.

"In 'is shob."

"You was in dad shob of 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"

"I wend ad 'is shob to pay doze rend."

"How--you wend ad 'is shob to pay--"

Clotilde produced the bracelet. The two looked at each other in silence
for a moment, while Aurora took in without further explanation
Clotilde's project and its failure.

"An' 'Sieur Frowenfel'--dey kill 'im? Ah! _Ma chère_, fo' wad you mague
me to hass all dose question?"

Clotilde gave a brief account of the matter, omitting only her
conversation with Frowenfeld.

"_Mais_, oo strigue 'im?" demanded Aurora, impatiently.

"Addunno!" replied the other. "Bud I does know 'e is hinnocen'!"

A small scouting-party of tears reappeared on the edge of her eyes.

"Innocen' from wad?"

Aurora betrayed a twinkle of amusement.

"Hev'ryt'in', iv you pliz!" exclaimed Clotilde, with most uncalled-for
warmth.

"An' you crah bic-ause 'e is nod guiltie?"

"Ah! foolish!"

"Ah, non, my chile, I know fo' wad you cryne: 't is h-only de sighd of
de blood."

"Oh, sighd of blood!"

Clotilde let a little nervous laugh escape through her dejection.

"Well, then,"--Aurora's eyes twinkled like stars,--"id muz be bic-ause
'Sieur Frowenfel' bump 'is 'ead--ha, ha, ha!"

"'Tis nod tru'!" cried Clotilde; but, instead of laughing, as Aurora had
supposed she would, she sent a double flash of light from her eyes,
crimsoned, and retorted, as the tears again sprang from their
lurking-place, "You wand to mague ligue you don't kyah! But _I_ know! I
know verrie well! You kyah fifty time' as mudge as me! I know you! I
know you! I bin wadge you!"

Aurora was quite dumb for a moment, and gazed at Clotilde, wondering
what could have made her so unlike herself. Then she half rose up, and,
as she reached forward an arm, and laid it tenderly about her daughter's
neck, said:

"Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry? Iv you will tell me wad dad
mague you cry, I will tell you--on ma _second word of honor_"--she
rolled up her fist--"juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel'!"

"I don't kyah wad de whole worl' thing aboud 'im!"

"_Mais_, anny'ow, tell me fo' wad you cryne!"

Clotilde gazed aside for a moment and then confronted her questioner
consentingly.

"I tole 'im I knowed 'e was h-innocen'."

"Eh, Men, dad was h-only de poli-i-idenez. Wad 'e said?"

"E said I din knowed 'im 'tall."

"An' you," exclaimed Aurora, "it is nod pozzyble dad you--"

"I tole 'im I know 'im bette'n 'e know annyt'in' 'boud id!"

The speaker dropped her face into her mother's lap.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Aurora, "an' wad of dad? I would say dad, me, fo'
time' a day. I gi'e you my word 'e don godd dad sens' to know wad
dad mean."

"Ah! don godd sens'!" cried Clotilde, lifting her head up suddenly with
a face of agony. "'E reg--'e reggo-ni-i-ize me!"

Aurora caught her daughter's cheeks between her hands and laughed all
over them.

"_Mais_, don you see 'ow dad was luggy? Now, you know?--'e goin' fall
in love wid you an' you goin' 'ave dad sadizfagzion to rif-use de
biggis' hand in Noo-'leans. An' you will be h-even, ha, ha! Bud me--you
wand to know wad I thing aboud 'im? I thing 'e is one--egcellen'
drug-cl--ah, ha, ha!"

Clotilde replied with a smile of grieved incredulity.

"De bez in de ciddy!" insisted the other. She crossed the forefinger of
one hand upon that of the other and kissed them, reversed the cross and
kissed them again. "_Mais_, ad de sem tam," she added, giving her
daughter time to smile, "I thing 'e is one _noble gen'leman_. Nod to
sood me, of coze, _mais, çà fait rien_--daz nott'n; me, I am now a h'ole
woman, you know, eh? Noboddie can' nevva sood me no mo', nod ivven dad
Govenno' Cleb-orne."

She tried to look old and jaded.

"Ah, Govenno' Cleb-orne!" exclaimed Clotilde.

"Yass!--Ah, you!--you thing iv a man is nod a Creole 'e bown to be no
'coun'! I assu' you dey don' godd no boddy wad I fine a so nize
gen'leman lag Govenno' Cleb-orne! Ah! Clotilde, you godd no lib'ral'ty!"

The speaker rose, cast a discouraged parting look upon her narrow-minded
companion and went to investigate the slumbrous silence of the kitchen.




CHAPTER XXXVI

AURORA'S LAST PICAYUNE


Not often in Aurora's life had joy and trembling so been mingled in one
cup as on this day. Clotilde wept; and certainly the mother's heart
could but respond; yet Clotilde's tears filled her with a secret
pleasure which fought its way up into the beams of her eyes and asserted
itself in the frequency and heartiness of her laugh despite her sincere
participation in her companion's distresses and a fearful looking
forward to to-morrow.

Why these flashes of gladness? If we do not know, it is because we have
overlooked one of her sources of trouble. From the night of the _bal
masqué_ she had--we dare say no more than that she had been haunted; she
certainly would not at first have admitted even so much to herself. Yet
the fact was not thereby altered, and first the fact and later the
feeling had given her much distress of mind. Who he was whose image
would not down, for a long time she did not know. This, alone, was
torture; not merely because it was mystery, but because it helped to
force upon her consciousness that her affections, spite of her, were
ready and waiting for him and he did not come after them. That he loved
her, she knew; she had achieved at the ball an overwhelming victory, to
her certain knowledge, or, depend upon it, she never would have
unmasked--never.

But with this torture was mingled not only the ecstasy of loving, but
the fear of her daughter. This is a world that allows nothing without
its obverse and reverse. Strange differences are often seen between the
two sides; and one of the strangest and most inharmonious in this world
of human relations is that coinage which a mother sometimes finds
herself offering to a daughter, and which reads on one side, Bridegroom,
and on the other, Stepfather.

Then, all this torture to be hidden under smiles! Worse still, when by
and by Messieurs Agoussou, Assonquer, Danny and others had been appealed
to and a Providence boundless in tender compassion had answered in their
stead, she and her lover had simultaneously discovered each other's
identity only to find that he was a Montague to her Capulet. And the
source of her agony must be hidden, and falsely attributed to the rent
deficiency and their unprotected lives. Its true nature must be
concealed even from Clotilde. What a secret--for what a spirit--to keep
from what a companion!--a secret yielding honey to her, but, it might
be, gall to Clotilde. She felt like one locked in the Garden of Eden all
alone--alone with all the ravishing flowers, alone with all the lions
and tigers. She wished she had told the secret when it was small and had
let it increase by gradual accretions in Clotilde's knowledge day by
day. At first it had been but a garland, then it had become a chain, now
it was a ball and chain; and it was oh! and oh! if Clotilde would only
fall in love herself! How that would simplify matters! More than twice
or thrice she had tried to reveal her overstrained heart in broken
sections; but on her approach to the very outer confines of the matter,
Clotilde had always behaved so strangely, so nervously, in short, so
beyond Aurora's comprehension, that she invariably failed to make any
revelation.

And now, here in the very central darkness of this cloud of troubles,
comes in Clotilde, throws herself upon the defiant little bosom so full
of hidden suffering, and weeps tears of innocent confession that in a
moment lay the dust of half of Aurora's perplexities. Strange world! The
tears of the orphan making the widow weep for joy, if she only dared.

The pair sat down opposite each other at their little dinner-table. They
had a fixed hour for dinner. It is well to have a fixed hour; it is in
the direction of system. Even if you have not the dinner, there is the
hour. Alphonsina was not in perfect harmony with this fixed-hour idea.
It was Aurora's belief, often expressed in hungry moments with the laugh
of a vexed Creole lady (a laugh worthy of study), that on the day when
dinner should really be served at the appointed hour, the cook would
drop dead of apoplexy and she of fright. She said it to-day, shutting
her arms down to her side, closing her eyes with her eyebrows raised,
and dropping into her chair at the table like a dead bird from its
perch. Not that she felt particularly hungry; but there is a certain
desultoriness allowable at table more than elsewhere, and which suited
the hither-thither movement of her conflicting feelings. This is why she
had wished for dinner.

Boiled shrimps, rice, claret-and-water, bread--they were dining well the
day before execution. Dining is hardly correct, either, for Clotilde, at
least, did not eat; they only sat. Clotilde had, too, if not her
unknown, at least her unconfessed emotions. Aurora's were tossed by the
waves, hers were sunken beneath them. Aurora had a faith that the rent
would be paid--a faith which was only a vapor, but a vapor gilded by the
sun--that is, by Apollo, or, to be still more explicit, by Honoré
Grandissime. Clotilde, deprived of this confidence, had tried to raise
means wherewith to meet the dread obligation, or, rather, had tried to
try and had failed. To-day was the ninth, to-morrow, the street. Joseph
Frowenfeld was hurt; her dependence upon his good offices was gone. When
she thought of him suffering under public contumely, it seemed to her as
if she could feel the big drops of blood dropping from her heart; and
when she recalled her own actions, speeches, and demonstrations in his
presence, exaggerated by the groundless fear that he had guessed into
the deepest springs of her feelings, then she felt those drops of blood
congeal. Even if the apothecary had been duller of discernment than she
supposed, here was Aurora on the opposite side of the table, reading
every thought of her inmost soul. But worst of all was 'Sieur
Frowenfel's indifference. It is true that, as he had directed upon her
that gaze of recognition, there was a look of mighty gladness, if she
dared believe her eyes. But no, she dared not; there was nothing there
for her, she thought,--probably (when this anguish of public disgrace
should by any means be lifted) a benevolent smile at her and her
betrayal of interest. Clotilde felt as though she had been laid entire
upon a slide of his microscope.

Aurora at length broke her reverie.

"Clotilde,"--she spoke in French--"the matter with you is that you have
no heart. You never did have any. Really and truly, you do not care
whether 'Sieur Frowenfel' lives or dies. You do not care how he is or
where he is this minute. I wish you had some of my too large heart. I
not only have the heart, as I tell you, to think kindly of our enemies,
those Grandissime, for example"--she waved her hand with the air of
selecting at random--"but I am burning up to know what is the condition
of that poor, sick, noble 'Sieur Frowenfel', and I am going to do it!"

The heart which Clotilde was accused of not having gave a stir of deep
gratitude. Dear, pretty little mother! Not only knowing full well the
existence of this swelling heart and the significance, to-day, of its
every warm pulsation, but kindly covering up the discovery with
make-believe reproaches. The tears started in her eyes; that was
her reply.

"Oh, now! it is the rent again, I suppose," cried Aurora, "always the
rent. It is not the rent that worries _me_, it is 'Sieur Frowenfel',
poor man. But very well, Mademoiselle Silence, I will match you for
making me do all the talking." She was really beginning to sink under
the labor of carrying all the sprightliness for both. "Come," she said,
savagely, "propose something."

"Would you think well to go and inquire?"

"Ah, listen! Go and what? No, Mademoiselle, I think not."

"Well, send Alphonsina."

"What? And let him know that I am anxious about him? Let me tell you, my
little girl, I shall not drag upon myself the responsibility of
increasing the self-conceit of any of that sex."

"Well, then, send to buy a picayune's worth of something."

"Ah, ha, ha! An emetic, for instance. Tell him we are poisoned on
mushrooms, ha, ha, ha!"

Clotilde laughed too.

"Ah, no," she said. "Send for something he does not sell."

Aurora was laughing while Clotilde spoke; but as she caught these words
she stopped with open-mouthed astonishment, and, as Clotilde blushed,
laughed again.

"Oh, Clotilde, Clotilde, Clotilde!"--she leaned forward over the table,
her face beaming with love and laughter--"you rowdy! you rascal! You
are just as bad as your mother, whom you think so wicked! I accept your
advice. Alphonsina!"

"Momselle!"

The answer came from the kitchen.

"Come go--or, rather,--_vini 'ci courri dans boutique de l'apothecaire_.
Clotilde," she continued, in better French, holding up the coin to
view, "look!"

"What?"

"The last picayune we have in the world--ha, ha, ha!"




CHAPTER XXXVII

HONORÉ MAKES SOME CONFESSIONS


"Comment çà va, Raoul?" said Honoré Grandissime; he had come to the shop
according to the proposal contained in his note. "Where is Mr.
Frowenfeld?"

He found the apothecary in the rear room, dressed, but just rising from
the bed at sound of his voice. He closed the door after him; they shook
hands and took chairs.

"You have fever," said the merchant. "I have been troubled that way
myself, some, lately." He rubbed his face all over, hard, with one
hand,' and looked at the ceiling. "Loss of sleep, I suppose, in both of
us; in your case voluntary--in pursuit of study, most likely; in my
case--effect of anxiety." He smiled a moment and then suddenly sobered
as after a pause he said:

"But I hear you are in trouble; may I ask--"

Frowenfeld had interrupted him with almost the same words:

"May I venture to ask, Mr. Grandissime, what--"

And both were silent for a moment.

"Oh," said Honoré, with a gesture. "My trouble--I did not mean to
mention it; 't is an old matter--in part. You know, Mr. Frowenfeld,
there is a kind of tree not dreamed of in botany, that lets fall its
fruit every day in the year--you know? We call it--with reverence--'our
dead father's mistakes.' I have had to eat much of that fruit; a man who
has to do that must expect to have now and then a little fever."

"I have heard," replied Frowenfeld, "that some of the titles under which
your relatives hold their lands are found to be of the kind which the
State's authorities are pronouncing worthless. I hope this is not
the case."

"I wish they had never been put into my custody," said M. Grandissime.

Some new thought moved him to draw his chair closer.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, those two ladies whom you went to see the other
evening--"

His listener started a little:

"Yes."

"Did they ever tell you their history?"

"No, sir; but I have heard it."

"And you think they have been deeply wronged, eh? Come, Mr. Frowenfeld,
take right hold of the acacia-bush." M. Grandissime did not smile.

Frowenfeld winced. "I think they have."

"And you think restitution should be made them, no doubt, eh?"

"I do."

"At any cost?"

The questioner showed a faint, unpleasant smile, that stirred something
like opposition in the breast of the apothecary.

"Yes," he answered.

The next question had a tincture even of fierceness:

"You think it right to sink fifty or a hundred people into poverty to
lift one or two out?"

"Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld, slowly, "you bade me study this
community."

"I adv--yes; what is it you find?"

"I find--it may be the same with other communities, I suppose it is,
more or less--that just upon the culmination of the moral issue it turns
and asks the question which is behind it, instead of the question which
is before it."

"And what is the question before me?"

"I know it only in the abstract."

"Well?"

The apothecary looked distressed.

"You should not make me say it," he objected.

"Nevertheless," said the Creole, "I take that liberty."

"Well, then," said Frowenfeld, "the question behind is Expediency and
the question in front, Divine Justice. You are asking yourself--"

He checked himself.

"Which I ought to regard," said M. Grandissime, quickly. "Expediency, of
course, and be like the rest of mankind." He put on a look of bitter
humor. "It is all easy enough for you, Mr. Frowenfeld, my-de'-seh; you
have the easy part--the theorizing."

He saw the ungenerousness of his speech as soon as it was uttered, yet
he did not modify it.

"True, Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld; and after a pause--"but you
have the noble part--the doing."

"Ah, my-de'-seh!" exclaimed Honoré; "the noble part! There is the
bitterness of the draught! The opportunity to act is pushed upon me, but
the opportunity to act nobly has passed by."

He again drew his chair closer, glanced behind him and spoke low:

"Because for years I have had a kind of custody of all my kinsmen's
property interests, Agricola's among them, it is supposed that he has
always kept the plantation of Aurore Nancanou (or rather of
Clotilde--who, you know, by our laws is the real heir). That is a
mistake. Explain it as you please, call it remorse, pride, love--what
you like--while I was in France and he was managing my mother's
business, unknown to me he gave me that plantation. When I succeeded him
I found it and all its revenues kept distinct--as was but proper--from
all other accounts, and belonging to me. 'Twas a fine, extensive place,
had a good overseer on it and--I kept it. Why? Because I was a coward. I
did not want it or its revenues; but, like my father, I would not offend
my people. Peace first and justice afterwards--that was the principle
on which I quietly made myself the trustee of a plantation and income
which you would have given back to their owners, eh?"

Frowenfeld was silent.

"My-de'-seh, recollect that to us the Grandissime name is a treasure.
And what has preserved it so long? Cherishing the unity of our family;
that has done it; that is how my father did it. Just or unjust, good or
bad, needful or not, done elsewhere or not, I do not say; but it is a
Creole trait. See, even now" (the speaker smiled on one side of his
mouth) "in a certain section of the territory certain men, Creoles" (he
whispered, gravely), "_some Grandissimes among them_, evading the United
States revenue laws and even beating and killing some of the officials:
well! Do the people at large repudiate those men? My-de'-seh, in no
wise, seh! No; if they were _Américains_--but a Louisianian--is a
Louisianian; touch him not; when you touch him you touch all Louisiana!
So with us Grandissimes; we are legion, but we are one. Now,
my-de'-seh, the thing you ask me to do is to cast overboard that old
traditional principle which is the secret of our existence."

"_I_ ask you?"

"Ah, bah! you know you expect it. Ah! but you do not know the uproar
such an action would make. And no 'noble part' in it, my-de'-seh,
either. A few months ago--when we met by those graves--if
I had acted then, my action would have been one of pure--even
violent--_self_-sacrifice. Do you remember--on the levee, by the Place
d'Armes--me asking you to send Agricola to me? I tried then to speak of
it. He would not let me. Then, my people felt safe in their land-titles
and public offices; this restitution would have hurt nothing but pride.
Now, titles in doubt, government appointments uncertain, no ready
capital in reach for any purpose, except that which would have to be
handed over with the plantation (for to tell you the fact, my-de'-seh,
no other account on my books has prospered), with matters changed in
this way, I become the destroyer of my own flesh and blood! Yes, seh!
and lest I might still find some room to boast, another change moves me
into a position where it suits me, my-de'-seh, to make the restitution
so fatal to those of my name. When you and I first met, those ladies
were as much strangers to me as to you--as far as I _knew_. Then, if I
had done this thing--but now--now, my-de'-seh, I find myself in love
with one of them!"

M. Grandissime looked his friend straight in the eye with the frowning
energy of one who asserts an ugly fact.

Frowenfeld, regarding the speaker with a gaze of respectful attention,
did not falter; but his fevered blood, with an impulse that started him
half from his seat, surged up into his head and face; and then--

M. Grandissime blushed.

In the few silent seconds that followed, the glances of the two friends
continued to pass into each other's eyes, while about Honoré's mouth
hovered the smile of one who candidly surrenders his innermost secret,
and the lips of the apothecary set themselves together as though he were
whispering to himself behind them, "Steady."

"Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, taking a sudden breath and waving a
hand, "I came to ask about _your_ trouble; but if you think you have any
reason to withhold your confidence--"

"No, sir; no! But can I be no help to you in this matter?"

The Creole leaned back smilingly in his chair and knit his fingers.

"No, I did not intend to say all this; I came to offer my help to you;
but my mind is full--what do you expect? My-de'-seh, the foam must come
first out of the bottle. You see"--he leaned forward again, laid two
fingers in his palm and deepened his tone--"I will tell you: this
tree--'our dead father's mistakes'--is about to drop another rotten
apple. I spoke just now of the uproar this restitution would make; why,
my-de'-seh, just the mention of the lady's name at my house, when we
lately held the _fête de grandpère_, has given rise to a quarrel which
is likely to end in a duel."

"Raoul was telling me," said the apothecary.

M. Grandissime made an affirmative gesture.

"Mr. Frowenfeld, if you--if any one--could teach my people--I mean my
family--the value of peace (I do not say the duty, my-de'-seh; a
merchant talks of values); if you could teach them the value of peace, I
would give you, if that was your price"--he ran the edge of his left
hand knife-wise around the wrist of his right--"that. And if you would
teach it to the whole community--well--I think I would not give my head;
maybe you would." He laughed.

"There is a peace which is bad," said the contemplative apothecary.

"Yes," said the Creole, promptly, "the very kind that I have been
keeping all this time--and my father before me!"

He spoke with much warmth.

"Yes," he said again, after a pause which was not a rest, "I often see
that we Grandissimes are a good example of the Creoles at large; we have
one element that makes for peace; that--pardon the
self-consciousness--is myself; and another element that makes for
strife--led by my uncle Agricola; but, my-de'-seh, the peace element is
that which ought to make the strife, and the strife element is that
which ought to be made to keep the peace! Mr. Frowenfeld, I propose to
become the strife-maker; how then, can I be a peacemaker at the same
time? There is my diffycultie."

"Mr. Grandissime," exclaimed Frowenfeld, "if you have any design in view
founded on the high principles which I know to be the foundations of all
your feelings, and can make use of the aid of a disgraced man, use me."

"You are very generous," said the Creole, and both were silent. Honoré
dropped his eyes from Frowenfeld's to the floor, rubbed his knee with
his palm, and suddenly looked up.

"You are innocent of wrong?"

"Before God."

"I feel sure of it. Tell me in a few words all about it. I ought to be
able to extricate you. Let me hear it."

Frowenfeld again told as much as he thought he could, consistently with
his pledges to Palmyre, touching with extreme lightness upon the part
taken by Clotilde.

"Turn around," said M. Grandissime at the close; "let me see the back of
your head. And it is that that is giving you this fever, eh?"

"Partly," replied Frowenfeld; "but how shall I vindicate my innocence? I
think I ought to go back openly to this woman's house and get my hat. I
was about to do that when I got your note; yet it seems a feeble--even
if possible--expedient."

"My friend," said Honoré, "leave it to me. I see your whole case, both
what you tell and what you conceal. I guess it with ease. Knowing
Palmyre so well, and knowing (what you do not) that all the voudous in
town think you a sorcerer, I know just what she would drop down and beg
you for--a _ouangan_, ha, ha! You see? Leave it all to me--and your hat
with Palmyre, take a febrifuge and a nap, and await word from me."

"And may I offer you no help in your difficulty?" asked the apothecary,
as the two rose and grasped hands.

"Oh!" said the Creole, with a little shrug, "you may do anything you
can--which will be nothing."




CHAPTER XXXVIII

TESTS OF FRIENDSHIP


Frowenfeld turned away from the closing door, caught his head between
his hands and tried to comprehend the new wildness of the tumult within.
Honoré Grandissime avowedly in love with one of them--_which one_?
Doctor Keene visibly in love with one of them--_which one_? And he! What
meant this bounding joy that, like one gorgeous moth among innumerable
bats, flashed to and fro among the wild distresses and dismays swarming
in and out of his distempered imagination? He did not answer the
question; he only knew the confusion in his brain was dreadful. Both
hands could not hold back the throbbing of his temples; the table did
not steady the trembling of his hands; his thoughts went hither and
thither, heedless of his call. Sit down as he might, rise up, pace the
room, stand, lean his forehead against the wall--nothing could quiet the
fearful disorder, until at length he recalled Honoré's neglected advice
and resolutely lay down and sought sleep; and, long before he had hoped
to secure it, it came.

In the distant Grandissime mansion, Agricola Fusilier was casting about
for ways and means to rid himself of the heaviest heart that ever had
throbbed in his bosom. He had risen at sunrise from slumber worse than
sleeplessness, in which his dreams had anticipated the duel of to-morrow
with Sylvestre. He was trying to get the unwonted quaking out of his
hands and the memory of the night's heart-dissolving phantasms from
before his inner vision. To do this he had resort to a very familiar, we
may say time-honored, prescription--rum. He did not use it after the
voudou fashion; the voudous pour it on the ground--Agricola was an
anti-voudou. It finally had its effect. By eleven o'clock he seemed,
outwardly at least, to be at peace with everything in Louisiana that he
considered Louisianian, properly so-called; as to all else he was ready
for war, as in peace one should be. While in this mood, and performing
at a sideboard the solemn rite of _las onze_, news incidentally reached
him, by the mouth of his busy second, Hippolyte, of Frowenfeld's
trouble, and despite 'Polyte's protestations against the principal in a
pending "affair" appearing on the street, he ordered the carriage and
hurried to the apothecary's.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Frowenfeld awoke, the fingers of his clock were passing the
meridan. His fever was gone, his brain was calm, his strength in good
measure had returned. There had been dreams in his sleep, too; he had
seen Clotilde standing at the foot of his bed. He lay now, for a moment,
lost in retrospection.

"There can be no doubt about it," said he, as he rose up, looking back
mentally at something in the past.

The sound of carriage-wheels attracted his attention by ceasing before
his street door. A moment later the voice of Agricola was heard in the
shop greeting Raoul. As the old man lifted the head of his staff to tap
on the inner door, Frowenfeld opened it.

"Fusilier to the rescue!" said the great Louisianian, with a grasp of
the apothecary's hand and a gaze of brooding admiration.

Joseph gave him a chair, but with magnificent humility he insisted on
not taking it until "Professor Frowenfeld" had himself sat down.

The apothecary was very solemn. It seemed to him as if in this little
back room his dead good name was lying in state, and these visitors were
coming in to take their last look. From time to time he longed for more
light, wondering why the gravity of his misadventure should seem
so great.

"H-m-h-y dear Professor!" began the old man. Pages of print could not
comprise all the meanings of his smile and accent; benevolence,
affection, assumed knowledge of the facts, disdain of results,
remembrance of his own youth, charity for pranks, patronage--these were
but a few. He spoke very slowly and deeply and with this smile of a
hundred meanings. "Why did you not send for me, Joseph? Sir, whenever
you have occasion to make a list of the friends who will stand by you,
_right or wrong_--h-write the name of Citizen Agricola Fusilier at the
top! Write it large and repeat it at the bottom! You understand me,
Joseph?--and, mark me,--right or wrong!"

"Not wrong," said Frowenfeld, "at least not in defence of wrong; I could
not do that; but, I assure you, in this matter I have done--"

"No worse than any one else would have done under the circumstances, my
dear boy!--Nay, nay, do not interrupt me; I understand you, I understand
you. H-do you imagine there is anything strange to me in this--at
my age?"

"But I am--"

"--all right, sir! that is _what_ you are. And you are under the wing of
Agricola Fusilier, the old eagle; that is _where_ you are. And you are
one of my brood; that is _who_ you are. Professor, listen to your old
father. _The--man--makes--the--crime!_ The wisdom of mankind never
brought forth a maxim of more gigantic beauty. If the different grades
of race and society did not have corresponding moral and civil
liberties, varying in degree as they vary--h-why! _this_ community, at
least, would go to pieces! See here! Professor Frowenfeld is charged
with misdemeanor. Very well, who is he? Foreigner or native? Foreigner
by sentiment and intention, or only by accident of birth? Of our mental
fibre--our aspirations--our delights--our indignations? I answer for
you, Joseph, yes!--yes! What then? H-why, then the decision! Reached
how? By apologetic reasonings? By instinct, sir! h-h-that guide of the
nobly proud! And what is the decision? Not guilty. Professor Frowenfeld,
_absolvo te!_"

It was in vain that the apothecary repeatedly tried to interrupt this
speech. "Citizen Fusilier, do you know me no better?"--"Citizen
Fusilier, if you will but listen!"--such were the fragments of his
efforts to explain. The old man was not so confident as he pretended to
be that Frowenfeld was that complete proselyte which alone satisfies a
Creole; but he saw him in a predicament and cast to him this life-buoy,
which if a man should refuse, he would deserve to drown.

Frowenfeld tried again to begin.

"Mr. Fusilier--"

"Citizen Fusilier!"

"Citizen, candor demands that I undeceive--"

"Candor demands--h-my dear Professor, let me tell you exactly what she
demands. She demands that in here--within this apartment--we understand
each other. That demand is met."

"But--" Frowenfeld frowned impatiently.

"That demand, Joseph, is fully met! I understand the whole matter like
an eye-witness! Now there is another demand to be met, the demand of
friendship! In here, candor; outside, friendship; in here, one of our
brethren has been adventurous and unfortunate; outside"--the old man
smiled a smile of benevolent mendacity--"outside, nothing has happened."

Frowenfeld insisted savagely on speaking; but Agricola raised his voice,
and gray hairs prevailed.

"At least, what _has_ happened? The most ordinary thing in the world;
Professor Frowenfeld lost his footing on a slippery gunwale, fell, cut
his head upon a protruding spike, and went into the house of Palmyre to
bathe his wound; but finding it worse than he had at first supposed it,
immediately hurried out again and came to his store. He left his hat
where it had fallen, too muddy to be worth recovery. Hippolyte
Brahmin-Mandarin and others, passing at the time, thought he had met
with violence in the house of the hair-dresser, and drew some natural
inferences, but have since been better informed; and the public will
please understand that Professor Frowenfeld is a white man, a gentleman,
and a Louisianian, ready to vindicate his honor, and that Citizen
Agricola Fusilier is his friend!"

The old man looked around with the air of a bull on a hill-top.

Frowenfeld, vexed beyond degree, restrained himself only for the sake
of an object in view, and contented himself with repeating for the
fourth or fifth time,--

"I cannot accept any such deliverance."

"Professor Frowenfeld, friendship--society--demands it; our circle must
be protected in all its members. You have nothing to do with it. You
will leave it with me, Joseph."

"No, no," said Frowenfeld, "I thank you, but--"

"Ah! my dear boy, thank me not; I cannot help these impulses; I belong
to a warm-hearted race. But"--he drew back in his chair sidewise and
made great pretence of frowning--"you decline the offices of that
precious possession, a Creole friend?"

"I only decline to be shielded by a fiction."

"Ah-h!" said Agricola, further nettling his victim by a gaze of stagy
admiration. "'_Sans peur et sans reproche_'--and yet you disappoint me.
Is it for naught, that I have sallied forth from home, drawing the
curtains of my carriage to shield me from the gazing crowd? It was to
rescue my friend--my vicar--my coadjutor--my son--from the laughs and
finger-points of the vulgar mass. H-I might as well have stayed at
home--or better, for my peculiar position to-day rather requires me to
keep in--"

"No, citizen," said Frowenfeld, laying his hand upon Agricola's arm, "I
trust it is not in vain that you have come out. There _is_ a man in
trouble whom only you can deliver."

The old man began to swell with complacency.

"H-why, really--"

"_He_, Citizen, is truly of your kind--"

"He must be delivered, Professor Frowenfeld--"

"He is a native Louisianian, not only by accident of birth but by
sentiment and intention," said Frowenfeld.

The old man smiled a benign delight, but the apothecary now had the
upper hand, and would not hear him speak.

"His aspirations," continued the speaker, "his indignations--mount with
his people's. His pulse beats with yours, sir. He is a part of your
circle. He is one of your caste."

Agricola could not be silent.

"Ha-a-a-ah! Joseph, h-h-you make my blood tingle! Speak to the point;
who--"

"I believe him, moreover, Citizen Fusilier, innocent of the charge
laid--"

"H-innocent? H-of course he is innocent, sir! We will _make_ him inno--"

"Ah! Citizen, he is already under sentence of death!"

"_What?_ A Creole under sentence!" Agricola swore a heathen oath, set
his knees apart and grasped his staff by the middle. "Sir, we will
liberate him if we have to overturn the government!"

Frowenfeld shook his head.

"You have got to overturn something stronger than government."

"And pray what--"

"A conventionality," said Frowenfeld, holding the old man's eye.

"Ha, ha! my b-hoy, h-you are right. But we will overturn--eh?"

"I say I fear your engagements will prevent. I hear you take part
to-morrow morning in--"

Agricola suddenly stiffened.

"Professor Frowenfeld, it strikes me, sir, you are taking something of a
liberty."

"For which I ask pardon," exclaimed Frowenfeld. "Then I may not
expect--"

The old man melted again.

"But who is this person in mortal peril?"

Frowenfeld hesitated.

"Citizen Fusilier," he said, looking first down at the floor and then up
into the inquirer's face, "on my assurance that he is not only a native
Creole, but a Grandissime--"

"It is not possible!" exclaimed Agricola.

"--a Grandissime of the purest blood, will you pledge me your aid to
liberate him from his danger, 'right or wrong'?"

"_Will_ I? H-why, certainly! Who is he?"

"Citizen--it is Sylves--"

Agricola sprang up with a thundering oath.

The apothecary put out a pacifying hand, but it was spurned.

"Let me go! How dare you, sir? How dare you, sir?" bellowed Agricola.

He started toward the door, cursing furiously and keeping his eye fixed
on Frowenfeld with a look of rage not unmixed with terror.

"Citizen Fusilier," said the apothecary, following him with one palm
uplifted, as if that would ward off his abuse, "don't go! I adjure you,
don't go! Remember your pledge, Citizen Fusilier!"

Agricola did not pause a moment; but when he had swung the door
violently open the way was still obstructed. The painter of "Louisiana
refusing to enter the Union" stood before him, his head elevated
loftily, one foot set forward and his arm extended like a tragedian's.

"Stan' bag-sah!"

"Let me pass! Let me pass, or I will kill you!"

Mr. Innerarity smote his bosom and tossed his hand aloft.

"Kill me-firse an' pass aftah!"

"Citizen Fusilier," said Frowenfeld, "I beg you to hear me."

"Go away! Go away!"

The old man drew back from the door and stood in the corner against the
book-shelves as if all the horrors of the last night's dreams had taken
bodily shape in the person of the apothecary. He trembled and stammered:

"Ke--keep off! Keep off! My God! Raoul, he has insulted me!" He made a
miserable show of drawing a weapon. "No man may insult me and live! If
you are a man, Professor Frowenfeld, you will defend yourself!"

Frowenfeld lost his temper, but his hasty reply was drowned by Raoul's
vehement speech.

"'Tis not de trute!" cried Raoul. "He try to save you from
hell-'n'-damnation w'en 'e h-ought to give you a good cuss'n!"--and in
the ecstasy of his anger burst into tears.

Frowenfeld, in an agony of annoyance, waved him away and he disappeared,
shutting the door.

Agricola, moved far more from within than from without, had sunk into a
chair under the shelves. His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell
down upon his dark, frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his
staff, the other his knee, and both trembled violently. As Frowenfeld,
with every demonstration of beseeching kindness, began to speak, he
lifted his eyes and said, piteously:

"Stop! Stop!"

"Citizen Fusilier, it is you who must stop. Stop before God Almighty
stops you, I beg you. I do not presume to rebuke you. I _know_ you want
a clear record. I know it better to-day than I ever did before. Citizen
Fusilier, I honor your intentions--"

Agricola roused a little and looked up with a miserable attempt at his
habitual patronizing smile.

"H-my dear boy, I overlook"--but he met in

Frowenfeld's eyes a spirit so superior to his dissimulation that the
smile quite broke down and gave way to another of deprecatory and
apologetic distress. He reached up an arm.

"I could easily convince you, Professor, of your error"--his eyes
quailed and dropped to the floor--"but I--your arm, my dear Joseph; age
is creeping upon me." He rose to his feet. "I am feeling really
indisposed to-day--not at all bright; my solicitude for you, my
dear b--"

He took two or three steps forward, tottered, clung to the apothecary,
moved another step or two, and grasping the edge of the table stumbled
into a chair which Frowenfeld thrust under him. He folded his arms on
the edge of the board and rested his forehead on them, while Frowenfeld
sat down quickly on the opposite side, drew paper and pen across the
table and wrote.

"Are you writing something, Professor?" asked the old man, without
stirring. His staff tumbled to the floor. The apothecary's answer was a
low, preoccupied one. Two or three times over he wrote and rejected what
he had written.

Presently he pushed back his chair, came around the table, laid the
writing he had made before the bowed head, sat down again and waited.

After a long time the old man looked up, trying in vain to conceal his
anguish under a smile.

"I have a sad headache."

He cast his eyes over the table and took mechanically the pen which
Frowenfeld extended toward him.

"What can I do for you, Professor? Sign something? There is nothing I
would not do for Professor Frowenfeld. What have you written, eh?"

He felt helplessly for his spectacles.

Frowenfeld read:

"_Mr. Sylvestre Grandissime: I spoke in haste_."

He felt himself tremble as he read. Agricola fumbled with the pen,
lifted his eyes with one more effort at the old look, said, "My dear
boy, I do this purely to please you," and to Frowenfeld's delight and
astonishment wrote:

"_Your affectionate uncle, Agricola Fusilier_."




CHAPTER XXXIX

LOUISIANA STATES HER WANTS


"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Raoul as that person turned in the front door
of the shop after watching Agricola's carriage roll away--he had
intended to unburden his mind to the apothecary with all his natural
impetuosity; but Frowenfeld's gravity as he turned, with the paper in
his hand, induced a different manner. Raoul had learned, despite all the
impulses of his nature, to look upon Frowenfeld with a sort of
enthusiastic awe. He dropped his voice and said--asking like a child a
question he was perfectly able to answer--

"What de matta wid Agricole?"

Frowenfeld, for the moment well-nigh oblivious of his own trouble,
turned upon his assistant a look in which elation was oddly blended
with solemnity, and replied as he walked by:

"Rush of truth to the heart."

Raoul followed a step.

"'Sieur Frowenfel'--"

The apothecary turned once more. Raoul's face bore an expression of
earnest practicability that invited confidence.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', Agricola writ'n' to Sylvestre to stop dat dool?"

"Yes."

"You goin' take dat lett' to Sylvestre?"

"Yes."

"'Sieur Frowenfel', dat de wrong g-way. You got to take it to 'Polyte
Brahmin-Mandarin, an' 'e got to take it to Valentine Grandissime, an'
'_e_ got to take it to Sylvestre. You see, you got to know de manner to
make. Once 'pon a time I had a diffycultie wid--"

"I see," said Frowenfeld; "where may I find Hippolyte Brahmin-Mandarin
at this time of day?"

Raoul shrugged.

"If the pre-parish-ions are not complitted, you will not find 'im; but
if they har complitted--you know 'im?"

"By sight."

"Well, you may fine him at Maspero's, or helse in de front of de
Veau-qui-tête, or helse at de Café Louis Quatorze--mos' likely in front
of de Veau-qui-tête. You know, dat diffycultie I had, dat arise itseff
from de discush'n of one of de mil-littery mov'ments of ca-valry; you
know, I--"

"Yes," said the apothecary; "here, Raoul, is some money; please go and
buy me a good, plain hat."

"All right." Raoul darted behind the counter and got his hat out of a
drawer. "Were at you buy your hats?"

"Anywhere."

"I will go at _my_ hatter."

As the apothecary moved about his shop awaiting Raoul's return, his own
disaster became once more the subject of his anxiety. He noticed that
almost every person who passed looked in. "This is the place,"--"That is
the man,"--how plainly the glances of passers sometimes speak! The
people seemed, moreover, a little nervous. Could even so little a city
be stirred about such a petty, private trouble as this of his? No; the
city was having tribulations of its own.

New Orleans was in that state of suppressed excitement which, in later
days, a frequent need of reassuring the outer world has caused to be
described by the phrase "never more peaceable." Raoul perceived it
before he had left the shop twenty paces behind. By the time he reached
the first corner he was in the swirl of the popular current. He enjoyed
it like a strong swimmer. He even drank of it. It was better than wine
and music mingled.

"Twelve weeks next Thursday, and no sign of re-cession!" said one of
two rapid walkers just in front of him. Their talk was in the French of
the province.

"Oh, re-cession!" exclaimed the other angrily. "The cession is a
reality. That, at least, we have got to swallow. Incredulity is dead."

The first speaker's feelings could find expression only in profanity.

"The cession--we wash our hands of it!" He turned partly around upon his
companion, as they hurried along, and gave his hands a vehement dry
washing. "If Incredulity is dead, Non-participation reigns in its stead,
and Discontent is prime minister!" He brandished his fist as they
turned a corner.

"If we must change, let us be subjects of the First Consul!" said one of
another pair whom Raoul met on a crossing.

There was a gathering of boys and vagabonds at the door of a gun-shop. A
man inside was buying a gun. That was all.

A group came out of a "coffee-house." The leader turned about upon the
rest:

"_Ah, bah! cette_ Amayrican libetty!"

"See! see! it is this way!" said another of the number, taking two
others by their elbows, to secure an audience, "we shall do nothing
ourselves; we are just watching that vile Congress. It is going to tear
the country all to bits!"

"Ah, my friend, you haven't got the _inside_ news," said still
another--Raoul lingered to hear him--"Louisiana is going to state her
wants! We have the liberty of free speech and are going to use it!"

His information was correct; Louisiana, no longer incredulous of her
Americanization, had laid hold of her new liberties and was beginning to
run with them, like a boy dragging his kite over the clods. She was
about to state her wants, he said.

"And her don't-wants," volunteered one whose hand Raoul shook heartily.
"We warn the world. If Congress doesn't take heed, we will not be
responsible for the consequences!"

Raoul's hatter was full of the subject. As Mr. Innerarity entered, he
was saying good-day to a customer in his native tongue, English, and so
continued:

"Yes, under Spain we had a solid, quiet government--Ah! Mr. Innerarity,
overjoyed to see you! We were speaking of these political troubles. I
wish we might see the last of them. It's a terrible bad mess; corruption
to-day--I tell you what--it will be disruption to-morrow. Well, it is no
work of ours; we shall merely stand off and see it."

"Mi-frien'," said Raoul, with mingled pity and superiority, "you haven't
got doze _inside_ nooz; Louisiana is goin' to state w'at she want."

On his way back toward the shop Mr. Innerarity easily learned
Louisiana's wants and don't-wants by heart. She wanted a Creole
governor; she did not want Casa Calvo invited to leave the country; she
wanted the provisions of the Treaty of Cession hurried up; "as soon as
possible," that instrument said; she had waited long enough; she did not
want "dat trile bi-ju'y"--execrable trash! she wanted an _unwatched
import trade!_ she did not want a single additional Américain appointed
to office; she wanted the slave trade.

Just in sight of the bareheaded and anxious Frowenfeld, Raoul let
himself be stopped by a friend.

The remark was exchanged that the times were exciting.

"And yet," said the friend, "the city was never more peaceable. It is
exasperating to see that coward governor looking so diligently after his
police and hurrying on the organization of the Américain volunteer
militia!" He pointed savagely here and there. "M. Innerarity, I am lost
in admiration at the all but craven patience with which our people
endure their wrongs! Do my pistols show _too_ much through my coat?
Well, good-day; I must go home and clean my gun; my dear friend, one
don't know how soon he may have to encounter the Recorder and Register
of Land-titles."

Raoul finished his errand.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', excuse me--I take dat lett' to 'Polyte for you if
you want." There are times when mere shopkeeping--any peaceful
routine--is torture.

But the apothecary felt so himself; he declined his assistant's offer
and went out toward the Veau-qui-tête.




CHAPTER XL

FROWENFELD FINDS SYLVESTRE


The Veau-qui-tête restaurant occupied the whole ground floor of a small,
low, two-story, tile-roofed, brick-and-stucco building which still
stands on the corner of Chartres and St. Peter streets, in company with
the well-preserved old Cabildo and the young Cathedral, reminding one of
the shabby and swarthy Creoles whom we sometimes see helping better-kept
kinsmen to murder time on the banquettes of the old French Quarter. It
was a favorite rendezvous of the higher classes, convenient to the
court-rooms and municipal bureaus. There you found the choicest legal
and political gossips, with the best the market afforded of meat
and drink.

Frowenfeld found a considerable number of persons there. He had to move
about among them to some extent, to make sure he was not overlooking the
object of his search.

As he entered the door, a man sitting near it stopped talking, gazed
rudely as he passed, and then leaned across the table and smiled and
murmured to his companion. The subject of his jest felt their four eyes
on his back.

There was a loud buzz of conversation throughout the room, but wherever
he went a wake of momentary silence followed him, and once or twice he
saw elbows nudged. He perceived that there was something in the state
of mind of these good citizens that made the present sight of him
particularly discordant.

Four men, leaning or standing at a small bar, were talking excitedly in
the Creole patois. They made frequent anxious, yet amusedly defiant,
mention of a certain _Pointe Canadienne_. It was a portion of the
Mississippi River "coast" not far above New Orleans, where the merchants
of the city met the smugglers who came up from the Gulf by way of
Barrataria Bay and Bayou. These four men did not call it by the proper
title just given; there were commercial gentlemen in the Creole city,
Englishmen, Scotchmen, Yankees, as well as French and Spanish Creoles,
who in public indignantly denied, and in private tittered over, their
complicity with the pirates of Grand Isle, and who knew their trading
rendezvous by the sly nickname of "Little Manchac." As Frowenfeld passed
these four men they, too, ceased speaking and looked after him, three
with offensive smiles and one with a stare of contempt.

Farther on, some Creoles were talking rapidly to an Américain, in
English.

"And why?" one was demanding. "Because money is scarce. Under other
governments we had any quantity!"

"Yes," said the venturesome Américain in retort, "such as it was;
_assignats, liberanzas, bons_--Claiborne will give us better money than
that when he starts his bank."

"Hah! his bank, yes! John Law once had a bank, too; ask my old father.
What do we want with a bank? Down with banks!" The speaker ceased; he
had not finished, but he saw the apothecary. Frowenfeld heard a muttered
curse, an inarticulate murmur, and then a loud burst of laughter.

A tall, slender young Creole whom he knew, and who had always been
greatly pleased to exchange salutations, brushed against him without
turning his eyes.

"You know," he was saying to a companion, "everybody in Louisiana is to
be a citizen, except the negroes and mules; that is the kind of liberty
they give us--all eat out of one trough."

"What we want," said a dark, ill-looking, but finely-dressed man,
setting his claret down, "and what we have got to have, is"--he was
speaking in French, but gave the want in English--"Representesh'n wizout
Taxa--" There his eye fell upon Frowenfeld and followed him with
a scowl.

"Mah frang," he said to his table companion, "wass you sink of a mane
w'at hask-a one neegrow to 'ave-a one shair wiz 'im, eh?--in ze
sem room?"

The apothecary found that his fame was far wider and more general than
he had supposed. He turned to go out, bowing as he did so, to an
Américain merchant with whom he had some acquaintance.

"Sir?" asked the merchant, with severe politeness, "wish to see me? I
thought you--As I was saying, gentlemen, what, after all, does it
sum up?"

A Creole interrupted him with an answer:

"Leetegash'n, Spoleeash'n, Pahtitsh'n, Disintegrhash'n!"

The voice was like Honoré's. Frowenfeld looked; it was Agamemnon
Grandissime.

"I must go to Maspero's," thought the apothecary, and he started up the
rue Chartres. As he turned into the rue St. Louis, he suddenly found
himself one of a crowd standing before a newly-posted placard, and at a
glance saw it to be one of the inflammatory publications which were a
feature of the times, appearing both daily and nightly on walls
and fences.

"One Amerry-can pull' it down, an' Camille Brahmin 'e pas'e it back,"
said a boy at Frowenfeld's side.

Exchange Alley was once _Passage de la Bourse_, and led down (as it now
does to the State House--late St. Louis Hotel) to an establishment which
seems to have served for a long term of years as a sort of merchants'
and auctioneers' coffee-house, with a minimum of china and a maximum of
glass: Maspero's--certainly Maspero's as far back as 1810, and, we
believe, Maspero's the day the apothecary entered it, March 9, 1804. It
was a livelier spot than the Veau-qui-tête; it was to that what commerce
is to litigation, what standing and quaffing is to sitting and sipping.
Whenever the public mind approached that sad state of public sentiment
in which sanctity signs politicians' memorials and chivalry breaks into
the gun-shops, a good place to feel the thump of the machinery was in
Maspero's.

The first man Frowenfeld saw as he entered was M. Valentine Grandissime.
There was a double semicircle of gazers and listeners in front of him;
he was talking, with much show of unconcern, in Creole French.

"Policy? I care little about policy." He waved his hand. "I know my
rights--and Louisiana's. We have a right to our opinions. We have"--with
a quiet smile and an upward turn of his extended palm--"a right to
protect them from the attack of interlopers, even if we have to use
gunpowder. I do not propose to abridge the liberties of even this army
of fortune-hunters. _Let_ them think." He half laughed. "Who cares
whether they share our opinions or not? Let them have their own. I had
rather they would. But let them hold their tongues. Let them remember
they are Yankees. Let them remember they are unbidden guests." All this
without the least warmth.

But the answer came aglow with passion, from one of the semicircle, whom
two or three seemed disposed to hold in check. It also was in French,
but the apothecary was astonished to hear his own name uttered.

"But this fellow Frowenfeld"--the speaker did not see Joseph--"has never
held his tongue. He has given us good reason half a dozen times, with
his too free speech and his high moral whine, to hang him with the
lamppost rope! And now, when we have borne and borne and borne and borne
with him, and he shows up, all at once, in all his rottenness, you say
let him alone! One would think you were defending Honoré Grandissime!"
The back of one of the speaker's hands fluttered in the palm of
the other.

Valentine smiled.

"Honoré Grandissime? Boy, you do not know what you are talking about.
Not Honoré, ha, ha! A man who, upon his own avowal, is guilty of
affiliating with the Yankees. A man whom we have good reason to suspect
of meditating his family's dishonor and embarrassment!" Somebody saw the
apothecary and laid a cautionary touch on Valentine's arm, but he
brushed it off. "As for Professor Frowenfeld, he must defend himself."

"Ha-a-a-ah!"--a general cry of derision from the listeners.

"Defend himself!" exclaimed their spokesman; "shall I tell you again
what he is?" In his vehemence, the speaker wagged his chin and held his
clenched fists stiffly toward the floor. "He is--he is--he is--"

He paused, breathing like a fighting dog. Frowenfeld, large, white, and
immovable, stood close before him.

"Dey 'ad no bizniz led 'im come oud to-day," said a bystander, edging
toward a pillar.

The Creole, a small young man not unknown to us, glared upon the
apothecary; but Frowenfeld was far above his blushing mood, and was not
disconcerted. This exasperated the Creole beyond bound; he made a
sudden, angry change of attitude, and demanded:

"Do you interrup' two gen'lemen in dey conve'sition, you Yankee clown?
Do you igno' dad you 'ave insult me, off-scow'ing?"

Frowenfeld's first response was a stern gaze. When he spoke, he said:

"Sir, I am not aware that I have ever offered you the slightest injury
or affront; if you wish to finish your conversation with this gentleman,
I will wait till you are through."

The Creole bowed, as a knight who takes up the gage. He turned to
Valentine.

"Valentine, I was sayin' to you dad diz pusson is a cowa'd and a sneak;
I repead thad! I repead id! I spurn you! Go f'om yeh!"

The apothecary stood like a cliff.

It was too much for Creole forbearance. His adversary, with a long snarl
of oaths, sprang forward and with a great sweep of his arm slapped the
apothecary on the cheek. And then--

What a silence!

Frowenfeld had advanced one step; his opponent stood half turned away,
but with his face toward the face he had just struck and his eyes
glaring up into the eyes of the apothecary. The semicircle was
dissolved, and each man stood in neutral isolation, motionless and
silent. For one instant objects lost all natural proportion, and to the
expectant on-lookers the largest thing in the room was the big,
upraised, white fist of Frowenfeld. But in the next--how was this? Could
it be that that fist had not descended?

The imperturbable Valentine, with one preventing arm laid across the
breast of the expected victim and an open hand held restrainingly up for
truce, stood between the two men and said:

"Professor Frowenfeld--one moment--"

Frowenfeld's face was ashen.

"Don't speak, sir!" he exclaimed. "If I attempt to parley I shall break
every bone in his body. Don't speak! I can guess your explanation--he is
drunk. But take him away."

Valentine, as sensible as cool, assisted by the kinsman who had laid a
hand on his arm, shuffled his enraged companion out. Frowenfeld's still
swelling anger was so near getting the better of him that he
unconsciously followed a quick step or two; but as Valentine looked back
and waved him to stop, he again stood still.

"_Professeur_--you know,--" said a stranger, "daz Sylvestre
Grandissime."

Frowenfeld rather spoke to himself than answered:

"If I had not known that, I should have--" He checked himself and left
the place.

       *       *       *       *       *

While the apothecary was gathering these experiences, the free spirit of
Raoul Innerarity was chafing in the shop like an eagle in a hen-coop.
One moment after another brought him straggling evidences, now of one
sort, now of another, of the "never more peaceable" state of affairs
without. If only some pretext could be conjured up, plausible or flimsy,
no matter; if only some man would pass with a gun on his shoulder, were
it only a blow-gun; or if his employer were any one but his beloved
Frowenfeld, he would clap up the shutters as quickly as he had already
done once to-day, and be off to the wars. He was just trying to hear
imaginary pistol-shots down toward the Place d'Armes, when the
apothecary returned.

"D' you fin' him?"

"I found Sylvestre."

"'E took de lett'?"

"I did not offer it." Frowenfeld, in a few compact sentences, told his
adventure.

Raoul was ablaze with indignation.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', gimmy dat lett'!" He extended his pretty hand.

Frowenfeld pondered.

"Gimmy 'er!" persisted the artist; "befo' I lose de sight from dat lett'
she goin' to be hanswer by Sylvestre Grandissime, an' 'e goin' to wrat
you one appo-logie! Oh! I goin' mek 'im crah fo' shem!"

"If I could know you would do only as I--"

"I do it!" cried Raoul, and sprang for his hat; and in the end
Frowenfeld let him have his way.

"I had intended seeing him--" the apothecary said.

"Nevvamine to see; I goin' tell him!" cried Raoul, as he crowded his
hat fiercely down over his curls and plunged out.




CHAPTER XLI

TO COME TO THE POINT


It was equally a part of Honoré Grandissime's nature and of his art as a
merchant to wear a look of serene leisure. With this look on his face he
reëntered his counting-room after his morning visit to Frowenfeld's
shop. He paused a moment outside the rail, gave the weak-eyed gentleman
who presided there a quiet glance equivalent to a beckon, and, as that
person came near, communicated two or three items of intelligence or
instruction concerning office details, by which that invaluable diviner
of business meanings understood that he wished to be let alone for an
hour. Then M. Grandissime passed on into his private office, and,
shutting the door behind him, walked briskly to his desk and sat down.

He dropped his elbows upon a broad paper containing some recently
written, unfinished memoranda that included figures in column, cast his
eyes quite around the apartment, and then covered his face with his
palms--a gesture common enough for a tired man of business in a moment
of seclusion; but just as the face disappeared in the hands, the look
of serene leisure gave place to one of great mental distress. The paper
under his elbows, to the consideration of which he seemed about to
return, was in the handwriting of his manager, with additions by his own
pen. Earlier in the day he had come to a pause in the making of these
additions, and, after one or two vain efforts to proceed, had laid down
his pen, taken his hat, and gone to see the unlucky apothecary. Now he
took up the broken thread. To come to a decision; that was the task
which forced from him his look of distress. He drew his face slowly
through his palms, set his lips, cast up his eyes, knit his knuckles,
and then opened and struck his palms together, as if to say: "Now, come;
let me make up my mind."

There may be men who take every moral height at a dash; but to the most
of us there must come moments when our wills can but just rise and walk
in their sleep. Those who in such moments wait for clear views find,
when the issue is past, that they were only yielding to the devil's
chloroform.

Honoré Grandissme bent his eyes upon the paper. But he saw neither its
figures nor its words. The interrogation, "Surrender Fausse Rivière?"
appeared to hang between his eyes and the paper, and when his resolution
tried to answer "Yes," he saw red flags; he heard the auctioneer's drum;
he saw his kinsmen handing house-keys to strangers; he saw the old
servants of the great family standing in the marketplace; he saw
kinswomen pawning their plate; he saw his clerks (Brahmins, Mandarins,
Grandissimes) standing idle and shabby in the arcade of the Cabildo and
on the banquettes of Maspero's and the Veau-qui-tête; he saw red-eyed
young men in the Exchange denouncing a man who, they said, had,
ostensibly for conscience's sake, but really for love, forced upon the
woman he had hoped to marry a fortune filched from his own kindred. He
saw the junto of doctors in Frowenfeld's door charitably deciding him
insane; he saw the more vengeful of his family seeking him with
half-concealed weapons; he saw himself shot at in the rue Royale, in the
rue Toulouse, and in the Place d'Armes: and, worst of all, missed.

But he wiped his forehead, and the writing on the paper became, in a
measure, visible. He read:

Total mortgages on the lands of all the Grandissimes  $--
Total present value of same, titles at buyers' risk    --
Cash, goods, and accounts                              --
Fausse Rivière Plantation account                      --

There were other items, but he took up the edge of the paper
mechanically, pushed it slowly away from him, leaned back in his chair
and again laid his hands upon his face.

"Suppose I retain Fausse Rivière," he said to himself, as if he had not
said it many times before.

Then he saw memoranda that were not on any paper before him--such a
mortgage to be met on such a date; so much from Fausse Rivière
Plantation account retained to protect that mortgage from foreclosure;
such another to be met on such a date--so much more of same account to
protect it. He saw Aurora and Clotilde Nancanou, with anguished faces,
offering woman's pleadings to deaf constables. He saw the remainder of
Aurora's plantation account thrown to the lawyers to keep the question
of the Grandissime titles languishing in the courts. He saw the fortunes
of his clan rallied meanwhile and coming to the rescue, himself and
kindred growing independent of questionable titles, and even Fausse
Rivière Plantation account restored, but Aurora and Clotilde nowhere to
be found. And then he saw the grave, pale face of Joseph Frowenfeld.

He threw himself forward, drew the paper nervously toward him, and
stared at the figures. He began at the first item and went over the
whole paper, line by line, testing every extension, proving every
addition, noting if possibly any transposition of figures had been made
and overlooked, if something was added that should have been subtracted,
or subtracted that should have been added. It was like a prisoner trying
the bars of his cell.

Was there no way to make things happen differently? Had he not
overlooked some expedient? Was not some financial manoeuvre possible
which might compass both desired ends? He left his chair and walked up
and down, as Joseph at that very moment was doing in the room where he
had left him, came back, looked at the paper, and again walked up and
down. He murmured now and then to himself: "_Self_-denial--that is not
the hard work. Penniless myself--_that_ is play," and so on. He turned
by and by and stood looking up at that picture of the man in the cuirass
which Aurora had once noticed. He looked at it, but he did not see it.
He was thinking--"Her rent is due to-morrow. She will never believe I am
not her landlord. She will never go to my half-brother." He turned once
more and mentally beat his breast as he muttered: "Why do I not decide?"

Somebody touched the doorknob. Honoré stepped forward and opened it. It
was a mortgager.

"_Ah! entrez, Monsieur_."

He retained the visitor's hand, leading him in and talking pleasantly in
French until both had found chairs. The conversation continued in that
tongue through such pointless commercial gossip as this:

"So the brig _Equinox_ is aground at the head of the Passes," said M.
Grandissime.

"I have just heard she is off again."

"Aha?"

"Yes; the Fort Plaquemine canoe is just up from below. I understand John
McDonough has bought the entire cargo of the schooner _Freedom_."

"No, not all; Blanque et Fils bought some twenty boys and women out of
the lot. Where is she lying?"

"Right at the head of the Basin."

And much more like this; but by and by the mortgager came to the point
with the casual remark:

"The excitement concerning land titles seems to increase rather than
subside."

"They must have _something_ to be excited about, I suppose," said M.
Grandissime, crossing his legs and smiling. It was tradesman's talk.

"Yes," replied the other; "there seems to be an idea current to-day that
all holders under Spanish titles are to be immediately dispossessed,
without even process of court. I believe a very slight indiscretion on
the part of the Governor-General would precipitate a riot."

"He will not commit any," said M. Grandissime with a quiet gravity,
changing his manner to that of one who draws upon a reserve of private
information. "There will be no outbreak."

"I suppose not. We do not know, really, that the American Congress will
throw any question upon titles; but still--"

"What are some of the shrewdest Americans among us doing?" asked M.
Grandissime.

"Yes," replied the mortgager, "it is true they are buying these very
titles; but they may be making a mistake?"

Unfortunately for the speaker, he allowed his face an expression of
argumentative shrewdness as he completed this sentence, and M.
Grandissime, the merchant, caught an instantaneous full view of his
motive; he wanted to buy. He was a man whose known speculative policy
was to "go in" in moments of panic.

M. Grandissime was again face to face with the question of the morning.
To commence selling must be to go on selling. This, as a plan, included
restitution to Aurora; but it meant also dissolution to the
Grandissimes, for should their _sold_ titles be pronounced bad, then the
titles of other lands would be bad; many an asset among M. Grandissime's
memoranda would shrink into nothing, and the meagre proceeds of the
Grandissime estates, left to meet the strain without the aid of Aurora's
accumulated fortune, would founder in a sea of liabilities; while should
these titles, after being parted with, turn out good, his incensed
kindred, shutting their eyes to his memoranda and despising his
exhibits, would see in him only the family traitor, and he would go
about the streets of his town the subject of their implacable
denunciation, the community's obloquy, and Aurora's cold evasion. So
much, should he sell. On the other hand, to decline to sell was to enter
upon that disingenuous scheme of delays which would enable him to avail
himself and his people of that favorable wind and tide of fortune which
the Cession had brought. Thus the estates would be lost, if lost at all,
only when the family could afford to lose them, and Honoré Grandissime
would continue to be Honoré the Magnificent, the admiration of the city
and the idol of his clan. But Aurora--and Clotilde--would have to eat
the crust of poverty, while their fortunes, even in his hands, must bear
all the jeopardy of the scheme. That was all. Retain Fausse Rivière and
its wealth, and save the Grandissimes; surrender Fausse Rivière, let
the Grandissime estates go, and save the Nancanous. That was the
whole dilemma.

"Let me see," said M. Grandissime. "You have a mortgage on one of our
Golden Coast plantations. Well, to be frank with you, I was thinking of
that when you came in. You know I am partial to prompt transactions--I
thought of offering you either to take up that mortgage or to sell you
the plantation, as you may prefer. I have ventured to guess that it
would suit you to own it."

And the speaker felt within him a secret exultation in the idea that he
had succeeded in throwing the issue off upon a Providence that could
control this mortgager's choice.

"I would prefer to leave that choice with you," said the coy would-be
purchaser; and then the two went coquetting again for another moment.

"I understand that Nicholas Girod is proposing to erect a four-story
brick building on the corner of Royale and St. Pierre. Do you think it
practicable? Do you think our soil will support such a structure?"

"Pitot thinks it will. Boré says it is perfectly feasible."

So they dallied.

"Well," said the mortgager, presently rising, "you will make up your
mind and let me know, will you?"

The chance repetition of those words "make up your mind" touched Honoré
Grandissime like a hot iron. He rose with the visitor.

"Well, sir, what would you give us for our title in case we should
decide to part with it?"

The two men moved slowly, side by side, toward the door, and in the
half-open doorway, after a little further trifling, the title was sold.

"Well, good-day," said M. Grandissime. "M. de Brahmin will arrange the
papers for us to-morrow."

He turned back toward his private desk.

"And now," thought he, "I am acting without resolving. No merit; no
strength of will; no clearness of purpose; no emphatic decision; nothing
but a yielding to temptation."

And M. Grandissime spoke truly; but it is only whole men who so
yield--yielding to the temptation to do right.

He passed into the counting-room, to M. De Brahmin, and standing there
talked in an inaudible tone, leaning over the upturned spectacles of his
manager, for nearly an hour. Then, saying he would go to dinner, he went
out. He did not dine at home nor at the Veau-qui-tête, nor at any of the
clubs; so much is known; he merely disappeared for two or three hours
and was not seen again until late in the afternoon, when two or three
Brahmins and Grandissimes, wandering about in search of him, met him on
the levee near the head of the rue Bienville, and with an exclamation of
wonder and a look of surprise at his dusty shoes, demanded to know
where he had hid himself while they had been ransacking the town in
search of him.

"We want you to tell us what you will do about our titles."

He smiled pleasantly, the picture of serenity, and replied:

"I have not fully made up my mind yet; as soon as I do so I will let you
know."

There was a word or two more exchanged, and then, after a moment of
silence, with a gentle "Eh, bien," and a gesture to which they were
accustomed, he stepped away backward, they resumed their hurried walk
and talk, and he turned into the rue Bienville.




CHAPTER XLII

AN INHERITANCE OF WRONG


"I tell you," Doctor Keene used to say, "that old woman's a thinker."
His allusion was to Clemence, the _marchande des calas_. Her mental
activity was evinced not more in the cunning aptness of her songs than
in the droll wisdom of her sayings. Not the melody only, but the often
audacious, epigrammatic philosophy of her tongue as well, sold her
_calas_ and gingercakes.

But in one direction her wisdom proved scant. She presumed too much on
her insignificance. She was a "study," the gossiping circle at
Frowenfeld's used to say; and any observant hearer of her odd aphorisms
could see that she herself had made a life-study of herself and her
conditions; but she little thought that others--some with wits and some
with none--young hare-brained Grandissimes, Mandarins and the like--were
silently, and for her most unluckily, charging their memories with her
knowing speeches; and that of every one of those speeches she would
ultimately have to give account.

Doctor Keene, in the old days of his health, used to enjoy an occasional
skirmish with her. Once, in the course of chaffering over the price of
_calas_, he enounced an old current conviction which is not without
holders even to this day; for we may still hear it said by those who
will not be decoyed down from the mountain fastnesses of the old
Southern doctrines, that their slaves were "the happiest people under
the sun." Clemence had made bold to deny this with argumentative
indignation, and was courteously informed in retort that she had
promulgated a falsehood of magnitude.

"W'y, Mawse Chawlie," she replied, "does you s'pose one po' nigga kin
tell a big lie? No, sah! But w'en de whole people tell w'at ain' so--if
dey know it, aw if dey don' know it--den dat _is_ a big lie!" And she
laughed to contortion.

"What is that you say?" he demanded, with mock ferocity. "You charge
white people with lying?"

"Oh, sakes, Mawse Chawlie, no! De people don't mek up dat ah; de debble
pass it on 'em. Don' you know de debble ah de grett cyount'-feiteh?
Ev'y piece o' money he mek he tek an' put some debblemen' on de under
side, an' one o' his pootiess lies on top; an' 'e gilt dat lie, and 'e
rub dat lie on 'is elbow, an' 'e shine dat lie, an' 'e put 'is bess
licks on dat lie; entel ev'ybody say: 'Oh, how pooty!' An' dey tek it
fo' good money, yass--and pass it! Dey b'lieb it!"

"Oh," said some one at Doctor Keene's side, disposed to quiz, "you
niggers don't know when you are happy."

"Dass so, Mawse--_c'est vrai, oui_!" she answered quickly: "we donno no
mo'n white folks!"

The laugh was against him.

"Mawse Chawlie," she said again, "w'a's dis I yeh 'bout dat Eu'ope
country? 's dat true de niggas is all free in Eu'ope!"

Doctor Keene replied that something like that was true.

"Well, now, Mawse Chawlie, I gwan t' ass you a riddle. If dat is _so_,
den fo' w'y I yeh folks bragg'n 'bout de 'stayt o' s'iety in Eu'ope'?"

The mincing drollery with which she used this fine phrase brought
another peal of laughter. Nobody tried to guess.

"I gwan tell you," said the _marchande_; "'t is becyaze dey got a 'fixed
wuckin' class.'" She sputtered and giggled with the general ha, ha. "Oh,
ole Clemence kin talk proctah, yass!"

She made a gesture for attention.

"D' y' ebber yeh w'at de cya'ge-hoss say w'en 'e see de cyaht-hoss tu'n
loose in de sem pawstu'e wid he, an' knowed dat some'ow de cyaht gotteh
be haul'? W'y 'e jiz snawt an' kick up 'is heel'"--she suited the action
to the word--"an' tah' roun' de fiel' an' prance up to de fence an' say:
'Whoopy! shoo! shoo! dis yeh country gittin' _too_ free!'"

"Oh," she resumed, as soon as she could be heard, "white folks is werry
kine. Dey wants us to b'lieb we happy--dey _wants to b'lieb_ we is. W'y,
you know, dey 'bleeged to b'lieb it--fo' dey own cyumfut. 'Tis de sem
weh wid de preache's; dey buil' we ow own sep'ate meet'n-houses; dey
b'liebs us lak it de bess, an' dey _knows_ dey lak it de bess."

The laugh at this was mostly her own. It is not a laughable sight to see
the comfortable fractions of Christian communities everywhere striving,
with sincere, pious, well-meant, criminal benevolence, to make their
poor brethren contented with the ditch. Nor does it become so to see
these efforts meet, or seem to meet, some degree of success. Happily man
cannot so place his brother that his misery will continue unmitigated.
You may dwarf a man to the mere stump of what he ought to be, and yet he
will put out green leaves. "Free from care," we benignly observe of the
dwarfed classes of society; but we forget, or have never thought, what a
crime we commit when we rob men and women of their cares.

To Clemence the order of society was nothing. No upheaval could reach to
the depth to which she was sunk. It is true, she was one of the
population. She had certain affections toward people and places; but
they were not of a consuming sort.

As for us, our feelings, our sentiments, affections, etc., are fine and
keen, delicate and many; what we call refined. Why? Because we get them
as we get our old swords and gems and laces--from our grandsires,
mothers, and all. Refined they are--after centuries of refining. But the
feelings handed down to Clemence had come through ages of African
savagery; through fires that do not refine, but that blunt and blast and
blacken and char; starvation, gluttony, drunkenness, thirst, drowning,
nakedness, dirt, fetichism, debauchery, slaughter, pestilence and the
rest--she was their heiress; they left her the cinders of human
feelings. She remembered her mother. They had been separated in her
childhood, in Virginia when it was a province. She remembered, with
pride, the price her mother had brought at auction, and remarked, as an
additional interesting item, that she had never seen or heard of her
since. She had had children, assorted colors--had one with her now, the
black boy that brought the basil to Joseph; the others were here and
there, some in the Grandissime households or field-gangs, some elsewhere
within occasional sight, some dead, some not accounted for.
Husbands--like the Samaritan woman's. We know she was a constant singer
and laugher.

And so on that day, when Honoré Grandissime had advised the
Governor-General of Louisiana to be very careful to avoid demonstration
of any sort if he wished to avert a street war in his little capital,
Clemence went up one street and down another, singing her song and
laughing her professional merry laugh. How could it be otherwise? Let
events take any possible turn, how could it make any difference to
Clemence? What could she hope to gain? What could she fear to lose? She
sold some of her goods to Casa Calvo's Spanish guard and sang them a
Spanish song; some to Claiborne's soldiers and sang them Yankee Doodle
with unclean words of her own inspiration, which evoked true soldiers'
laughter; some to a priest at his window, exchanging with him a pious
comment or two upon the wickedness of the times generally and their
Américain Protestant-poisoned community in particular; and (after going
home to dinner and coming out newly furnished) she sold some more of her
wares to the excited groups of Creoles to which we have had occasion to
allude, and from whom, insensible as she was to ribaldry, she was glad
to escape. The day now drawing to a close, she turned her steps toward
her wonted crouching-place, the willow avenue on the levee, near the
Place d'Armes. But she had hardly defined this decision clearly in her
mind, and had but just turned out of the rue St. Louis, when her song
attracted an ear in a second-story room under whose window she was
passing. As usual, it was fitted to the passing event:

     "_Apportez moi mo' sabre,
     Ba boum, ba boum, boum, boum_."

"Run, fetch that girl here," said Dr. Keene to the slave woman who had
just entered his room with a pitcher of water.

"Well, old eavesdropper," he said, as Clemence came, "what is the
scandal to-day?"

Clemence laughed.

"You know, Mawse Chawlie, I dunno noth'n' 'tall 'bout nobody. I'se a
nigga w'at mine my own business."

"Sit down there on that stool, and tell me what is going on outside."

"I d' no noth'n' 'bout no goin's on; got no time fo' sit down, me; got
sell my cakes. I don't goin' git mix' in wid no white folks's doin's."

"Hush, you old hypocrite; I will buy all your cakes. Put them out there
on the table."

The invalid, sitting up in bed, drew a purse from behind his pillow and
tossed her a large price. She tittered, courtesied and received
the money.

"Well, well, Mawse Chawlie, 'f you ain' de funni'st gen'leman I knows,
to be sho!"

"Have you seen Joseph Frowenfeld to-day?" he asked.

"He, he, he! W'at I got do wid Mawse Frowenfel'? I goes on de off side
o' sich folks--folks w'at cann' 'have deyself no bette'n dat--he, he,
he! At de same time I did happen, jis chancin' by accident, to see 'im."

"How is he?"

Dr. Keene made plain by his manner that any sensational account would
receive his instantaneous contempt, and she answered within bounds.

"Well, now, tellin' the simple trufe, he ain' much hurt."

The doctor turned slowly and cautiously in bed.

"Have you seen Honoré Grandissime?"

"W'y--das funny you ass me dat. I jis now see 'im dis werry minnit."

"Where?"

"Jis gwine into de house wah dat laydy live w'at 'e runned over dat ah
time."

"Now, you old hag," cried the sick man, his weak, husky voice trembling
with passion, "you know you're telling me a lie."

"No, Mawse Chawlie," she protested with a coward's frown, "I swah I
tellin' you de God's trufe!"

"Hand me my clothes off that chair."

"Oh! but, Mawse Chawlie--"

The little doctor cursed her. She did as she was bid, and made as if to
leave the room.

"Don't you go away."

"But Mawse Chawlie, you' undress'--he, he!"

She was really abashed and half frightened.

"I know that; and you have got to help me put my clothes on."

"You gwan kill yo'se'f, Mawse Chawlie," she said, handling a garment.

"Hold your black tongue."

She dressed him hastily, and he went down the stairs of his
lodging-house and out into the street. Clemence went in search of
her master.




CHAPTER XLIII

THE EAGLE VISITS THE DOVES IN THEIR NEST


Alphonsina--only living property of Aurora and Clotilde--was called upon
to light a fire in the little parlor. Elsewhere, although the day was
declining, few persons felt such a need; but in No. 19 rue Bienville
there were two chilling influences combined requiring an artificial
offset. One was the ground under the floor, which was only three inches
distant, and permanently saturated with water; the other was despair.

Before this fire the two ladies sat down together like watchers, in that
silence and vacuity of mind which come after an exhaustive struggle
ending in the recognition of the inevitable; a torpor of thought, a
stupefaction of feeling, a purely negative state of joylessness sequent
to the positive state of anguish. They were now both hungry, but in want
of some present friend acquainted with the motions of mental distress
who could guess this fact and press them to eat. By their eyes it was
plain they had been weeping much; by the subdued tone, too, of their
short and infrequent speeches.

Alphonsina, having made the fire, went out with a bundle. It was
Aurora's last good dress. She was going to try to sell it.

"It ought not to be so hard," began Clotilde, in a quiet manner of
contemplating some one else's difficulty, but paused with the saying
uncompleted, and sighed under her breath.

"But it _is_ so hard," responded Aurora.

"No, it ought not to be so hard--"

"How, not so hard?"

"It is not so hard to live," said Clotilde; "but it is hard to be
ladies. You understand--" she knit her fingers, dropped them into her
lap and turned her eyes toward Aurora, who responded with the same
motions, adding the crossing of her silk-stockinged ankles before
the fire.

"No," said Aurora, with a scintillation of irrepressible mischief in her
eyes.

"After all," pursued Clotilde, "what troubles us is not how to make a
living, but how to get a living without making it."

"Ah! that would be magnificent!" said Aurora, and then added, more
soberly; "but we are compelled to make a living."

"No."

"No-o? Ah! what do you mean with your 'no'?"

"I mean it is just the contrary; we are compelled not to make a living.
Look at me: I can cook, but I must not cook; I am skillful with the
needle, but I must not take in sewing; I could keep accounts; I could
nurse the sick; but I must not. I could be a confectioner, a milliner,
a dressmaker, a vest-maker, a cleaner of gloves and laces, a dyer, a
bird-seller, a mattress-maker, an upholsterer, a dancing-teacher, a
florist--"

"Oh!" softly exclaimed Aurora, in English, "you could be--you know
w'ad?--an egcellen' drug-cl'--ah, ha, ha!"

"Now--"

But the threatened irruption was averted by a look of tender apology
from Aurora, in reply to one of martyrdom from Clotilde.

"My angel daughter," said Aurora, "if society has decreed that ladies
must be ladies, then that is our first duty; our second is to live. Do
you not see why it is that this practical world does not permit ladies
to make a living? Because if they could, none of them would ever consent
to be married. Ha! women talk about marrying for love; but society is
too sharp to trust them, yet! It makes it _necessary_ to marry. I will
tell you the honest truth; some days when I get very, very hungry, and
we have nothing but rice--all because we are ladies without male
protectors--I think society could drive even me to marriage!--for your
sake, though, darling; of course, only for your sake!"

"Never!" replied Clotilde; "for my sake, never; for your own sake if you
choose. I should not care. I should be glad to see you do so if it would
make you happy; but never for my sake and never for hunger's sake; but
for love's sake, yes; and God bless thee, pretty maman."

"Clotilde, dear," said the unconscionable widow, "let me assure you,
once for all,--starvation is preferable. I mean for me, you understand,
simply for me; that is my feeling on the subject."

Clotilde turned her saddened eyes with a steady scrutiny upon her
deceiver, who gazed upward in apparently unconscious reverie, and sighed
softly as she laid her head upon the high chair-back and stretched
out her feet.

"I wish Alphonsina would come back," she said. "Ah!" she added, hearing
a footfall on the step outside the street door, "there she is."

She arose and drew the bolt. Unseen to her, the person whose footsteps
she had heard stood upon the doorstep with a hand lifted to knock, but
pausing to "makeup his mind." He heard the bolt shoot back, recognized
the nature of the mistake, and, feeling that here again he was robbed of
volition, rapped.

"That is not Alphonsina!"

The two ladies looked at each other and turned pale.

"But you must open it," whispered Clotilde, half rising.

Aurora opened the door, and changed from white to crimson. Clotilde rose
up quickly. The gentleman lifted his hat.

"Madame Nancanou."

"M. Grandissime?"

"Oui, Madame."

For once, Aurora was in an uncontrollable flutter. She stammered, lost
her breath, and even spoke worse French than she needed to have done.

"Be pl--pleased, sir--to enter. Clotilde, my daughter--Monsieur
Grandissime. P-please be seated, sir. Monsieur Grandissime,"--she
dropped into a chair with an air of vivacity pitiful to behold,--"I
suppose you have come for the rent." She blushed even more violently
than before, and her hand stole upward upon her heart to stay its
violent beating. "Clotilde, dear, I should be glad if you would put the
fire before the screen; it is so much too warm." She pushed her chair
back and shaded her face with her hand. "I think the warmer is growing
weather outside, is it--is it not?"

The struggles of a wounded bird could not have been more piteous.
Monsieur Grandissime sought to speak. Clotilde, too, nerved by the sight
of her mother's embarrassment, came to her support, and she and the
visitor spoke in one breath.

"Maman, if Monsieur--pardon--"

"Madame Nancanou, the--pardon, Mademoiselle--"

"I have presumed to call upon you," resumed M. Grandissime, addressing
himself now to both ladies at once, "to see if I may enlist you in a
purely benevolent undertaking in the interest of one who has been
unfortunate--a common acquaintance--"

"Common acquaint--" interrupted Aurora, with a hostile lighting of her
eyes.

"I believe so--Professor Frowenfeld." M. Grandissme saw Clotilde start,
and in her turn falsely accuse the fire by shading her face: but it was
no time to stop. "Ladies," he continued, "please allow me, for the sake
of the good it may effect, to speak plainly and to the point."

The ladies expressed acquiescence by settling themselves to hear.

"Professor Frowenfeld had the extraordinary misfortune this morning to
incur the suspicion of having entered a house for the purpose of--at
least, for a bad design--"

"He is innocent!" came from Clotilde, against her intention; Aurora
covertly put out a hand, and Clotilde clutched it nervously.

"As, for example, robbery," said the self-recovered Aurora, ignoring
Clotilde's look of protestation.

"Call it so," responded M. Grandissime. "Have you heard at whose house
this was?"

"No, sir."

"It was at the house of Palmyre Philosophe."

"Palmyre Philosophe!" exclaimed Aurora, in low astonishment. Clotilde
let slip, in a tone of indignant incredulity, a soft "Ah!" Aurora
turned, and with some hope that M. Grandissime would not understand,
ventured to say in Spanish, quietly:

"Come, come, this will never do."

And Clotilde replied in the same tongue:

"I know it, but he is innocent."

"Let us understand each other," said their visitor. "There is not the
faintest idea in the mind of one of us that Professor Frowenfeld is
guilty of even an intention of wrong; otherwise I should not be here. He
is a man simply incapable of anything ignoble."

Clotilde was silent. Aurora answered promptly, with the air of one not
to be excelled in generosity:

"Certainly, he is very incapabl'."

"Still," resumed the visitor, turning especially to Clotilde, "the known
facts are these, according to his own statement: he was in the house of
Palmyre on some legitimate business which, unhappily, he considers
himself on some account bound not to disclose, and by some mistake of
Palmyre's old Congo woman, was set upon by her and wounded, barely
escaping with a whole skull into the street, an object of public
scandal. Laying aside the consideration of his feelings, his reputation
is at stake and likely to be ruined unless the affair can be explained
clearly and satisfactorily, and at once, by his friends."

"And you undertake--" began Aurora.

"Madame Nancanou," said Honoré Grandissime, leaning toward her
earnestly, "you know--I must beg leave to appeal to your candor and
confidence--you know everything concerning Palmyre that I know. You know
me, and who I am; you know it is not for me to undertake to confer with
Palmyre. I know, too, her old affection for you; she lives but a little
way down this street upon which you live; there is still daylight
enough at your disposal; if you will, you can go to see her, and get
from her a full and complete exoneration of this young man. She cannot
come to you; she is not fit to leave her room."

"Cannot leave her room?"

"I am, possibly, violating confidence in this disclosure, but it is
unavoidable--you have to know: she is not fully recovered from a
pistol-shot wound received between two and three weeks ago."

"Pistol-shot wound!"

Both ladies started forward with open lips and exclamations of
amazement.

"Received from a third person--not myself and not Professor
Frowenfeld--in a desperate attempt made by her to avenge the wrongs
which she has suffered, as you, Madam, as well as I, are aware, at the
hands of--"

Aurora rose up with a majestic motion for the speaker to desist.

"If it is to mention the person of whom your allusion reminds me, that
you have honored us with a call this evening, Monsieur--"

Her eyes were flashing as he had seen them flash in front of the Place
d'Armes.

"I beg you not to suspect me of meanness," he answered, gently, and with
a remonstrative smile. "I have been trying all day, in a way unnecessary
to explain, to be generous."

"I suppose you are incapabl'," said Aurora, following her double
meaning with that combination of mischievous eyes and unsmiling face of
which she was master. She resumed her seat, adding: "It is generous for
you to admit that Palmyre has suffered wrongs."

"It _would_ be," he replied, "to attempt to repair them, seeing that I
am not responsible for them, but this I cannot claim yet to have done. I
have asked of you, Madam, a generous act. I might ask another of you
both jointly. It is to permit me to say without offence, that there is
one man, at least, of the name of Grandissime who views with regret and
mortification the yet deeper wrongs which you are even now suffering."

"Oh!" exclaimed Aurora, inwardly ready for fierce tears, but with no
outward betrayal save a trifle too much grace and an over-bright smile,
"Monsieur is much mistaken; we are quite comfortable and happy, wanting
nothing, eh, Clotilde?--not even our rights, ha, ha!"

She rose and let Alphonsina in. The bundle was still in the negress's
arms. She passed through the room and disappeared in the direction of
the kitchen.

"Oh! no, sir, not at all," repeated Aurora, as she once more sat down.

"You ought to want your rights," said M. Grandissime. "You ought to have
them."

"You think so?"

Aurora was really finding it hard to conceal her growing excitement,
and turned, with a faint hope of relief, toward Clotilde.

Clotilde, looking only at their visitor, but feeling her mother's
glance, with a tremulous and half-choked voice, said eagerly:

"Then why do you not give them to us?"

"Ah!" interposed Aurora, "we shall get them to-morrow, when the sheriff
comes."

And, thereupon what did Clotilde do but sit bolt upright, with her hands
in her lap, and let the tears roll, tear after tear, down her cheeks.

"Yes, Monsieur," said Aurora, smiling still, "those that you see are
really tears. Ha, ha, ha! excuse me, I really have to laugh; for I just
happened to remember our meeting at the masked ball last September. We
had such a pleasant evening and were so much indebted to you for our
enjoyment,--particularly myself,--little thinking, you know, that you
were one of that great family which believes we ought to have our
rights, you know. There are many people who ought to have their rights.
There was Bras-Coupé; indeed, he got them--found them in the swamp.
Maybe Clotilde and I shall find ours in the street. When we unmasked in
the theatre, you know, I did not know you were my landlord, and you did
not know that I could not pay a few picayunes of rent. But you must
excuse those tears; Clotilde is generally a brave little woman, and
would not be so rude as to weep before a stranger; but she is weak
to-day--we are both weak to-day, from the fact that we have eaten
nothing since early morning, although we have abundance of food--for
want of appetite, you understand. You must sometimes be affected the
same way, having the care of so much wealth _of all sorts_."

Honoré Grandissime had risen to his feet and was standing with one hand
on the edge of the lofty mantel, his hat in the other dropped at his
side and his eye fixed upon Aurora's beautiful face, whence her small
nervous hand kept dashing aside the tears through which she defiantly
talked and smiled. Clotilde sat with clenched hands buried in her lap,
looking at Aurora and still weeping.

And M. Grandissime was saying to himself:

"If I do this thing now--if I do it here--I do it on an impulse; I do it
under constraint of woman's tears; I do it because I love this woman; I
do it to get out of a corner; I do it in weakness, not in strength; I do
it without having made up my mind whether or not it is the best thing
to do."

And then, without intention, with scarcely more consciousness of
movement than belongs to the undermined tree which settles, roots and
all, into the swollen stream, he turned and moved toward the door.

Clotilde rose.

"Monsieur Grandissime."

He stopped and looked back.

"We will see Palmyre at once, according to your request."

He turned his eyes toward Aurora.

"Yes," said she, and she buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed
aloud.

She heard his footstep again; it reached the door; the door
opened--closed; she heard his footstep again; was he gone?

He was gone.

The two women threw themselves into each other's arms and wept.
Presently Clotilde left the room. She came back in a moment from the
rear apartment, with a bonnet and veil in her hands.

"No," said Aurora, rising quickly, "I must do it."

"There is no time to lose," said Clotilde. "It will soon be dark."

It was hardly a minute before Aurora was ready to start. A kiss, a
sorrowful look of love exchanged, the veil dropped over the swollen
eyes, and Aurora was gone.

A minute passed, hardly more, and--what was this?--the soft patter of
Aurora's knuckles on the door.

"Just here at the corner I saw Palmyre leaving her house and walking
down the rue Royale. We must wait until morn--"

Again a footfall on the doorstep, and the door, which was standing ajar,
was pushed slightly by the force of the masculine knock which followed.

"Allow me," said the voice of Honoré Grandissime, as Aurora bowed at the
door. "I should have handed you this; good-day."

She received a missive. It was long, like an official document; it bore
evidence of having been carried for some hours in a coat-pocket, and was
folded in one of those old, troublesome ways in use before the days of
envelopes. Aurora pulled it open.

"It is all figures; light a candle."

The candle was lighted by Clotilde and held over Aurora's shoulder; they
saw a heading and footing more conspicuous than the rest of the writing.

The heading read:

     "_Aurora and Clotilde Nancanou, owners of Fausse Rivière
     Plantation, in account with Honoré Grandissime_."

The footing read:

     _ "Balance at credit, subject to order of Aurora and Clotilde
     Nancanou, $105,000.00_."

The date followed:

     "_March_ 9, 1804."

and the signature:

     "_H. Grandissime_."

A small piece of torn white paper slipped from the account to the floor.
Clotilde's eye followed it, but Aurora, without acknowledgement of
having seen it, covered it with her foot.

In the morning Aurora awoke first. She drew from under her pillow this
slip of paper. She had not dared look at it until now. The writing on
it had been roughly scratched down with a pencil. It read:

     "_Not for love of woman, but in the name of justice and the
     fear of God_."

"And I was so cruel," she whispered.

Ah! Honoré Grandissime, she was kind to that little writing! She did not
put it back under her pillow; she _kept it warm_, Honoré Grandissime,
from that time forth.




CHAPTER XLIV

BAD FOR CHARLIE KEENE


On the same evening of which we have been telling, about the time that
Aurora and Clotilde were dropping their last tear of joy over the
document of restitution, a noticeable figure stood alone at the corner
of the rue du Canal and the rue Chartres. He had reached there and
paused, just as the brighter glare of the set sun was growing dim above
the tops of the cypresses. After walking with some rapidity of step, he
had stopped aimlessly, and laid his hand with an air of weariness upon a
rotting China-tree that leaned over the ditch at the edge of the
unpaved walk.

"Setting in cypress," he murmured. We need not concern ourselves as to
his meaning.

One could think aloud there with impunity. In 1804, Canal street was
the upper boundary of New Orleans. Beyond it, to southward, the open
plain was dotted with country-houses, brick-kilns, clumps of live-oak
and groves of pecan. At the hour mentioned the outlines of these objects
were already darkening. At one or two points the sky was reflected from
marshy ponds. Out to westward rose conspicuously the old house and
willow-copse of Jean Poquelin. Down the empty street or road, which
stretched with arrow-like straightness toward the northwest, the
draining-canal that gave it its name tapered away between occasional
overhanging willows and beside broken ranks of rotting palisades, its
foul, crawling waters blushing, gilding and purpling under the swiftly
waning light, and ending suddenly in the black shadow of the swamp. The
observer of this dismal prospect leaned heavily on his arm, and cast his
glance out along the beautified corruption of the canal. His eye seemed
quickened to detect the smallest repellant details of the scene; every
cypress stump that stood in, or overhung, the slimy water; every ruined
indigo-vat or blasted tree, every broken thing, every bleached bone of
ox or horse--and they were many--for roods around. As his eye passed
them slowly over and swept back again around the dreary view, he sighed
heavily and said: "Dissolution," and then again--"Dissolution! order of
the day--"

A secret overhearer might have followed, by these occasional
exclamatory utterances, the course of a devouring trouble prowling up
and down through his thoughts, as one's eye tracks the shark by the
occasional cutting of his fin above the water.

He spoke again:

"It is in such moods as this that fools drown themselves."

His speech was French. He straightened up, smote the tree softly with
his palm, and breathed a long, deep sigh--such a sigh, if the very truth
be told, as belongs by right to a lover. And yet his mind did not
dwell on love.

He turned and left the place; but the trouble that was plowing hither
and thither through the deep of his meditations went with him. As he
turned into the rue Chartres it showed itself thus:

"Right; it is but right;" he shook his head slowly--"it is but right."

In the rue Douane he spoke again:

"Ah! Frowenfeld"--and smiled unpleasantly, with his head down.

And as he made yet another turn, and took his meditative way down the
city's front, along the blacksmith's shops in the street afterward
called Old Levee, he resumed, in English, and with a distinctness that
made a staggering sailor halt and look after him:

"There are but two steps to civilization, the first easy, the second
difficult; to construct--to reconstruct--ah! there it is! the tearing
down! The tear'--"

He was still, but repeated the thought by a gesture of distress turned
into a slow stroke of the forehead.

"Monsieur Honoré Grandissime," said a voice just ahead.

"_Eh, bien_?"

At the mouth of an alley, in the dim light of the streep lamp, stood the
dark figure of Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c., holding up the loosely
hanging form of a small man, the whole front of whose clothing was
saturated with blood.

"Why, Charlie Keene! Let him down again, quickly--quickly; do not hold
him so!"

"Hands off," came in a ghastly whisper from the shape.

"Oh, Chahlie, my boy--"

"Go and finish your courtship," whispered the doctor.

"Oh Charlie, I have just made it forever impossible!"

"Then help me back to my bed; I don't care to die in the street."




CHAPTER XLV

MORE REPARATION


"That is all," said the fairer Honoré, outside Doctor Keene's sick-room
about ten o'clock at night. He was speaking to the black son of
Clemence, who had been serving as errand-boy for some hours. He spoke
in a low tone just without the half-open door, folding again a paper
which the lad had lately borne to the apothecary of the rue Royale, and
had now brought back with Joseph's answer written under
Honoré's inquiry.

"That is all," said the other Honoré, standing partly behind the first,
as the eyes of his little menial turned upon him that deprecatory glance
of inquiry so common to slave children. The lad went a little way down
the corridor, curled up upon the floor against the wall, and was soon
asleep. The fairer Honoré handed the darker the slip of paper; it was
received and returned in silence. The question was:

     "_Can you state anything positive concerning the duel_?"

And the reply:

     "_Positively there will be none. Sylvestre my sworn friend for
     life_."

The half-brothers sat down under a dim hanging lamp in the corridor, and
except that every now and then one or the other stepped noiselessly to
the door to look in upon the sleeping sick man, or in the opposite
direction to moderate by a push with the foot the snoring of Clemence's
"boy," they sat the whole night through in whispered counsel.

The one, at the request of the other, explained how he had come to be
with the little doctor in such extremity.

It seems that Clemence, seeing and understanding the doctor's
imprudence, had sallied out with the resolve to set some person on his
track. We have said that she went in search of her master. Him she met,
and though she could not really count him one of the doctor's friends,
yet, rightly believing in his humanity, she told him the matter. He set
off in what was for him a quick pace in search of the rash invalid, was
misdirected by a too confident child and had given up the hope of
finding him, when a faint sound of distress just at hand drew him into
an alley, where, close down against a wall, with his face to the earth,
lay Doctor Keene. The f.m.c. had just raised him and borne him out of
the alley when Honoré came up.

"And you say that, when you would have inquired for him at Frowenfeld's,
you saw Palmyre there, standing and talking with Frowenfeld? Tell me
more exactly."

And the other, with that grave and gentle economy of words which made
his speech so unique, recounted what we amplify:

Palmyre had needed no pleading to induce her to exonerate Joseph. The
doctors were present at Frowenfeld's in more than usual number. There
was unusualness, too, in their manner and their talk. They were not
entirely free from the excitement of the day, and as they talked--with
an air of superiority, of Creole inflammability, and with some
contempt--concerning Camille Brahmin's and Charlie Mandarin's efforts to
precipitate a war, they were yet visibly in a state of expectation.
Frowenfeld, they softly said, had in his odd way been indiscreet among
these inflammables at Maspero's just when he could least afford to be
so, and there was no telling what they might take the notion to do to
him before bedtime. All that over and above the independent, unexplained
scandal of the early morning. So Joseph and his friends this evening,
like Aurora and Clotilde in the morning, were, as we nowadays say of
buyers and sellers, "apart," when suddenly and unannounced, Palmyre
presented herself among them. When the f.m.c. saw her, she had already
handed Joseph his hat and with much sober grace was apologizing for her
slave's mistake. All evidence of her being wounded was concealed. The
extraordinary excitement of the morning had not hurt her, and she seemed
in perfect health. The doctors sat or stood around and gave rapt
attention to her patois, one or two translating it for Joseph, and he
blushing to the hair, but standing erect and receiving it at second hand
with silent bows. The f.m.c. had gazed on her for a moment, and then
forced himself away. He was among the few who had not heard the morning
scandal, and he did not comprehend the evening scene. He now asked
Honoré concerning it, and quietly showed great relief when it was
explained.

Then Honoré, breaking a silence, called the attention of the f.m.c. to
the fact that the latter had two tenants at Number 19 rue Bienville.
Honoré became the narrator now and told all, finally stating that the
die was cast--restitution made.

And then the darker Honoré made a proposition to the other, which, it
is little to say, was startling. They discussed it for hours.

"So just a condition," said the merchant, raising his whisper so much
that the rentier laid a hand in his elbow,--"such mere justice," he
said, more softly, "ought to be an easy condition. God knows"--he lifted
his glance reverently--"my very right to exist comes after yours. You
are the elder."

The solemn man offered no disclaimer.

What could the proposition be which involved so grave an issue, and to
which M. Grandissime's final answer was "I will do it"?

It was that Honoré f.m.c. should become a member of the mercantile house
of H. Grandissime, enlisting in its capital all his wealth. And the one
condition was that the new style should be _Grandissime Brothers_.




CHAPTER XLVI

THE PIQUE-EN-TERRE LOSES ONE OF HER CREW


Ask the average resident of New Orleans if his town is on an island, and
he will tell you no. He will also wonder how any one could have got that
notion,--so completely has Orleans Island, whose name at the beginning
of the present century was in everybody's mouth, been forgotten. It was
once a question of national policy, a point of difference between
Republican and Federalist, whether the United States ought to buy this
little strip of semi-submerged land, or whether it would not be more
righteous to steal it. The Kentuckians kept the question at a red heat
by threatening to become an empire by themselves if one course or the
other was not taken; but when the First Consul offered to sell all
Louisiana, our commissioners were quite robbed of breath. They had
approached to ask a hair from the elephant's tail, and were offered
the elephant.

For Orleans Island--island it certainly was until General Jackson closed
Bayou Manchac--is a narrow, irregular, flat tract of forest, swamp,
city, prairie and sea-marsh, lying east and west, with the Mississippi,
trending southeastward, for its southern boundary, and for its northern,
a parallel and contiguous chain of alternate lakes and bayous, opening
into the river through Bayou Manchac, and into the Gulf through the
passes of the Malheureuse Islands. On the narrowest part of it stands
New Orleans. Turning and looking back over the rear of the town, one may
easily see from her steeples Lake Pontchartrain glistening away to the
northern horizon, and in his fancy extend the picture to right and left
till Pontchartrain is linked in the west by Pass Manchac to Lake
Maurepas, and in the east by the Rigolets and Chef Menteur to
Lake Borgne.

An oddity of the Mississippi Delta is the habit the little streams have
of running away from the big ones. The river makes its own bed and its
own banks, and continuing season after season, through ages of
alternate overflow and subsidence, to elevate those banks, creates a
ridge which thus becomes a natural elevated aqueduct. Other slightly
elevated ridges mark the present or former courses of minor outlets, by
which the waters of the Mississippi have found the sea. Between these
ridges lie the cypress swamps, through whose profound shades the clear,
dark, deep bayous creep noiselessly away into the tall grasses of the
shaking prairies. The original New Orleans was built on the Mississippi
ridge, with one of these forest-and-water-covered basins stretching back
behind her to westward and northward, closed in by Metairie Ridge and
Lake Pontchartrain. Local engineers preserve the tradition that the
Bayou Sauvage once had its rise, so to speak, in Toulouse street. Though
depleted by the city's present drainage system and most likely poisoned
by it as well, its waters still move seaward in a course almost due
easterly, and empty into Chef Menteur, one of the watery threads
of a tangled skein of "passes" between the lakes and the open
Gulf. Three-quarters of a century ago this Bayou Sauvage (or
Gentilly--corruption of Chantilly) was a navigable stream of wild and
sombre beauty.

On a certain morning in August, 1804, and consequently some five months
after the events last mentioned, there emerged from the darkness of
Bayou Sauvage into the prairie-bordered waters of Chef Menteur, while
the morning star was still luminous in the sky above and in the water
below, and only the practised eye could detect the first glimmer of day,
a small, stanch, single-masted, broad and very light-draught boat, whose
innocent character, primarily indicated in its coat of many colors,--the
hull being yellow below the water line and white above, with tasteful
stripings of blue and red,--was further accentuated by the peaceful name
of _Pique-en-terre_ (the Sandpiper).

She seemed, too, as she entered the Chef Menteur, as if she would have
liked to turn southward; but the wind did not permit this, and in a
moment more the water was rippling after her swift rudder, as she glided
away in the direction of Pointe Aux Herbes. But when she had left behind
her the mouth of the passage, she changed her course and, leaving the
Pointe on her left, bore down toward Petites Coquilles, obviously bent
upon passing through the Rigolets.

We know not how to describe the joyousness of the effect when at length
one leaves behind him the shadow and gloom of the swamp, and there
bursts upon his sight the widespread, flower-decked, bird-haunted
prairies of Lake Catharine. The inside and outside of a prison scarcely
furnish a greater contrast; and on this fair August morning the contrast
was at its strongest. The day broke across a glad expanse of cool and
fragrant green, silver-laced with a network of crisp salt pools and
passes, lakes, bayous and lagoons, that gave a good smell, the inspiring
odor of interclasped sea and shore, and both beautified and perfumed
the happy earth, laid bare to the rising sun. Waving marshes of wild
oats, drooping like sated youth from too much pleasure; watery acres hid
under crisp-growing greenth starred with pond-lilies and rippled by
water-fowl; broad stretches of high grass, with thousands of ecstatic
wings palpitating above them; hundreds of thousands of white and pink
mallows clapping their hands in voiceless rapture, and that amazon queen
of the wild flowers, the morning-glory, stretching her myriad lines,
lifting up the trumpet and waving her colors, white, azure and pink,
with lacings of spider's web, heavy with pearls and diamonds--the gifts
of the summer night. The crew of the _Pique-en-terre_ saw all these and
felt them; for, whatever they may have been or failed to be, they were
men whose heartstrings responded to the touches of nature. One alone of
their company, and he the one who should have felt them most, showed
insensibility, sighed laughingly and then laughed sighingly, in the face
of his fellows and of all this beauty, and profanely confessed that his
heart's desire was to get back to his wife. He had been absent from her
now for nine hours!

But the sun is getting high; Petites Coquilles has been passed and left
astern, the eastern end of Las Conchas is on the after-larboard-quarter,
the briny waters of Lake Borgne flash far and wide their dazzling white
and blue, and, as the little boat issues from the deep channel of the
Rigolets, the white-armed waves catch her and toss her like a merry
babe. A triumph for the helmsman--he it is who sighs, at intervals of
tiresome frequency, for his wife. He had, from the very starting-place
in the upper waters of Bayou Sauvage, declared in favor of the Rigolets
as--wind and tide considered--the most practicable of all the passes.
Now that they were out, he forgot for a moment the self-amusing plaint
of conjugal separation to flaunt his triumph. Would any one hereafter
dispute with him on the subject of Louisiana sea-coast navigation? He
knew every pass and piece of water like A, B, C, and could tell, faster,
much faster than he could repeat the multiplication table (upon which he
was a little slow and doubtful), the amount of water in each at ebb
tide--Pass Jean or Petit Pass, Unknown Pass, Petit Rigolet, Chef
Menteur,--

Out on the far southern horizon, in the Gulf--the Gulf of Mexico--there
appears a speck of white. It is known to those on board the
_Pique-en-terre_, the moment it is descried, as the canvas of a large
schooner. The opinion, first expressed by the youthful husband, who
still reclines with the tiller held firmly under his arm, and then by
another member of the company who sits on the centreboard-well, is
unanimously adopted, that she is making for the Rigolets, will pass
Petites Coquilles by eleven o'clock, and will tie up at the little port
of St. Jean, on the bayou of the same name, before sundown, if the wind
holds anywise as it is.

On the other hand, the master of the distant schooner shuts his glass,
and says to the single passenger whom he has aboard that the little sail
just visible toward the Rigolets is a sloop with a half-deck, well
filled with men, in all probability a pleasure party bound to the
Chandeleurs on a fishing and gunning excursion, and passes into comments
on the superior skill of landsmen over seamen in the handling of small
sailing craft.

By and by the two vessels near each other. They approach within hailing
distance, and are announcing each to each their identity, when the young
man at the tiller jerks himself to a squatting posture, and, from under
a broad-brimmed and slouched straw hat, cries to the schooner's one
passenger:

"Hello, Challie Keene."

And the passenger more quietly answers back:

"Hello, Raoul, is that you?"

M. Innerarity replied, with a profane parenthesis, that it was he.

"You kin hask Sylvestre!" he concluded.

The doctor's eye passed around a semicircle of some eight men, the most
of whom were quite young, but one or two of whom were gray, sitting with
their arms thrown out upon the wash-board, in the dark négligé of
amateur fishermen and with that exultant look of expectant deviltry in
their handsome faces which characterizes the Creole with his collar off.

The mettlesome little doctor felt the odds against him in the exchange
of greetings.

"Ola, Dawctah!"

"_Hé_, Doctah, _que-ce qui t'après fé?_"

"_Ho, ho, compère Noyo!_"

"_Comment va_, Docta?"

A light peppering of profanity accompanied each salute.

The doctor put on defensively a smile of superiority to the juniors and
of courtesy to the others, and responsively spoke their names:

"'Polyte--Sylvestre--Achille--Émile--ah! Agamemnon."

The Doctor and Agamemnon raised their hats.

As Agamemnon was about to speak, a general expostulatory outcry drowned
his voice. The _Pique-en-terre_ was going about close abreast of the
schooner, and angry questions and orders were flying at Raoul's head
like a volley of eggs.

"Messieurs," said Raoul, partially rising but still stooping over the
tiller, and taking his hat off his bright curls with mock courtesy, "I
am going back to New Orleans. I would not give _that_ for all the fish
in the sea; I want to see my wife. I am going back to New Orleans to see
my wife--and to congratulate the city upon your absence." Incredulity,
expostulation, reproach, taunt, malediction--he smiled unmoved upon
them all.

"Messieurs, I _must_ go and see my wife."

Amid redoubled outcries he gave the helm to Camille Brahmin, and
fighting his way with his pretty feet against half-real efforts to throw
him overboard, clambered forward to the mast, whence a moment later,
with the help of the schooner-master's hand, he reached the deck of the
larger vessel. The _Pique-en-terre_ turned, and with a little flutter
spread her smooth wing and skimmed away.

"Doctah Keene, look yeh!" M. Innerarity held up a hand whose third
finger wore the conventional ring of the Creole bridegroom. "W'at you
got to say to dat?"

The little doctor felt a faintness run through his veins, and a thrill
of anger follow it. The poor man could not imagine a love affair that
did not include Clotilde Nancanou.

"Whom have you married?"

"De pritties' gal in de citty."

The questioner controlled himself.

"M-hum," he responded, with a contraction of the eyes.

Raoul waited an instant for some kindlier comment, and finding the hope
vain, suddenly assumed a look of delighted admiration.

"Hi, yi, yi! Doctah, 'ow you har lookingue fine."

The true look of the doctor was that he had not much longer to live. A
smile of bitter humor passed over his face, and he looked for a near
seat, saying:

"How's Frowenfeld?"

Raoul struck an ecstatic attitude and stretched forth his hand as if the
doctor could not fail to grasp it. The invalid's heart sank like lead.

"Frowenfeld has got her," he thought.

"Well?" said he with a frown of impatience and restraint; and Raoul
cried:

"I sole my pigshoe!"

The doctor could not help but laugh.

"Shades of the masters!"

"No; 'Louizyanna rif-using to hantre de h-Union.'"

The doctor stood corrected.

The two walked across the deck, following the shadow of the swinging
sail. The doctor lay down in a low-swung hammock, and Raoul sat upon the
deck _à la Turque_.

"Come, come, Raoul, tell me, what is the news?"

"News? Oh, I donno. You 'eard concernin' the dool?"

"You don't mean to say--"

"Yesseh!"

"Agricola and Sylvestre?"

"W'at de dev'! No! Burr an' 'Ammiltong; in Noo-Juzzy-las-June. Collonnel
Burr, 'e--"

"Oh, fudge! yes. How is Frowenfeld?"

"'E's well. Guess 'ow much I sole my pigshoe."

"Well, how much?"

"Two 'ondred fifty." He laid himself out at length, his elbow on the
deck, his head in his hand. "I believe I'm sorry I sole 'er."

"I don't wonder. How's Honoré? Tell me what has happened. Remember, I've
been away five months."

"No; I am verrie glad dat I sole 'er. What? Ha! I should think so! If
it have not had been fo' dat I would not be married to-day. You think I
would get married on dat sal'rie w'at Proffis-or Frowenfel' was payin'
me? Twenty-five dolla' de mont'? Docta Keene, no gen'leman h-ought to
git married if 'e 'ave not anny'ow fifty dolla' de mont'! If I wasn' a
h-artiz I wouldn' git married; I gie you my word!"

"Yes," said the little doctor, "you are right. Now tell me the news."

"Well, dat Cong-ress gone an' make--"

"Raoul, stop. I know that Congress has divided the province into two
territories; I know you Creoles think all your liberties are lost; I
know the people are in a great stew because they are not allowed to
elect their own officers and legislatures, and that in Opelousas and
Attakapas they are as wild as their cattle about it--"

"We 'ad two big mitting' about it," interrupted Raoul; "my bro'r-in-law
speak at both of them!"

"Who?"

"Chahlie Mandarin."

"Glad to hear it," said Doctor Keene,--which was the truth. "Besides
that, I know Laussat has gone to Martinique; that the Américains have a
newspaper, and that cotton is two-bits a pound. Now what I want to know
is, how are my friends? What has Honoré done? What has Frowenfeld done?
And Palmyre,--and Agricole? They hustled me away from here as if I had
been caught trying to cut my throat. Tell me everything."

And Raoul sank the artist and bridegroom in the historian, and told him.




CHAPTER XLVII

THE NEWS


"My cousin Honoré,--well, you kin jus' say 'e bitray' 'is 'ole fam'ly."

"How so?" asked Doctor Keene, with a handkerchief over his face to
shield his eyes from the sun.

"Well,--ce't'nly 'e did! Di'n' 'e gave dat money to Aurora De
Grapion?--one 'undred five t'ousan' dolla'? Jis' as if to say, 'Yeh's de
money my h-uncle stole from you' 'usban'.' Hah! w'en I will swear on a
stack of Bible' as 'igh as yo' head, dat Agricole win dat 'abitation
fair!--If I see it? No, sir; I don't 'ave to see it! I'll swear to
it! Hah!"

"And have she and her daughter actually got the money?"

"She--an'--heh--daughtah--ac--shilly--got-'at-money-sir! W'at? Dey
livin' in de rue Royale in mag-_niff_ycen' style on top de drug-sto' of
Proffis-or Frowenfel'."

"But how, over Frowenfeld's, when Frowenfeld's is a one-story--"

"My dear frien'! Proffis-or Frowenfel' is _moove!_ You rickleck dat big
new t'ree-story buildin' w'at jus' finished in de rue Royale, a lill mo'
farther up town from his old shop? Well, we open dare _a big sto'!_ An'
listen! You think Honoré di'n' bitrayed' 'is family? Madame Nancanou an'
heh daughtah livin' upstair an' rissy-ving de finess soci'ty in de
Province!--an' _me?_--downstair' meckin' pill! You call dat justice?"

But Doctor Keene, without waiting for this question, had asked one:

"Does Frowenfeld board with them?"

"Psh-sh-sh! Board! Dey woon board de Marquis of Casa Calvo! I don't
b'lieve dey would board Honoré Grandissime! All de king' an' queen' in
de worl' couldn' board dare! No, sir!--'Owever, you know, I think dey
are splendid ladies. Me an' my wife, we know them well. An' Honoré--I
think my cousin Honoré's a splendid gen'leman, too." After a moment's
pause he resumed, with a happy sigh, "Well, I don' care, I'm married. A
man w'at's married, 'e don' care.

"But I di'n' t'ink Honoré could ever do lak dat odder t'ing."

"Do he and Joe Frowenfeld visit there?"

"Doctah Keene," demanded Raoul, ignoring the question, "I hask you now,
plain, don' you find dat mighty disgressful to do dat way, lak Honoré?"

"What way?"

"W'at? You dunno? You don' yeh 'ow 'e gone partner' wid a nigga?"

"What do you mean?"

Doctor Keene drew the handkerchief off his face and half lifted his
feeble head.

"Yesseh! 'e gone partner' wid dat quadroon w'at call 'imself Honoré
Grandissime, seh!"

The doctor dropped his head again and laid the handkerchief back on his
face.

"What do the family say to that?"

"But w'at _can_ dey say? It save dem from ruin! At de sem time, me, I
think it is a disgress. Not dat he h-use de money, but it is dat name
w'at 'e give de h-establishmen'--Grandissime Frères! H-only for 'is
money we would 'ave catch' dat quadroon gen'leman an' put some tar and
fedder. Grandissime Frères! Agricole don' spik to my cousin Honoré no
mo'. But I t'ink dass wrong. W'at you t'ink, Doctah?"

That evening, at candle-light, Raoul got the right arm of his slender,
laughing wife about his neck; but Doctor Keene tarried all night in
suburb St. Jean. He hardly felt the moral courage to face the results of
the last five months. Let us understand them better ourselves.




CHAPTER XLVIII

AN INDIGNANT FAMILY AND A SMASHED SHOP


It was indeed a fierce storm that had passed over the head of Honoré
Grandissime. Taken up and carried by it, as it seemed to him, without
volition, he had felt himself thrown here and there, wrenched, torn,
gasping for moral breath, speaking the right word as if in delirium,
doing the right deed as if by helpless instinct, and seeing himself in
every case, at every turn, tricked by circumstance out of every vestige
of merit. So it seemed to him. The long contemplated restitution was
accomplished. On the morning when Aurora and Clotilde had expected to be
turned shelterless into the open air, they had called upon him in his
private office and presented the account of which he had put them in
possession the evening before. He had honored it on the spot. To the two
ladies who felt their own hearts stirred almost to tears of gratitude,
he was--as he sat before them calm, unmoved, handling keen-edged facts
with the easy rapidity of one accustomed to use them, smiling
courteously and collectedly, parrying their expressions of
appreciation--to them, we say, at least to one of them, he was "the
prince of gentlemen." But, at the same time, there was within him,
unseen, a surge of emotions, leaping, lashing, whirling, yet ever
hurrying onward along the hidden, rugged bed of his honest intention.

The other restitution, which even twenty-four hours earlier might have
seemed a pure self-sacrifice, became a self-rescue. The f.m.c. was the
elder brother. A remark of Honoré made the night they watched in the
corridor by Doctor Keene's door, about the younger's "right to exist,"
was but the echo of a conversation they had once had together in
Europe. There they had practised a familiarity of intercourse which
Louisiana would not have endured, and once, when speaking upon the
subject of their common fatherhood, the f.m.c., prone to melancholy
speech, had said:

"You are the lawful son of Numa Grandissime; I had no right to be born."

But Honoré quickly answered:

"By the laws of men, it may be; but by the law of God's justice, you are
the lawful son, and it is I who should not have been born."

But, returned to Louisiana, accepting with the amiable, old-fashioned
philosophy of conservatism the sins of the community, he had forgotten
the unchampioned rights of his passive half-brother. Contact with
Frowenfeld had robbed him of his pleasant mental drowsiness, and the
oft-encountered apparition of the dark sharer of his name had become a
slow-stepping, silent embodiment of reproach. The turn of events had
brought him face to face with the problem of restitution, and he had
solved it. But where had he come out? He had come out the beneficiary of
this restitution, extricated from bankruptcy by an agreement which gave
the f.m.c. only a public recognition of kinship which had always been
his due. Bitter cup of humiliation!

Such was the stress within. Then there was the storm without. The
Grandissimes were in a high state of excitement. The news had reached
them all that Honoré had met the question of titles by selling one of
their largest estates. It was received with wincing frowns, indrawn
breath, and lifted feet, but without protest, and presently with a smile
of returning confidence.

"Honoré knew; Honoré was informed; they had all authorized Honoré; and
Honoré, though he might have his odd ways and notions, picked up during
that unfortunate stay abroad, might safely be trusted to stand by the
interests of his people."

After the first shock some of them even raised a laugh:

"Ha, ha, ha! Honoré would show those Yankees!"

They went to his counting-room and elsewhere, in search of him, to smite
their hands into the hands of their far-seeing young champion. But, as
we have seen, they did not find him; none dreamed of looking for him in
an enemy's camp (19 Bienville) or on the lonely suburban commons,
talking to himself in the ghostly twilight; and the next morning, while
Aurora and Clotilde were seated before him in his private office,
looking first at the face and then at the back of two mighty drafts of
equal amount on Philadelphia, the cry of treason flew forth to these
astounded Grandissimes, followed by the word that the sacred fire was
gone out in the Grandissime temple (counting-room), that Delilahs in
duplicate were carrying off the holy treasures, and that the
uncircumcised and unclean--even an f.m.c.--was about to be inducted into
the Grandissime priesthood.

Aurora and Clotilde were still there, when the various members of the
family began to arrive and display their outlines in impatient
shadow-play upon the glass door of the private office; now one, and now
another, dallied with the doorknob and by and by obtruded their lifted
hats and urgent, anxious faces half into the apartment; but Honoré would
only glance toward them, and with a smile equally courteous,
authoritative and fleeting, say:

"Good-morning, Camille" (or Charlie--or Agamemnon, as the case might
be); "I will see you later; let me trouble you to close the door."

To add yet another strain, the two ladies, like frightened, rescued
children, would cling to their deliverer. They wished him to become the
custodian and investor of their wealth. Ah, woman! who is a tempter like
thee? But Honoré said no, and showed them the danger of such a course.

"Suppose I should die suddenly. You might have trouble with my
executors."

The two beauties assented pensively; but in Aurora's bosom a great throb
secretly responded that as for her, in that case, she should have no use
for money--in a nunnery.

"Would not Monsieur at least consent to be their financial adviser?"

He hemmed, commenced a sentence twice, and finally said:

"You will need an agent; some one to take full charge of your affairs;
some person on whose sagacity and integrity you can place the fullest
dependence."

"Who, for instance?" asked Aurora.

"I should say, without hesitation, Professor Frowenfeld, the apothecary.
You know his trouble of yesterday is quite cleared up. You had not
heard? Yes. He is not what we call an enterprising man, but--so much the
better. Take him all in all, I would choose him above all others;
if you--"

Aurora interrupted him. There was an ill-concealed wildness in her eye
and a slight tremor in her voice, as she spoke, which she had not
expected to betray. The quick, though quiet eye of Honoré Grandissime
saw it, and it thrilled him through.

"'Sieur Grandissime, I take the risk; I wish you to take care of my
money."

"But, Maman," said Clotilde, turning with a timid look to her mother,
"If Monsieur Grandissime would rather not--"

Aurora, feeling alarmed at what she had said, rose up. Clotilde and
Honoré did the same, and he said:

"With Professor Frowenfeld in charge of your affairs, I shall feel them
not entirely removed from my care also. We are very good friends."

Clotilde looked at her mother. The three exchanged glances. The ladies
signified their assent and turned to go, but M. Grandissime
stopped them.

"By your leave, I will send for him. If you will be seated again--"

They thanked him and resumed their seats; he excused himself, passed
into the counting-room, and sent a messenger for the apothecary.

M. Grandissime's meeting with his kinsmen was a stormy one. Aurora and
Clotilde heard the strife begin, increase, subside, rise again and
decrease. They heard men stride heavily to and fro, they heard hands
smite together, palms fall upon tables and fists upon desks, heard
half-understood statement and unintelligible counter-statement and
derisive laughter; and, in the midst of all, like the voice of a man who
rules himself, the clear-noted, unimpassioned speech of Honoré, sounding
so loftily beautiful in the ear of Aurora that when Clotilde looked at
her, sitting motionless with her rapt eyes lifted up, those eyes came
down to her own with a sparkle of enthusiasm, and she softly said:

"It sounds like St. Gabriel!" and then blushed.

Clotilde answered with a happy, meaning look, which intensified the
blush, and then leaning affectionately forward and holding the maman's
eyes with her own, she said:

"You have my consent."

"Saucy!" said Aurora. "Wait till I get my own."

Some of his kinsmen Honoré pacified; some he silenced. He invited all to
withdraw their lands and moneys from his charge, and some accepted the
invitation. They spurned his parting advice to sell, and the policy they
then adopted, and never afterward modified, was that "all or nothing"
attitude which, as years rolled by, bled them to penury in those famous
cupping-leeching-and-bleeding establishments, the courts of Louisiana.
You may see their grandchildren, to-day, anywhere within the angle of
the old rues Esplanade and Rampart, holding up their heads in
unspeakable poverty, their nobility kept green by unflinching
self-respect, and their poetic and pathetic pride revelling in
ancestral, perennial rebellion against common sense.

"That is Agricola," whispered Aurora, with lifted head and eyes dilated
and askance, as one deep-chested voice roared above all others.

Agricola stormed.

"Uncle," Aurora by and by heard Honoré say, "shall I leave my own
counting-room?"

At that moment Joseph Frowenfeld entered, pausing with one hand on the
outer rail. No one noticed him but Honoré, who was watching for him, and
who, by a silent motion, directed him into the private office.

"H-whe shake its dust from our feet!" said Agricola, gathering some
young retainers by a sweep of his glance and going out down the stair in
the arched way, unmoved by the fragrance of warm bread. On the banquette
he harangued his followers.

He said that in such times as these every lover of liberty should go
armed; that the age of trickery had come; that by trickery Louisianians
had been sold, like cattle, to a nation of parvenues, to be dragged
before juries for asserting the human right of free trade or ridding the
earth of sneaks in the pay of the government; that laws, so-called, had
been forged into thumbscrews, and a Congress which had bound itself to
give them all the rights of American citizens--sorry boon!--was
preparing to slip their birthright acres from under their feet, and
leave them hanging, a bait to the vultures of the Américain immigration.
Yes; the age of trickery! Its apostles, he said, were even then at work
among their fellow-citizens, warping, distorting, blasting, corrupting,
poisoning the noble, unsuspecting, confiding Creole mind. For months the
devilish work had been allowed, by a patient, peace-loving people, to go
on. But shall it go on forever? (Cries of "No!" "No!") The smell of
white blood comes on the south breeze. Dessalines and Christophe had
recommenced their hellish work. Virginia, too, trembles for the safety
of her fair mothers and daughters. We know not what is being plotted in
the canebrakes of Louisiana. But we know that in the face of these
things the prelates of trickery are sitting in Washington allowing
throats to go unthrottled that talked tenderly about the "negro slave;"
we know worse: we know that mixed blood has asked for equal rights from
a son of the Louisiana noblesse, and that those sacred rights have been
treacherously, pusillanimously surrendered into its possession. Why did
we not rise yesterday, when the public heart was stirred? The
forbearance of this people would be absurd if it were not saintly. But
the time has, come when Louisiana must protect herself! If there is one
here who will not strike for his lands, his rights and the purity of his
race, let him speak! (Cries of "We will rise now!" "Give us a leader!"
"Lead the way!")

"Kinsmen, friends," continued Agricola, "meet me at nightfall before the
house of this too-long-spared mulatto. Come armed. Bring a few feet of
stout rope. By morning the gentlemen of color will know their places
better than they do to-day; h-whe shall understand each other! H-whe
shall set the negrophiles to meditating."

He waved them away.

With a huzza the accumulated crowd moved off. Chance carried them up the
rue Royale; they sang a song; they came to Frowenfeld's. It was an
Américain establishment; that was against it. It was a gossiping place
of Américain evening loungers; that was against it. It was a sorcerer's
den--(we are on an ascending scale); its proprietor had refused
employment to some there present, had refused credit to others, was an
impudent condemner of the most approved Creole sins, had been beaten
over the head only the day before; all these were against it. But, worse
still, the building was owned by the f.m.c., and unluckiest of all,
Raoul stood in the door and some of his kinsmen in the crowd stopped to
have a word with him. The crowd stopped. A nameless fellow in the
throng--he was still singing--said: "Here's the place," and dropped two
bricks through the glass of the show-window. Raoul, with a cry of
retaliative rage, drew and lifted a pistol; but a kinsman jerked it
from him and three others quickly pinioned him and bore him off
struggling, pleased to get him away unhurt. In ten minutes, Frowenfeld's
was a broken-windowed, open-doored house, full of unrecognizable rubbish
that had escaped the torch only through a chance rumor that the
Governor's police were coming, and the consequent stampede of the mob.

Joseph was sitting in M. Grandissime's private office, in council with
him and the ladies, and Aurora was just saying:

"Well, anny'ow, 'Sieur Frowenfel', ad laz you consen'!" and gathering
her veil from her lap, when Raoul burst in, all sweat and rage.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', we ruin'! Ow pharmacie knock all in pieces! My
pigshoe is los'!"

He dropped into a chair and burst into tears.

Shall we never learn to withhold our tears until we are sure of our
trouble? Raoul little knew the joy in store for him. 'Polyte, it
transpired the next day, had rushed in after the first volley of
missiles, and while others were gleefully making off with jars of
asafoetida and decanters of distilled water, lifted in his arms and bore
away unharmed "Louisiana" firmly refusing to the last to enter the
Union. It may not be premature to add that about four weeks later Honoré
Grandissime, upon Raoul's announcement that he was "betrothed,"
purchased this painting and presented it to a club of _natural
connoisseurs_.




CHAPTER XLIX

OVER THE NEW STORE


The accident of the ladies Nancanou making their new home over
Frowenfeld's drug-store occurred in the following rather amusing way. It
chanced that the building was about completed at the time that the
apothecary's stock in trade was destroyed; Frowenfeld leased the lower
floor. Honoré Grandissime f.m.c. was the owner. He being concealed from
his enemies, Joseph treated with that person's inadequately remunerated
employé. In those days, as still in the old French Quarter, it was not
uncommon for persons, even of wealth, to make their homes over stores,
and buildings were constructed with a view to their partition in this
way. Hence, in Chartres and Decatur streets, to-day--and in the
cross-streets between--so many store-buildings with balconies, dormer
windows, and sometimes even belvideres. This new building caught the eye
and fancy of Aurora and Clotilde. The apartments for the store were
entirely isolated. Through a large _porte-cochère_, opening upon the
banquette immediately beside and abreast of the store-front, one entered
a high, covered carriage-way with a tessellated pavement and green
plastered walls, and reached,--just where this way (corridor, the
Creoles always called it) opened into a sunny court surrounded with
narrow parterres,--a broad stairway leading to a hall over the
"corridor" and to the drawing-rooms over the store. They liked it!
Aurora would find out at once what sort of an establishment was likely
to be opened below, and if that proved unexceptionable she would lease
the upper part without more ado.

Next day she said:

"Clotilde, thou beautiful, I have signed the lease!"

"Then the store below is to be occupied by a--what?"

"Guess!"

"Ah!"

"Guess a pharmacien!"

Clotilde's lips parted, she was going to smile, when her thought changed
and she blushed offendedly.

"Not--"

"'Sieur Frowenf--ah, ha, ha, ha!--_ha, ha, ha_!"

Clotilde burst into tears.

Still they moved in--it was written in the bond; and so did the
apothecary; and probably two sensible young lovers never before nor
since behaved with such abject fear of each other--for a time. Later,
and after much oft-repeated good advice given to each separately and to
both together, Honoré Grandissime persuaded them that Clotilde could
make excellent use of a portion of her means by reenforcing Frowenfeld's
very slender stock and well filling his rather empty-looking store, and
so they signed regular articles of copartnership, blushing frightfully.

Frowenfeld became a visitor, Honoré not; once Honoré had seen the
ladies' moneys satisfactorily invested, he kept aloof. It is pleasant
here to remark that neither Aurora nor Clotilde made any waste of their
sudden acquisitions; they furnished their rooms with much beauty at
moderate cost, and their _salon_ with artistic, not extravagant,
elegance, and, for the sake of greater propriety, employed a decayed
lady as housekeeper; but, being discreet in all other directions, they
agreed upon one bold outlay--a volante.

Almost any afternoon you might have seen this vehicle on the Terre aux
Boeuf, or Bayou, or Tchoupitoulas Road; and because of the brilliant
beauty of its occupants it became known from all other volantes as
the "meteor."

Frowenfeld's visits were not infrequent; he insisted on Clotdlde's
knowing just what was being done with her money. Without indulging
ourselves in the pleasure of contemplating his continued mental
unfolding, we may say that his growth became more rapid in this season
of universal expansion; love had entered into his still compacted soul
like a cupid into a rose, and was crowding it wide open. However, as
yet, it had not made him brave. Aurora used to slip out of the
drawing-room, and in some secluded nook of the hall throw up her clasped
hands and go through all the motions of screaming merriment.

"The little fool!"--it was of her own daughter she whispered this
complimentary remark--"the little fool is afraid of the fish!"

"You!" she said to Clotilde, one evening after Joseph had gone, "you
call yourself a Creole girl!"

But she expected too much. Nothing so terrorizes a blushing girl as a
blushing man. And then--though they did sometimes digress--Clotilde and
her partner met to talk "business" in a purely literal sense.

Aurora, after a time, had taken her money into her own keeping.

"You mighd gid robb' ag'in, you know, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," she said.

But when he mentioned Clotilde's fortune as subject to the same
contingency, Aurora replied:

"Ah! bud Clotilde mighd gid robb'!"

But for all the exuberance of Aurora's spirits, there was a cloud in her
sky. Indeed, we know it is only when clouds are in the sky that we get
the rosiest tints; and so it was with Aurora. One night, when she had
heard the wicket in the _porte-cochère_ shut behind three evening
callers, one of whom she had rejected a week before, another of whom she
expected to dispose of similarly, and the last of whom was Joseph
Frowenfeld, she began such a merry raillery at Clotilde and such a
hilarious ridicule of the "Professor" that Clotilde would have wept
again had not Aurora, all at once, in the midst of a laugh, dropped her
face in her hands and run from the room in tears. It is one of the
penalties we pay for being joyous, that nobody thinks us capable of care
or the victim of trouble until, in some moment of extraordinary
expansion, our bubble of gayety bursts. Aurora had been crying of
nights. Even that same night, Clotilde awoke, opened her eyes and beheld
her mother risen from the pillow and sitting upright in the bed beside
her; the moon, shining brightly through the mosquito-bar revealed with
distinctness her head slightly drooped, her face again in her hands and
the dark folds of her hair falling about her shoulders, half-concealing
the richly embroidered bosom of her snowy gown, and coiling in
continuous abundance about her waist and on the slight summer covering
of the bed. Before her on the sheet lay a white paper. Clotilde did not
try to decipher the writing on it; she knew, at sight, the slip that had
fallen from the statement of account on the evening of the ninth of
March. Aurora withdrew her hands from her face--Clotilde shut her eyes;
she heard Aurora put the paper in her bosom.

"Clotilde," she said, very softly.

"Maman," the daughter replied, opening her eyes, reached up her arms and
drew the dear head down.

"Clotilde, once upon a time I woke this way, and, while you were asleep,
left the bed and made a vow to Monsieur Danny. Oh! it was a sin! but I
cannot do those things now; I have been frightened ever since. I shall
never do so any more. I shall never commit another sin as long as
I live!"

Their lips met fervently.

"My sweet sweet," whispered Clotilde, "you looked so beautiful sitting
up with the moonlight all around you!"

"Clotilde, my beautiful daughter," said Aurora, pushing her bedmate from
her and pretending to repress a smile, "I tell you now, because you
don't know, and it is my duty as your mother to tell you--the meanest
wickedness a woman can do in all this bad, bad world is to look ugly
in bed!"

Clotilde answered nothing, and Aurora dropped her outstretched arms,
turned away with an involuntary, tremulous sigh, and after two or three
hours of patient wakefulness, fell asleep.

But at daybreak next morning, he that wrote the paper had not closed his
eyes.




CHAPTER L

A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE


There was always some flutter among Frowenfeld's employés when he was
asked for, and this time it was the more pronounced because he was
sought by a housemaid from the upper floor. It was hard for these two or
three young Ariels to keep their Creole feet to the ground when it was
presently revealed to their sharp ears that the "prof-fis-or" was
requested to come upstairs.

The new store was an extremely neat, bright, and well-ordered
establishment; yet to ascend into the drawing-rooms seemed to the
apothecary like going from the hold of one of those smart old
packet-ships of his day into the cabin. Aurora came forward, with the
slippers of a Cinderella twinkling at the edge of her robe. It seemed
unfit that the floor under them should not be clouds.

"Proffis-or Frowenfel', good-day! Teg a cha'." She laughed. It was the
pure joy of existence. "You's well? You lookin' verrie well! Halways
bizzie? You fine dad agriz wid you' healt', 'Sieur Frowenfel'? Yes? Ha,
ha, ha!" She suddenly leaned toward him across the arm of her chair,
with an earnest face. "'Sieur Frowenfel', Palmyre wand see you. You don'
wan' come ad 'er 'ouse, eh?--an' you don' wan' her to come ad yo'
bureau. You know, 'Sieur Frowenfel', she drez the hair of Clotilde an'
mieself. So w'en she tell me dad, I juz say, 'Palmyre, I will sen' for
Proffis-or Frowenfel' to come yeh; but I don' thing 'e comin'.' You
know, I din' wan' you to 'ave dad troub'; but Clotilde--ha, ha, ha!
Clotilde is sudge a foolish--she nevva thing of dad troub' to you--she
say she thing you was too kine-'arted to call dad troub'--ha, ha, ha! So
anny'ow we sen' for you, eh!"

Frowenfeld said he was glad they had done so, whereupon Aurora rose
lightly, saying:

"I go an' sen' her." She started away, but turned back to add: "You
know, 'Sieur Frowenfel', she say she cann' truz nobody bud y'u." She
ended with a low, melodious laugh, bending her joyous eyes upon the
apothecary with her head dropped to one side in a way to move a heart
of flint.

She turned and passed through a door, and by the same way Palmyre
entered. The philosophe came forward noiselessly and with a subdued
expression, different from any Frowenfeld had ever before seen. At the
first sight of her a thrill of disrelish ran through him of which he was
instantly ashamed; as she came nearer he met her with a deferential bow
and the silent tender of a chair. She sat down, and, after a moment's
pause, handed him a sealed letter.

He turned it over twice, recognized the handwriting, felt the disrelish
return, and said:

"This is addressed to yourself."

She bowed.

"Do you know who wrote it?" he asked.

She bowed again.

"_Oui, Miché_."

"You wish me to open it? I cannot read French."

She seemed to have some explanation to offer, but could not command the
necessary English; however, with the aid of Frowenfeld's limited
guessing powers, she made him understand that the bearer of the letter
to her had brought word from the writer that it was written in English
purposely that M. Frowenfeld--the only person he was willing should see
it--might read it. Frowenfeld broke the seal and ran his eye over the
writing, but remained silent.

The woman stirred, as if to say "Well?" But he hesitated.

"Palmyre," he suddenly said, with a slight, dissuasive smile, "it would
be a profanation for me to read this."

She bowed to signify that she caught his meaning, then raised her elbows
with an expression of dubiety, and said:

"'E hask you--"

"Yes," murmured the apothecary. He shook his head as if to protest to
himself, and read in a low but audible voice:

     "Star of my soul, I approach to die. It is not for me
     possible to live without Palmyre. Long time have I so done,
     but now, cut off from to see thee, by imprisonment, as it may
     be called, love is starving to death. Oh, have pity on the
     faithful heart which, since ten years, change not, but forget
     heaven and earth for you. Now in the peril of the life,
     hidden away, that absence from the sight of you make his
     seclusion the more worse than death. Halas! I pine! Not other
     ten years of despair can I commence. Accept this love. If so
     I will live for you, but if to the contraire, I must die for
     you. Is there anything at all what I will not give or even do
     if Palmyre will be my wife? Ah, no, far otherwise, there is
     nothing!" ...

Frowenfeld looked over the top of the letter. Palmyre sat with her eyes
cast down, slowly shaking her head. He returned his glance to the page,
coloring somewhat with annoyance at being made a proposing medium.

"The English is very faulty here," he said, without looking up. "He
mentions Bras-Coupé." Palmyre started and turned toward him; but he went
on without lifting his eyes. "He speaks of your old pride and affection
toward him as one who with your aid might have been a leader and
deliverer of his people." Frowenfeld looked up. "Do you under--"

"_Allez, Miché_" said she, leaning forward, her great eyes fixed on the
apothecary and her face full of distress. "_Mo comprend bien_."

"He asks you to let him be to you in the place of Bras-Coupé."

The eyes of the philosophe, probably for the first time since the death
of the giant, lost their pride. They gazed upon Frowenfeld almost with
piteousness; but she compressed her lips and again slowly shook
her head.

"You see," said Frowenfeld, suddenly feeling a new interest, "he
understands their wants. He knows their wrongs. He is acquainted with
laws and men. He could speak for them. It would not be insurrection--it
would be advocacy. He would give his time, his pen, his speech, his
means, to get them justice--to get them their rights."

She hushed the over-zealous advocate with a sad and bitter smile and
essayed to speak, studied as if for English words, and, suddenly
abandoning that attempt, said, with ill-concealed scorn and in the
Creole patois:

"What is all that? What I want is vengeance!"

"I will finish reading," said Frowenfeld, quickly, not caring to
understand the passionate speech.

     "Ah, Palmyre! Palmyre! What you love and hope to love you
     because his heart keep itself free, he is loving another!"

_"Qui ci ça, Miché?"_

Frowenfeld was loth to repeat. She had understood, as her face showed;
but she dared not believe. He made it shorter:

"He means that Honoré Grandissime loves another woman."

"'Tis a lie!" she exclaimed, a better command of English coming with the
momentary loss of restraint.

The apothecary thought a moment and then decided to speak.

"I do not think so," he quietly said.

"'Ow you know dat?"

She, too, spoke quietly, but under a fearful strain. She had thrown
herself forward, but, as she spoke, forced herself back into her seat.

"He told me so himself."

The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her
eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost
all knowledge of place or of human presence. She walked down the
drawing-room quite to its curtained windows and there stopped, her face
turned away and her hand laid with a visible tension on the back of a
chair. She remained so long that Frowenfeld had begun to think of
leaving her so, when she turned and came back. Her form was erect, her
step firm and nerved, her lips set together and her hands dropped easily
at her side; but when she came close up before the apothecary she was
trembling. For a moment she seemed speechless, and then, while her eyes
gleamed with passion, she said, in a cold, clear tone, and in her
native patois:

"Very well: if I cannot love I can have my revenge." She took the letter
from him and bowed her thanks, still adding, in the same tongue, "There
is now no longer anything to prevent."

The apothecary understood the dark speech. She meant that, with no hope
of Honoré's love, there was no restraining motive to withhold her from
wreaking what vengeance she could upon Agricola. But he saw the folly
of a debate.

"That is all I can do?" asked he.

"_Oui, merci, Miché_" she said; then she added, in perfect English, "but
that is not all _I_ can do," and then--laughed.

The apothecary had already turned to go, and the laugh was a low one;
but it chilled his blood. He was glad to get back to his employments.




CHAPTER LI

BUSINESS CHANGES


We have now recorded some of the events which characterized the five
months during which Doctor Keene had been vainly seeking to recover his
health in the West Indies.

"Is Mr. Frowenfeld in?" he asked, walking very slowly, and with a cane,
into the new drug-store on the morning of his return to the city.

"If Professo' Frowenfel' 's in?" replied a young man in shirt-sleeves,
speaking rapidly, slapping a paper package which he had just tied, and
sliding it smartly down the counter. "No, seh."

A quick step behind the doctor caused him to turn; Raoul was just
entering, with a bright look of business on his face, taking his coat
off as he came.

"Docta Keene! _Teck_ a chair. 'Ow you like de noo sto'? See? Fo'
counters! T'ree clerk'! De whole interieure paint undre mie h-own
direction! If dat is not a beautiful! eh? Look at dat sign."

He pointed to some lettering in harmonious colors near the ceiling at
the farther end of the house. The doctor looked and read:

     MANDARIN, AG'T, APOTHECARY.

"Why not Frowenfeld?" he asked.

Raoul shrugged.

"'Tis better dis way."

That was his explanation.

"Not the De Brahmin Mandarin who was Honoré's manager?"

"Yes. Honoré was n' able to kip 'im no long-er. Honoré is n' so rich lak
befo'."

"And Mandarin is really in charge here?"

"Oh, yes. Profess-or Frowenfel' all de time at de ole corner, w'ere 'e
_con_tinue to keep 'is private room and h-use de ole shop fo' ware'ouse.
'E h-only come yeh w'en Mandarin cann' git 'long widout 'im."

"What does he do there? _He's_ not rich."

Raoul bent down toward the doctor's chair and whispered the dark secret:

"Studyin'!"

Doctor Keene went out.

Everything seemed changed to the returned wanderer. Poor man! The
changes were very slight save in their altered relation to him. To one
broken in health, and still more to one with a broken heart, old scenes
fall upon the sight in broken rays. A sort of vague alienation seemed to
the little doctor to come like a film over the long-familiar vistas of
the town where he had once walked in the vigor and complacency of
strength and distinction. This was not the same New Orleans. The people
he met on the street were more or less familiar to his memory, but many
that should have recognized him failed to do so, and others were made to
notice him rather by his cough than by his face. Some did not know he
had been away. It made him cross.

He had walked slowly down beyond the old Frowenfeld corner and had just
crossed the street to avoid the dust of a building which was being torn
down to make place for a new one, when he saw coming toward him,
unconscious of his proximity, Joseph Frowenfeld.

"Doctor Keene!" said Frowenfeld, with almost the enthusiasm of Raoul.

The doctor was very much quieter.

"Hello, Joe."

They went back to the new drug-store, sat down in a pleasant little rear
corner enclosed by a railing and curtains, and talked.

"And did the trip prove of no advantage to you?"

"You see. But never mind me; tell me about Honoré; how does that row
with his family progress?"

"It still continues; the most of his people hold ideas of justice and
prerogative that run parallel with family and party lines, lines of
caste, of custom and the like they have imparted their bad feeling
against him to the community at large; very easy to do just now, for the
election for President of the States comes on in the fall, and though we
in Louisiana have little or nothing to do with it, the people are
feverish."

"The country's chill-day," said Doctor Keene; "dumb chill, hot fever."

"The excitement is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to
be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in
their mind. For example, they have voted Honoré Grandissime a traitor;
they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them casting that
vote now."

Some one near the front of the store was talking excitedly with Raoul:

"An'--an'--an' w'at are the consequence? The consequence are that we
smash his shop for him an' 'e 'ave to make a noo-start with a Creole
partner's money an' put 'is sto' in charge of Creole'! If I know he is
yo' frien'? Yesseh! Valuable citizen? An' w'at we care for valuable
citizen? Let him be valuable if he want; it keep' him from gettin' the
neck broke; but--he mus'-tek-kyeh--'ow--he--talk'! He-mus'-tek-kyeh 'ow
he stir the 'ot blood of Louisyanna!"

"He is perfectly right," said the little doctor, in his husky undertone;
"neither you nor Honoré is a bit sound, and I shouldn't wonder if they
would hang you both, yet; and as for that darkey who has had the
impudence to try to make a commercial white gentleman of himself--it may
not be I that ought to say it, but--he will get his deserts--sure!"

"There are a great many Americans that think as you do," said
Frowenfeld, quietly.

"But," said the little doctor, "what did that fellow mean by your Creole
partner? Mandarin is in charge of your store, but he is not your
partner, is he? Have you one?"

"A silent one," said the apothecary

"So silent as to be none of my business?"

"No."

"Well, who is it, then?"

"It is Mademoiselle Nancanou."

"Your partner in business?"

"Yes."

"Well, Joseph Frowenfeld,--"

The insinuation conveyed in the doctor's manner was very trying, but
Joseph merely reddened.

"Purely business, I suppose," presently said the doctor, with a ghastly
ironical smile. "Does the arrangem'--" his utterance failed him--"does
it end there?"

"It ends there."

"And you don't see that it ought either not to have begun, or else ought
not to have ended there?"

Frowenfeld blushed angrily. The doctor asked:

"And who takes care of Aurora's money?"

"Herself."

"Exclusively?"

They both smiled more good-naturedly.

"Exclusively."

"She's a coon;" and the little doctor rose up and crawled away,
ostensibly to see another friend, but really to drag himself into his
bedchamber and lock himself in. The next day--the yellow fever was bad
again--he resumed the practice of his profession.

"'Twill be a sort of decent suicide without the element of
pusillanimity," he thought to himself.




CHAPTER LII

LOVE LIES A-BLEEDING


When Honoré Grandissime heard that Doctor Keene had returned to the city
in a very feeble state of health, he rose at once from the desk where he
was sitting and went to see him; but it was on that morning when the
doctor was sitting and talking with Joseph, and Honoré found his chamber
door locked. Doctor Keene called twice, within the following two days,
upon Honoré at his counting-room; but on both occasions Honoré's chair
was empty. So it was several days before they met. But one hot morning
in the latter part of August,--the August days were hotter before the
cypress forest was cut down between the city and the lake than they are
now,--as Doctor Keene stood in the middle of his room breathing
distressedly after a sad fit of coughing, and looking toward one of his
windows whose closed sash he longed to see opened, Honoré knocked at
the door.

"Well, come in!" said the fretful invalid. "Why, Honoré,--well, it
serves you right for stopping to knock. Sit down."

Each took a hasty, scrutinizing glance at the other; and, after a pause,
Doctor Keene said:

"Honoré, you are pretty badly stove."

M. Grandissime smiled.

"Do you think so, Doctor? I will be more complimentary to you; you might
look more sick."

"Oh, I have resumed my trade," replied Doctor Keene.

"So I have heard; but, Charlie, that is all in favor of the people who
want a skilful and advanced physician and do not mind killing him; I
should advise you not to do it."

"You mean" (the incorrigible little doctor smiled cynically) "if I
should ask your advice. I am going to get well, Honoré."

His visitor shrugged.

"So much the better. I do confess I am tempted to make use of you in
your official capacity, right now. Do you feel strong enough to go with
me in your gig a little way?"

"A professional call?"

"Yes, and a difficult case; also a confidential one."

"Ah! confidential!" said the little man, in his painful, husky irony.
"You want to get me into the sort of scrape I got our 'professor'
into, eh?"

"Possibly a worse one," replied the amiable Creole.

"And I must be mum, eh?"

"I would prefer."

"Shall I need any instruments? No?"--with a shade of disappointment on
his face.

He pulled a bell-rope and ordered his gig to the street door.

"How are affairs about town?" he asked, as he made some slight
preparation for the street.

"Excitement continues. Just as I came along, a private difficulty
between a Creole and an Américain drew instantly half the street
together to take sides strictly according to belongings and without
asking a question. My-de'-seh, we are having, as Frowenfeld says, a war
of human acids and alkalies."

They descended and drove away. At the first corner the lad who drove
turned, by Honoré's direction, toward the rue Dauphine, entered it,
passed down it to the rue Dumaine, turned into this toward the river
again and entered the rue Condé. The route was circuitous. They stopped
at the carriage-door of a large brick house. The wicket was opened by
Clemence. They alighted without driving in.

"Hey, old witch," said the doctor, with mock severity; "not hung yet?"

The houses of any pretension to comfortable spaciousness in the closely
built parts of the town were all of the one, general, Spanish-American
plan. Honoré led the doctor through the cool, high, tessellated
carriage-hall, on one side of which were the drawing-rooms, closed and
darkened. They turned at the bottom, ascended a broad, iron-railed
staircase to the floor above, and halted before the open half of a
glazed double door with a clumsy iron latch. It was the entrance to two
spacious chambers, which were thrown into one by folded doors.

The doctor made a low, indrawn whistle and raised his eyebrows--the
rooms were so sumptuously furnished; immovable largeness and heaviness,
lofty sobriety, abundance of finely wrought brass mounting, motionless
richness of upholstery, much silent twinkle of pendulous crystal, a soft
semi-obscurity--such were the characteristics. The long windows of the
farther apartment could be seen to open over the street, and the air
from behind, coming in over a green mass of fig-trees that stood in the
paved court below, moved through the rooms, making them cool and
cavernous.

"You don't call this a hiding place, do you--in his own bedchamber?" the
doctor whispered.

"It is necessary, now, only to keep out of sight," softly answered
Honoré. "Agricole and some others ransacked this house one night last
March--the day I announced the new firm; but of course, then, he was
not here."

They entered, and the figure of Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c., came into
view in the centre of the farther room, reclining in an attitude of
extreme languor on a low couch, whither he had come from the high bed
near by, as the impression of his form among its pillows showed. He
turned upon the two visitors his slow, melancholy eyes, and, without an
attempt to rise or speak, indicated, by a feeble motion of the hand, an
invitation to be seated.

"Good morning," said Doctor Keene, selecting a light chair and drawing
it close to the side of the couch.

The patient before him was emaciated. The limp and bloodless hand, which
had not responded to the doctor's friendly pressure but sank idly back
upon the edge of the couch, was cool and moist, and its nails
slightly blue.

"Lie still," said the doctor, reassuringly, as the rentier began to lift
the one knee and slippered foot which was drawn up on the couch and the
hand which hung out of sight across a large, linen-covered cushion.

By pleasant talk that seemed all chat, the physician soon acquainted
himself with the case before him. It was a very plain one. By and by he
rubbed his face and red curls and suddenly said:

"You will not take my prescription."

The f.m.c. did not say yes or no.

"Still,"--the doctor turned sideways in his chair, as was his wont, and,
as he spoke, allowed the corners of his mouth to take that little
satirical downward pull which his friends disliked, "I'll do my duty.
I'll give Honoré the details as to diet; no physic; but my prescription
to you is, Get up and get out. Never mind the risk of rough handling;
they can but kill you, and you will die anyhow if you stay here." He
rose. "I'll send you a chalybeate tonic; or--I will leave it at
Frowenfeld's to-morrow morning, and you can call there and get it. It
will give you an object for going out."

The two visitors presently said adieu and retired together. Reaching the
bottom of the stairs in the carriage "corridor," they turned in a
direction opposite to the entrance and took chairs in a cool nook of the
paved court, at a small table where the hospitality of Clemence had
placed glasses of lemonade.

"No," said the doctor, as they sat down, "there is, as yet, no incurable
organic derangement; a little heart trouble easily removed; still
your--your patient--"

"My half-brother," said Honoré.

"Your patient," said Doctor Keene, "is an emphatic 'yes' to the question
the girls sometimes ask us doctors--Does love ever kill?' It will kill
him _soon_, if you do not get him to rouse up. There is absolutely
nothing the matter with him but his unrequited love."

"Fortunately, the most of us," said Honoré, with something of the
doctor's smile, "do not love hard enough to be killed by it."

"Very few." The doctor paused, and his blue eyes, distended in reverie,
gazed upon the glass which he was slowly turning around with his
attenuated fingers as it stood on the board, while he added: "However,
one _may_ love as hopelessly and harder than that man upstairs, and
yet not die."

"There is comfort in that--to those who must live," said Honoré with
gentle gravity.

"Yes," said the other, still toying with his glass.

He slowly lifted his glance, and the eyes of the two men met and
remained steadfastly fixed each upon each.

"You've got it bad," said Doctor Keene, mechanically.

"And you?" retorted the Creole.

"It isn't going to kill me."

"It has not killed me. And," added M. Grandissime, as they passed
through the carriage-way toward the street, "while I keep in mind the
numberless other sorrows of life, the burials of wives and sons and
daughters, the agonies and desolations, I shall never die of love,
my-de'-seh, for very shame's sake."

This was much sentiment to risk within Doctor Keene's reach; but he took
no advantage of it.

"Honoré," said he, as they joined hands on the banquette beside the
doctor's gig, to say good-day, "if you think there's a chance for you,
why stickle upon such fine-drawn points as I reckon you are making? Why,
sir, as I understand it, this is the only weak spot your action has
shown; you have taken an inoculation of Quixotic conscience from our
transcendental apothecary and perpetrated a lot of heroic behavior that
would have done honor to four-and-twenty Brutuses; and now that you have
a chance to do something easy and human, you shiver and shrink at the
'looks o' the thing.' Why, what do you care--"

"Hush!" said Honoré; "do you suppose I have not temptation enough
already?"

He began to move away.

"Honoré," said the doctor, following him a step, "I couldn't have made a
mistake--It's the little Monk,--it's Aurora, isn't it?"

Honoré nodded, then faced his friend more directly, with a sudden new
thought.

"But, Doctor, why not take your own advice? I know not how you are
prevented; you have as good a right as Frowenfeld."

"It wouldn't be honest," said the doctor; "it wouldn't be the straight
up and down manly thing."

"Why not?"

The doctor stepped into his gig--

"Not till I feel all right _here_." (In his chest.)




CHAPTER LIII

FROWENFELD AT THE GRANDISSIME MANSION


One afternoon--it seems to have been some time in June, and consequently
earlier than Doctor Keene's return--the Grandissimes were set all
a-tremble with vexation by the discovery that another of their number
had, to use Agricola's expression, "gone over to the enemy,"--a phrase
first applied by him to Honoré.

"What do you intend to convey by that term?" Frowenfeld had asked on
that earlier occasion.

"Gone over to the enemy means, my son, gone over to the enemy!" replied
Agricola. "It implies affiliation with Américains in matters of business
and of government! It implies the exchange of social amenities with a
race of upstarts! It implies a craven consent to submit the sacredest
prejudices of our fathers to the new-fangled measuring-rods of pert,
imported theories upon moral and political progress! It implies a
listening to, and reasoning with, the condemners of some of our most
time-honored and respectable practices! Reasoning with? N-a-hay! but
Honoré has positively sat down and eaten with them! What?--and h-walked
out into the stre-heet with them, arm in arm! It implies in his case an
act--two separate and distinct acts--so base that--that--I simply do not
understand them! _H-you_ know, Professor Frowenfeld, what he has done!
You know how ignominiously he has surrendered the key of a moral
position which for the honor of the Grandissime-Fusilier name we have
felt it necessary to hold against our hereditary enemies!
And--you--know--" here Agricola actually dropped all artificiality and
spoke from the depths of his feelings, without figure--"h-h-he has
joined himself in business h-with a man of negro blood! What can we do?
What can we say? It is Honoré Grandissime. We can only say, 'Farewell!
He is gone over to the enemy.'"

The new cause of exasperation was the defection of Raoul Innerarity.
Raoul had, somewhat from a distance, contemplated such part as he could
understand of Joseph Frowenfeld's character with ever-broadening
admiration. We know how devoted he became to the interests and fame of
"Frowenfeld's." It was in April he had married. Not to divide his
generous heart he took rooms opposite the drug-store, resolved that
"Frowenfeld's" should be not only the latest closed but the earliest
opened of all the pharmacies in New Orleans.

This, it is true, was allowable. Not many weeks afterward his bride fell
suddenly and seriously ill. The overflowing souls of Aurora and Clotilde
could not be so near to trouble and not know it, and before Raoul was
nearly enough recovered from the shock of this peril to remember that he
was a Grandissime, these last two of the De Grapions had hastened across
the street to the small, white-walled sick-room and filled it as full of
universal human love as the cup of a magnolia is full of perfume. Madame
Innerarity recovered. A warm affection was all she and her husband could
pay such ministration in, and this they paid bountifully; the four
became friends. The little madame found herself drawn most toward
Clotilde; to her she opened her heart--and her wardrobe, and showed her
all her beautiful new underclothing. Raoul found Clotilde to be, for
him, rather--what shall we say?--starry; starrily inaccessible; but
Aurora was emphatically after his liking; he was delighted with Aurora.
He told her in confidence that "Profess-or Frowenfel'" was the best man
in the world; but she boldly said, taking pains to speak with a
tear-and-a-half of genuine gratitude,--"Egcep' Monsieur Honoré
Grandissime," and he assented, at first with hesitation and then with
ardor. The four formed a group of their own; and it is not certain that
this was not the very first specimen ever produced in the Crescent City
of that social variety of New Orleans life now distinguished as
Uptown Creoles.

Almost the first thing acquired by Raoul in the camp of the enemy was a
certain Aurorean audacity; and on the afternoon to which we allude,
having told Frowenfeld a rousing fib to the effect that the
multitudinous inmates of the maternal Grandissime mansion had insisted
on his bringing his esteemed employer to see them, he and his bride had
the hardihood to present him on the front veranda.

The straightforward Frowenfeld was much pleased with his reception. It
was not possible for such as he to guess the ire with which his presence
was secretly regarded. New Orleans, let us say once more, was small, and
the apothecary of the rue Royale locally famed; and what with curiosity
and that innate politeness which it is the Creole's boast that he cannot
mortify, the veranda, about the top of the great front stair, was well
crowded with people of both sexes and all ages. It would be most
pleasant to tarry once more in description of this gathering of nobility
and beauty; to recount the points of Creole loveliness in midsummer
dress; to tell in particular of one and another eye-kindling face,
form, manner, wit; to define the subtle qualities of Creole air and sky
and scene, or the yet more delicate graces that characterize the music
of Creole voice and speech and the light of Creole eyes; to set forth
the gracious, unaccentuated dignity of the matrons and the ravishing
archness of their daughters. To Frowenfeld the experience seemed all
unreal. Nor was this unreality removed by conversation on grave
subjects; for few among either the maturer or the younger beauty could
do aught but listen to his foreign tongue like unearthly strangers in
the old fairy tales. They came, however, in the course of their talk to
the subject of love and marriage. It is not certain that they entered
deeper into the great question than a comparison of its attendant
Anglo-American and Franco-American conventionalities; but sure it is
that somehow--let those young souls divine the method who can--every
unearthly stranger on that veranda contrived to understand Frowenfeld's
English. Suddenly the conversation began to move over the ground of
inter-marriage between hostile families. Then what eyes and ears! A
certain suspicion had already found lodgement in the universal
Grandissime breast, and every one knew in a moment that, to all intents
and purposes, they were about to argue the case of Honoré and Aurora.

The conversation became discussion, Frowenfeld, Raoul and Raoul's little
seraph against the whole host, chariots, horse and archery. Ah! such
strokes as the apothecary dealt! And if Raoul and "Madame Raoul" played
parts most closely resembling the blowing of horns and breaking of
pitchers, still they bore themselves gallantly. The engagement was
short; we need not say that nobody surrendered; nobody ever gives up the
ship in parlor or veranda debate: and yet--as is generally the case in
such affairs--truth and justice made some unacknowledged headway. If
anybody on either side came out wounded--this to the credit of the
Creoles as a people--the sufferer had the heroic good manners not to say
so. But the results were more marked than this; indeed, in more than one
or two candid young hearts and impressible minds the wrongs and rights
of sovereign true love began there on the spot to be more generously
conceded and allowed. "My-de'-seh," Honoré had once on a time said to
Frowenfeld, meaning that to prevail in conversational debate one should
never follow up a faltering opponent, "you mus' _crack_ the egg, not
smash it!" And Joseph, on rising to take his leave, could the more
amiably overlook the feebleness of the invitation to call again, since
he rejoiced, for Honoré's sake, in the conviction that the egg
was cracked.

Agricola, the Grandissimes told the apothecary, was ill in his room, and
Madame de Grandissime, his sister--Honoré's mother--begged to be excused
that she might keep him company. The Fusiliers were a very close order;
or one might say they garrisoned the citadel.

But Joseph's rising to go was not immediately upon the close of the
discussion; those courtly people would not let even an unwelcome guest
go with the faintest feeling of disrelish for them. They were casting
about in their minds for some momentary diversion with which to add a
finishing touch to their guest's entertainment, when Clemence appeared
in the front garden walk and was quickly surrounded by bounding
children, alternately begging and demanding a song. Many of even the
younger adults remembered well when she had been "one of the hands on
the place," and a passionate lover of the African dance. In the same
instant half a dozen voices proposed that for Joseph's amusement
Clemence should put her cakes off her head, come up on the veranda and
show a few of her best steps.

"But who will sing?"

"Raoul!"

"Very well; and what shall it be?"

"'Madame Gaba.'"

No, Clemence objected.

"Well, well, stand back--something better than 'Madame Gaba.'"

Raoul began to sing and Clemence instantly to pace and turn, posture,
bow, respond to the song, start, swing, straighten, stamp, wheel, lift
her hand, stoop, twist, walk, whirl, tiptoe with crossed ankles, smite
her palms, march, circle, leap,--an endless improvisation of rhythmic
motion to this modulated responsive chant:

     Raoul. "_Mo pas l'aimein ça_."

     Clemence. "_Miché Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"

     He. "_Yé donné vingt cinq sous pou' manzé poulé_."

     She. "_Miché Igenne, dit--dit--dit--_"

     He. "_Mo pas l'aimein ça!_"

     She. "_Miché Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"

     He. "_Mo pas l'aimein ça!_"

     She. "_Miché Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"

Frowenfeld was not so greatly amused as the ladies thought he should
have been, and was told that this was not a fair indication of what he
would see if there were ten dancers instead of one.

How much less was it an indication of what he would have seen in that
mansion early the next morning, when there was found just outside of
Agricola's bedroom door a fresh egg, not cracked, according to Honoré's
maxim, but smashed, according to the lore of the voudous. Who could have
got in in the night? And did the intruder get in by magic, by outside
lock-picking, or by inside collusion? Later in the morning, the children
playing in the basement found--it had evidently been accidentally
dropped, since the true use of its contents required them to be
scattered in some person's path--a small cloth bag, containing a
quantity of dogs' and cats' hair, cut fine and mixed with salt
and pepper.

"Clemence?"

"Pooh! Clemence. No! But as sure as the sun turns around the
world--Palmyre Philosophe!"




CHAPTER LIV

"CAULDRON BUBBLE"


The excitement and alarm produced by the practical threat of voudou
curses upon Agricola was one thing, Creole lethargy was quite another;
and when, three mornings later, a full quartette of voudou charms was
found in the four corners of Agricola's pillow, the great Grandissime
family were ignorant of how they could have come there. Let us examine
these terrible engines of mischief. In one corner was an acorn drilled
through with two holes at right angles to each other, a small feather
run through each hole; in the second a joint of cornstalk with a cavity
scooped from the middle, the pith left intact at the ends, and the space
filled with parings from that small callous spot near the knee of the
horse, called the "nail;" in the third corner a bunch of parti-colored
feathers; something equally meaningless in the fourth. No thread was
used in any of them. All fastening was done with the gum of trees. It
was no easy task for his kindred to prevent Agricola, beside himself
with rage and fright, from going straight to Palmyre's house and
shooting her down in open day.

"We shall have to watch our house by night," said a gentleman of the
household, when they had at length restored the Citizen to a condition
of mind which enabled them to hold him in a chair.

"Watch this house?" cried a chorus. "You don't suppose she comes near
here, do you? She does it all from a distance. No, no; watch
_her_ house."

Did Agricola believe in the supernatural potency of these gimcracks? No,
and yes. Not to be foolhardy, he quietly slipped down every day to the
levee, had a slave-boy row him across the river in a skiff, landed,
re-embarked, and in the middle of the stream surreptitiously cast a
picayune over his shoulder into the river. Monsieur D'Embarras, the imp
of death thus placated, must have been a sort of spiritual Cheap John.

Several more nights passed. The house of Palmyre, closely watched,
revealed nothing. No one came out, no one went in, no light was seen.
They should have watched in broad daylight. At last, one midnight,
'Polyte Grandissime stepped cautiously up to one of the batten doors
with an auger, and succeeded, without arousing any one, in boring a
hole. He discovered a lighted candle standing in a glass of water.

"Nothing but a bedroom light," said one.

"Ah, bah!" whispered the other; "it is to make the spell work strong."

"We will not tell Agricola first; we had better tell Honoré," said
Sylvestre.

"You forget," said 'Polyte, "that I no longer have any acquaintance with
Monsieur Honoré Grandissime."

They told Agamemnon; and it would have gone hard with the
"_milatraise_" but for the additional fact that suspicion had fastened
upon another person; but now this person in turn had to be identified.
It was decided not to report progress to old Agricola, but to wait and
seek further developments. Agricola, having lost all ability to sleep in
the mansion, moved into a small cottage in a grove near the house. But
the very next morning, he turned cold with horror to find on his
doorstep a small black-coffined doll, with pins run through the heart, a
burned-out candle at the head and another at the feet.

"You know it is Palmyre, do you?" asked Agamemnon, seizing the old man
as he was going at a headlong pace through the garden gate. "What if I
should tell you that by watching the Congo dancing-ground at midnight
to-night, you will see the real author of this mischief--eh?"

"And why to-night?"

"Because the moon rises at midnight."

There was firing that night in the deserted Congo dancing-grounds under
the ruins of Fort St. Joseph, or, as we would say now, in Congo Square,
from three pistols--Agricola's, 'Polyte's, and the weapon of an
ill-defined, retreating figure answering the description of the person
who had stabbed Agricola the preceding February. "And yet," said
'Polyte, "I would have sworn that it was Palmyre doing this work."

Through Raoul these events came to the ear of Frowenfield. It was about
the time that Raoul's fishing party, after a few days' mishaps, had
returned home. Palmyre, on several later dates, had craved further
audiences and shown other letters from the hidden f.m.c. She had heard
them calmly, and steadfastly preserved the one attitude of refusal. But
it could not escape Frowenfeld's notice that she encouraged the sending
of additional letters. He easily guessed the courier to be Clemence; and
now, as he came to ponder these revelations of Raoul, he found that
within twenty-four hours after every visit of Clemence to the house of
Palmyre, Agricola suffered a visitation.




CHAPTER LV

CAUGHT


The fig-tree, in Louisiana, sometimes sheds its leaves while it is yet
summer. In the rear of the Grandissme mansion, about two hundred yards
northwest of it and fifty northeast of the cottage in which Agricola had
made his new abode, on the edge of the grove of which we have spoken,
stood one of these trees, whose leaves were beginning to lie thickly
upon the ground beneath it. An ancient and luxuriant hedge of
Cherokee-rose started from this tree and stretched toward the northwest
across the level country, until it merged into the green confusion of
gardened homes in the vicinity of Bayou St. Jean, or, by night, into the
common obscurity of a starlit perspective. When an unclouded moon shone
upon it, it cast a shadow as black as velvet.

Under this fig-tree, some three hours later than that at which Honoré
bade Joseph good-night, a man was stooping down and covering something
with the broad, fallen leaves.

"The moon will rise about three o'clock," thought he. "That, the hour of
universal slumber, will be, by all odds, the time most likely to bring
developments."

He was the same person who had spent the most of the day in a
blacksmith's shop in St. Louis street, superintending a piece of
smithing. Now that he seemed to have got the thing well hid, he turned
to the base of the tree and tried the security of some attachment. Yes,
it was firmly chained. He was not a robber; he was not an assassin; he
was not an officer of police; and what is more notable, seeing he was a
Louisianian, he was not a soldier nor even an ex-soldier; and this
although, under his clothing, he was encased from head to foot in a
complete suit of mail. Of steel? No. Of brass? No. It was all one
piece--_a white skin_; and on his head he wore an invisible helmet--the
name of Grandissime. As he straightened up and withdrew into the grove,
you would have recognized at once--by his thick-set, powerful frame,
clothed seemingly in black, but really, as you might guess, in blue
cottonade, by his black beard and the general look of a seafarer--a
frequent visitor at the Grandissime mansion, a country member of that
great family, one whom we saw at the _fête de grandpère_.

Capitain Jean-Baptiste Grandissime was a man of few words, no
sentiments, short methods; materialistic, we might say; quietly
ferocious; indifferent as to means, positive as to ends, quick of
perception, sure in matters of saltpetre, a stranger at the
custom-house, and altogether--_take him right_--very much of a
gentleman. He had been, for a whole day, beset with the idea that the
way to catch a voudou was--to catch him; and as he had caught numbers of
them on both sides of the tropical and semi-tropical Atlantic, he
decided to try his skill privately on the one who--his experience told
him--was likely to visit Agricola's doorstep to-night. All things being
now prepared, he sat down at the root of a tree in the grove, where the
shadow was very dark, and seemed quite comfortable. He did not strike at
the mosquitoes; they appeared to understand that he did not wish to
trifle. Neither did his thoughts or feelings trouble him; he sat and
sharpened a small penknife on his boot.

His mind--his occasional transient meditation--was the more comfortable
because he was one of those few who had coolly and unsentimentally
allowed Honoré Grandissime to sell their lands. It continued to grow
plainer every day that the grants with which theirs were classed--grants
of old French or Spanish under-officials--were bad. Their sagacious
cousin seemed to have struck the right standard, and while those titles
which he still held on to remained unimpeached, those that he had
parted with to purchasers--as, for instance, the grant held by this
Capitain Jean-Baptiste Grandissime--could be bought back now for half
what he had got for it. Certainly, as to that, the Capitain might well
have that quietude of mind which enabled him to find occupation in
perfecting the edge of his penknife and trimming his nails in the dark.

By and by he put up the little tool and sat looking out upon the
prospect. The time of greatest probability had not come, but the voudou
might choose not to wait for that; and so he kept watch. There was a
great stillness. The cocks had finished a round and were silent. No dog
barked. A few tiny crickets made the quiet land seem the more deserted.
Its beauties were not entirely overlooked--the innumerable host of stars
above, the twinkle of myriad fireflies on the dark earth below. Between
a quarter and a half-mile away, almost in a line with the Cherokee
hedge, was a faint rise of ground, and on it a wide-spreading live-oak.
There the keen, seaman's eye of the Capitain came to a stop, fixed upon
a spot which he had not noticed before. He kept his eye on it, and
waited for the stronger light of the moon.

Presently behind the grove at his back she rose; and almost the first
beam that passed over the tops of the trees, and stretched across the
plain, struck the object of his scrutiny. What was it? The ground, he
knew; the tree, he knew; he knew there ought to be a white paling
enclosure about the trunk of the tree: for there were buried--ah!--he
came as near laughing at himself as ever he did in his life; the
apothecary of the rue Royale had lately erected some marble headstones
there, and--

"Oh! my God!"

While Capitain Jean-Baptiste had been trying to guess what the
tombstones were, a woman had been coming toward him in the shadow of the
hedge. She was not expecting to meet him; she did not know that he was
there; she knew she had risks to run, but was ignorant of what they
were; she did not know there was anything under the fig-tree which she
so nearly and noiselessly approached. One moment her foot was lifted
above the spot where the unknown object lay with wide-stretched jaws
under the leaves, and the next, she uttered that cry of agony and
consternation which interrupted the watcher's meditation. She was caught
in a huge steel-trap.

Capitain Jean-Baptiste Grandissime remained perfectly still. She fell, a
snarling, struggling, groaning heap, to the ground, wild with pain and
fright, and began the hopeless effort to draw the jaws of the trap apart
with her fingers.

"_Ah! bon Dieu, bon Dieu!_ Quit a-_bi-i-i-i-tin' me_! Oh! Lawd 'a'
mussy! Ow-ow-ow! lemme go! Dey go'n' to kyetch an' hang me! Oh! an' I
hain' done nutt'n' 'gainst _no_body! Ah! _bon Dieu! ein pov' vié
négresse_! Oh! Jemimy! I cyan' gid dis yeh t'ing loose--oh! m-m-m-m! An'
dey'll tra to mek out't I voudou' Mich-Agricole! An' I did n' had
nutt'n' do wid it! Oh Lawd, oh _Lawd_, you'll be mighty good ef you
lemme loose! I'm a po' nigga! Oh! dey had n' ought to mek it so
_pow_'ful!"

Hands, teeth, the free foot, the writhing body, every combination of
available forces failed to spread the savage jaws, though she strove
until hands and mouth were bleeding.

Suddenly she became silent; a thought of precaution came to her; she
lifted from the earth a burden she had dropped there, struggled to a
half-standing posture, and, with her foot still in the trap, was
endeavoring to approach the end of the hedge near by, to thrust this
burden under it, when she opened her throat in a speechless ecstasy of
fright on feeling her arm grasped by her captor.

"O-o-o-h! Lawd! o-o-oh! Lawd!" she cried, in a frantic, husky whisper,
going down upon her knees, "_Oh, Miché! pou' l'amou' du bon Dieu! Pou'
l'amou du bon Dieu ayez pitié d'ein pov' négresse! Pov' négresse,
Miché_, w'at nevva done nutt'n' to nobody on'y jis sell _calas_! I iss
comin' 'long an' step inteh dis-yeh bah-trap by acci_dent_! Ah! _Miché,
Miché_, ple-e-ease be good! _Ah! mon Dieu_!--an' de Lawd'll reward
you--'deed 'E will, _Miché_!"

"_Qui ci ça?_" asked the Capitain, sternly, stooping and grasping her
burden, which she had been trying to conceal under herself.

"Oh, Miché, don' trouble dat! Please jes tek dis yeh trap offen me--da's
all! Oh, don't, mawstah, ple-e-ease don' spill all my wash'n' t'ings!
'Tain't nutt'n' but my old dress roll' up into a ball. Oh, please--now,
you see? nutt'n' but a po' nigga's dr--_oh! fo' de love o' God, Miché
Jean-Baptiste, don' open dat ah box! Y'en a rien du tout la-dans, Miché
Jean-Baptiste; du tout, du tout_! Oh, my God! _Miché_, on'y jis teck
dis-yeh t'ing off'n my laig, ef yo' _please_, it's bit'n' me lak a
_dawg_!--if you _please, Miché_! Oh! you git kill' if you open dat ah
box, Mawse Jean-Baptiste! _Mo' parole d'honneur le plus sacre_--I'll
kiss de cross! Oh, _sweet Miché Jean, laisse moi aller_! Nutt'n' but
some dutty close _la-dans_." She repeated this again and again, even
after Capitain Jean-Baptiste had disengaged a small black coffin from
the old dress in which it was wrapped. "_Rien du tout, Miché_; nutt'n'
but some wash'n' fo' one o' de boys."

He removed the lid and saw within, resting on the cushioned bottom, the
image, in myrtle-wax, moulded and painted with some rude skill, of a
negro's bloody arm cut off near the shoulder--a _bras coupé_--with a
dirk grasped in its hand.

The old woman lifted her eyes to heaven; her teeth chattered; she gasped
twice before she could recover utterance. "_Oh, Miché_ Jean-Baptiste, I
di' n' mek dat ah! _Mo' té pas fé ça_! I swea' befo' God! Oh, no, no,
no! 'Tain' nutt'n' nohow but a lill play-toy, _Miché_. Oh, sweet _Miché
Jean_, you not gwan to kill me? I di' n' mek it! It was--ef you lemme
go, I tell you who mek it! Sho's I live I tell you, _Miché Jean_--ef you
lemme go! Sho's God's good to me--ef you lemme go! Oh, God A'mighty,
_Miché Jean_, sho's God's good to me."

She was becoming incoherent.

Then Capitain Jean-Baptiste Grandissime for the first time spoke at
length:

"Do you see this?" he spoke the French of the Atchafalaya. He put his
long flintlock pistol close to her face. "I shall take the trap off; you
will walk three feet in front of me; if you make it four I blow your
brains out; we shall go to Agricole. But right here, just now, before I
count ten, you will tell me who sent you here; at the word ten, if I
reach it, I pull the trigger. One--two--three--"

"Oh, _Miché_, she gwan to gib me to de devil wid _houdou_ ef I tell
you--Oh, good _Lawdy_!"

But he did not pause.

"Four--five--six--seven--eight--"

"Palmyre!" gasped the negress, and grovelled on the ground.

The trap was loosened from her bleeding leg, the burden placed in her
arms, and they disappeared in the direction of the mansion.

       *       *       *       *       *

A black shape, a boy, the lad who had carried the basil to Frowenfeld,
rose up from where he had all this time lain, close against the hedge,
and glided off down its black shadow to warn the philosophe.

When Clemence was searched, there was found on her person an old
table-knife with its end ground to a point.




CHAPTER LVI

BLOOD FOR A BLOW


It seems to be one of the self-punitive characteristics of tyranny,
whether the tyrant be a man, a community, or a caste, to have a
pusillanimous fear of its victim. It was not when Clemence lay in irons,
it is barely now, that our South is casting off a certain apprehensive
tremor, generally latent, but at the slightest provocation active, and
now and then violent, concerning her "blacks." This fear, like others
similar elsewhere in the world, has always been met by the same one
antidote--terrific cruelty to the tyrant's victim. So we shall presently
see the Grandissime ladies, deeming themselves compassionate, urging
their kinsmen to "give the poor wretch a sound whipping and let her go."
Ah! what atrocities are we unconsciously perpetrating North and South
now, in the name of mercy or defence, which the advancing light of
progressive thought will presently show out in their enormity?

Agricola slept late. He had gone to his room the evening before much
incensed at the presumption of some younger Grandissimes who had brought
up the subject, and spoken in defence, of their cousin Honoré. He had
retired, however, not to rest, but to construct an engine of offensive
warfare which would revenge him a hundred-fold upon the miserable
school of imported thought which had sent its revolting influences to
the very Grandissime hearthstone; he wrote a "_Phillipique Générale
contre la Conduite du Gouvernement de la Louisiane_" and a short but
vigorous chapter in English on "The Insanity of Educating the Masses."
This accomplished, he had gone to bed in a condition of peaceful
elation, eager for the next day to come that he might take these mighty
productions to Joseph Frowenfeld, and make him a present of them for
insertion in his book of tables.

Jean-Baptiste felt no need of his advice, that he should rouse him; and,
for a long time before the old man awoke, his younger kinsmen were
stirring about unwontedly, going and coming through the hall of the
mansion, along its verandas and up and down its outer flight of stairs.
Gates were opening and shutting, errands were being carried by negro
boys on bareback horses, Charlie Mandarin of St. Bernard parish and an
Armand Fusilier from Faubourg Ste. Marie had on some account come--as
they told the ladies--"to take breakfast;" and the ladies, not yet
informed, amusedly wondering at all this trampling and stage whispering,
were up a trifle early. In those days Creole society was a ship, in
which the fair sex were all passengers and the ruder sex the crew. The
ladies of the Grandissime mansion this morning asked passengers'
questions, got sailors' answers, retorted wittily and more or less
satirically, and laughed often, feeling their constrained
insignificance. However, in a house so full of bright-eyed children,
with mothers and sisters of all ages as their confederates, the secret
was soon out, and before Agricola had left his little cottage in the
grove the topic of all tongues was the abysmal treachery and
_ingratitude_ of negro slaves. The whole tribe of Grandissime believed,
this morning, in the doctrine of total depravity--of the negro.

And right in the face of this belief, the ladies put forth the
generously intentioned prayer for mercy. They were answered that they
little knew what frightful perils they were thus inviting upon
themselves.

The male Grandissimes were not surprised at this exhibition of weak
clemency in their lovely women; they were proud of it; it showed the
magnanimity that was natural to the universal Grandissime heart, when
not restrained and repressed by the stern necessities of the hour. But
Agricola disappointed them. Why should he weaken and hesitate, and
suggest delays and middle courses, and stammer over their proposed
measures as "extreme"? In very truth, it seemed as though that
drivelling, woman-beaten Deutsch apotheke--ha! ha! ha!--in the rue
Royale had bewitched Agricola as well as Honoré. The fact was, Agricola
had never got over the interview which had saved Sylvestre his life.

"Here, Agricole," his kinsmen at length said, "you see you are too old
for this sort of thing; besides, it would be bad taste for you, who
might be presumed to harbor feelings of revenge, to have a voice in
this council." And then they added to one another: "We will wait until
'Polyte reports whether or not they have caught Palmyre; much will
depend on that."

Agricola, thus ruled out, did a thing he did not fully understand; he
rolled up the "_Philippique Générale_" and "The Insanity of Educating
the Masses," and, with these in one hand and his staff in the other, set
out for Frowenfeld's, not merely smarting but trembling under the
humiliation of having been sent, for the first time in his life, to the
rear as a non-combatant.

He found the apothecary among his clerks, preparing with his own hands
the "chalybeate tonic" for which the f.m.c. was expected to call. Raoul
Innerarity stood at his elbow, looking on with an amiable air of having
been superseded for the moment by his master.

"Ha-ah! Professor Frowenfeld!"

The old man nourished his scroll.

Frowenfeld said good-morning, and they shook hands across the counter;
but the old man's grasp was so tremulous that the apothecary looked at
him again.

"Does my hand tremble, Joseph? It is not strange; I have had much to
excite me this morning."

"Wat's de mattah?" demanded Raoul, quickly.

"My life--which I admit, Professor Frowenfeld, is of little value
compared with such a one as yours--has been--if not attempted, at least
threatened."

"How?" cried Raoul.

"H-really, Professor, we must agree that a trifle like that ought not to
make old Agricola Fusilier nervous. But I find it painful, sir, very
painful. I can lift up this right hand, Joseph, and swear I never gave a
slave--man or woman--a blow in my life but according to my notion of
justice. And now to find my life attempted by former slaves of my own
household, and taunted with the righteous hamstringing of a dangerous
runaway! But they have apprehended the miscreants; one is actually in
hand, and justice will take its course; trust the Grandissimes for
that--though, really, Joseph, I assure you, I counselled leniency."

"Do you say they have caught her?" Frowenfeld's question was sudden and
excited; but the next moment he had controlled himself.

"H-h-my son, I did not say it was a 'her'!"

"Was it not Clemence? Have they caught her?"

"H-yes--"

The apothecary turned to Raoul.

"Go tell Honoré Grandissime."

"But, Professor Frowenfeld--" began Agricola.

Frowenfeld turned to repeat his instruction, but Raoul was already
leaving the store.

Agricola straightened up angrily.

"Pro-hofessor Frowenfeld, by what right do you interfere?"

"No matter," said the apothecary, turning half-way and pouring the
tonic into a vial.

"Sir," thundered the old lion, "h-I demand of you to answer! How dare
you insinuate that my kinsmen may deal otherwise than justly?"

"Will they treat her exactly as if she were white, and had threatened
the life of a slave?" asked Frowenfeld from behind the desk at the end
of the counter.

The old man concentrated all the indignation of his nature in the reply.

"No-ho, sir!"

As he spoke, a shadow approaching from the door caused him to turn. The
tall, dark, finely clad form of the f.m.c, in its old soft-stepping
dignity and its sad emaciation, came silently toward the spot where
he stood.

Frowenfeld saw this, and hurried forward inside the counter with the
preparation in his hand.

"Professor Frowenfeld," said Agricola, pointing with his ugly staff, "I
demand of you, as a keeper of a white man's pharmacy, to turn that
negro out."

"Citizen Fusilier!" exclaimed the apothecary; "Mister Grandis--"

He felt as though no price would be too dear at that moment to pay for
the presence of the other Honoré. He had to go clear to the end of the
counter and come down the outside again to reach the two men. They did
not wait for him. Agricola turned upon the f.m.c.

"Take off your hat!"

A sudden activity seized every one connected with the establishment as
the quadroon let his thin right hand slowly into his bosom, and answered
in French, in his soft, low voice:

"I wear my hat on my head."

Frowenfeld was hurrying toward them; others stepped forward, and from
two or three there came half-uttered exclamations of protest; but
unfortunately nothing had been done or said to provoke any one to rush
upon them, when Agricola suddenly advanced a step and struck the f.m.c.
on the head with his staff. Then the general outcry and forward rush
came too late; the two crashed together and fell, Agricola above, the
f.m.c. below, and a long knife lifted up from underneath sank to its
hilt, once--twice--thrice,--in the old man's back.

The two men rose, one in the arms of his friends, the other upon his own
feet. While every one's attention was directed toward the wounded man,
his antagonist restored his dagger to its sheath, took up his hat and
walked away unmolested. When Frowenfeld, with Agricola still in his
arms, looked around for the quadroon, he was gone.

Doctor Keene, sent for instantly, was soon at Agricola's side.

"Take him upstairs; he can't be moved any further."

Frowenfeld turned and began to instruct some one to run upstairs and
ask permission, but the little doctor stopped him.

"Joe, for shame! you don't know those women better than that? Take the
old man right up!"




CHAPTER LVII

VOUDOU CURED


"Honoré," said Agricola, faintly, "where is Honoré!"

"He has been sent for," said Doctor Keene and the two ladies in a
breath.

Raoul, bearing the word concerning Clemence, and the later messenger
summoning him to Agricola's bedside, reached Honoré within a minute of
each other. His instructions were quickly given, for Raoul to take his
horse and ride down to the family mansion, to break gently to his mother
the news of Agricola's disaster, and to say to his kinsmen with
imperative emphasis, not to touch the _marchande des calas_ till he
should come. Then he hurried to the rue Royale.

But when Raoul arrived at the mansion he saw at a glance that the news
had outrun him. The family carriage was already coming round the bottom
of the front stairs for three Mesdames Grandissime and Madame Martinez.
The children on all sides had dropped their play, and stood about,
hushed and staring. The servants moved with quiet rapidity. In the hall
he was stopped by two beautiful girls.

"Raoul! Oh, Raoul, how is he now? Oh! Raoul, if you could only stop
them! They have taken old Clemence down into the swamp--as soon as they
heard about Agricole--Oh, Raoul, surely that would be cruel! She nursed
me--and me--when we were babies!"

"Where is Agamemnon?"

"Gone to the city."

"What did he say about it?"

"He said they were doing wrong, that he did not approve their action,
and that they would get themselves into trouble: that he washed his
hands of it."

"Ah-h-h!" exclaimed Raoul, "wash his hands! Oh, yes, wash his hands?
Suppose we all wash our hands? But where is Valentine? Where is Charlie
Mandarin?"

"Ah! Valentine is gone with Agamemnon, saying the same thing, and
Charlie Mandarin is down in the swamp, the worst of all of them!"

"But why did you let Agamemnon and Valentine go off that way, you?"

"Ah! listen to Raoul! What can a woman do?"

"What can a woman--Well, even if I was a woman, I would do something!"

He hurried from the house, leaped into the saddle and galloped across
the fields toward the forest.

Some rods within the edge of the swamp, which, at this season, was
quite dry in many places, on a spot where the fallen dead bodies of
trees overlay one another and a dense growth of willows and vines and
dwarf palmetto shut out the light of the open fields, the younger and
some of the harsher senior members of the Grandissime family were
sitting or standing about, in an irregular circle whose centre was a big
and singularly misshapen water-willow. At the base of this tree sat
Clemence, motionless and silent, a wan, sickly color in her face, and
that vacant look in her large, white-balled, brown-veined eyes, with
which hope-forsaken cowardice waits for death. Somewhat apart from the
rest, on an old cypress stump, half-stood, half-sat, in whispered
consultation, Jean-Baptiste Grandissime and Charlie Mandarin.

"_Eh bien_, old woman," said Mandarin, turning, without rising, and
speaking sharply in the negro French, "have you any reason to give why
you should not be hung to that limb over your head?"

She lifted her eyes slowly to his, and made a feeble gesture of
deprecation.

"_Mo té pas fé cette bras_, Mawse Challie--I di'n't mek dat ahm; no
'ndeed I di'n', Mawse Challie. I ain' wuth hangin', gen'lemen; you'd
oughteh jis gimme fawty an' lemme go. I--I--I--I di'n' 'ten' no hawm to
Mawse-Agricole; I wa'n't gwan to hu't nobody in God's worl'; 'ndeed I
wasn'. I done tote dat old case-knife fo' twenty year'--_mo po'te ça
dipi vingt ans_. I'm a po' ole _marchande des calas; mo courri_ 'mongs'
de sojer boys to sell my cakes, you know, and da's de onyest reason why
I cyah dat ah ole fool knife." She seemed to take some hope from the
silence with which they heard her. Her eye brightened and her voice took
a tone of excitement. "You'd oughteh tek me and put me in calaboose, an'
let de law tek 'is co'se. You's all nice gen'lemen--werry nice
gen'lemen, an' you sorter owes it to yo'sev's fo' to not do no sich
nasty wuck as hangin' a po' ole nigga wench; 'deed you does. 'Tain' no
use to hang me; you gwan to kyetch Palmyre yit; _li courri dans marais;_
she is in de swamp yeh, sum'ers; but as concernin' me, you'd oughteh jis
gimme fawty an lemme go. You mus'n't b'lieve all dis-yeh nonsense 'bout
insurrectionin'; all fool-nigga talk. W'at we want to be insurrectionin'
faw? We de happies' people in de God's worl'!" She gave a start, and
cast a furtive glance of alarm behind her. "Yes, we is; you jis' oughteh
gimme fawty an' lemme go! Please, gen'lemen! God'll be good to you, you
nice, sweet gen'lemen!"

Charlie Mandarin made a sign to one who stood at her back, who responded
by dropping a rawhide noose over her head. She bounded up with a cry of
terror; it may be that she had all along hoped that all was
make-believe. She caught the noose wildly with both hands and tried to
lift it over her head.

"Ah! no, mawsteh, you cyan' do dat! It's ag'in' de law! I's 'bleeged to
have my trial, yit. Oh, no, no! Oh, good God, no! Even if I is a nigga!
You cyan' jis' murdeh me hyeh in de woods! _Mo dis la zize_! I tell de
judge on you! You ain' got no mo' biznis to do me so 'an if I was a
white 'oman! You dassent tek a white 'oman out'n de Pa'sh Pris'n an' do
'er so! Oh, sweet mawsteh, fo' de love o' God! Oh, Mawse Challie, _pou'
l'amou' du bon Dieu n'fé pas ça_! Oh, Mawse 'Polyte, is you gwan to let
'em kill ole Clemence? Oh, fo' de mussy o' Jesus Christ, Mawse 'Polyte,
leas' of all, _you_! You dassent help to kill me, Mawse 'Polyte! You
knows why! Oh God, Mawse 'Polyte, you knows why! Leas' of all you, Mawse
'Polyte! Oh, God 'a' mussy on my wicked ole soul! I aint fitt'n to die!
Oh, gen'lemen, I kyan' look God in de face! _Oh, Michés, ayez pitié de
moin! Oh, God A'mighty ha' mussy on my soul_! Oh, gen'lemen, dough yo'
kinfolks kyvvah up yo' tricks now, dey'll dwap f'um undeh you some day!
_Solé levé là, li couché là_! Yo' tu'n will come! Oh, God A'mighty! de
God o' de po' nigga wench! Look down, oh God, look down an' stop dis yeh
foolishness! Oh, God, fo' de love o' Jesus! _Oh, Michés, y'en a ein
zizement_! Oh, yes, deh's a judgmen' day! Den it wont be a bit o' use to
you to be white! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, fo', fo', fo', de, de, _love 0'
God! Oh_!"

They drew her up.

Raoul was not far off. He heard the woman's last cry, and came threshing
through the bushes on foot. He saw Sylvestre, unconscious of any
approach, spring forward, jerk away the hands that had drawn the thong
over the branch, let the strangling woman down and loosen the noose. Her
eyes, starting out with horror, turned to him; she fell on her knees and
clasped her hands. The tears were rolling down Sylvestre's face.

"My friends, we must not do this! You _shall_ not do it!"

He hurled away, with twice his natural strength, one who put out a hand.

"No, sirs!" cried Raoul, "you shall not do it! I come from Honoré! Touch
her who dares!"

He drew a weapon.

"Monsieur Innerarity," said 'Polyte, "_who is_ Monsieur Honoré
Grandissime? There are two of the name, you know,--partners--brothers.
Which of--but it makes no difference; before either of them sees this
assassin she is going to be a lump of nothing!"

The next word astonished every one. It was Charlie Mandarin who spoke.

"Let her go!"

"Let her go!" said Jean-Baptiste Grandissime; "give her a run for life.
Old woman, rise up. We propose to let you go. Can you run? Never mind,
we shall see. Achille, put her upon her feet. Now, old woman, run!"

She walked rapidly, but with unsteady feet, toward the fields.

"Run! If you don't run I will shoot you this minute!"

She ran.

"Faster!"

She ran faster.

"Run!"

"Run!"

"Run, Clemence! Ha, ha, ha!" It was so funny to see her scuttling and
tripping and stumbling. "_Courri! courri, Clemence! c'est pou to' vie!_
ha, ha, ha--"

A pistol-shot rang out close behind Raoul's ear; it was never told who
fired it. The negress leaped into the air and fell at full length to the
ground, stone dead.




CHAPTER LVIII

DYING WORDS


Drivers of vehicles in the rue Royale turned aside before two slight
barriers spanning the way, one at the corner below, the other at that
above, the house where the aged high-priest of a doomed civilization lay
bleeding to death. The floor of the store below, the pavement of the
corridor where stood the idle volante, were covered with straw, and
servants came and went by the beckoning of the hand.

"This way," whispered a guide of the four ladies from the Grandissime
mansion. As Honoré's mother turned the angle half-way up the muffled
stair, she saw at the landing above, standing as if about to part, yet
in grave council, a man and a woman, the fairest--she noted it even in
this moment of extreme distress--she had ever looked upon. He had
already set one foot down upon the stair, but at sight of the ascending
group drew back and said:

"It is my mother;" then turned to his mother and took her hand; they had
been for months estranged, but now they silently kissed.

"He is sleeping," said Honoré. "Maman, Madame Nancanou."

The ladies bowed--the one looking very large and splendid, the other
very sweet and small. There was a single instant of silence, and Aurora
burst into tears.

For a moment Madame Grandissime assumed a frown that was almost a
reminder of her brother's, and then the very pride of the Fusiliers
broke down. She uttered an inaudible exclamation, drew the weeper firmly
into her bosom, and with streaming eyes and choking voice, but yet with
majesty, whispered, laying her hand on Aurora's head:

"Never mind, my child; never mind; never mind."

And Honoré's sister, when she was presently introduced, kissed Aurora
and murmured:

"The good God bless thee! It is He who has brought us together."

"Who is with him just now?" whispered the two other ladies, while Honoré
and his mother stood a moment aside in hurried consultation.

"My daughter," said Aurora, "and--"

"Agamemnon," suggested Madame Martinez.

"I believe so," said Aurora.

Valentine appeared from the direction of the sick-room and beckoned to
Honoré. Doctor Keene did the same and continued to advance.

"Awake?" asked Honoré.

"Yes."

"Alas! my brother!" said Madame Grandissime, and started forward,
followed by the other women.

"Wait," said Honoré, and they paused. "Charlie," he said, as the little
doctor persistently pushed by him at the head of the stair.

"Oh, there's no chance, Honoré, you'd as well all go in there."

They gathered into the room and about the bed. Madame Grandissime bent
over it.

"Ah! sister," said the dying man, "is that you? I had the sweetest dream
just now--just for a minute." He sighed. "I feel very weak. Where is
Charlie Keene?"

He had spoken in French; he repeated his question in English. He thought
he saw the doctor.

"Charlie, if I must meet the worst I hope you will tell me so; I am
fully prepared. Ah! excuse--I thought it was--

"My eyes seem dim this evening. _Est-ce-vous_, Honoré? Ah, Honoré, you
went over to the enemy, did you?--Well,--the Fusilier blood would
al--ways--do as it pleased. Here's your old uncle's hand, Honoré. I
forgive you, Honoré--my noble-hearted, foolish--boy." He spoke feebly,
and with great nervousness.

"Water."

It was given him by Aurora. He looked in her face; they could not be
sure whether he recognized her or not. He sank back, closed his eyes,
and said, more softly and dreamily, as if to himself, "I forgive
everybody. A man must die--I forgive--even the enemies--of Louisiana."

He lay still a few moments, and then revived excitedly. "Honoré! tell
Professor Frowenfeld to take care of that _Philippique Générale_. 'Tis a
grand thing, Honoré, on a grand theme! I wrote it myself in one evening.
Your Yankee Government is a failure, Honoré, a drivelling failure. It
may live a year or two, not longer. Truth will triumph. The old
Louisiana will rise again. She will get back her trampled rights. When
she does, remem'--" His voice failed, but he held up one finger firmly
by way of accentuation.

There was a stir among the kindred. Surely this was a turn for the
better. The doctor ought to be brought back. A little while ago he was
not nearly so strong. "Ask Honoré if the doctor should not come." But
Honoré shook his head. The old man began again.

"Honoré! Where is Honoré? Stand by me, here, Honoré; and sister?--on
this other side. My eyes are very poor to-day. Why do I perspire so?
Give me a drink. You see--I am better now; I have ceased--to throw up
blood. Nay, let me talk." He sighed, closed his eyes, and opened them
again suddenly. "Oh, Honoré, you and the Yankees--you and--all--going
wrong--education--masses--weaken--caste--indiscr'--quarrels settl'--by
affidav'--Oh! Honoré."

"If he would only forget," said one, in an agonized whisper, "that
_philippique générale_!"

Aurora whispered earnestly and tearfully to Madame Grandissime. Surely
they were not going to let him go thus! A priest could at least do no
harm. But when the proposition was made to him by his sister, he said:

"No;--no priest. You have my will, Honoré,--in your iron box. Professor
Frowenfeld,"--he changed his speech to English,--"I have written you an
article on--" his words died on his lips.

"Joseph, son, I do not see you. Beware, my son, of the doctrine of equal
rights--a bottomless iniquity. Master and man--arch and pier--arch
above--pier below." He tried to suit the gesture to the words, but both
hands and feet were growing uncontrollably restless.

"Society, Professor,"--he addressed himself to a weeping girl,--"society
has pyramids to build which make menials a necessity, and Nature
furnishes the menials all in dark uniform. She--I cannot tell you--you
will find--all in the _Philippique Générale_. Ah! Honoré, is it--"

He suddenly ceased.

"I have lost my glasses."

Beads of sweat stood out upon his face. He grew frightfully pale. There
was a general dismayed haste, and they gave him a stimulant.

"Brother," said the sister, tenderly.

He did not notice her.

"Agamemnon! Go and tell Jean-Baptiste--" his eyes drooped and flashed
again wildly.

"I am here, Agricole," said the voice of Jean-Baptiste, close beside the
bed.

"I told you to let--that negress--"

"Yes, we have let her go. We have let all of them go."

"All of them," echoed the dying man, feebly, with wandering eyes.
Suddenly he brightened again and tossed his arms. "Why, there you were
wrong, Jean-Baptiste; the community must be protected." His voice sank
to a murmur. "He would not take off--'you must remem'--" He was silent.
"You must remem'--those people are--are not--white people." He ceased a
moment. "Where am I going?" He began evidently to look, or try to look,
for some person; but they could not divine his wish until, with piteous
feebleness, he called:

"Aurore De Grapion!"

So he had known her all the time.

Honoré's mother had dropped on her knees beside the bed, dragging Aurora
down with her.

They rose together.

The old man groped distressfully with one hand. She laid her own in it.

"Honoré!

"What could he want?" wondered the tearful family. He was feeling about
with the other hand.

"Hon'--Honoré"--his weak clutch could scarcely close upon his nephew's
hand.

"Put them--put--put them--"

What could it mean? The four hands clasped.

"Ah!" said one, with fresh tears, "he is trying to speak and cannot."

But he did.

"Aurora De Gra--I pledge'--pledge'--pledged--this union--to your
fa'--father--twenty--years--ago."

The family looked at each other in dejected amazement. They had never
known it.

"He is going," said Agamemnon; and indeed it seemed as though he was
gone; but he rallied.

"Agamemnon! Valentine! Honoré! patriots! protect the race! Beware of
the"--that sentence escaped him. He seemed to fancy himself haranguing a
crowd; made another struggle for intelligence, tried once, twice, to
speak, and the third time succeeded:

"Louis'--Louisian'--a--for--ever!" and lay still.

They put those two words on his tomb.




CHAPTER LIX

WHERE SOME CREOLE MONEY GOES


And yet the family committee that ordered the inscription, the mason who
cut it in the marble--himself a sort of half-Grandissime,
half-nobody--and even the fair women who each eve of All-Saints came,
attended by flower-laden slave girls, to lay coronals upon the old man's
tomb, felt, feebly at first, and more and more distinctly as years went
by, that Forever was a trifle long for one to confine one's patriotic
affection to a small fraction of a great country.

       *       *       *       *       *

"And you say your family decline to accept the assistance of the police
in their endeavors to bring the killer of your uncle to justice?" asked
some _Américain_ or other of 'Polyte Grandissime.

"'Sir, mie fam'lie do not want to fetch him to justice!--neither
Palmyre! We are goin' to fetch the justice to them! And sir, when we
cannot do that, sir, by ourselves, sir,--no, sir! no police!"

So Clemence was the only victim of the family wrath; for the other two
were never taken; and it helps our good feeling for the Grandissimes to
know that in later times, under the gentler influences of a higher
civilization, their old Spanish-colonial ferocity was gradually absorbed
by the growth of better traits. To-day almost all the savagery that can
justly be charged against Louisiana must--strange to say--be laid at
the door of the _Américain_. The Creole character has been diluted and
sweetened.

One morning early in September, some two weeks after the death of
Agricola, the same brig which something less than a year before had
brought the Frowenfelds to New Orleans crossed, outward bound, the sharp
line dividing the sometimes tawny waters of Mobile Bay from the deep
blue Gulf, and bent her way toward Europe.

She had two passengers; a tall, dark, wasted yet handsome man of
thirty-seven or thirty-eight years of age, and a woman seemingly some
three years younger, of beautiful though severe countenance; "very
elegant-looking people and evidently rich," so the brig-master described
them,--"had much the look of some of the Mississippi River 'Lower Coast'
aristocracy." Their appearance was the more interesting for a look of
mental distress evident on the face of each. Brother and sister they
called themselves; but, if so, she was the most severely reserved and
distant sister the master of the vessel had ever seen.

They landed, if the account comes down to us right, at Bordeaux. The
captain, a fellow of the peeping sort, found pastime in keeping them in
sight after they had passed out of his care ashore. They went to
different hotels!

The vessel was detained some weeks in this harbor, and her master
continued to enjoy himself in the way in which he had begun. He saw his
late passengers meet often, in a certain quiet path under the trees of
the Quinconce. Their conversations were low; in the patois they used
they could have afforded to speak louder; their faces were always grave
and almost always troubled. The interviews seemed to give neither of
them any pleasure. The monsieur grew thinner than ever, and
sadly feeble.

"He wants to charter her," the seaman concluded, "but she doesn't like
his rates."

One day, the last that he saw them together, they seemed to be, each in
a way different from the other, under a great strain. He was haggard,
woebegone, nervous; she high-strung, resolute,--with "eyes that shone
like lamps," as said the observer.

"She's a-sendin' him 'way to lew-ard," thought he. Finally the Monsieur
handed her--or rather placed upon the seat near which she stood, what
she would not receive--a folded and sealed document, seized her hand,
kissed it and hurried away. She sank down upon the seat, weak and pale,
and rose to go, leaving the document behind. The mariner picked it up;
it was directed to _M. Honoré Grandissime, Nouvelle Orléans, États Unis,
Amérique_. She turned suddenly, as if remembering, or possibly
reconsidering, and received it from him.

"It looked like a last will and testament," the seaman used to say, in
telling the story.

The next morning, being at the water's edge and seeing a number of
persons gathering about something not far away, he sauntered down toward
it to see how small a thing was required to draw a crowd of these
Frenchmen. It was the drowned body of the f.m.c.

Did the brig-master never see the woman again? He always waited for this
question to be asked him, in order to state the more impressively that
he did. His brig became a regular Bordeaux packet, and he saw the Madame
twice or thrice, apparently living at great ease, but solitary, in the
rue--. He was free to relate that he tried to scrape acquaintance with
her, but failed ignominiously.

The rents of Number 19 rue Bienville and of numerous other places,
including the new drug-store in the rue Royale, were collected regularly
by H. Grandissime, successor to Grandissime Frères. Rumor said, and
tradition repeats, that neither for the advancement of a friendless
people, nor even for the repair of the properties' wear and tear, did
one dollar of it ever remain in New Orleans; but that once a year
Honoré, "as instructed," remitted to Madame--say Madame Inconnue--of
Bordeaux, the equivalent, in francs, of fifty thousand dollars. It is
averred he did this without interruption for twenty years. "Let us see:
fifty times twenty--one million dollars. That is only a _part_ of the
_pecuniary_ loss which this sort of thing costs Louisiana."

But we have wandered.




CHAPTER LX

"ALL RIGHT"


The sun is once more setting upon the Place d'Armes. Once more the
shadows of cathedral and town-hall lie athwart the pleasant grounds
where again the city's fashion and beauty sit about in the sedate
Spanish way, or stand or slowly move in and out among the old willows
and along the white walks. Children are again playing on the sward;
some, you may observe, are in black, for Agricola. You see, too, a more
peaceful river, a nearer-seeming and greener opposite shore, and many
other evidences of the drowsy summer's unwillingness to leave the
embrace of this seductive land; the dreamy quietude of birds; the
spreading, folding, re-expanding and slow pulsating of the
all-prevailing fan (how like the unfolding of an angel's wing is
ofttimes the broadening of that little instrument!); the oft-drawn
handkerchief; the pale, cool colors of summer costume; the swallow,
circling and twittering overhead or darting across the sight; the
languid movement of foot and hand; the reeking flanks and foaming bits
of horses; the ear-piercing note of the cicada; the dancing butterfly;
the dog, dropping upon the grass and looking up to his master with
roping jaw and lolling tongue; the air sweetened with the merchandise of
the flower _marchandes_.

On the levee road, bridles and saddles, whips, gigs, and
carriages,--what a merry coming and going! We look, perforce, toward the
old bench where, six months ago, sat Joseph Frowenfeld. There is
somebody there--a small, thin, weary-looking man, who leans his bared
head slightly back against the tree, his thin fingers knit together in
his lap, and his chapeau-bras pressed under his arm. You note his
extreme neatness of dress, the bright, unhealthy restlessness of his
eye, and--as a beam from the sun strikes them--the fineness of his short
red curls. It is Doctor Keene.

He lifts his head and looks forward. Honoré and Frowenfeld are walking
arm-in-arm under the furthermost row of willows. Honoré is speaking. How
gracefully, in correspondence with his words, his free arm or
hand--sometimes his head or even his lithe form--moves in quiet gesture,
while the grave, receptive apothecary takes into his meditative mind, as
into a large, cool cistern, the valued rain-fall of his friend's
communications. They are near enough for the little doctor easily to
call them; but he is silent. The unhappy feel so far away from the
happy. Yet--"Take care!" comes suddenly to his lips, and is almost
spoken; for the two, about to cross toward the Place d'Armes at the very
spot where Aurora had once made her narrow escape, draw suddenly back,
while the black driver of a volante reins up the horse he bestrides, and
the animal himself swerves and stops.

The two friends, though startled apart, hasten with lifted hats to the
side of the volante, profoundly convinced that one, at least, of its two
occupants is heartily sorry that they were not rolled in the dust. Ah,
ah! with what a wicked, ill-stifled merriment those two ethereal women
bend forward in the faintly perfumed clouds of their ravishing
summer-evening garb, to express their equivocal mortification
and regret.

"Oh! I'm so sawry, oh! Almoze runned o'--ah, ha, ha, ha!"

Aurora could keep the laugh back no longer.

"An' righd yeh befo' haivry _boddie_! Ah, ha, ha! 'Sieur Grandissime,
'tis _me-e-e_ w'ad know 'ow dad is bad, ha, ha, ha! Oh! I assu' you,
gen'lemen, id is hawful!"

And so on.

By and by Honoré seemed urging them to do something, the thought of
which made them laugh, yet was entertained as not entirely absurd. It
may have been that to which they presently seemed to consent; they
alighted from the volante, dismissed it, and walked each at a partner's
side down the grassy avenue of the levee. It was as Clotilde with one
hand swept her light robes into perfect adjustment for the walk, and
turned to take the first step with Frowenfeld, that she raised her eyes
for the merest instant to his, and there passed between them an exchange
of glance which made the heart of the little doctor suddenly burn like a
ball of fire.

"Now we're all right," he murmured bitterly to himself, as, without
having seen him, she took the arm of the apothecary, and they
moved away.

Yes, if his irony was meant for this pair, he divined correctly. Their
hearts had found utterance across the lips, and the future stood waiting
for them on the threshold of a new existence, to usher them into a
perpetual copartnership in all its joys and sorrows, its
disappointments, its imperishable hopes, its aims, its conflicts, its
rewards; and the true--the great--the everlasting God of love was with
them. Yes, it had been "all right," now, for nearly twenty-four
hours--an age of bliss. And now, as they walked beneath the willows
where so many lovers had walked before them, they had whole histories to
tell of the tremors, the dismays, the misconstructions and longings
through which their hearts had come to this bliss; how at such a time,
thus and so; and after such and such a meeting, so and so; no part of
which was heard by alien ears, except a fragment of Clotilde's speech
caught by a small boy in unintentioned ambush.

"--Evva sinze de firze nighd w'en I big-in to nurze you wid de fivver."

She was telling him, with that new, sweet boldness so wonderful to a
lately accepted lover, how long she had loved him.

Later on they parted at the _porte-cochère_. Honoré and Aurora had got
there before them, and were passing on up the stairs. Clotilde,
catching, a moment before, a glimpse of her face, had seen that there
was something wrong; weather-wise as to its indications she perceived an
impending shower of tears. A faint shade of anxiety rested an instant on
her own face. Frowenfeld could not go in. They paused a little within
the obscurity of the corridor, and just to reassure themselves that
everything _was_ "all right," they--

God be praised for love's young dream!

The slippered feet of the happy girl, as she slowly mounted the stair
alone, overburdened with the weight of her blissful reverie, made no
sound. As she turned its mid-angle she remembered Aurora. She could
guess pretty well the source of her trouble; Honoré was trying to treat
that hand-clasping at the bedside of Agricola as a binding compact;
"which, of course, was not fair." She supposed they would have gone into
the front drawing-room; she would go into the back. But she
miscalculated; as she silently entered the door she saw Aurora standing
a little way beyond her, close before Honoré, her eyes cast down, and
the trembling fan hanging from her two hands like a broken pinion. He
seemed to be reiterating, in a tender undertone, some question intended
to bring her to a decision. She lifted up her eyes toward his with a
mute, frightened glance.

The intruder, with an involuntary murmur of apology, drew back; but, as
she turned, she was suddenly and unspeakably saddened to see Aurora drop
her glance, and, with a solemn slowness whose momentous significance
was not to be mistaken, silently shake her head.

"Alas!" cried the tender heart of Clotilde. "Alas! M. Grandissime!"




CHAPTER LXI

"NO!"


If M. Grandissime had believed that he was prepared for the supreme
bitterness of that moment, he had sadly erred. He could not speak. He
extended his hand in a dumb farewell, when, all unsanctioned by his
will, the voice of despair escaped him in a low groan. At the same
moment, a tinkling sound drew near, and the room, which had grown dark
with the fall of night, began to brighten with the softly widening light
of an evening lamp, as a servant approached to place it in the front
drawing-room.

Aurora gave her hand and withdrew it. In the act the two somewhat
changed position, and the rays of the lamp, as the maid passed the door,
falling upon Aurora's face, betrayed the again upturned eyes.

"'Sieur Grandissime--"

They fell.

The lover paused.

"You thing I'm crool."

She was the statue of meekness.

"Hope has been cruel to me," replied M. Grandissime, "not you; that I
cannot say. Adieu."

He was turning.

"'Sieur Grandissime--"

She seemed to tremble.

He stood still.

"'Sieur Grandissime,"--her voice was very tender,--"wad you' horry?"

There was a great silence.

"'Sieur Grandissime, you know--teg a chair."

He hesitated a moment and then both sat down. The servant repassed the
door; yet when Aurora broke the silence, she spoke in English--having
such hazardous things to say. It would conceal possible stammerings.

"'Sieur Grandissime--you know dad riz'n I--"

She slightly opened her fan, looking down upon it, and was still.

"I have no right to ask the reason," said M. Grandissime. "It is
yours--not mine."

Her head went lower.

"Well, you know,"--she drooped it meditatively to one side, with her
eyes on the floor,--"'tis bick-ause--'tis bick-ause I thing in a few
days I'm goin' to die."

M. Grandissime said never a word. He was not alarmed.

She looked up suddenly and took a quick breath, as if to resume, but her
eyes fell before his, and she said, in a tone of half-soliloquy:

"I 'ave so mudge troub' wit dad hawt."

She lifted one little hand feebly to the cardiac region, and sighed
softly, with a dying languor.

M. Grandissime gave no response. A vehicle rumbled by in the street
below, and passed away. At the bottom of the room, where a gilded Mars
was driving into battle, a soft note told the half-hour. The lady
spoke again.

"Id mague"--she sighed once more--"so strange,--sometime' I thing I'm
git'n' crezzy."

Still he to whom these fearful disclosures were being made remained as
silent and motionless as an Indian captive, and, after another pause,
with its painful accompaniment of small sounds, the fair speaker resumed
with more energy, as befitting the approach to an incredible climax:

"Some day', 'Sieur Grandissime,--id mague me fo'gid my hage! I thing I'm
young!"

She lifted her eyes with the evident determination to meet his own
squarely, but it was too much; they fell as before; yet she went
on speaking:

"An' w'en someboddie git'n' ti'ed livin' wid 'imsev an' big'n' to fill
ole, an' wan' someboddie to teg de care of 'im an' wan' me to gid
marri'd wid 'im--I thing 'e's in love to me." Her fingers kept up a
little shuffling with the fan. "I thing I'm crezzy. I thing I muz be
go'n' to die torecklie." She looked up to the ceiling with large eyes,
and then again at the fan in her lap, which continued its spreading and
shutting. "An' daz de riz'n, 'Sieur Grandissime." She waited until it
was certain he was about to answer, and then interrupted him nervously:
"You know, 'Sieur Grandissime, id woon be righd! Id woon be de juztiz to
_you!_ An' you de bez man I evva know in my life, 'Sieur Grandissime!"
Her hands shook. "A man w'at nevva wan' to gid marri'd wid noboddie in
'is life, and now trine to gid marri'd juz only to rip-ose de soul of
'is oncl'--"

M. Grandissime uttered an exclamation of protest, and she ceased.

"I asked you," continued he, with low-toned emphasis, "for the single
and only reason that I want you for my wife."

"Yez," she quickly replied; "daz all. Daz wad I thing. An' I thing daz
de rad weh to say, 'Sieur Grandissime. Bick-ause, you know, you an' me
is too hole to talg aboud dad _lovin'_, you know. An' you godd dad grade
_rizpeg_ fo' me, an' me I godd dad 'ighez rispeg fo' you; bud--" she
clutched the fan and her face sank lower still--"bud--" she
swallowed--shook her head--"bud--" She bit her lip; she could not go on.

"Aurora," said her lover, bending forward and taking one of her hands.
"I _do_ love you with all my soul."

She made a poor attempt to withdraw her hand, abandoned the effort, and
looked up savagely through a pair of overflowing eyes, demanding:

"_Mais_, fo' w'y you di' n' wan' to sesso?"

M. Grandissime smiled argumentatively.

"I have said so a hundred times, in every way but in words."

She lifted her head proudly, and bowed like a queen.

"_Mais_, you see 'Sieur Grandissime, you bin meg one mizteg."

"Bud 'tis corrected in time," exclaimed he, with suppressed but eager
joyousness.

"'Sieur Grandissime," she said, with a tremendous solemnity, "I'm verrie
sawrie; _mais_--you spogue too lade."

"No, no!" he cried, "the correction comes in time. Say that, lady; say
that!"

His ardent gaze beat hers once more down; but she shook her head. He
ignored the motion.

"And you will correct your answer; ah! say that, too!" he insisted,
covering the captive hand with both his own, and leaning forward
from his seat.

"_Mais_, 'Sieur Grandissime, you know, dad is so verrie unegspeg'."

"Oh! unexpected!"

"_Mais_, I was thing all dad time id was Clotilde wad you--"

She turned her face away and buried her mouth in her handkerchief.

"Ah!" he cried, "mock me no more, Aurore Nancanou!"

He rose erect and held the hand firmly which she strove to draw away:

"Say the word, sweet lady; say the word!"

She turned upon him suddenly, rose to her feet, was speechless an
instant while her eyes flashed into his, and crying out:

"No!" burst into tears, laughed through them, and let him clasp her to
his bosom.








End of Project Gutenberg's The Grandissimes, by George Washington Cable