“That awful walk! That enchanted walk through the hot, thick forest! I shall never forget it in this life or the next--I shall never forget it! Even the insects were voiceless, and the huge serpents lay prone in spellbound stillness. We had not reached the sea before a terrific thunder storm broke over us. Then the glare and gloom made each other more awful; the black sky was torn by such lightning as you have no conception of; and in the midst of natural terrors no one can describe the blacks held a carnival of outrage and death in every conceivable form of hellish cruelty that Obeah could devise.
“Nearly dead with fatigue and fright my mother reached the little cove where the ship was to meet us, and there we waited in an agony of terror for the arrival of my father and brothers. They came not. And if the ship was noticed lying near we should be discovered. I walked back as far as I durst, looking for any trace of them. My mother lay upon the sand praying. My little sister slept at her side. In that hour childhood left me forever. In that hour I learned how much one may suffer, and yet not die. Daylight began to appear, and the ship was about half a mile from the land. Then I called,--not with the voice I am now using,--but with some far mightier force, ‘_Father! Father!_’ And at that moment he appeared, pushing his way through the green tangle. And his face was whiter than death, because it was full of horror and agony, which the face of death very rarely is.
“He could not speak. He made motions to me to signal the ship, which I instantly did. It was not many minutes till we saw our signal answered and a little boat coming quickly toward us. But my father quivered with anxiety, and he said, afterwards, they were the most awful moments of his existence. For he knew there was a party of negroes in pursuit, and, indeed, we were just getting into the boat when we heard them crashing through the underwood. My mother had said only two words, ‘August! Victor!’ and my father had answered only, ‘Dead.’ Then the sailors pulled with all their strength to escape the bullets that followed us; but one struck and killed the babe in my mother’s arms, and another fatally wounded a man at one of the oars. He fell, and my father took his place.”
Annette was watching St. Ange like one fascinated; her blue eyes were wide open, her face terror-stricken, her little form all a-tremble. Madame had covered her face, but when Achille ceased speaking she stretched out her hand to him, and for a few moments there was an intense passionful silence. Madame broke it.
“You reached New Orleans safely?”
“It was a hard journey. The captain had taken on a great number of the fugitives, and he waited around the island for two days, rescuing many more who had trusted to the mercy of the sea rather than dare the bloody riot on land; so that we were much overcrowded and soon suffering for food and water. Fever followed, and when we reached New Orleans we were in a pitiable plight. My mother did not recover from this experience. She never asked further about my brothers, and my father would not have told her the truth, if she had asked. ‘They are dead! They died like heroes!’ That was all my father ever told me. It was all that I wished to know.
“On Bayou Têche we bought a plantation, and began again the cultivation of the cane, but mother died visibly, day by day, and within six weeks we buried her under the waving banners of the grey moss that hung so mournfully from the live oaks, that January morning. As to my father, he was never again the same. He had been a very joyous man, but he smiled no more, and he fretted continually over the loss of his family and his beautiful home in Hayti. For some years we were all in all to each other, and he laboured hard to bring our new plantation into a fine condition. Then he, too, left me, and the place was hateful in my sight. I wished to escape forever from the sight of negroes. I feared them, even in my sleep. Had not those who had shared our food, and games, and constant society slain with fiendish delight my poor brothers and my only sister? I was acquainted with Mr. Edward Livingston, a lawyer in New Orleans, and who himself had married a beautiful refugee from the great Haitian insurrection, and he advised me not to sell my plantation, as in view of the war I could not get its value. I would not listen to him--a simpler life with the black cloud removed seemed to me the only thing I desired. But no, I have not here escaped it. What shall I do?”
“The blacks in New York are mostly free, and they are comparatively few in number,” said madame.
“Few in number--that is some security. But now, I must tell you, that this summer, on the very night that there was a great volcanic eruption from the burning heart of St. Vincent, there was another massacre. Amid the roaring darkness, the intolerable heat, the rain of ashes, the stench of sulphur, and the stygian horror of the heavens and the earth, the blacks,
[Illustration: “THE CAPTAIN ... WAITED AROUND THE ISLAND FOR TWO DAYS, RESCUING MANY MORE WHO HAD TRUSTED TO THE MERCY OF THE SEA.”]
made frantic by their terror, and led by the priests of Obeah, fell upon the whites indiscriminately. They fled to the ships in the harbour--to the sea--anywhere, anywhere, from those huge animal natures whose eyes were flaming with rage, and whose souls were without pity. Nearly one hundred of these fugitives finally reached Norfolk and Virginia. Some had been warned either by their own souls, or by friends, and had money and jewels with them; others were quite destitute; many were sick, and their condition was pitiable. All desired to reach the French settlements in Louisiana, but transit by water was most uncertain, nearly all the usual shipping being employed in the more congenial business of privateering. Then, in the midst of their distress, comes into port one day Captain Christopher Bloommaert. He had with him a fine English frigate, the prize of his skill and valour. And when he understood the case of these poor souls, he called his men together and proposed to them the God-like voyage of carrying the miserables to New Orleans. ‘’Tis but a little way out of our purposed course,’ he said, ‘and who knows on what tack good fortune may meet us?’ And the men answered with a shout of ready assent, and so they finally reached New Orleans. I saw them land. Many of them were old friends of my family, and I heard such stories from their lips as make men mad. One old planter, who had money with him, bought my estate, and took those with him to its shelter who had neither money nor friends. Their kindness to each other was wonderful. As for me, I hastened away from scenes that had cast a pall over all my life. Yet I forget not; to forget would be an impossible mercy.”
Then madame talked comfortably to the young man, and after a while tea was brought in, and Annette, grave and silent for once, made it; and quietly watched, and listened, and served. St. Ange liked her better in this mood. The other Annette, with her little coquetries, had not pleased him half so well. When he left she understood that she had gained favour in his eyes; he kissed her hand with an enthralling grace and respect--or, at least, Annette found it so. And that night, though she felt certain Leonard Murray was singing the new songs with Sappha, she told herself that she “did not care if he was. Achille was twice as interesting; he was, indeed, a romantic, a tragic hero--and very nearly a lover. And he was so captivating, so unusually handsome!” She went over the rather long list of young men with whom she was friendly, and positively assured herself that all were commonplace compared with this wonderful Achille. And, to be sure, his small but elegant figure, his pale passionate face, set in those straight black locks, his caressing voice, his subtle smile, his gentle pressure of the hand--all these charms were not the prominent ones of the practical, business-like young men with whom she was most familiar.
After St. Ange’s departure madame sat silent for some time, and Annette watched her with a strange speculation in her mind--did people really keep their emotions fresh when they were three-score and ten years old? Her grandmother had seemed to feel all that she had felt. Her hands, her feet, her whole figure had revealed strong sensation, her eyes been tender with sympathy and keen with anger; her interest had never flagged. In passionate sensibility had twenty years no superiority over seventy years? Patience, Annette! Time will tell you the secret. Oh, the soul keeps its youth!
She considered this question, however, until it wearied her, and then she asked abruptly: “Grandmother, of what are you dreaming?”
“Mr. St. Ange. I was recalling the day on which his grandfather carried off to France pretty Gertrude Bergen. She went to France and died in Haiti, and now her grandson is driven back by events he cannot control to New York.”
“Where he will probably marry some other pretty Dutch maiden.”