CHAPTER V

A prolonged quavering note upon the guitar, like a sob, concluded the song. I was beside myself with rage. King—black—slave! A thousand incoherent ideas were awakened by this extraordinary and mysterious song. A maddening desire to finish for once and all with this unknown being, who dared to mingle the name of Marie with songs of love and menace, took possession of me. I grasped my rifle convulsively and rushed from the summer-house. Marie stretched out her arms to detain me, but I was already in the thicket from which the voice appeared to have come. I searched the little wood thoroughly, I beat the bushes with the barrel of my rifle, I crept behind the trunks of the large trees, and walked through the high grass.

Nothing—nothing—always nothing! This fruitless search added fuel to the fire of my anger. Was this insolent rival always to escape from me like a supernatural being? Was I never to be able to find out who he was, or to meet him? At this moment the tinkling of bells roused me from my reverie. I turned sharply round, the dwarf Habibrah was at my side.

“Good day, master,” said he, with a sidelong glance full of triumphant malice at the anxiety which was imprinted on my face.

“Tell me,” exclaimed I, roughly, “have you seen any one about here?”

“No one except yourself, señor mio,” answered he, calmly.

“Did you hear no voice?” continued I.

The slave remained silent, as though seeking for an evasive reply.

My passion burst forth. “Quick, quick!” I exclaimed. “Answer me quickly, wretch! did you hear a voice?”

He fixed his eyes boldly upon mine; they were small and round, and gleamed like those of a wild cat.

“What do you mean by a voice, master? There are voices everywhere—the voice of the birds, the voice of the stream, the voice of the wind in the trees——”

I shook him roughly. “Miserable buffoon,” I cried, “cease your quibbling, or you shall hear another voice from the barrel of my rifle. Answer at once; did you hear a man singing a Spanish song?”

“Yes, señor,” answered he, calmly. “Listen, and I will tell you all about it. I was walking on the outskirts of the wood listening to what the silver bells of my gorra (cap) were telling me, when the wind brought to my ears some Spanish words, the first language that I heard when my age could have been counted by months, and my mother carried me slung at her back in a hammock of red and yellow wool. I love the language, it recalls to me the time when I was little without being a dwarf, a little child, and not a buffoon; and so I listened to the song.”

“Is that all that you have to say?” cried I, impatiently.

“Yes, handsome master; but if you like I can tell you what the man was who sang.”

I felt inclined to clasp him in my arms.

“Oh, speak!” I exclaimed; “speak! here is my purse, and ten others fuller than that shall be yours if you will tell me his name.”

He took the purse, opened it, and smiled.

“Ten purses fuller than this,” murmured he; “that will make a fine heap of good gold coins; but do not be impatient, young master, I am going to tell you all. Do you remember the last verse of his song, something about ‘I am black, and you are white, and the union of the two produces the beautiful light’? Well, if this song is true, Habibrah, your humble slave, was born of a negress and a white, and must be more beautiful than you, master; I am the offspring of day and night, therefore I am more beautiful than a white man, and——”

He accompanied this rhapsody with bursts of laughter.

“Enough of buffoonery,” cried I; “tell me who was singing in the wood.”

“Certainly, master, the man who sang such buffooneries, as you rightly term them, could only have been—a fool like me! Have I not gained my ten purses?”

I raised my hand to chastise his insolence, when a wild shriek rang through the wood from the direction of the summer-house.

It was Marie’s voice.

Like an arrow I darted to the spot, wondering what fresh misfortune could be in store for us, and in a few moments arrived, out of breath, at the door of the pavilion. A terrible spectacle presented itself to my eyes.

An enormous alligator, whose body was half concealed by the reeds and water plants, had thrust his monstrous head through one of the leafy sides of the summer-house; his hideous widely opened mouth threatened a young negro of colossal height, who with one arm sustained Marie’s fainting form, whilst with the other he had plunged the iron portion of a hoe between the sharp and pointed teeth of the monster. The reptile struggled fiercely against the bold and courageous hand that held him at bay.

As I appeared at the door, Marie uttered a cry of joy, and extricating herself from the support of the negro, threw herself into my arms with “I am saved, I am saved!” cried she.

At the movement and exclamation of Marie the negro turned abruptly round, crossed his arms on his breast, and casting a look of infinite sorrow upon my betrothed, remained immovable, taking no heed of the alligator, which, having freed itself from the hoe, was advancing on him in a threatening manner.

There would have been a speedy end of the courageous negro, had I not rapidly placed Marie on the knees of her nurse, who, more dead than alive, was gazing upon the scene, and, coming close to the monster, discharged my carbine into its yawning mouth. The huge reptile staggered back, its bleeding jaws opened and shut convulsively, its eyes closed, and after one or two unavailing efforts it rolled over upon its back, with its scaly feet stiffening in the air. It was dead. The negro whose life I had so happily preserved turned his head and saw the last convulsive struggles of the monster, then he fixed his eyes upon Marie, who had again cast herself into my arms, and in accents of the deepest despair, he exclaimed in Spanish, “Why did you kill him?” and, without waiting for a reply, leaped into the thicket and disappeared.