BY NATHAN C. KOUNS
My first knowledge of the singular being called “Du Chien, the Man-Dog,” began when we were on duty down in the Peché country, a short time after General Taylor’s celebrated “Run on the Banks,” in the vicinity of Mansfield. The cavalry had really very little to do except “to feed,” and await orders. As a result of this idleness many of the officers and men formed pleasant acquaintances with the hospitable planters in whose neighborhood we were located.
One of the planters whom I found to be most congenial was Captain Martas, a French creole, whose father had come from Languedoc. He was himself native-born. He was a man of forty-eight or fifty years of age, and had two sons by his first marriage, who were in the army of Virginia, and a boy two years of age, by his second wife, who was a young and beautiful lady. The housekeeper was a mulatto girl, who was in every physical development almost a perfect being—even her small hands looking like consummate wax-work. She had been taught, petted, and indulged as much, perhaps, or more than any slave should have been, especially by Captain Martas, who uniformly spoke to her more in the tone of a father addressing his daughter, than in that of a master commanding a slave. She was always gentle and obedient. The family seemed to prize her very greatly, and the little boy especially preferred her to his own beautiful mother. I suppose it would be hard for the later generation, who remember little or nothing of the “domestic institution,” to understand how such a pleasant and beautiful confidence and friendship could exist between a slave and her owners, but it was no uncommon thing in the South before the war.
The family was so attractive that I visited it often; but one evening, on my arrival at the house, I found that its peace and quiet had been disturbed by one of those painful occurrences which so often marred the happiness of Southern families, and which really constituted the curse of “the peculiar institution.”
The day before, the beautiful and accomplished wife of Captain Martas had, for some unexplained reason, got into a frenzy of rage with Celia, the mulattress, and had ordered the overseer to give her a severe whipping. The girl had run off into the Black Swamp during the night, and Captain Martas, who imparted this information to me, was in a state of terrible distress by reason of her absence. He did not seem to understand the cause of the trouble, but he could not justify his slave without condemning his wife, whom he seemed to regard with a most tender and dutiful devotion. The only emotion which seemed to master him was a heart-breaking and hopeless grief. I volunteered to hunt for the runaway, and while asking for such information as I thought to be necessary about the neighboring plantations, and of the almost boundless and impracticable wilderness known as the Black Swamp, I saw Celia slowly and quietly coming up the broad walk which led from the portico to the big gate.
She carried in her hand a branch of the magnolia tree, from which depended a splendid blossom of that most glorious of all flowers. She bowed slightly as she came near the portico, and, passing around the corner of the house, entered it by a side door. Mrs. Martas was most passionately devoted to the magnolia, and, from her exclamations of delight, which were soon heard in the hall, we knew that Celia had brought the beautiful flower as a peace-offering to her mistress, and that it had been accepted as such. Very soon the two women came nearer, and from our seats on the veranda we could hear their conversation. A terrible weight seemed to have been lifted from the heart of Captain Martas by the girl’s return, and by the apparent renewal of friendly relations between his beautiful wife and his even more beautiful slave—a relief which showed itself in his face and form, but not in his speech.
“Yes,” said Celia to Mrs. Martas, “it is an old, wide-spreading tree on the very edge of the water, and is glorious with just such splendid blossoms as these. There must be more than three hundred clusters, some that I could not reach being much larger and finer than this one.”
“And you say,” answered Mrs. Martas, “that the air is still, and that the perfume broods all around the tree? Oh, how sweet!”
“Yes,” said Celia, “it is so strong that you can taste as well as smell the wonderful perfume. Few people could bear to stand immediately beneath the shade; it is so sweet as to be almost overpowering.”
“Oh, how I wish I could see it! How far is it, Celia?”
“Only four miles. You can go. It is deep in the swamp: but the pony can follow the ridge all the way. You can go, and get home before dusk. I would like you to see it before a rain makes the road too bad, or the winds come and scatter the delicious perfume that now hangs as heavy as dew all around the glorious tree for yards and yards away.”
“I will go,” she cried. “Tell Toby to bring out Selim, and you can take a horse. Let us go at once. It is getting late.”
“I would rather walk,” said Celia, “so as to be sure that I will not miss the route in going back, although I watched so carefully that I know I can find it on foot.”
Very soon a boy led up Mrs. Martas’s pony, and she went out to the steps and mounted, followed by Celia on foot. The girl held the stirrup for her mistress, and as she did so looked back at Captain Martas with eyes in which shone strange love, pity, and tenderness; but the voice of her mistress called her away, and, even in turning her black and lustrous eyes toward Captain Martas, their expression totally changed, and showed for a fleeting instant the murderous glitter that gleamed from the eyes of a panther when ready for a fatal spring.
I was startled and troubled, and half moved forward to tell the lady not to go; but a moment’s reflection showed me how foolish such an unnecessary and silly interference would seem. A strange mistrust flitted across my mind, but there was nothing on which to base it. I could not give a reason for it, except to say that I had seen the light of a gladiator’s eye, the twitch and spasm of an assassin’s lip, in the eye and mouth of that now smiling and dutiful young slave girl. The thing was too foolish to think of, and I held my peace.
The women passed out of the gate, and went on quietly in the direction of the Black Swamp. Martas and I resumed our conversation. Hour after hour passed away, and the sun grew large and low in the West; still Mrs. Martas did not return. The sun was setting—set; but she had not come. Then Captain Martas called Toby and had him ride to the edge of the wood and see if he could learn anything of his mistress; but Toby soon came back, saying that he saw nothing except the pony’s tracks leading into the swamp, and the pony himself leisurely coming home without a rider. Then Captain Martas mounted, and I followed him. He took the plantation conch-shell, and we rode on into the dark forest as long as we could trace any footsteps of the pony, or find any open way, and again and again Captain Martas blew resonant blasts upon his shell that rolled far away over the swamp, seeking to apprise his wife that we were there, and waiting for her; but nothing came of it.
“They could hear the shell,” he said, “upon a still night like this three or four miles,” and it seemed to him impossible that they could have gone beyond the reach of the sound. But no answer came, and the moonless night came down over the great Black Swamp, and the darkness grew almost visible, so thoroughly did it shut off all vision like a vast black wall.
Then Martas sent Toby back to the plantation for fire and blankets, and more men, and soon a roaring blaze mounted skyward, and every few minutes the conch-shell was blown. Nothing more could be done. I remained with the now sorely troubled husband through the night. At the first peep of dawn he had breakfast brought from the plantation, and as soon as it became light enough to see in the great forest, we searched for and found the pony’s track, and we carefully followed the traces left in the soft soil. The chase led, with marvelous turns and twists, right along the little ridge of firmer land which led irregularly on between the boundless morasses stretched on either side, trending now this way, now that, but always penetrating deeper and deeper into the almost unknown bosom of the swamp. The pony had followed his own trail in coming out of the swamp, and this made it easier for us to trace his way. At last we came to the dark, sluggish, sullen water. It was a point of solid ground, of less than an acre in extent, a foot or two above the water, almost circular in outline, and nearly surrounded by the lagoon. It was comparatively clear of timber, and near the centre rose a grand magnolia tree, such as Celia had described to Mrs. Martas on the evening before. At the root of this tree, bathed with the rich, overpowering perfume of the wonderful bloom above her, lay the dead body of the beautiful woman, her clothes disordered, her hair disheveled, a coarse, dirty handkerchief stuffed into her mouth, and all the surroundings giving evidence of a despairing struggle and a desperate crime. Captain Martas was overcome with anguish, and after one agonized look around, as if to assure himself that Celia was not also somewhere in sight, he sat down beside the body and gazed upon his murdered wife in silent, helpless agony of spirit.
I desired all the men to remain where they were, except Toby, whom I ordered to follow me; and then, beginning at the little ridge of land between the waters by which we had reached the circular space before described, we followed the edge of the ground completely round to the starting point, seeking in the soft mud along the shore for a footprint, or the mark made by a canoe or skiff, for some evidence of the route by which the murderer had reached the little peninsula, or by which Celia had left it.
We found perfect tracks of all animal life existing in the swamps, even to the minute lines left by the feet of the smallest birds, but no trace of a human foot, although a snail could not have passed into or out of the water without leaving his mark upon the yielding mud, much less a footstep or a canoe.
The thing was inexplicable. Where was Celia? How had she gone without leaving a trace of her departure? Had she been there at all? Who had murdered Mrs. Martas? Surely some man or devil had perpetrated that crime. How had the villain escaped from the scene of his crime, leaving not the slightest clew by which it was possible to tell which way he had gone?
I reported to Captain Martas the exact condition of the affair, and told him I knew not what to do, unless we could get bloodhounds and put them on the trail. He said there were no hounds within sixty miles; that all of the planters he knew preferred to lose a runaway rather than to follow them with the dogs. Rumors of the loss of Mrs. Martas had spread from plantation to camp, and two or three soldiers had immediately ridden out to the plantation, and then had followed us to the scene of the crime. One of them said: “If there are no hounds, send to camp for old Du Chien. He is better than any dog.”
The remark was so singular that I asked: “What do you mean by saying ‘He is better than any dog’?”
“I mean that he can follow the trail by the scent better than any hound I ever saw, and I have seen hundreds of them.”
“Is that a mere camp story,” said I, “or do you know it of your own knowledge?”
“I know it myself, sir,” said the soldier. “I have seen him smell a man or his clothes, and then go blindfold into a whole regiment and pick out that man by his scent. I have seen him pull a lock of wool off a sheep, smell it good, and then go blindfold into the pen and pick out that identical sheep from fifty others. I have known him to smell the blanket a nigger slept in, and follow that darky four or five miles by the scent of him through cotton, corn, and woods. He is better than a dog.”
The man looked to be honest and intelligent; and while I could hardly credit such an astounding and abnormal development of the nasal power in a human being, there was nothing else to do; so I told him to take my horse and his own, ride as quickly as possible to camp, and bring old Du Chien with him.
Then we made a litter, and slowly and reverently we bore the corpse of the murdered lady along the difficult road until we reached a point to which it was possible to bring a carriage, in which we placed her in charge of the horrified neighbors, who had by this time collected at the plantation.
Captain Martas insisted on remaining with me and awaiting the coming of Du Chien.
More than two hours elapsed before the soldier whom I had sent for Du Chien, the Man-Dog, returned with that strange creature. He surely deserved his name. He must have been six feet high, but was so lank, loose, flabby, and jumbled-up that it was hard to even guess at his stature. His legs were long and lank, and his hands hung down to his knees. A bristly shock of red hair grew nearly down to his eyebrows, and his head slanted back to a point, sugar-loaf fashion. His chin seemed to have slid back into his lank, flabby neck, and his face looked as if it stopped at the round, red, slobbering mouth. His nose was not remarkably large, but the sloping away of all the facial lines from it, as from a central point, gave his nasal organ an expression of peculiar prominence and significance. When he walked, every bone and muscle about him drooped forward, as if he were about to fall face foremost and travel with his hands and feet.
Briefly I explained what had happened, and thereupon Du Chien, who seemed to be a man of few words, said: “Stay where you are, all of you, for a minute.” Then he started off at his singular dog-trot pace, and followed the edge of the water all the way around, just as I had done, lightly, but with wonderful celerity. Then he came back to us, looking much puzzled. I handed him the coarse, dirty handkerchief which I had taken from the dead woman’s mouth, and Du Chien immediately buried that wonderful nose of his in it, and snuffed at it long and vigorously. Having apparently satisfied himself, he removed the dirty rag from his face and said: “Nigger.”
“No,” said I, thinking of Celia, and looking Du Chien in his little, round, deep-set eyes; “a mulatto.”
“No,” he answered, with quiet assurance; “not mulatto; nigger; black, wool-headed, and old—a buck nigger.”
“What can you do?” said I.
“Wait a minute,” said Du Chien. Then he started off again to make the circuit of the peninsula, but more slowly and deliberately than at first. He threw his head from side to side, like a hound, and smelled at every tree and shrub. He had got about half way around when he reached a mighty tree that grew on the edge of the swamp, leaning out over the water where it was narrowest and deepest, and seemed to mingle its branches with the branches of another tree of a similar gigantic growth that grew upon the other side. He walked up to this tree, saying: “Nigger went up here!” and at once began to climb. The inclination of the great trunk and the lowness of the branches made the task an easy one. Almost instantly, Captain Martas, I, and two or three soldiers followed Du Chien up the tree. Du Chien had gone up some thirty feet into the dense foliage, when all at once he left the body of the tree, and began to slide along a great limb that extended out over the water, holding to the branches around and above him until he got into the lateral branches of the tree on the opposite side, and thence to the trunk of that tree, down which he glided, and stood upon the opposite bank waiting for us to follow. We did so as speedily as possible, and as soon as we were safely landed by his side, Du Chien said: “Single file, all!” and started off, smelling the trees and bushes as he went.
The spot at which we had descended seemed to be a hummock similar to that on the other side, but less regular in its outline; and soon the way by which Du Chien led us became more and more difficult and impassable. Often it seemed that the next step would take us right into the dark and sluggish water, but Du Chien, almost without pausing at all, would smell at the leaves and branches and hurry on, now planting his foot upon a clod just rising out of the water, now stepping upon a fallen and half-rotted log, now treading a fringe of more solid ground skirting the dreary lagoon, but going every moment deeper and deeper into the most pathless and inaccessible portions of the swamp.
For nearly two hours this strange man followed the trail, and we followed him. At last we came to a considerable elevation of ground under which opened a little V-shaped valley made by the water of a branch which drained the high land into the swamp. This valley was rather more than two acres in extent, and seemed to be a clearing. But there was a thick-set growth of sweet gum, holly, and magnolia across the opening toward the swamp, beyond which we could not see.
With quickened steps, and with many of the same signs of excitement manifested by a hound when the trail grows hot, Du Chien followed along this hedge-like line of underbrush, and at its farther end stopped. There, within three feet of where the steep bank ran into the water, which seemed to be of great depth, was an opening in the hedge. He slipped cautiously through it, and we followed him in silence. It was a little garden in the heart of the swamp, lying between the hills and the water. At the apex of the V-shaped valley was a miserable cabin with some fruit trees growing round about it. We gazed upon the scene with profound astonishment.
“Do you know anything of this place, Captain Martas?” said I, in a low tone.
“No,” said he; “several years ago one of my fieldhands, a gigantic Abyssinian, was whipped and ran away to the swamp; I never followed him, and have never seen him since, although every now and then I heard of him by the report of the negroes on the plantation; I suppose he has been living somewhere in the swamp ever since, and, unless this is his home, I can not imagine how such a place came to be here.”
“The nigger is there,” said Du Chien. “If there are a dozen of them I can tell the right one by the smell,” and again he put the old handkerchief to his nose.
“If it is old Todo,” said Captain Martas, “he is a powerful and desperate man, and we had better be cautious.”
We formed a line, and slowly and cautiously approached. We had got within ten or twelve feet of his door, when we saw a gigantic, half-clad negro spring from the floor, gaze out at us an instant with fierce, startled eyes, and then, with a yell like that of some wild beast roused up in its lair, he seized an axe which stood just at the door, and, whirling it around his head with savage fury, darted straight at Captain Martas. It seemed to me that the huge, black form was actually in the air, springing toward the object of its hatred and fear, when one of the soldiers sent a ball from his revolver crushing through old Todo’s skull. With a savage, beastly cry, the huge bulk fell headlong to the earth.
“It is a pity,” said Martas; “I wished to burn the black devil alive.”
At that instant Du Chien cried out: “Look there!” And extending his arm toward the top of the ridge, he started off at full speed. We all looked up and saw Celia flying for dear life toward the forest of the high ground behind the cabin, and we joined in the chase. It was perhaps forty yards up the slope to the highest part, and about the same distance down the other side to the water’s edge. Just as we got to the crest, Celia, who had already reached the water’s edge, leaped lightly into a small canoe and began to ply the paddle vigorously, and with a stroke or two sent the frail bark gliding swiftly away from the shore, while she looked back at us with a wicked smile. In a moment more she would be beyond our reach, and the soldier who had shot Todo leveled his fatal revolver at her head. But Captain Martas knocked the weapon up, saying, in a voice choked with emotion: “No, no! let the girl go! She is my daughter.”
Swiftly and silently the slight canoe swept away over the dark waters of the great, black swamp, now hidden in the shadow, now a moment glancing through some little patch of sunlight, always receding farther and farther, seen less often, seen less distinctly every moment, and then seen no more.