Chita: A Memory of Last Island Read online

could not talk German orItalian.

  --"Italiano? No!" said Feliu, shaking his head.... One of hisluggermen, Gioachino Sparicio, who, though a Sicilian, could speakseveral Italian idioms besides his own, had already essayed.

  --"She speaks something or other," answered the captain--"but noEnglish. I couldn't make her understand me; and Feliu, who talksnearly all the infernal languages spoken down this way, says he can'tmake her understand him. Suppose some of you who know French talk toher a bit ... Laroussel, why don't you try?"

  The young man addressed did not at first seem to notice the captain'ssuggestion. He was a tall, lithe fellow, with a dark, positive face:he had never removed his black gaze from the child since the moment ofher appearance. Her eyes, too, seemed to be all for him--to return hisscrutiny with a sort of vague pleasure, a half savage confidence ...Was it the first embryonic feeling of race-affinity quickening in thelittle brain?--some intuitive, inexplicable sense of kindred? Sheshrank from Doctor Hecker, who addressed her in German, shook her headat Lawyer Solari, who tried to make her answer in Italian; and her lookalways went back plaintively to the dark, sinister face ofLaroussel,--Laroussel who had calmly taken a human life, a wicked humanlife, only the evening before.

  --"Laroussel, you're the only Creole in this crowd," said the captain;"talk to her! Talk gumbo to her! ... I've no doubt this child knowsGerman very well, and Italian too,"--he added, maliciously--"but not inthe way you gentlemen pronounce it!"

  Laroussel handed his rifle to a friend, crouched down before the littlegirl, and looked into her face, and smiled. Her great sweet orbs shoneinto his one moment, seriously, as if searching; and then ... shereturned his smile. It seemed to touch something latent within theman, something rare; for his whole expression changed; and there was acaress in his look and voice none of the men could have believedpossible--as he exclaimed:--

  --"Fais moin bo, piti."

  She pouted up her pretty lips and kissed his black moustache.

  He spoke to her again:--

  --"Dis moin to nom, piti;--dis moin to nom, chere."

  Then, for the first time, she spoke, answering in her argent treble:

  --"Zouzoune."

  All held their breath. Captain Harris lifted his finger to his lips tocommand silence.

  --"Zouzoune? Zouzoune qui, chere?"

  --"Zouzoune, a c'est moin, Lili!"

  --"C'est pas tout to nom, Lili;--dis moin, chere, to laut nom."

  --"Mo pas connin laut nom."

  --"Comment ye te pele to maman, piti?"

  --"Maman,--Maman 'Dele."

  --"Et comment ye te pele to papa, chere?"

  --"Papa Zulien."

  --"Bon! Et comment to maman te pele to papa?--dis ca a moin, chere?"

  The child looked down, put a finger in her mouth, thought a moment, andreplied:--

  --"Li pele li, 'Cheri'; li pele li, 'Papoute.'"

  --"Aie, aie!--c'est tout, ca?--to maman te jamain pele li daut' chose?"

  --"Mo pas connin, moin."

  She began to play with some trinkets attached to his watch chain;--avery small gold compass especially impressed her fancy by the tremblingand flashing of its tiny needle, and she murmured, coaxingly:--

  --"Mo oule ca! Donnin ca a moin."

  He took all possible advantage of the situation, and replied at once:--

  --"Oui! mo va donnin toi ca si to di moin to laut nom."

  The splendid bribe evidently impressed her greatly; for tears rose tothe brown eyes as she answered:

  --"Mo pas capab di' ca;--mo pas capab di' laut nom ... Mo oule; mo pascapab!"

  Laroussel explained. The child's name was Lili,--perhaps a contractionof Eulalie; and her pet Creole name Zouzoune. He thought she must bethe daughter of wealthy people; but she could not, for some reason orother, tell her family name. Perhaps she could not pronounce it well,and was afraid of being laughed at: some of the old French names werevery hard for Creole children to pronounce, so long as the little oneswere indulged in the habit of talking the patois; and after a certainage their mispronunciations would be made fun of in order to accustomthem to abandon the idiom of the slave-nurses, and to speak onlyFrench. Perhaps, again, she was really unable to recall the name:certain memories might have been blurred in the delicate brain by theshock of that terrible night. She said her mother's name was Adele,and her father's Julien; but these were very common names inLouisiana,--and could afford scarcely any better clew than the innocentstatement that her mother used to address her father as "dear"(Cheri),--or with the Creole diminutive "little papa" (Papoute). ThenLaroussel tried to reach a clew in other ways, without success. Heasked her about where she lived,--what the place was like; and she toldhim about fig-trees in a court, and galleries, and banquettes, andspoke of a faubou',--without being able to name any street. He askedher what her father used to do, and was assured that he dideverything--that there was nothing he could not do. Divine absurdityof childish faith!--infinite artlessness of childish love! ... Probablythe little girl's parents had been residents of New Orleans--dwellersof the old colonial quarter,--the faubourg, the faubou'.

  --"Well, gentlemen," said Captain Harris, as Laroussel abandoned hiscross-examination in despair,--"all we can do now is to make inquiries.I suppose we'd better leave the child here. She is very weak yet, andin no condition to be taken to the city, right in the middle of the hotseason; and nobody could care for her any better than she's being caredfor here. Then, again, seems to me that as Feliu saved her life,--andthat at the risk of his own,--he's got the prior claim, anyhow; and hiswife is just crazy about the child--wants to adopt her. If we can findher relatives so much the better; but I say, gentlemen, let them comeright here to Feliu, themselves, and thank him as he ought to bethanked, by God! That's just what I think about it."

  Carmen understood the little speech;--all the Spanish charm of heryouth had faded out years before; but in the one swift look ofgratitude she turned upon the captain, it seemed to blossom again;--forthat quick moment, she was beautiful.

  "The captain is quite right," observed Dr. Hecker: "it would be verydangerous to take the child away just now." There was no dissent.

  --"All correct, boys?" asked the captain ... "Well, we've got to begoing. By-by, Zouzoune!"

  But Zouzoune burst into tears. Laroussel was going too!

  --"Give her the thing, Laroussel! she gave you a kiss, anyhow--morethan she'd do for me," cried the captain.

  Laroussel turned, detached the little compass from his watch chain, andgave it to her. She held up her pretty face for his farewell kiss ...

  VI.

  But it seemed fated that Feliu's waif should never beidentified;--diligent inquiry and printed announcements alike provedfruitless. Sea and sand had either hidden or effaced all the recordsof the little world they had engulfed: the annihilation of wholefamilies, the extinction of races, had, in more than one instance,rendered vain all efforts to recognize the dead. It required thesubtle perception of long intimacy to name remains tumefied anddiscolored by corruption and exposure, mangled and gnawed by fishes, byreptiles, and by birds;--it demanded the great courage of love to lookupon the eyeless faces found sweltering in the blackness ofcypress-shadows, under the low palmettoes of the swamps,--where gorgedbuzzards started from sleep, or cottonmouths uncoiled, hissing, at thecoming of the searchers. And sometimes all who had loved the lost werethemselves among the missing. The full roll call of names could neverbe made out; extraordinary mistakes were committed. Men whom the worlddeemed dead and buried came back, like ghosts,--to read their ownepitaphs.

  ... Almost at the same hour that Laroussel was questioning the child inCreole patois, another expedition, searching for bodies along thecoast, discovered on the beach of a low islet famed as a haunt ofpelicans, the corpse of a child. Some locks of bright hair stilladhering to the skull, a string of red beads, a white muslin dress, ahandkerchief broidered with the initials "A.L.B.,"--were secured asclews; and the little body was interred where it had be
en found.

  And, several days before, Captain Hotard, of the relief-boat EstelleBrousseaux, had found, drifting in the open Gulf (latitude 26 degrees43 minutes; longitude 88 degrees 17 minutes),--the corpse of afair-haired woman, clinging to a table. The body was disfigured beyondrecognition: even the slender bones of the hands had been stripped bythe nibs of the sea-birds-except one finger, the third of the left,which seemed to have been protected by a ring of gold, as by a charm.Graven within the plain yellow circlet was a date,--"JUILLET--1851";and the names,--"ADELE + JULIEN,"--separated by a cross. The Estellecarried coffins that day: most of them were already full; but therewas one for Adele.

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