Chapter VII: Introduction: And Notes by Charles Francis Adams (2)

On the northeast coast of the island is a little place called Trincomali. For the convenience of this village and the scattered native settlements that lie between, a daily coaching service is maintained, and this we found we might take as far as Dambolo. The vehicle that was called a coach had a seat in front for the Cingalese driver and the mail-bags, and behind this, two lengthwise seats facing each other, which on a pinch could hold six persons, three on a side. Into this conveyance we climbed; in climbed also a shiny, round-headed Tamil, two wild-looking, magnificently dressed gentlemen from Afghanistan, and a mild and smiling Mohammedan. All the morning we rode, and at noon we changed horses and took lunch at a wayside rest-house. The Afghans left us here, and I felt more comfortable, for their mustaches curled in such a terribly fierce way, and their remarkable costumes offered such unlimited opportunity for the carrying of concealed weapons, as to warrant a certain uneasiness. We alighted at Dambolo, and the stage went on and left us. And yet Dambolo is a long way from Sigiriya--a long, long way in point of time.

The little rest-house that the Government places wherever one wishes to spend the night took us in and gave us a room, and its Mohammedan keeper advised us to use the rest of the afternoon seeing the rock temples that have made Dambolo famous. Obediently we went to visit these gorgeously decorated caverns, but, I am sorry to confess, they gave me no pleasure. They are wonderful, or would be if one were given an opportunity to look at them in peace and quiet; but one cannot wonder or admire or enjoy, or do anything but fume, with dozens of sleek yellow priests hanging about and holding out hands for Money! money!” at the opening of every door and at the entrance and exit of every cavern. This is a nuisance that the Government most certainly should correct, for it spoils the enjoyment of many of the island’s remarkable ruins.

We came down from the caves rather discouraged, but were somewhat cheered when we looked upon the decorations of the table that had been set for our dinner. An elaborate design was traced on the table-cloth by a sprinkling of rice that had been dyed a bright pink. The very holes in the cloth, and these were numerous, were turned into part of the decoration; for they were made the centers of flowers or the eyes of a bird, and one triangular rent formed the roof of a little cottage. The keeper of the rest-house, who seemed to be cook, waiter, and chambermaid, told us as he served the rice and chicken that he had engaged a bullock-cart to take us the rest of the way. It was late the next morning before the bullock, the cart, and the driver appeared at our door. A bullock about the size of a three-months’-old calf, an equally tiny cart, with an arched cover woven of split bamboo, and of course without a suggestion of springs, and a Tamil driver, his head tied up in the brightest of handkerchiefs, and with the ubiquitous sarong (only it is not called a sarong in Ceylon) dangling about his heels, made up our equipment for the last stage of the journey.

The fabled tortoise was an animal of speed compared with that bullock. Had we made an earlier start, I am sure we could have walked the whole way; but the terrible sun made walking impossible, and we were forced to keep huddled down under the cart’s protecting thatch. We could count the seconds while the little animal seemed to stand poised after each step. Even twisting his tail did little good, and beating none at all. Along each side of the road the jungle formed a solid wall too dense for beauty. Occasionally a bright-plumed bird peeped out through the trees, and once a small panther-like animal showed himself at the roadside, and our bullock actually ran until he was well away from the danger.

We were hot and dusty and tired when at last we came in sight of Sigiriya, but in the presence of the strange impressiveness of this enormous rock, heat, dust, and weariness passed from our thoughts like a dream. It rose, this great shaft of granite, high above the trees, like some enormous mushroom sprung suddenly from the dank flatness of the jungle. Against the dusty green of the surrounding forest and the burned-out blue of the pale, hot sky its simple and majestic outline showed clean and sharp. But past all understanding was the brilliance of coloring that marked its walls. In the glare of the declining sun it looked as though a mighty battle had been fought upon the level crown, and the blood of thousands of warriors had spilled and trickled over the edge and down the cliff, and so set an indelible mark of fierceness and anger on the face of this somber jungle monster.

At first we could see no evidence of past human occupation; but by and by, as we drew nearer, we were able to detect a little spiral line, broken here and there, that seemed to be wound about the face of the cliff. What concerned us more at the time, however, was that we could see no signs of present human habitation, and we were in sore need, after the jolt, jolt, jolt of our wretched little cart, of food and a place where we might sleep. Our Tamil driver, while he belabored his bullock to make him hurry, had been telling us of the elephants and tigers that lived out here in the jungle, and we could easily see for ourselves that the woods were thick enough to shelter a whole menagerie of animals; so it was with the greatest relief that we presently saw a little rest-house in front of us, and leaving the small bullock and his black driver to come as they pleased, we took to our own feet and hurried on to the protecting inclosure. After a long rest and a long good supper, we took our “Mihavansa,” and, there under the brow of the great “Lions’ Rock,” read again the strange, fragmentary history of Kassapa and his crime.

“ ... And he (Dhatusena) had two sons,--Kassapa, whose mother was
unequal in rank to his father, and Moggallana, a mighty man, whose
mother was of equal rank with his father. Likewise also he had a
beautiful daughter, who was as dear unto him as his own life. And
he gave her to wife unto his sister’s son, to whom also he gave
the office of chief of the army. And he (the nephew) scourged her
on the thighs, albeit there was no fault in her. And when the king
saw that his daughter’s cloth was stained with blood, he learned
the truth and was wroth, and caused his nephew’s mother to be
burnt naked. From that time forth the nephew bare malice against
the king; and he joined himself unto Kassapa, and tempted him to
seize the kingdom and betray his father. And then he gained over
the people, and caused the king his father to be taken alive. And
Kassapa raised the canopy of dominion after that he had destroyed
the men of the king’s party and received the support of the wicked
men in the kingdom. Thereupon Moggallana endeavored to make war
against him. But he could not obtain a sufficient force, and
proceeded to the Continent of India with the intent to raise an
army there.

“And that he might the more vex the king, who was now sorely
afflicted ... this wicked general spake to Kassapa the king,
saying, ‘O king, the treasures of the royal house are hidden by
thy father.’ And when the king said unto him, ‘Nay,’ he answered,
saying, ‘Knowest thou not, O Lord of the land, the purpose of this
thy father? He treasureth up the riches for Moggallana.’ And when
the base man heard these words he was wroth, and sent messengers
unto his father, saying, ‘Reveal the place where thou hast hid the
treasure.’ Thereupon the king thought to himself, saying: ‘This
is a device whereby the wretch seeketh to destroy us’; and he
remained silent. And they (the messengers) went and informed the
king thereof. And his anger was yet more greatly increased, and he
sent the messengers back unto him again and again. Then the king
(Dhatusena) thought to himself, saying, ‘It is well that I should
die after that I have seen my friend and washed myself in the
Kalavapi.’ So he told the messengers saying, ‘Now, if he will cause
me to be taken to Kalavapi, then shall I be able to find out the
treasure.’

“And when they went and told the king thereof he was exceedingly
glad, because that he desired greatly to obtain the treasure, and
he sent the messengers back to his father with a chariot. And while
the king, with his eyes sunk in grief, proceeded on the journey to
Kalavapi, the charioteer who drove the chariot gave him some of the
roasted rice that he ate....

“And when his friend, the Elder, heard that the king was coming,
he preserved and set apart a rich meal of beans with the flesh of
water-fowls that he had obtained, saying, ‘The king loveth this
sort of meat.’ ...

“Then the king went up to the tank, and after that he had plunged
therein and bathed and drank of its water as it pleased him, he
turned to the king’s servants and said, ‘O friends, this is all
the treasure that I possess!’ And when the king’s servants heard
these words they took him back to the city and informed the king.
Then the chief of men was exceeding wroth and said, ‘This man
hoardeth up riches for his son; and so long as he liveth will
he estrange the people of the island from me.’ And he commanded
the chief of the army, saying, ‘Kill my father.’ Thereupon he
(the general), who hated him exceedingly, was greatly delighted
and said, ‘Now have I seen the last of my enemy.’ And he arrayed
himself in all his apparel, and went up to the king, and walked
to and fro before him.... Then this violent man stripped the king
naked, and bound him with chains inside the walls of his prison
with his face to the east and caused it to be plastered up with
clay. What wise man, therefore, after that he hath seen such
things, will covet riches, or life, or glory!”

Kassapa was most certainly a wicked man,--the reading of “The Mihavansa” leaves no doubt of that,--but when we came next day to look over the remains of his city and to study this formidable rock that he had subjugated and turned into a citadel, we knew that he was also a man of genius. When he found that he was in danger from his brother Moggallana, whom he had attempted in vain to kill, he led his host of half-naked warriors out from the ancient capital of Anuradhpura into the jungle, seeking for a refuge. Whether design or accident led him to Sigiriya we do not know, but we do know that once having looked upon its four hundred feet of towering walls and upon its uplifted acres, he had the wisdom to see its possibilities and the genius to overcome the difficulties, to an ordinary man the impossibilities, of the situation. I dare say the abundance of his need helped his genius to speak; but no matter what his incentive, when he conceived the notion of building against this gigantic, cylindrical rock a spiral gallery which would place at his disposal the four flat acres that crowned the summit, he laid claim to the respect and admiration of ages.

The sides of the rock, which we had at first supposed to be perpendicular, are really concave, and perhaps it would be more exact to speak of this gallery as being built into, rather than against, the mighty column. With such surpassing genius is it placed that it literally makes itself one with the rock it embraces. To gain some sort of foothold for the masonry, deep grooves were cut in the face of the cliff, and from these a wall of brick and mortar was erected, and this in turn supported the great limestone blocks which form the surface of the road. This roadway was wide enough for four men to walk abreast, and was protected by a wall nine feet high.

It is hard to emphasize sufficiently the wild boldness of the conception and achievement. From base to summit the splendid gallery mounted. Breaking the gentle slope here and there to lift itself suddenly by a short flight of stairs, buttressed at one too abrupt corner, snuggling at places under the brow of the rock, and at the one terrace that breaks the height on the north side, it rose in direct steps between the paws and up through the body of a great masonry lion that Kassapa had built against the cliff. Finally it sought out the only place where the top does not overhang the sides for its last hurried dash before flinging itself triumphantly over the edge of the summit.

The walls of this gallery were finished with some smooth, shining white cement. It must have looked, when it was all in place, like a huge, gleaming serpent wound about the face of the rock. Of course at the present day much of it, indeed most of it, has fallen away; but the fact that, despite the washing rains that for many years have come pouring over the sides of the rock, one hundred yards of it remains in almost perfect condition is proof of its splendid construction. For the rest of the way the gallery can be traced by the deep grooves that supported its base.

When, with the help of these grooves and the protecting bars that the Government has kindly placed to give the adventurous traveler at least a chance to reach the summit in safety, we had climbed to the very top, we understood at last the unnatural markings on the face of the cliff that had before puzzled us. Kassapa built his citadel of bright-red brick. The whole crown of the rock was covered with his palaces, and after they had fallen and crumbled, the heavy rains smeared the walls with great streaks and patches of this brilliant stain.

The right-hand side of the map is the north side, the top is the west.]

The ground that lies at the base of the rock is not less interesting than that upon its summit. Over the wooded sides of the little hill that culminates in the great shaft, and spreading out into the jungle about its foot, are the remains of the city that Kassapa built for his army and followers. A strange city it must have been. The main houses were of brick with tiled roofs, but these more formal dwellings were supplemented by semi-caves tucked under the sides of every available boulder. All the large stones show notches, cut evidently to hold the ends of rafters and roof-beams. Up many of the highest boulders steps have been hewn, possibly to make them accessible as watch-towers, and at almost every turn one comes upon the indispensable cistern that made living through the long dry season possible. Some of these reservoirs were hewn out of solid stone, but most were built of brick and cement, and the one little stream in the neighborhood was dammed to form a large pond, which even now lies like a lake at the foot of the little hill. So there was an outer city interspersed with gardens, an inner city set on innumerable terraces up the slope of the hill, and surmounting all, lifted four hundred feet above the crest of the hill on its gigantic pedestal, stood the king’s palace and citadel. And about all the city Kassapa built great protecting walls. So three times over Kassapa fortified himself.

We tried to trace the main passageway from the outer fortification to the foot of the gallery, but we had only our imagination for a guide. When we came to the huge balloon-like boulders that form a gateway to a flight of steps, we felt sure that we had found the main entrance to the inner city. The face of these boulders showed the usual cuts for the support of rafters, and we could trace about them in masses of decaying brick the outer walls of what might have been watchmen’s lodges. Up these steps and a few feet farther on lies the stone that is called the audience-hall rock. This is the half of a great elliptical rock laid round side down. Its upper surface has been cut to form a floor, with an elevated platform at the upper end, and about its edges a heavy coping, all cut from the rock itself. Here presumably the lord of the city sat to receive ambassadors and visitors from the outside world, as no one not a follower of Kassapa was admitted to the central citadel.

But strangest of all the Sigiriya ruins, as unique in thought and masterly in execution as the great spiral gallery itself, are the remains of a pictured procession that some believe once marched across the whole face of the cliff. The fragments of this great picture show female figures, larger than life, carrying in their hands bunches of fruit and flowers. They are painted on smooth, white plaster in colors that apparently have lost none of their brilliancy, and are so strongly drawn in face and figure that by some they are held to be portraits of the women of Kassapa’s court. Though this fresco may have encircled the rock, it remains now only in the protected crevices of its western face.

For eighteen years Kassapa lived and reigned at Sigiriya. He was as secure in his fortress as though he lived in the clouds. His army remained faithful. His colony was thriving, and yet in the end he fell into the hands of that dreaded Moggallana. One day word was brought to him that his brother had returned from India, and with an army was advancing against him. Instead of remaining within his fortifications and challenging his brother to penetrate to his citadel, he went down from his rock to meet his enemy.

Even then he might have been victorious had not blind chance interfered. In the course of the battle, Kassapa, riding in advance of his army, came to a marsh, and turned his elephant to avoid it. When his followers saw this, the cry went up that the king was retreating, and the whole army broke in confusion, and fled through the woods. Kassapa tried in vain to check the panic, and finally cut his own throat. And “Moggallana was pleased with this deed of boldness of his brother, and performed the rite of cremation over his dead body; and having gathered all his spoils, went up to the royal city.”

So Sigiriya fell from being a kingly citadel, and was given over to the priesthood. Why it was finally abandoned by the priests we do not know, but for centuries now it has stood in majestic loneliness watching over the jungle.

AT THE CLOSED GATE OF JUSTICE

BY JAMES D. CORROTHERS

To be a Negro in a day like this
Demands forgiveness. Bruised with blow on blow,
Betrayed, like him whose woe-dimmed eyes gave bliss,
Still must one succor those who brought one low,
To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this
Demands rare patience--patience that can wait
In utter darkness. ’Tis the path to miss,
And knock, unheeded, at an iron gate,
To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this
Demands strange loyalty. We serve a flag
Which is to us white freedom’s emphasis.
Ah! one must love when truth and justice lag,
To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this--
Alas! Lord God, what evil have we done?
Still shines the gate, all gold and amethyst,
But I pass by, the glorious goal unwon,
“Merely a Negro”--in a day like _this_!

BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION[22]

BY GEORGE W. CABLE

Author of “Old Creole Days,” “The Grandissimes,” “Madame Delphine,” etc.

WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AND NEW PICTURES BY W. M. BERGER

(NOTEWORTHY STORIES OF THE LAST GENERATION)

The original grantee was Count----

Assume the name to be De Charleu; the old Creoles never forgive a public mention. He was the French king’s commissary. One day, called to France to explain the lucky accident of the commissariat having burned down with his account-books inside, he left his wife, a Choctaw comtesse, behind.

Arrived at court, his excuses were accepted, and that tract was granted him where afterward stood Belles Demoiselles Plantation. A man cannot remember everything. In a fit of forgetfulness he married a French gentlewoman, rich and beautiful, and “brought her out.” However, “All’s well that ends well”; a famine had been in the colony, and the Choctaw comtesse had starved, leaving naught but a half-caste orphan family lurking on the edge of the settlement, bearing our French gentlewoman’s own new name, and being mentioned in monsieur’s will.

And the new comtesse--she tarried only a twelvemonth--left monsieur a lovely son, and departed, led out of this vain world by the swamp-fever.

From this son sprang the proud Creole family of De Charleu. It rose straight up, up, up, generation after generation, tall, branchless, slender, palm-like, and finally, in the time of which I am to tell, flowered, with all the rare beauty of a century-plant, in Artémise, Innocente, Félicité, the twins Marie and Martha, Léontine, and little Septima, the seven beautiful daughters for whom their home had been fitly named Belles Demoiselles.

The count’s grant had once been a long point round which the Mississippi used so to whirl and seethe and foam that it was horrid to behold. Big whirlpools would open and wheel about in the savage eddies under the low bank, and close up again, and others open and spin and disappear. Great circles of muddy surface would boil up from the depths below and gloss over and seem to float away; sink, come back again under water, and with only a soft hiss surge up again, and again drift off and vanish. Every few minutes the loamy bank would tip down a great load of earth upon its besieger, and fall back a foot, sometimes a yard, and the writhing river would press after, until at last the _pointe_ was quite swallowed up, and the great river glided by in a majestic curve and asked no more. The bank stood fast, the “caving” became a forgotten misfortune, and the diminished grant was a long, sweeping, willowy bend, rustling with miles of sugar-cane.

Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing-craft of those early days, about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old St. Louis Cathedral, one would be pretty sure to spy just over to the right, under the levee, Belles Demoiselles mansion, with its broad veranda and red-painted cypress roof, peering over the embankment, like a bird in the nest, half hidden by the avenue of willows which one of the departed De Charleus--he that married a Marot--had planted on the levee’s crown.

The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standing foursquare, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child. From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass, near at hand, the shady garden, full of rare and beautiful flowers; farther away broad fields of cane and rice and the distant quarters of the slaves; and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.

The master was old Colonel De Charleu--Jean-Albert-Henri-Joseph De Charleu-Marot, and “Colonel” by the grace of the first American governor. Monsieur--he would not speak to any one who called him “Colonel”--was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm; his form erect; his intellect strong and clear; his countenance classic, serene, dignified, commanding; his manners were courtly; his voice was musical, fascinating. He had had his vices all his life, but had borne them, as his race does, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouth that left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He had gambled in Royal Street, drank hard in Orleans Street, run his adversary through in the dueling-ground at Slaughter-House Point, and danced and quarreled at the St. Phillippe-Street Theater quadroon balls. Even now, with all his courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to be entertaining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down in his hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and his motherless children. But these! Their ravishing beauty was all but excuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father. Against these seven goddesses he never rebelled. Had they even required him to defraud old De Carlos--I can hardly say.

Old De Carlos was his extremely distant relative on the Choctaw side. With this single exception, the narrow, thread-like line of descent from the Indian wife, diminished to a mere strand by injudicious alliances, and deaths in the gutters of old New Orleans, was extinct. The name, by Spanish contact, had become De Carlos, but this one surviving bearer of it was known to all, and known only, as Injin Charlie.

One thing I never knew a Creole to do: he will not utterly go back on the ties of blood, no matter what sort of knots those ties may he. For one reason, he is never ashamed of his or his father’s sins; and for another, he will tell you, he is “all heart.”

So the different heirs of the De Charleu estate had always strictly regarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially their ownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos through a long and lazy lifetime, and as his household consisted only of himself and an aged and crippled Negress, the inference was irresistible that he “had money.” Old Charlie, though by alias an “Injin,” was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by repute at least, unmerciful.

The colonel and he always conversed in English. This rare accomplishment, which the former had learned from his Scotch wife, the latter from up-river traders, they found an admirable medium of communication, answering better than French could a purpose similar to that of the stick which we fasten to the bit of one horse and to the breast-gear of another, whereby each keeps his distance. Once in a while, too, by way of jest, English found its way among the ladies of Belles Demoiselles, always signifying that their sire was about to have business with old Charlie.

Now, a long-standing wish to buy out Charlie troubled the colonel. He had no desire to oust him unfairly, he was proud of being always fair; yet he did long to engross the whole estate under one title. Out of his luxurious idleness he had conceived this desire, and thought little of so slight an obstacle as being already somewhat in debt to old Charlie for money borrowed, and for which Belles Demoiselles was of course good ten times over. Lots, buildings, rents, all, might as well be his, he thought, to give, keep, or destroy. Had he but the old man’s heritage! Ah, he might bring that into existence which his _belles demoiselles_ had been begging for “since many years--” a home, and such a home, in the gay city! Here he should tear down this row of cottages and make his garden wall; there that long rope-walk should give place to vine-covered arbors; the bakery yonder should make way for a costly conservatory; that wine warehouse should come down; and the mansion go up. It should be the finest in the State. Men should never pass it but they should say: “The palace of the De Charleus, a family of grand descent, a people of elegance and bounty, a line as old as France, a fine old man, and seven daughters as beautiful as happy. Whoever dare attempt to marry there must leave his own name behind him.”

The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from the land of “_les_ Yankees” and it should have an airy belvedere, with a gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a porter’s lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground.

Truly they were a family fine enough and fancy-free enough to have fine wishes, yet happy enough where they were to have had no wish but to live there always.

To those who by whatever fortune wandered into the garden of Belles Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening toward evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered out upon the tiled pavement at the foot of the broad front steps, gaily chatting and jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes pleasingly from a bevy of girls. The father would be found seated among them, the center of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by his beautiful children’s unanimous appointment, but the single vassal, too, of seven absolute sovereigns.

Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion of some new step in the dance or the adjustment of some rich adornment. Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldest fix a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. Now the twins would move down a walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return with the high-pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.

As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternal center. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves on the lower steps one above another, and surrendered themselves to the tender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passer on the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofed mansion and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, would hear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the soft harmonies of an evening song, swelling clearer and clearer as the thrill of music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper tones of the father’s voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away, all would be still, and the passer would know that the beautiful home had gathered its nestlings under its wings.

And yet, for mere vagary, it pleased them not to be pleased.

“Arti,” called one sister to another in the broad hall one morning, mock amazement in her distended eyes, “something is goin’ to took place!”

“Comm-e-n-t?” in long-drawn perplexity.

“Papa is goin’ to town!”

The news passed up-stairs.

“Inno,”--one to another meeting in a doorway,--“something is goin’ to took place!”

“Qu’est-ce-que c’est?” in vain attempt at gruffness.

“Papa is goin’ to town!”

The unusual tidings were true. It was afternoon of the same day that the colonel tossed his horse’s bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a china-tree, his head, as was his fashion, bound in a madras handkerchief. The “old man” was plainly under the effect of spirits, and smiled a deferential salutation, without trusting himself to his feet.

“Eh, well, Charlie,”--the colonel raised his voice to suit his kinsman’s deafness,--“how is those times with my friend Charlie?”

“Eh?” said Charlie, distractedly.

“Is that goin’ well with my friend Charlie?”

“In the house; call her,” making pretense of rising.

“_Non, non_; I don’t want,”--the speaker paused to breathe,--“’Ow is collection?”

“Oh,” said Charlie, “every day he make me more poorer.”

“What do you hask for it?” asked the planter, indifferently, designating the house with a wave of his whip.

“Ask for w’at?” said Injin Charlie.

“De _house_. What you ask for it?”

“I don’t believe,” said Charlie.

“What you would _take_ for it?” cried the planter.

“Wait for w’at?”

“What you would _take_ for the whole block?”

“I don’t want to sell him.”

“I’ll give you _ten thousand dollah’_ for it.”

“Ten t’ousand dollah’ for dis house? Oh, no, that is no price. He is blame’ good old house, that old house.” Old Charlie and the colonel never swore in presence of each other. “Forty years that old house didn’t had to be paint’! I easy can get fifty t’ousand dollah’ for that old house.”

“Fifty thousand picayunes, yes,” said the colonel.

“She’s a good house. Can make plenty money,” pursued the deaf man.

“That’s what make’ you so rich, eh, Charlie?”

“_Non_, I don’t make nothing. Too blame’ clever, me, dat’s de troub’. She’s a good house; make money fast like a steamboat; make a barrelful in a week. Me, I lose money all the days. Too blame’ clever.”

“Charlie.”

“Eh?”

“Tell me what you’ll take.”

“Make? I don’t make _nothing_. Too blame’ clever.”

“What will you _take_?”

“Oh, I got enough already; half drunk now.”

“What you will take for the ’ouse?”

“You want to buy her?”

“I don’t know,”--shrug,--“may_be_, if you sell it cheap.”

“She’s a bully old house.”

There was a long silence. By and by old Charlie began:

“Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog.”

“C’est vrai, oui,” retorted the colonel in an undertone.

“He’s got Injin blood in him.”

The colonel nodded assent.

“But he’s got some blame’ good blood, too, ain’t it?”

The colonel nodded impatiently.

“_Bien._ Old Charlie’s Injin blood says, ‘Sell the house, Charlie, you blame’ old fool!’ _Mais_, old Charlie’s good blood says, ‘Charlie, if you sell that old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what de Comte De Charleu make for you’ grace-gran’muzzer, de dev’ can eat you, Charlie, I don’t care.’”

“But you’ll sell it, anyhow, won’t you, old man?”

“No!” And the no rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on the gulf. The incensed old colonel wheeled and started off.

“Curl!” [“Colonel”] said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.

The planter turned with an inquiring frown.

“I’ll trade with you,” said Charlie. The colonel was tempted. “’Ow’ll you trade?” he asked.

“My house for yours.”

The old colonel turned pale with anger. He walked very quickly back, and came close up to his kinsman.

“Charlie,” he said.

“Injin Charlie,” with a tipsy nod.

But by this time self-control was returning. “Sell Belles Demoiselles to you?” he said in a high key, and then laughed, “Ho! ho! ho!” and rode away.

* * * * *

A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of Belles Demoiselles Plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence had always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his overseer fretfully.

No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to it his failure to negotiate for the old Charlie buildings, so to call them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew, it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper was a burden. Ennui was turned into capital, every headache was interpreted a premonition of ague, and when the native exuberance of a flock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in the father’s face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their little hands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehemence vowed and vowed again that they laughed only at their misery, and should pine to death unless they could move to the sweet city. “Oh, the theater! Oh, Orleans Street! Oh, the masquerade, the Place d’Armes, the ball!” and they would call upon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into one another’s arms, whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision and fall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slippery floor, which some day would be the death of the whole seven.

GEORGE W. CABLE

Author of “Belles Demoiselles Plantation.”

FROM AN EARLY PORTRAIT BY ABBOTT H. THAYER]

Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, by accident--business accident--to see old Charlie and increase his offer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.

“Eh?” said the deaf and distant relative. “For what you want him, eh? Why you don’t stay where you halways be ’appy? This is a blame’ old rat-hole; good for old Injin Charlie, tha’s all. Why you don’t stay where you be halways ’appy? Why you don’t buy somewhere else?”

“That’s none of your business,” snapped the planter. Truth was, his reasons were unsatisfactory even to himself.

A sullen silence followed. Then Charlie spoke:

“Well, now, look here; I sell you old Charlie’s house.”

“_Bien_, and the whole block,” said the colonel.

“Hold on,” said Charlie. “I sell you de ’ouse and de block. Den I go and git drunk and go to sleep; de dev’ comes along and says: ‘Charlie, old Charlie, you blame’ low-down old dog, wake up! What you doin’ here? Where’s de ’ouse what Monsieur le Comte give your grace-gran’muzzer? Don’t you see dat fine gentyman De Charleu done gone and tore him down and make him over new, you blame’ old fool, Charlie, you low-down old Injin dog!’”

“I’ll give you forty thousand dollars,” said the colonel.

“For de ’ouse?”

“For all.”

The deaf man shook his head.

“Forty-five,” said the colonel.

“What a lie? For what you tell me ‘What a lie?’ I don’t tell you no lie.”

“_Non, non_; I give you _forty-five_,” shouted the colonel.

Charlie shook his head again.

“Fifty.”

He shook it again.

The figures rose and rose to “Seventy-five.”

The answer was an invitation to go away and let the owner alone, as he was, in certain specified respects, the vilest of living creatures, and no company for a fine “gentyman.”

The fine “gentyman” longed to blaspheme; but before old Charlie, in the name of pride, how could he? He mounted and started away.

“Tell you what I’ll make wid you,” said Charlie.

The other, guessing aright, turned back without dismounting, smiling.

“How much Belles Demoiselles howes me now?” asked the deaf one.

“One hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” said the colonel, firmly.

“Yass,” said Charlie. “I don’t want Belles Demoiselles.”

The old colonel’s quiet laugh intimated it made no difference either way.

“But me,” continued Charlie--“me, I’m got le Comte De Charleu’s blood in me, any’ow--a litt’ bit, any’ow, ain’t it?”

The colonel nodded that it was.

“_Bien._ If I go out of dis place and don’t go to Belles Demoiselles, de peoples will say--dey-will say: ‘Old Charlie he been all doze time tell a blame’ _lie_. He ain’t no kin to his old grace-gran’muzzer, not a blame’ bit. He don’t got nary drop of De Charleu blood to save his blame’ low-down old Injin soul.’ No, sare! What I want wid money, den? No, sare! My place for yours.”

He turned to go into the house just too soon to see the colonel make an ugly whisk at him with his riding-whip. Then the colonel, too, moved off.

Two or three times over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through his annoyance as he recalled old Charlie’s family pride and the presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better of not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It was so much better than he could have expected from his “low-down” relative, and not unlike his own whim withal, the proposition which went with it was forgiven.

This last defeat bore so harshly on the master of Belles Demoiselles that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. They loved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretended dejection harassing him seriously, they restrained their complaints, displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy by the shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easily have followed only that the very same ancestral nonsense that kept Injin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value prevented him from choosing any other spot for a city home.

“‘I’LL GIVE YOU TEN THOUSAND DOLLAH’ FOR IT’”]

Heaven sometimes pities such rich men and sends them trouble.

By and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around prevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the year flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.

New-Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose; the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich sunlight of family affection; and on the common memory the only scar of last year’s wound was old Charlie’s sheer impertinence in crossing the caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the filling of the river.

How high it was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift, and how near shore it came! Men were out day and night watching the levee. Even the old colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with occupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm over the levee’s top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast, and, as the summer drifted in, the water sank down into its banks and looked quite incapable of harm.

“A SOUND REVEL FELL ON THE EAR, THE MUSIC OF HARPS: AND ACROSS ONE WINDOW ... FLITTED ONCE OR TWICE THE SHADOWS OF DANCERS”]

On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean-Albert-Henri-Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for reverie, slipped the custody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, where it was his wont to promenade. Presently he sat upon a stone bench, a favorite seat. Before him lay his broad-spread fields; near by, his lordly mansion; and being still, perhaps by female contact, somewhat sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease had mortgaged his lands: and yet his house still stood, his sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough, and yonder and yonder, among the trees and flowers, like angels walking in Eden, were the seven goddesses of his only worship.

Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast his eyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank between the levee’s base and the river. There was nothing visible. He paused, with his ear toward the water, his face full of frightened expectation. Ha! There came a single plashing sound, like some great beast slipping into the river, and little waves in a wide semicircle came out from under the bank and spread over the water.

“My God!”

He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edge of the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He did not stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yards away, wringing his hands, moaning, weeping, and staring through his watery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the matted grass, and curving outward on each hand toward the river.

“My God!” he sobbed aloud--“My God!” and even while he called, his God answered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the crevice slowly became a gap, and softly, gradually, with no sound but the closing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into the boiling eddy and disappeared.

At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the garden behind the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses of Belles Demoiselles.

The old colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcing himself to a more composed movement, he hastened into the house and ordered his horse.

“Tell my children to make merry while I am gone,” he left word. “I shall be back to-night,” and the big horse’s hoofs clattered down a by-road leading to the city.

“Charlie,” said the planter, riding up to a window from which the old man’s nightcap was thrust out, “what you say, Charlie--my house for yours? Eh, Charlie, what you say?”

“’Ello!” said Charlie. “From where you come from dis time of to-night?”

“I come from the Exchange.” A small fraction of the truth.

“What you want?” said matter-of-fact Charlie.

“I come to trade.”

The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. “Oh, yass,” he said with an uncertain air.

“Well, old man Charlie, what you say? My house for yours, like you said, eh, Charlie?”

“I dunno,” said Charlie; “it’s nearly mine now. Why you don’t stay dare you’se’f?”

“Because I don’t want,” said the colonel, savagely. “Is dat reason enough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tell you, yes!”

Charlie never winced; but how his answer delighted the colonel! Said Charlie:

“I don’t care, I take him. _Mais_, possession give’ right off.”

“Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only--”

“I don’t care,” said Charlie; “we easy can fix dat. _Mais_, what for you don’t want to keep him. I don’t want him. You better keep him.”

“Don’ you try to make no fool of me, old man,” cried the planter.

“Oh, no,” said the other. “Oh, no; but you make a fool of yourself, ain’t it?” The dumfounded colonel stared; Charlie went on:

“Yass, Belles Demoiselles is more wort’ dan t’ree block like dis one. I pass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pretty Belles Demoiselles! De cane was wave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was jump up and down on de river, seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin’ on horses. ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty!’ says old Charlie. Ah, _Monsieur le père_, ’ow ’appy, ’appy, ’appy!”

“Yass,” he continued, the colonel still staring, “le Comte De Charleu have two famil’. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high-up _noblesse_. He give the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give Belles Demoiselles to your gran’fozzer; and now you don’t be _satisfait_. What I’ll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She’ll break me in two years, yass. And what you’ll do wid old Charlie’s house, eh? You’ll tear her down and make you’se’f a blame’ old fool. I rather wouldn’t trade.”

The planter caught a big breath of anger, but Charlie went straight on:

“I rather wouldn’t, _mais_, I will do it for you--just de same, like _Monsieur le Comte_ would say, ‘Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange houses wid you.’”

So long as the colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel conscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but his lately discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange, undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched his heart. And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had dug? He hesitated. No, he would show him the place by broad daylight, and if he chose to overlook the “caving bank,” it would be his own fault. A trade’s a trade.

“Come,” said the planter--“come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade.”

“For what?” said Charlie.

“Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning.”

“I don’t want,” said Charlie. “How I’m goin’ to come dere?”

“I git you a horse at the liberty-stable.”

“Well, anyhow, I don’t care; I’ll go.” And they went.

When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened by hedges of Cherokee rose, the colonel called behind him to the “low-down” scion:

“Keep the road, old man.”

“Eh?”

“Keep the road.”

“Oh, yes, all right; I keep my word. We don’t goin’ to play no tricks, eh?”

But the colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie’s unprovoked goodness was prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the caving of the bank at its present fearful speed would let the house into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it so than sell his birthright? Again, coming back to the first thought, to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but had not the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously he groaned.

After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear, and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of luxury and gaiety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart, groaned again.

“What?” asked Charlie.

The colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically, contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows were thrown wide to the summer air, from every opening the bright light of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lantern swayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear, the music of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted once or twice the shadows of dancers. But, oh, the shadows flitting across the heart of the fair mansion’s master!

“Old Charlie,” said he, gazing fondly at his house, “you and me is both old, eh?”

“Yass,” said the stolid Charlie.

“And we has both been had enough in our time, eh, Charlie?”

Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated, “Yass.”

“And you and me is mighty close?”

“Blame’ close, yass.”

“But you never know me to cheat, old man?”

“No,” impassively.

THE OLD COLONEL AND HIS NURSE]

“And do you think I would cheat you now?”

“I dunno,” said Charlie. “I don’t believe.”

“Well, old man, old man,”--his voice began to quiver,--“I sha’n’t cheat you now. My God! old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!”

“Because for what?” asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked quickly toward the house. The colonel tossed his hands wildly in the air, rushed forward a step or two, and, giving one fearful scream of agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor and glow of pleasure, suddenly sank, with one short, wild wail of terror--sank, sank, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable flood of the Mississippi.

* * * * *

Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father. When they were only half gone, he took to his bed; and every day and every night old Charlie, the “low-down,” the “fool,” watched him tenderly, tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his broken heart. No woman’s step crossed the floor of the sick chamber, the western dormer-windows of which overpeered the dingy architecture of old Charlie’s block. Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest, the other all gentleness, hope, and patience, only these entered by the door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine, transplanted from the caving hank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the rays of sunset in its flowery net and let them softly in upon the sick man’s bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.