“In the morning only one is left alive. The others are blocks of ice, and float around in the slow eddy, each solemnly staring, one foot advanced, as if still keeping up the poor cramped steps with which he had fought off death. The one who is still alive floats around and around, with these dead men standing stiffly on their islands, all day, sometimes so near them that the air about him is stirred by their icy forms as they pass. At evening his cake drifts away through an opening toward the south, and he sees them no more, save that after him follows his dead friend, Proctor, at some distance behind. As night comes, the figure seems to wave its rigid hand in the distance, and cry from its icy throat, ‘Cheer up, Mark, and good-by!’”
Here Carl stopped, rubbed his hands, shivered, and looked to see how his visitor took the narrative.
“It’s a pretty cold story,” said Schwartz, “even in this broiling sun. So he came down here to get a good, full warm, did he? He’s got the cash, I suppose, to pay for his fancies.”
“I don’t call that a fancy, exactly,” said Carl, seating himself on the hot white sand in the sunshine, with his thin hands clasped around his knees. “As to cash—I don’t know. He works very hard.”
“He works because he likes it,” said Schwartz, contemptuously; “he looks like that sort of a man. But, at any rate, he don’t make you work much!”
“He is awfully good to me,” admitted Carl.
“It isn’t on account of your beauty.”
“Oh, I’m good looking enough in my way,” replied the youth. “I acknowledge it isn’t a common way; like yours, for instance.” As he spoke, he passed his hand through his thin light hair, drew the ends of the long locks forward, and examined them admiringly.
“As he never saw you before, it couldn’t have been brotherly love,” pursued the other. “I suppose it was pity.”
“No, it wasn’t pity, either, you old blockhead,” said Carl, laughing. “He likes to have me with him; he likes me.”
“I see that myself, and that’s exactly the point. Why should he? You haven’t any inheritance to will to him, have you?”
“My violin, and the clothes on my back. I believe that’s all,” answered Carl, lightly. He took off his palmetto hat, made a pillow of it, and stretched himself out at full length, closing his eyes.
“Well, give me a brother with cash, and I’ll go to sleep, too,” said Schwartz. When Deal came home at sunset, the dark-skinned visitor was gone.
But he came again; and this time stayed three days. Mark allowed it, for Carl’s sake. All he said was, “He can not be of much use in the restaurant up there. What is he? Cook? Or waiter?”
“Oh, Schwartz isn’t a servant, old fellow. He helps entertain the guests.”
“Sings, I suppose.”
Carl did not reply, and Deal set Schwartz down as a lager-beer-hall ballad-singer, borne southward on the tide of winter travel to Florida. One advantage at least was gained—when Schwartz was there, Carl was less tempted by the swamp.
And now, a third time, the guest came. During the first evening of this third visit, he was so good-tempered, so frankly lazy and amusing, that even Deal was disarmed. “He’s a good-for-nothing, probably; but there’s no active harm in him,” he said to himself.
The second evening was a repetition of the first.
When he came home at sunset on the third evening, Carl was lying coiled up close to the wall of the house, his face hidden in his arms.
“What are you doing there?” said Deal, as he passed by, on his way to put up the tools.
No answer. But Carl had all kinds of whims, and Deal was used to them. He went across to Scip’s chimney.
“Awful time, cap’en,” said the old negro, in a low voice. “Soon’s you’s gone, dat man make young marse drink, and bot’ begin to holler and fight.”
“Drink? They had no liquor.”
“Yes, dey hab. Mus’ hab brought ’em ’long.”
“Where is the man?”
“Oh, he gone long ago—gone at noon.”
Deal went to his brother. “Carl,” he said, “get up. Dinner is ready.” But the coiled form did not stir.
“Don’t be a fool,” continued Deal. “I know you’ve been drinking; Scip told me. It’s a pity. But no reason why you should not eat.”
Carl did not move. Deal went off to his dinner, and sent some to Carl. But the food remained untasted. Then Deal passed into the house to get some tobacco for his pipe. Then a loud cry was heard. The hiding-place which his Yankee fingers had skillfully fashioned in the old wall had been rifled; all his money was gone. No one knew the secret of the spot but Carl.
“Did he overpower you and take it?” he asked, kneeling down and lifting Carl by force, so that he could see his face.
“No; I gave it to him,” Carl answered, thickly and slowly.
“You gave it to him?”
“I lost it—at cards.”
“Cards!”
Deal had never thought of that. All at once the whole flashed upon him: the gambler who was always “around” with the “orchestra fellows”; the “restaurant” at San Miguel where he helped “entertain” the guests; the probability that business was slack in the ancient little town, unaccustomed to such luxuries; and the treasure-trove of an old acquaintance within a day’s journey—an old acquaintance like Carl, who had come also into happy possession of a rich brother. A rich brother!—probably that was what Schwartz called him!
At any rate, rich or poor, Schwartz had it all. With the exception of one hundred dollars which he had left at San Miguel as a deposit, he had now only five dollars in the world; Carl had gambled away his all.
It was a hard blow.
He lifted his brother in his arms and carried him in to his hammock. A few minutes later, staff in hand, he started down the live-oak avenue toward the old road which led northward to San Miguel. The moonlight was brilliant; he walked all night. At dawn he was searching the little city.
Yes, the man was known there. He frequented the Esmeralda Parlors. The Esmeralda Parlors, however, represented by an attendant, a Northern mulatto, with straight features, long, narrow eyes, and pale-golden skin, a bronze piece of insolence, who was also more faultlessly dressed than any one else in San Miguel, suavely replied that Schwartz was no longer one of their “guests”; he had severed his connection with the Parlors several days before. Where was he? The Parlors had no idea.
But the men about the docks knew. Schwartz had been seen the previous evening negotiating passage at the last moment on a coasting schooner bound South—one of those nondescript little craft engaged in smuggling and illegal trading, with which the waters of the West Indies are infested. The schooner had made her way out of the harbor by moonlight. Although ostensibly bound for Key West, no one could say with any certainty that she would touch there; bribed by Schwartz, with all the harbors, inlets, and lagoons of the West Indies open to her, pursuit would be worse than hopeless. Deal realized this. He ate the food he had brought with him, drank a cup of coffee, called for his deposit, and then walked back to the plantation.
When he came into the little plaza, Carl was sitting on the steps of their small house. His head was clear again; he looked pale and wasted.
“It’s all right,” said Deal. “I’ve traced him. In the mean time, don’t worry, Carl. If I don’t mind it, why should you?”
Without saying more, he went inside, changed his shoes, then came out, ordered dinner, talked to Scip, and when the meal was ready called Carl, and took his place at the table as though nothing had happened. Carl scarcely spoke; Deal approved his silence. He felt so intensely for the lad, realized so strongly what he must be feeling—suffering and feeling—that conversation on the subject would have been at that early moment unendurable. But waking during the night, and hearing him stirring, uneasy, and apparently feverish, he went across to the hammock.
&n
bsp; “You are worrying about it, Carl, and you are not strong enough to stand worry. Look here—I have forgiven you; I would forgive you twice as much. Have you no idea why I brought you down here with me?”
“Because you’re kind-hearted. And perhaps, too, you thought it would be lonely,” answered Carl.
“No, I’m not kind-hearted, and I never was lonely in my life. I didn’t intend to tell you, but—you must not worry. It is your name, Carl, and—and your blue eyes. I was fond of Eliza.”
“Fond of Leeza—Leeza Brenner? Then why on earth didn’t you marry her?” said Carl, sitting up in his hammock, and trying to see his step-brother’s face in the moonlight that came through the chinks in the shutters.
Mark’s face was in shadow. “She liked some one else better,” he said.
“Who?”
“Never mind. But—yes, I will tell you—Graves.”
“John Graves? That dunce? No, she didn’t.”
“As it happens, I know she did. But we won’t talk about it. I only told you to show you why I cared for you.”
“I wouldn’t care about a girl that didn’t care for me,” said Carl, still peering curiously through the checkered darkness. The wizened young violin-player fancied himself an omnipotent power among women. But Deal had gone to his bed, and would say no more.
Carl had heard something now which deeply astonished him. He had not been much troubled about the lost money; it was not in his nature to be much troubled about money at any time. He was sorry; but what was gone was gone; why waste thought upon it? This he called philosophy. Mark, out of regard for Carl’s supposed distress, had forbidden conversation on the subject; but he was not shutting out, as he thought, torrents of shame, remorse, and self-condemnation. Carl kept silence willingly enough; but, even if the bar had been removed, he would have had little to say. During the night his head had ached, and he had had some fever; but it was more the effect of the fiery, rank liquor pressed upon him by Schwartz than of remorse. But now he had heard what really interested and aroused him. Mark in love!—hard-working, steady, dull old Mark, whom he had thought endowed with no fancies at all, save perhaps that of being thoroughly warmed after his arctic freezing. Old Mark fond of Leeza—in love with Leeza!
Leeza wasn’t much. Carl did not even think his cousin pretty; his fancy was for something large and Oriental. But, pretty or not, she had evidently fascinated Mark Deal, coming, a poor little orphan maid, with her aunt, Carl’s mother, to brighten old Abner Deal’s farm-house, one mile from the windy Exton pier. Carl’s mother could not hope to keep her German son in this new home; but she kept little Leeza, or Eliza, as the neighbors called her. And Mark, a shy, awkward boy, had learned to love the child, who had sweet blue eyes, and thick braids of flaxen hair fastened across the back of her head.
“To care all that for Leeza!” thought Carl, laughing silently in his hammock. “And then to fancy that she liked that Graves! And then to leave her, and come away off down here, just on the suspicion!”
But Carl was mistaken. A man, be he never so awkward and silent, will generally make at least one effort to get the woman he loves. Mark had made two, and failed. After his first, he had gone North; after his second, he had come South, bringing Leeza’s cousin with him.
In the morning a new life began on the old plantation. First, Scipio was dismissed; then the hunter who had kept the open-air larder supplied with game, an old man of unknown, or rather mixed descent, having probably Spanish, African, and Seminole blood in his veins, was told that his services were required no more.
“But are you going to starve us, then?” asked Carl, with a comical grimace.
“I am a good shot, myself,” replied Deal; “and a fair cook, too.”
“But why do you do it?” pursued the other. He had forgotten all about the money.
The elder man looked at his brother. Could it be possible that he had forgotten? And, if he had, was it not necessary, in their altered circumstances, that the truth should be brought plainly before his careless eyes?
“I am obliged to do it,” he answered, gravely. “We must be very saving, Carl. Things will be easier, I hope, when the fields begin to yield.”
“Good heavens, you don’t mean to say I took all you had!” said Carl, with an intonation showing that the fact that the abstracted sum was “all” was impressing him more than any agency of his own in the matter.
“I told you I did not mind it,” answered Mark, going off with his gun and game-bag.
“But I do, by Jove!” said Carl to himself, watching him disappear.
Musicians, in this world’s knowledge and wisdom, are often fools, or rather they remain always children. The beautiful gift, the divine gift, the gift which is the nearest to heaven, is accompanied by lacks of another sort. Carl Brenner, like a child, could not appreciate poverty unless his dinner was curtailed, his tobacco gone. The petty changes now made in the small routine of each day touched him acutely, and roused him at last to the effort of connected, almost practical thought. Old Mark was troubled—poor. The cook was going, the hunter discharged; the dinners would be good no longer. This was because he, Carl, had taken the money. There was no especial harm in the act per se; but, as the sum happened to be all old Mark had, it was unfortunate. Under the circumstances, what could he, Carl, do to help old Mark?
Mark loved that light-headed little Leeza. Mark had brought him down here and taken care of him on Leeza’s account. Mark, therefore, should have Leeza. He, Carl, would bring it about. He set to work at once to be special providence in Mark’s affairs. He sat down, wrote a long letter, sealed it with a stern air, and then laid it on the table, got up, and surveyed it with decision. There it was—done! Gone! But no; not “gone” yet. And how could it go? He was now confronted by the difficulty of mailing it without Mark’s knowledge. San Miguel was the nearest post-office; and San Miguel was miles away. Africanus was half crippled; the old hunter would come no more; he himself could not walk half the distance. Then an idea came to him: Africanus, although dismissed, was not yet gone. He went out to find him.
Mark came home at night with a few birds. “They will last us over one day,” he said, throwing down the spoil. “You still here, Scip? I thought I sent you off.”
“He’s going to-morrow,” interposed Carl. Scip sat up all night cooking.
“What in the world has got into him?” said Deal, as the light from the old chimney made their sleeping-room bright.
“He wants to leave us well supplied, I suppose,” said Carl, from his hammock. “Things keep better down here when they’re cooked, you know.” This was true; but it was unusual for Carl to interest himself in such matters.
The next morning Deal started on a hunting expedition, intending to be absent two days. Game was plenty in the high lands farther west. He had good luck, and came back at the end of the second day loaded, having left also several caches behind to be visited on the morrow. But there was no one in the house, or on the plantation; both Scip and Carl were gone.
A slip of paper was pinned to the red cotton door. It contained these words: “It’s all right, old fellow. If I’m not back at the end of three days, counting this as one, come into South Devil after me. You’ll find a trail.”
“Confound the boy!” said Deal, in high vexation. “He’s crazy.” He took a torch, went to the causeway, and there saw from the foot-prints that two had crossed. “Scip went with him,” he thought, somewhat comforted. “The old black rascal used to declare that he knew every inch of the swamp.” He went back, cooked his supper, and slept. In the matter of provisions, there was little left save what he kept under lock and key. Scipio had started with a good supply. At dawn he rose, made a fire under the old chimney, cooked some venison, baked some corn-bread, and, placing them in his bag, started into South Devil, a bundle of torches slung on his back as before, his gun in his hand, his revolver and knife in his belt. “They
have already been gone two days,” he said to himself; “they must be coming toward home, now.” He thought Carl was carrying out his cherished design of exploring the swamp. There was a trail—hatchet marks on the trees, and broken boughs. “That’s old Scip. Carl would never have been so systematic,” he thought.
He went on until noon, and then suddenly found himself on the bank of a sluggish stream. “The Branch,” he said—“South Devil Branch. It joins West Devil, and the two make the San Juan Bautista (a queer origin for a saint!) three miles below Miguel. But where does the trail go now?” It went nowhere. He searched and searched, and could not find it. It ended at the Branch. Standing there in perplexity, he happened to raise his eyes. Small attention had he hitherto paid to the tangled vines and blossoms swinging above him. He hated the beauty of South Devil. But now he saw a slip of paper hanging from a vine, and, seizing it, he read as follows: “We take boat here; wait for me if not returned.”
Constance Fenimore Woolson Page 33