"Montagne?" asked one slave of another, "qui est çà, montagne? gnia pas quiç 'ose comme çà dans la Louisiana? (What's a mountain?" We haven't such things in Louisiana.)"
"Mein ye gagnein plein montagnes dans l'Afrique, listen!"
"'Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo' piti zozo,'
Mo l'aimé 'ou'--mo l'aimé, l'aimé 'ou'.'"
"Bravissimo!--" but just then a counter-attraction drew the white company back into the house. An old French priest with sandalled feet and a dirty face had arrived. There was a moment of handshaking with the good father, then a moment of palpitation and holding of the breath, and then--you would have known it by the turning away of two or three feminine heads in tears--the lily hand became the don's, to have and to hold, by authority of the Church and the Spanish king. And all was merry, save that outside there was coming up as villanous a night as ever cast black looks in through snug windows.
It was just as the newly-wed Spaniard, with Agricola and all the guests, were concluding the byplay of marrying the darker couple, that the hurricane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faint pretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons, etc.,--though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse--were beginning to laugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right and left, when Bras-Coupé, tardily realizing the consummation of his hopes, stepped forward to embrace his wife.
"Bras-Coupé!"
The voice was that of Palmyre's mistress. She had not been able to comprehend her maid's behavior, but now Palmyre had darted upon her an appealing look.
The warrior stopped as if a javelin had flashed over his head and stuck in the wall.
"Bras-Coupé must wait till I give him his wife."
He sank, with hidden face, slowly to the floor.