I gazed spellbound upon the pretty, dainty creature, not daring to speak, for fear the illusion would end. She was so unreal, so unlike a thing of flesh and blood, so weirdly picturesque—she was a fay of the water world!
As she opened the door of my prison cell, she said, in Creole French:
“You must be faint and hungry, monsieur. Do eat these berries that I have gathered for you, and be refreshed. Come, I will take you where we may see the sun go down.”
“I thank you very kindly,” was my deferential reply. “Yours is the first friendly word I have received since my captivity.”
“I know you have been unhappy, and for that reason have I come to cheer you,” was the frank reply of the graceful girl, as with a smile she handed me the sprig of bay. “It is the custom of our people that all captives who suffer the punishment of living shall endure isolation for five long days and nights, that they may know mental wretchedness and reconcile themselves to Sargasson life.”
After this the young woman led the way aft, along the main deck, to a pretty cabin, in which was a large port that gave upon the west. Through this broad aperture the setting sun, a mass of golden red, could be seen sinking into the sea.
By my inquiring looks, though not by words, I put the question many times to this brown-eyed creature as to her identity, and how she came to be upon the Happy Shark. She took the earliest occasion, therefore, to explain in simple manner and with graceful gestures, that she was the daughter of the ship’s Kantoon; that her mother had been a captive, like myself “accorded the punishment of living,” merely because her bright eyes and teeth had pleased the fancy of the master of the Happy Shark. The speaker had been born in Sargasso, and had never known aught of any other world. To her mother, who came from New Orleans, she owed the quaint French dialect that she spoke and the slight acquaintance with the English language that she afterward confessed.
The young girl’s story of her mother’s life was as romantic as a tale of fiction. She was the daughter of a place woman, that peculiar phase of social life existing nowhere else in America except in Louisiana. Though raised amid surroundings that were not entirely respectable, she was brought up a devoted member of the Church and at an early age placed in a school, where she remained for eight years. She was taught to sew and embroider; to play the harp and to sing. Because of her pretty face and graceful manners, she was encouraged in the coquette’s art, and a bright and brilliant future was predicted for her. To the mortification of the good sisters, who specially charged themselves with the young girl’s future, and for whom they hoped to make an eligible match, she escaped one night from her protectors, as was alleged by bribery of the concierge, and eloped with a dashing young swell of the Crescent City. He was the son of one of the few large sugar planters who had saved their fortunes out of the wreck of the civil war.
When the rebellion was seen to be inevitable, he had converted all his negroes and personal effects into money, which he had transferred to the care of his London bankers. The plantation, of course, could not be sold. But thousands of hogsheads of sugar and molasses in his warehouses were rapidly disposed of, and the proceeds forwarded from time to time to London. When the war came, he entered into it with fervor and rose to the rank of brigadier-general. Although wounded in several fights, he returned to his native city in safety.
His son, who had been a mere lad at the breaking out of the war, grew up a profligate. So entirely did he alienate his father’s affection that on his parent’s death the estate was left in such a condition that he could not lay his hands upon a single dollar. A stated income was however, paid him, and this he spent in the wildest dissipation. Getting into the hands of money-lenders, he had, at the time of this escapade, mortgaged his allowance for several years to come.