. A more artificial man
might have objected on the score of dress, his attire being a single
gaudy garment tightly enveloping the waist and thighs. As his eyes fell
upon the beautiful white lady he prostrated himself upon the ground, his
arms outstretched before him. He would not move till she was gone. Then
he arose like a hermit who has seen a vision. "_Bras-Coupe n' pas oule
oir zombis_ (Bras-Coupe dares not look upon a spirit)." From that hour
he worshipped. He saw her often; every time, after one glance at her
countenance, he would prostrate his gigantic length with his face in
the dust.

The third person who did not fear him was--Agricola? Nay, it was the
Spaniard--a man whose capability to fear anything in nature or beyond
had never been discovered.

Long before the end of his probation Bras-Coupe would have slipped the
entanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels a
spider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a little
affectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day
did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal
swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and
bear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican;
when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of the
other. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drew
nigh[3]. A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The
bride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza,
which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, was
Palmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to the
last, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm of
their having been worn once, and once only, by her beloved Mademoiselle.

[Footnote 3: An over-zealous Franciscan once complained bitterly to the
bishop of Havana, that people were being married in Louisiana in their
own houses after dark and thinking nothing of it. It is not certain that
he had reference to the Grandissime mansion; at any rate he was tittered
down by the whole community.]

But where was Bras-Coupe?

The question was asked of Palmyre by Agricola with a gaze that meant in
English, "No tricks, girl!"

Among the servants who huddled at the windows and door to see the inner
magnificence a frightened whisper was already going round.

"We have made a sad discovery, Miche Fusilier," sa