trace left by his fingers above andbelow it the day he had slapped her for overturning his ink bottle ..."To laimin moin?--to batte moin!"
"Chita!--Chita!"
She did not hear ... After all, what a mistake he might have made!Were not Nature's coincidences more wonderful than fiction? Better towait,--to question the mother first, and thus make sure.
Still--there were so many coincidences! The face, the smile, the eyes,the voice, the whole charm;--then that mark,--and the fair hair.Zouzoune had always resembled Adele so strangely! That golden hair wasa Scandinavian bequest to the Florane family;--the tall daughter of aNorwegian sea captain had once become the wife of a Florane.Viosca?--who ever knew a Viosca with such hair? Yet again, theseSpanish emigrants sometimes married blonde German girls ... Might be acase of atavism, too. Who was this Viosca? If that was his wife,--thelittle brown Carmen,--whence Chita's sunny hair? ...
And this was part of that same desolate shore whither the Last Islanddead had been drifted by that tremendous surge! On a clear day, with agood glass, one might discern from here the long blue streak of thatghastly coast ... Somewhere--between here and there ... Merciful God!...
... But again! That bivouac-night before the fight atChancellorsville, Laroussel had begun to tell him such a singular story... Chance had brought them,--the old enemies,--together; made themdear friends in the face of Death. How little he had comprehended theman!--what a brave, true, simple soul went up that day to the Lord ofBattles! ... What was it--that story about the little Creole girl savedfrom Last Island,--that story which was never finished? ... Eh! what apain!
Evidently he had worked too much, slept too little. A decided case ofnervous prostration. He must lie down, and try to sleep.
These pains in the head and back were becoming unbearable. Nothing butrest could avail him now.
He stretched himself under the mosquito curtain. It was very still,breathless, hot! The venomous insects were thick;--they filled the roomwith a continuous ebullient sound, as if invisible kettles were boilingoverhead. A sign of storm.... Still, it was strange!--he could notperspire ...
Then it seemed to him that Laroussel was bending over him--Laroussel inhis cavalry uniform. "Bon jour, camarade!--nous allons avoir un bienmauvais temps, mon pauvre Julien." How! bad weather?--"Comment unmauvais temps?" ... He looked in Laroussel's face. There was somethingso singular in his smile. Ah! yes,--he remembered now: it was thewound! ... "Un vilain temps!" whispered Laroussel. Then he was gone... Whither?
--"Cheri!" ...
The whisper roused him with a fearful start ... Adele's whisper! So shewas wont to rouse him sometimes in the old sweet nights,--to crave somelittle attention for ailing Eulalie,--to make some little confidenceshe had forgotten to utter during the happy evening ... No, no! It wasonly the trees. The sky was clouding over. The wind was rising ...How his heart beat! how his temples pulsed! Why, this was fever! Suchpains in the back and head!
Still his skin was dry,--dry as parchment,--burning. He rose up; and abursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him reel like adrunken man. He staggered to the little mirror nailed upon the wall,and looked. How his eyes glowed;--and there was blood in his mouth!He felt his pulse spasmodic, terribly rapid. Could it possibly--? ...No: this must be some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does noteasily fall a prey to the great tropical malady,--unless after a longabsence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the army!But this was 1867 ... He hesitated a moment; then,--opening hismedicine chest, he measured out and swallowed thirty grains of quinine.
Then he lay down again. His head pained more and more;--it seemed asif the cervical vertebrae were filled with fluid iron. And still hisskin remained dry as if tanned. Then the anguish grew so intense as toforce a groan with almost every aspiration ... Nausea,--and thestinging bitterness of quinine rising in his throat;--dizziness, and abrutal wrenching within his stomach. Everything began to lookpink;--the light was rose-colored. It darkened more,--kindled withdeepening tint. Something kept sparkling and spinning before hissight, like a firework ... Then a burst of blood mixed with chemicalbitterness filled his mouth; the light became scarlet as claret ...This--this was ... not malaria ...
VI.
... Carmen knew what it was; but the brave little woman was not afraidof it. Many a time before she had met it face to face, in Havanesesummers; she knew how to wrestle with it; she had torn Feliu's lifeaway from its yellow clutch, after one of those long struggles thatstrain even the strength of love. Now she feared mostly for Chita.She had ordered the girl under no circumstances to approach the cabin.
Julien felt that blankets had been heaped upon him,--that some gentlehand was bathing his scorching face with vinegar and water. Vaguelyalso there came to him the idea that it was night. He saw theshadow-shape of a woman moving against the red light upon the wall;--hesaw there was a lamp burning.
Then the delirium seized him: he moaned, sobbed, cried like achild,--talked wildly at intervals in French, in English, in Spanish.
--"Mentira!--you could not be her mother ... Still, if you were--Andshe must not come in here,--jamais! ... Carmen, did you knowAdele,--Adele Florane? So like her,--so like,--God only knows howlike! ... Perhaps I think I know;--but I do not--do not know justly,fully--how like! ... Si! si!--es el vomito!--yo lo conozco, Carmen! ...She must not die twice ... I died twice ... I am going to die again.She only once. Till the heavens be no more she will not rise ... Moi,au contraire, il faut que je me leve toujours! They need me somuch;--the slate is always full; the bell will never stop. They willring that bell for me when I am dead ... So will I riseagain!--resurgam! ... How could I save him?--could not save myself. Itwas a bad case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ...
He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a whirl ofred smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ... "N'importe, monami," said Laroussel,--"tu vas la voir bientot." Who was he to seesoon?--"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel did not answer. Throughthe red mist he seemed to smile;--then passed.
For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save herpatient,--desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of thoserapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their victims in asingle day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen many and many terribleexamples: strong young men,--soldiers fresh from Spain,--carriedpanting to the fever wards at sunrise; carried to the cemeteries atsunset. Even troopers riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingeredlonger ... Still, she had believed she might save Julien's life: theburning forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist.
But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter, thinner,cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the fever-strickenman the change meant death ... Impossible to bring the priest of theCaminada now; and there was no other within a day's sail. She couldonly pray; she had lost all hope in her own power to save.
Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer intervals,and with longer pauses between his words;--his voice was growing morefeeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought vacillated anddistorted, like flame in a wind.
Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions ofsight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,--the face ofChita Viosca, the murmur of the rising storm. Then flickers ofspectral lightning passed through his eyes, through his brain, withevery throb of the burning arteries; then utter darkness came,--adarkness that surged and moaned, as the circumfluence of a shadowedsea. And through and over the moaning pealed one multitudinous humancry, one hideous interblending of shoutings and shriekings ... Awoman's hand was locked in his own ... "Tighter," he muttered, "tighterstill, darling! hold as long as you can!" It was the tenth night ofAugust, eighteen hundred and fifty-six ...
--"Cheri!"
Again the mysterious whisper startled him to consciousness,--the dimknowledge of a room filled with ruby colored light,--and the sharp odorof vinegar. The house swung round slowly;--the crim
son flame of thelamp lengthened and broadened by turns;--then everything turned dizzilyfast,--whirled as if spinning in a vortex ... Nausea unutterable; and afrightful anguish as of teeth devouring him within,--tearing more andmore furiously at his breast. Then one atrocious wrenching, rending,burning,--and the gush of blood burst from lips and nostrils in asmothering deluge. Again the vision of lightnings, the swaying, andthe darkness of long ago. "Quick!--quick!--hold fast to the table,Adele!--never let go!" ...
... Up,--up,--up!--what! higher yet? Up to the red sky! Red--black-red... heated iron when its vermilion dies. So, too, the frightful flood!And noiseless. Noiseless because heavy, clammy,--thick, warm,sickening--blood? Well might the land quake for the weight of such atide!--Why did Adele speak Spanish? Who prayed for him? ...
--"Alma de Cristo santisima santificame!
"Sangre de
Chita: A Memory of Last Island Page 16