 | CHAPTER II. Lafitte |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
“The dissimulation and cunning of those practising Obeah, is incredible.
The Africans have an opinion that insanity and supernatural
inspiration are combined, and commonly, knaves and lunatics are the
persons who play the parts of sorcerors or sorceresses. Instances are
on record where they have fallen victims to the revenge of votaries,
when their Obeah failed in its effects, or did injury.”
The West Indies.
THE SLAVE AND HIS CAPTIVE—HIS REVENGE—PURSUIT OF THE
STRANGE SAIL.
After the count left the frigate on his expedition
against the rendezvous of the pirates, the fair girl,
whose star of happiness seemed now in the ascendant,
and about to shine propitiously upon her future
life, re-assumed her reclining attitude by the
cabin window, which overlooked the sea in the
direction of her native land. For a few moments,
her thoughts were engaged upon her approaching
bridal; but gradually, they assumed the garb of
memory, and winging, like a wearied bird, over the
evening sea, reposed in the home of her childhood.
As she still gazed vacantly upon the fading horizon,
she was conscious that a dark object broke its
even line. It grew larger, and approached the frigate
rapidly before she was called from her half-conscious
abstraction by a change in its appearance;
when, fixing her look more keenly in the direction,
she saw it was a schooner just rounding to about a
mile beyond the frigate. Apparently, it had not as
yet, been observed from the deck, as all eyes were
just gained the foot of the cliff.
At the sight of the vessel, so nearly resembling
the one whose prisoner she had been, her capture
and its trying scenes came vividly before her mind,
and she turned her face from an object, connected
with such disagreeable associations. The approaching
ceremony again agitated her bosom; and as her
eye rested upon a mirror in the opposite pannel, she
parted with care her dark hair from her forehead,
arranged in more graceful folds her mantilla, and all
the woman beamed in her fine eyes as they met
the reflection of her lovely countenance and symmetrically
moulded figure.
“How long he stays!—he must have been gone
full an hour,” she said, unconsciously aloud. “The
virgin protect him from harm?”
“The count will soon return, ma'moiselle,” said a
small mulatto boy, who acted as steward of the
state rooms, now that they were occupied by their
fair inmate. She turned as he spoke,
“Is there danger, boy?”
“None, please you ma'moiselle—the men on
deck, say the rovers have left their rock, and that
there will be no fighting.”
“Sacra diable!” he suddenly shrieked, pointing
to the state-room window, at which appeared the
head of the slave. Constanza also turned, but only
to be grasped in his frightful arms. At first surprised,
and too much paralized with fear to scream,
Cudjoe prevented her from giving the alarm by
winding her mantilla about her mouth, and hastily
conveyed her through the window or port hole, from
which the gun, usually stationed there, had been
removed. Rapidly letting himself, with his burden,
down by the projections of the rudder, he dropped
with her into the sea, and raising her head
above water with one muscular arm, a few vigorous
shadow of the rocks behind a projecting point of
which, he disappeared.
Re-entering the hut after the abrupt departure of
the slave, Oula released the Spaniard from his place
of concealment, and informed him of her plan to
place the lady in his power.
“You are a very devil for happy thoughts,” he
said, with animation; but if the revengeful slave
gets her, I may thank you, and not Fetish, for the
prize. Have her this night I must, for I expect my
schooner.”
“Ha! there is the Julié now, by the holy
twelve!” he exclaimed, as his quick eye rested upon
the object which had attracted the attention of Constanza.
“Getzendanner will be putting a boat in for
me, and yet he must see the frigate unless she lays
too dark in the cliff's shadow. St. Peter, send fortune
with the slave! Will he bring her to the hut
if he succeeds, think you, Oula?” he suddenly and
sharply inquired, as a suspicion of change in the
negro's purpose flashed across his mind.
“Bring de lady?” she exclaimed in surprize,
“he know he finger rot off—he eye fall out—and
he hair turn to de live snake wid de fang, if he no
bring her—He no dare keep her way.”
Solaced by this assurance, he paced the little
green plat before the cabin, often casting his eyes
in the direction of the frigate. Nearly half an hour
elapsed after the departure of Cudjoe, when the
robes of the maiden borne in the arms of the slave
caught his eye.
“Back, back, you spoil de whole,” exclaimed
Oula, as the impatient Spaniard darted forward to
seize his prize.
Instead of the maiden's lovely form, he met the
herculean shoulders of the slave, whose long knife
or a groan, Martinez fell dead at his feet.
Resigning the maiden to the faithful Juana, who
followed immediately behind, Cudjoe sprung forward
with a cry of vindictive rage, and before Oula
could comprehend his motives, the reeking blade
passed through her withered bosom.
“Take dis hag ob hell!” he shouted, as he drew
forth the knife from her breast. “You make no
more fool ob Cudjoe, for de curs' Spaniard.”
“Grande diable! what debble dis?” he suddenly
yelled and groaned, as the son of the slain Obeah
leaped upon his neck, when he saw his mother fall,
and grappled his throat tightly with his fingers,
while he fixed his teeth deep into his flesh. The
struggle between them was but for a moment.
Finding it impossible to disengage his fingers, the
slave bent his arm backward, and passed his long
knife up through his body. The thrust was a skilful
one, and fatal to the boy, who released his
grasp, and fell back in the death struggle to the
ground.
In the meanwhile, Juana had borne Constanza
to the fire, in the hut, and was using every means
to restore circulation to the chilled limbs of the unconscious
girl.
The interview between the Spaniard and Oula,
had been overheard by Juana, from the rock above
the hut. After the escape of her mistress and the
count, and the departure of Lafitte and his men, in
pursuit—with the exception of Cudjoe, who, in the
hurry and confusion of getting underweigh, was
left behind, and with whom she was accustomed
occasionally to indulge in social African gossip on
ship-board—she had been left quite alone. This
solitude and anxiety on account of her mistress, led
her, at the approach of evening, to pay a visit to the
her safety.
After the hasty departure of the slave, to obey
the commands of Oula, she descended the rock overhanging
the hut, and rapidly following him, she
awaited his return, and then communicated to him
the information relative to the Spaniard and the lady.
Indignant at this treachery towards one whom he
regarded as his master's lady, and enraged that
the old woman should thus use him as the tool for
the Spaniard, he drew his knife, bounded forward,
and met Martinez with the fatal result we have just
mentioned.
When the slave entered the hut, after his bloody
revenge was completed, Juana informed him of the
expedition against the cave which she had seen
moving from its destination towards the rock above
the hut.
Constanza soon recovering, Juana led her forth
into the air, and told her that she would go round
with her to the cave, where the boats of her lover
then were, at the same time warning Cudjoe to endeavour
to get on board the schooner, and escape
from the French seamen. The slave looked seaward,
where she could just be discovered lying to,
and in a few seconds afterward, he saw a boat pulling
close to the shore. Supposing, from the language
of the Spaniard, that it was sent for him, and
that the schooner was the Julié, he bid Juana conduct
Constanza to the barges of the frigate, and hastily
leaving them, he approached the boat, which
now touched the beach.
“Boat ahoy!” he hailed, as he came near.
“Ha, Cudjoe! that's your sweet voice, in a thousand!”
replied one, in answer to his hail—“how
came you here?”
“The captain sail and leab me sleep in de cabe,”
he replied; “I must go to Barrita in de Julié.”
“You are right welcome, my beauty; but where's
Martinez?”
“He was jus' killed by de Frenchman, in shore.
I jus' 'scape wid my neck.”
“Frenchman? how?” exclaimed the man, in surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“No see dat frigate, dar? I tought you bol' nuff
to com' in right under her guns. See her! dere
she lay. You can hardly tell her masts from de
trees.”
The man looked for a moment steadily, and then
exclaimed—“By the joly St. Peter, you say truly.
Spring into the boat, Cudjoe. Shove off, men—
shove off, and give way like devils to your oars.—
We must be out of this, or we shall have hard quarters
between Monsieur's decks.”
In a few moments, they stood on the deck of
the schooner, which immediately filled and stood
seaward.—Her subsequent career is already known
to the reader.
Before Juana gained the cave, with her charge,
to effect which she had first to ascend the cliff, and
then descend by a perilous foot-way, to the platform
before it, the object of the count had been effected.
The gun had been pitched over into the basin, and
the arms and stores either destroyed or carried off.
When he gained the deck of his frigate, he was
met by the first lieutenant, who reported a sail in
the offing. “She has been lying to some time,
sir,” he added.
“Ha, I see her! she is now standing out,” said
the count, as he took his glass from his eye.
“Shall we get under way, sir?” inquired the lieutenant.
“Not yet, Monsieur,” replied he smiling. “We
have a festival below, which will require the presence
of my officers; and the men must make merry
to-night;” and winged with love, he hastened to meet
the prostrate form of the mulatto boy, who
was lying insensible by the door.
Glancing his eyes hastily around the apartment,
whilst his heart palpitated with a sudden foreboding
of evil, the loved form he sought, no where me this
eager gaze. Alarmed, he called her name, and
searched every recess of that and the adjoining state
rooms.
“My God! where can she be?” he exclaimed,
now highly excited; “Can she have fallen into the
water from this port? yet, it cannot be—Constanza!
my betrothed, my beloved! speak to me, if you are
near!” he cried, hoping, yet with trembling, that she
might still be concealed—playfully hiding from him
to try, as maidens will do, her lover's tenderness.
“Yet if here, what means this?” he added raising
the boy; “There is life here—he has fainted—speak
Antoine, open your eyes and look at me!”
The boy still remained insensible; but the count
by applying restoratives hastily taken from the toilet
of the maiden, soon restored his suspended faculties.
To his eager questions the boy told in reply
of the hideous visage that appeared at the port-hole,
enlarging upon his black face and white tusks.
Was it a man or a wild beast?” he interrogated.
“Oh! Monsieur, one man-devil—with such long
arms, and long white tusks like a boar!” he replied,
clinging to the person of the officer, and looking
fearfully around, as if expecting the appalling apparition
to start momentarily upon his sight.
The brow of the lover changed to the hue of
death; the blood left his lips, and faintly articulating
“Lafitte's slave!” he reeled, and would have
fallen to the floor, had not the boy caught him. Recovering
himself by a vigorous intellectual and physical
effort, he stood for an instant in thought, as if
resolving upon some mode of action.
All at once he spoke, in a voice hollow and
deep with emotion, and awful with gathering passion.
“Lafitte—thou seared and branded outlaw—cursed
of God and loathed of men—fit compeer of hell's
dark spirits—blaster of human happiness—destroyer
of innocence! Guilty thyself, thou wouldst make
all like thee! Scorner of purity, thou wouldst
unmake, and make it guilt. Like Satan, thou
sowest tares of sorrow among the seeds of peace
—thou seekest good to make it evil!—Renegade
of mankind!—Thou art a blot among thy race,
the living presence of that moral pestilence which
men and Holy Writ term sin! Oh, that my
words were daggers, and each one pierced thy
heart! then would I talk on, till the last trumpet
called thee from thy restless shroud to face me.
But, Lafitte! Lafitte!” he added, in a voice that
rung like a battle cry, “I will first face thee on
earth! As true as there is one living God, I will be
revenged on thee for this foul and grievous wrong!
“Ha! why do I stand here, idly wasting words?
he is not far off. I may pursue and take him within
the hour—and” he added, bounding to the deck,
“perhaps Constanza, ere it be—too late.”
His voice, as he issued his orders to get at once
under weigh, rung with an energy and sternness
the startled officers and seamen never knew before.
Having rapidly communicated the disappearance of
Constanza, he learned from the officer of the watch
that some of the men who had joined the shore expedition,
on returning, said they had seen a sail in
the offing. “But after having swept the whole horizon
with my glass,” he continued, “and discerning
nothing, I concluded they must have been deceived,
and therefore, did not report it. Now, I
think they were right.”
“That vessel was Lafitte's and Constanza is on
pursue, and if there is strength in wind or speed in
ships, overtake and capture her this night. Call the
men who saw her.”
The seamen being interrogated, indicated by the
compass the direction the sail bore from the frigate,
when they discovered it. Towards this point, leaving
her anchor behind, the ship, in less than three
minutes after the count had ascended to the deck,
began to move with great velocity, her tall masts
bending gracefully to one side, as if they would
kiss the leaping waves, the water surging before her
swelling bows, and gurgling with hoarse but lively
music around her rudder.
All that night, a night of intense agony to the
count, a bright watch was kept on every quarter;
yet the morning broke without discovering the object
of their pursuit. The horizon was unbroken
even by a cloud; a calm had fallen upon the
sea, and not a wave curled to the zephyrs, which
from time to time danced over its polished surface,
scarcely dimpling it.
For several days, within sight of the distant island,
the frigate lay becalmed, during which period,
the lover, unable to contend with the fever of his
burning thoughts, became delirious. The winds
rose and again died away! Storms ploughed the
face of the deep, and calms reigned upon the sea!
Yet he was unconscious of any change; day and
night he raved, and called on the name of his betrothed.
During this period the frigate cruised
along the coast, the officer in command not wishing
to take any step until he knew the mind of the
count.
On the twelfth day after the disappearance of
Constanza, he was so far recovered as to ascend to
the deck. His brow was pale, and his eye piercing
with an unwonted expression.
“Twelve days Montville—so long? There is no
hope—but there is revenge!” and his eyes flashed
as his voice swelled with emotion and passion. “Put
about for Barritaria!” he added quickly, rising and
walking the deck with much agitation. “My only
passion, my only purpose now shall be to meet that
man—the bane of my happiness! Destiny has bid
him cross my path, and destiny shall bid him die by
my hand.”
On the third morning, they arrived at the island
of Barritaria—prepared to destroy that strong hold
of the pirates, when, instead of a formidable fleet—
a strong fortress and extensive camp—they found
desolation. The day before, the buccaneers had
been dispersed, their vessels captured, and their
fort dismantled. Here and there wandered a straggler,
ragged and wounded—no boats were visible,
and the smoke of two or three vessels, and the
ruined camp of the pirates, told how recently and
completely the revenge of the count had been anticipated.
From a wounded pirate, whom they took prisoner,
he learned that Lafitte had been recently at Barritaria,
and had gone to New Orleans to join the American
forces in the defence of that city.
Piloted by one of his men who was acquainted
with the inlets and bayous, communicating with
the Mississippi, he gave orders to his first lieutenant
to await his return, and proceeded at once up
to the city. On his approach the next morning, the
thunder of artillery filled his ears, and burning with
revenge, he urged his oarsmen to their strength.
Entering the Mississippi about two leagues below
the city, on the morning of the eighth of January,
by a different route from that taken on a former
occasion by Lafitte, he crossed to the opposite shore,
from which came the roar of cannon, the crash of
musketry, and shouts of combatants, while a dense
half a mile along the river.
“There, face to face, steel to steel, will I meet
him I seek, or—death,” he exclaimed.
Learning from a fisherman the disposition of the
two armies, and the point defended by the outlaw,
he crossed the river, and after pulling up against
the current for a third of a mile, he landed amidst
a shower of balls and joined in the battle.
After he had, as he thought, achieved his revenge,
in the fall of Lafitte, whose personal combat with him
has already been detailed, the count, himself severely
wounded, returned to his boat. In a few minutes
he grew faint from loss of blood, and was landed
by his crew at a negro's hut on the banks of the
river. Here he remained several days, confined to
a wretched couch, until his wound enabled him to
proceed.
As he was about to order his boatmen to prepare
for their departure, he heard the name of Lafitte
mentioned by the hospitable slave who was his host,
in conversation with some one outside of the hut.
“What of him?” he exclaimed.
“Dere him schooner, massa—gwine down de
ribber!”
“What, that light-rigged vessel?” he said, pointing
to a small, but beautiful armed schooner. “No
—no—he is slain.”
“He was wounded in the battle of the eighth,
with two of his lieutenants, Sebastiano and a Dutchman,
Getzendanner, I believe they call him,” said
a fisherman, coming forward; “but Lafitte is now
well, and has purchased that vessel, formerly his
own, and is going—they say, now he has received
his pardon—to spend his days in the West Indies,
or in France.”
“Ha—say you, Monsieur!—Was it not him then I
you certainly that he sails away in that schooner?”
he inquired, eagerly of the man, turning to look as
he spoke, at the vessel which, with swift and graceful
motion, with all sail set, moved down the river,
rapidly disappearing in the distance.
“I saw him standing upon the deck as she passed,”
replied the fisherman, decidedly.
“Then shall he not escape me,” cried the count;
and calling to his crew, he hastened to his boat, and
in a few minutes was on the way to his frigate, resolved,
if possible, to intercept the schooner at the
Balize.
The following day he reached his ship, and immediately,
with his heart steeled to the consumma
tion of his revenge, got under-weigh for the mouth
of the Mississippi.
| CHAPTER II. Lafitte | |