"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and loyalty of a da. (A da is the foster-mother and nurse of a Creole child.) At the death of Aimée, Youma's playmate and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her child, becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is given us of the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The love of this da is very beautiful. Once with an extraordinary heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a serpent which has slipped into their room. With a still greater heroism she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has opened the world to her,—Gabriel who has brought her love, and whom she can marry in no other way. No, above the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her dying mistress, begging, with such trust,—
"Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?—Youma, you will never leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear Youma!"
And she had—promised....
Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion. There is an outbreak among the blacks, who have become inflamed by the dreams of coming freedom. The Desrivières with many other families are forced to flee for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these people gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself. But she will not forsake Mayotte or her master. The infuriated blacks surround the house, and horror follows. Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with Mayotte in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring the hell about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma hands him Mayotte. "Can you save her?" she asks.
"Gabriel could only shake his head;—the street sent up so frightful a cry....
"Non!—non!—non!—pa lè yche-béké—janmain yche-béké!"
"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?—are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to burn?... Go!"
"Leave the béké's yche!—leave it!—leave it, girl!" shouted a hundred voices.
"Moin!" cried Youma, retreating beyond 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 negroes ... "down with that ladder! down with it, down with it!"
The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver, and there are shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved, with a perfect calm, Youma remains at the window. "There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine face." Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an infinite tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so beautiful.
Another minute—and he saw her no 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.
A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by their crime.
Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,—crimsoning the smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping 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,—expanded from promontory to promontory,—palpitated over the harbour,—climbed the broken slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,—seeming loftier than by day,—blanching and shadowing alternately with the soaring and sinking of the fire;—and at each huge pulsing of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood revealed, with the strange passion of its black Christ.
... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,—a ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of Martinique.
There are two little bits of description which are so characteristic that I quote them:—
Then she became aware of a face ... 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.
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 phosphorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,—shadows purpled; and night spread swiftly from the east,—black-violet and full of stars.