The Grandissimes

by George Washington Cable

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPE, CONTINUED

  Bras-Coupe let the autumn pass, and wintered in his den.

  Don Jose, in a majestic way, endeavored to be happy. He took his senorato his hall, and under her rule it took on for a while a look andfeeling which turned it from a hunting-lodge into a home. Wherever thelady's steps turned--or it is as correct to say wherever the proud treadof Palmyre turned--the features of bachelor's-hall disappeared; guns,dogs, oars, saddles, nets, went their way into proper banishment, andthe broad halls and lofty chambers--the floors now muffled with mats ofpalmetto-leaf--no longer re-echoed the tread of a lonely master, butbreathed a redolence of flowers and a rippling murmur ofwell-contented song.

  But the song was not from the throat of Bras-Coupe's "_piti zozo_."Silent and severe by day, she moaned away whole nights heapingreproaches upon herself for the impulse--now to her, because it hadfailed, inexplicable in its folly--which had permitted her hand to liein Bras-Coupe's and the priest to bind them together.

  For in the audacity of her pride, or, as Agricola would have said, inthe immensity of her impudence, she had held herself consecrate to ahopeless love. But now she was a black man's wife! and even he unableto sit at her feet and learn the lesson she had hoped to teach him. Shehad heard of San Domingo; for months the fierce heart within her silentbosom had been leaping and shouting and seeing visions of fire andblood, and when she brooded over the nearness of Agricola and theremoteness of Honore these visions got from her a sort of mad consent.The lesson she would have taught the giant was Insurrection. But it wastoo late. Letting her dagger sleep in her bosom, and with an undefinedbelief in imaginary resources, she had consented to join hands with hergiant hero before the priest; and when the wedding had come and gonelike a white sail, she was seized with a lasting, fierce despair. A wildaggressiveness that had formerly characterized her glance in moments ofanger--moments which had grown more and more infrequent under thesoftening influence of her Mademoiselle's nature--now came backintensified, and blazed in her eye perpetually. Whatever her secret lovemay have been in kind, its sinking beyond hope below the horizon hadleft her fifty times the mutineer she had been before--the mutineer whohas nothing to lose.

  "She loves her _candio_" said the negroes.

  "Simple creatures!" said the overseer, who prided himself on hisdiscernment, "she loves nothing; she hates Agricola; it's a case of hateat first sight--the strongest kind."

  Both were partly right; her feelings were wonderfully knit to theAfrican; and she now dedicated herself to Agricola's ruin.

  The senor, it has been said, endeavored to be happy; but now his heartconceived and brought forth its first-born fear, sired bysuperstition--the fear that he was bewitched. The negroes said thatBras-Coupe had cursed the land. Morning after morning the master lookedout with apprehension toward the fields, until one night the worm cameupon the indigo, and between sunset and sunrise every green leaf hadbeen eaten up and there was nothing left for either insect orapprehension to feed upon.

  And then he said--and the echo came back from the Cannes Brulees--thatthe very bottom culpability of this thing rested on the Grandissimes,and specifically on their fugleman Agricola, through his putting thehellish African upon him. Moreover, fever and death, to a degree unknownbefore, fell upon his slaves. Those to whom life was spared--but to whomstrength 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-Coupe fe moi des grigis_ (thevoudou's spells are on me)." The ripple of song was hushed and theflowers fell upon the floor.

  "I have heard an English maxim," wrote Colonel De Grapion to hiskinsman, "which I would recommend you to put into practice--'Fight thedevil 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-Coupe, why, let himgo. The overseer tried the hounds once more and came home with the bestone across his saddle-bow, an arrow run half through its side.

  Once the blacks attempted by certain familiar rum-pourings and nocturnalcharm-singing to lift the curse; but the moment the master heard thewild monotone of their infernal worship, he stopped it with a word.

  Early in February came the spring, and with it some resurrection of hopeand courage. It may have been--it certainly was, in part--because youngHonore Grandissime had returned. He was like the sun's warmth whereverhe went; and the other Honore was like his shadow. The fairer onequickly saw the meaning of these things, hastened to cheer the young donwith hopes of a better future, and to effect, if he could, therestoration of Bras-Coupe to his master's favor. But this latter effortwas an idle one. He had long sittings with his uncle Agricola to thesame end, but they always ended fruitless and often angrily.

  His dark half-brother had seen Palmyre and loved her. Honore wouldgladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable unionin marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza needbe no impediment; all slave-owners understood those things. FollowingHonore's advice, the f.m.c., who had come into possession of hispaternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulees a written offer, to buy Palmyreat any price that her master might name, stating his intention to freeher and make her his wife. Colonel De Grapion could hardly hope tosettle Palmyre's fate more satisfactorily, yet he could not forego anopportunity to indulge his pride by following up the threat he had hungover Agricola to kill whosoever should give Palmyre to a black man. Hereferred the subject and the would-be purchaser to him. It would open upto the old braggart a line of retreat, thought the planter of theCannes Brulees.

  But the idea of retreat had left Citizen Fusilier.

  "She is already married," said he to M. Honore Grandissime, f.m.c. "Sheis the lawful wife of Bras-Coupe; and what God has joined together letno man put asunder. You know it, sirrah. You did this for impudence, tomake a show of your wealth. You intended it as an insinuation ofequality. I overlook the impertinence for the sake of the man whosewhite blood you carry; but h-mark you, if ever you bring your Parisianairs and self-sufficient face on a level with mine again, h-I willslap it."

  The quadroon, three nights after, was so indiscreet as to give him theopportunity, and he did it--at that quadroon ball to which Dr. Keenealluded in talking to Frowenfeld.

  But Don Jose, 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' la bas_ (It is that accursed alligator,Bras-Coupe, down yonder in the swamp)."

  And by and by the master was again smitten with the same belief. He andhis neighbors put in their crops afresh. The spring waned, summerpassed, the fevers returned, the year wore round, but no harvest smiled."Alas!" cried the planters, "we are all poor men!" The worst among theworst were the fields of Bras-Coupe's master--parched and shrivelled."He does not understand planting," said his neighbors; "neither does hisoverseer. 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, stoodthe magnificent, half-nude form of Bras-Coupe. He did not fall down asthe mistress's eyes met his, though all his flesh quivered. The masterwas lying with his eyes closed. The fever had done a fearful threedays' work.

  "_Mioko-Koanga oule so' femme_ (Bras-Coupe wants his wife)."

  The master started wildly and stared upon his slave.

  "_Bras-Coupe oule so' femme_!" repeated the black.

  "Seize him!" cried the sick man, trying to rise.

  But, though several servants had ventured in with frightened faces, nonedared molest the giant. The master turned his entreating eyes upon hiswife, but she seemed stunned, and only cov
ered her face with her handsand sat as if paralyzed by a foreknowledge of what was coming.

  Bras-Coupe lifted his great black palm and commenced:

  "_Mo ce voudrai que la maison ci la, et tout ca qui pas femme' ici,s'raient encore maudits_! (May this house, and all in it who are notwomen, 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 overrunit."

  The domestics, who had thus far stood their ground, suddenly rushed fromthe 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 easymotion, but quick as lightning, as a lion sets foot on a dog, he caughther by the arm.

  "_Bras-Coupe oule so' femme_," he said, and just then Palmyre would havegone 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 atarm's length, resumed his malediction:

  "May weeds cover the ground until the air is full of their odor and thewild beasts of the forest come and lie down under their cover."

  With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow andextended his clenched fist in speechless defiance; but his brain reeled,his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress werebending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupewas gone.

  The plantation became an invalid camp. The words of the voudou foundfulfilment on every side. The plough went not out; the herds wanderedthrough broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bonesand shrunken sides; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled andthrottled each other in a struggle for standing-room--rag-weed,smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bindweed, iron-weed--until the burning skies ofmidsummer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rankand dingy flowers.

  "Why in the name of--St. Francis," asked the priest of the overseer,"didn't the senora use her power over the black scoundrel when he stoodand cursed, that day?"

  "Why, to tell you the truth, father," said the overseer, in a discreetwhisper, "I can only suppose she thought Bras-Coupe had half a rightto do it."

  "Ah, ah, I see; like her brother Honore--looks at both sides of aquestion--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 thinksometimes Bras-Coupe is dead and his spirit has gone into Palmyre. Shewould rather add to his curse than take from it."

  "Ah!" said the jovial divine, with a fat smile, "castigation would helpher case; the whip is a great sanctifier. I fancy it would even make aChristian of the inexpugnable Bras-Coupe."

  But Bras-Coupe kept beyond the reach alike of the lash and of the LatinBible.

  By and by came a man with a rumor, whom the overseer brought to themaster's sick-room, to tell that an enterprising Frenchman wasattempting to produce a new staple in Louisiana, one that worms wouldnot annihilate. It was that year of history when the despairing planterssaw ruin hovering so close over them that they cried to heaven forsuccor. Providence raised up Etienne de Bore. "And if Etienne issuccessful," cried the news-bearer, "and gets the juice of thesugar-cane to crystallize, so shall all of us, after him, and shall yetsave our lands and homes. Oh, Senor, it will make you strong again tosee these fields all cane and the long rows of negroes and negressescutting it, while they sing their song of those droll African numerals,counting the canes they cut," and the bearer of good tidings sang themfor very joy:

  music]

  An-o-que, An-o-bia, Bia-tail-la, Que-re-que, Nal-le-oua, Au-mon-de, Au-tap-o-te, Au-pe-to-te, Au-que-re-que, Bo.

  "And Honore Grandissime is going to introduce it on his lands," said DonJose.

  "That is true," said Agricola Fusilier, coming in. Honore, theindefatigable peacemaker, had brought his uncle and his brother-in-lawfor the moment not only to speaking, but to friendly, terms.

  The senor smiled.

  "I have some good tidings, too," he said; "my beloved lady has borne mea son."

  "Another scion of the house of Grand--I mean Martinez!" exclaimedAgricola. "And now, Don Jose, let me say that _I_ have an item of rareintelligence!"

  The don lifted his feeble head and opened his inquiring eyes with asudden, savage light in them.

  "No," said Agricola, "he is not exactly taken yet, but they are on histrack."

  "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 playeda game of racquette behind the city and a similar game being about toend between the white champions of two rival faubourgs, the beating oftom-toms, rattling of mules' jawbones and sounding of wooden horns drewthe populace across the fields to a spot whose present name of CongoSquare still preserves a reminder of its old barbaric pastimes. On agrassy plain under the ramparts, the performers of these hideousdiscords sat upon the ground facing each other, and in their midst thedancers danced. They gyrated in couples, a few at a time, throwing theirbodies into the most startling attitudes and the wildest contortions,while the whole company of black lookers-on, incited by the tones of theweird music and the violent posturing of the dancers, swayed and writhedin passionate sympathy, beating their breasts, palms and thighs in timewith the bones and drums, and at frequent intervals lifting, in thatwild African unison no more to be described than forgotten, theunutterable songs of the Babouille and Counjaille dances, with theirejaculatory burdens of "_Aie! Aie! Voudou Magnan!_" and "_Aie Calinda!Dance Calinda!_" The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentationor diminution of the dancers' extravagances. Now a fresh man, young andsupple, bounding into the ring, revived the flagging rattlers, drummersand trumpeters; now a wearied dancer, finding his strength going,gathered all his force at the cry of "_Dance zisqu'a mort!_" rallied toa grand finale and with one magnificent antic fell, foaming atthe mouth.

  The amusement had reached its height. Many participants had been luggedout by the neck to avoid their being danced on, and the enthusiasm hadrisen to a frenzy, when there bounded into the ring the blackest ofblack men, an athlete of superb figure, in breeches of "Indienne"--thestuff used for slave women's best dresses--jingling with bells, his feetin moccasins, his tight, crisp hair decked out with feathers, a necklaceof alligator's teeth rattling on his breast and a living serpent twinedabout his neck.

  It chanced that but one couple was dancing. Whether they had been sentthere by advice of Agricola is not certain. Snatching a tambourine froma bystander as he entered, the stranger thrust the male dancer aside,faced the woman and began a series of saturnalian antics, compared withwhich all that had gone before was tame and sluggish; and as he finallyleaped, with tinkling heels, clean over his bewildered partner's head,the multitude howled with rapture.

  Ill-starred Bras-Coupe. He was in that extra-hazardous and irresponsiblecondition of mind and body known in the undignified present as"drunk again."

  By the strangest fortune, if not, as we have just hinted, by somedesign, the man whom he had once deposited in the willow bushes, and thewoman Clemence, were the very two dancers, and no other, whom he hadinterrupted. The man first stupidly regarded, next admiringly gazedupon, and then distinctly recognized, his whilom driver. Five minuteslater the Spanish police were putting their heads together to devise aquick and permanent capture; and in the midst of the sixth minute, asthe wonderful fellow was rising in a yet more astounding leap than hislast, a lasso fell about his neck and brought him, crashing like a burnttree, face upward upon the turf.

  "The runaway slave," said the old French code, continued in force by theSpaniards, "the runaway slave who shall con
tinue to be so for one monthfrom the day of his being denounced to the officers of justice shallhave his ears cut off and shall be branded with the flower de luce onthe shoulder; and on a second offence of the same nature, persisted induring one month of his being denounced, he shall be hamstrung, and bemarked with the flower de luce on the other shoulder. On the thirdoffence he shall die." Bras-Coupe had run away only twice. "But," saidAgricola, "these 'bossals' must be taught their place. Besides, there isArticle 27 of the same code: 'The slave who, having struck his master,shall have produced a bruise, shall suffer capital punishment'--a verynecessary law!" He concluded with a scowl upon Palmyre, who shot back aglance which he never forgot.

  The Spaniard showed himself very merciful--for a Spaniard; he spared thecaptive's life. He might have been more merciful still; but HonoreGrandissime said some indignant things in the African's favor, and asmuch to teach the Grandissimes a lesson as to punish the runaway, hewould have repented his clemency, as he repented the momentary trucewith Agricola, but for the tearful pleading of the senora and the hot,dry eyes of her maid. Because of these he overlooked the offence againsthis person and estate, and delivered Bras-Coupe to the law to sufferonly the penalties of the crime he had committed against society byattempting to be a free man.

  We repeat it for the credit of Palmyre, that she pleaded for Bras-Coupe.But what it cost her to make that intercession, knowing that his deathwould leave her free, and that if he lived she must be his wife, let usnot 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 ironcages and its whips; and there, soon enough, they strapped Bras-Coupeface downward and laid on the lash. And yet not a sound came from themutilated but unconquered African to annoy the ear of the sleeping city.

  ("And you suffered this thing to take place?" asked Joseph Frowenfeld ofHonore Grandissime.

  "My-de'-seh!" exclaimed the Creole, "they lied to me--said they wouldnot harm him!")

  He was brought at sunrise to the plantation. The air was sweet with thesmell of the weed-grown fields. The long-horned oxen that drew him andthe 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 forthat. Put him on my cottage porch." There, at last, Palmyre burst intotears 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 hisgalled back, his ears shorn from his head, and the tendons behind hisknees severed. His eyes were dry, but there was in them that unspeakabledespair that fills the eye of the charger when, fallen in battle, hegazes with sidewise-bended neck on the ruin wrought upon him. His eyeturned sometimes slowly to his wife. He need not demand her now--she wasalways by him.

  There was much talk over him--much idle talk. He merely lay still underit with a fixed frown; but once some incautious tongue dropped the nameof Agricola. The black man's eyes came so quickly round to Palmyre thatshe thought he would speak; but no; his words were all in his eyes. Sheanswered their gleam with a fierce affirmative glance, whereupon heslowly bent his head and spat upon the floor.

  There was yet one more trial of his wild nature. The mandate came fromhis master's sick-bed that he must lift the curse.

  Bras-Coupe merely smiled. God keep thy enemy from such a smile!

  The overseer, with a policy less Spanish than his master's, endeavoredto use persuasion. But the fallen prince would not so much as turn oneglance from his parted hamstrings. Palmyre was then besought tointercede. She made one poor attempt, but her husband was nearer doingher an unkindness than ever he had been before; he made a slow sign forsilence--with his fist; and every mouth was stopped.

  At midnight following, there came, on the breeze that blew from themansion, a sound of running here and there, of wailing andsobbing--another Bridegroom was coming, and the Spaniard, with much sucha lamp in hand as most of us shall be found with, neither burningbrightly nor wholly gone out, went forth to meet Him.

  "Bras-Coupe," said Palmyre, next evening, speaking low in his mangledear, "the master is dead; he is just buried. As he was dying,Bras-Coupe, he asked that you would forgive him."

  The maimed man looked steadfastly at his wife. He had not spoken sincethe lash struck him, and he spoke not now; but in those large, cleareyes, where his remaining strength seemed to have taken refuge as in acitadel, the old fierceness flared up for a moment, and then, like anexpiring beacon, went out.

  "Is your mistress well enough by this time to venture here?" whisperedthe overseer to Palmyre. "Let her come. Tell her not to fear, but tobring the babe--in her own arms, tell her--quickly!"

  The lady came, her infant boy in her arms, knelt down beside the bed ofsweet grass and set the child within the hollow of the African's arm.Bras-Coupe turned his gaze upon it; it smiled, its mother's smile, andput its hand upon the runaway's face, and the first tears ofBras-Coupe's life, the dying testimony of his humanity, gushed from hiseyes and rolled down his cheek upon the infant's hand. He laid his owntenderly upon the babe's forehead, then removing it, waved it abroad,inaudibly moved his lips, dropped his arm, and closed his eyes. Thecurse was lifted.

  "_Le pauv' dgiab'_!" said the overseer, wiping his eyes and lookingfieldward. "Palmyre, you must get the priest."

  The priest came, in the identical gown in which he had appeared thenight of the two weddings. To the good father's many tender questionsBras-Coupe 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 faraway.

  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, andPalmyre and the priest bending over the dying bed, turned an eager earto 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 anecstatic, upward smile, whispered, "To--Africa"--and was gone.