our Parisian
airs and self-sufficient face on a level with mine again, h-I will
slap it."

The quadroon, three nights after, was so indiscreet as to give him the
opportunity, and he did it--at that quadroon ball to which Dr. Keene
alluded in talking to Frowenfeld.

But Don Jose, we say, plucked up new spirit..

"Last year's disasters were but fortune's freaks," he said. "See,
others' crops have failed all about us."

The overseer shook his head.

"_C'est ce maudit cocodri' la bas_ (It is that accursed alligator,
Bras-Coupe, down yonder in the swamp)."

And by and by the master was again smitten with the same belief. He and
his neighbors put in their crops afresh. The spring waned, summer
passed, the fevers returned, the year wore round, but no harvest smiled.
"Alas!" cried the planters, "we are all poor men!" The worst among the
worst were the fields of Bras-Coupe's master--parched and shrivelled.
"He does not understand planting," said his neighbors; "neither does his
overseer. Maybe, too, it is true as he says, that he is voudoued."

One day at high noon the master was taken sick with fever.

The third noon after--the sad wife sitting by the bedside--suddenly,
right in the centre of the room, with the door open behind him, stood
the magnificent, half-nude form of Bras-Coupe. He did not fall down as
the mistress's eyes met his, though all his flesh quivered. The master
was lying with his eyes closed. The fever had done a fearful three
days' work.

"_Mioko-Koanga oule so' femme_ (Bras-Coupe wants his wife)."

The master started wildly and stared upon his slave.

"_Bras-Coupe oule so' femme_!" repeated the black.

"Seize him!" cried the sick man, trying to rise.

But, though several servants had ventured in with frightened faces, none
dared molest the giant. The master turned his entreating eyes upon his
wife, but she seemed stunned, and only covered her face with her hands
and sat as if paralyzed by a foreknowledge of what was coming.

Bras-Coupe lifted his great black palm and commenced:

"_Mo ce voudrai que la maison ci la, et tout ca qui pas femme' ici,
s'raient encore maudits_! (May this house, and all in it who are not
women, be accursed)."

The master fell back upon his pillow with a groan of helpless wrath.

The African pointed his finger through the open window.

"May its fields not know the plough nor nourish the herds that overrun
it."

The domestics, who had thus far stood their ground