By M. E. M. Davis
"Those reptiles of Americans, I say to you, Marcel,—mark my words!—that they have it in their heads to betray Louisiana to the Spaniard. They are tr-r-raitors!" Old Galmiche rolled the word viciously on his French tongue.
"Yes," assented his young companion, absently. He quite agreed with Galmiche—the Americans were traitors, oh, of the blackest black! But the sky overhead was so blue, the wind blowing in from the Gulf and lifting the dark curls on his bared forehead was so moist and sweet, the scene under his eyes, although familiar, was so enchanting! He rose, the better to see it all once again.
Grand Terre, the low-lying strip of an island upon which he stood, was at that time—September, 1814—the stronghold of Jean Lafitte, the famous freebooter, or, as he chose rather to call himself, privateer, and his band of smugglers and buccaneers.
The island, which lies across the mouth of Barataria Bay, with a narrow pass at each end opening, into the Gulf of Mexico, had been well fortified. Lafitte's own bungalow-like house was protected on the Gulf side by an enclosing wall surmounted by small cannon. The rich furniture within the house—the pictures, books, Oriental draperies, silver and gold plate and rare crystal—attested equally—so declared his enemies—to the fastidious taste of the Lord of Barataria and to his lawlessness.
The landlocked bay holds in its arms many small islands.
These served Lafitte as places of deposit for smuggled or pirated goods. Water-craft of every description—more than one sloop or lugger decorated with gay lengths of silk or woolen cloth—rode at ease in the secure harbor. In a curve of the mainland a camp had been established for the negroes imported in defiance of United States law, from Africa, to be sold in Louisiana and elsewhere. The buccaneers themselves were quartered on the main island.
Marcel Lefort, the slender, dark-eyed Creole voyageur, drew a deep sigh of delight as he resumed his seat on the grassy sward beside Galmiche. But he sprang again to his feet, for the tranquil morning air was suddenly disturbed by the reverberating boom of a cannon!
Island, bay and mainland were instantly in commotion. Lafitte himself appeared on the east end, of his veranda, spy-glass in hand.
The noted outlaw was a tall, sinewy, graceful man, then a little past thirty, singularly handsome, with clear-cut features, dark hair and fierce gray eyes which could, upon occasion, soften to tenderness. The hands which lifted the spy-glass were white and delicate.