King of Camargue Part 11

Arrived at Grand Patis, Renaud swam the Rhone three times, from Camargue to Ile Mouton, from Ile Mouton to Ile Saint-Pierre, and from Ile Saint-Pierre to the mainland.

He was now in the swamps of Crau, a stony desert adjoining Camargue, which is a desert of mud.

To the eye these two deserts seem to join hands across the Rhone. From Aigues-Mortes to the pond of Berre is a pretty stretch of flat country, my friends, and the sea-eagle, try as he may, cannot make it less than twenty good leagues in a straight line! And that is the kingdom of King Renaud.

Camargue has its saltwort, its grain and plantains and burdocks, growing in small clumps, with sandy intervals between; it has its _gapillons_, which are green rushes split into bouquets, with thousands of sharp points finer than needles; and here and there tamarisk-trees; and, on the banks of the two Rhones, great elms, so often cut and hacked to procure wood to burn, that they resemble huge caterpillars sitting erect upon their tails, their short hair bristling as if in anger.

Crau is a land of naked plains and heather. It is, to tell the truth, a veritable field of stones. They have come, people say, from Mont Blanc, all the stones that now lie sleeping there. The Rhone and the Durance have borne them down, then changed their beds, after having jousted together on the vast s.p.a.ce at the foot of the little Alps.

From beneath the stones of Crau, in May, there springs a rare, delicate plant, the _paturin_, or dog's tooth. The sheep push the stone away with their noses and browse upon the slender stalks while the shepherd stands and dreams in the wind and sun.

But this stony Crau is farther away, beyond the pond of Ligagnou, which skirts the river. Here, in the Crau that lies along the banks of the Rhone, we are in the midst of the marshes, which are dry during the greater part of the year; some of them, however, are very treacherous, and one should know them well.

Renaud rode in a northeasterly direction, and soon reached the neighborhood of the Icard farm.

He drew rein.

"Where is the hiding-place?" he muttered.

And he tried with all his eyes to pierce the thick underbrush of reeds, rushes, cat-tails, sedges, and bull-rushes, springing from the midst of a deep bog. This bog did not seem, to the eye, more formidable than another, but the bulls and mares feared it and carefully avoided it.

On the surface of the water was what looked like a thick crust of mouldy verdure. It was not, however, the leprous formation of duck-weed that lies sleeping on our stagnant ponds. It was a sort of felt-like substance, composed of dead rushes, roots, twined and twisted weeds, which made a solid but movable crust upon the water, swaying beneath the feet that ventured upon it, ready to bear their weight for a moment and ready to give way beneath them.

This crust (the _transtaere_) was broken with fissures here and there, through which the water could be seen, dark as night, its surface flecked with transient specks of light, gleaming like a mirror of black gla.s.s. Around the edges, at the foot of the scattered tamarisks, grew reeds innumerable in thick cl.u.s.ters, always rustling against one another, and incessantly brushed, with a noise like rustling paper, by the slender wings of the dragon-flies with their monster-like heads.

Many of these _caneous_ bear white flowers streaked with purple. As they rise above one another on the long stalks, you would take them for the flowers of a tall marsh-mallow. These reeds, with their long leaves, remind one of the _thyrsi_ of antiquity, left standing there in the damp earth by bacchantes who have gone to rest somewhere near at hand in the shade of the tamarisks, or to abandon themselves to the centaurs. They make one think, also, of the wand of the fable, which, when planted in the ground, was at once covered with flowers, and thereby had power over marriages.

These _thyrsi_ of the bog are reeds besieged by climbing plants. The convolvulus fastens itself to the reed, twines its arms about it, rises in a spiral course, seeks the sunlight at its summit, and robes the long murmuring stalk in brilliant and harmonious colors.

The sharp leaves of the young reeds stand erect like lance-heads. The older ones break off and fell at right angles. The delicate, graceful foliage of the tamarisks is like a transparent cloud, and their little pink flowers, hanging in cl.u.s.ters that are too heavy for the branches, especially before they open, cause the flexible plumes of the gracefully rounded tree-top to bend in every direction.

Through the reeds and tamarisks Renaud sought to discover the hut that he knew, and that Audiffret had spoken of to him the night before. But he could hardly distinguish the little inclined cross placed at the highest point of the roof of all the Camargue cabins, which are built of joists, boards, grayish mud (_tape_), and straw. The cabin was formerly entirely visible from the spot where he stood, but the reeds had grown so thickly on the islet on which it was built, that they completely hid it. The path leading to it was on the opposite side of the bog. He must make a wide detour in order to reach it, the bog _de la Cabane_, so called, being of a very erratic shape.

From the south side of the cabin he went around to the north side. He no longer had the _transtaere_ in front of him; but beneath the surface of the water, where reeds and thorn-broom flourish, was the _gargate_, the slime, wherein he who steps foot is quickly buried.

There are many other dangers in these accursed bogs. There are the _lorons_, a sort of bottomless well found here and there under the water, the location of which must be thoroughly understood. The mares and heifers know them and are clever in avoiding them, but now and then one of them falls in, and now and then a man as well. And he who falls in remains. No time for argument, my man! You are in--adieu!

The drovers will tell you, and it is the truth, that from every _loron_ comes a little twisting column of smoke, by which those mouths of h.e.l.l can be located. A hundred _lorons_, a hundred columns of smoke. There, my friends, is something to dream about, is it not, when the malignant fever, bred in the swamps, smites you on the hip?

Renaud was anxious to know if Rampal was occupying the cabin, but not to attack him there, for it is a treacherous spot. "If he is there, he will come out some time or other. I will wait for him on the solid ground. Ah! I see the path!"

It was a winding path hiding under a sheet of shallow water. The bed of the path was of stones, very narrow but very firm, the right edge being marked, as far as the cabin, by stakes at short intervals, just on a level with the water.

Renaud dismounted, and looked for the first stake, holding his horse by the rein. Although he knew its location, it took him some time to find it. With the end of his spear he put aside the gra.s.s, and when he discovered the stake, he felt for the solid road whose width it measured. Bending over, he gazed long and very closely at the gra.s.ses and the reeds, which met in places above the concealed pathway, and when he rose he was certain that it had not been used for some time.

He was not mistaken. In truth, Rampal was a little suspicious of that hiding-place, which was too well known, he thought, and to which he could easily be traced. He often slept in the neighborhood, ready to take refuge in the _cul-de-sac_, if it should become necessary, but he preferred, meanwhile, to feel at liberty, with plenty of open s.p.a.ce about him.

Renaud remounted Prince, and crossed the Rhone again an hour later.

That night he lay in one of the great cabins which serve as stables--winter _ja.s.ses_--for the droves of mares, in those months when the weather is so bad that the bulls can find no pasturage except by breaking the ice with their horns.

The next day, an hour before noon, he saw before him the church of Saintes-Maries standing out like a lofty ship against the blue background of the sea.

Little black curlews were flying hither and thither around it, mingled with a flock of great sea-gulls with gracefully rounded wings.

A cart was moving slowly over the sandy road.

"Good-day, Renaud."

"Good-day, Marius. Where are you going?"

"To carry fish to Arles."

Marius raised the branches which apparently made up his load, but which were simply used to shade a dozen or more baskets and hampers.

Well pleased with his freight, he put aside the cloth that was spread over his treasure under the branches. Baskets and hampers were filled to the brim with fish taken in the ponds and the sea. There were mullet and bream, still alive, animated prisms with mouths and gills wide open like bright red marine flowers amid a ma.s.s of dark-blue, olive-green, and gleaming gold. There were enormous eels, too, caught for the most part in the ca.n.a.ls of Camargue, which are veritable fish-preserves.

The dark-hued, slippery creatures twisted in and out, tying and untying endless slip-knots with their snake-like bodies. By the livid spots upon some of the great eels, Renaud recognized them as _muraenae_, possessors of voracious mouths, well stocked with sharp teeth.

"See how they all keep moving!" said Marius.

At that moment, as if to justify his words, a great flat fish flapped out of one of the baskets and fell to the ground.

With the end of his three-p.r.o.nged spear the mounted drover nailed him to the earth to prevent his leaping into the ditch, filled with water, that ran along the road.

"Hallo!" said he in surprise, "isn't that a cramp-fish. When I spear one of them with my regular fish-spear, which is longer than this three-p.r.o.nged one, it gives me a shock I didn't feel at all to-day."

"That's because the fish is in the water then, and your spear is damp," said Marius, laughing. "But let the fellow stay there," he added. "He isn't worth much. The snakes will have a feast on him."

Thereupon, horseman and fisherman went their respective ways.

The drover's thoughts wandered from the cramp-fish and the _muraenae_ to the electric fish of America, of which old sailors had spoken to him.

They had told him that it was charged with electricity like the cramp-fish, but resembled the conger more in shape, and that it could, with its overpowering current, kill a horse; in order to make it exhaust its stock of electricity, so that it can safely be taken, it is customary to send wild horses into the water against it; they receive the first shock, and sometimes die from the effects.

As he rode on toward Saintes-Maries, Renaud mused in a vague way upon the miracles of life, which there is naught to explain.

XII

A SORCERESS

Livette did not go to sleep. When Renaud had pa.s.sed out of sight in the darkness, she softly closed her windows, and, throwing herself on the bed with her face buried in the pillow, wept in dismay.

Meanwhile,--while Livette was weeping and Renaud, bewitched, was galloping over the moor, fancying that he was pursued by the gipsy,--the gipsy herself was asleep.

The two beings whose lives she was beginning to destroy were already suffering a thousand deaths, and she, lying, fully dressed, under one of the carts of her tribe, in their regularly pitched camp outside the village, was sleeping tranquilly, her pretty, puzzling face smiling at the stars of that lovely May night.

When Renaud left her, at sunset, all naked on the beach, she had slowly stretched her sun-burned arms, taking pleasure in the sense of being naked in the open air, of feeling the caressing breath of the sea-breeze that dried the great drops of water rolling down her body.