The Conqueror

X

Alexan­der rode back to Chris­tianstadt two days lat­er, and again and again he drew a hard breath and closed his eyes. It was a sight to move any man, and the sus­cep­ti­ble and ten­der na­ture of young Hamil­ton bled for the tragedy of St. Croix. There was not a land­mark, not a cane-​field, to re­mind him that it was the beau­ti­ful Is­land on which he had spent the most of his re­mem­ber­ing years. Al­though all of the Great Hous­es were stand­ing, their mien and man­ner were so al­tered by the dis­ap­pear­ance of their trees and out­build­ings, and by the sur­round­ing pulpy flats in place of the rip­pling acres of young cane, that they were un­rec­og­niz­able. Here and there were mass­es of de­bris, walls and thatched roofs swept far from the vil­lage foun­da­tions; but as a rule there was but a board here or a bunch of dried leaves there, a bat­tered uten­sil or a stool, to re­ward the wretched Africans who wan­dered about search­ing for the few things they had pos­sessed be­fore the storm. They looked hope­less and dull, as if their fac­ul­ties had been stunned by the pro­longed in­ces­sant noise of the hur­ri­cane.

Alexan­der was rid­ing down what a week ago had been the most cel­ebrat­ed av­enue in the An­tilles. Where there were trees at all, they were head­less, the long gray twist­ed trunks as re­pul­sive as they had once been beau­ti­ful The road was lit­tered with many of the fall­en; but oth­ers were far away in what had been the cane-​fields, ser­pents and lizards sun­ning them­selves on the dead roots. Even stone walls were down, and un­der them, some­times, were men. Mills were in ru­ins; for no one had re­mained to keep bars in their sta­ples. Tanks of last year's rum and trea­cle had been flung through the walls, and their odours min­gled with the stench of de­com­pos­ing men and cat­tle. The hor­rid rat­tle of the land-​crab was al­most the on­ly sound in that des­olate land. “The Gar­den of the An­tilles” looked like a pu­trid swamp, and she had not a beau­ty on her.

Alexan­der turned at a cross-​road in­to a path which led through the Grange es­tate to the pri­vate bury­ing-​ground of the Lyt­tons. These few mo­ments taxed his courage more heav­ily than the ride with the hur­ri­cane had done, and more than once he opened his clenched teeth and half turned his horse's head. But he went on, and be­fore long he had climbed to the end of his jour­ney. The west wall of the lit­tle ceme­tery had been blown out, and the roof of old James Lyt­ton's tomb lay with its de­bris. A tree, which ev­ident­ly had been torn from the earth and flung from a dis­tance, lay half in and half out of the en­clo­sure. But his moth­er's head­stone, which stood against the north wall, was undis­turbed, al­though the mound above her was flat and sod­den. The earth had been strong enough to hold her. Alexan­der re­mem­bered its aw­ful air of fi­nal­ity as it opened to re­ceive her, then closed over her. What he had feared was that the bury­ing-​ground, which stood on the crest of a hill, would have been up­root­ed and scat­tered over the cane-​fields.

He rode on to Chris­tianstadt. There the ev­idences of the hur­ri­cane were less ap­palling, for the hous­es, stand­ing close to­geth­er, had pro­tect­ed each oth­er, and on­ly two were un­roofed; but ev­ery­where the trees looked like twist­ed poles, the streets and gar­dens were full of rub­bish, and down by the bay the shore was strewn with the wreck­age of ships; the Park be­hind the Fort was thick with de­cay­ing fish, which the blacks were but just now sweep­ing out to the wa­ter.

Af­ter Alexan­der had as­cer­tained that Mr. Mitchell's house was quite un­harmed, al­though a neigh­bour had lost half a roof and been del­uged in con­se­quence, he walked out Com­pa­ny Street to see how it had fared with Hugh Knox. That wor­thy gen­tle­man was treat­ing his bat­tered nerves with weak whiskey and wa­ter when he caught sight of Alexan­der through the li­brary win­dow. He gave a shout that drew an ex­as­per­at­ed groan through the ceil­ing, flung open the door, and clasped his beloved pupil in his arms.

“I knew you were safe, be­cause you are you, al­though I've been afraid to ask if you were dead or alive. Cruger sent out three oth­ers to warn the planters, and they've all been brought home, one dead, one maimed, one with chills and fever and as mad as a March hare. Good God! what a vis­ita­tion! I'd rather have been on a mov­ing bog in Ire­land. You wouldn't have rid­den out in that hur­ri­cane if I'd got you, not if I'd been forced to tie you up. Fan­cy your be­ing here alive, and not even a cold in your head! But you've a grand des­tiny to work out, and the hur­ri­cane--which I be­lieve was the Almighty in a tem­per--knew what it was about. Now tell me your ex­pe­ri­ence. I'm pant­ing to tell you mine. I've not had a soul to talk to since the hour it start­ed. The Mis­sis be­haved like a Tro­jan while it last­ed, then went to bed, and hasn't spo­ken to me since; and as for ev­ery­one else in Chris­tianstadt--well, they've re­tired to calm their nerves in the on­ly way,--prayer first and whiskey af­ter.”

Alexan­der took pos­ses­sion of his own easy-​chair and looked grate­ful­ly around the room. The storm had not dis­turbed it, nei­ther had a wench's duster. Since his moth­er's death he had loved this room with a more grate­ful af­fec­tion than any mor­tal had in­spired, well as he loved his aunt, Hugh Knox, and Ned­dy. But the room did not talk, and the men who had writ­ten the great books which made him in­dif­fer­ent to his is­land prison for days and weeks at a time, were dead, and their self­ish­ness was buried with them.

Mean­while Knox, for­get­ting his de­sire to hear the ex­pe­ri­ence of his guest, was telling his own. It was suf­fi­cient­ly thrilling, but not to be com­pared with that of the planter's; and when he had fin­ished, Alexan­der be­gan with some pride to re­late his im­pres­sions of the storm. He, too, had not talked for three days; his heart felt warm again; and in the fa­mil­iar com­fort­able room, the ter­ri­ble pic­ture of the hur­ri­cane seemed to spring sharp and vivid from his mem­ory; he had re­called it con­fus­ed­ly hith­er­to, and made no ef­fort to live it again. Knox leaned for­ward ea­ger­ly, drop­ping his pipe; Alexan­der talked rapid­ly and bril­liant­ly, fi­nal­ly spring­ing to his feet, and con­clud­ing with an out­burst so elo­quent that his au­di­ence cow­ered and cov­ered his face with his hands. For some mo­ments Knox sat think­ing, then he rose and pushed a small ta­ble in front of Alexan­der, lit­ter­ing it with pen­cils and pa­per, in his un­tidy fash­ion.

“My boy,” he said, “you're still hot with your own elo­quence. Be­fore you cool off, I want you to write that down word for word as you told it to me. If it twist­ed my very vi­tals, it will give a sim­ilar plea­sure to oth­ers. 'Twould be self­ish to de­ny them. When it's done, I'll send it to Tiebout. Now I'll leave you, and if my nig­gers are still too de­mor­al­ized to cook sup­per for you, I'll do it my­self.”

Alexan­der, whose brain, in truth, felt on fire, for ev­ery nerve had leapt to the recre­at­ing of that mag­nif­icent Force that had gath­ered an is­land in­to the hol­low of its hand, crushed, and cast it back to the wa­ters, dashed at the pa­per and wrote with even more splen­dour than he had spo­ken. When he had fin­ished, he was still so ex­cit­ed that he rushed from the house and walked till the hideous sights and smells drove him home. He was quiv­er­ing with the ec­sta­sy of birth, and longed for an­oth­er theme, and hours and days of hot cre­ation. But he was to be spared the curse of the “artis­tic tem­per­ament.”