Part 7

I went throughout the house, seeking all over for traces of a breaking in, but could find none. I then went into the garden to see if the assassins had got in on that side, but could perceive no certain traces. The rain of the preceding evening had besides so softened the ground that it would not well retain an impression. I observed, however, some footprints deeply indented in the soil; they seemed to be in contrary directions but on the same line, leading from the angle of the hedge adjoining the tennis-ground, and terminating at the door of the house. They might have been the steps of Alphonse when he went to look for his ring upon the finger of the statue; or, the hedge being less closely planted at this place than elsewhere, it might have been here that the murderers had effected their entrance. As I passed to and fro before the statue, I stopped a moment to look at it, and I must confess I could not on this occasion behold its expression of ironical wickedness without a sense of dread; and, my head filled with the scene of horror I had just witnessed, I seemed to gaze upon an infernal deity mocking at the calamity which had befallen the house.

I returned to my room, where I remained until mid-day: I then came forth and made inquiries about my hosts. They were a little more composed. Mademoiselle de Puygarey, I should say the widow of Monsieur Alphonse, had recovered her senses. She had even had an interview with the king's attorney of Perpignan, then on circuit at Ille; and this magistrate had received her deposition. He requested mine. I told him all I knew of the melancholy affair, and did not conceal my suspicions of the Arragonian muleteer; for whose arrest he gave immediate directions.

'Have you learned any thing from Madame Alphonse?' said I to the magistrate, after my deposition had been taken down, and signed.

'The poor young creature has become completely deranged,' answered he, with a mournful smile. 'Crazy! completely crazy! Her strange story is as follows:

'She had been in bed,' she says, 'a few minutes, the curtains drawn, and every thing silent, when the room door opened, and some one entered. Madame Alphonse was then lying on the farther side of the bed with her face toward the wall. She made no movement, thinking it was her husband. In an instant the bed creaked loudly, as if it had received an enormous weight. She was greatly terrified, but dared not turn her head. Five, ten minutes perhaps--for she could form no idea of time--passed in this manner. She then made an involuntary movement, or it might have been the person in bed who made one, and she felt something in contact with her as cold as ice. These are her expressions. She buried herself beneath the bed-clothes, and trembled from head to foot. Shortly afterward, the door opened a second time, and some one entered, who said: 'Good evening my little wife.' Presently, the curtains were withdrawn, and she heard a struggle and a stifled cry. The figure in bed beside her seemed to raise itself to a sitting posture, and to stretch its arms forward. She then turned her head and saw, as she says, her husband on his knees upon the bed, his head as high as the pillow, in the arms of a sort of greenish-colored giant, who embraced him with great force. She says, and the poor creature has repeated it to me at least twenty times--she says, that she recognized--can you guess what?--the bronze Venus; the statue of Monsieur Peyrade! Since this piece of sculpture has been here, every body, I think, has gone mad. But I am merely repeating the narration of the unhappy lunatic. At this spectacle, she became senseless, and probably for some moments lost her reason. How long she remained in this swoon she can form no idea. When she came to herself, she again saw the phantom, or the statue, as she persists in calling it, immovable, the lower part of the body in bed, the bust and arms extended forward; and between the arms, her husband lifeless and motionless. A cock crowed; on which the statue got out of bed, let fall the dead body, and departed. Madame Alphonse pulled the night-bell, and you know what followed.'

They brought in the Spaniard; he was composed, and defended himself with much coolness and presence of mind. He did not deny the speech I had overheard, but explained it, by saying that he only meant that on the morrow, when he was rested, he would beat his antagonist at a game of tennis. I remember, that he added, 'An Arragonian, when insulted, does not wait until the next day for revenge: had I thought Monsieur Alphonse meant to insult me, he would have had my knife in his body on the spot.'

They compared his shoes with the print of the footsteps in the garden; the shoes were much larger. Beside this, the innkeeper with whom the man lodged, testified that he had passed the whole of the night in rubbing and giving medicines to one of his mules that was sick. It was also proved that this Arragonian was a man of good character, and well known in the neighborhood around, which he visited every year for purposes of traffic. He was accordingly released, with an apology for his detention.

I had almost forgotten the testimony of a domestic, who was the last person that saw Monsieur Alphonse alive. At the moment he was about going to his wife's chamber, he called to this man, and in an agitated manner, asked him if he knew where I was. The domestic replied that he had not seen me; upon which Monsieur Alphonse gave a heavy sigh, and remained for more than a minute without speaking; he then exclaimed, wildly: '_Come on, then! the devil must have carried him off too!_'

I asked this man if Monsieur Alphonse had on his diamond ring when he spoke to him. The domestic paused before replying: he at length said, that he believed not; but that he had not paid particular attention. 'But,' added he, correcting himself, 'if the ring had been on his finger, I should doubtless have noticed it, for I believed that he had given it to Madame Alphonse.'

While questioning this man, I felt a little of the superstitious terror which the deposition of Madame Alphonse had spread through the house, creeping over me; but observing the king's attorney looking at me with a smile of peculiar meaning, I refrained from farther inquiry.

A few hours after the funeral rites of Monsieur Alphonse, which so closely succeeded those of his marriage, had been performed, I made my arrangements to quit Ille. The carriage of Monsieur Peyrade was to convey me to Perpignan. In spite of his feebleness and distress, the poor old man insisted upon accompanying me as far as the garden gate. We walked in silence, he leaning heavily on my arm, and dragging himself along with difficulty. At the moment of our separation, I cast a last look upon the fatal Venus. I well foresaw that my host, though he did not partake of the terror and hatred with which she inspired the greater part of his family, would be very willing to get rid of an object, which incessantly recalled so frightful a calamity. My intention was to persuade him to place it in a museum. As I hesitated about opening the subject, Monsieur Peyrade turned his head mechanically in the direction, toward which he saw me looking so fixedly. He saw the statue, and immediately burst into tears. I embraced him, and without venturing to say a single word, entered the carriage.

Since my departure, I have not learned that any thing has transpired to throw light upon this mysterious catastrophe.

Monsieur Peyrade died a few months after his son. By his will, he bequeathed me his manuscripts, which I may possibly some day publish. I did not, however, find among them the memoir relating to the inscriptions on the Venus.

* * * * *

P. S. My friend Monsieur de P---- has just written to me from Perpignan, informing me that the statue is no longer in existence. After the death of her husband, the first care of Madame Peyrade was to have it cast into a bell, under which new form it now serves the church of Ille. But, added Monsieur de P----, it seems as if bad luck continues to attend the possessors of this bronze. Since this bell has sounded at Ille, the vines have been twice frozen.

THE OLD MAN.

A BALLAD.

THE old dry leaf came circling down, On a windy autumn day, The leaf all sere, and glazed, and brown, On the bleak, bare hill to play; And the sky put on its dreariest frown, On that windy autumn day.

The heavy clouds went drifting by, As gray as gray could be, And not a speck of azure sky Could the worn-out wanderer see; That dark, stern man, low crouching by The gnarlèd old oak tree.

But drearer grew the inky sky, As daylight fled away, And the winds came out, and hurried by, As if they dared not stay; Howling afar, and shrieking nigh, Like spirits doomed, at play.

Then the old man shook his hoary head, As on his staff leaned he, For the sky above with blood seemed red, And the earth a bloody sea; And on him crimson drops were shed From the boughs of the old oak tree.

Then the old man laughed a horrid laugh, And shook his head again, And clenching fast his crooked staff, He turned him to the plain; And the hills rung back his hellish laugh, Mocking in wild disdain.

On, on he hurried, but still there rung That laugh back from the hill; While livid clouds above him hung, And forms, his blood to chill High o'er his head in mid-air swung, And all were laughing still!

The old man noted not his way, For his heart grew cold with fear; And language never breathed by day Was whispered in his ear: But he hurried on, for he dared not stay, Those awful words to hear!

He had trod that self-same path before, Ere evening, when he fled That mangled form bathed all in gore, And to the hill-side sped; And now at midnight met once more The murderer and the dead!

Hushed were the winds, the clouds rolled back, And on that lonely dell, Revealing clear a blood-marked track, The cold, pale starlight fell; Ah! light the old man did not lack, His handiwork to tell.

He had loved full long and well the youth, So cold and quiet lain, But what to him was love or truth? For bitter words and vain Had passed that day; and now, in sooth, He ne'er might love again!

Morn came; and on one fearful bed, In that dark, lonely wild, With sere brown leaves of autumn spread, The sun looked down and smiled; But there they lay, stiff, cold, and dead-- The old man and his child!

SKETCHES OF EAST-FLORIDA.

NUMBER THREE.

SAINT AUGUSTINE: THE FIRST LOOK.

THERE are places, and there are passages, in life that keep bright in all weathers. They improve just in proportion as we have been able to contrast them with others, and change, if at all, only to come a little closer to the heart. I beg Tom Moore's pardon; he says something about 'growing brighter and brighter,' but he was thinking of a first kiss, or a last one, which perhaps hangs the most; or at the moment of that writing, he may have had a side-thought for the choice wine that smoothed his inspiration; all which are very charming, bewitching, and all-possessing to those who affect that sort of thing----But I was only thinking of St. Augustine, East-Florida. I may live to feel a stronger pull at the heart; but so far, St. Augustine is my particular passion. And what the deuce is the reason? It is not my home, for my first step 'forward and back' was in the face of a cold wind; high mountains on either side, and the only gap in them opened to the north-east. All winds north of the sun's track had to bend around and come in by that gap. Of course, every thing in that country has a north-east cast, and perhaps this is why I love the south, for it's hard loving any thing that is forced upon you with the pertinacity of a high wind. Men running after hats, women holding their skirts down, toppling chimneys, and faces tied up with the tooth-ache, prevail in all that region; wherefore it is, that those who cannot learn to love the place, for these privileges, will (if only to be obstinate) love so much the more the warm sun and air of the south, and the quiet, the repose, the opiate of the southern climate. But I do not mean the south-west. I was once crossing the Alleghanies, on my way to the south-west, when, fortunately, it occurred to me that the south-west was only a north-easterly continuation, and I immediately struck off at right angles, or rather left angles, and landed in Florida. That, Sir, is the exact spot, where the hat takes care of itself.

I am willing to believe that there _are_ people who sleep with their feet uncovered, when the mercury at the bedside is below freezing, because I have seen it done, and not as a penance, but a privilege, to which the physician gave his consent; and I have myself, springing from a warm bed, stepped into a tub of water frozen so hard as to require my whole weight to crush a passage through the ice. I have done this often, but not for the pleasure of it. I have also been through a course of _calido-frigido_. I suppose you know all about that, Mr. EDITOR, _calido-frigido_? Well, I will tell you the order of proceeding.

Get into a warm bath, so exactly tempered to your delicacy of outline, that the change from the warm air of the room is insensible, and having stretched yourself, part your limbs, so as to produce a vacant space in the water, and into this space let your servant pour hot water which you will pump up and down with a long-handled brush. (I say you _will_ pump, because if you don't, it will be too hot there.) The servant then brings _boiling_ water and continues to pour, and you to pump, till your nerves begin to slacken, and insensibly to you, the pump works slower and slower, and at last it stops. You think you are still pumping, but that is a delusion. You are now in boiling water, but like the approach of vice, or any other insidious thing, the change has been so gradual, that you are not sensible of boiling; you only _know_ that you are very comfortable, and that is sufficient. 'John, you may go,' but John knows better. Presently you begin to confess that you are a little happier than usual, and you speculate about Heaven; where it may be; how far off, and whether it is possible to make a nearer approach before breakfast; and then a faintness comes over you, a die-away-ative-ness, during which, you forgive your enemies, and bless those that persecute you; in short, you love every body and every thing beyond all conception, and you would clasp the whole universe with all its black spots of sin and damnation, for your heart is melting within you. All this time, John has an eye upon you; and just as you are going to sleep, with the infatuation of a man sucking exhilarating gas, he lifts you from the bath, and with a struggle, you are landed upon the floor. You stagger, and grasp at a chair to keep from falling, and the servant, dipping a pail in a tub of iced-water, gives you the whole contents at a single dash. First in front, then in the rear, then under each arm; after which he jumps upon the bath, and drops a pail-full on top of your head. Of course you try to knock him down with a chair, or poker; but at every attempt, _splash!_ comes the bucket of water; and at the last throw, the servant disappears. Such, Sir, is the operation; and they say there is no living in this climate without going through it once or twice a week. If you have lived so long, Mr. Editor, without doing it, don't flatter yourself that you will live much longer. You may die suddenly, some cold morning, from not practising the calido-frigido. After the calido-frigido, you breakfast; and stepping into the street, any warm morning in January, the snow is melting from the hot sun, and the gutters are running; the effect of which is so sickening that every body is at a gasp. But _you_ delight in it. In the evening of the same day you walk home to dinner in a snow-storm; streets glazed with ice, wind blowing a hurricane out of the north, and Fahrenheit, as the evening papers tell you, twenty degrees below zero; but to _you_, the weather is charming; only a fine bracing atmosphere. Why? You and your servant went through the same contrasting operation before breakfast. Sir, you are acclimated.

But we have forgotten St. Augustine. Perhaps there is something in getting there that renders the place so charming. The pleasantest route is by way of Savannah, which you may reach by rail road and steam-boat in three or four days, or in half a dozen by packet, with a rough-and-tumble, pleasant or unpleasant, as the wind happens, and a day or two additional in working up the river, a tide at a time. But there you are in another climate; and if it pleases the wind not to blow, you are quite indifferent whether the ship is a day or a week in getting up the river. How delightful to be without the necessity of overcoat and umbrella; and oh! how delicious the soft warm air after a week's passage at sea. Matter-of-fact here, is better than the most frolicsome imagination, especially that of being seven hundred miles from the region of ice and snow. There is nothing very enticing in the low, flat shores, or the interminable marshes, or the cormorants standing in a row on the beach; but over all, lying warm and lovingly, is the soft haze of the Indian summer, giving the country a look, not like spring, for that has life and effort, and the feeling of spring is bounding; nor like summer, with its scorching heat and long wearisome days; nor is it much like our northern autumn, for that has decay and death; the moaning wind and the rustling of dry leaves; the scarlet tea that gives the same nervous tremor under foot that green tea does to the head; but (if you won't laugh) it is something like what we imagine of the silent land; not dead, but sleeping. You will query whether to crack nuts and eat apples on deck, or go ashore and dream away the day, not in joy or sadness; no looking before or behind, and no speculation or argument upon the present; but merely its enjoyment. How is your blood, Sir? Bounding, with a steady motion like the falls of Niagara, or faint and intermittent? Have you suffered yourself to get feverish, merely for the fun of the thing, and now have to endure its _tortures_? Have you prayed for _rest_--rest, that one burden of your prayer? Then, Sir, take the first packet for the Savannah river, and shoot duck, from the quarter deck; or, if you choose to land on some of the islands, there are hawks there that will let you shoot at them a dozen times without winking! But perhaps you are a better marksman. I like any thing that is off-hand; but the wit of _aiming_ hard at any thing, with the savage determination to kill, in this world of short-comings, great outlays and small returns, is too forced to suit my particular temperament. I don't see the point of it. The next best thing after shooting, is to go ashore on the west side. On the edge of the bluff, which looks down upon the rice-fields and the river, there is a small circular opening in the live-oaks; and standing about that circle, are fifty to a hundred blacks threshing out rice. There are old men and women, and young men and maidens, and all varieties of dress, from the coquettish and full, to the indifferent and _half_-dress of more fashionable circles; skirts tucked, skirts looped, and skirts gathered at the waist; some with a riband, and some with a scarf dangling; all with a head-dress of some kind, and all singing whatever happens to be the impromptu of the occasion. The boys question and the girls answer in a kind of chant, and this is repeated opera-fashion once or twice, when the young and old all join in a regular break-down, and then the flails come down all as one, and exact as the bow-tip of an orchestra-leader. The young girl sings with a roguish cast of the eye, and a smile on her lip, but the old men, and the old hags of women, how frantic they look as they burst into the chorus! Here and there is an old African, who hardly knows what it all means, but with a guess at the subject, he joins in with his native lingo, and his notes are as well timed and unearthly as the best of them. The song may affect to be lively and joyous, but it is not so. There is something so sad and wild about it, that I defy any one who knows the tones of the heart, to look on and listen without something of a shudder. And yet they appear to be happy, all but those old creatures who have the look of being past all care or hope. On the edge of the bank, in a sentry-box, a man stands, with rifle in hand, ready to pick off any bird that may come within his aim, and on the other side of the group is an old, blind, gray-headed negro sitting in the straw, with a dozen half-naked children frolicking about him, and rolling in the sunshine. Puffing away at his pipe that went out 'long, long ago,' he will sit there in the sun hour after hour, bare-headed and almost motionless, muttering to himself, or grasping eagerly at the young ones, as though he would tear them in pieces; but they know better, for just so have they seen an old cat play with her kittens. Occasionally he starts, as though he heard and understood the song of the threshers, and with a fling of his arms, as if there again at his old post, he breaks out with some old, forgotten ditty, and then crouches down again in the straw, motionless as before; and so the time goes by, till the children lead him away to his hut and his hominy.

In this lounging way a day or two passes pleasantly, during which the ship has drifted up to Savannah, where fifteen darkeys, of different sizes and novelties of wardrobe, stand ready, each with a hand raised to his hatless head, to take your luggage to Mr. WILTBERGER'S. Not less than fifteen will answer; for it needs two for a hat-box, three for a valise, and five for each trunk. I recommend this in preference to the more gentlemanlike way of having your baggage sent for; for a cart would have to be got up for that purpose, and a negro who could harness a horse in less than half a day, would be too smart to live at the South. With this ragged troop you clamber up the high bank, and after a good deal of fuss, find yourself in a pleasant room at the Pulaski House, and look out the open window to see what is going on; but the square and the streets are still and dreamy as midnight. Nothing living save the warm sunlight; but that seems so much a thing of life, that you put out your hand to see if it will bite, and, rather surprised that it don't, look about again for an object.