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Chita-A Memory of Last Island-Part6_Lafcadio Hearn(1850-1904)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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exerted all her skill to revive the flickering life. Soon Feliu

came to aid her, while his men set to work completing the



interrupted preparation of the breakfast. Flannels were heated

for the friction of the frail limbs; and brandy-and-water warmed,



which Carmen administered by the spoonful, skilfully as any

physician,--until, at last, the little creature opened her eyes



and began to sob. Sobbing still, she was laid in Carmen's warm

feather-bed, well swathed in woollen wrappings. The immediate



danger, at least, was over; and Feliu smiled with pride and

pleasure.



Then Carmen first ventured to relate her dream; and his face

became grave again. Husband and wife gazed a moment into each



other's eyes, feeling together the same strange thrill--that

mysterious faint creeping, as of a wind passing, which is the awe



of the Unknowable. Then they looked at the child, lying there,

pink checked with the flush of the blood returning; and such a



sudden tenderness touched them as they had known long years

before, while together bending above the slumbering loveliness of



lost Conchita.

--"Que ojos!" murmured Feliu, as he turned away,--feigning hunger



... (He was not hungry; but his sight had grown a little dim, as

with a mist.) Que ojos! They were singular eyes, large, dark, and



wonderfully fringed. The child's hair was yellow--it was the

flash of it that had saved her; yet her eyes and brows were



beautifully black. She was comely, but with such a curious,

delicate comeliness--totally unlike the robust beauty of Concha



... At intervals she would moan a little between her sobs; and at

last cried out, with a thin, shrill cry: "Maman!--oh! maman!"



Then Carmen lifted her from the bed to her lap, and caressed her,

and rocked her gently to and fro, as she had done many a night



for Concha,--murmuring,--"Yo sere tu madre, angel mio, dulzura

mia;--sere tu madrecita, palomita mia!" (I will be thy mother, my



angel, my sweet;--I will be thy little mother, my doveling.) And

the long silk fringes of the child's eyes overlapped, shadowed



her little cheeks; and she slept--just as Conchita had slept long

ago,--with her head on Carmen's bosom.



Feliu re-appeared at the inner door: at a sign, he approached

cautiously, without noise, and looked.



--"She can talk," whispered Carmen in Spanish: "she called her

mother"--ha llamado a su madre.



--"Y Dios tambien la ha llamado," responded Feliu, with rude

pathos;--"And God also called her."



--"But the Virgin sent us the child, Feliu,--sent us the child

for Concha's sake."



He did not answer at once; he seemed to be thinking very

deeply;--Carmen anxiously scanned his impassive face.



--"Who knows?" he answered, at last;--"who knows? Perhaps she

has ceased to belong to any one else."



One after another, Feliu's luggers fluttered in,--bearing with

them news of the immensecalamity. And all the fishermen, in



turn, looked at the child. Not one had ever seen her before.

V.



Ten days later, a lugger full of armed men entered the bayou, and

moored at Viosca's wharf. The visitors were, for the most part,



country gentlemen,--residents of Franklin and neighboring towns,

or planters from the Teche country,--forming one of the numerous



expeditions organized for the purpose of finding the bodies of

relatives or friends lost in the great hurricane, and of



punishing the robbers of the dead. They had searched numberless

nooks of the coast, had given sepulture to many corpses, had



recovered a large amount of jewelry, and--as Feliu afterward

learned,--had summarily tried and executed several of the most



abandoned class of wreckers found with ill-gotten valuables in

their possession, and convicted of having mutilated the drowned.



But they came to Viosca's landing only to obtain information;--he

was too well known and liked to be a subject for suspicion; and,



moreover, he had one good friend in the crowd,--Captain Harris of

New Orleans, a veteransteamboat man and a market contractor, to



whom he had disposed of many a cargo of fresh pompano,

sheep's-head, and Spanish-mackerel ... Harris was the first to



step to land;--some ten of the party followed him. Nearly all

had lost some relative or friend in the great catastrophe;--the



gathering was serious, silent,--almost grim,--which formed about

Feliu.



Mateo, who had come to the country while a boy, spoke English




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