Most of them had given warning. Pelée was warning now. His warning was written upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every blade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof. Gray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain clogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving, white cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach of the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and complicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long cerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed companions, the hills and mornes, great Pelée had proclaimed his warning in the night.
EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
PAULA IS INVOLVED IN THE RENDING FORTUNES OF SAINT PIERRE AND THE PANTHER CALLS WITH NEW YORK MAIL
Father Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women told her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the city from the great heat and the burned air—many little children sick. Father Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in soul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way, augmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested for a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a breath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the nave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city, her heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless water-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the hotel on the Morne d'Orange was made livable by the cool Trades.
The clock in the Hopital l'Militaire struck the hour of nine. Paula had just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was attracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black cassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man, she thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist.... A negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the shore—a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms.... A glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that this was the holy man of Saint Pierre.
Happiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an attraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo's Immaculate Conception; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from the face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put an exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had added the gleam of adoration—"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept."
Paula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment that it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay. Lingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father Fontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with molasses-casks—a man of strength, bare to the waist.
"Take the little mother to my house," he said.
A young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... "Lift her gently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door." Then raising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, "You who are well—tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing ones there, and the little children. Father Pelée will soon be silent again.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the harbor?"