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 ^°llllllTiiiiiNiiiiiiSii}[,iS!..a,,!!?S*«-'n*a'' slave. 
 
 3 1924 022 250 496 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022250496 
 
" SHE STOOD LIKE A BRONZE. GABRIEL WAS BESIDE HER, HIS NAKED 
 CUTLASS IN HIS HAND.'' [^ag-e 6^. 
 
Y0UMA 
 
 THE STORY OF A WEST-INDIAN SLAVE 
 
 BY 
 
 LAFCADIO HEARN 
 
 AUTHOR OF " TWO YEARS IN THeT'REHCH WEST INDIES " 
 " CHITA" ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1890 
 
Copyright, i8go, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 All right* reierved. 
 
XLo mg trlenO 
 JOSEPH S. TUNISON 
 
YOUMA. 
 
 THE da, during old colonial days, of- 
 ten held high rank in rich Martinique 
 households. The da was usually a Cre- 
 ole negress, — more often, at all events, of 
 the darker than of the lighter hue, — more 
 commonly a capresse than a mestive ; but 
 in her particular case the prejudice of 
 color did not exist. The da was a slave ; 
 but no freedwoman, however beautiful or 
 cultivated, could enjoy social privileges 
 equal to those of certain das. The da 
 was respected and loved as a mother: 
 she was at once a foster-mother and nurse. 
 For the Creole child had two mothers: 
 
2 Youma. 
 
 the aristocratic white mother who gave 
 him birth ; the dark bond - mother who 
 gave him all care, — who nursed him, 
 bathed him, taught him to speak the soft 
 and musical speech of slaves, took him 
 out in her arms to show him the beauti- 
 ful tropic world, told him wonderful folk- 
 stories of evenings, lulled him to sleep, 
 attended to his every possible want by 
 day or by night. It was not to be won- 
 dered at that during infancy the da should 
 have been loved more than the white 
 mother : when there was any marked 
 preference it was nearly always in the 
 das favor. The child was much more 
 with her than with his real mother: she 
 alone satisfied all his little needs ; he 
 found her more indulgent, more patient, 
 perhaps even more caressing, than the 
 other. The da was herself at heart a 
 child, speaking a child-language, finding 
 
Youma. 3 
 
 pleasure in childish things.^artless, play- 
 ful, affectionate ; she comprehended the 
 thoughts, the impulses, the pains, the 
 faults of the little one as the white moth- 
 er could not always have done : she knew 
 intuitively how to soothe him upon all 
 occasions, how to amuse him, how to ex- 
 cite and caress his imagination ; — there 
 was absolute harmony between their nat- 
 ures, — a happy community of likes and 
 dislikes, — a perfect sympathy in the ani- 
 mal joy of being. Later on, when the 
 child had become old enough to receive 
 his first lessons from a tutor or governess, 
 to learn to speak French, the affection for 
 the da and the affection for the mother 
 began to differentiate in accordance with 
 mental expansion ; but, though the moth- 
 er might be more loved, the da was not 
 less cherished than before. The love of 
 the nurse lasted through life ; and the 
 
4 Youma. 
 
 relation of the da to the family seldom 
 ceased, — except in those cruel instances 
 where she was only "hired" from another 
 slave-holder. 
 
 In many cases the family da had been 
 born upon the estate: — under the same 
 roof she might serve as nurse for two 
 generations. More often it would hap- 
 pen, that as the family multiplied and di- 
 vided, — as the sons and daughters, grow- 
 ing up, became themselves fathers and 
 mothers, — she would care for all their 
 children in turn. She ended her days 
 with her masters : although she was legal- 
 ly property, it would have been deemed al- 
 most an infamy to sell her. When freed 
 by gratitude — pour services rendus, — she 
 did not care to make a home of her own : 
 freedom had small value for her except in 
 the event of her outliving those to whom 
 she was attached. She had children of 
 
Youma. 5 
 
 her own, for whom she would have desired 
 freedom rather than for herself, and for 
 whom she might rightfully ask it, since 
 she had sacrificed so much of her own 
 maternal pleasures for the sake of others' 
 children. She was unselfish and devoted 
 to a degree which compelled gratitude 
 even from natures of iron ; — she repre- 
 sented the highest development of natu- 
 ral goodness possible in a race mentally- 
 undeveloped, kept half savage by subser- 
 vience, but physically refined in a remark- 
 able manner by climate, environment, and 
 all those mysterious influences which form 
 the characteristics of Creole peoples. 
 
 The da is already of the past. Her 
 special type was a product of slavery, 
 largely created by selection : the one cre- 
 ation of slavery perhaps not unworthy of 
 regret, — one strange flowering amid all 
 the rank dark growths of that. bitter soil. 
 
6 Youma. 
 
 The atmosphere of freedom was not essen- 
 tially fatal to the permanence of the type ; 
 but with freedom came many unlooked-for 
 changes : a great industrial depression 
 due to foreign rivalry and new discover- 
 ies, — a commercial crisis, in brief, — ac- 
 companied the establishment of universal 
 suffrage, the subordination of the white 
 element to the black by a political up- 
 heaval, and the total disintegration of the 
 old social structure. The transformation 
 was too violent for good results ; the abuse 
 of political powers too speedily and indis- 
 criminately conferred, intensified the old 
 hates and evolved new ones: the races 
 drew forever apart when they needed 
 each other most. Then the increasing 
 difficulty of existence quickly developed 
 egotism: generosity and prosperity de- 
 parted together; Creole life shrank into 
 narrower channels ; and the character of 
 
Youma. 7 
 
 all classes visibly hardened under press- 
 ure of necessities previously unknown. 
 
 .... There are really no more das: 
 there are now only gardiennes or bonnes 
 — nurses who can seldom keep a place 
 more than three months. The loyalty 
 and simplicity of the da have bcome tra- 
 ditions : vain to seek for any parallels 
 among the new generation of salaried 
 domestics ! But of those who used to be 
 das, several survive, and still bear the 
 name, which, once conferred, is retained 
 through life as an honorific title. Some 
 are yet to be seen in Saint Pierre. . . . 
 There is a very fine house on the sea- 
 ward side of the Grande Rue, for exam- 
 ple, on whose marble door-step one may 
 be observed almost every fine morning, — 
 a very aged negress, who loves the sun. 
 That is Da Siyotte. Gentlemen of wealth 
 and high position, merchants and judges, 
 
8 Youma. 
 
 salute her as they pass by. You might 
 see the men of the family, — the gray old 
 father and his handsome sons, — pause to 
 chat a moment with her before going to 
 their offices. You might see young la- 
 dies bend down and kiss her before tak- 
 ing their places in the carriage for a 
 drive. You would find, — could you lin- 
 ger long enough, — that all visitors greet 
 her with a smile, and a kindly query: — 
 '^Coument ou ye, Da Siyotte?" . . . . Woe to 
 the stranger who should speak rudely to 
 her, under the impression that she is only 
 a servant \ ...."■ Si elle nest quune domes- 
 tique" said the master of the house, re- 
 buking such a one, — " alors vous netes 
 qtiun valet r For to insult the da, is to 
 insult the household. When she dies, she 
 will have such a funeral as money alone 
 could not obtain, — a funeral of the pre- 
 miere classe, attended by the richest and 
 
Youma. 9 
 
 proudest of the city. There are planters 
 who will ride that day twenty miles over 
 the mornes to act as pall-bearers. There 
 are ladies who rarely tread pavement, 
 who seldom go out except in their own 
 vehicles, — but who will follow the coflSn of 
 that old negress on foot, in the hot sun, 
 all the way to the Cimetiere du Mouil- 
 lage. And they will inter their da in the 
 family vault, while the crowns of the 
 great palms quiver to the bourdon. 
 
lo Youma. 
 
 I. 
 
 There are old persons still living in 
 Saint Pierre who remember Youma, a tall 
 capresse, the property of Madame Leonie 
 Peyronnette. The servant was better 
 known than the mistress ; — for Madame 
 Peyronnette went out little after the loss 
 of her husband, a wealthy merchant, who 
 had left her in more than comfortable cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Youma was a pet slave, and also the 
 godchild of Madame Peyronnette : it was 
 not uncommon during the old regime for 
 Creole ladies to become godmothers of 
 little slaves. Douceline, the mother of 
 Youma, had been purchased as a da for 
 Madame Peyronnette's only child, Aimee 
 — and had died when Aimee was nearly 
 
Youma. 1 1 
 
 five years old. The two children were 
 nearly the same age, and seemed much 
 attached to each other: after Douceline's 
 death, Madame Peyronnette resolved to 
 bring up the little capresse as a playmate 
 for her daughter. 
 
 The dispositions of the two children 
 were noticeably different ; and with their 
 growth, the difference became more mark- 
 ed. Aimee was demonstrative and affec- 
 tionate, sensitive and passionate, — quick 
 to veer from joy to grief, from tears to 
 smiles. Youma, on the contrary, was al- 
 most taciturn, seldom betrayed emotion: 
 she would play silently when Aimee 
 screamed, and scarcely smile when Aimee 
 laughed so violently as to frighten her 
 mother. In spite of these differences of or- 
 ganization, or perhaps because of them, 
 the two got along together very well: they 
 had never a serious quarrel, and were fifst 
 
1 2 Youma. 
 
 separated only when Aimee, at the age 
 of nine, was sent to a convent to receive 
 an education more finished than it was 
 thought that private teachers were capa- 
 ble of giving. Aimee's grief at parting 
 from her playmate was not assuaged by 
 the assurance that she would find at 
 school nicer companions than a young ca- 
 presse ; — Youma, who had certainly more 
 to lose by the change, remained outward- 
 ly calm, — " eiait d'une conduite irreprocha- 
 ble," said Madame Peyronnette, too fine 
 an observer to attribute the " irreproach- 
 able conduct" to insensibility. 
 
 The friends continued to see each oth- 
 er, however ; for Madame Peyronnette 
 drove to the convent in her carriage reg- 
 ularly every Sunday, always taking Youma 
 with her ; and Aimee seemed scarcely less 
 delighted to see her former playmate than 
 to see her mother. During the first sum- 
 
Youma. 1 3 
 
 mer vacation and the Christmas holi- 
 days, the companionship of childhood 
 was naively resumed ; and the mutual af- 
 fection survived the subsequent natural 
 change of relation: though nominally a 
 bonne, who addressed Aimee as a mis- 
 tress, Youma was treated almost as a fos- 
 ter-sister. And when Mademoiselle had 
 finished her studies, the young slave-maid 
 remained her confidante, and to some ex- 
 tent her companion. Youma had never 
 learned to read and write ; Madame Pey- 
 ronnette believed that to educate her 
 would only make her dissatisfied with the 
 scope of a destiny out of which no effort 
 could elevate her ; but the girl had a nat- 
 ural intelligence which compensated her 
 lack of mental training in many respects : 
 she knew what to do and how to speak 
 upon all occasions. She had grown up into 
 a superb woman, — certainly the finest ca- 
 
1 4 Youma. 
 
 presse of the arrondissement. Her tint 
 was a clear deep red ; — there was in her 
 features a soft vague beauty, — a some- 
 thing that suggested the indefinable face 
 of the Sphinx, especially in profile ; — her 
 hair, though curly as a black fleece, was 
 long and not uncomely; she was graceful 
 furthermore, and very tall. At fifteen she 
 had seemed a woman ; at eighteen she 
 was taller by head and shoulders than 
 her young mistress; and Mademoiselle 
 Aimee, though not below the average 
 stature, had to lift up her eyes, when they 
 walked out together, to look into You- 
 ma's face. The young bonne was uni- 
 versally admired : she was one of those 
 figures that a Martiniquais would point 
 out with pride to a stranger as a type of 
 the beauty of the mixed race. Even in 
 slave days, the Creole did not refuse him- 
 self the pleasure of admiring in human 
 
Vouma. 1 5 
 
 skin those tones none fear to praise in 
 bronze or gold : he frankly confessed them 
 exquisite ; — Eesthetically, his " color prej- 
 udice " had no existence. There were few 
 young whites, nevertheless, who would 
 have presumed to tell their admiration to 
 Youma: there was something in the eyes 
 and the serious manner of the young 
 slave that protected her quite as much as 
 the moral power of the family in which 
 she had been brought up. 
 
 Madame Peyronnette was proud of her 
 servant, and took pleasure in seeing her 
 attired as handsomely as possible in the 
 brilliant and graceful costume then worn 
 by the women of color. In regard to 
 dress, Youma had no reason to envy any 
 of the freed class : she had all that a ca- 
 presse could wish to wear, according to 
 local ideas of color contrast, — jupes of 
 silk and of satin, — robes - dezindes with 
 
1 6 Youma. 
 
 head-dresses and foulards to match, — 
 azure with orange, red with violet, yellow 
 with bright blue, green with rose. On 
 particular occasions, such as the first com- 
 munion of Aimee, the fete of madame, a 
 ball, a wedding to which the family were 
 invited, Youma's costume was magnifi- 
 cent. With her trailing jupe of orange 
 satin attached just below the bosom, and 
 exposing above it the laced and embroid- 
 ered chemise, with half- sleeves leaving 
 the braceleted arms bare, and fastened at 
 the elbow with gold clasps (boutons-a- 
 clous) ; — her neck-kerchief {mouckoue-en- 
 lai) of canary yellow striped with green 
 and blue ; — her triple necklace of graven 
 gold beads {collier -choii) ; — her flashing 
 ear -pendants {zanneaux-a-clou), each a 
 packet of thick gold cylinders interjoin- 
 ed ; — her yellow-banded Madras turban, 
 dazzling with jewelry, — " trembling-pins," 
 
Youma. 1 7 
 
 chainlets, quivering acorns of gold {bro- 
 ches-a-gland), — she might have posed to a 
 painter for the Queen of Sheba. There 
 were various pretty presents from Aimee 
 among Youma's ornaments ; but the great- 
 er part of the jewelry had been purchased 
 for her by Madame Peyronnette, in a se- 
 ries of New -Year gifts. Youma was de- 
 nied no pleasure which it was thought 
 she might reasonably wish for, — except 
 liberty. 
 
 Perhaps Youma had never given her- 
 self any trouble on the subject; but Ma- 
 dame Peyronnette had thought a good 
 deal about it, and had made up her mind. 
 Twice she refused the girl's liberty to 
 Mademoiselle Aimee, in spite of earnest 
 prayers and tears. The refusal was 
 prompted by motives which Aimee was 
 then too young fully to comprehend. 
 Madame Peyronnette's real intention was 
 
1 8 Youma. 
 
 that Youma should be enfranchised so 
 soon as it could render her any happier 
 to be free. For the time being, her sla- 
 very was a moral protection : it kept her 
 legally under the control of those who 
 loved her most; it guarded her against 
 dangers she yet knew nothing of ; — above 
 all, it prevented the possibility of her 
 forming a union not approved by her 
 mistress. The godmother had plans of 
 her own for the girl's future : she intend- 
 ed that Youma should one day marry a 
 thrifty and industrious freedman, — some- 
 body able to make a good home for her, 
 a shipwright, cabinet-maker, builder, mas- 
 ter mechanic of some kind ; — and in such 
 an event she was to have her liberty, — 
 perhaps a small dowry besides. In the 
 meanwhile she was certainly as happy as 
 it was possible to make her. 
 
 .... At nineteen Aimee made a love- 
 
Youma. 19 
 
 match, — marrying M. Louis Desrivieres, 
 a distant cousin, some ten years older. 
 M. Desrivieres had inherited a prosperous 
 estate on the east coast ; but, like many 
 wealthy planters, passed the greater part 
 of the year by preference in the city; and 
 it was to his mother's residence in the 
 Quartier du Fort that he led his young 
 bride. Youma, in accordance ■ with Ai- 
 mee's wish, accompanied her to her new 
 home. It was not so far from Madame 
 Peyronnette's dwelling in the Grande 
 Rue to the home of the Desrivieres in 
 the Rue de la Consolation that either the 
 daughter or the goddaughter could find 
 the separation painful. 
 
 .... Thirteen months later, Youma, at- 
 tired like some Oriental princess, carried 
 to the baptismal font a baby girl, whose 
 advent into the little colonial world was 
 recorded in the Archives de la Marine, — 
 
20 Younta. 
 
 '■'■ Lucile-Aimee-Francillette-Marie, fille du 
 sieur RaoulrErnest-Louis Desrivieres, et 
 de dame Adeldide-Horteitse-Aimee Peyron- 
 neiie." Then Youma became the da of 
 little Mayotte. It is by the last of the 
 names conferred at christening that the 
 child is generally called and known, — or, 
 rather, by some Creole diminutive of that 
 name. . . . The diminutive of Marie is 
 Mayotte. 
 
 In both families Mayotte was thought 
 to resemble her father more than her 
 mother : she had his gray eyes, and brown 
 hair, — that bright hair which with chil- 
 dren of the older colonial families dark- 
 ens to apparent black as they grow up. 
 She gave promise of becoming pretty. 
 
 Another year passed, during which no 
 happier household could have been found: 
 then, with cruel suddenness, Aimee was 
 
Youma. 2 1 
 
 taken away by death. She had gone out 
 with her husband in an open carriage, for 
 a drive on the beautiful mountain-route 
 called La Trace; leaving Youma with the 
 child at home. On their return journey, 
 one of those chilly and torrential rains 
 which at certain seasons accompany an 
 unexpected storm, overtook them when 
 far from any place of shelter, and in the 
 middle of an afternoon that had been un- 
 usually warm. Both were drenched in a 
 moment; and a strong north-east wind, 
 springing up, blew full upon them the 
 whole way home. The young wife, nat- 
 urally delicate, was attacked with pleu- 
 risy ; and in spite of all possible aid, ex- 
 pired before the next sunrise. 
 
 And Youma robed her for the last 
 time, tenderly and deftly as she had robed 
 her for her first ball in pale blue, and for 
 her wedding day ■ all in vapory white. 
 
22 Youma. 
 
 Only now, Aimee was robed all in black, 
 as dead Creole mothers are. 
 
 M. Desrivieres had loved his young 
 wife passionately: he had married with 
 a fresh heart, and a character little hard- 
 ened by contact with the rougher side of 
 existence. The trial was a terrible one ; — 
 for a time it was feared that he could not 
 survive it. When he began at last to re- 
 cover from the serious illness caused by 
 his grief, he found it impossible to linger 
 in his home, with its memories : he went 
 as soon as possible to his plantation, and 
 tried to busy himself there, making from 
 time to time brief visits to the city to see 
 his child, whom Madame Peyronnette in- 
 sisted on caring for. But Mayotte proved 
 delicate, like her mother; and during a 
 season of epidemic, some six months lat- 
 er, Madame Peyronnette decided that it 
 would be better to send her to the coun- 
 
Youmd. 2 3 
 
 try, to her father, in charge of Youma. 
 Anse-Marine was known to be one of the 
 healthiest places in the colony ; and the 
 child began to gain strength there, as the 
 sensitive - plant — zhebe-mamise — toughens 
 in the warm sea-wind. 
 
24 Youma. 
 
 II. 
 
 It is a long ride from Saint Pierre 
 over the mountains to the plantation of 
 Ansa- Marine, — formerly owned by the 
 Desrivieres ; but the fatigue of six hours 
 in the saddle under a tropic sun is not 
 likely to be felt by one susceptible to 
 those marvellous beauties in which the 
 route abounds. Sometimes it rises almost 
 to those white clouds that nearly always 
 veil the heads of the great peaks ; — some- 
 times it slopes down through the green 
 twilight of primitive forests ; — sometimes 
 it overlooks vast depths of valley walled 
 in by mountains of strange shapes and 
 tints; — sometimes it winds over undula- 
 tions of cane-covered land, beyond whose 
 
Youma. 25 
 
 yellow limit appears the vapory curve of 
 an almost purple sea. 
 
 Perhaps, for hours together, you see no 
 motion but that of leaves and their shad- 
 ows, — hear only the sound of your horse's 
 hoofs, or the papery rustling of cane 
 waved by the wind, — or, from the verge 
 of some green chasm veiled by tree-ferns, 
 the long low flute -call of an unknown 
 bird. But, sooner or later, at a turn of 
 the way, you come upon something of 
 more human interest, — some living inci- 
 dent full of exotic charm : such as a car- 
 avan of young colored girls, barefooted 
 and bare -armed, transporting on their 
 heads to market the produce of a cacao- 
 yere ; or a negro running by under an 
 amazing load of bread-fruits or regimes- 
 bananes. 
 
 Perhaps you may meet a troop of black 
 men drawing to the coast upon a diabe 
 
26 Youma. 
 
 or "devil," — which is a low strong vehicle 
 with screaming axles, — a gommier already 
 hollowed out and shapen for a canoe : 
 those behind pushing, and those before 
 pulling all together, while a drummer 
 beats his ka on the bottom of the unfin- 
 ished boat, to the measure of their song : 
 " Bom ! ti canot ! — alle chache ! — mene 
 vini! — Bom! ti canot T. . . . 
 
 Or perhaps you encounter a band of 
 woodmen, sawing into planks by the road- 
 side some newly felled tree, with a core 
 yellow as saffron, or vermilion - red, — a 
 tree of which you do not know the name. 
 It has been lifted upon a strong timber 
 framework ; and three men wield the long 
 saw, — one above, two below, — all with 
 their shirts off. The torso of the man 
 above is orange-yellow: one of the saw- 
 yers below is cinnamon -color, the other 
 a shining black as of lacquer: all are 
 
Youma. 27 
 
 sculpturally muscled ; and they sing as 
 they saw: — 
 
 " Aie ! dos cal6, 
 
 Aie! 
 Aie ! dos cald ! 
 Aie, sci^ bois, 
 
 Aie! 
 Pou nou alle.". . . . 
 
 .... Such incidents become rarer as 
 you begin the long descent, through cane- 
 fields and cacaoyeres, from the wooded 
 heights to the further sea, — leaving shad- 
 ows and coolness behind to ride over 
 lands all uncovered to the sun ; but the 
 immense peace charms like a caress, and 
 the magnificent expansions of the view 
 console for the seeming absence of hu- 
 man life. Behind you, and to north and 
 south, the mornes heighten their semi- 
 circle above the undulating leagues of 
 yellow cane, — and beyond them sharper 
 
28 Youma. 
 
 summits loom, all violet, — and over the 
 violet tower successive surgings of paler 
 peaks and cusps and jagged ridges, — 
 phantom blues and pearls. Before you, 
 over the yellow miles, purples the far 
 crescent of sea under its horizon curve, — 
 a band of upward-fading opal light ; — and 
 a strong warm wind is blowing in your 
 face. You ride on, sometimes up a low 
 wide hill, sometimes over a plateau, — 
 more often down a broad incline, — the 
 sea alternately vanishing and reappear- 
 ing, — and leave the main road at last to 
 follow a way previously hidden by rising 
 ground, — a plantation road, bordered with 
 cocoa-palms. It brings you by long wind- 
 ings, between canes that shut off the view 
 on either hand, to one of the prettiest val- 
 leys in the world. At least you will deem 
 it so, as you draw rein at the verge of a 
 morne, to admire the almost perfect half- 
 
Youma. 29 
 
 round of softly wrinkled hills opening to 
 the sea, — whose foam-line stretches like 
 a snowy quivering thread between two 
 green peaks, over a band of ebon beach; — 
 and the golden expanse of canes below ; — 
 and the river dividing it, broadening be- 
 tween fringes of bamboo, to reach the 
 breakers ; — and the tenderness of shadows 
 blue -tinted by vapors, the flickering of 
 sunlight in the silver of cascades, the 
 touching of sky and sea beyond all. Last, 
 you will notice the plantation buildings 
 on a knoll below, in a grove of cocoa- 
 palms : — the long yellow-painted mill, with 
 its rumbling water-wheel and tall chim- 
 ney ; — the rhommerie; — the sugar-house ; 
 — the village of thatched cabins, with ba- 
 nana leaves fluttering in tiny gardens ; — 
 the single-story residence of the planter, 
 built to resist winds and earthquakes ; — 
 the cottage of the overseer; — the hurri- 
 
30 Youma. 
 
 cane-house, or case-a-vent ; — and the white 
 silhouette of a high wooden cross at the 
 further entrance to the little settlement. 
 
 All this was once the property of the 
 Desrivieres, — the whole valley from shore 
 to hill-top: the atelier numbered nearly 
 one hundred and fifty hands. Since then, 
 the plantation has been sold and resold 
 many times, — exploited with varying fort- 
 une by foreigners as well as Creoles ; — 
 and nevertheless there have been so few 
 changes that the place itself probably 
 looks just as it looked fifty years, or even 
 a hundred years ago. 
 
 But at the time when the Desrivieres 
 owned Anse-Marine, plantation life offer- 
 ed an aspect very different to that which 
 it presents to-day. On this estate in par- 
 ticular, it was patriarchal and picturesque 
 to a degree scarcely conceivable by one 
 who knows the colony only since the pe- 
 
Youma. 3 1 
 
 riod inaugurated by emancipation. The 
 slaves were treated very much Hke chil- 
 dren : it was a traditional family policy to 
 sell only those who could not be control- 
 led without physical punishment. Each 
 adult was allowed a small garden, which 
 he might cultivate as he pleased, — half- 
 days being allotted twice in every week 
 for that purpose ; and the larger part of 
 the money received for the produce, the 
 slave was permitted to retain. Legally a 
 slave could own nothing, yet several of 
 the Desrivieres hands were known to have 
 economized creditable sums, with the en- 
 couragement of their owner. Work was 
 performed with song, to the music of the 
 drum;— there were holidays, and even- 
 ings of privileged dancing. The great 
 occasion of the year was the fete of Ma- 
 dame Desrivieres, the mother of the young 
 planter, the old mistress {teiesse), — a day 
 
32 Youma. 
 
 of bamboulas and caleindas,—'w\\en all the 
 slaves were received by the lady on the 
 veranda: each kissed her hand and each 
 found in it a silver coin. But it was a de- 
 light for the visitor, especially if a Eu- 
 ropean, to watch even the common inci- 
 dents of this colonial country life, so full 
 of exotic oddities and unconscious poetry. 
 The routine of each day opened with 
 an amusing scene, — the morning inspec- 
 tion of the feet of the children. These, 
 up to the age of nine or ten, had little to 
 do but to play and eat. They were under 
 the charge of the infirmiere, Tanga, an 
 old African woman, who, aided by her 
 daughters, prepared their simple food, 
 and looked after them while their moth- 
 ers were in the fields. Soon after sun- 
 rise, Tanga, accompanied by the overseer, 
 would assemble them, and make them sit 
 down in line on the long plank benches 
 
Youma. 33 
 
 under the awning of the infirmary build- 
 ing: then at the command, '' Leve pie- 
 zautt /" they would all hold up their little 
 feet together, and the inspection would 
 begin. Whenever Tanga's sharp eye de- 
 tected the small round swelling which be- 
 trays the presence of a ckique, the child 
 was sent to the infirmary for immediate 
 treatment, and the mother's name taken 
 down by the overseer for reprimand, — 
 every mother being held responsible for 
 a ckique allowed to remain in her child's 
 foot overnight. There was so much tick- 
 ling and laughing and screaming at these 
 inspections, that Tanga always had to 
 frighten the children several times before 
 the examination could be finished. 
 
 Another morning scene of interest was 
 the departure of a singing caravan of 
 women and girls, carrying to market on 
 their heads various products of the plan- 
 
 3 
 
34 Youma. 
 
 tation : cocoa, coffee, cassia ; and fruits, — 
 cocoa-nuts, and mangues, oranges and ba- 
 nanas, corossols (custard-apples) and "cin- 
 namon-apples" {pommes cannelles). 
 
 Then a merry event, which occurred al- 
 most weekly, was the sortie of the gom- 
 mier, — a huge canoe nearly sixty feet 
 long, made from a single extraordinary 
 tree. It had no rudder, but a bow at 
 either end, so as to move equally well in 
 either direction ; and benches for a dozen 
 paddlers, with a raised seat in the centre 
 for a drummer. It had two comman- 
 deurs, one at each bow ; — it could carry 
 a dozen barrels of rum and six or seven 
 casks of sugar; — and it was used chief- 
 ly for transporting these products to the 
 small vessels from Saint Pierre, which 
 dared not venture near the dangerous surf. 
 The gommier itself could only be launch- 
 ed from a sloping cradle built expressly 
 
Youma. 35 
 
 for it over deep water in the hollow of a 
 projecting cliff. When the freight had 
 been stowed and the rowers were in their 
 seats, the drummer beat a signal ; blocks 
 were removed, cables loosed, and the long 
 craft shot into the sea, — all its paddles 
 smiting the water simultaneously, in time 
 to the rhythm of the tamtam, or the tam^ 
 bou-belai. 
 
 Every Sunday afternoon the Pere Ke- 
 rambrun came on horseback from the 
 neighboring village to catechise the ne- 
 gro children. It was usually in the sugar 
 house that he held his little class, — the 
 broad doors being thrown open front and 
 rear to admit the sea-breeze, and the sun 
 would throw in spidery shadows of palm- 
 heads on the floor. The old priest knew 
 how to teach the little ones in their own 
 tongue, — repeating over and over again 
 each question and answer of the Creole 
 
36 Youma. 
 
 catechism, till the children learned them 
 by heart, and could chant them like a 
 refrain. 
 
 — ''Coument ou ka crie fi Bon-Die?" 
 the father would ask. (How do you call 
 the Son of the Good-God .'') 
 
 Then all the child voices, repeating the 
 question and its answer, would shrill in 
 unison : — 
 
 — " Coumeni ou ka crie fi Bon-Die ? — 
 Nou ka crie li Zesou-Ckri" 
 
 — " Ef ga y fai pou nou-zautt, fi Bon- 
 Die-a?" (And what did He do for us, 
 that Son of the good God.?) 
 
 — " Et (d y fai pou nou-zauti, fi Bon- 
 Die-a ? — Li paye pou nou p'alle dans len- 
 fe : li baill toutt sang-li pou fa." (He 
 paid for us not to go to hell ; He gave all 
 His blood for that.) 
 
 — ".£"/ guile prie qui pli meille-adans 
 toutt prie nou ka faiT'' (And what is 
 
Youma. 37 
 
 the best prayer among all the prayers we 
 say?) 
 
 — "-£"/ quil^ prie qui pli meille adans 
 toutt prie nou ka fai? — Cest Note Pe, 
 
 — "pace Zkzou-Chri 
 montri nou UP 
 
 — all would sing together. (It is the No- 
 tre Pere, — the Lord's prayer, — because 
 Jesus Christ showed us how to say it.) 
 
 And at the end of each day's task, — 
 when the Iambi-shell was blown for the 
 last time to summon all from the fields 
 and the mill buildings, there was the pa- 
 triarchal spectacle of evening prayer, — 
 an old colonial custom. The master and 
 his overseer, standing by the cross erect- 
 ed before the little village of the planta- 
 tion, waited for all the hands to assemble. 
 Each man came, bearing the regulation 
 bundle of forage for the animals, and lay- 
 
38 Youma. 
 
 ing the package of herbs before him, re- 
 moved his hat. Then all, women and 
 men, would kneel down and repeat in 
 unison the Je vous salue, Marie, the No- 
 ire Pere, and the Creed, — as the stars 
 thrilled out, and the yellow glow died be- 
 hind the peaks. 
 
 .... Often, when the nights were clear 
 and warm, the slaves would assemble af- 
 ter the evening meal, to hear stories told 
 by the libres-de-savane (old men and wom- 
 en exempted from physical labor), — those 
 curious stories which composed the best 
 part of the unwritten literature of a peo- 
 ple forbidden to read. In those days, 
 such oral literature gave delight to adults 
 as well as to children, to bekes as well as 
 to negroes : it even exerted some visible 
 influence upon colonial character. Every 
 da was a story-teller. Her recitals first 
 developed in the white child intrusted to 
 
Youma. 39 
 
 her care the power of fancy, — Africaniz- 
 ing it, perhaps, to a degree that after-edu- 
 cation could not totally remove, — creat- 
 ing a love of the droll and the extraordi- 
 nary. One did not weary of hearing these 
 stories often repeated; — for they were 
 told with an art impossible to describe; 
 and the little songs or refrains belonging 
 to each — sometimes composed of African 
 words, more often of nonsense-rhymes 
 imitating the bamboula chants and calein- 
 da improvisations, — held a weird charm 
 which great musicians have confessed. 
 And furthermore, in these contes Creoles, 
 — whether of purely African invention, 
 or merely African adaptation of old-world 
 folk-lore and fable, — the local color is 
 marvellous : there is such a reflection of 
 colonial thought and life as no translation 
 can preserve. The scenes are laid among 
 West Indian woods and hills, or some- 
 
40 Youma. 
 
 times in the quaintest quarter of an old 
 colonial port. The European cottage of 
 folk-tale becomes the tropical case or aj'ou- 
 pa, with walls of bamboo and roof of dried 
 cane-leaves ; — the Sleeping Beauties could 
 never be discovered in their primeval for- 
 est but by some negue-marron or chassetc- 
 (hou ; — the Cinderellas and Princesses ap- 
 pear as beautiful half-breed girls, wearing 
 a costume never seen in picture-books ; 
 — the fairies of old-world myth are 
 changed into the Bon-Die or the Virgin 
 Mary ; — the Bluebeards and giants turn 
 into quimboiseurs and devils ; — the devils 
 themselves (except when they yawn to 
 show the fire in their throats) so closely 
 resemble the half-nude travailleurs, with 
 their canvas trousers and mouchoue-fau- 
 tas and other details of costume, as not 
 to be readily recognized : it requires keen 
 inspection to detect the diabolic signs, 
 
Youma. 41 
 
 — the red hair, crimson eyes, and horn- 
 roots under the shadowing of the enor- 
 mous "mule -food hat" or the chapeau- 
 bacoue. 
 
 Then the Bon-Die, the " good God," fig- 
 ures as the best and kindest of old b'ekes, 
 — an affable gray planter whose habita- 
 tion lies somewhere in the clouds over the 
 Montagne Pel'ee : you can see his " sheep " 
 and his " choux-cardibes" sometimes in the 
 sky. And the breaker of enchantments 
 is the parish priest, — Missie labbe, — who 
 saves pretty naughty girls by passing his 
 
 stole about their necks It was at Anse- 
 
 Marine that Youma found most of the 
 tales she recounted to Mayotte, when the 
 child became old enough to take delight 
 in them. 
 
 ... .So the life had been in the valley 
 plantation for a hundred years, with little 
 
42 Youma. 
 
 varying. Doubtless there were shadows 
 in it, — sorrows which never found utter-. 
 ance, — happenings that never had men- 
 tion in the verses of any chantrelle, — days 
 without song or laughter, when the fields 
 were silent. . . . But the tropic sun ever 
 flooded it with dazzling color ; and great 
 moons made rose-light over it; and al- 
 ways, always, out of the purple vastness 
 of the sea, a mighty breath blew pure 
 and warm upon it, — the breath of the 
 winds that are called unchanging : les 
 Vents Aliz'es. 
 
Youma. 43 
 
 III. 
 
 In the morning Youma usually took 
 Mayotte to the river to bathe, — in a clear 
 shallow pool curtained with bamboos, 
 where there were many strange little fish 
 to be seen; — sometimes in the evening, 
 an hour before the sunsetting, she would 
 take her to the sea-beach, to enjoy the 
 breeze and watch the tossing of the surf. 
 But during the heat of the day, the child 
 was permitted to view the wonder-world 
 of the plantation only from the verandas 
 of the house ; and the hours seemed long. 
 The cutting of the cane in the neighbor- 
 ing fields to the playing of the drum, — the 
 coming and going of the wagons creaking 
 under their loads of severed stems, — the 
 
44 Youma. 
 
 sharpening of cutlasses at the grindstone, 
 — the sweet smell of the vesou^ — the rum- 
 ble of the machines, — the noisy foaming of 
 the little stream turning the wheel of the 
 mill : all the sights and odors and sounds 
 of plantation life filled her with long- 
 ing to be out amidst them. What tanta- 
 lized her most was the spectacle of the 
 slave children playing on the grass-plot 
 and about the buildings, — playing funny 
 games in which she longed to join. 
 
 — " I wish I was a little negress," she 
 said one day, as she watched them from 
 the porch. 
 
 — " Oh !" exclaimed Youma in astonish- 
 ment. ..." and why V 
 
 — " Because then you would let me run 
 and roll in the sun." 
 
 — " But the sun does not hurt little ne- 
 groes and negresses ; and the sun would 
 make you very sick, doudoux. . . ." 
 
Youma. 45 
 
 — "And that is why I wish I was a lit- 
 tle negress." 
 
 — " It is not nice to wish that !" de- 
 clared Youma, severely. 
 
 — " Why is it not nice ?" 
 
 — " Fie ! . . . . wish to be an ugly little 
 negress !" 
 
 — " You are a negress, da, — or nearly 
 the same thing, — and you are not ugly at 
 all. You are beautiful, da ; you look like 
 chocolate." 
 
 — " Is it not much prettier to look like 
 cream .?" 
 
 — " No : I like chocolate better than 
 cream. . . . tell me a story, da." 
 
 It was the only way to keep her quiet. 
 She was four years old, and had developed 
 an extraordinary passion for stories. The 
 story Montala, of the wizard orange-tree 
 which grew to heaven ; — the story Mazin- 
 lin-guin, of the proud girl who married 
 
46 Youma. 
 
 a goblin; — the story of the Zombi -bird 
 whose feathers were colored "with the 
 colors of other days," — the bird that sang 
 in the stomachs of those who ate it, and 
 then made itself whole again ; — the story 
 of La Belle, whose godmother was the 
 Virgin ; — the story of Pie-Chique-^, who 
 learned to play the fiddle after the devil's 
 manner; — the story of Colibri, the Hum- 
 ming-Bird, who once owned the only drum 
 there was in the world, and would not lend 
 it when the Bon -Die wanted to make a 
 road, although the negroes said they could 
 not work without a drum ; — the story of 
 Nanie Rosette, the greedy child, who sat 
 down upon the Devil's Rock and could 
 not get up again, so that her mother had 
 to hire fifty carpenters to build a house 
 over her before midnight; — the wonder- 
 ful story of Ye, who found an old blind 
 devil roasting snails in the woods, and 
 
Youma. 47 
 
 stole the food out of the old devil's cala- 
 bash, but was caught by him, and obliged 
 to carry him home and feed him for ever 
 so long .... these and many more such 
 tales had been told to little Mayotte al- 
 ready, with the effect of stimulating her 
 appetite for more. If these tales did not 
 form the supreme pleasure of her stay at 
 the plantation, they at least enhanced and 
 colored all her other pleasures, — spread- 
 ing about reality an atmosphere delicious- 
 ly unreal, — imparting a fantastic person- 
 ality to lifeless things, — filling the shad- 
 ows with zombis, — giving speech to shrubs 
 and trees and stones .... even the canes 
 talked to her, ckououa-ckououa, like old 
 whispering Babo, the litre -de-savane. 
 Each habitant of the plantation, — from 
 the smallest black child to tall Gabriel, 
 or " Gabou," the commandeur of all, — 
 realized for her some figure of the contes: 
 
48 Youma. 
 
 and each spot of hill or shore or ravine 
 visited in her morning walks with You- 
 ma, furnished her with the scenery for 
 some impossible episode. . . . 
 
 — " Mayotte !" exclaimed Youma ; — 
 "you know one must not tell stories in 
 the daytime, unless one wants to see zom- 
 bis at night !" " 
 
 — " No, da ! . . . . tell me one .... I am 
 not afraid, da." 
 
 — " Oh ! the little liar ! . . . . You are 
 afraid, — very much afraid of zombis. And 
 if I tell you a story you will see them to- 
 night." 
 
 — " Doudoux-da, no ! — tell me one. . . ." 
 
 — " You will not wake me up to-night, 
 and tell me you see zombis ?" 
 
 — " No, da, — I promise." 
 
 — "Well, then, for this once," — said 
 Youma, uttering the traditional words 
 
Youma, 49 
 
 which announce that the Creole story-tell- 
 er is ready, — " bobonne fois /"' 
 
 — " Toua fois bel conte /" cried the de- 
 lighted child. And Youma began : — 
 
 DAME KELEMENT. 
 
 Long, long ago there lived an old woman who 
 everybody said was a witch, and in league with the 
 devil. And nearly all the bad things said about 
 her were true. 
 
 One day a poor little girl lost her way in the 
 woods. After she had walked until she could not 
 walk any more, she sat down and began to cry. 
 She cried for a long, long time. 
 
 All about her she could see nothing but trees 
 and lianas; — all the ground was covered with slip- 
 pery green roots ; and the trees were so high, and 
 the lianas so woven between them, that there was 
 very little light. She was lost in the grands bois — 
 the great woods which swarm with serpents. . . . 
 
 All at once, while she sat there crying, she heard 
 strange sounds quite near her, — sounds of singing 
 and dancing. 
 
 She got up and walked towards the sounds. Look- 
 
 4 
 
50 Youma. 
 
 ing through the trees she saw the same old woman 
 that people. used to talk about, riding on a balai-zo* 
 and dancing round and round in a ring with ever so 
 many serpents and crapaud-ldde, — great ugly toads. 
 And they were all singing : 
 
 KingiU, 
 Kingui ; 
 Vonvon 
 Malato, 
 Vloum-voum ! 
 Jatnbi, 
 Kingui, 
 Tou gaU, 
 Zo gal/, 
 Vloum ! 
 
 The little girl stood there stupid with fright : she 
 could not even cry any more. 
 
 But the old woman had seen the leaves move ; 
 and she came with a sort of fire playing all round 
 her, and asked the little girl : — 
 
 — " What are you doing in the razii f t 
 
 * A broom made of the branches of a shrub called gaiyantine. 
 
 f RazU : the lower growths which occupy the ground un- 
 der forest-trees, or cover the soil in places where the trees have 
 been cleared away. 
 
Youma. 5 1 
 
 — "Mother, I lost my way in the woods.". . . . 
 
 — " Then, my child, you must come to the house 
 with me. . . .You might undo me, unravel me, de- 
 stroy me if you had a chance." 
 
 The little girl did not understand all that the old 
 woman said ; for the wicked old creature was talk- 
 ing about matters that only sorcerers know. 
 
 By the time they got to the house, the poor child 
 was very tired : she sat down on a calabash which 
 served the witch for a chair. Then she saw the old 
 woman light two fires on the earth floor, with torch- 
 gum, — which smells like incense. On one fire she 
 placed a big pot full of manman-chou, camagnioc, 
 yams, christophines, bananas, devil's egg-plants {me- 
 longene-diabe), and many herbs the little girl did not 
 know the names of. On the other fire she began to 
 broil some toads, and an earth-lizard, — zanoli-te. 
 
 At noon the old woman swallowed all that as if 
 it was nothing at all ; — then she looked at the little 
 girl, who was nearly dead for hunger, and said to 
 her: — 
 
 — " Until you can tell me what name I am called 
 by, you will not get anything to eat.". . . .Then she 
 went away, leaving the little girl alone. 
 
 The little girl began to weep. Suddenly she felt 
 
52 Youma. 
 
 something touching her. It was a big serpent, — 
 the biggest she had ever seen. She was so fright- 
 ened that she almost died ; — then she cried out : — 
 
 — ' ' Oti papa main ? — oti manman main ? 
 LatitoU ki mangi main !" 
 
 But the serpent did not do her any harm : he only 
 rubbed his head fondly against her shoulder, and 
 sang : — 
 
 — ' Benneml, bennepi, — tambou belai I 
 Yche p' accoutoumi tambou belai !" 
 
 The little girl cried out louder than before ; — 
 
 — '' Oti papa main? — oti manman main I 
 LatitoU ki mangi moin !" 
 
 But the serpent, still rubbing his head fondly against 
 her, answered, singing very softly : — 
 
 — "Bennep}, bennem^, — tambou belai! 
 Yche p'accoutoumd tambou belai I" 
 
 Then when he saw she had become less afraid, 
 he lifted his h^ad close to her ear, and whispered 
 something. 
 
Vouma. 53 
 
 The moment she heard it she ran out of the house 
 and into the woods again. There she began to ask 
 all the animals she met to tell her the old witch's 
 name. 
 
 She asked every four-footed beast; — she asked 
 all the lizards and the birds. But they did not 
 know. 
 
 She came to a big river, and she asked all the 
 fishes. The fishes, one after another, made answer 
 to her that they did not know. But the cirique, the 
 river crab that is yellow like a plantain, — the cirique 
 knew. The cirique was the only one in the whole 
 world who knew the name. The name was Dame 
 Kiliment. 
 
 .... Then the child ran back to the house with 
 all her might; her little stomach was paining her 
 so that she felt she could not bear the pain much 
 longer. The old woman was already at the house, 
 scraping some magnioc to make flour and cassave. 
 .... The little girl walked up to her, and said : 
 
 — "Give me to eat. Dame K^limenV 
 
 Two flashes of fire leaped from the witch's eyes : 
 she gave such a start that she nearly broke her head 
 against the iron-stones that she balanced her pots on. 
 
 — " Child ! you have got the better of me 1" she 
 
54 Youma. 
 
 screamed. " Take everything ! — take it, take it !— 
 eat, eat, eat ! — all in the house is yours !" 
 
 Then she sprang through the door quick as a 
 powder-flash: she seemed to fly through the fields 
 and woods. . . . And she ran straight to the river; — 
 for it was deep under the bed of the river that the 
 Devil had buried the name which he had given her. 
 She stood on the bank, and chanted : — 
 
 — "Locke, O loche ! — was it you who told that my 
 name was Dame K61^ment ?" 
 
 Then the loche, that is black like the black stones 
 of the stream, lifted up its head, and cried : — 
 
 — "No, mamma! — no mamma! — it was not I 
 who told that your name was Dame K^lement." 
 
 — " Tiiiri, O titiri ! — tell me, was it any among 
 you who told that my name was Dame K^l^ment ?" 
 
 Then the titiri, the tiny transparent titiri, an- 
 swered all together, clinging to the stones : — 
 
 — " No, mamma ! — no, mamma ! — none of us ever 
 said that your name was Dame Kdldment." 
 
 — " Cribiche, O cribiche ! — was it you who told 
 that my name was Dame K^ldment ?" 
 
 Then the cribiche, the great crawfish of the river, 
 lifted up his head and his claws, and made an- 
 swer : — 
 
Youma. 5 5 
 
 — "No, mamma! — no, mamma! — it was not I 
 who said that your name was Dame Kdldment." 
 
 — " THart, O t^tart ! — was it you who said that 
 my name was Dame KdI6ment ?" 
 
 And the tdtart, that is gray like the gray rocks of 
 iron to which it holds fast, made answer, saying : — 
 
 — " No, mamma ! — no, mamma ! — it was not I who 
 told them that your name was Dame Kel^ment." 
 
 — " Dormmr, O dormeur! — was it you who told 
 that my name was Dame K^16ment ?" 
 
 And the dormeur, the lazy dormeur, that sleeps 
 in the shadow of the rocks, awoke and rose and 
 made answer: — 
 
 — " No, mamma ! — no, mamma ! — it was not I who 
 told them that your name was Dame K^16ment." 
 
 — " Mafavali, O mataval^! — was it you that said 
 my name was Dame Kdl^ment ?" 
 
 And the matavale, the shining mataval^, that 
 flashes like copper when the sun touches his scales, 
 opened his mouth and answered : — 
 
 — "No, mamma! — no, mamma! — I never said 
 that your name was Dame K^Mment !" 
 
 — "Mild I — houc I — fisquette ! — zangui ! — zhabi- 
 tantl — was it any one among you who told that 
 my name was Dame K^ldment ?" 
 
56 Youma. 
 
 But they all cried out : — 
 
 — "No, no, no, mammal — none of us ever said 
 that your name was Dame K61dment." 
 
 — " Cirique, O cirique ! — was it you who said my 
 name was Dame Kelement?" 
 
 Then the cirique lifted up his eyes and his yel- 
 low claws, and screamed : — 
 
 — " Yes, you old wretch ! — yes, you old witch ! — 
 yes, you old malediction ! — yes, it was I who said 
 that your name was Dame Kdl^ment !".... 
 
 The moment she heard those words she stamped 
 on the ground so hard that the Devil heard her, and 
 opened a great hole at her feet; and she leaped 
 into it head-first. And the ground closed over her. 
 Two days after, there grew up from the place a 
 clump of the weed they call arrite-nigue, — the plant 
 that is all thorns. 
 
 Now while this was happening, the serpent had 
 turned into a man ; — for the old witch had changed 
 a man into that serpent. He took the little girl by 
 the hand, and led her to her mother. 
 
 But they came back again next day to search the 
 old woman's cabin. They found in it seven casks 
 
Youma. 57 
 
 filled with the bones of dead people ; and also ever 
 so much silver and gold, — more than enough to 
 make the little girl rich. When she got married, 
 there was the finest wedding ever seen in this 
 country. 
 
 .... Mayotte's morning visits to the 
 river with Youma had furnished her with 
 material for the imaginative scenery of 
 the last part of this foolish little story, 
 which delighted her so much that she 
 made her nurse repeat it over and over 
 again. She had seen the crawfish show 
 their heads above the pools; she had 
 caught the iiiiri in her little hands ; she 
 knew by sight the loche and the teiari, 
 the matavale and the zhabitant, the dor- 
 meur and the cirique. She also knew — 
 by painful experience — the arrete-negue. 
 Dame Kelement, she fancied, must have 
 had a face like old Tanga's when angry ; 
 and the little girl who lost her way in the 
 
58 Youma. 
 
 woods must have looked just like a cer- 
 tain little black girl whom Tanga often 
 had to scold, and who used to cry in the 
 most extraordinary way: "A'ie-ydie-ydie- 
 ydie-ydie-ydie /" 
 
 But in the midst of her ecstasy, a faint 
 fear came to her with the recollection of 
 Youma's warning. . . . 
 
 — " Da," she asked, timidly, "I will not 
 see zombis to-night, will I ?" 
 
 — "Ah! you must not ask me to tell 
 stories in the daytime any more," said 
 Youma, guardedly. 
 
 — " But tell me, I won't see them to- 
 night,— will I ?" 
 
 — "If you see them," replied Youma, 
 without mercy, "call me! — I will make 
 them go away." 
 
Youma. 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 Youma was alone in the house that 
 night with the child; for M. Desrivieres 
 had ridden over to Sainte-Marie, and the 
 servants occupied an adjoining building. 
 . . . She was roused from her sleep by 
 hearing the child cry: — 
 
 — '' Da^ oh da! — moin pel" 
 
 The tiny lamp left burning before the 
 images of the saints had gone out ; — little 
 Mayotte was afraid. 
 
 — ''Pa pe" — called Youma, quickly 
 rising to caress her, — " mi da-ou, eke." 
 
 — " Oh ! there is Something in the 
 room, dal" said the child. She had heard 
 stealthy sounds. 
 
 — " No, doudoux ; you have been dream- 
 ing. ... Da will light the lamp for you." 
 
6o Youma. 
 
 She felt for the matches on the httle 
 night -table, — could not find them, — re- 
 membered she had left them in the ad- 
 joining salon, — moved towards the door; 
 — and her foot suddenly descended upon 
 something that sent a cold shock through 
 all her blood, — something clammy and 
 chill, that lived ! Instantly she threw all 
 the weight of her lithe strong body upon 
 that foot — the left: she never could tell 
 why; — perhaps the impulse was instinct- 
 ive. Under her naked sole the frigid life 
 she strove to crush writhed with a sudden 
 power that nearly threw her down ; and in 
 the same moment she felt something wind 
 round her ankle, over her knee, wrapping 
 the flesh from heel to thigh with bruis- 
 ing force .... the folds of a serpent ! 
 
 — " Tambou f she muttered between 
 her teeth, — and hardened her muscles 
 against the tightening coil, and strength- 
 
Youma. 6i 
 
 ened the pressure of her foot upon the 
 unseen enemy. . . . The foot of the half- 
 breed, never deformed by shoes, retains 
 prehensile power, — grasps like a hand ; — 
 the creature writhed in vain to escape. 
 Already the cold terror had passed ; and 
 Youma felt only the calm anger of re- 
 solve : hers was one of those semi-savage 
 natures wherein fear rarely lives beyond 
 the first moment of nervous surprise. 
 She called softly to the little one. 
 
 — " Ti doudoux ?" 
 
 —"Da.?" 
 
 — " Do not move till I tell you : stay 
 in bed ; there is a dete in the room." 
 
 — "A'ie, die/" sobbed the frightened 
 child,—" what is it, da .?" 
 
 — " Do not be afraid, cocotte : I am 
 holding it, and it cannot bite you, unless 
 you get up. I am going to call for Ga- 
 briel : do not stir, dear." 
 
62 Youma. 
 
 And Youma called, with all the power 
 of her clear voice : 
 
 — "■'Sucouf — sucou! Eh! Gabou !".... 
 
 — " What is it ?— what is it, da ?" sobbed 
 the little girl. 
 
 — " Do not cry like that, or I will get 
 angry ! How can I see what it is in the 
 dark?".... 
 
 She called again and again for aid. . . . 
 Bon -Die! how powerful the creature 
 was ! — the pressure of the coil became a 
 numbing pain. Her strength was already 
 beginning to weaken under the obstinate, 
 icy, ever-increasing constriction. What if 
 
 the cramp should come to help it ? Or 
 
 was it the entering of venom into her 
 blood that made those strange tinglings 
 and tremblings .? She had not felt her- 
 self stricken; — but only the month before 
 a plantation-hand had been bitten in the 
 dark without feeling it; and they could 
 
Youma. 63 
 
 not save him "Eh! Gaboul" Even 
 
 the servants in the pavilion seemed to 
 sleep like dead. And if the child should 
 leave the bed in spite of her warning ?. . . . 
 
 — " Oh ! they are coming, da !" cried 
 Mayotte. " Gabou is coming !" She had 
 seen the flash of his lantern through the 
 slatted shutters. "But the door is locked, 
 da!" 
 
 — "Stay in bed, Mayotte! — if you move 
 it will bite you !" The salon filled with 
 voices and sound of feet ; then there was 
 a pushing at the bedroom door. 
 
 — "It is locked," called Youma; — "break 
 it ! — smash it in ! — I cannot move !" 
 
 .... A crash ! — the room filled with a 
 flare of lanterns ; and Youma saw that 
 the livid throat was under her foot; — 
 the hideous head vainly strained at her 
 heel. 
 
 "Pa bouene piess!" cried the voice of the 
 
64 Youma. 
 
 commandeur, " Do not stir for your life, 
 my girl ! Keep still for your life ! Stay 
 just as you are !" 
 
 She stood like a bronze. Gabriel was 
 beside her, his naked cutlass in his hand. 
 
 Quimfo! quimfo! — pas bourne piess, 
 
 piessypiessi". . . . Then she saw the gleam 
 of his steel pass, and the severed head 
 leap to the wainscoting, where it fell gap- 
 ing, — the eyes still burning like sparks of 
 charcoal. In the same moment the coil 
 loosed and dropped, and Youma lifted 
 her foot ; — the body of the reptile lashed 
 the planking, twisted, strove to crawl as 
 if to join the head ; — again and again the 
 cutlass descended, and each lopped frag- 
 ment nevertheless moved. 
 
 — "Are you hurt, my daughter.?" a kind 
 voice asked, — the voice of M. Desrivieres: 
 he had seen it all. 
 
 — "Pa coue matte" she answered, look- 
 
Youma. 65 
 
 ing^at her foot. But she did not know. 
 He led her to a chair, knelt down and be- 
 gan the examination himself; while May- 
 otte climbed to Youma's neck, clinging 
 and kissing and crying : " Did he bite 
 
 you, dear da ? — did he bite you ?" " No, 
 
 doudoux ; no, cocotte : do not be afraid !" 
 She was telling the truth unawares : the 
 serpent had never been able to use his 
 fangs ; but the seaming of his coil remain- 
 ed upon the smooth red skin as if brand- 
 ed. .. . Gabriel had dropped his cutlass 
 and detached the long mouchoir-fautas 
 about his waist to make a ligature: he 
 was the panseur of the plantation. 
 
 — " Never mind, my son," said M. Desri- 
 vieres: "she has not been bitten." 
 
 Gabriel stood dumb for astonishment. 
 
 Meanwhile the room had filled with 
 armed plantation -hands, and a clamor 
 of exclamations :...." Die Seigne I qui 
 
 5 
 
66 Youma. 
 
 s'epent!" "Mi tete-la ka le mode toujou!" 
 
 "Oest guiabe menm /" '■^Moceaua ka 
 
 rimie pou yo joinne!" .... "A'ie/ Youma 
 tchoque ! — ouillpapaP\ . . .And a serpent 
 nearly six feet in length ! No one had 
 ever heard of such a feat before. When 
 Youma told how it happened, — very sim- 
 ply and very calmly, — there was a dead 
 hush of admiration. It was first broken 
 by the rough basso of the commandeur, 
 exclaiming: — "Ouaill! ou brave, mafi! — 
 foute! ou j^f^ ./"...." Severe," the ne- 
 gro's strongest adjective to qualify cour- 
 age, retains in his patois something of 
 quaint and reverential meaning, — some- 
 thing of that sense which survives in our 
 own modern application of it to art and 
 truth : the Creole now rarely uses it ex- 
 cept in irony, but Gabriel uttered it with 
 unconscious exquisiteness ; and M. Desri- 
 vieres himself applauded. 
 
Youma. 67 
 
 — '■'■ Doudoux-da-moin /" cried Mayotte, 
 smothering her nurse with caresses ; — 
 "ticocotte-da-moinf. . . .Mais boy,papoute ! 
 — bo y .'" she pleaded, to M. Desrivieres. 
 He smiled and kissed Youma's forehead. 
 
 — "And it was all my fault," declared 
 Mayotte, beginning to sob again : " I 
 made her tell me stories in the daytime." 
 
 But that serpent was no zombi : they 
 found his trail and followed it to a hole 
 which some rat had gnawed in the plank- 
 ing of the salon, under a sideboard. 
 
68 Youma. 
 
 V, 
 
 From that night Youma became the ob- 
 ject of a sort of cult at Anse-Marine; — 
 there is no quality the black admires so 
 much as physical courage. The entire 
 atelier began to evince for her a respect 
 almost fetichistic. The girl's heroism had 
 conquered any petty dislikes which her 
 city manners and natural reserve might 
 have provoked, and had hopelessly crush- 
 ed the small jealousies of house-servants 
 who imagined themselves supplanted by 
 a stranger in the master's home. These 
 now only sought to obtain her good-will, to 
 win her smile ; — the plantation declared 
 itself proud of her, — boasted of her prow- 
 ess to the slaves of neighboring estates ; — 
 
Youma. 69 
 
 the hands saluted her when she passed, 
 as if she were a mistress ; and the impro- 
 visors of the caleinda chants celebrated 
 her praises in their belai. Even the over- 
 seer, M. de Comislles, though a rigid dis- 
 ciplinarian, no longer addressed her as 
 mafi, " my daughter," but as Manzell, — 
 Manzell Youma. 
 
 But what secretly pleased her above all 
 was the attention of Gabriel. Gabriel ap- 
 peared to have taken a sudden fancy to 
 her. Although the busiest man on the 
 estate, he found time to show his friend- 
 ship by little kindnesses and courtesies of 
 which one could scarcely have believed 
 so rude a nature capable. He invented 
 opportunities to meet her during the mid- 
 day respite from labor, and of evenings, — 
 before or after making his nightly round 
 to see that all the regulations of cleanli- 
 ness and good order had been obeyed in 
 
70 Younta. 
 
 every cabin, — that clothing had been wash- 
 ed, and refuse removed. His visits were 
 necessarily brief ; — they were also strange- 
 ly silent: he rarely spoke, except when ask- 
 ed a direct question, or when teased by 
 Mayotte into taking her on his knees and 
 answering her prattle. More usually he 
 would simply seat himself on the veranda 
 close to Youma's rocking-chair, and listen 
 to her chat with the child, or her story- 
 telling, — seldom even turning his face 
 towards her, but seeming to watch the 
 noisy life of the cases. But almost at ev- 
 ery visit he would bring something for 
 the child, — knowing she would share it 
 with her da, — some gift of fruit gathered 
 in his own garden : such as a bunch of 
 figues, which are tiny dessert bananas 
 scarcely two inches long ; — or a zabricot 
 (tropical apricot), — that singular fruit the 
 ancient Haytians held sacred as the food 
 
Youma. 71 
 
 of ghosts, — a colossal plum, as large as 
 the largest turnip, with musky vermilion 
 flesh, and a kernel big as a duck's egg ; — 
 or an odorous branch cut from a zorange- 
 macaque tree, heavy with mandarines; — 
 or 2l fouitt-defendu, — the same, according 
 to Creole tradition, which Eve was tempt- 
 ed by the Serpent to eat, — a sort of huge 
 orange larger than a pumpkin, with a lus- 
 cious pink pulp. . . . One day, — the day of 
 Mayotte's fete, — Gabriel brought a very 
 pretty present: a basket he had himself 
 woven of bamboo strips and liana stems, 
 filled with samples of almost everything 
 the estate produced. There was a beau- 
 tiful little sugar-loaf, — a package of ba- 
 tons-caco, or sticks of chocolate, — a little 
 cotli, or half- calabash, filled with brown 
 sugar, — a can of refined syrup, — a pain- 
 mi, or boiled-maize cake, sweetened, and 
 wrapped in a piece of balisier leaf tied 
 
72 Youma. 
 
 with a ti-liane-razi'e ; — some tab kites of 
 grated cocoa candied in liquid sugar; — 
 and a nice bundle of Chambery cane, tied 
 with a cane leaf. . . . Another day, when 
 Youma had taken the child to the river 
 for her morning bath, she found there, 
 fixed upon the bank beside the little pool, 
 a broad and handsome rustic bench, built 
 of the long tough stems of t\i& pommier- 
 rose, with split bamboos for the back and 
 the seat : Gabriel had made it, working at 
 night, and had carried it to the river be- 
 fore daybreak, as a surprise for Youma. 
 
 .... Silent as Gabriel's visits were, they 
 began to exert an influence on Youma. 
 She found in them an unfamiliar pleasure, 
 — became accustomed to look for them 
 with unconscious eagerness; — even felt 
 vaguely unhappy when he did not come. 
 And yet, after having failed to see him 
 for a longer time than usual, she never 
 
Youma. 73 
 
 asked what had prevented his visit ; — she 
 would not have confessed, even to herself, 
 that she feared his indifference. He, on 
 the other hand, never offered an expla- 
 nation. The two strange natures com- 
 prehended each other without speech, — 
 drew and dominated each other in a dumb, 
 primitive, half-savage way. 
 
 He brought one afternoon a fine sa- 
 
 pota, — that fruit in whose smooth flushed 
 swarthy skin Creole fancy finds the sem- 
 blance of half-breed beauty. Within its 
 flat black seed, between the two halves of 
 the kernel, lies a pellicle, — creamy, frag- 
 ile, and shaped like a heart, — which it 
 requires dexterity to remove without 
 breaking. Lovers challenge each other 
 to do it as a test of affection. 
 
 — " Mayotte," said Youma, after they 
 had eaten the fruit together, — " I want to 
 see if you love me." .... She cracked the 
 
74 Youma. 
 
 flinty shell of a seed between her teeth, 
 — then tried to remove the pellicle, and 
 broke it. 
 
 —"Oh, da!" cried the child, "it is not 
 true ! — you know I love you," .... 
 
 — " Piess, piess r declared Youma, teas- 
 ing her; — "you do not love me one 
 bit !" 
 
 But Gabriel asked for a seed, and she 
 gave him one. Rude and hard as his fin- 
 gers were, he took out the little heart in- 
 tact, and gave it to Mayotte. 
 
 — "Ou oue /" he said, maliciously; — "da 
 ou ainmein main passe ou /" (Your da 
 loves me better than you.) 
 
 — " It is not true ! — no, cocotte /" Youma 
 assured the child. But she did not feel 
 sure of what she said. 
 
 . . . .When the cane-cutting season was 
 over, Gabriel asked and obtained leave to 
 
Youma. 75 
 
 go to La Trinite one holiday morning. 
 He returned at evening, later than the 
 hour at which he was accustomed to find 
 the young capresse on the veranda; but 
 she was still there. Seeing him approach, 
 she rose with the child asleep in her arms, 
 and put her finger to her lips. 
 
 " Quimbe /" whispered Gabriel, slipping 
 into Youma's hand something flat and 
 square, wrapped in tissue-paper: then, 
 without another word, he strode away to 
 his quarters. 
 
 When Mayotte had been put to bed, 
 Youma looked at the packet. ... A little 
 card-board box : within it, upon a layer of 
 pink cotton, shone two large light circles 
 of plain gold, — barbaric ear-rings such as 
 are only made by colonial goldsmiths, but 
 well suited to the costume and bronze 
 skin of the race of color .... Youma 
 already possessed far finer jewelry; but 
 
76 Youma. 
 
 Gabriel had walked thirty kilometres for 
 these. 
 
 He smiled as he passed by her window 
 in the morning and saw them shimmering 
 in her ears. Her acceptance of the gift 
 signified assent to a question unspoken, — 
 the question which civilized men most fear 
 to ask, but which the Creole slave could 
 ask without words. 
 
Youma. 77 
 
 VI. 
 
 — " What is it, my son ?" said M. Desri- 
 vieres, as Gabriel, who had asked to speak 
 with him alone, stood nervously twirling a 
 great straw hat between his fingers. 
 
 — '^MaUe," he began, shyly, — "moin ain- 
 mein ti bonne ou." .... 
 
 — " Youma .?" queried M. Desrivieres in 
 surprise. 
 
 — ''Mais out, matte y 
 
 — " Is Youma willing to marry you ?" 
 
 — ^" Mais out, matte." 
 
 For a few moments M. Desrivieres 
 could make no reply: the possibility of 
 a union between the two had never oc- 
 curred to him, and Gabriel's revelation al- 
 most shocked him. Thecommandeur was 
 certainly one of the finest physical men 
 of his race, — young, industrious, intelli- 
 
78 Youma. 
 
 gent; but he would make a rough mate 
 indeed for a girl brought up as Youma 
 had been. She was also a slave, without 
 education ; but she had received a domes- 
 tic training that gave her a marked su- 
 periority above her class, and she had 
 moral qualities more delicate by far than 
 those of Gabriel. . . . Above all, she had 
 been the companion of Aimee's childhood, 
 and afterwards her friend rather than her 
 servant : the influence of Aimee had done 
 much for her; — something of Aimee's 
 manner, and of Aimee's thought, had be- 
 come a part of her own. . . . No ; Madame 
 Peyronnette would never hear of such a 
 union: the mere idea of it would revolt 
 her like a brutality ! 
 
 — " But, Gabriel," he answered at last, 
 " Youma does not belong to me. She be- 
 longs to my mother-in-law." 
 
 — " Master, I know she belongs to Ma- 
 
Youma. 79 
 
 dame Peyronnette," said Gabriel, making 
 the rim of his chapeau-bacoue revolve still 
 more quickly; — "but I thought you would 
 like to do something for me." 
 
 The planter smiled at the suggestion. 
 .... He had often expressed to Gabriel the 
 wish to see him marry, — had even prom- 
 ised to give him a handsome wedding 
 when he should have made a choice. But 
 Gabriel seemed in no haste to choose. 
 Then it became known that, while he re- 
 mained indifferent to the girls of Anse- 
 Marine, he was in the habit of making 
 furtive visits to a neighboring estate ; and 
 M. Desrivieres himself went there to dis- 
 cover the object of those visits. He found 
 it in the person of a handsome griffone ; 
 and, wishing to give Gabriel an agreeable 
 surprise, bought the girl for fifteen hun- 
 dred francs, and brought her back with 
 him. But from the day that she belonged 
 
8o Youma. 
 
 to the plantation, Gabriel paid no further 
 attention to her whatever. Secretly, he 
 resented his master's intermeddling in the 
 matter ; and nevertheless, in spite of that 
 episode, it now seemed to him quite nat- 
 ural to beg M. Desrivieres to buy Youma 
 for hipi. . . . The planter, however, felt no 
 anger; — the incident rather amused him. 
 He valued Gabriel highly, and under- 
 stood him well: — a nature impatient of 
 control, but capable of exerting it to an 
 extraordinary degree. As a commandeur 
 he was inestimable; as a travailleur he 
 would have been almost impossible to 
 manage. His former owner, 2. petit blanc, 
 had been glad to sell him, with the frank 
 assurance that he was " sullen, incorrigible, 
 and dangerous." De ComisUes, who pur- 
 chased him, knew it was a case of '' fine 
 stock " unappreciated ; and often boasted 
 of the bargain he had made. 
 
Youma. 8i 
 
 — " I cannot buy her for you, my son," 
 said M. Desrivieres, kindly. " Youma is 
 not for sale. Madame Peyronnette will 
 not sell her at any price, — even to me. . . . 
 I am going to the city to-morrow, and 
 will ask my mother-in-law if she will let 
 Youma marry you : that is all I can do." 
 
 Gabriel ceased to twirl his hat: he stood 
 silent for a little while, with his eyes cast 
 down, and a decidedly sinister expression 
 in his face. He had never thought that 
 Youma's fate might not be decided even 
 by M. Desrivieres 's wealth and influence : 
 a suspicion that the planter's assurances 
 were false, momentarily darkened his 
 thoughts. Then he looked up, bowed to 
 M. Desrivieres, and with a hoarsely mut- 
 tered "Mefz, matte" withdrew. 
 
 — " It is Youma who will suffer the 
 most," thought M. Desrivieres. 
 
82 Youma. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Madame Peyronnette's decision was 
 just what M. Desrivieres had expected. 
 She was even more astonished by You- 
 ma's choice than he had been, — could 
 only attribute it to a fascination purely 
 physical, or, as she termed it, animal : the 
 one peril among all others that she had 
 especially feared for Youma. She even 
 reproached her son-in-law, — held him re- 
 sponsible for the affair; and finally in- 
 sisted upon Youma's immediate return to 
 the city. She did not wish that another 
 should be Mayotte's nurse ; but whether 
 Mayotte remained at Anse-Marine or not, 
 Youma should return. It was time at all 
 
Youma. 83 
 
 events that the child should begin to learn 
 something more important than sucking 
 sugar-cane and playing with little negroes ; 
 — besides, she had become quite strong, 
 and the city was exceptionally healthy. 
 Youma might continue to live with the 
 Desrivieres at the Fort; but a girl inno- 
 cent enough to become enamoured of the 
 first common negro who made love to 
 her, needed looking after; and Madame 
 Peyronnette intended to make sure that 
 no more such things should happen. . . . 
 M. Desrivieres offered no opposition to 
 his mother-in-law's wishes ; he announced 
 his intention to return to town himself as 
 soon as possible, and bring Mayotte and 
 her nurse with him. 
 
 . . . .To Youma this decision brought a 
 shock of pain that stupefied her too much 
 for tears. Then, with the instinctive, au- 
 
84 Youma. 
 
 tomatic resentment that sudden pain pro- 
 vokes, came to her also for the first time 
 the full keen sense of the fact that she 
 was a slave, — helpless to resist the will 
 that struck her. Every disappointment 
 she had ever known, — each constraint, 
 reprimand, refusal, suppression of an im- 
 pulse, every petty pang she had suffered 
 since a child, — crowded to her memory, 
 scorched it, blackened it ; filled her with 
 the delusion that she had been unhappy 
 all her life, and with a hot secret anger 
 against the long injustice imagined, break- 
 ing down her good sense, and her train- 
 ed habit of cheerful resignation. In that 
 instant she almost hated her godmoth- 
 er, hated M. Desrivieres, hated everybody 
 .... except Gabriel. At his advent into 
 her life, something long held in subjec- 
 tion within her, — something like a dark- 
 er passionate second soul, full of strange 
 
Youma. 85 
 
 impulses and mysterious emotions, — had 
 risen to meet him, bursting its bonds, and 
 winning mastery at last: the nature of 
 the savage race whose blood dominated 
 in her veins. 
 
 Its earlier rebellions had produced no 
 graver result than occasional secret fits of 
 melancholy, — beginning after Aimee's de- 
 parture to school, when Youma was first 
 taken into an existence high-hedged about 
 in those days with formalities extraordi- 
 nary. Except during the evenings of a 
 brief theatrical season, and the occasion 
 of a select ball, the Creole ladies remained 
 almost cloistered in their homes from 
 Sunday to Sunday, scarcely leaving their 
 apartments except to go to church, — nev- 
 er entering a store under any circum- 
 stances, and having even the smallest de- 
 tails of their shopping done for them by 
 slaves. Enervated by a climate that would 
 
86 Youma. 
 
 probably have exterminated the European 
 element within a few generations but for 
 the constant infusion of fresh blood from 
 abroad, the white women of the colonies 
 could adapt themselves without pain to 
 this life of cool and elegant seclusion. 
 But Youma was of the race of sun-lovers. 
 The very privileges accorded her, the very 
 training given to her as a sort of adopted 
 child, had tended rather to contract her 
 natural life than to expand it. In the 
 country she had found larger opportuni- 
 ties for out-door enjoyment, and freedom 
 from formal restraints of a certain kind ; 
 but even in the country her existence was 
 confined by her duty as a nurse, — ^com- 
 pressed into the small sphere of a child's 
 requirements. Youma was too young to 
 be a da. For the da there were no pleas- 
 ures. The responsibilities of such a place, 
 — requiring nothing less than absolute 
 
Youma. 87 
 
 self - sacrifice, — were confided as a rule 
 only to slaves who had been mothers, who 
 had fulfilled the natural destiny of woman. 
 But Youma had scarcely ceased to be a 
 child, when she found herself again sen- 
 tenced to act, think, and speak as a child, 
 — ^for the sake of a child not her own. 
 Her magnificent youth dumbly protested 
 against this perpetual constraint. Despite 
 that sense of personal dignity Madame 
 Peyronnette had spared no pains to cul- 
 tivate in her, — the feeling of having social 
 superiority among her class, — she some- 
 times found herself envying the lot of 
 others who would have gladly changed 
 places with her: the girls who travelled 
 singing over the sunny mountain roads, 
 the negresses working in the fields, chant- 
 ing belaiio the tapping of the ka. You- 
 ma felt a painful pleasure in watching 
 them. She suffered so much from the 
 
88 Youma. 
 
 weariness of physical inaction ; — she was 
 so tired of living in shadow, of resting in 
 rocking-chairs, of talking baby talk, — just 
 as in other years she had been tired of 
 dwelling behind closed shutters, and broid- 
 ering and sewing in a half-light, and hear- 
 ing conversations which she could not un- 
 derstand. Still, at such moments, she had 
 judged, herself ungrateful, — almost wick- 
 ed, — and battled with her discontent, and 
 conquered it, — until Gabriel came. 
 
 Gabriel ! He seemed to open to her 
 
 a new world full of all that her being 
 longed for, — light, and joy, and melody : 
 he appeared to her in some way blended 
 with the freedom of air and sun, of river 
 and sea, — fresh scents of wood and field, 
 — the long blue shadows of morning, — 
 the rose-light of tropical moonrise, — and 
 the songs of the chanirelles, — and the 
 merriment of dances under the cocoa- 
 
Youma. 89 
 
 palms to the throbbing thunder of the 
 drums. Gabriel, so calm, so strong, so 
 true ! her man of all men, made for her 
 by the Bon -Die; — Gabriel, who, though 
 a slave, could compel the esteem of his 
 master; — Gabriel, for whom she prayed 
 each night, and laid before the Virgin's 
 image her little offering of wild flowers ; 
 — Gabriel, with whom she would be so 
 happy, even in the poorest of ajoupas, — 
 for whom she would gladly give liberty if 
 she had it, or even her life if it could do 
 him service ! She wished to be beauti- 
 ful — and they said she was beautiful i^yon 
 belrbois, like a shapely tree, like a young 
 palm) — only for his sake .... And they 
 were going to take him from her, — pre- 
 tending that he was not good enough for 
 her (as if they could know !), — because they 
 wanted her to remain with them always, 
 to suffer for them always, to live in dark- 
 
go Youma. 
 
 ness and silence, like a manicou. And 
 they had the power to be cruel to her, 
 to take him away from her ! The world 
 was all wrong, — wrong at least for her. 
 Whomsoever she loved was taken from 
 her; first her mother, Douceline; then 
 Aimee Desrivieres ; — now Gabriel. 
 
 .... It was the morning after his arri- 
 val from the city that M. Desrivieres had 
 called her aside to tell her : she had just 
 returned from the river with Mayotte, 
 after giving the child her morning bath. 
 He had spoken kindly, but very frankly, 
 — in a way that left no hope possible. 
 
 For a long time she sat speechless and 
 motionless in her room : then, obeying 
 the child's wish, went out with her upon 
 the veranda. The day was exquisitely 
 clear, with a tepid wind from the sea. 
 Above her, on the nearer side of- the val- 
 
Youma. 91 
 
 ley, sounded the mellow booming of a 
 tambou - belai, and a chorus of African 
 song. A troop of field-hands were mak- 
 ing a new path to the summit of one of 
 the mornes; the old path having been 
 washed away by recent heavy rains. The 
 overseer had surveyed the course for it, 
 marked out the zigzag with stretched 
 cords; and the workers were slowly de- 
 scending in a double line, — all singing, — 
 all the hoes and rammers keeping time 
 to the drum rhythm. Sometimes the men 
 would throw up their hoes in the air and 
 catch them again, or exchange them in a 
 fling, without losing the measure of the 
 movement. And there was a girl, — young 
 Chrysaline, — carrying a tray with tin cups, 
 dobannes of water, and a pitcher of liquor; 
 — serving drink all round at intervals ; for 
 the work was hot .... Youma looked for 
 a tall figure in blue cotton shirt and white 
 
92 Youma. 
 
 canvas trousers at the head of the column. 
 But Gabriel was not visible. Another was 
 acting in his place, overseeing the task, 
 and keeping a watch for serpents, — a 
 black man, Marius. 
 
 Only three days more ; and she would 
 have to leave Anse - Marine, — would see 
 Gabriel no more .... They were going to 
 return to the dull hot city in the dullest 
 and hottest month of the year .... Did 
 Gabriel know ?. . . . Or was it because he 
 knew, that she did not see him among 
 the workers ? She felt that if he knew, 
 he would contrive some chance to speak 
 with her .... 
 
 Even as this feeling came, Gabriel ap- 
 peared before the house, — made her a 
 sign to leave the child and come to him. 
 
 He laid his hand caressingly upon her 
 shoulder, and whispered : — 
 
Youma. 93 
 
 — " The master told me all this morn- 
 
 ing he is going to take you away from 
 
 us ?" 
 
 — "Yes," she answered, sadly; — "we 
 are going back to the city." 
 
 — " When ?" 
 
 — " Monday coming." 
 
 — " It is only Thursday," he said, with 
 
 a peculiar smile " Doudoux, you know 
 
 that once they have you back in the city 
 again, they will never let you see me, 
 never ! — yes, you know it !" 
 
 — " But, Gabriel," she answered, with 
 a choking in her voice, — hurt by the 
 tone of pleading in his words: "what 
 can I do.? — you know there is not any 
 way." 
 
 — " There is a way," he interrupted, 
 almost roughly. 
 
 Wondering, she looked at him, — a new 
 vague hope dawning in her large eyes. 
 
94 Youma. 
 
 — " There is a way, my girl," he repeat- 
 ed, — " if you are brave. Look !" 
 
 He pointed beyond the valley, over the 
 sea to the north - east, where loomed a 
 shape of phantasmal beauty, — a vision 
 only seen in fairest weather. Out of the 
 purpling ocean circle, the silhouette of 
 Dominica towered against the amethyst- 
 ine day, — with crown of ghostly violet 
 peaks, and clouds far curled upon them, 
 like luminous wool of gold. 
 
 — "Doudoux, in one night!" he whis- 
 pered, watching her face. 
 
 She caught his meaning .... Freedom 
 for the slave who could set his foot on 
 British soil! 
 
 — " Gabriel !" called the voice of M. de 
 ComisUes. 
 
 — '■'Eti!" he shouted in answer .... 
 " Think about it, my girl, — change, change 
 bien, chef 
 
Youma. 95 
 
 — " Gabriel !" again cried the voice of 
 the overseer. 
 
 — ''Ka vinir called Gabriel, running 
 towards the summons. 
 
 .... She returned to her accustomed 
 place on the veranda, where Mayotte was 
 playing with a black kitten. She scarcely 
 heard the child's laughter, and joyous call- 
 ings to her to look when the little animal 
 performed some droll prank, — answered 
 mechanically as if half awake: her gaze 
 continued fixed upon the shining appari- 
 tion in the horizon, that tempted her will 
 with its vapory loveliness. Slowly, while 
 she gazed, it took diaphanous pallor, — 
 began to fade into the vast light. Then, 
 as the sun climbed higher, it passed 
 mysteriously away: there remained only 
 the clear-colored circling sea, the round- 
 ed spotlessness of the summer heaven. 
 
96 Youma. 
 
 . . . But the luminous violet memory of 
 it lingered with her, — burned into her 
 thought. 
 
 She did not see Gabriel again that day. 
 He seemed to avoid her purposely, — to 
 give her time to reflect. 
 
Youma. 97 
 
 VIII. 
 
 .... Never a doubt of Gabriel's ability 
 to carry out his project entered her mind : 
 the possibilities of pursuit and capture, 
 of encountering a rafale in that awful 
 channel — or even worse; for the hurri- 
 cane season had set in, — gave her little 
 concern. What danger could she not 
 brave for his sake ? — anywhere with him 
 she would feel secure. 
 
 But slowly the exaltation of her fancy 
 began to calm. The totally unexpect- 
 ed suggestion of a means to frustrate the 
 will of others, and to win all that she de- 
 sired, had cooled the passion of her dis- 
 appointment; and, with its cooling, her 
 natural power of just reflection gradually 
 7 
 
9§ Youma. 
 
 returned. Then she felt afraid, — afraid of 
 something in herself that she knew was 
 wrong. For even in the first moment, the 
 proposal of Gabriel had vaguely smitten 
 her conscience, — startled her moral sense 
 before she could weigh, however hastily, 
 the results of abandoning her friends, her 
 birthplace, her duties, — of declassing her- 
 self forever, — of losing the esteem of all 
 who put trust in her. But now as she 
 thought, — seriously thought, — she knew 
 that a shame rose and tingled in her 
 face .... 
 
 No — no — no ! — it was not true that her 
 life had been all unhappiness. She be- 
 gan to recall, — in shining soft succession, 
 — many delightful days. Days of her 
 childhood, above all, — with Aimee, when 
 they played together in the great court 
 of Madame Peyronnette's house in the 
 high street — the beautiful sunny court 
 
Youma. 99 
 
 with its huge -leaved queer plants and 
 potted palms, — where the view of the 
 splendid bay lay all open in blue light 
 from the Grosse- Roche to Fond Corre ; — 
 with ships coming and going over the 
 horizon, or drowsily swaying at anchor, — 
 the court where each morning they used 
 to feed the sanolis, the little green lizards 
 of the tonnelle, who flashed down from 
 the green vault of climbing vines to eat 
 
 the crumbs thrown them! Aimee, who 
 
 shared all things with her, — even when 
 a tall young lady. Aimee, whose dying 
 hand clasped hers with such loving trust, 
 — whose dying lips had whispered : — 
 " Youma, O Youma! you will love my child? 
 — Youma, you will never leave her, what- 
 ever happens, while she is little? — prom- 
 ise, dear Youma P\ . . . And she had — prom- 
 ised .... 
 
 She saw again the face of Madame Pey- 
 
lOO Youma. 
 
 ronnette, smiling under its bands of silver 
 hair, — smiling as when Youma felt her 
 cheek stroked by the fine white hand 
 that glimmered with rings ; — as when she 
 heard the gentle assurance : — " You are 
 my daughter, too, child — my beautiful 
 dark daughter-in-God ! You must be hap- 
 py ; — I want you to be happy ! . . . . And 
 had she not really tried to make her so, — 
 contrived for her, — planned for her, — ex- 
 pended much for her sake, that she might 
 never have the right to envy others of 
 
 her class ? And Youma thought of all 
 
 the gifts, the New- Year surprises, — the 
 perpetual comfort. She had always had 
 a room apart, — a room overlooking the 
 tonnelle with its vines and pommes-de-li- 
 ane, where the humming-birds circled in 
 gleams of crimson and emerald, — a little 
 chamber full of sea-wind : she had never 
 been allowed to lie on a simple mattress 
 
Youma. loi 
 
 unrolled upon the floor, like a common 
 domestic. 
 
 For Aimee's sake she had found scarce- 
 ly less consideration in her second home, 
 from Madame Desrivieres and her son. 
 And ever since Aimee's death, the kind- 
 ness of M. Desrivieres had been that of 
 a father. He had trusted her to such a 
 degree that he had never noticed Ga- 
 briel's visits. 
 
 What would all these think of her? 
 
 To whom did she owe most? — to them, 
 whom she had known so long, and the 
 kind lady who had brought her up with 
 her own child, after having named her at 
 the baptismal font; or to Gabriel, whom 
 she had known only for one season ? . . . . 
 Ah ! never, — not even for his sake, could 
 she be false to them ! — the good God 
 would never forgive her ! .... But Ga- 
 
I02 Youma. 
 
 briel did not know : if he knew, he could 
 not ask her to fly with him. 
 
 .... Once more the darker side of her 
 nature was quelled, — sank back sobbing 
 to its old place. The cruel pain remained : 
 but she lay down to rest that night with 
 a strong resolve to seek Gabriel as soon 
 as possible, and to say No. 
 
 And nevertheless her heart sank a lit- 
 tle next morning, when Gabriel, striding 
 by as she was taking the child to the 
 river, said, in a low, hurried tone : — 
 
 — "Go to the beach this evening, at 
 four o'clock. I will see you there. The 
 gommier leaves for La Trinite with a 
 cargo." 
 
 Then he was gone, before she could 
 answer a word. 
 
Youma. 103 
 
 IX. 
 
 A STRANGE coast IS that on which the 
 valley of Anse-Marine opens, — a coast of 
 fantastic capes and rocks with sinister 
 appellations, in which the Devil's name 
 is sometimes mentioned. Black iron ore 
 forms the high cliffs ; but countless creep- 
 ers tapestry them, and lianas everywhere 
 dangle down to meet the shore fringe of 
 patate-bo-lanme, — the vivid green sea-vine, 
 — crawling over a sand black as powdered 
 jet. (Its thick leaves when broken show 
 a sap white as milk ; and it bears a beau- 
 tiful carmine cup -shaped flower.) The 
 waves are very long, very heavy ; — they 
 crumble over with a crash that deafens, 
 and ghostly uptossings of foam as of wav- 
 ing hands. The sea is never quiet there : 
 
I04 Youma. 
 
 north and south the falaises perpetually 
 loom through a haze of tepid spray, — ris- 
 ing like smoke to the sun .... There is a 
 Creole legend that it was not so in other 
 years ; — that a priest, mocked by fisher- 
 men, shook his black robe against the 
 sea, and cursed it with the curse of eter- 
 nal unrest. And the fishing -boats and 
 the spread nets rotted on the beach, while 
 men vainly waited for the sea to calm. . . . 
 The foam-line never vanishes through the 
 year : it only broadens or narrows, as the 
 surf becomes, under the pressure of the 
 trade -winds, more or less dangerous. 
 Sometimes it whitens far up the river 
 mouths, leaps to the summit of the cliffs, 
 and shakes all the land, — thotigh there is 
 scarcely a breeze, and not one cloud in 
 the sky. At such a time you will see 
 that far out, even to the horizon, the flood 
 is blue as lapis lazuli, and smooth as a 
 
Youma. 105 
 
 mirror: the thunder and the foaming do 
 not extend beyond the coast. That is a 
 raz-de-maree, — a raz-de-maree du fond: the 
 sea swinging from the depths, — rocking 
 from the bottom. This spectacle may en- 
 dure two, three, four days ; and then cease 
 mysteriously as it began. 
 
 For the travailleur of the eastern plan- 
 tations, the only barrier between slavery 
 and freedom was this wild sea. There 
 were but few boats on the coast; — north 
 of La Trinite, there were but few points 
 from which a boat could be safely launch- 
 ed. But at Anse-Marine there was one 
 such place, — a sort of natural cove in a 
 promontory projecting into deep water 
 from the southern end of the valley-open- 
 ing, and curving so as to give a lee side. 
 It was thence the gommier was launched 
 to the sound of the drum ; and a little 
 boat was also kept there in a shed, — the 
 
io6 Youma. 
 
 master's private boat, — seldom used. This 
 Gabriel knew how to handle well. 
 
 .... Before the hour appointed Youma 
 took Mayotte to the beach : the great heat 
 of the day was spent, the strong wind was 
 almost cool, and the cliffs were throwing 
 shadow. A visit to this shore was a de- 
 light for the child. There were no pretty 
 little shells like those thrown up by the 
 tide at the Grosse Roche of Saint Pierre, 
 and the surf was too strong to permit of 
 her wading, as she would have wished to 
 do. But it was a joy to see it tumbling 
 and flashing ; and the black sand was full 
 of funny yellow hairy -legged crabs, 'and 
 little sea - roaches — ravett- lanme — which 
 had spades in their tails, to dig holes with ; 
 — and sometimes one might meet a baby 
 turtle, just out of the egg, making its way 
 to the water. 
 
Youma. 107 
 
 The children came soon after, — black 
 and yellow, brown and red, — all in charge 
 of Tanga's daughters, Zoune and Gambi, 
 to see the gommier go out. The little 
 ones were not allowed to venture fairly 
 into the water for fear of accidents ; but 
 they could gambol on the skirts of the 
 surf to their hearts' content. They scream- 
 ed and leaped all together whenever a big 
 wave would chase up the sand, whirling 
 and hissing about their little bare feet. 
 
 Then the wagons appeared, moving 
 along the cliff road, with their loads of 
 rum and sugar : it was hard work for the 
 mules, strong and fat as they were .... 
 Youma heard Gabriel's voice urging them 
 on, — helping the drivers. 
 
 Then a slim brown boy, naked as a 
 bronze, appeared on horseback, — coming 
 down to the beach at a gallop, riding 
 without a saddle. It was the overseer's 
 
io8 Youma. 
 
 little groom, going to give M. de Co- 
 mislles's horse a bath in the surf. The 
 boy was scarcely more than a child, and 
 the animal, — a black Porto Rico stallion, 
 — very spirited ; but the two knew each 
 other. As the surf reached the horse's 
 knees, the lad leaped down, and began to 
 wash him. Then an immense breaker 
 bursting, whelmed both almost out of sight 
 in a quivering woolly sheet of foam. The 
 horse seemed to like it, never moved: 
 there was no fear for the boy, — he could 
 swim like a couliou. He played about the 
 horse, patted him, hugged his neck, threw 
 water on him : when a heavy breaker came 
 he would cling to the stallion's mane. 
 
 " Yo kallel yo kallef" cried the children 
 at last, as a drum-roll vibrated from the 
 launching - place : the freight had been 
 stowed, the crew were in their places, the 
 tambouy'e on his perch. It was the signal 
 
Youma. 109 
 
 to let go — " lague touti"; and all eyes 
 turned to see the gommier rush into the 
 water; and everybody shouted as she 
 reached it safely, pitched, steadied again 
 with the first plunge of the paddles, and 
 started on her journey, to the merry meas- 
 ure of Madame lezhabitant. The children 
 stopped their play to watch ; — and from 
 the cliffs sounded a clapping of hands, 
 and women's laughter, and jocose screams 
 of adie, — as the long craft shot away to 
 the open, — till the chant of the crew was 
 lost in the voice of the surf, and the faces 
 ceased to be distinguishable. Even then, 
 for a minute or two the booming of the 
 drum could be heard; but the gommier 
 soon rounded the long point, and passed 
 
 out of sight, making south The event 
 
 of the day was over. 
 
 Tanga's daughters gathered their little 
 flock, and left the beach ; — the boy in the 
 
no Youma. 
 
 surf leaped to the horse's back, turned 
 him, and off they went up the valley at a 
 gallop, — shining like a group in metal,-— 
 to dry themselves in wind and sun ; — the 
 lookers-on disappeared from the cliffs ; — 
 and the empty wagons turned back rum- 
 bling to the plantation .... Youma still 
 lingered, to Mayotte's great satisfaction. 
 The child had found a cocoa-nut — empty, 
 shrunken, and blackened by long pitching 
 about in the waves. She amused herself 
 by rolling it into the surf, and seeing it 
 cast out again — always at some distance 
 from where it had been thrown in ; — and 
 this so much diverted her that she did not 
 
 notice Gabriel hastening towards them 
 
 But Youma advanced to meet him. 
 
 — '' Doudoux-moin" he said, breathing 
 quickly with the hurry of his coming, as 
 he took her hand in both his own, — " lis- 
 ten well to what I am going to tell you. 
 
Youma. 1 1 1 
 
 .... The gommier has gone ; — there will 
 be no boat to pursue us : we can go to- 
 night if you will be brave . . . .To-morrow 
 we can be free, — to-morrow morning, 
 doudoux !" 
 
 — "Ah ! Gabriel . . . ." she began. But 
 he would not hear her: he spoke on so 
 earnestly, so rapidly, that she could not 
 interrupt him, telling her his hopes, his 
 plans. He had a little money, — knew 
 what he was going to do. They would 
 buy a little place in the country, — (it was 
 a beautiful country there, and everything 
 was cheap, and there were no serpents!) 
 — he could build a little house himself, — 
 
 plant a fruit garden The master's boat 
 
 was ready for their escape ; — wind and sea 
 were in their favor; — there would be 
 no moon till after midnight; — there was 
 nothing to fear. And with the coming 
 sunrise they would be free. 
 
112 Youma. 
 
 He spoke of his love for her, — of the 
 life they might live together, — of liberty 
 as he imagined it, — of their children who 
 would be free, — with naive power of per- 
 suasion, and with a fulness that revealed 
 how earnestly and long he had nourished 
 his dream, — vividly imaging his thought 
 by those strange Creole words which, like 
 tropic lizards, change color with position. 
 Not until he had said all that was in his 
 heart, could Youma answer him, with the 
 tears running down her cheeks : — 
 
 — " Oh ! Gabriel ! I cannot go ! — do not 
 tell me any more ; I cannot go !" 
 
 Then she stopped, — struck dumb by 
 the sudden change in his face. As he 
 dropped her hand, there was an expres- 
 sion in his eyes she had never seen be- 
 fore. But he did not fix them upon her : 
 he turned, and folded his arms, and stared 
 at the sea. 
 
Youma. 113 
 
 — " Doudoux," she went on, — "you 
 would not let me speak .... I did as you 
 told me ; — I thought it all over, — over 
 and over again. And the more I thought 
 
 about it, the more I felt it could not be 
 
 And you would not give me a chance 
 to tell you," — she repeated, pleadingly, — 
 touching his arm, — trying to draw his 
 look again. 
 
 But he did not answer, — stood rigid 
 and grim as the black rock behind him, 
 — looking always to the horizon, where 
 the place of his hope had been, — free 
 Dominica, with its snakeless valleys, — all 
 viewless now, veiled by the vapors of 
 evening. 
 
 — " Gabriel," she persisted, caressingly, 
 — " listen, doudoux.". . . . 
 
 — "Ah ! you will not come ?" he said at 
 last, — "you will not come ?"... .There 
 was almost a menace in his voice, as 
 8 
 
114 Youma. 
 
 he turned the wrath of his eyes upon 
 her. 
 
 — " I cannot go, doudoux," she repeat- 
 ed, with gentle force. " Listen to me .... 
 you know I love you .?" 
 
 — "Pa pale fa! — -pa lapeine f" he an- 
 swered, bitterly "I offer you all that I 
 
 have; — it is not enough for you .... I give 
 you the chance to be free with me, and 
 you tell me you prefer to remain a slave." 
 
 — " Oh, Gabriel !" she sobbed, — " can 
 you reproach me like that ? You know 
 in your heart whether I love you." 
 
 — " Then you are afraid, — afraid of the 
 sea.?" 
 
 — " It is not that." 
 
 — ''Ouill, mafi! — I thought you brave !" 
 
 — " Gabriel," she cried, almost fiercely, 
 " I am not afraid of anything except of 
 doing wrong, — I am afraid of the Bon- 
 Die only." 
 
Youma. 115 
 
 —"■Qui Bon-Die fa?" he scoffed,— " the 
 Bon-Die of the bekes?— the Bon-Die of 
 Manm-Peyronnette ?" 
 
 — " You shall not talk that kind of talk 
 to me, Gabriel !" she exclaimed, with eyes 
 blazing, — " it brings bad luck !" 
 
 He looked at her in surprise at the 
 sudden change in her manner, as, for the 
 first time, her will rose to match his own. 
 
 — "Ca ka poie malhe, ou tenne?" she re- 
 peated, meeting his gaze and mastering 
 it. He turned sullenly to the sea again, 
 and let her speak, — listening restively to 
 her passionate explanation. . . .Afraid.'' — 
 how little he knew her heart! But she 
 had forgotten, because of him, what it was 
 wicked to forget. She had done wrong 
 even to think of going with him, — forsak- 
 ing the godmother who had brought her 
 up from an infant, — deserting the mistress 
 who had cared for her like a daughter, — 
 
ii6 Youma. 
 
 abandoning the child confided to her 
 care, the child of Madame Desrivieres, 
 the child who loved her so much, who 
 would suffer so much to lose her, — might 
 even die ; for she knew of a little one who 
 had died for grief at having lost her da. 
 No : it would be cruel, — it would be wick- 
 ed, to leave her in such a way. . . . 
 
 — "And you leave me for a child, You- 
 ma, — a • child not your own ?" cried Ga- 
 briel. " You talk as if you were the only 
 nurse in the world : there are plenty of 
 dasr 
 
 — " Not like me," said Youma, — " not 
 at least for her. I have been mother to 
 her since her own mother died .... But 
 it is not the child only, Gabriel; — it is 
 what I owe to those who loved and trust- 
 ed me all these years.". . . . And the old 
 sweetness came back into her voice, while 
 she asked : — " Doudoux, could you think 
 
Youma, 117 
 
 me true, and see me thankless and false 
 to those who have been good to me all 
 my life?" 
 
 — " Good to you !" he burst out, with 
 sudden bitterness. " Do you think them 
 good because they do not happen to be 
 bad ? How good to you ? Because they 
 dress you beautifully, — give you a belle 
 j'upe, a calendered madras, a collier-choux, 
 and put gold upon you that folks may 
 cry : — ' See how madame .... see how 
 monsieur is generous to a slave !' Give 
 them 1 — no ! — lend them only, — put them 
 upon you for a showing: they are not 
 yours! You can own nothing; you are 
 a slave ; you are naked as a worm before 
 the law ! You have no right to anything, 
 — no, not even to what I gave you ; — you 
 have no right to become the wife of the 
 man you choose; — you would have no 
 right, if a mother, to care for your own 
 
ii8 Youma. 
 
 child, — though you give half your life, all 
 your youth, to nursing children of bekes. 
 .... No, Youma, you were not brought 
 up like your mistress's daughter. Why 
 were you never taught what white ladies 
 know ? — why were you never shown how 
 to read and write? — why are you kept a 
 
 slave ? Good to you 1 It was to their 
 
 interest, my girl ! — it repays them to-day, 
 — since it keeps you with them, — when 
 you could be free with me." 
 • — " No, no, doudoux," protested the girl, 
 — " you are not just ! You do not know 
 my godmother; you do not know what 
 she has been for me ; — you could never 
 make me believe she has not been gener- 
 ous and kind ! . . . . Do you think, Gabri- 
 el, that people can be good only for a mo- 
 tive? — do you think M. Desrivieres has 
 not been kind to you ?" 
 
 — " There are good bekes, Youma ; — 
 
Youma. 119 
 
 there are masters who are better mas- 
 ters than others; there is no good mas- 
 ter!" 
 
 — " Oh, Gabriel !— and M. Desrivieres?" 
 
 — "Do you believe slavery is a good 
 thing, — a right thing, Youma ?" 
 
 She could not answer him directly. 
 The ethical question of slavery had first 
 been brought to her mind in a vague way 
 by her recent disappointment; — previous- 
 ly the subject would have seemed to her 
 one of those into which it was not quite 
 proper to inquire doubtingly. 
 
 — " I think it is wicked to be cruel to 
 slaves," she replied . . . . " But since the 
 good God arranged it so that there should 
 be slaves and masters, doudoux. . . ." 
 
 — ^'Ou trap sott! — ou trop enfant!'' — 
 he cried out, and held his peace ; feeling 
 that it were vain to argue with her, — that 
 what he called her folly and her childish- 
 
1 20 Youma. 
 
 ness separated them far more than the 
 will of a mistress. Her idea of duty to 
 her godmother, of duty to the child, ap- 
 peared to be mingled in some way with 
 her idea of religion, — to which the least 
 light allusion would provoke her anger. 
 He could comprehend it only as a sort of 
 mental weakness created by beke-teach- 
 ing. To his own thinking, slavery was 
 a kind of trickery, — the duping of blacks 
 by whites ; and it was simply because they 
 could not dupe him, that they had given 
 him a position entailing no physical labor, 
 and in which he could feel himself more 
 free than others. He did not feel grateful 
 therefor: it seemed to him that no possi- 
 ble kindnesses, no imaginable indulgences 
 on the part of a master could deserve the 
 voluntary sacrifice of a chance for liberty 
 by the slave. Though really possessing 
 a rude intelligence above his comrades, 
 
Youma. 1 2 1 
 
 Gabriel shared many savage traits of his 
 race, — traits that three hundred years of 
 colonial servitude could hardly modify: 
 among others, the hatred of all constraint, 
 — reasonable or unreasonable. Still the 
 Creole bitaco prefers hungry liberty to any 
 comfort obtainable by hired labor; — his 
 refusal to work for wages necessitated the 
 importation of coolies, yet he can do the 
 work of three ; — he is capable of pro- 
 digious physical effort; he will carry on 
 his head twenty miles to town a load of 
 vegetables of his own weight, or twenty- 
 four bread-fruits ; he will cutlass his way 
 through forest to the very summit of peaks 
 to find particular herbs and cabbage-palm 
 for the market; he will do anything ex- 
 traordinary to avoid being under orders, 
 — martyrize his body by herculean efforts 
 to escape control .... This spirit in Ga- 
 briel had been temporarily softened by 
 
122 Youma. 
 
 the profits and petty dignity of his posi- 
 tion, — by the ambition of being one day 
 able to settle on his own land in some 
 wild place, and live independent of every- 
 body; — but not the least of the reasons 
 which made him valuable at Anse-Marine 
 was his confidence of being able to escape 
 when he pleased .... And, nevertheless, 
 judging Youma by himself, the very mo- 
 tive she had urged for her refusal seem- 
 ed to him the one of all others he could 
 not reason with her against, because he 
 coupled it with his own ideas of the 
 supernatural, — likened it to certain dark 
 superstitions of which he knew the ex- 
 traordinary power. Through her kind- 
 heartedness, the bekes had been able to 
 impose upon her mind ; — and tenderness 
 of heart, except to him and for him alone, 
 
 he deemed childish and foolish "CW 
 
 bon khe crabe qui lacause y pa ni tete" says 
 
Youma. 123 
 
 the negro proverb. — (It is because of the 
 crab's good heart that he lacks a head.) 
 
 Nevertheless he himself had a heart, — ■ 
 though a rough one ; — and it was moved 
 by the sight of Youma's silent tears 
 which his anger and his reproaches had 
 caused. He loved her well in his hard 
 way ; and all his tenacity of will set itself 
 against the losing of her. She had de- 
 nied his wish ; and he knew her strength 
 of resolve, — yet with time he might find 
 another way to make her his own. Some- 
 thing would depend on herself, — on such 
 influence as she might have with her mis- 
 tress ; but he relied more upon the prob- 
 ability of a social change. Hopeless as 
 he had pictured the future for Youma, 
 he was far from believing it hopeless. 
 Echoes of the words and work of philan- 
 thropists had reached him : he knew how 
 and why the English slaves had received 
 
1 24 Youma. 
 
 their freedom ; — he knew also something 
 of which he could not speak, even in a 
 whisper, to Youma .... From plantation 
 to plantation there had passed a secret 
 message, — framed in African speech for 
 the ears of those chosen to know and 
 fearless to do ; — already, even within the 
 remotest valleys of the colony, hearts had 
 been strangely stirred by the blowing of 
 the great wind of Emancipation. . . . 
 
 — " Doudoux - moin !" he suddenly en- 
 treated, in a tone of tenderness such as 
 she had never heard him use, — ''■pa pleire 
 conm fa, ck'e, — non f And she felt him 
 
 drawing her close in a contrite caress 
 
 " It was not with you, little heart, that I 
 was angry ! — listen : there are things you 
 do not know, child ; but I believe you — 
 you are doing what you think is right .... 
 Pa pleire, — non! — ti bigioule moin! . . . 
 Listen : since you will not come, I will 
 
Youma. 125 
 
 not go; — I will stay here at Anse -Ma- 
 rine .... Pa pleir'e, doudoux /" 
 
 A little while she sobbed in his embrace 
 without replying ; then she murmured : — 
 
 — "I shall be more happy, doudoux, to 
 know that you do not go ... . But it is 
 not a time to be angry, dear, when we 
 must say good-bye" for always." 
 
 — " Ah ! my little wasp ! will you let 
 them choose another husband for you, 
 when they have you back in Saint 
 Pierre .'"' he asked, with a smile of confi- 
 dence. 
 
 — " Gabriel !" she cried, passionately, — 
 " they can never do that ! .... If they will 
 not let me have you, doudoux, I will re- 
 main forever as I am .... No ! — they can- 
 not do that !" 
 
 — ^'^Bon^ ti kke-moin ! — then it is not 
 good-bye for always . . . .Wait !" 
 
 She looked up, wondering .... But in 
 
126 Youma. 
 
 the same moment, Mayotte, tired of play- 
 ing with her cocoa-nut, and seeing Ga- 
 briel, ran to them screaming, " Gabon ! — 
 Gabon !" — and clung delightedly to the 
 commandeur's knee. 
 
 — "No! — go and play a little while 
 longer," said Youma. " Gabou is too tired 
 to be pulled about." 
 
 — "Are you, Gabon.?" asked Mayotte 
 straining her little head back to look up 
 to his face. And without waiting for his 
 answer, she went on to tell him: — "Oh! 
 Gabou ! we are going back to town with 
 papoute r 
 
 — " He knows that," said Youma ; " go 
 and play." 
 
 — " But, da, I am tired !" she answered, 
 discontentedly, still clinging to Gabriel's 
 knee, expecting him to toss her up in his 
 arms .... "Pouend moin /" she coaxed, — 
 " take me up ! — take me up !" 
 
Youma. 127 
 
 — '' Pauv piti, magre (a!" exclaimed 
 Gabriel, lifting her to the level of his 
 great bronze face, — " you do not care one 
 bit that you are going to leave Gabou 
 and all your dear friends at Anse- Ma- 
 rine, — ■piess,piess,piti mechante ! — you do 
 not love Gabou !" 
 
 — " Yes, I do !" she cooed, patting his 
 dark cheeks, — " I do love you, Gabou !" 
 
 — '■'^Alte ! — ti souye ! — you love Gabou 
 to play with you : that is all ! And Ga- 
 bou has no time to play with you now; — 
 Gabou must go and see what everybody 
 is doing, before it is time to sound the 
 conelambi .... Bo ! — Adie, cocoiie." 
 
 He placed her in her nurse's arms, and 
 kissed Youma also, — but on the forehead 
 
 only, as he had seen M. Desrivieres do 
 
 because of the child .... ''Adie, ti khe !" 
 
 — '^ Pou iouj'ou?" she murmured, al- 
 most inaudibly, vainly struggling with 
 
128 Youma. 
 
 the emotion which stifled her voice, — 
 " for always ?" 
 
 — '■'■Ah ! non, cKe /" he answered, smil- 
 ing to give her hope .... "Mone pa k'en- 
 contr'e; — moune Mencontre toujour 
 
 (Only the mornes never meet; — ^folk 
 always meet again.) 
 
Youma. 129 
 
 X. 
 
 .... Would she ever see him again ? 
 she asked herself unceasingly through all 
 her wakefulness of that night, — her last 
 save one at Anse - Marine. But always 
 came the self-answer of tears .... She 
 heard the number of the hour at which 
 she might have fled with him to freedom, 
 and hour after hour, tingled out by the 
 little bronze salon timepiece through its 
 vaulted glass. She closed her eyes, — and 
 still, as through their shut lids, saw the 
 images of the evening: the figure of Ga- 
 briel, and Mayotte playing with her co- 
 coa-nut, and the velvet shadowing of the 
 black cliffs on the black sand, and a 
 white sheeting and leaping of surf, — si- 
 9 
 
1 30 Youma. 
 
 lent like breakings of cloud. They went 
 and came, — distorted and vanished and 
 returned again with startling vividness, 
 as if they would never fade utterly away. 
 Only in the first hours of the morning 
 there began for her that still soft dark- 
 ness which is rest from thought. 
 
 But again a little while, and her mind 
 wakened to the fancy of a voice calling her 
 name, — faintly, as from a great distance, 
 — a voice remembered as in a dream one 
 holds remembrance of dreams gone before. 
 
 Then she became aware of a face, — the 
 face of a beautiful brown woman look- 
 ing at her with black soft eyes, — smiling 
 under the yellow folds of a madras tur- 
 ban, — and lighted by a light that came 
 from nowhere, — that was only a memory 
 of some long-dead morning. And through 
 the dimness round about it a soft blue 
 radiance grew, — the ghost of a day; and 
 
Youma. 131 
 
 she knew the face and murmured to it : — 
 " Doudoux-manmanr .... 
 
 .... They two were walking some- 
 where she had been long ago, — somewhere 
 among mornes: she felt the guiding of 
 her mother's hand as when a child. 
 
 And before them as they went, some- 
 thing purple and vague and vast rose and 
 spread, — the enormous spectre of the sea, 
 rounding to the sky. And in the pearli- 
 ness over its filmy verge there loomed 
 again the vision of the English island, 
 with long shreddings of luminous cloud 
 across its violet peaks Slowly it bright- 
 ened and slowly changed its color as she 
 gazed ; and all the peaks flushed crimson 
 to their tips, — like a budding of wondrous 
 roses from sea to sun. . . . 
 
 And Douceline, softly speaking, as to 
 an infant, said : — 
 
 — " Travail Bon-Die toutt j'oli, anh ?" — 
 
132 Youma. 
 
 (Is it not all-pretty, the work of the good 
 God?) 
 
 — "Oh! my little jewel - mamma, — ti- 
 bijou - manman ! — oh ! my little - heart- 
 mamma, — ti- khe -manman / .... I must 
 not go !" 
 
 .... But Douceline was no longer with 
 her, — and the shining shadow of the isl- 
 and had also passed away, — and she heard 
 the voice of Mayotte crying .... some- 
 where behind trees. 
 
 And she hastened there, and found her, 
 under some huge growth that spread out 
 coiling roots far and wide : one could not . 
 discern what tree it was for the streaming 
 weight of lianas upon it. The child had 
 plucked a sombre leaf, and was afraid, — 
 something so strange had trickled upon 
 her fingers. 
 
 — " It is only the blood - liana," said 
 Youma : " they dye with it." .... 
 
Youma. 133 
 
 — " But it is warm," said the child, — 
 still full of fear .... Then both became 
 •■ afraid because of a heavy pulsing sound, 
 dull as the last flappings of a cannon-echo 
 among the mornes. The earth shook with 
 it. And the light began to fail, — dimmed 
 into a red gloom, as when the sun dies. 
 
 — " It is the tree !" gasped Mayotte, — 
 " the heart of a tree /" 
 
 But they could not go : a weird numb- 
 ness weighed their feet to the ground. 
 
 And suddenly the roots of the tree be- 
 stirred with frightful life, and reached out 
 writhing to wrap about them; — and the 
 black gloom of branches above them be- 
 came a monstrous swarming; — and the 
 ends of the roots and the ends of the 
 limbs had eyes. . . . 
 
 .... And through the ever-deepening 
 darkness came the voice of Gabriel, cry- 
 ing, — '■'It is a Zombi!— I cannot cut it!" 
 
1 34 Youma. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The season of heavy humid heat and 
 torrential rains, — the long hivernage, — 
 had passed with its storms ; — and the sea- 
 son of north-east winds, when the heights 
 grow cool; — and the season of dryness, 
 when the peaks throw o£E their wrappings 
 of cloud. It was the renouveau, the most 
 delicious period of the year, — that magi- 
 cal spring-time of the tropics, when the 
 land suddenly steeps itself in iridescent 
 vapor, and all distances become jewel- 
 tinted, while nature renews her saps after 
 the bleaching and withering of the dry 
 months, and rekindles all her colors. The 
 forests covered themselves at once with 
 fruit and flowers; the shrivelled lianas 
 
Youma. 135 
 
 revived their luminous green, put forth 
 new million tendrils, and over the heights 
 of the grands bois poured down cataracts 
 of blue, white, pink, and yellow blossom. 
 The palmistes and the angelins appeared 
 to grow suddenly taller as they shook off 
 their dead plumes ; — an aureate haze hung 
 over the valleys of ripe cane; — and mount- 
 ain roads began to turn green almost to 
 their middle under the immense invasion 
 of new-born grasses, herbs, and little bush- 
 es Mosses and lichens sprouted every- 
 where upon surfaces of stone or timber 
 unprotected by paint; — ^grasses shot up 
 through the jointing of basaltic pave- 
 ments ; and, simultaneously, tough bright 
 plants burst into life from all the crevices 
 of walls and roofs, attacking even the sol- 
 id masonry of fortifications, compelling 
 man to protect his work. An infinite va- 
 riety : ferns and capillaria and vines that 
 
1 36 Youma. 
 
 sink their tendrils into the hardest rock; — 
 the the-miraille, and the mousse-miraille ; 
 the pourpzer and the wild guava; the _/?(?«- 
 ri-Ndel, the Devil's tobacco {tabac-diabe\ 
 and the lakheratt; — even little trees, that 
 must be removed at once for the safety of 
 dwellings, — such as the young frontager 
 or silk-cotton, — rose from wall tops and 
 roofs, — branching from the points of ga- 
 bles, — rooting upon ridges and cornices. 
 . . . .The enormous cone of Pelee, which 
 through the weeks of north winds had 
 outlined the cusps of its cratered head 
 against the blue light, once more drew 
 down the clouds about it, and changed 
 the tawny tone of its wrinkled slopes to 
 lush green. Soft thunders rolled among 
 the hills; tepid dashes of rain refreshed 
 the earth at intervals ; — the air grew sweet 
 with balsamic scents; — the color of the 
 sky itself deepened. 
 
Youma. 137 
 
 But though the land might put forth 
 all its bewitchment, the hearts of the col- 
 onists were heavy. For the first time in 
 many years the magnificent crop was be- 
 ing gathered with difficulty: there were 
 mills silent for the want of arms to feed 
 them. For the first time in centuries the 
 slave might refuse to obey, and the mas- 
 ter fear to punish. The Republic had 
 been proclaimed ; and the promise of 
 emancipation had aroused in the simple 
 minds of the negroes a ferment of fan- 
 tastic ideas,— free gifts of plantations, — 
 free donations of wealth, — perpetual re- 
 pose unearned, — paradise life for all. They 
 had seen the common result of freedom 
 accorded for services exceptional; — they 
 were familiar with the life of the free 
 classes; — but such evidence had small 
 value for them : the liberty given by the 
 beke resembled in nothing that peculiar 
 
1 38 Youma. 
 
 quality of liberty to be accorded by the 
 Republic ! 
 
 They had dangerous advisers, unfortu- 
 nately, to nourish such imaginings : men 
 of color who foresaw in the coming social 
 transformation larger political opportuni- 
 ties. The situation had totally changed 
 since the time when slaves and freedmen 
 fought alike on the side of the planters 
 against Rochambeau and republicanism, 
 against the bourgeoisie and the patriotes. 
 The English capture of the island had 
 justified that distrust of the first Revolu- 
 tion shown by the hommes de couleur, and 
 had preserved the old regime for another 
 half-century. But during that half-centu- 
 ry the free class of color had obtained all 
 the privileges previously refused it by prej- 
 udice or by caution; and the interests of 
 the gens de couleur had ceased to be insep- 
 arably identified with those of the whites. 
 
Youma. 139 
 
 They had won all that was possible to win 
 by the coalition ; and they now knew the 
 institution of slavery doomed beyond hope, 
 not by the mere fiat of a convention, but 
 by the opinion of the nineteenth centu- 
 ry. And the promise of universal suf- 
 frage had been given. There were scarce- 
 ly twelve thousand whites ; — there were 
 one hundred and fifty thousand blacks 
 and half-breeds. 
 
 Yet there was nothing in the aspect 
 or attitude of the slave population which 
 could fully have explained to a stranger 
 the alarm of the whites. The subject 
 race had not only been physically refined 
 by those extraordinary influences of cli- 
 mate and environment which produce the 
 phenomena of creolization ; but the more 
 pleasing characteristics of the original sav- 
 age nature, — its emotional artlessness, its 
 joyousness, its kindliness, its quickness to 
 
140 Youma. 
 
 sympathy, its capacity to find pleasure in 
 trifles, — had been cultivated and intensi- 
 fied by slavery. The very speech of the 
 population, — the curious patois shaped in 
 the mould of a forgotten African tongue, 
 and liquefied with fulness of long vowel 
 sounds, — caressed the ear like the coo- 
 ing of pigeons .... Even to-day the stran- 
 ger may find in the gentler traits of this 
 exotic humanity an indescribable charm, 
 — despite all those changes of character 
 wrought by the vastly increased difficul- 
 ties of life under the new conditions. 
 Only the Creole knows by experience the 
 darker possibilities of the same semi-sav- 
 age nature: its sudden capacities of cru- 
 elty, — its blind exaltations of rage, — its 
 stampede-furies of destruction. 
 
 .... Before the official announcement 
 of political events reached the colony, the 
 negroes, — through some unknown system 
 
Youma. 141 
 
 of communication swifter than govern- 
 ment vessels, — knew their prospects, knew 
 what was being done for them, felt them- 
 selves free. A prompt solution of the sla- 
 very question was more than desirable ; — 
 delay was becoming dangerous. There 
 were as yet no hostile manifestations; — 
 but the slave-owners, — knowing the his- 
 tory of those sudden uprisings which re- 
 vealed an unsuspected power of organiza- 
 tion and a marvellous art of secrecy, — 
 felt the air full of menace, and generally 
 adopted a policy of caution and forbear- 
 ance. But in a class accustomed to com- 
 mand there will always be found men 
 whose anger makes light of prudence, 
 and whose resolve challenges all conse- 
 quences. Such a one among the planters 
 of 1 848 dared to assert his rights even on 
 the eve of emancipation ; — chastised with 
 his own hand the slave who refused to 
 
142 Youma. 
 
 work, and sent him to the city prison to 
 await the judgment of a law that might 
 at any moment become obsolete. 
 
 His rashness precipitated the storm. 
 The travailleurs began to leave the plan- 
 tations, and to mass in armed bands upon 
 the heights overlooking Saint Pierre. The 
 populace of the city rose in riot, burst into 
 the cutlass stores and seized the weapons, 
 surrounded the jail and demanded the re- 
 lease of the prisoner . ..." 6? ou pa lague 
 y, ke cm ! — nou ke fai toutt Tieguibita- 
 tion descenneT That terrible menace first 
 revealed the secret understanding between 
 the slaves of the port and the blacks of the 
 plantation; — the officers of the law recoiled 
 before the threat, and turned their pris- 
 oner loose. 
 
 But the long-suppressed passion of the 
 subject class was not appeased : the mob 
 continued to parade the streets, uttering 
 
Youma. 143 
 
 cries never heard before, — "Mori aux 
 blancs ! — A has les b'ekes /" .... feeling 
 secured from military interference by the 
 recognized cowardice of a republican gov- 
 ernor. Evening found the riot still un- 
 quelled, — the whites imprisoned in their 
 residences, or fleeing for refuge to the 
 ships in the harbor. And those dwelling 
 on the hills, keeping watch, heard all 
 through the night the rallying oukte of 
 negroes striding by, armed with cutlass- 
 es and bamboo pikes and bottles fiUed 
 with sand. Twenty-four hours later, the 
 whole slave-population of the island was 
 in revolt; and the towns were threatened 
 with a general descent of the travailleurs^ 
 
144 Youma. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Another day found the situation still 
 more sinister. All business was suspend- 
 ed ; every store and warehouse closed ; 
 even the markets remained empty; the 
 bakeries had been pillaged, and provisions 
 had become almost unobtainable. A ru- 
 mor was abroad that emancipation had 
 been voted, — that the news was being 
 concealed, — that the official proclamation 
 of freedom could only be enforced by an 
 appeal to arms. . . . 
 
 Prior to the outbreak there had been a 
 fierce heat of political excitement, cre- 
 ated by the republican election. The 
 white slave-holders had voted for a freed- 
 man faithful to their interests; the men of 
 
Youma. 145. 
 
 color had used their freshly acquired priv- 
 ileges to secure representation in the 
 person of a noted French abolitionist. 
 Pictures of him had been distributed by 
 thousands, together with republican cock- 
 ades and tiny tricolored flags: the people 
 kissed the pictures with tears of enthusi- 
 asm and shouts of "Vive papa T — the col- 
 ored children waved the little flags and 
 cried : " Vive la Republique /" — some were 
 so young they could only cry, '■'■Vive la 
 'Ipipir And the complete victory of the 
 kommes de couleur only intensified the 
 exaltation .... But after the affair of 
 the jail, the children ceased to appear in 
 the streets with their little flags; and 
 there was no longer a distribution of 
 cockades, but a distribution of cutlasses 
 — new cutlasses, for they had to be sharp- 
 ened, and all the grindstones were in req- 
 uisition. 
 10 
 
1 46 Youma. 
 
 .... It became more and more peril- 
 ous for the whites to show themselves in 
 the streets. They watched for chances to 
 get to the ships, under the protection of 
 their own slaves or of loyal freedmen, hav- 
 ing influence with the populace, knowing 
 every dark face in it. But after mid-day 
 such faithful servants began to find their 
 devotion unavailing : strange negroes were 
 mingling with the rioters, — savage-looking 
 men, whom the city domestics had never 
 seen before, and who replied to the as- 
 surance " Cest yon bon beke " (this is a 
 £-ooci white) only by abuse or violence. 
 Armed bands incessantly paraded, — beat- 
 ing drums, — chanting, — shouting " A das 
 les b'ekes f — watching for a fugitive to 
 challenge with the phrase, — " Eh ! citoyen 
 .... citoyenne .... arrete ! Je te parte !" 
 — affecting French speech for the pleas- 
 ure of the insulting tutoiement. They 
 
Youma. 147 
 
 peered for white faces at windows, cursed 
 them, clamored: ''■Mi! ausoue-a ke de- 
 bray e ou /" — gesturing with knives as 
 if opening fish. Some great aggressive 
 movement seemed to be preparing; and 
 the travailleurs were always massing 
 upon the heights. The whites who could 
 not flee, feeling their lives in danger, — 
 tried to prepare for defence: in some 
 houses the women and girls made ball- 
 cartridges. Slaves betrayed these prepa- 
 rations ; and a rumor circulated that the 
 bekes were secretly organizing to attack 
 the mob .... The time was long past 
 when the whites could suppress a riot, 
 and hang men of color to the mango-trees 
 of the Batterie d'Esnotz ; but what they 
 had done in other days was remembered 
 against them. 
 
 It was in the Quarter of the Fort, — the 
 most ancient part of the city, situated on 
 
148 Youma. 
 
 an eminence, and isolated by the Riviere 
 Roxelane, — that the white Creoles found 
 themselves least safe from attack. It was 
 especially difficult for them to reach the 
 ships: the bridges and all approaches to 
 the shore being crowded with armed ne- 
 groes. The greater number of the houses 
 were small, and could offer little protec- 
 tion if besieged ; — and many persons pre- 
 ferred to leave their own homes and seek 
 asylum in the few large dwellings of the 
 district. Among such were the Desrivi- 
 eres family, who found refuge with their 
 relatives the De Kersaints. The De Ker- 
 saint residence was unusually roomy, — 
 not more than two full stories high, but 
 long, broad, and built with the solidity of 
 a stronghold. It stood at the verge of the 
 old quarter, in a steeply sloping street, de- 
 scending westward so as to leave a great 
 half-disk of sea visible above the roofs. 
 
Youma. 149 
 
 and ascending eastward to join a country 
 road leading to the interior. The win- 
 dows of the rear overlooked vast cane- 
 fields, extending far up the flanks of the 
 Montague Pelee, whose clouded crest tow- 
 ered fifteen miles away. 
 
 There were more than thirty persons 
 assembled for safety at the De Kersaints' 
 — mostly wives and daughters of rela- 
 tives ; and there was serious alarm among 
 these. In the forenoon the servants had 
 deserted the house, — one of them, a ne- 
 gress, irritated by some reproach, had left 
 with the threat: "Ausoue ou ke oue — «/- 
 tenner ■ (Wait! you will see to-night!) 
 M. de Kersaint, an old gentleman of sev- 
 enty, who, seconded by his son, had made 
 the fugitives as comfortable as was possi- 
 ble, strove to calm their fears. He be- 
 lieved the night would bring nothing 
 worse than a great increase of noise and 
 
1 50 Youma. 
 
 menace: he did not think the leaders of, 
 the city populace intended more than in- 
 timidation. There might be a general 
 descent of the plantation hands, -^ that 
 would be a graver danger ; but there 
 were five hundred troops in the neighbor- 
 ing barracks. No criminal violence had 
 yet occurred in the quarter: it was re- 
 ported that a gentleman had been killed 
 in the other end of the city, — but there 
 were so many wild reports ! , 
 
 .... As a fact, the whites of the Fort, — 
 mostly deserted by their slaves and do- 
 mestics, — knew little of what was going 
 on even in their immediate vicinity. 
 Things that for two hundred years had 
 been done in darkness and secrecy were 
 now being done openly in the light. An 
 occult power had suddenly assumed un- 
 questioned sway, — the power of the Afri- 
 can sorcerer. 
 
Youma. 151 
 
 Under the tamarinds of the Place du 
 Fort, a quimboiseur plied his ghastly call- 
 ing, — selling amulets, selling fetiches, sell- 
 ing magical ointments made of the grease 
 of serpents. Before him stood an open 
 cask filled with tafia mingled with gun- 
 powder and thickened with bodies of 
 crushed wasps. About him crowded the 
 black men of the port, — the half-nude ga- 
 barriers, wont to wield oars twenty- five 
 feet long ; — the herculean neguegoubs-bois, 
 brutalized by the labor of paddling their 
 massive and awkward craft ; — tough cano- 
 tiers, whose skins of bronze scarcely bead 
 in the hottest summer sun ; — the crews 
 of the ybles and the sabas and the gom- 
 miers ; — the men of the cooperies, and the 
 cask rollers, and the stowers ; — and the 
 fishers of tonne, — and the fishers of 
 sharks. " Ca qui le ?" shouted the quim- 
 boiseur, serving out the venom in cups of 
 
152 Youma. 
 
 tin, — " Ca qui le vini boue y?.. . . Who 
 will drink it, the Soul of a Man? — the 
 Spirit of Combat ? — the Essence of Fall- 
 ing to Rise? — the. Heart -Mover? — the 
 Hell - Breaker ?" . . . . And they clamored 
 for it, swallowed it — the wasps and the 
 gunpowder and the alcohol, — drinking 
 themselves into madness. 
 
 .... Sunset yellowed the sky, — filled 
 the horizon with flare of gold ; — the sea 
 changed its blue to lilac ; — the mornes 
 brightened their vivid green to a tone so 
 luminous that they seemed turning phos- 
 phorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned, 
 — shadows purpled ; and night spread 
 swiftly from the east, — black-violet and 
 full of stars. 
 
 Even as the last vermilion light began 
 to fade, there sounded from the Place du 
 Fort a long, weird, hollow call, that echoed 
 sobbingly through all the hills like an 
 
Youma. 153 
 
 enormous moan. Then another, — from 
 the Mouillage ; — another, — from the river- 
 mouth; — and others, interblending, from 
 the pirogues and the gabarres and the sa- 
 bas of the harbor: the blowing of a hun- 
 dred Iambi-shells, — the negroes of the city 
 calling to their brethren of the hills .... 
 So still, the fishers of sharks, from the black 
 coast of Precheur, call the travailleurs of 
 the heights to descend and divide the flesh. 
 And other moaning signals responded 
 faintly, — from the valley of the Roxelane 
 and the terraces of Perrinelle, — from the 
 Morne d'Orange and the Morne Mirail 
 and the Morne Labelle : the travailleurs 
 were coming! .... And from the market- 
 place, where by lantern-light the sorcerer 
 still gave out his lessence-brise-lenfe, and 
 his amulets and grease of serpents, began 
 to reverberate ominously the heavy pat- 
 tering of a tamtam. 
 
154 Youma. 
 
 Barricaded within their homes, the 
 whites of the lower city could hear the 
 tumult of the gathering .... Masters and 
 slaves alike were haunted by a dream of 
 blood and fire, — the memory of Hayti. 
 
Youma. 155 
 
 XIII. 
 
 At the De Kersaints' all the apart- 
 ments of the upper floor had been given 
 up to the fugitives, except one front room 
 where the men remained on watch : many 
 of the women and young girls preferred to 
 sit up with them rather than seek repose. 
 Down-stairs all the windows and doors 
 had been securely closed ; and it was de- 
 cided to extinguish all lights during the 
 passing of a mob. Then was converse on 
 the events of the preceding day, the late 
 election, prospects of emancipation, the his- 
 tory of former uprisings, — some of which 
 the older men remembered well, — and 
 on the character of negroes. This topic 
 brought out a series of anecdotes, — some 
 
156 Youm(». 
 
 sinister, but mostly droll. A planter in 
 the little assembly related a story about 
 one of his own slaves who had saved 
 enough money to buy a cow. At the 
 first announcement of the political change 
 in France he took the cow out of the field 
 and tied it to the porch of his master's 
 house. " Pouki ou marre vache lanmai- 
 jrt>;2/"'(Why do you tie the cow to the 
 house?) asked the planter .... '■'Moin ka 
 marre vache lanmaison, matte, pace yo ka 
 proclame la repiblique — -pisse you fois re- 
 piblique-a proclame, zaffai ta yon dest ta 
 iouii" (Master, I tie the cow to the house 
 because they proclaim the Republic, — for 
 once that the Republic is proclaimed, 
 the belongings of one are the belongings 
 of everybody). In spite of the general 
 anxiety, this narrative provoked laughter. 
 Then, the conversation taking another 
 turn, M. Desrivieres told the story of 
 
Youma. 157 
 
 Youma and the serpent, — there being 
 many present who had not heard of the 
 incident before. The young capresse, 
 who sat with Mayotte on her knees, arose 
 with the child, and left the apartment be- 
 fore M. Desrivieres had ended his recital. 
 A few minutes later he followed her into 
 the adjoining room, called her away from 
 the little one, and said to her, in an under- 
 tone which could not reach the child's 
 ears : — 
 
 — " Youma, my daughter, the street is 
 very quiet now; and I think it will be 
 better for you to leave the child with my 
 mother, and pass the night with our col- 
 ored neighbors .... I can open the door 
 for you." 
 
 — " Why, master ?".... She had never 
 asked him why before. 
 
 — "Mafi" he answered, with a caress in 
 his eyes, " I cannot ask you to stay with 
 
158 Youma. 
 
 us to-night; There is danger for all of us," 
 he added, sinking his voice to a whisper : 
 "we may be "attacked." 
 
 — " That is why I wish to stay, mas- 
 ter." .... This time she spoke aloud and 
 firmly. 
 
 — " Oh ! papa !" cried Mayotte, coming 
 between them, — " do not send her any- 
 where ! — I want her to tell me stories !" 
 
 — " Little egotist !" said M, Desrivieres, 
 stooping to kiss her, — "and if Youma 
 wishes to go ?" . . . . 
 
 — "You do not, — do you, da?" asked 
 the child in surprise. She imagined her- 
 self at a sort of evening pleasure party. 
 
 — " I will stay to tell you stories," said 
 Youma . . . . M. Desrivieres pressed her 
 hand, and left her with the child. 
 
 .... As M. Desrivieres announced, the 
 street had become very quiet. It was one 
 of the most retired : during the day there 
 
Youma. 159 
 
 had been no gatherings in it; — some bands 
 of negroes had passed from time to time 
 shouting "A bas les bekes I" — but since 
 nightfall the disorderly element had dis- 
 appeared. White citizens ventured to 
 open their windows and look abroad. 
 They heard the blowing of the Iambi- 
 shells without guessing its meaning, — 
 imagined some fresh excitement in the 
 direction of the harbor. Nevertheless, all 
 became more anxious. The rushing of 
 the water along the steep gutters, — the 
 mountain water purifying every street, — 
 seemed to sound unusually loud. 
 
 — " It always makes a great noise in 
 this street," said M. de Kersaint, — "there 
 is so much incline." 
 
 — " I think we are all more or less 
 nervous to-night," said another gentle- 
 man. 
 
 But Youma, suddenly returning alone 
 
1 60 Youma. 
 
 to the room where the men conversed, 
 pointed to the windows, and exclaimed : — 
 
 — " It is not the water !" 
 
 The ears of the half-breed have a sin- 
 gular keenness to sounds .... All talk 
 ceased: the men held their breath to 
 listen. 
 
Youma. i6i 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A HEAVY murmur, as of far surf, filled 
 the street, — slowly loudened, — became a 
 dull unbroken roar. From the heights it 
 seemed to approach, and with it a glow, 
 as of conflagration .... At once in every 
 house the lights were extinguished, the 
 windows closed, the doors secured; — the 
 street became desolate as a cemetery. 
 But from behind the slatted shutters of 
 upper rooms all could watch the bright- 
 ening of the light, hear the coming of the 
 roar. . . . 
 
 — "K<? ka vinir cried Youma. 
 
 And into the high street suddenly burst 
 a storm of clamorings, a blaze of torch 
 fires, — as a dense mass of black men in 
 1 1 
 
1 62 Youma. 
 
 canvas trousers, hundreds naked to the 
 waist, came moving at a run : the down- 
 pour of the travailleurs. Under the shock 
 of their bare feet the dwelHngs trembled: 
 — through all the walls a vibration passed, 
 
 as of a faint earthquake If they would 
 
 only go by! 
 
 Hundreds had already passed ; and still 
 the rushing vision seemed without end, 
 the cascading of great straw hats intermi- 
 nable; — and over the torrent of it the steel 
 of pikes and plantation forks and bran- 
 dished cutlasses flickered in the dancing 
 of torch fires. But there came an unex- 
 pected halt, — a struggling and shoulder- 
 ing, a stifling pressure, — a half lull in the 
 tempest of shouting ; while the street 
 filled with a sinister odor. of alcohol, — a 
 stench of tafia. Evidently the mob was 
 drunk, and being so, doubly dangerous. 
 .... Some one had given an order, which 
 
Vouma. 163 
 
 nobody could fully hear; a stentorian 
 voice repeated it, as the tumult subsided : 
 "La/ — lamenm! — cdie bekef All the 
 black faces turned to the dwelling of the 
 De Kersaints; and all the black throats 
 roared again. Unfortunately the impos- 
 ing front of the building, — the only two- 
 story edifice in a street of cottages, — had 
 signalled out its proprietors as rich bekes. 
 To be a beke, a white, and to be rich, was, 
 in the belief of the simple travailleur at 
 least, to be an aristocrat, an enemy of 
 emancipation, — most likely a slave-holder. 
 . . . ."-Fouiire laf the same immense voice 
 pealed — (Search there !) ; — and the whole 
 house shook to a furious knocking at 
 the main entrance, of which the massive 
 double doors were secured by an iron bar, 
 as well as by lock and bolt. " Ouve ! — 
 ouve ba nou !" (Open for us !) shouted the 
 crowd. 
 
1 64 Youma. 
 
 M. de Kersaint unfastened a shutter of 
 one of the upper front rooms, and looked 
 down upon the mob. It was an appalhng 
 mob; — there were nightmare-faces in it. 
 Most of the visages were unfamiHar; but 
 some he could recognize — faces of the 
 port : many of the roughest city class had 
 joined the travailleurs before their de- 
 scent. There were women also in the mob, 
 — gesticulating, screaming : some were 
 plantation negresses ; others were not, — 
 and these were the worst. . . . 
 
 — " Ca oule, mefi?" asked M. de Ker- 
 saint. 
 
 The first time they could not hear him 
 for the uproar ; but it soon calmed at the 
 sight of the white-haired beke at the win- 
 dow : everybody wanted to listen. M. de 
 Kersaint was not seriously alarmed ; — he 
 did not believe the crowd could dare more 
 than a brutal manifestation, — what in the 
 
Youma. 165 
 
 patois is termed a voum. He repeated in 
 Creole : — 
 
 — " What do you want, my sons ?". . . . 
 It was thus the beke addressed the slave ; 
 — in his lips the word monfi had an almost 
 patriarchal meaning of affection and pro- 
 tection : its use survives even in these re- 
 publican years. But as uttered in that 
 moment by M. de Kersaint, it fell upon 
 the political passion of the mob like oil 
 on fire. 
 
 — ^'^ Ou se pe-nou, anh?" — laughed a 
 mocker: "Are you our father?. . . .There 
 are no more ' my sons ' : there are only 
 citizens, — anni cittoyen /" 
 
 — " Y trap souye ! — y trop malin !" 
 screamed a woman's voice. " He wants 
 to flatter us, the old beke ! — he is too 
 sly !" 
 
 — " Cittoyens, pouloss" responded M. de 
 Kersaint. "Why do you want to break 
 
1 66 Youma. 
 
 into my house ? Have I ever done harm 
 to any of you ?" 
 
 — " You have arms in the house !" an- 
 swered the same menacing voice that had 
 first directed the attention of the popu- 
 lace to the dweUing. It rang from the 
 chest of a very tall negro, who seemed to 
 be the leader of the riot : he wore only a 
 straw hat and cotton trousers, and carried 
 a cutlass. All at once M. de Kersaint 
 remembered having seen him before, — 
 working on the plantation of Fond-Laillet, 
 as commandeur. 
 
 — " Sylvain, my son," answered M. de 
 Kersaint, " we have no arms here. But 
 we have women and children here. We 
 have nothing to do with your wrongs." 
 
 — " Ouve ba nou /" 
 
 — " None of you have any right to en- 
 ter my house." 
 
 — " Ouve ba nou /" 
 
Youma. 167 
 
 — " You have no right.". . . . 
 
 — " Ah ! we will take the right," shout- 
 ed the leader; and a general roar went 
 up, — thousands of excited voices reiterat- 
 ing the demand, " Ouve ba nou /" 
 
 The white head withdrew from the 
 window, and a young face appeared at it, 
 — dark, handsome, and resolute ; — the 
 head of the younger De Kersaint. 
 
 — " Tas de charognes F shouted the 
 young man, — "yes, we have arms ; and we 
 know how to use them ! The first one of 
 you who enters this house, I shall make 
 his black brains leap!" 
 
 He had a single loaded pistol: there 
 was not another weapon in the building. 
 He counted on the cowardice of the mob. 
 But the negroes knew, or thought they 
 knew, the truth: the old beke had not 
 lied to them ; — they were not afraid. 
 
 — " Bon I nou ke oue /" menaced the 
 
1 68 Youma. 
 
 leader .... ''Ennou /" he cried, turning to 
 the crowd, ''craze cdie-laf" Almost in the 
 same instant, a stone shot by some pow- 
 erful hand whirred by the head of the 
 younger De Kersaint, and crashed into 
 the furniture of the apartment. Vainly 
 the shutters were bolted : a second mis- 
 sile dashed them open again ; — a third 
 shivered those of the next window. Stone 
 followed stone. There were several per- 
 sons severely injured ; — a lady was strick- 
 en senseless ; — a gentleman's shoulder 
 fractured. And the cry of the crowd was 
 for more stones — ''Ba nou oubches! — ba 
 ouockes!" — because the central pavement 
 before the house was a rough cement, af- 
 fording scanty material for missiles. But 
 the lower cross -street was paved with 
 rounded rocks from the river-bed ; — a line 
 of negresses formed from the point of at- 
 tack to the corner at the cry of "■ Fai la- 
 
Youma. 169 
 
 ckame/" — and the disjointed pavement 
 was passed up along the line by apron- 
 fuls. There was perfect order in this sys- 
 tem of supplying projectiles: the black 
 women had been trained for generations 
 to " make the chain " when transporting 
 stone from the torrents to the site of a 
 building, or the place of a protection-wall. 
 Then the stone shower became terrific, 
 — pulverizing furniture, bursting parti- 
 tions, shattering chamber doors .... How 
 the Creole negro can fling a stone may 
 be comprehended only by those who have 
 seen him, on mountain roads, bring down 
 fruit from trees growing at inaccessible 
 heights .... All the shutters of the upper 
 front rooms had already ceased to exist; 
 — the inmates had sought refuge in the 
 rear apartments. But the shutters of the 
 windows of the ground-floor, being very 
 heavy, solid, and partly protected with 
 
1 70 Youma. 
 
 iron, continued to resist; and the doors 
 of the great arch-way defied the brawny 
 pressure of all the shoulders pushed 
 against them. 
 
 — '■'■ Mene pie-bois igi! — pie-bois ! — pie- 
 bots/" cried the men, straining to burst 
 the doors, under cover of the bombard- 
 ment; and the cry passed up the street 
 toward the mountain slope .... From 
 within the house it was no longer possi- 
 ble to observe what the mob were doing ; 
 — the windows were unapproachable. But 
 such a shout suddenly made itself heard 
 from the street that it was evident some- 
 thing new had occurred . . . . " Ah ! the 
 soldiers !" joyfully exclaimed Madame de 
 Kersaint. 
 
 She was mistaken. The fresh excite- 
 ment had been caused by the appearance 
 of the pie-bois,— 2i weighty log carried by 
 a crew of twenty men, — all crying '■'Ba 
 
Youma. 171 
 
 lai! — ba lai T Then those pushing at 
 the doors fell back to give the battering- 
 ram full play. 
 
 The men chanted as they swung it 
 
 '■'■Soh-sohl^—ydie-yah! Rhalefbf And 
 all the house shook to the enormous 
 blow. 
 
 — "Sok-sok! — ydie-yah! Rhale foT 
 Bolts and locks burst; — the framework 
 itself loosened in a showering of mortar; 
 — the broad iron bar within still held, but 
 it had bent like a bow, and the doors had 
 yielded fully five inches. 
 
 — " Sok-sok ! — ydie-yah ! Rkal'e fo /" 
 A clang of broken metal ; an explosion of 
 splintered timber, — and the doors were 
 down. The arch-way rang out the clap 
 of their fall like a cannon-shot; the log- 
 bearers dropped their log; — a brute roar 
 of exultation acclaimed the feat . . . .With' 
 in, all was black. 
 
1 72 Youma. 
 
 There was a moment's hesitation ; — the 
 darkness and the voidness intimidated. 
 " Pole flambeau vinif" shouted the chief 
 to the torch-bearers, reaching for a light 
 ...."■ ba main ! ba moin /" He snatched 
 one, and leaped forward, brandishing his 
 weapon in the other hand. But precisely 
 as he passed the threshold, a stunning re- 
 port pealed through the archway; and the 
 tall negro staggered, dropping torch and 
 cutlass, — flung up both naked arms, reeled 
 half round, and fell on his back, dead. 
 The younger De Kersaint had kept his 
 word. 
 
 The negroes at the entrance would have 
 turned back in panic ; but the pressure 
 from behind, the rush of blind fury, was 
 resistless; and the van of the populace 
 was hurled into the arch-way, — struggling, 
 howling, striking, stumbling over the 
 corpse and the broken doors, — and with 
 
Youma. 173 
 
 such an impetus that many fell . . . .The 
 younger De Kersaint had not thought of 
 retreat, even when the gentlemen who 
 had descended with him, finding resist- 
 ance hopeless, were remounting to the 
 upper rooms : he still stood at the foot of 
 the stairs with his empty pistol, — believ- 
 ing himself able to hold back the inva- 
 sion, to terrorize by moral force. But 
 terror may become a blind rage, even in 
 the slave, — when made desperate by the 
 necessity of confronting a pistol muzzle ; 
 and the blacks flung themselves on the 
 young man with the very fury of fear. 
 He had time only to dash his useless 
 weapon in the face of the foremost, as a 
 bayonet fastened to a pole passed through 
 his body: then he sank without one cry 
 under such a mad slashing of cutlasses 
 that strikers wounded each other in their 
 frenzy .... Simultaneously a double-bar- 
 
1 74 Youma. 
 
 relied gun, loaded with ball, was fired from 
 the entrance at those reascending the 
 stair-way, — both barrels together, — and 
 M. Desrivieres fell. He expired almost 
 instantly, before his comrades could drag 
 him into a room, of which the doors were 
 at once barricaded with all the heavy fur- 
 niture available; — the entire charge had 
 entered his back, shattering the spine. 
 
 . . . .Then, after the momentary panic, 
 came the reaction of hate, the mob thirst 
 of vengeance; — traditional hate of the 
 white intensified by the passions of the 
 hour ; vengeance for the fear inspired, for 
 the killing of their leader, for all fancied 
 or remembered wrongs. But the apart- 
 ments of the ground-floor were empty: 
 the bekes had retreated to the upper 
 rooms, whither it might be dangerous to 
 pursue them ; — perhaps they had arms in 
 
Youma. 175 
 
 reserve for the last extremity. It was at 
 all events certain they could not escape. 
 The windows of the rear were high, and 
 looked down upon a plantation road skirt- 
 ing cane-fields, where armed blacks were 
 on the watch ; and the side walls were 
 solid masonry without a single opening. 
 Neither was escape possible by way of the 
 roof, — elevated fully twenty feet above the 
 tiles of adjoining cottages; — the bekes 
 were helpless ! . . . . But no one now offer- 
 ed to lead the assault. There were only 
 clamorings,— hideous threats, — utterances 
 that seemed the conception of cannibals in 
 delirium .... Meanwhile the body of the 
 dead leader, raised upon a broken door 
 for a litter, was being paraded through 
 the streets by torch -light: armed men 
 ran beside the corpse, pointing to the 
 pink brain oozing from the wound, and 
 crying : — ^'Mi/ — -yo k'assassine nou ! yo ka 
 
1 76 Youma. 
 
 tchoue fotte nou!'" . . . .The excitement be- 
 came- maniacal; but one voice, — a wom- 
 an's, the voice of the wife of dead Sylvain, 
 shrieked clearly through it all : — 
 
 — "Jlfei^e dif'e, zautt! — bril£ toutt bekef" 
 And the mob caught up the cry, — 
 stormed it through the street. "Di/ef — 
 meiie dif'e /" .... But what if the bekes 
 should make a desperate rush upon the 
 incendiaries .''...." Ote lescalie /" some one 
 suggested, and settled all hesitations. 
 There were arms enough to tear down 
 any stair-way in five minutes : it took less 
 time for the rioters to obey the suggest- 
 ion. They pulled away the stairs ; — |:hey 
 smashed the wreck into kindling-wood, 
 piled it on the tiles of the hall-way, and 
 fired it with torches. The balustrade was 
 of mahogany, but the steps were bois du 
 
 nord, — yellow pine, resinous and light 
 
 " Ka pleine gomme ! — ka bril'e bien /" .... 
 
Youma. 177 
 
 Simultaneously the furniture of the lower 
 rooms was demolished ; — everything they 
 contained was heaped upon the fire, — • 
 combustible or incombustible: portraits, 
 curtains, verrines, bronzes, mats, mirrors, 
 hangings . . . . " Sacre tonne, nou ke bril'e 
 toutt! — Ke oueT . . . . There were sounds 
 of affright overhead, — of feet wildly run- 
 ning, — of furniture being dragged away ' 
 from doors ; — there were shrieks .... 
 "■Ouailll — not so brave now, the cursed 
 
 bekes !" Then faces appeared through 
 
 the smoke, looking down, — a gray-haired 
 lady, striving to be heard, to speak to some 
 heart ; — a young mother dumbly pointing 
 to her infant. Two black arms reached 
 up toward her in savage mockery, and a 
 negress hoarsely screamed : "Ba moin li! 
 — moin se vlope enlai y conm chatrou /" 
 — miming the cuttle-fish devouring its 
 prey ! A burst of obscene laughter fol- 
 12 
 
1 78 Youma. 
 
 lowed the infamous jest .... But the heat 
 and smoke became unendurable ; — the in- 
 cendiaries retreated, — mostly to the street, 
 — a few to the cane-fields in the rear, to 
 watch for any possible attempts at escape. 
 There was no more stone-throwing: the 
 flingers were weary ; and the mob was 
 content to watch the progress of its 
 vengeance. The shrieks could still be 
 heard: they were answered by gibes and 
 curses. 
 
 The arch-way reddened, — lighted, — be- 
 gan to glow like a furnace, forcing by its 
 heat a general falling back from the en- 
 trance .... And soon the crackling with- 
 in became a low roar, like the sound of a 
 torrent ; — all the rez-de-chaussee was seized 
 by the flame. It put long yellow tongues 
 through the windows ; — they serpentined 
 about the masonry, licked the key-stones 
 and the wall above them, — striving to 
 
Youma. 1 79 
 
 climb; — began to devour the framework 
 of the shutters .... And, at intervals, from 
 street to street, sounded the sinister mel- 
 ancholy blowing of the great sea-shells. 
 
 Over all the roofs of the city the voice 
 of an immense bell began to peal, — rapid- 
 ly, continuously : the bourdon of the ca- 
 thedral was tolling the tocsin. One after 
 another the bells of the lesser churches 
 joined in the alarm. But, for the first 
 time, the pumps remained in their station- 
 houses; — -the black firemen ignored the 
 summons ! And still the soldiers, — though 
 muttering mutiny, — were rigidly confined 
 to their barracks by superior order. Yet 
 the Governor* knew the city was at the 
 mercy of a negro mob, — knew the white 
 population in peril of massacre. The or- 
 der seemed incredible to those who read 
 
 * Rostoland, mar^chal de camp, gouverneur pro- 
 visoire. 
 
1 80 Youma. 
 
 it with their eyes ; — it remains one of the 
 stupefying facts of French colonial his- 
 tory, — one of the many, not of the few, 
 which appear to justify the white Creole's 
 undying hate of Republicanism. 
 
 .... Fanned by a south breeze, the 
 flames assailed the rear more rapidly than 
 the front rooms of the besieged dwelling, — 
 destroying communication between them 
 by devouring the lobbies connected with 
 the wrecked end of the stair-way. And, 
 through the outpouring of smoke, men 
 began to drop or leap from back win- 
 dows, — -abandoning the women and chil- 
 dren, — goaded by the swift menace of 
 the hideous death of fire. On the side 
 of the street there could have been no 
 hope; — on that of the fields there were 
 fewer enemies : there was one desperate 
 chance. Of those who took it, the first 
 two were killed almost as soon as they 
 
Youma. i8i 
 
 touched the ground; — the third, a French 
 stranger, although frightfully wounded, 
 was able to run for his life nearly two 
 hundred yards before being overtaken 
 and despatched. But two others could 
 profit by the incident ; — gaining the high 
 canes, they fled at a crouching run be- 
 tween the stems, — doubling, — twisting, — 
 and were quickly lost to view. . . ."Beke 
 lacampagne menm /" — cried the disap- 
 pointed pursuers: — "jj/£» kafenne kanne!" 
 Only a country Creole could have known 
 the trick, successfully practised by ma- 
 roon xvs^^xo&s—T-fenne kanne (splitting the 
 cane) .... Darkness and the terror of ser- 
 pents aided their flight. 
 
 Some chivalrous men, — M. de Kersaint 
 was of these, — refused that desperate 
 chance ; remained to give the consolation 
 of their presence to the helpless women, 
 — mothers and wives, and young girls 
 
1 82 Youma. 
 
 delicately bred, into the perfumed quiet 
 of whose existence no shadow of fear had 
 ever fallen before .... There were still 
 nearly thirty souls within the flaming 
 house ; and the soldiers were still con- 
 fined to their barracks ! 
 
 The smoke being blown to the north, 
 the view of the burning dwelling contin- 
 ued almost unobscured on the street side ; 
 — but as yet, since the stone-throwing be- 
 gan, no one had appeared at the front 
 windows. The rabble watched and won- 
 dered : it seemed as if all communication 
 between the front and rear of the besieged 
 house, had already been cut off, so that the 
 last scene of the tragedy would remain 
 hidden from them — a brutal disappoint- 
 ment ! The first frenzy had exhausted it- 
 self : there remained only that revolting 
 apathy which in savage natures follows 
 the perpetration of a monstrous act ; — the 
 
Youma. 183 
 
 tempest of outcries subsided to a low tide- 
 roar of excited converse 
 
 — " They are women and children who 
 scream like that." 
 
 — " Malediction ! they are bekes — let 
 them all roast together !" 
 
 — "Ouill papa! — they burned enough 
 of us when they had the power to do it." 
 
 — " Yes ! they burned poor negresses 
 for sorcery. The priest who confessed 
 them said they were innocent." 
 
 — "Akf c'est taille-Toto ga! — that was 
 in the old times !" 
 
 — " Old times ! We don't forget. These 
 are the new times, monfi!" 
 
 — '■'■Cest jusse! We are fighting for 
 
 our liberty now." 
 
 — " Houlo !".... A new roar went up : 
 — there was an apparition at one of the 
 windows. 
 
 — '■'Mi! yon negresse!" 
 
1 84 Youma. 
 
 — " It is the da.'—Jesis-Mdia!" 
 
 —''Pe!—pe zauttr 
 
 — " Pe !" The word ran from mouth 
 
 to mouth ; — almost a hush followed its 
 passage through the crowd, a hush of ma- 
 lignant expectation; — thenYouma's pow- 
 erful contralto rang out with the distinct- 
 ness of a bugle-call. 
 
 — "Eh! tas de capons!" she cried, fear- 
 lessly, — " cowards afraid to face men ! Do 
 you believe you will win your liberty by 
 burning women and children ? . . . . Who 
 were the mothers of you ?" 
 
 — " We are burning bekes," screamed 
 a negress in response : " they kill us ; we 
 kill them. Cestjusse!" 
 
 — " You lie !" cried Youma. " The be- 
 kes never murdered women and children." 
 
 — " They did !" vociferated a mulatto in 
 the mob, better dressed than his fellows ; 
 — "■ they did ! In seventeen hundred and 
 
Youma. 185 
 
 twenty-one! In seventeen hundred and 
 
 twenty-five !" 
 
 — "^iV, macaque!" mocked Youma. "So 
 you burn negresses now for imitation ! 
 What have the negresses done to you, 
 Ape?" 
 
 — " They are with the bekes." 
 — " You were with the bekes yesterday, 
 the day before yesterday, and always, — 
 every one of you. The bekes gave you 
 to eat, — the bekes gave you to drink, — 
 the bekes cared for you when you were 
 sick .... The bekes gave you freedom, O 
 you traitor mulatto ! — gave you a name, 
 saloprie! — ^gave you the clothes you wear, 
 ingrate ! You ! — you are not fighting for 
 your liberty, liar! — the bekes gave it to 
 you long ago for your black mother's 
 sake! .... Fai docte, milatt! — I know 
 you ! . , . . coward without a family, with- 
 out a race \—fai filosofe, O you renegade, 
 
1 86 Youma. 
 
 who would see a negress burn because a 
 negress was your mother ! — Alle ! — bata- 
 
 b'eker 
 
 Then Youma could not make herself 
 heard : a fresh outburst of vociferation 
 drowned her voice. But her reproaches 
 had struck home in at least one direction: 
 she had touched and stirred the smoul- 
 dering contempt, the secret jealous hate 
 of the black for the freedman of color; 
 and the mulatto's discomfiture was hailed 
 by yells of ironical laughter. In the same 
 moment there was a violent pushing and 
 swaying ; — some one was forcing his way 
 to the front through all the pressure, — 
 rapidly, furiously, — smiting with his el- 
 bows, battering with his shoulders : a 
 giant capre .... He freed himself, and 
 sprang into the clear space before the 
 flaming building, — making his cutlass 
 flicker about his head, — and shouted : — 
 
Youma. 187 
 
 — "Nou pa ka brile negresse!" .... 
 
 The mulatto put to scorn advanced and 
 would have spoken ; — ere he could utter a 
 word, the travailleur, with a sudden back- 
 ward blow of his unarmed hand, struck 
 him to the ground. 
 
 — "A main! mefouef" thundered the 
 tall new-comer,; — " Stand by me, brothers ! 
 — we do not burn negresses !" 
 
 And Youma knew it was Gabriel who 
 stood there alone, — colossal, menacing, 
 magnificent, — daring the hell about him 
 for her sake 
 
 — "iW raison ! ni raisonf" responded 
 numbers .... "JSfon ! nou pa ka brile ne- 
 
 gresse / Chache lechelle /" Gabriel had 
 
 forced sympathy, — wrung some senti- 
 ment of compassion from those wild-beast 
 
 hearts "Pole lechelle vini! — igi yon 
 
 lechelle f" was clamored through the crowd 
 "a ladder !— a ladder !" 
 
1 88 Youma. 
 
 Five minutes, — and a ladder touched 
 the window. Gabriel himself ascended it, 
 — reached the summit, — put out his iron 
 hand. Even as he did so, Youma, stoop- 
 ing to the sill, lifted Mayotte from be- 
 hind it. 
 
 The child was stupid with terror ; — she 
 did not know him. 
 
 — "Can you save her?" asked You- 
 ma, — holding up the little fair-haired 
 girl. 
 
 Gabriel could only shake his head; — 
 the street sent up so frightful a cry 
 
 — "Mon ! — non ! — non ! — non ! — pa le 
 yche-beke ! — -janmain yche-b'eke F 
 
 — " Then you cannot save me !" cried 
 Youma, clasping the child to her bosom, 
 — "janmain ! janmain, mon ami /" 
 
 — " Youma, in the name of God " 
 
 — " In the name of God you ask me to 
 be a coward ! Are you vile, Gabriel ? — 
 
Youma. 1 89 
 
 are you base ? Save myself and leave 
 
 the child to burn ? . . . . Go !" 
 
 — " Leave the bekes yche ! — leave it !— 
 leave it, girl !" shouted a hundred voices. 
 
 — ^^Moin/" cried Youma, retreating be- 
 yond the reach of Gabriel's hand, — " moin ! 
 
 Never shall I leave it, — never ! I shall 
 
 go to God with it." 
 
 — " Burn with it, then !" howled the ne- 
 groes "down with that ladder ! down 
 
 with it, down with it !" Gabriel had bare- 
 ly time to save himself, when the ladder 
 was dragged away. All the first fury of 
 the riot seemed to have been rekindled by 
 the sight of the child ; — again broke forth 
 the tempest of maledictions. 
 
 But it calmed : there was another reac- 
 tion .... Gabriel had men to strive with 
 him. They forced the ladder once more 
 into position ; — they formed a desperate 
 guard about it with their cutlasses ; — they 
 
1 90 Youma. 
 
 called to Youma to descend She only 
 
 waved her hand in disdain : she knew she 
 could not save the child. 
 
 And the fierce heat below began to 
 force back the guard at the foot of the' 
 ladder .... Suddenly Gabriel uttered a 
 curse of despair. Touched by a spirt of 
 flame, the ladder itself had ignited, — and 
 was burning furiously. 
 
 Youma remained at the window. There 
 was now neither hate nor fear in her fine 
 face: it was calm as in the night when 
 Gabriel had seen her stand unmoved with 
 her foot on the neck of the serpent. 
 
 Then a sudden light flared up behind 
 her, and brightened. Against it her tall 
 figure appeared, as in the Chapel of the 
 Anchorage Gabriel had seen, against a 
 background of gold, the figure of Notre 
 Dame du Bon Port. . . . Still her smooth 
 features expressed no emotion. Her eyes 
 
Youma. 191 
 
 were bent upon the blond head hiding 
 against her breast ; — her lips moved ; — 
 she was speaking to the child .... Little 
 Mayotte looked up one moment into the 
 dark and beautiful bending face, — -and 
 joined her slender hands, as if to pray. 
 
 But with a piteous cry, she clung to 
 Youma's bosom again. For the thick 
 walls quivered as walls quiver when a hur- 
 ricane blows ; — and there were shrieks, — 
 frantic, heart- sickening, from the rear, — 
 and a noise of ruining, as of smothered 
 thunder. Youma drew off her foulard of 
 yellow silk, and wrapped it about the head 
 of the child: then began to caress her 
 with calm tenderness,— murmuring to her, 
 — swaying her softly in her arms, — all 
 placidly, as though lulling her to sleep. 
 Never to Gabriel's watching eyes had 
 Youma seemed so beautiful. 
 
 Another minute— and he saw her no 
 
192 Youma. 
 
 more. The figure and the light vanished 
 together, as beams and floor and roof all 
 quaked down at once into darkness .... 
 Only the skeleton of stone remained, — 
 black-smoking to the stars. 
 
 And stillness came, — a stillness broken 
 only by the hissing and crepitation of the 
 stifled fire, the booming of the tocsin, the 
 far blowing of the great sea-shells. The 
 victims had ceased to shriek; — the mur- 
 derers stood appalled by the ghastliness 
 of their consummated crime. 
 
 Then, from below, the flames wrestled 
 out again, — crimsoning the smoke whirls, 
 the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. 
 They wriggled upward, lengthening, lap- 
 ping together, — lifted themselves erect, — 
 grew taller, fiercer, — twined into one huge 
 fluid spire of tongues that flapped and 
 shivered high into the night 
 
 The yellowing light swelled, — expand- 
 
Youma. 193 
 
 ed from promontory to promontory, — pal- 
 pitated over the harbor, — climbed the bro- 
 ken slopes of the dead volcano leagues 
 through the gloom. The wooded mornes 
 towered about the city in weird illumi- 
 nation, — seeming loftier than by day, — 
 blanching and shadowing alternately with 
 the soaring and sinking of fire; — and at 
 each huge pulsing of the glow, the white 
 cross of their central summit stood re- 
 vealed, with the strange passion of its 
 black Christ. 
 
 And the same hour, from the other 
 
 side of the world, — a ship was running be- 
 fore the sun, bearing the Republican gift 
 of liberty and promise of universal suf- 
 frage to the slaves of Martinique. 
 
 13 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. 
 
 Two Years in the French West Indies. By Laf- 
 CADio Hearn. pp. 517. Copiously Illus- 
 trated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $2 00. 
 
 Mr. Hearn does not bore the reader with statistics, but at 
 once takes every one with him into the true and natural at- 
 mosphere of the islands, introduces the inhabitants, describes 
 their customs, looks backward a century or two, and soon 
 has his reader entirely out of the world, and unwilling to 
 return to the prosaic details of northern latitudes and work- 
 a-day life. Some of the chapters are descriptive, some 
 sketchy, others are stories, veritable romances in form, as 
 well as spirit, but all are charmingly written, as if to coax 
 the reader into a land of enchantment and keep him there. 
 —JV. Y. Herald. 
 
 A book over which the fascinated fancy of a Northern 
 reader may linger for days together, run the whole gantlet 
 of the emotions, and revel in experiences so wholly unfa- 
 miliar as to constitute a new and entrancing world. — Boston 
 Beacon. 
 
 A more agreeable book of travels has not been published, 
 in years. . . . Mr. Hearn's pictures of land or water or sky, 
 of unadorned nature or of cultivated country, fairly glow 
 vnth enthusiasm, and so fine is his conception of color that 
 it may be said that the richness of tropical scenery was 
 never portrayed with more force or truthfulness. Equally 
 graphic in their way are his descriptions of the people, the 
 queer patois spoken by whom he seems to have made a 
 special study of. — JV. Y. Sun. 
 
 Must be reckoned among the most charming books of the 
 year, and will take a deservedly Ijigh place in the field of 
 literature of description and travel. — Boston Traveller. 
 
 Possibly no more brilliant descriptive work has been con- 
 tributed to English literature in the last quarter of a cen- 
 tury. — Chicago News. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 jy The above ivorh sent by mail^ postage prepaid, to any part of tlu 
 United States, Canada^ or Mexico, on receipt of^rice. 
 
CHITA : 
 
 A Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn. 
 pp. vi., 204. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 $1 00. 
 
 To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn's writings 
 " Chita " will be a revelation of how near language can ap- 
 proach the realistic power of actual painting. His very 
 words seem to have color — his pages glow — his book is a 
 kaleidoscope. — JV. Y. Mail and Express. 
 
 Mr. Lafcadio Hearn may be called an artist in the use of 
 the English language. . . . No such brilliant sketch of the 
 outlets of the great river and their surroundings has been 
 written before. — Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite story. ... A tale full of poetry 
 
 Jind vivid description that nobody will want to miss N. Y. 
 
 Sun. 
 
 A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and 
 told vrith the beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle 
 sympathy of the poet. — Chicago Times. 
 
 There is no page — no paragraph even — ^but holds more 
 of vital quality than would suffice to set up an ordinary 
 volume. — Epoch, N. Y. 
 
 The book will please any lover of style, because of the 
 magnificent eflForts produced by this master of language. . . . 
 A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full of 
 the glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong 
 with the salt breath of the sea. — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical 
 Nature finds a living voice and a speech by which she can 
 make herself known. All the splendor of her skies and the 
 terrors of her seas make to themselves a language. So living 
 a book has scarcely been given to our generation. — Boston 
 Transcript. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 J8®=' The above work sent hy mail, postage prepaid, to any part 0/ the 
 United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt 0/ price.