A Romance of the West Indies
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Such were the hopes of the chevalier; we shall see if they were realized.
The following morning Croustillac kept his promise and made his confession to Father Griffen.
Although sincere enough, the avowal revealed nothing new as to the position of the penitent, which he had very nearly divined. This was, in effect the chevalier's confession: He had dissipated his fortune; killed a man in a duel; pursued by justice and finding himself without resources, he had adopted the dangerous part of going to the West Indies to seek his fortune; not having the means of paying for his passage, he had had recourse to the compassion of a cooper, who had carried him on board and hidden him in an empty cask.
This apparent sincerity caused Father Griffen to look upon the adventurer with leniency; but he did not hide from the Gascon that any hope of finding a fortune in the colonies was an error; he must bring quite an amount of capital with him to obtain even the smallest establishment; the climate was deadly; the inhabitants, as a general thing, were suspicious of strangers, and all the traditions of generous hospitality of the first colonists completely forgotten, as much through the egotism of the inhabitants as because of the discomforts following a war with England – which had gravely affected their interests. In a word, Father Griffen counseled the chevalier to accept the offer which the captain made, of taking him back to Rochelle after having touched at Martinique. In the priest's opinion, Croustillac could find a thousand resources in France, which he could not hope to find in a half-civilized country; the condition of the Europeans being such in the colonies that never, in consideration of their dignity as whites, could they perform menial employment. Father Griffen was ignorant of the fact that the chevalier had exhausted the resources of France, and therefore had expatriated himself. Under certain circumstances, no one was more easily hoodwinked than the good priest; his pity for the unhappy blinding his usual penetration. The past life of the chevalier did not appear to have been one of immaculate purity; but this man was so careless in his distress, so indifferent to the future which menaced him, that Father Griffen ended by taking more interest in the adventurer than he merited, and he proposed that the latter should stay in his parsonage at Macouba, while the Unicorn remained at Martinique; an invitation that Croustillac took care not to refuse.
Time went on. Captain Daniel was never tired of praising the wonderful talents of the chevalier, in whom he discovered new treasures of sleight-of-hand each day. Croustillac had finished by putting into his mouth the ends of burning candles, and by swallowing forks. This last feat had carried the captain beyond bounds of enthusiasm; he formally offered the Gascon a situation for life on board ship if the chevalier would promise to charm thus agreeably the tedium of the voyages of the Unicorn.
We would say here, in order to explain the success of Croustillac, that at sea the hours seem very long; the slightest distractions are precious, and one is very glad to have always at one's beck and call a species of buffoon endowed with imperturbable good humor. As to the chevalier, he hid under a laughing and careless mask, a sad preoccupation; the end of his journey drew near; the words of Father Griffen had been too sensible, too sincere, too just not to strongly impress our adventurer, who had counted upon passing a joyous life at the expense of the colonists. The coldness with which many of the passengers, returning to Martinique, treated him, completed the ruin of his hopes. In spite of the talents which he developed and which amused them, none of these colonists made the slightest advance to the chevalier, although he repeatedly declared he would be delighted to make a long exploration into the interior of the island.
The end of the voyage came; the last illusions of Croustillac were destroyed; he saw himself reduced to the deplorable alternative of forever traversing the ocean with Captain Daniel, or of returning to France to encounter the rigors of the law. Chance suddenly offered to the chevalier the most dazzling mirage, and awakened in him the maddest hopes.
The Unicorn was not more than two hundred leagues from Martinique when they met a French trading vessel coming from that island and sailing for France. This vessel lay to and sent a boat to the Unicorn for news from Europe. In the colonies all was well for some weeks past; not a single English man-of-war had been seen. After exchanging other news, the two vessels separated.
"For a vessel of such value (the passengers had estimated her worth at about four hundred thousand francs) she is not very well armed," said the chevalier, "and would be a good prize for the English."
"Bah!" returned a passenger with an envious air, "Blue Beard can afford to lose such a vessel as that."
"Yes, truly; there would still remain enough money to buy and arm others."
"Twenty such, if she desired," said the captain.
"Oh, twenty, that is a good many," said another.
"Faith, without counting her magnificent plantation at Anse aux Sables, and her mysterious house at Devil's Cliff," returned a third, "do they not say she has five or six millions of gold and precious stones hidden somewhere?"
"Ah, there it is! hidden no one knows where!" exclaimed Captain Daniel; "but one thing sure, she has them, for I have it from old father 'Wide-awake,' who had once seen Blue Beard's first husband at Devil's Cliff (which husband, they say, was young and handsome as an angel). I have it from Wide-awake that Blue Beard on this day amused herself by measuring in a bowl, diamonds, pearls and emeralds; now, all these riches are still in her possession, without counting that her third and last husband, as they say, was very rich, and that all his fortune was in gold dust."
"People say she is so avaricious that she expends for herself and household only ten thousand francs a year," continued a passenger.
"As to that, it is not certain," said Captain Daniel; "no one knows how she lives, because she is a stranger in the colony, and not four persons have ever put their feet inside Devil's Cliff."
"Truly; and lucky it is so; I am not the one who would have the curiosity to go there," said another; "Devil's Cliff does not enjoy a very good reputation; they do say that strange things take place there."
"It is certain that it has been struck by lightning three times."
"That does not surprise me; and strange cries, they say, are heard round the house."
"It is said that it is built like a fortress, inaccessible, among the rocks of the Cabesterre."
"That is natural if Blue Beard has so great a treasure to guard."
Croustillac heard this conversation with great curiosity. These treasures, these diamonds, were pictured in his imagination.
"Of whom do you speak, gentlemen?" he said.
"We are speaking of Blue Beard."
"Who is this Blue Beard?"
"Blue Beard? Well, it is – Blue Beard."
"But is this a man or a woman?" said the chevalier.
"Blue Beard?"
"Yes, yes," said Croustillac impatiently.
"'Tis a woman."
"How, a woman? and why, then, call her Blue Beard?"
"Because she gets rid of her husbands as easily as Blue Beard of the old story got rid of his wives."
"And she is a widow? She is a widow! Oh," cried the chevalier, clapping his hands while his heart beat rapidly, "a widow! rich beyond belief; rich enough to make one dizzy only to try to estimate her wealth – a widow!"
"A widow; so much of a widow that she is such for a third time in three years," said the captain.
"And is she as rich as they say?"
"Yes, that is conceded; all the world knows it," replied the captain.
"Worth millions; rich enough to fit out vessels worth four hundred thousand livres; rich enough to have sacks of diamonds and emeralds and fine pearls!" cried the Gascon, whose eyes sparkled and nostrils dilated, while his hands clinched.
"But I tell you that she is rich enough to buy Martinique and Guadeloupe if she were so pleased," said the captain.
"And old? very old?" asked the Gascon, uneasily.
His informer looked at the other passengers with a questioning air. "What age should you say Blue Beard was?"
"Faith, I do not know," said one.
"All I know," said another, "is that when I came to the colony two years ago she had already had her second husband, and had a third in view, who only lived a year."
"As to her third husband, it is said that he is not dead, but has disappeared," said a third.
"He is certainly dead, however, because Blue Beard has been seen wearing a widow's garb," said a passenger.
"No doubt, no doubt," continued another; "the proof that he is dead is that the parish priest of Macouba was instructed, in the absence of Father Griffen, to say the mass for the dead, for him."
"And it would not be surprising if he had been assassinated," said another.
"Assassinated? by his wife, no doubt?" said still another voice with an emphasis that spoke little in favor of Blue Beard.
"Not by his wife!"
"Ah, ah, that is something new!"
"Not by his wife? and by whom, then?"
"By his enemies in the Barbadoes."
"By the English colonists?"
"Yes, by the English, because he was himself English."
"Is it so, then, sir; the third husband is dead, really dead?" asked the chevalier anxiously.
"Oh, as to being dead – he is that," exclaimed several in chorus.
Croustillac drew a long breath; a moment's thought, and his hopes resumed their audacious flight.
"But the age of Blue Beard?" he persisted.
"Her age – as to that I can satisfy you; she must be anywhere from twenty, yes, that is about it, from twenty to sixty years," said Captain Daniel.
"Then you have not seen her?" said the Gascon, impatient under this raillery.
"Seen her? I? And why the devil should you suppose I had seen Blue Beard?" asked the captain. "Are you mad?"
"Why?"
"Listen, my friends," said the captain to his passengers; "he asks me if I have seen Blue Beard."
The passengers shrugged their shoulders.
"But," continued Croustillac, "what is there astonishing in my question?"
"What is there astonishing?" said the captain.
"Yes."
"Hold; you come from Paris, do you not? and is Paris not much smaller than Martinique?"
"Without doubt."
"Very well; have you seen the executioner at Paris?"
"The executioner? No, but why such a question?"
"Very well; once for all, understand that no one is any more curious to see Blue Beard than to see the executioner, sir. Beside, the house in which she lives is situated in the midst of the wilds of Devil's Cliff, where one does not care to venture. Then an assassin is not an agreeable companion, and Blue Beard has too bad associates."
"Bad associates?" said the chevalier.
"Yes, friends; friends of the heart; not to go into the matter any further, it is a saying that it is not well to encounter them by night on the plain; by night in the woods; or after sunset under the lee of the island," said the captain.
"'Whirlwind' – the filibuster first," said one of the passengers with an affrighted air.
"Or 'Rend the Soul' – the buccaneer of Marie-Galande," said another.
"Or 'Youmäale,' the Caribbean cannibal of the lake of the Caimans," continued a third.
"What?" cried the chevalier, "does Blue Beard coquette at the same time with a filibusterer, a buccaneer, and a cannibal? Bah! what a woman!"
"So they say, sir."
CHAPTER III
THE ARRIVAL
These singular revelations concerning the morals of Blue Beard made a great impression upon the chevalier. After some moments of silence he asked the captain, "Who is this man, this filibuster whom they term the Whirlwind?"
"A mulatto from San Domingo, they say," replied Captain Daniel, "one of the most determined filibusters of the Antilles; he has dwelt in Martinique for the past two years, in a solitary house, where he lives now like an alderman."
"And you think that this bully is favored by Blue Beard?"
"They say that all the time that he does not pass at his own house, he is at Devil's Cliff."
"This proves at least that Blue Beard has never loved sentimental swains!" said the chevalier. "Well, but the buccaneer?"
"Faith," cried one of the passengers, "I do not know if I would not rather have the Whirlwind for an enemy than the buccaneer 'Rend-your-soul!'"
"Zounds! there is at least a name which holds possibilities," said Croustillac.
"And which fulfills them," said the passenger, "for him I have seen."
"And is he so terrible?"
"He is certainly as ferocious as the wild boars or the bulls which he hunts. I will tell you about him. It is now about a year since I was going to his ranch in the Great Tari, in the northern part of Martinique, to purchase of him some skins of wild cattle. He was alone with his pack of twenty hounds who looked as wicked and savage as himself. When I arrived he was anointing his face with palm oil, for there was not a portion of it that was not blue, yellow, violet or purple."
"I have had these irridescent shades from a blow on the eye, but – "
"Exactly, sir. I asked him what had caused this, and this is what he told me: 'My hounds, led by my assistant, had flung themselves upon a two-year-old bull; he had passed me, and I had sent a ball into his shoulder; he bounded into a thicket; the dogs followed. While I was reloading, my assistant came up, fired, and missed the bull. My boy, seeing himself disarmed, sought to cut at the bull's legs, but it gored him and stamped him underfoot. Placed as I was, I could not fire at the animal for fear of finishing my man. I took my large buccaneer's knife and threw myself between them. I received a blow of its horn which ripped up my thigh, a second broke this arm (showing me his left arm, which was suspended in a sling); the bull continued to attack me; as there remained but the right hand that was of any use, I watched my opportunity, and at the instant when the animal lowered his head to rip me up, I seized him by the horns and drew him within reach, and seized his lip with my teeth, and would no more let go than an English bulldog, while my dogs worried his sides.'"
"But this man is a blockhead," said Croustillac, contemptuously. "If he has no other means of pleasing – faith, I pity his mistress."
"I have told you that he was a species of savage animal," replied the narrator, "but to continue my story. 'Once wounded on the lips,' said the buccaneer, 'a bull falls. At the end of five minutes, blinded by the loss of blood (for my bullets had done their work), the bull fell on his knees and rolled over; my dogs sprang upon him, seized him by the throat, and finished him. The struggle had weakened me; I had lost a great deal of blood; for the first time in my life I fainted just like a girl. And what do you suppose my dogs had been at during my swoon? They had amused themselves by devouring my servant! They were so sharp and well-trained.' 'How,' said I to Rend-your-soul, terrified, 'because your dogs have devoured your servant, does that prove that they are well-trained?' I declare, sir," continued the passenger who had related this story of the buccaneer to the Gascon, "I looked with considerable alarm upon these ferocious animals who walked round and round me and smelt at me in a manner far from reassuring."
"The fact is, such customs as these are brutal," said Croustillac, "and it would be a mistake to address such a man of the woods in the beautiful language of gallantry. But what the devil can he indulge in in the way of conversation with Blue Beard?"
"God forbid I should act as eavesdropper," exclaimed the passenger.
"When Rend-your-Soul has said to Blue Beard, 'I have seized a bull on the lips, and my dogs have devoured my servants,'" replied the Gascon, "the conversation would languish; and zounds! one cannot always be feeding a man to the dogs in order to furnish entertainment."
"In faith, one cannot tell," said a listener; "these men are capable of anything."
"But," said Croustillac, "such an animal can know nothing about small courtesies; flowery language always takes the ladies."
"No, certainly," replied the narrator, whom we suspect of a slight exaggeration of the facts, "for he swears enough to sink the island; and he has a voice like the bellowing of a bull."
"That is easily accounted for; from frequenting their society he has acquired their accent," said the chevalier; "but let us hear the end of your story, I beg."
"Here it is. I demanded then of the buccaneer how he dared assert that dogs who would devour a man were well trained. 'Doubtless,' replied he, 'my dogs are trained never to insert a tooth in a bull when he is down, for I sell the skins, and they must be intact. Once the bull is dead these poor brutes, hungry though they be, have the sense to respect it, and to await its being skinned. Now this morning their hunger was infernal; my servant was half dead and covered with blood. He was very inhuman toward them; they began, no doubt, by licking his wounds; then, as it is said the appetite increases with what it is fed on, this made the mouths of the poor brutes water. Finally, they did not leave a bone of my servant. Had it not been for the bite of a serpent which nipped sharply but which was not venomous, I might have remained in my swoon. I recovered consciousness; I wrenched the snake from my right leg, round which it had coiled itself, I took it by the tail, I whirled it like a sling and I crushed its head on the trunk of a guava tree. I examined myself; I had a thigh ripped open and an arm broken; I bound the wound in my thigh with fresh leaves and secured them by a vine. As to my left arm, it was broken between the elbow and the wrist. I cut three little sticks and a long creeper and I tied it up like a roll of tobacco. Once my wounds dressed, I sought for my servant, for I could not see him. I called him, there was no answer. My dogs were crouched at my feet; they appeared so innocent, the cunning creatures! and looked at me as they wagged their tails as if nothing was wrong. Finally I arose, and what should I see at twenty paces distance but the remains of my servant. I recognized his powder-horn and the sheath of his knife. That was all that remained of him, I tell you this to prove to you that my dogs are very snappish and well-trained; for they will not injure a hair on the bull's skin.'"
"There, there! the buccaneer exceeds the filibuster," said Croustillac. "I can only say that Blue Beard is greatly to be pitied for not having had, up to this time, but an alternative of two such brutes." And the Gascon continued compassionately, "It is very easy to understand, this poor woman has not an idea of what constitutes a gentleman; when one has all one's life fed on lard and beans, one cannot conceive of anything as fine, as delicate as a pheasant or an ortolan. Zounds! I see it has been reserved to me to enlighten Blue Beard on a variety of things, and to discover to her a new world. As to the Caribbean, is he worthy of figuring at the side of his ferocious rivals?"
"Oh, as to the Caribbean," said one of the passengers, "I can speak from knowledge. I made this winter in his canoe the journey from Anse aux Sable to Marie-Galande. I was pressed to reach this latter place. The Rivière des Saints had overflowed, and I was compelled to make a great circuit in order to find a place which could be forded. At the moment when I embarked, I saw at the prow of the boat of Youmäale a kind of brown figure. I drew near; what did I see? My God! the head and arms dried to that of a mummy, forming the figurehead as an ornament for his canoe! We started on our voyage, the Caribbean silent, like the savage that he was, paddled without uttering a word. Arriving off the Caribbean Island, where a Spanish brigantine had stranded some months previous, I asked him, 'Is it not here that the Spanish vessel was wrecked?' The Caribbean nodded an assent. It would be as well to say here that on board this vessel was the reverend Father Simon of Foreign Missions. His reputation for sanctity was such that it had reached even the Caribbeans; the brigantine had been wrecked, passengers and cargo – at least such was believed to be the case. I said then to the Caribbean, 'Is it there that Father Simon perished – you have heard of it?' He made me another affirmative sign with his head, for these people never speak an unnecessary word. 'He was an excellent man,' I continued. 'I have eaten him,' replied this wretched idolater, with a kind of ferocious and satisfied pride.
"That was one method of enjoying a person," said Croustillac, "and of sharing his qualities."
"For a moment," replied the passenger, "I did not understand what this horrible cannibal was saying, but when I had compelled him to explain himself, I learned that in accordance with I know not what savage ceremony, the missionary and two sailors who had escaped to a desert island had been surprised by the cannibals and eaten at once! When I reproached Youmäale for this barbarous atrocity, saying that it was frightful to have sacrificed these three unhappy Frenchmen to their ferocity, he replied, sententiously, and in a tone of approbation, as if he would prove to me that he understood the force of my arguments in classing, if not to their value, at least according to the flavor of three different nationalities. 'You are right: a Spaniard never, a Frenchman often, an Englishman always!'"
"This would prove that an Englishman is incomparably more delicate than a Frenchman, and that a Spaniard is as tough as the devil," said Croustillac; "but this gourmand will finish some day by devouring Blue Beard when caressing her. If all this be true – "
"It is true, sir."
"It follows then positively that this young or old widow is not insensible to the ferocious attractions of Rend-your-soul and of the cannibal?"
"Public opinion accuses her thus."
"Are they often with her?"
"All the time Whirlwind is not engaged in privateering, that Rend-your-soul is not hunting, and Youmäale is not in the woods, they pass with Blue Beard."
"Without becoming jealous of each other?"
"It is said that Blue Beard is as despotic as the Sultan of Turkey, and she forbids their being jealous."
"Faith! what a seraglio she has! But listen, gentlemen: you know that I am a Gascon; that they accuse us of exaggerating and you would ridicule – "
But Captain Daniel interposed, with a serious air, which could not be feigned, "When we arrive at Martinique ask the first creole whom you meet as to this Blue Beard; and may St. John, my patron saint, curse me if you will not hear concerning Blue Beard and her three friends the same thing."
"And as to her immense wealth, will they also speak to me of that?" asked the chevalier.
"They will tell you that the plantation where Devil's Cliff is situated is one of the most beautiful in the island, and that Blue Beard possesses a counting house at Fort St. Pierre, and that this counting house, managed by a man in her employ, sends out each year five or six vessels like the one we have just passed."
"I see how it is, then," said the chevalier in raillery. "Blue Beard is a woman who is weary of riches and the pleasures of this world; in order to distract her thoughts, she is capable of entertaining a buccaneer, a filibuster, and even a cannibal, if her heart so dictates."
"That it pleases her is evident in that she is never bored," replied the captain.
At this moment Father Griffen mounted to the deck. Croustillac said to him, "Father, I have told these gentlemen that we are accused, we Gascons, of telling fibs, but is what they say of Blue Beard the truth?"
The face of Father Griffen, ordinarily placid and joyful, took on a darker hue at once, and he replied gravely to the adventurer, "My son, never breathe the name of this woman."
"But, Father, is it true? She replaces her deceased husbands by a filibuster, a buccaneer and a cannibal?"
"Enough, enough, my son," returned the priest, "I pray you do not speak of Devil's Cliff and what goes on there."
"But, Father, is this woman as rich as they say?" pursued the Gascon, whose eyes were snapping with covetousness; "has she such immense treasures? Is she beautiful? Is she young?"
"May heaven defend me from ascertaining!"