"Bras-Coupé hears the voice of zombis; the voice is sweet, but the words are very strong; from the same sugar-cane comes sirop and tafia; Bras-Coupé says to zombis, 'Bras-Coupé will wait; but if the dotchians deceive Bras-Coupé--" he rose to his feet with his eyes closed and his great black fist lifted over his head--"Bras-Coupé will call Voudou-Magnan!"
The crowd retreated and the storm fell like a burst of infernal applause. A whiff like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain of the gallery and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak, belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground; a peal of thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, the great oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awful blast. Every lip held its breath for a minute--or an hour, no one knew--there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down. Have you heard it thunder and rain 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-Coupé, 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-Coupé 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-Coupé 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 was a voudou malediction.
"Nous sommes grigis!" screamed two or three ladies, "we are bewitched!"
"Look to your wives and daughters!" shouted a Brahmin-Mandarin.