The young man addressed did not at first seem to notice the captain's suggestion. He was a tall, lithe fellow, with a dark, positive face: he had never removed his black gaze from the child since the moment of her appearance. Her eyes, too, seemed to be all for him--to return his scrutiny with a sort of vague pleasure, a half savage confidence ... Was it the first embryonic feeling of race-affinity quickening in the little brain?--some intuitive, inexplicable sense of kindred? She shrank from Doctor Hecker, who addressed her in German, shook her head at Lawyer Solari, who tried to make her answer in Italian; and her look always went back plaintively to the dark, sinister face of Laroussel,--Laroussel who had calmly taken a human life, a wicked human life, only the evening before.
--"Laroussel, you're the only Creole in this crowd," said the captain; "talk to her! Talk gumbo to her! ... I've no doubt this child knows German very well, and Italian too,"--he added, maliciously--"but not in the way you gentlemen pronounce it!"
Laroussel handed his rifle to a friend, crouched down before the little girl, and looked into her face, and smiled. Her great sweet orbs shone into his one moment, seriously, as if searching; and then ... she returned his smile. It seemed to touch something latent within the man, something rare; for his whole expression changed; and there was a caress in his look and voice none of the men could have believed possible--as he exclaimed:----"Fais moin bo, piti."
She pouted up her pretty lips and kissed his black moustache.
He spoke to her again:----"Dis moin to nom, piti;--dis moin to nom, chere."
Then, for the first time, she spoke, answering in her argent treble:
--"Zouzoune."
All held their breath. Captain Harris lifted his finger to his lips to command silence.
--"Zouzoune? Zouzoune qui, chere?"
--"Zouzoune, a c'est moin, Lili!"
--"C'est pas tout to nom, Lili;--dis moin, chere, to laut nom."
--"Mo pas connin laut nom. "
--"Comment ye te pele to maman, piti?"
--"Maman,--Maman 'Dele."
--"Et comment ye te pele to papa, chere?"
--"Papa Zulien."
--"Bon! Et comment to maman te pele to papa?--dis ca a moin, chere?"
The child looked down, put a finger in her mouth, thought a moment, and replied:----"Li pele li, 'Cheri'; li pele li, 'Papoute.'"
--"Aie, aie!--c'est tout, ca?--to maman te jamain pele li daut' chose?"
--"Mo pas connin, moin."
She began to play with some trinkets attached to his watch chain;--a very small gold compass especially impressed her fancy by the trembling and flashing of its tiny needle, and she murmured, coaxingly:----"Mo oule ca! Donnin ca a moin."
He took all possible advantage of the situation, and replied at once:---- "Oui! mo va donnin toi ca si to di moin to laut nom."
The splendid bribe evidently impressed her greatly; for tears rose to the brown eyes as she answered:
-- "Mo pas capab di' ca;--mo pas capab di' laut nom ... Mo oule; mo pas capab!"
Laroussel explained. The child's name was Lili,--perhaps a contraction of Eulalie; and her pet Creole name Zouzoune. He thought she must be the daughter of wealthy people; but she could not, for some reason or other, tell her family name. Perhaps she could not pronounce it well, and was afraid of being laughed at: some of the old French names were very hard for Creole children to pronounce, so long as the little ones were indulged in the habit of talking the patois; and after a certain age their mispronunciations would be made fun of in order to accustom them to abandon the idiom of the slave-nurses, and to speak only French. Perhaps, again, she was really unable to recall the name: certain memories might have been blurred in the delicate brain by the shock of that terrible night. She said her mother's name was Adele, and her father's Julien; but these were very common names in Louisiana,--and could afford scarcely any better clew than the innocent statement that her mother used to address her father as "dear" (Cheri),--or with the Creole diminutive "little papa" (Papoute). Then Laroussel tried to reach a clew in other ways, without success. He asked her about where she lived,--what the place was like; and she told him about fig-trees in a court, and galleries, and banquettes, and spoke of a faubou',--without being able to name any street. He asked her what her father used to do, and was assured that he did everything--that there was nothing he could not do. Divine absurdity of childish faith!--infinite artlessness of childish love! ... Probably the little girl's parents had been residents of New Orleans--dwellers of the old colonial quarter,--the faubourg, the faubou'.
-- "Well, gentlemen," said Captain Harris, as Laroussel abandoned his cross-examination in despair,--"all we can do now is to make inquiries. I suppose we'd better leave the child here. She is very weak yet, and in no condition to be taken to the city, right in the middle of the hot season; and nobody could care for her any better than she's being cared for here. Then, again, seems to me that as Feliu saved her life,--and that at the risk of his own,--he's got the prior claim, anyhow; and his wife is just crazy about the child--wants to adopt her. If we can find her relatives so much the better; but I say, gentlemen, let them come right here to Feliu, themselves, and thank him as he ought to be thanked, by God! That's just what I think about it."
Carmen understood the little speech;--all the Spanish charm of her youth had faded out years before; but in the one swift look of gratitude she turned upon the captain, it seemed to blossom again;--for that quick moment, she was beautiful.
"The captain is quite right," observed Dr. Hecker: "it would be very dangerous to take the child away just now. "There was no dissent.
--"All correct, boys?" asked the captain ... "Well, we've got to be going. By-by, Zouzoune!"
But Zouzoune burst into tears. Laroussel was going too!
--"Give her the thing, Laroussel! she gave you a kiss, anyhow--more than she'd do for me," cried the captain.
Laroussel turned, detached the little compass from his watch chain, and gave it to her. She held up her pretty face for his farewell kiss ...
