“May weeds cover the ground until the air is full of their odor and the wild beasts of the forest come and lie down under their cover.”

With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow and extended his clenched fist in speechless defiance; but his brain reeled, his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress were bending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupe was gone.

The plantation became an invalid camp.  The words of the voudou found fulfilment on every side.  The plough went not out; the herds wandered through broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bones and shrunken sides; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled and throttled each other in a struggle for standing-room—­rag-weed, smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bindweed, iron-weed—­until the burning skies of midsummer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rank and dingy flowers.

“Why in the name of—­St. Francis,” asked the priest of the overseer, “didn’t the senora use her power over the black scoundrel when he stood and cursed, that day?”

“Why, to tell you the truth, father,” said the overseer, in a discreet whisper, “I can only suppose she thought Bras-Coupe had half a right to do it.”

“Ah, ah, I see; like her brother Honore—­looks at both sides of a question—­a miserable practice; but why couldn’t Palmyre use her eyes?  They would have stopped him.”

“Palmyre?  Why Palmyre has become the best monture (Plutonian medium) in the parish.  Agricola Fusilier himself is afraid of her.  Sir, I think sometimes Bras-Coupe is dead and his spirit has gone into Palmyre.  She would rather add to his curse than take from it.”

“Ah!” said the jovial divine, with a fat smile, “castigation would help her case; the whip is a great sanctifier.  I fancy it would even make a Christian of the inexpugnable Bras-Coupe.”

But Bras-Coupe kept beyond the reach alike of the lash and of the Latin Bible.

By and by came a man with a rumor, whom the overseer brought to the master’s sick-room, to tell that an enterprising Frenchman was attempting to produce a new staple in Louisiana, one that worms would not annihilate.  It was that year of history when the despairing planters saw ruin hovering so close over them that they cried to heaven for succor.  Providence raised up Etienne de Bore.  “And if Etienne is successful,” cried the news-bearer, “and gets the juice of the sugar-cane to crystallize, so shall all of us, after him, and shall yet save our lands and homes.  Oh, Senor, it will make you strong again to see these fields all cane and the long rows of negroes and negresses cutting it, while they sing their song of those droll African numerals, counting the canes they cut,” and the bearer of good tidings sang them for very joy: 

[Illustration:  music]

     An-o-que, An-o-bia, Bia-tail-la, Que-re-que, Nal-le-oua,
     Au-mon-de, Au-tap-o-te, Au-pe-to-te, Au-que-re-que, Bo.