Chapter 29

In his arms he bore--and all the people shouted at once when they saw it--the tiger. He had lifted it high up with its back to his breast, his arms clasped under its shoulders; the wretched brute had curled up caterpillar-wise, with its long tail against its belly, and through its filed teeth grinned a fixed and impotent wrath. And Parson Jones was shouting:--

"The tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together! You dah to say they shayn't and I'll comb you with this varmint from head to foot! The tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together. They _shell_! Now, you, Joe! Behold! I am here to see it done. The lion and the buffler _shell_ lay down together!"

Mouthing these words again and again, the parson forced his way through the surge in the wake of the buffalo. This creature the Latins had secured by a lariat over his head, and were dragging across the old rampart and into a street of the city.

The Northern races were trying to prevent, and there was pommeling and knocking down, cursing and knife-drawing, until Jules St.-Ange was quite carried away with the fun, laughed, clapped his hands, and swore with delight, and ever kept close to the gallant parson.

Joe, contrariwise, counted all this child's-play an interruption. He had come to find Colossus and the money. In an unlucky moment he made bold to lay hold of the parson, but a piece of the broken barriers in the hands of a flatboatman felled him to the sod, the terrible crowd swept over him, the lariat was cut, and the giant parson hurled the tiger upon the buffalo's back. In another instant both brutes were dead at the hands of the mob; Jones was lifted from his feet, and prating of Scripture and the millennium, of Paul at Ephesus and Daniel in the "buffler's" den, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of the huzzaing _Américains_. Half an hour later he was sleeping heavily on the floor of a cell in the _calaboza_.

When Parson Jones awoke, a bell was somewhere tolling for midnight. Somebody was at the door of his cell with a key. The lock grated, the door swung, the turnkey looked in and stepped back, and a ray of moonlight fell upon M. Jules St.-Ange. The prisoner sat upon the empty shackles and ring-bolt in the centre of the floor.

"Misty Posson Jone'," said the visitor, softly.

"O Jools!"

"_Mais_, w'at de matter, Posson Jone'?"

"My sins, Jools, my sins!"

"Ah, Posson Jone', is that something to cry, because a man get sometime a litt' bit intoxicate? _Mais_, if a man keep _all the time_ intoxicate, I think that is again' the conscien'."

"Jools, Jools, your eyes is darkened--oh! Jools, where's my pore old niggah?"

"Posson Jone', never min'; he is wid Baptiste."

"Where?"

"I don' know w'ere--_mais_ he is wid Baptiste. Baptiste is a beautiful to take care of somebody."

"Is he as good as you, Jools?" asked Parson Jones, sincerely.

Jules was slightly staggered.

"You know, Posson Jone', you know, a nigger cannot be good as a w'ite man--_mais_ Baptiste is a good nigger."

The parson moaned and dropped his chin into his hands.

"I was to of left for home to-morrow, sun-up, on the Isabella schooner. Pore Smyrny!" He deeply sighed.

"Posson Jone'," said Jules, leaning against the wall and smiling, "I swear you is the moz funny man I ever see. If I was you I would say, me, 'Ah! 'ow I am lucky! the money I los', it was not mine, anyhow!' My faith! shall a man make hisse'f to be the more sorry because the money he los' is not his? Me, I would say, 'It is a specious providence.'

"Ah! Misty Posson Jone'," he continued, "you make a so droll sermon ad the bull-ring. Ha! ha! I swear I thing you can make money to preach thad sermon many time ad the theatre St. Philippe. Hah! you is the moz brave dat I never see, _mais_ ad the same time the moz rilligious man. Where I'm goin' to fin' one priest to make like dat? _Mais_, why you can't cheer up an' be 'appy? Me, if I should be miserabl' like that I would kill meself."

The countryman only shook his head.

"_Bien_, Posson Jone', I have the so good news for you."

The prisoner looked up with eager inquiry.

"Las' evening when they lock' you, I come right off at M. De Blanc's house to get you let out of de calaboose; M. De Blanc he is the judge. So soon I was entering--'Ah! Jules, me boy, juz the man to make complete the game!' Posson Jone', it was a specious providence! I win in t'ree hours more dan six hundred dollah! Look." He produced a mass of bank-notes, _bons_, and due-bills.

"And you got the pass?" asked the parson, regarding the money with a sadness incomprehensible to Jules.

"It is here; it take the effect so soon the daylight."

"Jools, my friend, your kindness is in vain."

The Creole's face became a perfect blank.

"Because," said the parson, "for two reasons: firstly, I have broken the laws, and ought to stand the penalty; and secondly--you must really excuse me, Jools, you know, but the pass has been got onfairly, I'm afeerd. You told the judge I was innocent; and in neither case it don't become a Christian (which I hope I can still say I am one) to 'do evil that good may come.' I muss stay."

M. St.-Ange stood up aghast, and for a moment speechless, at this exhibition of moral heroism; but an artifice was presently hit upon. "_Mais_, Posson Jone'!"--in his old _falsetto_--"de order--you cannot read it, it is in French--compel you to go hout, sir!"

"Is that so?" cried the parson, bounding up with radiant face--"is that so, Jools?"

The young man nodded, smiling; but though he smiled, the fountain of his tenderness was opened. He made the sign of the cross as the parson knelt in prayer, and even whispered "Hail Mary," etc., quite through, twice over.

Morning broke in summer glory upon a cluster of villas behind the city, nestled under live-oaks and magnolias on the banks of a deep bayou, and known as Suburb St. Jean.

With the first beam came the West-Floridian and the Creole out upon the bank below the village. Upon the parson's arm hung a pair of antique saddle-bags. Baptiste limped wearily behind; both his eyes were encircled with broad blue rings, and one cheek-bone bore the official impress of every knuckle of Colossus's left hand. The "beautiful to take care of somebody" had lost his charge. At mention of the negro he became wild, and half in English, half in the "gumbo" dialect, said murderous things. Intimidated by Jules to calmness, he became able to speak confidently on one point; he could, would, and did swear that Colossus had gone home to the Florida parishes; he was almost certain; in fact, he thought so.

There was a clicking of pulleys as the three appeared upon the bayou's margin, and Baptiste pointed out, in the deep shadow of a great oak, the Isabella, moored among the bulrushes, and just spreading her sails for departure. Moving down to where she lay, the parson and his friend paused on the bank, loath to say farewell.

"O Jools!" said the parson, "supposin' Colossus ain't gone home! O Jools, if you'll look him out for me, I'll never forget you--I'll never forget you, nohow, Jools. No, Jools, I never will believe he taken that money. Yes, I know all niggahs will steal"--he set foot upon the gang-plank--"but Colossus wouldn't steal from me. Good-by."

"Misty Posson Jone'," said St.-Ange, putting his hand on the parson's arm with genuine affection, "hol' on. You see dis money--w'at I win las' night? Well, I win' it by a specious providence, ain't it?"

"There's no tellin'," said the humbled Jones. "Providence

'Moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.'"

"Ah!" cried the Creole, "_c'est_ very true. I ged this money in the mysterieuze way. _Mais_, if I keep dis money, you know where it goin' be to-night?"

"I really can't say," replied the parson.

"Goin' to de dev'," said the sweetly smiling young man.

The schooner-captain, leaning against the shrouds, and even Baptiste, laughed outright.

"O Jools, you mustn't!"

"Well, den, w'at I shall do wid _it_?"

"Anything!" answered the parson; "better donate it away to some poor man--"

"Ah! Misty Posson Jone', dat is w'at I want. You los' five hondred dollar'--'twas me fault."

"No, it wa'n't, Jools."

"_Mais_, it was!"

"No!"

"It _was_ me fault! I _swear_ it was me fault! _Mais_, here is five hundred dollar'; I wish you shall take it. Here! I don't got no use for money.--Oh my faith! Posson Jone', you must not begin to cry some more."

Parson Jones was choked with tears. When he found voice he said:--

"O Jools, Jools, Jools! my pore, noble, dear, misguidened friend! ef you hed of hed a Christian raisin'! May the Lord show you your errors better'n I kin, and bless you for your good intentions--oh, no! I cayn't touch that money with a ten-foot pole; it wa'n't rightly got; you must really excuse me, my dear friend, but I cayn't touch it."

St.-Ange was petrified.

"Good-by, dear Jools," continued the parson. "I'm in the Lord's haynds, and he's very merciful, which I hope and trust you'll find it out. Good-by!"--the schooner swung slowly off before the breeze--"good-by!"

St.-Ange roused himself. "Posson Jone'! make me hany'ow _dis_ promise: you never, never, _never_ will come back to New Orleans."

"Ah, Jools, the Lord willin', I'll never leave home again!"

"All right!" cried the Creole; "I thing he's willin'. Adieu, Posson Jone'. My faith'! you are the so fighting an' moz rilligious man as I never saw! Adieu! Adieu!"

Baptiste uttered a cry and presently ran by his master toward the schooner, his hands full of clods.

St.-Ange looked just in time to see the sable form of Colossus of Rhodes emerge from the vessel's hold, and the pastor of Smyrna and Bethesda seize him in his embrace.

"O Colossus! you outlandish old nigger! Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!"

The little Creole almost wept. He ran down the tow-path, laughing and swearing, and making confused allusion to the entire _personnel_ and furniture of the lower regions.

By odd fortune, at the moment that St.-Ange further demonstrated his delight by tripping his mulatto into a bog, the schooner came brushing along the reedy bank with a graceful curve, the sails flapped, and the crew fell to poling her slowly along.

Parson Jones was on the deck, kneeling once more in prayer. His hat had fallen before him; behind him knelt his slave. In thundering tones he was confessing himself "a plum fool," from whom "the conceit had been jolted out," and who had been made to see that even his "nigger had the longest head of the two."

Colossus clasped his hands and groaned.

The parson prayed for a contrite heart.

"Oh, yes!" cried Colossus.

The master acknowledged countless mercies.

"Dat's so!" cried the slave.

The master prayed that they might still be "piled on."

"Glory!" cried the black man, clapping his hands; "pile on!"

"An' now," continued the parson, "bring this pore, back-slidin' jackace of a parson and this pore ole fool nigger back to thar home in peace!"

"Pray fo' de money!" called Colossus.

But the parson prayed for Jules.

"Pray fo' de _money_!" repeated the negro.

"And oh, give thy servant back that there lost money!"

Colossus rose stealthily, and tiptoed by his still shouting master. St.-Ange, the captain, the crew, gazed in silent wonder at the strategist. Pausing but an instant over the master's hat to grin an acknowledgment of his beholders' speechless interest, he softly placed in it the faithfully mourned and honestly prayed-for Smyrna fund; then, saluted by the gesticulative, silent applause of St.-Ange and the schooner-men, he resumed his first attitude behind his roaring master.

"Amen!" cried Colossus, meaning to bring him to a close.

"Onworthy though I be--" cried Jones.

"_Amen!_" reiterated the negro.

"A-a-amen!" said Parson Jones.

He rose to his feet, and, stooping to take up his hat, beheld the well-known roll. As one stunned, he gazed for a moment upon his slave, who still knelt with clasped hands and rolling eyeballs; but when he became aware of the laughter and cheers that greeted him from both deck and shore, he lifted eyes and hands to heaven, and cried like the veriest babe. And when he looked at the roll again, and hugged and kissed it, St.-Ange tried to raise a second shout, but choked, and the crew fell to their poles.

And now up runs Baptiste, covered with slime, and prepares to cast his projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark; the schooner swung round into a long reach of water, where the breeze was in her favor; another shout of laughter drowned the maledictions of the muddy man; the sails filled; Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the moment, ducked as the main boom swept round, and the schooner, leaning slightly to the pleasant influence, rustled a moment over the bulrushes, and then sped far away down the rippling bayou.

M. Jules St.-Ange stood long, gazing at the receding vessel as it now disappeared, now reappeared beyond the tops of the high undergrowth; but when an arm of the forest hid it finally from sight, he turned townward, followed by that fagged-out spaniel his servant, saying as he turned, "Baptiste?"

"_Miché?_"

"You know w'at I goin' do wid dis money?"

"_Non, m'sieur._"

"Well, you can strike me dead if I don't goin' to pay hall my debts! _Allons!_"

He began a merry little song to the effect that his sweetheart was a wine-bottle, and master and man, leaving care behind, returned to the picturesque Rue Royale. The ways of Providence are indeed strange. In all Parson Jones's after-life, amid the many painful reminiscences of his visit to the City of the Plain, the sweet knowledge was withheld from him that by the light of the Christian virtue that shone from him even in his great fall, Jules St.-Ange arose, and went to his father an honest man.

CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR

(100-44 B.C.)

BY J. H. WESTCOTT

"Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar," says Captain Miles Standish. Truly wonderful he was on each of his many sides: as soldier, statesman, orator, and author, all of the first rank--and a respectable critic, man of science and poet besides.

As a writer of Latin prose, and as an orator, he was second to Cicero alone in the age that is called the Ciceronian; and no third is to be named with these two. Yet among his contemporaries his literary power was an insignificant title to fame, compared with his overwhelming military and political genius. Here he stood alone, unrivaled, the most successful conqueror and civilizer of all history, the founder of the most majestic political fabric the world has ever seen. There have been other generals, statesmen, authors, as great as Cæsar; but the extraordinary combination of powers in this one man goes very far toward making good the claim that he was the most remarkable man in history.

He was born 100 B.C., a member of the great Julian _gens_, which claimed descent from Æneas and Venus, the glories of which are celebrated in Vergil's immortal epic. Thus the future leader of the turbulent democracy, and the future despot who was to humble the nobles of Rome, was by birth an aristocrat of bluest blood. His life might easily have come to an untimely end in the days of Sulla's bloody ascendency, for he was connected by marriage with Marius and Cinna. Sulla was persuaded to spare him, but clearly saw, even then, that "in Cæsar there were many Mariuses."

All young Romans of rank were expected to go through a term of at least nominal military service. Cæsar's apprenticeship was in Asia Minor in 80 B.C. He distinguished himself at the storming of Mytilene, and afterwards served in Cilicia. He began his political and oratorical career by the prosecution of Cornelius Dolabella, one of the nobility, on a charge of extortion. About 75 B.C. he was continuing his studies at Rhodes, then a famous school of eloquence. Obtaining the quæstorship in 67 B.C., he was assigned to duty in the province of Further Spain. Two years later he became ædile. At the age of thirty-seven he was elected _pontifex maximus_ over two powerful competitors. Entirely without religious belief, as far as we can judge, he recognized the importance of this portion of the civil order, and mastered the intricate lore of the established ceremonial. In this office, which he held for life, he busied himself with a Digest of the Auspices and wrote an essay on Divination.

After filling the prætorship in 62 B.C., he obtained, as proprætor, the governorship of his old province of Further Spain, which he was destined to visit twice in later years as conqueror in civil war. His military success at this time against the native tribes was such as to entitle him to the honor of a triumph. This he was obliged to forego in order to stand at once for the consulship, which office he held for the year 59 B.C. He had previously entered into a private agreement with Pompey and Crassus, known as the First Triumvirate. Cæsar had always presented himself as the friend of the people; Pompey was the most famous man of the time, covered with military laurels, and regarded, though not with perfect confidence, as the champion of the Senatorial party. Crassus, a man of ordinary ability, was valuable to the other two on account of his enormous wealth. These three men agreed to unite their interests and their influence. In accordance with this arrangement Cæsar obtained the consulship, and then the command for five years, afterward extended to ten, of the provinces of Gaul and Illyricum. It was while proconsul of Gaul in the years 58-50 B.C. that he subjugated and organized "All Gaul," which was far greater in extent than the country which is now France; increased his own political and material resources; and above all formed an army, the most highly trained and efficient the world had yet seen, entirely faithful to himself, by means of which he was able in the years 49-46 B.C. to defeat all his political antagonists and to gain absolute power over the State.

He held the consulship again in 48 and 46 B.C., and was consul without a colleague in 45 and 44 B.C., as well as dictator with authority to remodel the Constitution. While his far-reaching plans of organization and improvement were incomplete, and when he was about to start upon a war against the Parthians on the eastern frontier of the empire, he was murdered March 15th, 44 B.C., by a band of conspirators headed by Brutus and Cassius.

For purposes of a literary judgment of Cæsar we have of his own works in complete or nearly complete form his military memoirs only. His specifically literary works have all perished. A few sentences from his speeches, a few of his letters, a few wise or witty sayings, an anecdote or two scattered about in the pages of other authors, and six lines of hexameter verse, containing a critical estimate of the dramatist Terence, are all that remain as specimens of what is probably forever lost to us.

An enumeration of his works, so far as their titles are known, is the best evidence of his versatility. A bit of criticism here and there shows the estimation in which Cæsar the writer and orator was held by his countrymen and contemporaries. Besides the military memoirs and the works spoken of above in connection with his pontificate, we may mention, as of a semi-official character, his astronomical treatise On the Stars (De Astris), published in connection with his reform of the calendar, when dictator, shortly before the end of his life.

Cicero alludes to a collection of witty sayings (Apophthegms) made by Cæsar, with evident satisfaction at the latter's ability to distinguish the real and the false Ciceronian _bons mots_.

Like most Roman gentlemen, Cæsar wrote in youth several poems, of which Tacitus grimly says that they were not better than Cicero's. This list includes a tragedy, 'Oedipus,' 'Laudes Herculis' (the Praises of Hercules), and a metrical account of a journey into Spain (Iter).

A grammatical treatise in two books (De Analogia), dedicated to Cicero, to the latter's immense gratification, was written on one of the numerous swift journeys from Italy to headquarters in Gaul. Passages from it are quoted by several subsequent writers, and an anecdote preserved by Aulus Gellius in his Noctes Atticæ I. 10. 4, wherein a young man is warned by Cæsar to avoid unusual and far-fetched language "like a rock," is supposed to be very characteristic of his general attitude in matters of literary taste. The 'Anticatones' were a couple of political pamphlets ridiculing Cato, the idol of the republicans. This was small business for Cæsar, but Cato had taken rather a mean advantage by his dramatic suicide at Utica, and deprived Cæsar of the "pleasure of pardoning him."

Of Cæsar's orations we have none but the most insignificant fragments--our judgment of them must be based on the testimony of ancient critics. Quintilian speaks in the same paragraph (Quintilian X. 1, 114) of the "wonderful elegance of his language" and of the "force" which made it "seem that he spoke with the same spirit with which he fought." Cicero's phrase "_magnifica et generosa_" (Cicero, Brutus, 261), and Fronto's "_facultas dicendi imperatoria_" (Fronto, Ep. p. 123), indicate "some kind of severe magnificence."

Collections of his letters were extant in the second century, but nothing now remains except a few brief notes to Cicero, copied by the latter in his correspondence with Atticus. This loss is perhaps the one most to be regretted. Letters reveal their author's personality better than more formal species of composition, and Cæsar was almost the last real letter-writer, the last who used in its perfection the polished, cultivated, conversational language, the _Sermo urbanus_.

But after all, we possess the most important of his writings, the Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars. The first may be considered as a formal report to the Senate and the public on the conduct of his Gallic campaigns; the latter, as primarily intended for a defense of his constitutional position in the Civil War.

They are memoirs, half way between private notes and formal history. Cicero says that while their author "desired to give others the material out of which to create a history, he may perhaps have done a kindness to conceited writers who wish to trick them out with meretricious graces" (to "crimp with curling-irons"), "but he has deterred all men of sound taste from ever touching them. For in history a pure and brilliant conciseness of style is the highest attainable beauty." "They are worthy of all praise, for they are simple, straightforward and elegant, with all rhetorical ornament stripped from them as a garment is stripped." (Cicero, Brutus, 262.)