THE ATCHAFALAYA CREVASSE

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 122, 3 October 1885, Page 3

THE ATCHAFALAYA CREVASSE

By Alfred Rochefort.

There was no finer plantation on the Bayou Atchafalaya, in Southern Louisiana —or, for the matter of that, in any other part of the State— than Colonel Vance's, Ten thousand fertile acres ; an island surrounded for ten months in the year by deep, currentless bayous, and for the other two months hemmed .in by mighty, swift-mov-ing floods. High water was guarded against by embankments that surrounded the estate, and in the flood season the people on passing steamboats looked down on the land. This part of the State is literally seamed with bayous or natural canals, which answer as highways between theplantations, and are the avenues by which the rich products are transported to distant markets. Isolated though the plantations are, the people are hospitable to Btrangera and neighbourly among themselves j and there is an old-time courtesy and heartiness among them that is never met with in dense communities. But apart from the natural impulse to kindliness, a unity of interest and the yearly threat of a common danger serves to bring the people nearer together. A break in the embankment — or a crevasse, as it is there called —might deluge half a parish if not checked in its first stages. So well arranged is the system of communicaI tion, and so alert are the people in the flood season, that an alarm runs rapidly, and from all sides the people speed to the point of danger, and cease not their efforts until the crevasse is repaired, or it has deepened into a roaring torrent that human strength is powerless to arrest. The embankment about Colonel Vance's plantation was very old and very strong. Wide-spreading cypresses and deep-rooted live oaks grew on in ; and it was nearly hidden from sight by a tangle of flowering vines and the broad- leafed water plants which grow so luxuriantly in that semitropical land. The Vance mansion was a great rambling house in the midst of orange and mimosa groveß, and back of it was quite a village of white cabins, occupied by the hands and embowered in magnolias. But the glory of the place was its live oaks, with their wide-^ spreading, interlaced branches, draped by a mist of long Spanish moss. ; Colonel Vance had a son away at college, and a daughter who was being educated at home by a governess.

Alice Vance was just eighteen ; this was her birthday, and from far and near, crowds of young people came in flower-adorned boats, to ottend the f&te with whioh the occasion was to be celebrated. It was a rare sight to see the gay flotillas moving along the watery highways, over, whioh the oypresses and oaks "looked arms," making in places miles of shaded aroade, down which the white heroni flew in alarm at the unusual sight. Dootor Howard's plantation was on the Atchafalaya, five miles north of Colonel Vancd's, but it had become a very familiar five miles to Fred Howard, who for two years had goae down and come up so often that even tne sluggish "alligators knew the dip of his oats. " Fred Howard was a tall, manly young fellow, famed for his skill as a hunter and his expertness in handling a boat. This morning the light shell in which he sat fairly new down the bayou, and as he shot past the crowded boats, he rested on his oarstoexohange congratulations with the laughing occupants. He blushed at the gentle banter of the fair Creoles, for his love for Alice Vance was as widely known as the fact that it was reciprocated. As he neared the Vance plantation he passed a beat, in which sat a stout, darkfeatured young man of his own age. "Good morning, Barden; beautiful day for the ffite I" slaouted Fred Howard, as he swept past. At the salutation, Peter Barden turned and fixed hia black eyes on 'the young athlete, but made no reply. The expression of his face betokened no love for young Howard. There was a dinner spread under the live oaks, and near by was a dancing platform, which was rarely without its whirling couples. When night came, great fires were lit, lamps were suspended from the trees, and scores of black men moved about with flaming torches, so that it looked like a scene from the " Arabian Nights." The f6te was to close at ten, and Fred Howard, as tho last set was forming, sought out Alice Vance. As he was about to conduct her to the platform, Peter Barden stepped before them, and said, with a clumsy bow and a motion of his arm : ♦'Can I have the honour, Miss Vance?" " Gladly, Mr Barden ; but this cavalier,' said Alice, looking up at Fred Howard, "has a prior claim for the dance." Peter Barden, with his back to a tree and an angry bcowl on his face, watched the dancers till the last set was finished. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the boats moved off from the landing with shouts of gladsome laughter. Merry songs rang down the long arcades ; and through the interlaced branches the moonbeams pierced, "blazing " a path along the bayou. Fred Howard was the very last to tender his congratulations and say " good night" to Alice Vance. And as he rowed away he was happy in the assurance that before another year rolled round there would be another and a greater f£te in the same place, for Colonel Vance and his wife had that night given their consent where their daughter had already given her heart. The pull back was longer and harder than tho pull down ; Fred Howard was not attending strictly to his boat ; how could he when heart and brain were full of Alice Vanco ? What mattered his getting home an hour sooner or later ? About a mile below his father's place the Atchafalaya made a sharp bend, and a side bayou marked the entrance to Peter Barden'a plantation— a dreary place, where that young gentleman 'lived without any white companions. Fred turned the shell on a spot where the moonlight shone full, and by the act he slacked his speed. To one looking out from the shadow that boat and its occupant would be very conspicuous objects. Bang ! bang ! rang out two shots, and the bullets and buckshot splashed the water in Fred's face and cut through the side of the boat. Fred Howard was astonished, but he did not lose his presence of mind. He knew he could not resist, even if he had been armed, so he threw all his strength into his oars, and though the shell was filling through the rents, he succeeded in reaching his own landing before it sank. He was fully convinced that the shots were fired by Peter Barden, but he Baid nothing about the attack, not even to his father. _ After this he took the precaution of going armed. For months succeeding he frequently saw Peter Barden, who, though unable to conceal his hate, did nothing that could be construed as aggressive. The approaching marriage of Fred Howard and Alice Vance was the ruling topic of conversation for many miles around, and some of the older people wondered why it was Bet for New Year's Day. "The floods do not come till lator," they said, " but then there have been very mild winters in the far north, when the Mississippi and its tributaries are in full flood by the last of the year." But the young people gave no thought to the floods, or if they did, it only strengthened their determination to attend the wedding. Some one has said : "It is the unexpected that happens." This year heavy rains fell over all the lower Mississippi Valley in December, and they kept falling with unceaeing persistency ; this and the open winter to the north swelled the rivers so that by Christmas every levee was being tested to its utmost. There are some things that it is nearly as difficult to postpone as the weather. There is a superstition against deferring a funeral, not to speak of the iuconvenience, and the same is true as to weddings. The young people along the Atchafalaya, with saddening hearts, saw the water rising higher day after day, while never an hour's cessation came to the falling rain. It soon became evident to those most deeply interested that the wedding festivities must be postponed for the want of guests, and that only the immediate families of the bride and groom, with the officiating clergyman, would be in attendance. It seemod to rain harder that day of the wedding than at any time before or after. During the ceremony all the hands on the placo were pacing the embankment ; and even those whose whole thought under ordinary circumstances would have been given to the happy young people, could not but think with dread of the storm in the midst of their congratulations. At this time a rat could have burrowed a hole in an hour that would have admitted the first trickle of water, following which would come a crevasse and a deluge. An enemy with a spade could have cut a ditch in a few minutes that the flood would speedily convert into a roaring torrent. But there was no dread of an enemy ; no man could be so fiendish as to attempt such a wholesale destruction of life and property. The dark day wore into the blackest of nights, and word came in from the men pacing the . embankment that it was with difficulty the flood was kept back from points hitherto considered" strong -and secure. That they might not be lost for the want of vigilance it was decided to put every man, woman, and child that could do duty on guard. Colonel Vance, his Bon and the clirgyman donned their water proof ooats, and, procuring lanterns, said they'would go and keep watch, " And I," said Fred Howard, " will go with you,"

They tried to prevail on him to remain back, but he was not the man to shirk, a danger. Putting on long boots and oiled clothes, he kissed his bride, ,and with a lantern in one hand and a spade in the other, he went out and took up a position on the threatened embankment. All around the plantation the moving lights could be seen, showing where the faithful guards were patrolling. The little circles, lit up by each lantern, showed that the flood was, in some places, but a few inches from the top of the levee, and that even a heavy Btep in the spongy ground might make a fatal break. There was not even an occasional flash of lightning to relieve the dense blackness of the heavens, from which the rain poured steadily down, as if again to drown out the sinking earth. Now and then Fred heard a crash, and he would raise his lantern to see a tree tossed on the roaring flood and whirled out of sight like a plaything. Despite hia waterproof clothing, the rain came through, and before he had been out an hour he was as wet as if he had been plunged into the bayou. Another tree tore past, and he was in the act of lowering his lantern, when he saw a boat, and in that boat a man. He rubbed the moisture from his eyes and looked again, but boat and man were swept out of sight. ••It looked like Peter Barden's face," mused Fred Howard. "But surely he would not venture out such a night." Satisfied with this reasoning, he turned and began to walk down the bank to where he saw a light, about a hundred yards away. He had gone over half the distance, when he was startled by bearing a shot ; this was the danger signal agreed on. He ran to the place where the light had vanished with the shot, and great was his horror to find a trench dug over a wounded black man. The man was shot through the right breast, but he was able to tell that he came upon a. man digging on the top of the embankment; that he ran at him, and was shot just as he struck the man with his spade. "And where is this man now?" asked Fred Howard. "Gone, sah, as he came — in de boat!" gasped the faithful negro. The ring of the pistol brought a Bcore of men and women to the point of danger, The instant the wounded man was lifted from the ditch, the water began to pour through, and as the soil was spongy, the current threatened to eat such an opening for itself as would speedily turn the mighty flood of the Atchafalaya into the plantation. With spade and axe the people went to work, piling logs and throwing earth into the chasm, There was no chance to summon assistance from the neighbouring plantations till after daylight, when it would be too late to render aid. ! It now became a fight for life— property was out of the question. The bride and her mother heard the awful news, and hastening to the point of danger they joined their efforts to those of their relatives and servants : but still no gain was made on the fatal breach. The grey dawn came to show the fatigued workers the frightened faces of their companions, and the extent of the damage that threatened them. The flood was tireless, and the bravest began to lose heart. Boats were got in readiness, but there were not half enough to accommodate the people. "It is a useless fight," said Colonel Vance, coming back to where his wife and daughter stood. The words had but passed his lipa when a cheer burst from the people on top of the embankment, and the down-flowing stieam was suddenly, checked. He ran up, as did Mrs Vance arid Alice, and the cause of the exultant shout met their eyes. A boat, thrown by the current to the shore, had drifted broadside into the crevasse, and checked the torrent. In this boat Peter Barden lay, dead, with a spade by his side, and a frightful gash down his face. The body was lifted out, and the boat filled with other earth ; after which it was found possible to thoroughly repair the breach. Before evening the rain ceased, and the waters began to subside. An investigation showed that Peter Barden got drunk the day of the wedding, and swore to his servants that he would drown out the Vances and Howards. Though nearly successful in this, the means he employed defeated the end he had in view. The shot at the negro gave the alarm, and the blow of the negro's spade resulted in his own death. Though severely wounded, Barden rowed back againßt the current until his strength gave out. Then, as if directed by an overruling hand, hie boat drifted back and into the crevasse, so bringing safety. The faithful black man recovered, and being a famous musician, he led the players at the bridal reception that came off when the water had subsided. Though many years have passed since the events we have narrated, Peter Barden's odious memory has not died out on the Atchafalaya; and to this day old Colonel Vance delights to tell his grandchildren of the New Year's crevasse, and how their father and mother gpent their wedding night on the water-soaked embankment.