"There they come!" said Jean Lafitte, pointing to a vast gaggle of
clamoring wild geese coming in from the bay. "Right over our point,
Jimmy! Gee! I wisht I was under them fellers right now. Pow! Pow!"
"Aw, shut up!" was Jimmy's reply. "We won't never get no chance like
this again. Why, looky here, we was reg'lar castaways on a real desert
island, an' we had a abandoned ship, an' we c'd 'a' lived chiefly by
huntin' an' fishin'; and we had evaded all pursuit an' run off with
the fair captive to a place o' hidin'--why, it's all just like in the
book. An' what do we do? Why, we go home! Wouldn't it frost you? An'
what's worse, we let the heartless jade get away with it, too! Ain't
that so?"
"Yes, that's true, Jimmy," I replied.
"Well, I was talkin' to Jean Lafitte--but it's so. We started out all
right as pirates, but now we let a girl bluff us."
"What would you do, Jimmy, in a case like that?" I inquired.
"I would wring the wench's slender neck, beshrew me! She couldn't put
over none o' that coarse work on me. No, curses on her fair face!"
"That will do, Jimmy!" said I, and pushed on in silence, Jean Lafitte
very grave, and Jimmy snuffling, now, in his grief at leaving the
enchanted island. So, all much about the same time, we reached the
Belle Helène and went aboard. The ladies went at once to their
cabin, and I saw neither again that day, although I sent down duck,
terrapin and ninety-three for their dinner that night.
In half an hour we were under way; and in an hour and a half, having
circumvented our long desert island, we were passing through the
cut-off which led us back into Côte Blanche, some fifty miles, I
presume, from what was to be our voyage's end. We still were in the
vast marsh country, an inaccessible region teeming with wild life. The
sky now was clear, the air once more warm, the breeze gentle, and all
the country roundabout us had a charm quite its own. A thousand side
channels led back into the fortresses of the great sea-marsh, to this
or that of the many lakes, lagoons and pond holes where the wild fowl
found their feeding beds. Here was this refuge, where they fled to
escape persecution, the spot most remote, secluded, secret,
inaccessible. Here nature conspired to balk pursuit. The wide shallows
made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht
like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the
oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel
more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by compass and
chart. A great sense of remoteness from all the world came over me. I
scarce could realize that yonder, so lately left behind, roared the
mad tumult of the northern cities. This wide expanse was broken by no
structure dedicated to commerce, not even the quiet spire of some
rural church arose among the lesser edifices of any village--not even
the blue smoke of some farmhouse marked the dwelling-place of man. It
was the wilderness, fit only for the nomad, fit only for the man
resentful of restraint and custom, longing only for the freedom of
adventure and romance. The cycles of Cathay lay here in these gray
silences, the leaf of the lotus pulsed on this lazy sea. Ah! here,
here indeed were surcease and calm.