Part 17 (1/2)

”I have heard of him often, often. The old ones spoke of it to me. His heart was broken,--the captain, who was more cruel than Winslow, called him a papist dog, and struck him down, and the sailors threw him into the sea. He laid a curse on the wicked captain, but I cannot remember his name.”

”Did you ever hear anything of the wife and child of Etex LeNoir?”

”No,” she said, absently, ”there was only the husband Etex that I had heard of. Would not his wife come back to the Bay? I do not know,” and she relapsed into the dullness from which her temporary excitement had roused her.

”He was called the Fiery Frenchman,” she muttered, presently, but so low that Vesper had to lean forward to hear her. ”The old ones said that there was a mark like flame on his forehead, and he was like fire himself.”

”Agapit, is it not time that we embark?” said Rose, gliding from an inner room. ”It will soon be dark.”

Agapit sprang up. Vesper shook hands with Madame Kessy and her daughter, and politely a.s.sured them, in answer to their urgent request, that he would be sure to call again, then took his seat in the dog-cart, where in company with his new friends he was soon bowling quickly over a bit of smooth and newly repaired road.

Away ahead, under the trees, they soon heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of a lively song, and presently two young men staggered into view supporting each other, and having much difficulty in keeping to their side of the road.

Agapit, with angry mutterings, drove furiously by the young men, with his head well in the air, although they saluted him as their dear cousin from the Bay.

Rose did not speak, but she hung her head, and Vesper knew that she was blus.h.i.+ng to the tips of the white ears inside her black handkerchief.

No one ventured a remark until they reached a place where four roads met, when Agapit e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, desperately, ”The devil is also here!”

Vesper turned around. The sun had gone down, the twilight was nearly over, but he possessed keen sight and could plainly discover against the dull blue evening sky the figures of a number of men and boys, some of whom were balancing themselves on the top of a zigzag fence, while others stood with hands in their pockets,--all vociferously laughing and jeering at a man who staggered to and fro in their midst with clenched fists, and light s.h.i.+rt-sleeves spotted with red.

”This is abominable,” said Agapit, in a rage, and he was about to lay his whip on Toochune's back when Vesper suggested mildly that he was in danger of running down some of his countrymen.

Agapit pulled up the horse with a jerk, and Rose immediately sprang to the road and ran up to the young man, who had plainly been fighting and was about to fight again.

Vesper slipped from his seat and stood by the wheel.

”Do not follow her,” exclaimed Agapit; ”they will not hurt her. They would beat you.”

”I know it.”

”She is my cousin, thou impatient one,” pursued Agapit, irritably. ”I would not allow her to be insulted.”

”I know that, too,” said Vesper, calmly, and he watched the young men springing off the fences and hurrying up to Rose, who had taken the pugilist by the hand.

”Isidore,” she said, sorrowfully, and as unaffectedly as if they had been alone, ”hast thou been fighting again?”

”It is her second cousin,” growled Agapit; ”that is why she interferes.”

”_ecoute-moi, ecoute-moi_, Rose” (listen to me), stammered the young man in the blood-stained s.h.i.+rt. ”They all set upon me. I was about to be ma.s.sacred. I struck out but a little, and I got some taps here and there. I was drunk at first, but I am not very drunk now.”

”Poor Isidore, I will take thee home; come with me.”

The crowd of men and boys set up a roar. They were quarrelsome and mischievous, and had not yet got their fill of rowdyism.

”_Va-t'ang, va-t'ang_” (go away), ”Rose a Charlitte. We want no women here. Go home about thy business. If Big Fists wishes to fight, we will fight.”

Among all the noisy, discordant voices this was the only insulting one, and Rose turned and fixed her mild gaze on the offender, who was one of the oldest men present, and the chief mischief-maker of the neighborhood. ”But it is not well for all to fight one man,” she said, gently.

”We fight one by one. Isidore is big,--he has never enough. Go away, or there will yet be a bigger row,” and he added a sentence of gross abuse.