The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure
and--this morning you came. It was terrible! Mamma Cleomélie is
dead--the soldiers shot her. Why do you hang Papa Julien?"
Floréal 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."
Petithomme 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 Cleomélie, my mother, whom the soldiers shot.
That was murder. Monsieur--she would have harmed nobody. 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--"
Floréal 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.
Floréal 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 Floréal flung himself in the path of
the black man; the wife retreated in speechless dismay.
Petithomme thrust young Rameau aside, crying, angrily: "You wish to
live, eh? Well, then, the truth. Otherwise--"
"But--she? Pierrine?" panted Floréal, 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.
Floréal 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 shifted 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. Floréal 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?"
Floréal 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 appetite for pleasanter things than this." He turned
toward the house in which Pierrine was hidden, whereat Floréal strained
at his bonds, calling after him:
"Laguerre! She is my wife--by the Church! My wife."
Petithomme 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 Floréal, 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 Floréal'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 Floréal was upon him like the blurred image out of a
nightmare. The trooper shrieked affrightedly as the blade sheared
through his shield and bit at his arm. He turned to flee, but his head
was round and bare, and it danced before the oncoming Floréal. 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.
Floréal 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.
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 Floréal 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 shirt; he spoke but seldom, and when he did it was to curse
the name of Petithomme Laguerre.
II
Floréal 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 Petithomme 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."
"And yet he makes no enemies."
"Nor friends."
"Um-m! A peculiar fellow. A man of passion--one can see it in his face."
Hayti had become quiet once more--as quiet as could be expected--and the
former colonel of tirailleurs had prospered. He was now "General
Petithomme Laguerre, Commandant of the Arrondissement of the South," and
the echo of his name crept eastward along the coast, even to Azua.
The bitterness of this news finally sent Inocencio seaward in a
barkentine, the business of which was not above suspicion. He cruised
through the Virgin Islands, on around the Leewards and the Windwards,
seeing something of the world and tasting of its wickedness. A year
later, at Trinidad, he fell in with a Portuguese half-breed, captain of
a schooner bound on hazardous business, and, inasmuch as high wages were