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CAPTAIN SAZARAC
APTER Vlll—Continued.
—ll—
- - wind Is capital—although mak
-dish turn we shall have to
“v ' :'i doubtless. But who can
t-. save one of the steamboats-
L; r,v the time the uproar goes that
! f aP —B.cn! —what of it?”
‘ 'ot from an eighteen-pounder
LJ e teakettle will hesitate,”
Gorgio. "All is ready-wait-
Monsieur de Almonaster’s word
for the river signal.”
swarthy-skinned marketmen
their roving glances went
front he idle croons at the stalls to
! i of cabbages under which
.traded one rusty cutlass hilt
G rgio now frowningly pushed
Then he was on with his dron
nbout the dark streets of the
' • : w" at the Ball d’Orleans, the
fli ; -'."s rising fast. The door the
" , windows, the low galleries
, he hall, were filled with on
, ■/. while to the strains of a
from Les Amours du Diable
< women and fiery-tempeivd
men whirled in giddy mazes. Frowned
n i,.- the aristocracy, and taboo with
the ; ,;ulity ladies, of the Vieux. Carre,
there were of the youngish-.
; 01 v Who would not steal, now and
to the revel. There arose the
, that led to the duellos out
the Oaks; there, on tin instant,
!he seene night change from laugliing,
uni men rush together jn affray; or
tw of the hot-tempered dons of the
old anish or French regime, or some
restless Kentuckians, down-river,
would exliange the cards that meant
rapiers or pistols at sunrise.
The young Count de Almonaster wrm
In a chaffing coterie at the vestibule/
Tlie town had been agog with this
story about him today.
“Ho. Raoul!” cried De Marlgny,
“where is your new house, guest?”
“Yes—Raoul, the proud, entertain
ing this gallant Saz-a-rac! Better you
had e. anted the family silver ere you
flit him to bed! They say Lafltte put
out from your hospitality to the Bara
taria swamps—and at once a’lady dis
appears from her hotel!” ■
“I am just back from a search .my
self. it was a shabby trick, but —
The laughing gallants crowded
nearer. “Lafltte turns up,‘and atftnce
Louisiana is in an uproar ! The Brit
ish consul fumes, and Colonel Carr
denounces. His lady may well be !n
the tropics within a. week!”
“Bah!” shouted tlie Chev’elffer de
Montrieul, “here Is Alderman Domi
nii[ue, who was once buccaneer him
self! I sny, we are unworthy gal
lants! Under the Spanish governors
we would all be out seeking to res
cue the lady ourselves, rather than
leave such romance to' the atfthori-.
ties.” .*
I t Marigny twigged Raoul’s laced
cuff: “Come, we have anew beauty.
I .-hall introduce you for one of the
new contre-danses Anglais.”
“I,” retorted Raoul reservedly, “do
Cut dance here, as you know.”
“Why so haughty? A round, and
we are all off to the Seraphlne.”
Raoul started. This would never
do; the conspirators must seize the
dipper before the party assembled on
I I r decks. He was relieved to see
< ; ain Bossiere—already chosen to
command—come on .smiling, waving a
hand to the merrymakers.
‘Messieurs! Is !t not enough here?
W- spall make a long night on the
Rhine and discuss affairs. Ah,
M ; eur Dominique, I am glad you
ert vith us! And Monsieur de Almon
al' r. who has been won over at last
- port the Napoleon expedition!”
U ny curious and admiring eyes,
In!.- i, were leveled on the tall,
and young man who followed to
t ar. Old Dominique winked again
him. A buzz of talk ran around
r ing these two who surely must
something about Lafltte which
chose not to disclose to the au
thorities.
Marigny shouted good-humoredly
to Raoul:
" ,Ve are discussing the flag, Mon-
nr! A flag for the Seraphlne! La
“ Insists it will not be good taste
the American colors now, .vitli
- nd and the United States at
1 Under what flag, Captain Bos
* ro. do we put to sea?’’
■' -1 Captain Bossiere pulled his
rs and beamed on the laughing
nts. “That is to be settled. Also,
“ -t, who is to be second in com
fritinej.”
“And third!”
And fourth l"
“And,” bawled another youth, “I
to be at least a midshipman!”
; o flushed and merry Creole blades
f red closer. The costliest charti
; " ' "ere spilling over bar and
' Under the glitter of the crys
mps, where the press was deep
aptain Bossiere perspired and
| in vain, to address them. From
laughing melee Dominique, the
. ' ,n ’ velvet-clad and rotund,
: 'ay and came to De Almonas
tv- -ide.
An] tonight.” he muttered. ”1 want-
By Charles Tenney Jackson
Copyright by The Bobbs-MertlU Company
der about, a respectable official of the
city—and the sea Is calling. As to
Jean,” he said with pointed abrupt
ness, “what do you know, Monsieur?”
The young aristocrat could not be
sure of how much the city conspira
tors had Imparted to the complacent
Dominique. He therefore shrugged
indifferently: “The old fox Is on fa
miliar trails, Monsieur Dominique—do
you know of any reason for absenting
yourself tonight?”
“Eh?” queried the alderman darkly.
Then, a hand on his shoulder. Jarvis,
the portrait painter of the Vieux Carre,
for once cleanly arrayed in velvet, be
ruffled stock and a high hat! Jarvis,
Incredibly sober. Nodding to Alder
man Dominique, lie drew Raoul aside.
“The fools found I was right, eh ?
A lady stolen from our streets —and
this Sazarac of the packets is my oid
captain.” He smiled with some twitch
ing pathos about bis nervous lips.
“Jean —and -my lady. Ah, one might
have guessed!” He stopped abruptly.
“What is it, Jarvis?” Raoul stared
at h.im. Plainly, he knew nothing of
Mademoiselle Lestron’s disappearance
upon the English hark,.tonight slowly
beating a way out of the Belize pass
to the open Gulf.
“Sober,” muttered the jester. “That
is it. I have vowed to keep sober for
her sake from half-past eleven to quite
one-ofclock . . . it was about the
hour of the camellia. All—to a‘stair
case fellow in the moonlight!”
Ilis friend laughed curiously, tut
without understanding. “Every night”
. —continued Jarvis —“half-past eleven
to one. It is a disastrous intermission,
however. I have to arrange all my
hours, both at the studio and the
grog shops. Romance should keep
better hours.” He sighed: “Love has
come like a flame to my darkness.
Monsieur! I—who would have laid
my dull head as a stone among the
other cobbles for ’ her footstep —and
asked nothing! She'has gone . . .
they whisper, .willingly, perhpps, with
him. Ah, to play the part of Saza
rac—one hour!” • •
“What are you'driving at?” queried
Raoul.
“This Sazarac—” ; muttered Jarvis..
“I regret he was not bipiselL I would
have had an affair at the Oaks. Can
you imagine me, sober, well-arrayed
and speared through thfe'stomrtch be
cause of a' womaß? I cannot. On. sec
ond thought, of course not. The time,
Monsieur —”
“The time —” De Almonaster start
ed, shofc a suspicious glance at the
town’s jester. But Jarvis was- jot,
f apparently, in the conspiracy.
“To put aside my romance and :e
--sure my bottle. D—ni—not yet mid
night” He turned impatiently and
gnawed ids cuff. “Jean lias taken my
lady— Eh, well 1 One’s friend Is
one’s fHend!”
Raoul watched the mountebank’s
drawn, hungry’ face at the end of the
crowded bar. Then he wandered to
the street vestibule. The time for the
attack must be approaching. Some
where along the west bank of the .Mis
sissippi, but a few miles above, the
Baratarians must be gathered for the
embarkation and the silent drift down
stream. Now that he had time to
think soberly of It, Raoul’s mind stum
bled over the uncertainties of the mad
venture. He knew that, about the city,
two score of adventurers had armed
and awaited secretly to aid the inen
of Johannes and Nez Coupe from the
deep swamp. Seizing the unguarded
ship at her moorings, even with 'he
revel about her, would not be difficult.
It was the next step when an unfavor
ing wind might leave the Seraphlne
helpless and adrift In the lower
reaches of the river.
De Almonaster watched the faces
of his familiars about the ballroom.
He bad been chaffed enough for his
entertainment of the mysterious Saza
rac out of the West. But even now
the heedless youth were forgetting It.
The affair Lafltte was being left to
the authorities. The British Colonel
Carr had already been courteously ie-
Jected from the gentlemen’s company;
the gentry, while most of them had
but the merest hearsay about what
the missing gamester, Sazarac, might
have intended concerning Mademoi
selle Lestron, could not endure Carr's
Infamous jest at Maspero’s gammg
room. They believed, indeed, that the
lady had fled of her own accord with
the adventurer of the river packet,
whom rumor said was Jean Lafltte.
Eh, blen! It was not the first affair
of women for Lafltte . . . there
was the old story of the governor’s
lady when the Grand Terre chieftain
was at his power.
Raoul saw. In the barroom, a score
of tossing glasses upraised to some
speech that Bossiere had concluded.
“The Seraphine,” a dozen voices
shouted, “and to the unknown flog she
flies!”
The goblets clinked and broke; I'ne
air was a spray of crystal and chsm
nasrne bubbles: then the laughing
THE DANIELSVILLE MONITOR, DANIELSVILLE, GEORGIA.
groups scattered. But about Captain
Bossiere hushed youths clamored on.
“Devil take the dances I Monsieur
Glrod’s banquet awaits us on the Sera
phlne. Let’s finish the night there.”
And a score of young men took up
the cry. De Marigny came crowding
to Raoul’s side. “Come, there! Yofi—
Felix, La Barre—all of you! You can
dance on the decks—but no women,
mind! This is a secret session of the
Napoleon plot!”
“Yes, and you with us, De Almonas
ter! You are a third backer of the
enterprise since you took over the
baroness’ interests.”
De Almonnster stnrted ns the jest
ing groups closed about him. It was
but eleven o’clock! The conspirators
across the river would never dream
that the gentlenen-ndventurers would
quit the hall so early! Lie begnn to
protest as the youth strenmed to the
street. But one glance at the goid
laced hat cf the Sernphlne’s com
mander now leading the way, and
Raoul whirled hack and to the court
yard where the servants awaited.
At his low hall his groom came
watchfully. “Teton, the ball Is break
ing up! With all speed the word fo
the market!”
The octoroon vanished silently.
Raoul turned back through the ball
room, his heart beating wildly. He
wondered if any saw Ills perturbation.
It was too late to warn the Bnrutn
rians that the plans had changed. Al
ready, far across the rue Royale past
the cathedral to the Place d’Artnes,
the aristocrats were trooping, un
armed, save for their swords of fash
ion, to encounter unsuspectingly the
desperate renegades* of Lafltte sum
moned ngain from their deep swamp
refuges.
“Madness!" the young mnn mut
tered. “They are ascending the gang
way ! The plot is lost! Sazarac will
not dare lead his swamp bandits fo
face the gentlemen of the city already
at their banquet seats!”
He lingered Irresolutely nnd then
went to the Plaza. If he could find
one of the spies who had been all eve
ning watching the course of events at
the revel and passing the word, mouth
to mouth, out to the upper levee sc
that the Baratarians across the rivev
might be apprised, he could, even yet,
ward off a disastrous failure.
But nowhere did he find one whom
he could trust as being In the con
spiracy. .The groups Of Idling mar
ket men had scattered from the stalls.
The crowd on the rue de la Levee,
gathered to watch this outdoor revel
of the gentlemen-adventurers of the
Napoleon ship, was thickening. Along
the raped path between these onlook
ers the gold hat of Captain Bossiere
moved with the gallants cheering In
his wnke“ The gay rosettes and lan
terns festooning the ship’s rigging re
flected upon the yellow flood murmur
ing along her side.
“I must be seen with them,” mur
mured De Almonaster. “It Is a sorry
joke. Sazarac dare not face this revel
to seize a ship—no, not for all his
loves 1”
He found his place to the right of
Commander Bossiere. De Marigny
had started a song of the day among
the flushed youths near him:
"Mo I’almln vous
Commo cochon almln la boue!”
“Ah 1” shouted one, catching sight
of De Almonaster; nnd he translated
the doggerel for a young American en
sign : “ ‘I love you ns a little pig loves
the mud!’ It must be Raoul, seeing
that he loves the Bnrataria swamps.”
Raoul smiled; but his glance was
out from the quarter-deck awnings tc
the yellow, silent flood of the mighty
river. Big honest Commander Bos
siere, a real seaman oddly out of place
among the laughing youths, was un
steady from the toasts he had drunk.
“And there,” cried La Barro, “comes
another guest who must love the mud,
seeing that lie frequently rolls In It I”
The guests shouted as another be
lated one came unsteadily down the
carpeted gangway to the deck. Jarvis,
It was, the town’s profligate, whose
hour’s tribute to his lady had turned
to Bacchus promptly with the clock.
The first bohemian of the French
quarter raised his hand. In It was a
staff with folded colors. And behind
him marched six grim fellows In tar
paulin hats, red shirts and the new
tight pants of the period, cutlassed
and pistoled, who, without word, took
position along the rail, and came to a
salute as Jarvis bawled a mocking
order.
The flushed aristocrats stared, then
cheered, when the mummer pirates
broke to hoarse song, a Creole air of
the day:
••Di tern* M'gieu Lafltte.
ye te menin momle ala baguette—
The guests seized It In glee. A a
other gibe at the smiling Count d*
Almonaster.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
A boy’s idea of a square deal is .
oie cut into no more thaa fur piece*
ZANZIBAR,
Isle s/’Cloves
Breaking Cioves From the Stems; Zanzibar.
(Preparod by tho National (U'OKrnphlo So
ciety, Washington, p. C.)
Zanzibar, romantic inching pot off
the east coast of Africa, a hurt of
island v.estibule to Kenya, England's
latest colony, does not slinre the upset
conditions of that mainland region
which has recently kept the British
cabinet in hot water. Nominally under
its sultan, and largely ruled by a
British high commissioner and a Brit
ish resident, the Island goes (in the
more or less serene way of the trans
planted East, furnishing plots for
comic operas and cloves, for most of
the spice-loving world.
Hundreds of tourists nhd govern
ment employees, on tho manifold er
rands of empire, see the towii of Zan-'
zibar without knpwing much-of It or
ever exploring beyond the English ten
nis club. But this is less ‘ feinurknhle
than the. fact that merchants, priests,
secular missionaries, military and dip
lomatic personages, Indians, Arabs,
I’arsis and Europeans 4ns inconspicu
ous artisans or petty trgderp) actually
live in the town year in and year out
without so much ns walking half a
mile beyond the teriqlnus of the little
American railway at Bu-bu-bu, n vil
lage a few miles ffom the town Itself.
The precedent for this neglect—and
the social fabric of Zanzibar Is de
pendent on precedent?—is undoubtedly
the Indifference of the earty explorers,
who fitted out caravans .In the old
town and, bent on discovering a vol
enno or n nyanza far afield, never
wasted time In wandering about tho
glorious island Itself.
On the first day that one leaves the
road behind and finds oneself nt large
In the dense green of Zanzibar’s, titanic
verdure one Is conscious of a newness
of Interest ns when one reads for the
first time some hook of very distinctive
Imaginative quality,
The woods and fields, the “shambas”
(plantations), are like the contents of
a Brobdlngnugian gluss house; the col
ors of flowers und trees themselves
are so elementary as to seem like a
child’s concept of beauty In nature,
and when, unexpectedly, without prep
aration of any kind, the sight of the
clove trees, shining green, red
stemmed, symmetrical, stretches be
fore one, with the ultramarine of the
Indian ocean as a background for their
unequaled loveliness, the beauty of the
whole writes Itself on the memory of
the most commonplace of observers as
an Indelible delight.
As Large as Long Island.
The Island, about the same size In
square miles us Lon# Island, Is of a
different shape, belnj( shorter and
much broader. It Is one of Great IJrlt
ain’s protectorates.
To the south of the town the land
scape Is not so redundant and riotous
in vegetable expression, but goats
abound and find all they need In the
way of food to make them marketable.
Hut to the north the mango trees,
palms, cloves and every form of orange
and lemon crowd thick and glorious
under the most primitive of husband
men.
The Industrial life of Zanzibar has
changed three times since David Liv
ingstone cried for m£rcy for the black
man, who sorely needed It. Under the
Arabs the town was a slave center,
where the poor creatures who were
caught In the course of one of Tlppoo
Tib’s “war walks” Into the interior
were brought to the Island carrying
Ivory, and prepared by various heavy
handed methods for service as slaves
on the Persian gulf or In the shambas
imrt warehouses of Zanzibar Irself. The
Arabs achieved the best negroes Imag
inable, whatever their methods may
have been, and when England ruined
Tippoo Tib by her slave regulations
Ivory took the place of slaves as a
trade staple, and dealers from hither
and yon brought their Ivory for sale
to the quaint Arab town, whose sani
tation was then a by-word of the Eugst.
The bodies of dead sltives were fre
quently put out on the beach by Arabs
too Inhuman to give them burial, and
animals who had died were disposed
of In the same fashion. Both water
was Informally evicted through harem
windows, and alb the wanton waste of
the cooking department' In large Arab
houses was banked up by the kitchen
doors. There, is a tendency to that
sort of thing still, but Zanzibar’s West
ern health officers have removed .Sir
Ulchard Burton's reproachfully apt
epithet of filth In ponuectlon with Zan
zibar town.
Cloves Are Its Salvation.
But the third and last phase of In
dustry In Zanzibar Ims been Its snlvu
tlon, and will keep It alive as a place
of Importance long after Mombasa
has caught up with und passed It as
the center for general trade and the
entrepot for ttie African hinterland.
This, last phase is clove cultivation,
and the history of the clove In Zanzi
bar Is a record of such pluck and fore
sight as may well teach n lesson to
the proud Saxon who considers his
race a monopolist of both qualifies.
In 1800 an Arab named Teljro bin
Isse came up from Mauritius with a
handful of cloves in his pocket and
200 plants to put Into his shainha. Ills
idea of agriculture was very unique,
and he only Intended to persevere In
clove culture If he could depend on a
crop nfter every neglect and affront
had been offered Ills trees. Their
beauty (cloves are a kind of myrtle
and exquisite In ’ appearance) excited
the Interest of Said Burgash, about to
become Zanzibar’s sultan, and he wrote
at once to the Moluccas to obtain the
finest plants which could be bought
for money.
Two Dutch ships brought them In
an unusually short time, and the sul
tan, the most remarkable man Zanzi
bar has ever produced or associated
with Its fortunes, sent out numbers of
his henchmen to compel laborers from
every side to get the plants Into the
soil immediately. lie had read up the
whole subject In a hook of French nu
thorshlp, which he had caused to be
written out In Arabic, and saw that
the enterprise had a great mercantile
future for Zanzibar, He knew that the
Island’s supremacy as a trade center
would pnss, and he hoped to make It,
with Pemba, the extremely fertile hut
rather uninteresting Island to Zanzi
bar’s north, paramount In the world of
spices.
In 1872 a cyclone blew over Zanzi
bar, which uprooted all the clove trees
and blew the coconuts flat to the
earth without breaking them. Many
clove trees were blown Into the sea;
many were broken off short. Within
a week after the storm Said Burgasb
was rounding up his laborers ngaln
and sending hither and yon for plants,
which he presented to the poorer
Arabs, who had seized on the Idea ol
a crop which could be sold to Euro
peans, and had put their all Into the
purchase of plants and slaves for tbeli
culture.
From that second planting comet
the great hulk of the world’s clovt
supply today.