Old Creole Days Part 17

"Senor, I goin' tell you"--

"Manuel Mazaro, you"--

"Boat-a Senor"--

"Bud, Manuel Maz"--

"Senor, escuse-a me"--

"Huzh!" cried the old man. "Manuel Mazaro, you ave deceive' me! You 'ave _mocque_ me, Manu"--

"Senor," cried Mazaro, "I swear-a to you that all-a what I sayin'

ees-a"--

He stopped aghast. Galahad and Pauline stood before him.

"Is what?" asked the blue-eyed man, with a look of quiet delight on his face, such as Mazaro instantly remembered to have seen on it one night when Galahad was being shot at in the Sucking Calf Restaurant in St.

Peter Street.

The table was between them, but Mazaro's hand went upward toward the back of his coat-collar.

"Ah, ah!" cried the Irishman, shaking his head with a broader smile and thrusting his hand threateningly into his breast; "don't ye do that!

just finish yer speech."

"Was-a notthin'," said the Cuban, trying to smile back.

"Yer a liur," said Galahad.

"No," said Mazaro, still endeavoring to smile through his agony; "z-was on'y tellin' Senor D'Hemecourt someteen z-was t-thrue."

"And I tell ye," said Galahad, "ye'r a liur, and to be so kind an' get yersel' to the front stoop, as I'm desiruz o' kickin' ye before the crowd."

"Madjor!" cried D'Hemecourt--

"Go," said Galahad, advancing a step toward the Cuban.

Had Manuel Mazaro wished to personate the prince of darkness, his beautiful face had the correct expression for it. He slowly turned, opened the door into the cafe, sent one glowering look behind, and disappeared.

Pauline laid her hand upon her lover's arm.

"Madjor," began her father.

"Oh, Madjor and Madjor," said the Irishman; "Munsher D'Hemecourt, just say 'Madjor, heer's a gude wife fur ye,' and I'll let the little serpent go."

Thereupon, sure enough, both M. D'Hemecourt and his daughter, rus.h.i.+ng together, did what I have been hoping all along, for the reader's sake, they would have dispensed with; they burst into tears; whereupon the Major, with his Irish appreciation of the ludicrous, turned away to hide his smirk and began good-humoredly to scratch himself first on the temple and then on the thigh.

Mazaro pa.s.sed silently through the group about the door-steps, and not many minutes afterward, Galahad Shaughnessy, having taken a place among the exiles, rose with the remark that the old gentleman would doubtless be willing to tell them good-night. Good-night was accordingly said, the Cafe des Exiles closed her windows, then her doors, winked a moment or two through the cracks in the shutters and then went fast asleep.

The Mexican physician, at Galahad's request, told Mazaro that at the next meeting of the burial society he might and must occupy his accustomed seat without fear of molestation; and he did so.

The meeting took place some seven days after the affair in the back parlor, and on the same ground. Business being finished, Galahad, who presided, stood up, looking, in his white duck suit among his darkly-clad companions, like a white sheep among black ones, and begged leave to order "dla.s.ses" from the front room. I say among black sheep; yet, I suppose, than that double row of languid, effeminate faces, one would have been taxed to find a more harmless-looking company. The gla.s.ses were brought and filled.

"Gentlemen," said Galahad, "comrades, this may be the last time we ever meet together an unbroken body."

Martinez of San Domingo, he of the horrible experience, nodded with a lurking smile, curled a leg under him and clasped his fingers behind his head.

"Who knows," continued the speaker, "but Senor Benito, though strong and sound and har'ly thirty-seven"--here all smiled--"may be taken ill tomorrow?"

Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad's left, and he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth between his moustachios like distant reefs.

"Who knows," the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, "I say, who knows but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?"

Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.

"Who knows?" resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had explained in Spanish to those who did not, "but they may soon need the services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands of their people. I say, who knows bur it may be so!"

The company bowed graciously as who should say, "Well-turned phrases, Senor--well-turned."

"And _amigos_, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will say:"

He lifted his gla.s.s, and the rest did the same.

"I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun voyadge an' good luck to ye's."

For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured acknowledgments; Mazaro said: "_Bueno!_" and all around among the long double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the gra.s.s.

"And now, gentlemen," Galahad recommenced, "fellow-exiles, once more.

Munsher D'Himecourt, it was yer practice, until lately, to reward a good talker with a dla.s.s from the hands o' yer daughter." (_Si, si!_) "I'm bur a poor speaker." (_Si, si, Senor, z-a-fine-a kin'-a can be; si!_) "However, I'll ask ye, not knowun bur it may be the last time we all meet together, if ye will not let the G.o.ddess of the Cafe des Exiles grace our company with her presence for just about one minute?" (_Yez-a, Senor; si; yez-a; oui._)

Every head was turned toward the old man, nodding the echoed request.

"Ye see, friends," said Galahad in a true Irish whisper, as M.

D'Hemecourt left the apartment, "her poseetion has been a-growin' more and more embarra.s.sin' daily, and the operaytions of our society were likely to make it wurse in the future; wherefore I have lately taken steps--I say I tuke steps this morn to relieve the old gentleman's distresses and his daughter's"--

He paused. M. D'Hemecourt entered with Pauline, and the exiles all rose up. Ah!--but why say again she was lovely?

Galahad stepped forward to meet her, took her hand, led her to the head of the board, and turning to the company, said:

"Friends and fellow-patriots, Misthress Shaughnessy."

There was no outburst of astonishment--only the same old bowing, smiling, and murmuring of compliment. Galahad turned with a puzzled look to M. D'Hemecourt, and guessed the truth. In the joy of an old man's heart he had already that afternoon told the truth to each and every man separately, as a secret too deep for them to reveal, but too sweet for him to keep. The Major and Pauline were man and wife.

The last laugh that was ever heard in the Cafe des Exiles sounded softly through the room.

"Lads," said the Irishman. "Fill yer dla.s.ses. Here's to the Cafe des Exiles, G.o.d bless her!"

And the meeting slowly adjourned.

Two days later, signs and rumors of sickness began to find place about the Cafe des Refugies, and the Mexican physician made three calls in one day. It was said by the people around that the tall Cuban gentleman named Benito was very sick in one of the back rooms. A similar frequency of the same physician's calls was noticed about the Cafe des Exiles.