A Romance of the West Indies Part 3

"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 pa.s.sengers; "he asks me if I have seen Blue Beard."

The pa.s.sengers shrugged their shoulders.

"But," continued Croustillac, "what is there astonis.h.i.+ng in my question?"

"What is there astonis.h.i.+ng?" 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 a.s.sa.s.sin is not an agreeable companion, and Blue Beard has too bad a.s.sociates."

"Bad a.s.sociates?" 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 pa.s.sengers with an affrighted air.

"Or 'Rend the Soul'--the buccaneer of Marie-Galande," said another.

"Or 'Youmaale,' 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sengers, "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 pa.s.senger, "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 a.s.sistant, had flung themselves upon a two-year-old bull; he had pa.s.sed me, and I had sent a ball into his shoulder; he bounded into a thicket; the dogs followed. While I was reloading, my a.s.sistant 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.senger 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 rea.s.suring."

"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?"

"G.o.d forbid I should act as eavesdropper," exclaimed the pa.s.senger.

"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 a.s.sert 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 appet.i.te 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 compa.s.sionately, "It is very easy to understand, this poor woman has not an idea of what const.i.tutes 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?"