The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure Part 9

The girl nodded, her lips moved, but no sound issued; she also was staring, horror-stricken, into the shadows of the tamarind-tree. Her arms, bound as they were, threw the outlines of her ripe young bosom into prominent relief and showed her to be round and supple; she was lighter in color even than Floreal. A little scar just below her left eye stood out, dull brown, upon her yellow cheek.

Laguerre now saw her plainly for the first time, and shook off his indolence. He swung his legs from the hammock and sat up. Something in the intensity of his regard brought her gaze away from the figure of Papa Rameau. She saw a large, thick-necked, full-bodied black, of bold and brutal feature, whose determined eyes had become bloodshot from staring through dust and sun. He wore a mustache, and a little pointed woolly patch beneath his lower lip. Involuntarily the girl recoiled.

"Um-m! So!" The barefoot colonel rose and, stepping forward, took her face in his harsh palm, turning it up for scrutiny. His roving glance appraised her fully. "Your name is--"

"Pierrine!"

"To be sure. Well then, my little Pierrine, you will tell me about this, eh?"

"I know nothing," she stammered. "Floreal speaks the truth, monsieur.

What does it mean--all this? We are good people; we harm n.o.body. Every one here was happy until the--blacks rose. Then there was fighting and--this morning you came. It was terrible! Mamma Cleomelie is dead--the soldiers shot her. Why do you hang Papa Julien?"

Floreal broke in, hysterically: "Yes, monsieur, he is an old man. Punish me if you will, but my father--he is old. See! He is barely alive. These riches you speak about are imaginary. We have fields, cattle, a schooner; take them for the Republic, but, monsieur, my father has injured no one."

Pet.i.thomme Laguerre reseated himself in the hammock and swung himself idly, his bare soles scuffing the hard earthen floor; he continued to eye Pierrine.

Now that young Rameau had brought himself to beg, he fell to his knees and went on: "I swear to you that we are not traitors. Never have we spoken against the government. We are 'colored,' yes, but the black people love us. They loved Cleomelie, my mother, whom the soldiers shot.

That was murder. Monsieur--she would have harmed n.o.body. She was only frightened." The suppliant's shoulders were heaving, his voice was choked by emotion. "She is unburied. I appeal to your kind heart to let us go and bury her. We will be your servants for life. You wish money.

Good! We will find it for you. I will work, I will steal, I will kill for this money you wish--I swear it. But old Julien, he is dying there on the rope--"

Floreal raised his tortured eyes to the black face above him, then his babbling tongue fell silent and he rose, interposing his body between Pierrine and the colonel. It was evident that the latter had heard nothing whatever of the appeal, for he was still staring at the girl.

Floreal strained until the rawhide thongs cut into his wrists, his bare, yellow toes gripping the hard earth like the claws of a cat until he seemed about to spring. Once he turned his head, curiously, fearfully, toward his young wife, then his blazing glance swung back to his captor.

The silence roused Laguerre finally, and he rose. "Speak the truth," he commanded, roughly, "otherwise you shall see your father dance a bamboula while my soldiers drum on his ribs with the cocomacaque."

"He is feeble; his bones are brittle," said the son, thickly.

"As for you, my little Pierrine, you will come to my house; then, if these wicked men refuse to speak, perhaps you and I will reach an understanding." Laguerre grinned evilly.

"Monsieur--!" With a furious curse Floreal flung himself in the path of the black man; the wife retreated in speechless dismay.

Pet.i.thomme thrust young Rameau aside, crying, angrily: "You wish to live, eh? Well, then, the truth. Otherwise--"

"But--she? Pierrine?" panted Floreal, with a twist of his head in her direction.

"I may allow her to go free. Who can tell?" He led the girl out across the moonlit clearing and to the largest house in the group. He reappeared, making the door fast behind him, and returned, stretching himself in the hammock once more.

"Now, Congo," he ordered, "let us see who will speak first." Taking a pipe from his pocket, he filled it with the rank native tobacco and lighted it. The tirailleur he had addressed selected a four-foot club of the jointed cocomacaque wood, such as is used by the local police, and with it smote the suspended figure heavily. Old Julien groaned, his son cried out. The brutality proceeded with deliberation, the body of old Julien swung drunkenly, spinning, swaying, writhing in the moonlight.

Floreal shrank away. Retreating until his back was against the table, he clutched its edge with his numb fingers for support. He was young, he had seen little of the ferocious cruelty which characterized his countrymen; this was the first uprising against his color that he had witnessed. Every blow, which seemed directed at his own body, made him suffer until he became almost as senseless as the figure of his father.

His groping fingers finally touched the candle at his back; it was burning low, and the blaze bit at them. With the pain there came a thought, wild, fantastic; he s.h.i.+fted his position slightly until the flame licked at his bonds. Colonel Laguerre was in the shadow now, watching the torture with approval. Maximilien, the other soldier, rested unmoved upon his rifle. Floreal leaned backward, and shut his teeth; an agony ran through his veins. The odor of burning flesh rose faintly to his nostrils.

"Softly, Congo," directed the colonel, after a time. "Let him rest for a moment." Turning to the son he inquired, "Will you see him die rather than speak?"

Floreal nodded silently; his face was distorted and wet with sweat.

Laguerre rose with a curse. "Little pig! I will make your tongue wag if I have to place you between planks and saw you in twain. But you shall have time to think. Maximilien will guard you, and in the morning you will guide me to the hiding-place. Meanwhile we will let the old man hang. I have an appet.i.te for pleasanter things than this." He turned toward the house in which Pierrine was hidden, whereat Floreal strained at his bonds, calling after him:

"Laguerre! She is my wife--by the Church! My wife."

Pet.i.thomme opened the door silently and disappeared.

"Humph! The colonel amuses himself while I tickle the sides of this yellow man," said Congo in some envy.

"I don't believe there is any money," Maximilien observed. "What? Am I right?" He turned inquiringly to Floreal, but the latter had regained his former position, and the candle-flame was licking at his wrists. "To be sure! This is a waste of time. Make an end of the old man, Congo, and I will take the boy back to his prison. It is late and I am sleepy."

The speaker approached his captive, his musket resting in the hollow of his arm, his machete hanging at his side. "So, now! Don't strain so bitterly," he laughed. "I tied those knots and they will not slip, for I have tied too many yellow men. To-morrow you will be shot, monsieur, and Pierrine will be a widow, so why curse the colonel if he cheats you by a few hours?"

Congo was examining his victim, and uttered an exclamation, at which Maximilien paused, with a hand upon Floreal's shoulder.

"Is he dead?"

"The club was heavier than I thought," answered Congo.

"He brought it upon himself. Well, the prison at Jacmel is full of colored people; this will leave room for one more--"

Maximilien's words suddenly failed him, his thoughts were abruptly halted, for he found that in some unaccountable manner young Rameau's hands had become free and that the machete at his own side was slipping from its sheath. The phenomenon was unbelievable, it paralyzed Maximilien's intellect during that momentary pause which is required to reconcile the inconceivable with the imminent. It is doubtful if the trooper fully realized what had befallen or that any danger threatened, for his mind was sluggish, and under Rameau's swift hands his soul had begun to tug at his body before his astonishment had disappeared. The blade rasped out of its scabbard, whistled through its course, and Maximilien lurched forward to his knees.

The sound of the blow, like that of an ax sunk into a rotten tree-trunk, surprised Congo. A shout burst from him; he raised the stout cudgel above his head, for Floreal was upon him like the blurred image out of a nightmare. The trooper shrieked affrightedly as the blade sheared through his s.h.i.+eld and bit at his arm. He turned to flee, but his head was round and bare, and it danced before the oncoming Floreal. Rameau cleft it, as he had learned to open a green cocoanut, with one stroke.

On the hard earth, Maximilien was scratching and kicking as if to drag himself out of the welter in which he lay.

Floreal cut down his father and received the limp figure in his arms. As he straightened it he heard a furious commotion from the camp-fire where the other tirailleurs were squatted. From the tail of his eye he saw that they were reaching for their weapons. He heard Laguerre shouting in the hut, then the crash of something overturned. As he rose from his father's body he heard a shot and saw the soldiers of the Republic charging him. They were between him and Pierrine. He hesitated, then slipped back into the shadow of the tamarind-tree, and out at the other side; his cotton garments flickered briefly through the moonlight, then the thicket swallowed him. His pursuers paused and emptied their guns blindly into the ink-black shadows where he had disappeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: As Floreal rose from his father's body he heard a shot and saw the soldiers of the Republic charging him.]

When Colonel Laguerre arrived upon the scene they were still loading and firing without aim, and he had some difficulty in restoring them to order. Blood they were accustomed to, but blood of their own letting.

This was very different. This was a blow at the government, at their own established authority. Such an appalling loss of life seldom occurred to regular troops of the Republic; it was worse than a pitched battle with the Dominicans, and it excited the troopers terribly.

Perhaps he had been mistaken and there was no money, thought the colonel, as he returned to his quarters after a time. Of course the girl still remained, and he could soon force the truth from her, but she was the only source of information left now that Floreal had escaped, for Laguerre had noted carelessly that the body of Julien had hung too long.

It was annoying to be deceived in this way, but perhaps the day had not been without some profit, after all, he mused.

The road to the Dominican frontier was rough and wild. All Hayti was aflame; every village was peopled by raging blacks who had risen against their lighter-hued brethren. Among the fugitives who slunk along the winding bridle-paths that once had been roads there was a mulatto youth of scarcely twenty, who carried a machete beneath his arm. In his eyes there was a lurking horror; his wrists were bound with rags torn from his cotton s.h.i.+rt; he spoke but seldom, and when he did it was to curse the name of Pet.i.thomme Laguerre.

II

Floreal took up his residence across the border. The countries had long been at war, so he found reason to change his name. He likewise changed his language, although that was not so easily accomplished, and then, since he had been born of the sea, he returned to it. But he could not bring himself to utterly forsake the island of his birth, for twice a year, when the seasons changed, when the trades died and the hot lands sent their odors reeking through the night, he felt a hungry yearning for Hayti. During these periods of lifeless heat his impulses ran wild; at these times his habits changed and he became violent, nocturnal. As he thought of Pet.i.thomme Laguerre he bit his wrists in an agony of recollection. Women shunned him, men said to one another:

"This Inocencio is a person of uncertain temper. He has a bad eye."

"Whence did he come?" others inquired. "He is not one of us."

"From Jamaica, or the Barbadoes, perhaps. He has much evil in him."