n in those Louisiana lowlands? Every
clap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment; you peer through
the black pane--your house is an island, all the land is sea.

However, the supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guests
were filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement,
below stairs, the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls of
the air upon a rice-field, and Bras-Coupe, throwing his heels about with
the joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in his
life tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time he
tasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it ten
times more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was like
stealing a tiger's kittens.

The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he
presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through the
dark company; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrative
tone, he repeated the petition--splitting the table with his fist by way
of punctuation--there ensued a hustling up staircases and a cramming
into dim corners that left him alone at the banquet.

Leaving the table, he strode upstairs and into the chirruping and
dancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hush
of amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupe strode straight
to his master, laid his paw upon his fellow-bridegroom's shoulder and in
a thunder-tone demanded:

"More!"

The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and--fell, beneath the
terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra.
Dolorous stroke!--for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him--poor,
tipsy savage--in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by a
small fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupe the death
of a felon; such was the old _Code Noir_. (We have a _Code Noir_ now,
but the new one is a mental reservation, not an enactment.)

The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the
instant expectation of insurrection, conflagration and rapine (just as
we do to-day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist and
gets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted in
a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange
signs and passes and rolling out in wrathful words of his mother tongue
what it needed no interpreter to tell his swarming enemies