li vive cote soleil.

So gies ye te plis noir passe la nouitte,
So de la lev' plis doux passe la quitte!
Tou' mo la vie, zamein mo oir
Ein n' amourese zoli comme ca!
Mo' blie manze--mo' blie boir'--
Mo' blie tout dipi c' temps-la--
Mo' blie parle--mo' blie dormi,
Quand mo pense apres zami!_"

"And you have heard Bras-Coupe sing that, yourself?"

"Once upon a time," said Raoul, warming with his subject, "we were
coming down from Pointe Macarty in three pirogues. We had been three
days fishing and hunting in Lake Salvador. Bras-Coupe had one pirogue
with six paddles--"

"Oh, yes!" cried a youth named Baltazar; "sing that, Raoul!"

And he sang that.

"But oh, Raoul, sing that song the negroes sing when they go out in the
bayous at night, stealing pigs and chickens!"

"That boat song, do you mean, which they sing as a signal to those on
shore?" He hummed.

[Illustration: Music]

"De zabs, de zabs, de counou ouaie ouaie,
De zabs, de zabs, de counou ouaie ouaie,
Counou ouaie ouaie ouaie ouaie,
Counou ouaie ouaie ouaie ouaie,
Counou ouaie ouaie ouaie, momza;
Momza, momza, momza, momza,
Roza, roza, roza-et--momza."

This was followed by another and still another, until the hour began to
grow late. And then they gathered closer around him and heard the
promised story. At the same hour Honore Grandissime, wrapping himself in
a greatcoat and giving himself up to sad and somewhat bitter
reflections, had wandered from the paternal house, and by and by from
the grounds, not knowing why or whither, but after a time soliciting, at
Frowenfeld's closing door, the favor of his company. He had been feeling
a kind of suffocation. This it was that made him seek and prize the
presence and hand-grasp of the inexperienced apothecary. He led him out
to the edge of the river. Here they sat down, and with a laborious
attempt at a hard and jesting mood, Honore told the same dark story.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPE

"A very little more than eight years ago," began Honore--but not only
Honore, but Raoul also; and not only they, but another, earlier on the
same day,--Honore, the f.m.c. But we shall not exactly follow the words
of any one of these.

Bras-Coupe, they said, had been, in Africa and under another name, a
prince among his people. In a certain war of conquest, to which he had
been driven by _ennui_, he w