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housekeeper never opened those sphinx-lips of hers, until years
after the Doctor's name had disappeared from the City Directory

...
He had grown quite thin,--a little gray. The epidemic had

burthened him with responsibilities too multifarious and
ponderous for his slender strength to bear. The continual

nervous strain of abnormally protracted duty, the perpetual
interruption of sleep, had almost prostrated even his will. Now

he only hoped that, during this brief absence from the city, he
might find renewed strength to do his terrible task.

Mosquitoes bit savagely; and the heat became thicker;--and there
was yet no wind. Sparicio and his hired boy Carmelo had been

walking backward and forward for hours overhead,--urging the
vessel yard by yard, with long poles, through the slime of canals

and bayous. With every heavy push, the weary boy would sigh
out,--"Santo Antonio!--Santo Antonio!" Sullen Sparicio himself

at last burst into vociferations of ill-humor:--"Santo
Antonio?--Ah! santissimu e santu diavulu! ... Sacramentu paescite

vegnu un asidente!--malidittu lu Signuri!" All through the
morning they walked and pushed, trudged and sighed and swore; and

the minutes dragged by more wearily than the shuffling of their
feet. "Managgia Cristo co tutta a croce!" ... "Santissimu e

santu diavulu!" ...
But as they reached at last the first of the broad bright lakes,

the heat lifted, the breeze leaped up, the loose sail flapped and
filled; and, bending graciously as a skater, the old San Marco

began to shoot in a straight line over the blue flood. Then,
while the boy sat at the tiller, Sparicio lighted his tiny

charcoal furnace below, and prepared a simple meal,--delicious
yellow macaroni, flavored with goats' cheese; some fried fish,

that smelled appetizingly; and rich black coffee, of Oriental
fragrance and thickness. Julien ate a little, and lay down to

sleep again. This time his rest was undisturbed by the
mosquitoes; and when he woke, in the cooling evening, he felt

almost refreshed. The San Marco was flying into Barataria Bay.
Already the lantern in the lighthouse tower had begun to glow

like a little moon; and right on the rim of the sea, a vast and
vermilion sun seemed to rest his chin. Gray pelicans came

flapping around the mast;--sea-birds sped hurtling by, their
white bosoms rose-flushed by the western glow ... Again

Sparicio's little furnace was at work,--more fish, more macaroni,
more black coffee; also a square-shouldered bottle of gin made

its appearance. Julien ate less sparingly at this second meal;
and smoked a long time on deck with Sparicio, who suddenly became

very good-humored, and chatted volubly in bad Spanish, and in
much worse English. Then while the boy took a few hours' sleep,

the Doctor helped delightedly in maneuvering the little vessel.
He had been a good yachtsman in other years; and Sparicio

declared he would make a good fisherman. By midnight the San
Marco began to run with a long, swinging gait;--she had reached

deep water. Julien slept soundly; the steady rocking of the
sloop seemed to soothe his nerves.

--"After all, " he thought to himself, as he rose from his
little bunk next morning,--"something like this is just what I

needed." ... The pleasant scent of hot coffee greeted
him;--Carmelo was handing him the tin cup containing it, down

through the hatchway. After drinking it he felt really
hungry;--he ate more macaroni than he had ever eaten before.

Then, while Sparicio slept, he aided Carmelo; and during the
middle of the day he rested again. He had not had so much

uninterrupted repose for many a week. He fancied he could feel
himself getting strong. At supper-time it seemed to him he could

not get enough to eat,--although there was plenty for everybody.
All day long there had been exactly the same wave-crease

distorting the white shadow of the San Marco's sail upon the blue
water;--all day long they had been skimming over the liquid level

of a world so jewel-blue that the low green ribbon-strips of
marsh land, the far-off fleeing lines of pine-yellow sand beach,

seemed flaws or breaks in the perfected color of the
universe;--all day long had the cloudless sky revealed through

all its exquisite transparency that inexpressible tenderness
which no painter and no poet can ever reimage,--that unutterable

sweetness which no art of man may ever shadow forth, and which
none may ever comprehend,--though we feel it to be in some

strange way akin to the luminous and unspeakable charm that makes
us wonder at the eyes of a woman when she loves.

Evening came; and the great dominantcelestial tone
deepened;--the circling horizon filled with ghostly

tints,--spectral greens and grays, and pearl-lights and
fish-colors ... Carmelo, as he crouched at the tiller, was

singing, in a low, clear alto, some tristful little melody. Over
the sea, behind them, lay, black-stretching, a long low arm of

island-shore;--before them flamed the splendor of sun-death; they
were sailing into a mighty glory,--into a vast and awful light of

gold.
Shading his vision with his fingers, Sparicio pointed to the long

lean limb of land from which they were fleeing, and said to La
Brierre:--

--"Look-a, Doct-a! Last-a Islan'!"
Julien knew it;--he only nodded his head in reply, and looked the

other way,--into the glory of God. Then, wishing to divert the
fisherman's attention to another theme, he asked what was Carmelo

singing. Sparicio at once shouted to the lad:--
--"Ha! ... ho! Carmelo!--Santu diavulu! ... Sing-a loud-a!

Doct-a lik-a! Sing-a! sing!" .... "He sing-a nicee,"--added
the boatman, with his peculiar dark smile. And then Carmelo

sang, loud and clearly, the song he had been singing before,--one
of those artless Mediterranean ballads, full of caressing

vowel-sounds, and young passion, and melancholy beauty:--
"M'ama ancor, belta fulgente,

Come tu m'amasti allor;--
Ascoltar non dei gente,

Solo interroga il tuo cor." ...
--"He sing-a nicee,--mucha bueno!" murmured the fisherman. And

then, suddenly,--with a rich and splendid basso that seemed to
thrill every fibre of the planking,--Sparicio joined in the

song:--
"M'ama pur d'amore eterno,

Ne deilitto sembri a te;
T'assicuro che l'inferno

Una favola sol e." ...
All the roughness of the man was gone! To Julien's startled

fancy, the fishers had ceased to be;--lo! Carmelo was a princely
page; Sparicio, a king! How perfectly their voices married

together!--they sang with passion, with power, with truth, with
that wondrous natural art which is the birthright of the rudest

Italian soul. And the stars throbbed out in the heaven; and the
glory died in the west; and the night opened its heart; and the

splendor of the eternities fell all about them. Still they sang;
and the San Marco sped on through the soft gloom, ever slightly

swerved by the steady blowing of the southeast wind in her
sail;--always wearing the same crimpling-frill of wave-spray

about her prow,--always accompanied by the same smooth-backed
swells,--always spinning out behind her the same long trail of

interwoven foam. And Julien looked up. Ever the night thrilled
more and more with silent twinklings;--more and more

multitudinously lights pointed in the eternities;--the Evening
Star quivered like a great drop of liquid white fire ready to

fall;--Vega flamed as a pharos lighting the courses ethereal,--to
guide the sailing of the suns, and the swarming of fleets of

worlds. Then the vast sweetness of that violet night entered
into his blood,--filled him with that awful joy, so near akin to

sadness, which the sense of the Infinite brings,--when one feels
the poetry of the Most Ancient and Most Excellent of Poets, and

then is smitten at once with the contrast-thought of the
sickliness and selfishness of Man,--of the blindness and

brutality of cities, whereinto the divine blue light never purely
comes, and the sanctification of the Silences never descends ...

furious cities, walled away from heaven ... Oh! if one could only
sail on thus always, always through such a night--through such a

star-sprinkled violet light, and hear Sparicio and Carmelo sing,
even though it were the same melody always, always the same song!

... "Scuza, Doct-a!--look-a out!" Julien bent down, as the big
boom, loosened, swung over his head. The San Marco was rounding

into shore,--heading for her home. Sparicio lifted a huge
conch-shell from the deck, put it to his lips, filled his deep

lungs, and flung out into the night--thrice--a profound,
mellifluent, booming horn-tone. A minute passed. Then, ghostly

faint, as an echo from very far away, a triple blowing responded
...

And a long purple mass loomed and swelled into sight, heightened,
approached--land and trees black-shadowing, and lights that swung

... The San Marco glided into a bayou,--under a high wharfing of
timbers, where a bearded fisherman waited, and a woman. Sparicio

flung up a rope.
The bearded man caught it by the lantern-light, and tethered the

San Marco to her p]ace. Then he asked, in a deep voice:
-"Has traido al Doctor?"

-"Si, si!" answered Sparicio... "Y el viejo?"
-"Aye! pobre!" responded Feliu,--"hace tres dias que esta

muerto. "
Henry Edwards was dead!

He had died very suddenly, without a cry or a word, while resting
in his rocking-chair,--the very day after Sparicio had sailed.

They had made him a grave in the marsh,--among the high weeds,
not far from the ruined tomb of the Spanish fisherman. But

Sparicio had fairly earned his hundred dollars.
V.

So there was nothing to do at Viosca's Point except to rest.
Feliu and all his men were going to Barataria in the morning on

business;--the Doctor could accompany them there, and take the
Grand Island steamer Monday for New Orleans. With this intention

Julien retired,--not sorry for being able to stretch himself at
full length on the good bed prepared for him, in one of the

unoccupied cabins. But he woke before day with a feeling of
intense prostration, a violentheadache, and such an aversion for

the mere idea of food that Feliu's invitation to breakfast at
five o'clock gave him an internal qualm. Perhaps a touch of

malaria. In any case he felt it would be both dangerous and
useless to return to town unwell; and Feliu, observing his

condition, himself advised against the journey. Wednesday he
would have another opportunity to leave; and in the meanwhile

Carmen would take good care of him ... The boats departed, and
Julien slept again.

The sun was high when he rose up and dressed himself, feeling no
better. He would have liked to walk about the place, but felt

nervously afraid of the sun. He did not remember having ever
felt so broken down before. He pulled a rocking-chair to the

window, tried to smoke a cigar. It commenced to make him feel
still sicker, and he flung it away. It seemed to him the cabin

was swaying, as the San Marco swayed when she first reached the
deep water.

A light rustling sound approached,--a sound of quick feet
treading the grass: then a shadow slanted over the threshold.

In the glow of the open doorway stood a young girl,--gracile,
tall,--with singularly splendid eyes,--brown eyes peeping at him

from beneath a golden riot of loose hair.
--"M'sieu-le-Docteur, maman d'mande si vous n'avez besoin

d'que'que chose?" ... She spoke the rude French of the fishing
villages, where the language lives chiefly as a baragouin,

mingled often with words and forms belonging to many other


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