I said, at the end of the last chapter, that my friends bade adieu on the quay of Brest to an “emancipated slaver;” for slaver I was determined to continue, notwithstanding the capture of my vessel, and the tedious incarceration of my body. Had the seizure and sentence been justly inflicted for a violation of local or international law, I might, perhaps, have become penitent for early sins, during the long hours of reflection afforded me in the chateau. But, with all the fervor of an ardent and thwarted nature, I was much more disposed to rebel and revenge myself when opportunity occurred, than to confess my sins with a lowly and obedient heart. Indeed, most of my time in prison had been spent in cursing the court and king, or in reflecting how I should get back to Africa in the speediest manner, if I was ever lucky enough to elude the grasp of the model monarch.

The vessel that bore me into perpetual banishment from France, was bound to Lisbon; but, delaying in Portugal only long enough to procure a new passport, under an assumed name, I spat upon Louis Philippe’s “eternal exile,” and took shipping for his loyal port of Marseilles! Here I found two vessels fitting for the coast of Africa; but, in consequence of the frightful prevalence of cholera, all mercantile adventures were temporarily suspended. In fact, such was the panic, that no one dreamed of despatching the vessel in which I was promised a passage, until the pestilence subsided. Till this occurred, as my means were of the scantiest character, I took lodgings in an humble hotel.

The dreadful malady was then apparently at its height, and nearly all the hotels were deserted, for most of the regular inhabitants had fled; while the city was unfrequented by strangers except under pressing duty. It is altogether probable that the lodging-houses and hotels would have been closed entirely, so slight was their patronage, had not the prefect issued an order, depriving of their licenses, for the space of two years, all who shut their doors on strangers. Accordingly, even when the scourge swept many hundred victims daily to their graves, every hotel, cafÉ, grocery, butcher shop, and bakery, was regularly opened in Marseilles; so that a dread of famine was not added to the fear of cholera.

Of course, the lowly establishment where I dwelt was not thronged at this epoch; most of its inmates or frequenters had departed for the country before my arrival, and I found the house tenanted alone by three boarders and a surly landlord, who cursed the authorities for their compulsory edict. My reception, therefore, was by no means cordial. I was told that the proclamation had not prevented the cook from departing; and that I must be content with whatever the master of the house could toss up for my fare.

A sailor—especially one fresh from the chateau of Brest,—is not apt to be over nice in the article of cookery, and I readily accompanied my knight of the rueful countenance to his table d’hÔte, which I found to be a long oval board, three fourths bare of cloth and guests, while five human visages clustered around its end.

I took my seat opposite a trim dashing brunette, with the brightest eyes and rosiest cheeks imaginable. Her face was so healthily refreshing in the midst of malady and death, that I altogether forgot the cholera under the charm of her ardent gaze. Next me sat a comical sort of fellow, who did not delay in scraping an acquaintance, and jocularly insisted on introducing all the company.

“It’s a case of emergency,” said the droll, “we have no time to lose or to stand on the ceremony of fashionable etiquette. Here to-day, gone to-morrow—is the motto of Marseilles! Hola! Messieurs, shall we not make the most of new acquaintances when they may be so brief?”

I thanked him for his hospitality. I had so little to lose in this world, either of property or friends, that I feared the cholera quite as slightly as any of the company. “A thousand thanks,” said I, “Monsieur, for your politeness; I’ll bury you to-morrow, if it is the cholera’s pleasure, with ten times more pleasure now that I have had the honor of an introduction. A fashionable man hardly cares to be civil to a stranger—even if he happens to be a corpse!”

There was so hearty a cheer at this sally, that, in spite of the shallow soundings of my purse, I called for a fresh bottle, and pledged the party in a bumper all round.

“And now,” continued my neighbor, “as it may be necessary for some one of us to write your epitaph in a day or two, or, at least, to send a message of condolence and sympathy to your friends; pray let us know a bit of your history, and what the devil brings you to Marseilles when the cholera thermometer is up to 1000 degrees per diem?”

Very few words were necessary to impart such a name and tale as I chose to invent for the company’s edification. “Santiago Ximenes,” and my tawny skin betokened my nationality and profession, while my threadbare garments spoke louder than words that I was at suit with Fortune.

Presently, after a lull in the chat, a dapper little prig of a dandy, who sat on my left, volunteered to inform me that he was no less a personage than le Docteur Du Jean, a medical practitioner fresh from Metropolitan hospitals, who, in a spirit of the loftiest philanthropy, visited this provincial town at his own expense to succor the poor.

“C’est une belle dame, notre vis À vis, n’est elle pas mon cher?” said he pointing to our patron saint opposite.

I admitted without argument that she was the most charming woman I ever saw out of Cuba.

“C’est ma chÈre amie,” whispered he confidentially in my ear, strongly emphasizing the word “friend” and nodding very knowingly towards the lady herself. “At the present moment the dear little creature is exclusively under my charge and protection, for she is en route to join her husband, a captain in the army at Algiers; but, alas! grÂce À Dieu, there’s no chance of a transport so long as this cursed pestilence blockades Marseilles! Do you know the man on your right?—No! Bien! that’s the celebrated S——, the oratorical advocate about whom the papers rang when Louis Philippe began his assault on the press. He’s on his way to Algiers too, and will be more successful in liberalizing the Arabs than the French. That old chap over yonder with the snuffy nose, the snuffy wig, and snuffy coat, is a grand speculator in horses, on his way to the richest cavalry corps of the army; and, as for our maÎtre d’hotel at the head of this segment, pauvre diable, you see what he is without a revelation. The pestilence has nearly used him up. He sits half the day in his bureau on the stairs looking for guests who never come, reading the record which adds no name, cursing the cholera, counting a penitential ave and pater on his rosary, and flying from the despair of silence and desertion to his pans to stew our wretched fare. Voila mon cher, la carte de la table! le Cholera et ses Convives!”

If there is a creature I detest in the world it is a flippant, intrusive, voluntary youth who thrusts his conversation and affairs upon strangers, and makes bold to monopolize their time with his unasked confidence. Such persons are always silly and vulgar pretenders; and before Doctor Du Jean got through his description of the lady, I had already classified him among my particular aversions.

When the doctor nodded so patronizingly to the dame, and spoke of his friendly protectorate, I thought I saw that the quick-witted woman not only comprehended his intimation, but denied it by the sudden glance she gave me from beneath her thin and arching eyebrows. So, when dinner was over, without saying a word to the doctor, I made a slight inclination of the head to Madame Duprez, and rising before the other guests, passed to her side and tendered my arm for a promenade on the balcony. “Mon docteur,” said I as we left the room, “life, you know, is too short and precarious to suffer a monopoly of such blessings,”—looking intently into the lady’s eyes,—“besides which, we sailors, in defiance of you landsmen, go in for the most ‘perfect freedom of the seas.’”

Madame Duprez declared I was entirely right; that I was no pirate.—“Mais, mon capitaine,” said the fair one, as she leaned with a fond pressure on my arm, “I’d have no objection if you were, so that you’d capture me from that frightful gallipot! Besides, you sailors are always so gallant towards the ladies, and tell us such delightful stories, and bring us such charming presents when you come home, and love us so much while you’re in port, because you see so few when you are away! Now isn’t that a delightful catalogue raisonnÉ of arguments why women should love les mÂtelots?”

“Pity then, madame,” said I, “that you married a soldier.”

“Ah!” returned the ready dame, “I didn’t;—that was my mother’s match. In France, you know, the old folks marry us; but we take the liberty to love whomsoever we please!”

“But, what of Monsieur le capitaine, in the present instance?” interrupted I inquiringly.

“Ah! fi donc!” said Madame, “what bad taste to speak of an absent, husband when you have the liberty to talk with a present wife!”

In fact, the lovely Helen of this tavern-Troy was the dearest of coquettes, whose fence of tongue was as beautiful a game of thrust and parry as I ever saw played with Parisian foils. Du Jean had been horribly mortified by the contemptuous manner in which the threadbare Spaniard bore off his imaginary prize; and would probably have assailed me on the spot, before he knew my temper or quality, had not the lawyer drawn him aside on a plea of medical advice and given his inflamed honor time to cool.

But the wit of Madame Duprez was not so satisfied by a single specimen of our mutual folly, as to allow the surgeon to resume the undisputed post of cavaliere serviente which he occupied before my arrival. It was her delight to see us at loggerheads for her favor, and though we were both aware of her arrant coquetry, neither had moral courage enough, in that dismal time, to desist from offering the most servile courtesies. We mined and counter-mined, marched and counter-marched, deceived and re-deceived, for several days, without material advantage to either, till, at last, the affair ended in a battle.

The prefecture’s bulletin announced at dinner-time twelve hundred deaths! but, in spite of the horror, or perhaps to drown its memory, our undiminished party called for several more bottles, and became uproariously gay.

The conversation took a physiological turn; and gradually the modern science of phrenology, which was just then becoming fashionable, came on the carpet. Doctor Du Jean professed familiarity with its mysteries. Spurzheim, he said, had been his professor in Paris. He could read our characters on our skulls as if they were written in a book. Powers, passions, propensities, and even thoughts, could not be hidden from him;—and, “who dared try his skill?”

“C’est moi!” said Madame Duprez, as she drew her chair to the centre of the room, and accepting the challenge, cast loose her beautiful hair, which fell in a raven torrent over snowy neck and shoulders, heightening tenfold every charm of face and figure.

Du Jean was nothing loth to commence his tender manipulation of the charming head, whose wicked mouth and teasing eyes shot glances of defiance at me. Several organs were disclosed and explained to the company; but then came others which he ventured to whisper in her ears alone, and, as he did so, I noticed that his mouth was pressed rather deeper than I thought needful among the folds of her heavy locks. I took the liberty to hint rather jestingly that the doctor “cut quite too deep with his lips;” but the coquette at once saw my annoyance, and persisted with malicious delight in making Du Jean whisper—heaven knows what—in her ear. In fact, she insisted that some of the organs should be repeated to her three or four times over, while, at each rehearsal, the doctor grew bolder in his dives among the curls, and the lady louder and redder in her merriment.

At last, propriety required that the scene should be closed, and no one knew better than this arch coquette the precise limit of decency’s bounds. Next came the lawyer’s cranium; then followed the horse-jockey and tavern-keeper; and finally, it was my turn to take the stool.

I made every objection I could think of against submitting to inspection, for I was sure the surgeon had wit enough not to lose so good a chance of quizzing or ridiculing me; but a whispered word from Madame forced an assent, with the stipulation that Du Jean should allow me to examine his skull afterwards, pretending that if he had studied with Spurzheim, I had learned the science from Gall.

The doctor accepted the terms and began his lecture. First of all my Jealousy was enormous, and only equalled by my Conceit and Envy. I was altogether destitute of Love, Friendship, or the Moral sentiments. I was an immoderate wine-bibber; extremely avaricious; passionate, revengeful, and blood-thirsty; in fine, I was a monstrous conglomerate of every thing devilish and dreadful. The first two or three essays of the doctor amused the company and brought down a round of laughter; but as he grew coarser and coarser, I saw the increasing disgust of our comrades by their silence, though I preserved my temper most admirably till he was done. Then I rose slowly from the seat, and pointing the doctor silently to the vacant chair,—for I could not speak with rage,—I took my stand immediately in front of him, gazing intently into his eyes. The company gathered eagerly round, expecting I would retaliate wittily, or pay him back in his coin of abuse.

After a minute’s pause I regained my power of speech, and inquired whether the phrenologist was ready. He replied affirmatively; whereupon my right hand discovered the bump of impudence with a tremendous slap on his left cheek, while my left hand detected the organ of blackguardism with equal prominence on his right!

It was natural that this new mode of scientific investigation was as novel and surprising as it was disagreeable to poor Du Jean; for, in an instant, we were exchanging blows with intense zeal, and would probably have borrowed a couple of graves from the cholera, had not the boarders interfered. All hands, however, were unanimous in my favor, asserting that Du Jean had provoked me beyond endurance; and, as la belle Duprez joined heartily in the verdict, the doctor gave up the contest, and, ever after, “cut” the lady.