violence.

"Darcantel, however, controlled himself, avoided as much as possible any
altercations with Jacques, applied himself to the duties of his
plantation, and always promised me that he would wait and see if time
would not induce the brother to give his consent to the marriage.
Meanwhile Paul's mother died. A year passed. Fifine gave me a little
boy, who was called after me, and then I went again to sea. Nearly three
years later I returned, and the very night before I reached the
plantation a dreadful tragedy had occurred. I might, perhaps, have
prevented it had I been there, but it was ordered otherwise.

"It seems that two days previously Jacques wrote to Paul--I saw the
letter--and it was something painful to read; for he not only
recapitulated his vices and follies, but he taxed him with being a
ruined gambler, who had brought his mother in sorrow to the grave, and
ended by swearing, in the most solemn manner, that if he dared again to
speak to his sister or darken their doors, he would shoot him like a
dog!

"That evening, as usual, the skiff pursued its way across the river, and
late at night when it returned there was a fluttering white dress in the
stern. Scarcely, however, had the skiff left the bank than a boat shoved
out from the other side manned by four negroes, and came swiftly over in
pursuit. What afterward transpired I heard from an old married couple of
servants who had passed their lives with the family. It appears that
Paul, with Pauline in his arms, had barely reached the hall of the great
house, and was giving orders to close the doors, when Jacques rushed in
with a naked rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. Paul adjured
him, by all he held sacred, not to attack him, as his blood was up, and,
unarmed as he was, he would do him a mischief. Pauline, too, implored
him by a sister's love to desist; but seeing him still advance, as she
partially shielded Paul, she told him that the man she loved was her
husband.

"Blinded with haughty rage, this last admission rendered him ungovernable,
and he lunged with all his force at Darcantel. Paul parried his rapid
passes, though receiving some sharp thrusts in his arm and shoulder, and
still supporting his drooping, terrified wife on his left arm till, by a
quick spring, he got within Jacques's guard, and, seizing him by the
wrist, wrenched the weapon from his grasp. This was enough to make the
brother totally insane by passion from baffled rev