Chapter XXIX: The Snake

I remember with what delight, in the intervals of duty, I rambled about this fertile and populous island, feeling as if I could never enjoy sufficiently my emancipation from the thraldom and confinement of a ship-of-war, crowded by soldiers, seamen, marines, and stores, for a hostile expedition.

The whole fleet yet lay anchored in three lines in Carlisle Bay, hoisting in fresh water and provisions; thus scores of smart men-o'-war boats were incessantly arriving at, or departing from, the mole and carenage at Bridgetown, preparing for our departure to Martinique. Armed ships and batteries guarded the coast as a protection against French privateers and Spanish pirates, a few of whom still prowled in the West-Indian seas.

One evening I was returning from the town with the order-book of my company, having been sent on duty to Mr. Haystone, who had quartered himself there in a snug lodging which he preferred to the garrison.

The beauty of the evening, the deep blue of the sky; and the deeper blue of the sea, caused me to deviate from the direct path for the garrison; and thus, leaving the road to Needham's Point, I wandered for some miles inland, through groves of yams, plaintains, and bananas, and frequently through deep, narrow dells rent and riven, by volcanic agency, where the sea found inlet and the brown tortoise crawled, and where the rocks were covered by those bearded figtrees from which this isle of hurricanes was named los Barbados by the Spaniards in the olden time.

In other places, the tracts of table-land were covered by the sugar-cane like a sea of wavy green, broken here and there by avenues of lofty cabbage-trees, which led to the villas of proprietors, or to their mills, where the slaves toiled for the production of wealth.

In one of these shady walks I sat for a time, to reflect on the wayward fortune which had cast me in this new land. The air was very still, and had now become oppressive. After a long train of negroes and asses, bearing the sugar of some wealthy planter to the Bridge, had passed me, no sound broke the stillness save the "drowsy hum" of the large black bees depositing their honey in the trunk of an old cotton-tree; the coo of the turtle-dove in the orange grove, or the rustle made by the keen and glancing eyed racoon, as it sprang from branch to branch of the cabbage-tree, or the palmetto-royal above me.

I felt all the lassitude of the passed day; a drowsiness was coming over me, but a dread of the scorpions that lurked among the luxuriant grass, and of those great beetle-like insects which are sure to bite sleepers till the blood comes, made me struggle to repress it; moreover, I knew all the dangers incident to sleeping under the descending dew,--fever, ague, and so forth. I arose, and was about to start on my return to garrison, from which I was now some miles distant, when a voice--a soft and sweet female voice--singing in French, and quite near, made me pause and listen with an undefinable emotion of pleasure; for it was long since I had heard a voice so seducing and so tenderly modulated; and it made me think of one whom I had now almost forgotten--my little Amy Lee.

The singer, though not twenty paces from me, was concealed by the luxuriant flowers and shrubbery that grew under the cabbage-trees. But the song ceased with singular abruptness, and then, after a brief pause, followed a half-stifled cry, ending in a heavy sob.

Alarmed by such a sound, and curious to see the singer, I hastened towards her, and beheld a very remarkable, if not a terrible scene.

A lady whose dark eyes and hair corroborated the idea which her song suggested, that she was French, was seated on the gnarled root of a cabbage-tree; but seemingly paralysed and frozen with terror, for her eyes were fixed on some object, which, at first sight, I was unable to discern. I addressed her, but she did not reply. I would have spoken again, but the power of utterance was denied me, on perceiving, not six feet distant from her, a huge rattlesnake, with its fiery eyes, that seemed lighted by sparks from hell, glaring into hers, while its wavy form glided forward by an almost imperceptible motion, and its tail was raised up--always significant of rage, for then the hollow horny substance with which that appendage is furnished rattles at every motion of the body.

The dark eyes of the French girl--she did not seem more than two-and-twenty--were dilated with horror, her face was deadly pale, her teeth were clenched, and her small white hands clutched the grass among which she was seated. On one side lay the broad round hat which had fallen from her head; on the other lay her parasol, and a book she had been reading when surprised by this terrible apparition. I glanced wildly round for some long weapon wherewith to arm me, but in vain.

An instant, and all would be over!

Wrath and hate, like those of a fiend, seemed to swell the flattened head, to fire the protruding orbs, and redden the flamelike tongue of this hideous and terrific reptile, the venom of which, when inserted in its victim by the two long fangs that protrude from the upper jaw, is more virulent and deadly than the poison of any other of its dreadful species.

Pale as a dead woman, and deprived alike of volition, energy--almost of thought--the poor girl gazed on her coming destroyer as if she already felt its poison shooting through her young veins.

I, too, was trembling with terror, and for a moment knew not what to do; but the conviction that I must attempt to save her, or feel myself a branded coward for life, made me act with a decision the recollection of which excites my astonishment even now. I sprang forward, and, regardless of the dreadful fate that might befall me, grasped the serpent fiercely by the neck, and whirled it round my head with such vigour, that it had not time to bite me; and I dashed it with such tremendous force against the trunk of a cabbage-tree, that it lay still with its eyes glancing upward like two bright carbuncles, and its tail rattling nervously as it whipped and lashed the earth.

Placing my left foot upon its head, I crushed it furiously down into the soft earth, and hewed at the body with my sword until it was cut into as many pieces as there were joints in its tail. The dreadful danger I had run in achieving this victory, animated me by a kind of frenzy, and I continued to slash at the writhing fragments of the snake till my sword-arm grew weary.

On turning to her I had saved, she was lying still and motionless in a heavy swoon.

Raising her in my arms, I bore her to where a little runnel gurgled over a rock, among the luxuriant passion-flowers, and there, undoing the upper portion of her dress, laved her face and neck, her arms and shoulders, with the water, which was very cool, as it trickled under the shadow of the large green leaves; and while she slowly recovered, I had time to perceive how delicately she was formed, and how singularly beautiful she was.

Blanched by the terror she had undergone, her features were like alabaster. Her slender throat, her curved shoulders, and the full round swell of her bosom, surpassed all I had ever seen; and her fine dark hair, how black it seemed, by very contrast, as it fell in wavy masses over them. Above her temples it had a curl in each thick braid--whether by art or nature I know not. Her eyes were closed; and from the white and veined lid of each, a long thick fringe of the darkest brown was gummed by tears upon her cheek. I could feel her heart beating through the folds of her thin white muslin dress as animation slowly returned.

I was little more than eighteen; and while holding her in my arms, and laving the water about her bosom, the consciousness that she--this girl so fair and beautiful--owed life to me, filled all my heart with ardour, pride, and joy.

How the huge reptile I had slain found its way into the island, unless among the ballast or cargo of a South-American ship, we could never discover, as in Barbadoes there are few snakes more than three feet long; and even these are so harmless that the superstitious negroes were wont to respect, and at times to worship them. It is related that a negro, having slain one, was soon after afflicted by a rheumatic pain in his arm; this he believed to be a punishment inflicted on him by the Obi-man for doing so; and ever after it was his custom to feed all the snakes that came near his hut, and to place food in such spots as these reptiles were known to frequent.

On the lady recovering, she began to address me in French, but with great incoherence, and while clinging to my arm; and it was not until after the lapse of several minutes, and I had pointed repeatedly with my sword to the hacked fragments of the snake, she could understand fully that she was rescued, and by me.

"Oh, monsieur, how shall I ever be able to thank you for the courage with which you have saved me from a dreadful death? Oh, monsieur, tell me--what shall I say--what do? How pour out my thanks to you--my blessings on you--a thousand and a thousand more good prayers and dear wishes shall ever follow you! Speak," she continued, with true French volubility; "speak to me, and say who and what you are?"

While she clung to my arm and poured this forth in the purest French, pressing my hands to her heart, and casting her earnest and beautiful eyes upward to mine, I felt greatly bewildered, and endeavoured to calm her.

"Who are you?" she asked, for the third time.

"What my uniform declares me to be, madame," said I.

"A British soldier?"

"A sergeant in the Scottish regiment of fusiliers."

"A sergeant! Monsieur seems quite a youth."

"I am an unfortunate gentleman, madame."

"Mon Dieu!"

"A strange destiny has cast me into the same ranks which my father once commanded; but----"

"But what?"

I knew not what to say, for this woman's magnificent eyes were searchingly fixed on mine, and they bewildered, or fascinated me nearly as much as those of the serpent had done her.

"Monsieur was about to observe----"

"That I am only too happy in having been here in time to do madame a service."

"You call preserving my life a service--a mere service!"

"And now, madame, I must leave you."

"Leave me already? Oh no, no--this must not be; you cannot think of this, when I have scarcely known you, and owe you--oh, how much?"

"Madame must excuse me. I have wandered far from my quarters--farther than the orders of the general permit--and I must return to the garrison at Needham's Point, before the darkness sets in, for being a stranger in Barbadoes, I shall infallibly lose my way."

"My house is at hand, and ere you go, some wine--some refreshment shall be given you. Monsieur cannot refuse me--a lady--come."

She placed her arm through mine, and gazed so winningly in my face, that I could not refuse; moreover, for months I had not seen any other of the fair sex than "Mother Mahoney," nor since the period of my enlistment had been addressed as an equal by a lady; thus, the charm of this Frenchwoman's manner fascinated not less than her beauty dazzled me, the more perhaps that I was her junior by four or five years.

Shuddering as she passed the hewn fragments of her late source of terror, she led me along the cabbage-walk, as the avenue of magnificent trees (the smallest being forty feet in height) was named, and we soon found ourselves close to a small villa or cottage, surrounded by a broad verandah which was completely covered by luxuriant flowers. The garden was enclosed by lime-trees, which grow there like the holly-bush, full of leaves and fruit, and were wont to be used by the planters of old as a protecting hedge against runaway slaves and wild Carribs. Dusk now set in rapidly, for there is no twilight in these regions, and the cave-bat--the bird of darkness--which here is as large as a pigeon, was flitting among the great palm branches of the cabbage-trees, and the fireflies shot to and fro, like red sparks or tiny meteors.

The villa was entered through a trellised porch of very ornamental form. It was constructed of the wild cane split, intertwisted and arched in a Gothic style, but covered by the dark and sharp-pointed leaves of the passion-flower or lemon-water-vine, named by some, "love in a mist." Like other West-Indian houses, it was not tiled, but shingled, and was without chimneys. The walls were painted pure white.

Black female servants clad in striped cotton stuffs, with strings of beads and palm-oil nuts about their necks, received us with deep respect, and ushered us into a low-ceiled room paved with square tiles, and having four glazed windows, which opened to the floor. These were unclosed, and the warm night-air--for the tropical night had now set in--was admitted through green Venetian blinds.

Lamps were lighted, and then I could perceive that the apartment was neatly--almost handsomely--furnished in the style of a Barbadian drawing-room of those days; a piano, music, flowers, pictures, books, and a few articles of _bijouterie_ were there, with those pretty trifles which we usually find in such an apartment in all countries.

"Pray be seated, monsieur," said the young lady, "and be assured you are most welcome to my abode."

I bowed, and at that moment a clock struck nine. I thought of the roll call, from which I would be absent; but the Frenchwoman's eyes seem to read the alarming thought, and laying her pretty hand upon my arm, she said--

"Hark--do you hear that?"

"It is artillery!" said I, starting.

"Yes, monsieur--the artillery of heaven. 'Tis thunder. The beauty of the past day, and the closeness of the evening, foretold we should have a storm; so be assured you are safer here, than on the road to Needham's Point to-night."

Even while she spoke, we could hear the roar of the thunder hurtling in the distance, while red lines of horizontal light were seen for an instant, as the fierce electric fires of the Antilles flashed through the green spars of the Venetian blinds.