THE MULETEERS.
"Riper occasions will thy valour claim,
Danger comes on; Typhœus-like it comes,
Whose fabled stature every hour increased."
AQUILEIA--_Old Tragedy._
While Quentin travelled onward, thinking over his recent meeting at
the well, and puzzling himself about the enigma that was probably
concealed by the words of the stranger concerning the eagles having
news for Portugal, he was roused from his reverie by the jangling of
bells, and ere long a string of mules, all sleek, well-fed, of
dapple-colour, and in size larger than any he had ever seen, appeared
in view, descending with sure and steady steps a narrow rocky path
between the olive and orange groves that covered the steep mountain
side.
He paused for a moment to permit the string or line, which consisted
of twelve mules, to pass along the road in front; but the three
muleteers in charge, all hardy and sturdy fellows in gaudily braided
and embroidered jackets of purple or olive green cloth, smart
sombreros, and gay scarfs, accoutred with ivory-hafted knives and
brass-butted pistols, hailed him immediately, asked whither he was
going, and courteously, with cries of "Viva los Inglesos! viva el
Rey!" offered him a draught of wine from the leathern bota that hung
at the neck of Madrina, and in a trice he found himself accompanying
them on their way.
Perceiving that he belonged to the British army, they were very
inquisitive to know what he was doing there alone; but Quentin had
heard that some of those muleteers could make their way from the
heart of Castile (then swarming with French troops) to the
cantonments of the British army, along the Portuguese frontier,
evading all infantry outposts and cavalry patrols by their superior
knowledge of the country and its secret paths. He had heard also
that they frequently acted as spies and traitors on both sides: thus
he deemed extreme reserve necessary, and, with a prudence beyond his
years and experience, parried their inquiries, and turned the
conversation to general subjects, chiefly the various merits of their
mules, which were laden with Indian corn, Oporto wine, pulse, flour,
and tobacco; and he failed not, in particular, to extol the beauty of
Madrina, a stately old mare, nearly sixteen hands in height, which
had round her neck and on her gaudy red and yellow worsted head-gear
a row of larger bells than the rest of the train.
The clear sound of those bells being known to them all, they followed
her with wonderful instinct, docility, and affection.
So far as he could gather from the conversation, these muleteers were
of Old Castile, the principal arriero being Ramon Campillo from
Miranda del Ebro; he was a short, thick-set fellow, with a pleasant
and sun-burned face, and a beard and head of hair so black and dense
that made Quentin think the process of sheep-shearing might, in his
instance, have been resorted to with ease and comfort. This shaggy
mop he had gathered into a red silk hair-net, over which he wore his
hat of coarse brown velvet, adorned by a band and bob of scarlet
plush.
These three men carolled and sung as they proceeded along, cracking
their whips, indulging in scraps of old warlike ballads, of
love-songs and seguidillas, pausing now and then to mutter an Ave on
passing a cross or a cairn that had some dark story of bloodshed and
crime. And many a boast they made of their sunny Castile which
France should never, NEVER conquer! and many a story they told of the
Cid Rodrigo, of our Lady of Zaragosa, the Holy Virgin del Pilar, of
miracles and robbers, all pell-mell; but their chief themes were the
recent exploits of their guerilla chiefs, then rising into power; of
Don Julian Sanchez with the hare lip, and his glorious Castilian
lancers; of El Pastor, the shepherd; El Medico, the doctor; El Manco,
the cripple; of Don Juan Martin, the Empecinado, who, when his whole
family had been murdered by the French, after the ladies of his house
had endured horrors worse than death, in the first outburst of his
grief, smeared himself with pitch, and vowed never to sheath his
sword while a Frenchman remained alive in Spain; and who, when the
French nailed a number of patriots to the oaks of the Guadarama,
nailed up thrice that number of French soldiers in their place, to
fill the forest with their dying groans. With enthusiasm they
extolled all those wild spirits whom the war of invasion and
independence had brought forth, calling it a _Guerra de moros contra
estos infideles!_
But their local hero of heroes seemed to be Don Baltasar de Saldos,
whom they described as partly a Cid and partly a devil in his hatred
of France and Frenchmen. The mention of his name proved of deep
interest to Quentin, and finding him a ready and wondering listener,
many were the stories they told of him and of his band, which was
composed of Spanish deserters, run-away students, ruined nobles,
unfrocked friars, and all manner of wild fellows who loved him with
ardour and obeyed him with devotion.
He was the flower of Castilian guerilla chiefs!
"I have seen and heard enough of French atrocity in our
peregrinations throughout the kingdoms of Andalusia, Castile, Leon,
and Arragon, to make me imbibe somewhat of the same spirit of
vengeance that inspires Baltasar de Saldos--aye, senor, to the full!"
said Ramon, in his energy, spitting away the end of his cigarito, and
crushing it under his heel.
"In your line one must see much of life," said Quentin.
"Much--maladita! I should think so. I was present in Madrid on the
23rd of last April, when one hundred and twenty defenceless citizens
were slaughtered in cold blood by the troops of Murat--shot down by
platoons, and for what? For el Santos de los Santos! only because
the epaulettes of his aide-de-camp, the gay Colonel de la Grange,
were splashed with mud by some rash students at the gate of Alcala."
"A slight cause, surely."
"But that night, hombre, we had a terrible retribution," said the
second muleteer, through his clenched teeth, as he gave a fierce
twist to the scarlet silk handkerchief which encircled his head, and
the fringed ends of which came from under his sombrero and floated
over his shoulders.
"Retribution, Ignacio Noain, I think we had, amigo mio!" replied
Ramon, with a bitter laugh; "for it was on that night Baltasar threw
off his student's gown and betook him to knife and musket, and rushed
through the streets, shouting 'Guerra al cuchillo, Salamanquinos!'
and 'Viva el Rey de Espana!' before the head-quarters of Marshal
Murat; and sure vengeance he took, for ere morning the gutters of the
Prado were gorged with the blood of more than seven hundred
Frenchmen, who fell by the muskets and daggers of the loyal
Castilians."
"Then," said the third muleteer, with a smiling face and in an
encomiastic tone, "it was Baltasar who slew Don Miguel de Saavedra."
"To the devil with him!"
"The traitorous governor of Valencia," added the other two.
"And it was he," said Ramon, "who with his namesake, the Padre
Baltasar Calvo, for twelve days and nights followed the fugitive
French and Valencian traitors, the tools and followers of Godoy,
through the streets, knife in hand, slaying them in cellars, vaults,
and bodegas, till the last who was false to Spain had breathed out
his dog's life, and his heart, reeking on a bayonet, was thrown on
the altar of St. Isidor."
The fiery energy of the speakers, the expression of their dark
flashing eyes, their picturesque costumes, and the modulation of the
grand old language in which they spoke, made those fierce and
barbarous recitals doubly striking to Quentin Kennedy, who heard them
with something bordering on astonishment, for the English press had
no "own correspondents" then, to let the people at home know what was
enacted abroad.
"Then, senor," said Ignacio Noam, "it was Baltasar de Saldos who
suggested the singular death to which the Spanish regiment of Navarre
put the timid Italian, Filangheri."
"And this mode of death?" asked Quentin, whom, sooth to say, the grim
energy and suddenly developed ferocity of the hitherto jolly
muleteers somewhat scared.
"I shall tell you," said Ramon, "for I saw it. You must know, senor
soldado, that this Italian was Governor of Corunna and a loyal
cavalier to the King; but, terrified or hopeless by the overwhelming
power of Bonaparte, he showed some signs of wavering, and refused to
issue a proclamation of war against the French."
"Might it not have been wisdom to temporize for a time?"
"Santos! this is no time for trifling; so Baltasar rushed among the
soldiers of our regiment of Navarre, and incited them to seize the
governor at Villa Franca-del-Vierzo, a town on the road which leads
from Corunna to Madrid, where they dragged him, almost naked, from
the Marquis's palace.
"'Muera al Filangheri!" shouted Baltasar to the soldiers; 'unfix your
bayonets, plant the ground with them, and toss the traitor in a
blanket!'
"With shouts of acclamation at a suggestion so novel, they hastened
to do as he suggested. The ground was soon planted thickly with
three hundred bayonets, their sockets fixed in the earth, their sharp
points upward. The breathless governor, pale and imploring mercy,
was tossed thrice into the air from a blanket, as dogs are tossed on
Shrove Tuesday. After the third toss, the blanket was withdrawn, and
the hapless Filangheri fell crash on the bayonets. He was impaled in
every part of his body at once; after this, leaving him miserably to
die, the soldiers dispersed to join Baltasar's band of guerillas in
the mountains of Herreruela; but this destruction of a king's officer
caused Sir John Moore to deem him false to Ferdinand VII."
"How horrible is all this!" exclaimed Quentin.
"Desperate times and men, require desperate hearts and stern
measures," said the muleteer Ramon, as he slung his long
musket--which no doubt had a goodly charge of slugs in its
barrel--and took a guitar which hung at the collar of one of his
mules. "But we must not scare you, senor Inglese, as we shall surely
do, if we talk longer thus; so now for something more cheerful:" and
he began at once to sing, with a very mellow voice, a little romance,
in which his companions joined with much laughter, and which began
thus,--
"Tiempo es el Caballero,
The world will all divine;
Now my girdle is too narrow,
They'll see my shame--and thine!
"Tiempo es el Caballero--
When the maids my garments bring,
I see them wink and nod their heads,
I hear them tittering."*
* Poetry of Spain.
"We have come from Arronches and are going to Castello Branco, in
Lower Beira, along the Portuguese frontier," said Ramon, "and yonder
is the puebla at which we are to halt," he added, pointing to a few
ruined walls that bordered the highway.
"What walled town is that on the hill, with an old castle?" asked
Quentin.
"About two leagues beyond?"
"Yes."
"That is Castello de Vide, famous for its cloth factory."
"Castello de Vide--good Heavens, senores arrieros, your pleasant
society has lured me out of my proper way."
"I am sorry to hear it," said Ramon, drily.
"I should have gone to the right."
"Madre de Dios!"
"To the right?"
"Towards the French lines?"
Such were the exclamations of the muleteers as their frowns deepened.
"I should have gone somewhat in that direction, at all events," said
Quentin, reddening with the annoyance and confusion natural to an
honourable person when viewed with mistrust.
"Senor Inglese, in what capacity, or for what purpose are you
travelling on foot alone, and in this suspicious fashion, towards the
outposts of General de Ribeaupierre, the commander in Valencia?"
asked the muleteer Ramon, sternly, as he drew himself up, and
proceeded very deliberately to examine the flint and priming of his
long musket.
"By what right do you ask?" demanded Quentin, whose heart beat
tumultuously at the prospect of being butchered far from help or
justice.
"Take your hand from your pistol--dare you question us, senor--one to
three?"
"Yes, I do--by what right do you molest me?"
"The right of loyal and true Castilians," replied the three
muleteers, with one voice, as the other two, who had not yet spoken,
unslung their bell-mouthed trabucos or blunderbusses, and all their
faces assumed that very formidable scowl, which appears nowhere so
grimly as in the dark and sallow visages of those sons of old Iberia.
Now ensued a brief, but somewhat unpleasant and exciting pause; and
finding that matters had come to this dangerous pass with him,
Quentin, on reflection, drew forth his sealed missive, and showing
the address to Ramon, said:
"I am the bearer of this despatch from Lieutenant-General Sir John
Hope, to Don Baltasar de Saldos, the guerilla chief, and if you are
loyal Spaniards, as you say, you will put up those weapons, and
direct me by the nearest and safest route to the hills near
Herreruela."
"Oh, par todos Santos, but this alters the case entirely!" said
Ramon, as they relinquished their weapons, wreathed their grim fronts
with sudden smiles, and cordially shook hands with him.
"Why did you not tell us all this at first?" asked the muleteer
Ignacio Noain.
"Well, even Madrina, I suppose, does not like to be sharply taken by
the bridle," said Quentin, smiling, and feeling considerably relieved
in his mind.
"No more does she, the old beauty, she would lash out at her own
madre. You have somewhat overshot the way, senor, for a mile or two
along the Figuero; however, you shall not leave us yet awhile. Dine
with us at the old puebla--the French have not left many stones of it
together. Ay de mi! it was a jovial place once; many a bolero and
fandango I have danced with the girls here, and where are they all
now? We have only bacallao (dried ling) and biscuits, with a
mouthful of good wine--real vino de Alicant--to offer you."
"Thanks, senores, but evening is almost at hand."
"It will be nightfall when you reach the base of yonder mountain,"
said Ramon, pointing to a lofty hill, whose granite brows were all
empurpled by the sunshine; "there Gil Llano, a poor vinedresser,
lives--a Portuguese, who for my sake, if not for your own, will
gladly give you shelter; be sure, however, to show him this."
With these words, Ramon disengaged from one of the four dozen of
brass bell buttons, with which his jacket was adorned, one of the
many consecrated copper medals that hung thereat, and placed it in
Quentin's hand, just as they entered the ill-fated puebla (village),
which was totally roofless and ruined. Fragments of charred
furniture, broken crocks, cans, and plates strewed the now untrodden
street, where the grass was springing. The broad-leaved vines grew
wild about the crumbling walls and open windows; and a rude cross
here and there marked the hastily made graves of the slaughtered
villagers.
There, as elsewhere, the wings of the Imperial Eagle, like those of a
destroying angel, had spread desolation and death!
"When," asked the poor Portuguese, in one of their manifestoes after
the horrors of Coimbra, "did the laws of man authorize the outrage of
women, the slaughter of aged and other defenceless inhabitants of
places which made no resistance; the assassination of men who were
accounted rich, only because they could not furnish that quantity of
treasure of which it was said they were possessed!"
Halting by the old village well, the muleteers attended first to the
wants of Madrina and her sleek companions.
"_Arre, arre_, old woman," said Ramon, "thou shalt have a deep cool
draught at last; _arre, arre_!"
This is an old Moorish term (literally gee-up), whence the muleteers
are familiarly termed arrieros. They then shared with Quentin their
dried fish and hard biscuits, with a few olives and luscious oranges,
that had become golden among the groves that cast their shadows on
the Ebro; and they frequently patted him on the shoulder, and
expressed regret for their suspicions, and the mischief these might
have led to.
The group around this lonely well, which bubbled through a grotesque
stone face, under an old Roman arch, and the scene around, were
wonderfully striking and picturesque.
In the immediate foreground were the swarthy Castilian muleteers in
their gaudy dress, and their gaily trapped mules, all resting on the
bright green sward; close by was the ruined puebla; northward rose
Castello de Vide in the distance on its verdant hill, the round
towers of its ancient fortress and ruined walls, that had more than
once withstood the tide of Moorish and Castilian chivalry; to the
east and south rose the great sierras that form the boundary between
Spain and Portugal, all crimsoned with the light of the gorgeous sun
that was setting in gold and saffron behind the cork tree groves that
clothe the hills of St. Mames.
The frugal repast was barely over when the tinkle of a clear and
silvery bell that rung in some solitary hermitage, concealed afar off
among the chestnut woods in some hollow of the mountains, came at
intervals on the evening wind.
"Vespers," said Ramon Campillo, taking off his sombrero; "amigos
mios, to prayers."
Then, with a simple devotion that impressed him deeply, Quentin
Kennedy saw those sturdy and jovial, but rather reckless fellows,
who, but a few minutes before, were (we are compelled to admit it)
quite disposed to knock him on the head, kneel down and pray very
earnestly for a minute or so.
A few minutes more saw them on their way to Castello de Vide, and him
progressing towards the mountains. They waved their hats to him
repeatedly, and then as the twilight deepened, the breeze of the
valley as it swept over the odorous orange groves brought pleasantly
to his ear the jingle of the mule-bells, and the tinkle of Ramon's
guitar dying away in the distance, with a verse of the song the three
arrieros sung--an old Valencian evening hymn.
"Thou who all our sins didst bear,
All our sorrows suffering there,
_O Agnus Dei!_
Lead us where thy promise led
That poor dying thief who said,
_Memento mei!"_