III
... As I was saying, the hours of vastest light have their weirdness here;—and it is of a Something which walketh abroad under the eye of the sun, even at high noontide, that I desire to speak, while the impressions of a morning journey to the scene of Its last alleged apparition yet remains vivid in my recollection.
You follow the mountain road leading from Calebasse over long meadowed levels two thousand feet above the ocean, into the woods of La Couresse, where it begins to descend slowly, through deep green shadowing, by great zigzags. Then, at a turn, you find yourself unexpectedly looking down upon a planted valley, through plumy fronds of arborescent fern. The surface below seems almost like a lake of gold-green water,—especially when long breaths of mountain-wind set the miles of ripening cane a-ripple from verge to verge: the illusion is marred only by the road, fringed with young cocoa-palms, which serpentines across the luminous plain. East, west, and north the horizon is almost wholly hidden by surging of hills: those nearest are softly shaped and exquisitely green; above them loftier undulations take hazier verdancy and darker shadows; farther yet rise silhouettes of blue or violet tone, with one beautiful breast-shaped peak thrusting up in the midst;—while, westward, over all, topping even the Piton, is a vapory huddling of prodigious shapes—wrinkled, fissured, horned, fantastically tall.... Such at least are the tints of the morning.... Here and there, between gaps in the volcanic chain, the land hollows into gorges, slopes down into ravines;—and the sea's vast disk of turquoise flames up through the interval. Southwardly those deep woods, through which the way winds down, shut in the view.... You do not see the plantation buildings till you have advanced some distance into the valley;—they are hidden by a fold of the land, and stand in a little hollow where the road turns: a great quadrangle of low gray antiquated edifices, heavily walled and buttressed, and roofed with red tiles. The court they form opens upon the main route by an immense archway. Farther along ajoupas begin to line the way,—the dwellings of the field hands,—tiny cottages built with trunks of the arborescent fern or with stems of bamboo, and thatched with cane-straw: each in a little garden planted with bananas, yams, couscous, camanioc, choux-caraibes, or other things,—and hedged about with roseaux d'Inde and various flowering shrubs.
Thereafter, only the high whispering wildernesses of cane on either hand,—the white silent road winding between its swaying cocoa-trees,—and the tips of hills that seem to glide on before you as you walk, and that take, with the deepening of the afternoon light, such amethystine color as if they were going to become transparent.
IV
... It is a breezeless and cloudless noon. Under the dazzling downpour of light the hills seem to smoke blue: something like a thin yellow fog haloes the leagues of ripening cane,—a vast reflection. There is no stir in all the green mysterious front of the vine-veiled woods. The palms of the roads keep their heads quite still, as if listening. The canes do not utter a single susurration. Rarely is there such absolute stillness among them: upon the calmest days there are usually rustlings audible, thin cracklings, faint creepings: sounds that betray the passing of some little animal or reptile—a rat or a manicou, or a zanoli or couresse,—more often, however, no harmless lizard or snake, but the deadly fer-de-lance. To-day, all these seem to sleep; and there are no workers among the cane to clear away the weeds,—to uproot the pié-treffe, pié-poule, pié-balai, zhèbe-en-mè: it is the hour of rest.
PITONS DU CARBET
"The horizon is almost wholly hidden by surging of hills: silhouettes of blue and violet... a vapory huddling of prodigious shapes."
A woman is coming along the road,—young, very swarthy, very tall, and barefooted, and black-robed: she wears a high white turban with dark stripes, and a white foulard is thrown about her fine shoulders; she bears no burden, and walks very swiftly and noiselessly.... Soundless as shadow the motion of all these naked-footed people is. On any quiet mountain-way, full of curves, where you fancy yourself alone, you may often be startled by something you feel, rather than hear, behind you,—surd steps, the springy movement of a long lithe body, dumb oscillations of raiment;—and ere you can turn to look, the haunter swiftly passes with creole greeting of "bonjou'" or "bonsouè, Missié." This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects, whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed is thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized sense,—like an animal,—and to become conscious of a look directed upon him from any distance or from behind any covert;—to pass within the range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the ajoupas;—dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;—one half-nude laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the sun to watch her coming. He looks a moment, turns to the hut again, and calls:—