Jack by Alphonse Daudet (web ebook reader txt) 📖

which, to a child who had been living in the warm boudoir of a pretty woman, was a very novel amusement.
One thing puzzled Jack: he had not yet seen his royal Highness. Where was the little king of Dahomey, of whom M. Moronval had spoken so warmly? Was he in the Infirmary? Ah! if he could only see him, talk with him, and make him his friend. He repeated to himself the names of the "eight children of the sun," but there was no prince among them. Then he thought he would ask the boy Said.
"Is not his royal Highness in the school at present?" he asked.
The young man looked at him with wide-opened eyes, in astonished silence. Jack's question remained unanswered, and the child's thoughts ran on as he lay in his bed, listening to occasional gusts of music that rang through the house from the lungs of Labassandre, and to the perpetual sound of the pumps in the stable.
Moronval's guests were gone, with a final bang of the large gate, and all was silent. Suddenly the dormitory door was thrown open, and the small black servant entered, with a lantern in his hand.
He shook off the snow that lay thick on his black head, and crept between the two rows of beds, with his head drawn down between his shoulders, and his teeth chattering.
Jack looked at the grotesque shadows on the wall, which exaggerated all the peculiarities of the black boy--the protruding mouth, the enormous ears, and retreating forehead.
The boy hung his lantern at the end of the dormitory and stood there warming his hands, which were covered with chilblains. His face, though dirty, was so honest and kindly, that Jack's heart warmed toward him. As he stood there the negro looked out into the garden. "Ah! the snow I the snow!" he murmured sadly.
His way of speaking, and the sweet voice, touched little Jack, who looked at the boy with lively pity and curiosity. The negro saw it, and said, half to himself, "Ah! the new pupil! Why don't you go to sleep, little boy?"
"I cannot," said Jack, sighing.
"It is good to sigh if you are sorry," said the negro, cententiously. "If the poor world could not sigh, the poor world would stifle!"
As he spoke, he threw a blanket on the bed next to Jack.
"Do you sleep there?" asked the child, astonished that a servant should occupy a bed in the dormitory of the pupils. "But there are no sheets!"
"Sheets are not good for me, my skin is too black." The negro laughed gently as he said these words, and prepared to glide into bed, half clothed as he was, when suddenly he stopped, drew from his breast an ivory smelling-bottle, and kissed it devoutly.
"What a funny medal!" cried Jack.
"It is not a medal," answered the negro; "it is my _Gri-qri_."
But Jack had no idea what a Gri-gri was, and the other explained that it was an amulet--something to bring him good luck. His Aunt Kerika had given it to him when he left his native land,--the aunt who had brought him up, and to whom he hoped to return at some future day.
"As I shall to my mamma," said little Barancy; and both children were silent, each thinking of the one he loved most on earth.
Jack returned to the charge in a few minutes. "And your country--is it a pretty place? Is it far off? and what is its name?"
"Dahomey," answered the negro.
Jack started up in bed.
"What! Do you know him? Did you come to this country with him?"
"Who?"
"Why, his royal Highness,--you know him,--the little king of Dahomey."
"I am he," said the negro, quietly.
The other looked at him in amazement. A king! this servant, whom he had seen at work all day making fires, sweeping the corridors, waiting on the table, and rinsing glasses!
The negro spoke the truth, nevertheless. The expression of his face grew very sad, and his eyes were fixed as if he were looking into the past, or toward some dear, lost land. Was it the magical word of king that led Jack to examine this black boy, seated on the edge of his bed, his white shirt open, while on his dark breast shone the ivory amulet, with new interest?
"How did all this happen?" asked the child, timidly.
The black boy turned quickly to extinguish the lantern. "M. Moronval not like it if Madou lets it burn." Then he pulled his couch close to that of Jack.
"You are not sleepy," he said; "and I never wish to sleep if I can talk of Dahomey. Listen!"
And in the darkness, where the whites only of his eyes could be seen, the little negro began his dismal tale.
He was called Madou,--the name of his father, an illustrious warrior, one of the most powerful sovereigns in the land of gold and ivory: to whom France, Holland, and England sent presents and envoys. His father had cannon, and soldiers, troops of elephants with trappings for war, musicians and priests, four regiments of Amazons, and two hundred wives. His palace was immense, and ornamented by spears on which hung human heads after a battle or a sacrifice. Madou was born in this palace. His Aunt Kerika, general-in-chief of the Amazons, took him with her in all her expeditions. How beautiful she was, this Kerika! tall and large as a man,--in a blue tunic; her naked arms and legs loaded with bracelets and anklets; her bow slung over her shoulder, and the tail of a horse streaming below her waist. Upon her head, in her woolly locks, she wore two small antelope horns joining in a half-moon; as if these black warriors had preserved among themselves the tradition of Diana the white huntress! And what an eye she had, what deftness of hand! Why, she could cut off the head of an Ashantee at a single blow. But, however terrible Kerika might have been on the battlefield, to her nephew Madou she was always very gentle, bestowing on him gifts of all kinds: necklaces of coral and of amber, and all the shells he desired,--shells being the money in that part of the world. She even gave him a small but gorgeous musket, presented to herself by the Queen of England, and which Kerika found too light for her own use. Madou always carried it when he went to the forests to hunt with his aunt.
There the trees were so close together, and the foliage so thick, that the sun never penetrated to these green temples. Then Madou described with enthusiasm the flowers and the fruits, the butterflies, and birds with wonderful plumage, and Jack listened in delight and astonishment. There were serpents, too, but they were harmless; and black monkeys leaped from tree to tree; and large mysterious lakes, that had never reflected the skies in their brown depths, lay here and there in the forests.
At this, Jack uttered an exclamation, "O, how beautiful it must be!"
"Yes, very beautiful," said the black boy, who undoubtedly exaggerated a little, and saw his dear native land through the prism of absence, of childish recollections, and with the enthusiasm of his southern nature; but encouraged by his comrade's sympathy, Madou continued his story.
At night the forests were very different; hunting-parties bivouacked in the jungles, building huge fires to drive away wild beasts, who were heard in the distance roaring horribly. The birds were aroused; and the bats, silent and black as shadows, attracted by the fire-light, hovered over and about it until daybreak, when they assembled on some gigantic tree, motionless, and pressed against each other, looking like some singular leaves, dry and dead.
In this open-air life the little prince grew strong and manly,--could wield a sabre and carry a gun at an age when children are usually tied to their mother's apron-string. The king was proud of his son, the heir to his throne. But, alas! it seemed that it was not enough, even for a negro prince, to know how to shoot an elephant through the eye; he must also learn to read books and writing, for, said the wise king to his son, "White man always has paper in his pocket to cheat black man with." Of course some European might have been found in Dahomey who could instruct the prince,--for French and English flags floated over the ships in the harbors. But the king had himself been sent by his father to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world; and he wished his son to receive a similar education.
How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kerika; he looked at his sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold dust stolen from the poor negroes.
Madou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of corn and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them, and be capable of defending them when necessary,--and Madou early learned that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures than the rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.
His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to the fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown open for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered there, and at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners of war were executed on the shore, and the executioner threw their heads into a great copper basin.
"Good gracious!" gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.
It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the actors in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval Academy rather than in that terrible land of Dahomey.
Madou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the ceremonies preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his arrival and life at Marseilles.
He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor, who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, "Not so much noise, if you please!" The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all new and very trying to Madou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but the walls were so high, the court-yard so narrow, that he could never find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He was never allowed to go out as were the other pupils, and for a very good reason. At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where he often saw merchandise from his own country, and sometimes went into ecstasies at some well-known mark.
The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their sails, all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.
Madou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,--one had brought him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C's, for his eyes saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time, but escaped again, and the second time was