One of the most noted "lions" in the City of Mexico is the prison called
La Acordada. Few strangers visit the Mexican capital without also
paying a visit to this celebrated penal establishment, and few who enter
its gloomy portals issue forth from them without having seen something
to sadden the heart, and be ever afterwards remembered with repugnance
and pain.
There is, perhaps, no prison in the universal world where one may
witness so many, and such a variety of criminals; since there is no
crime known to the calendar that has not been committed by some one of
the gaol-birds of the Acordada.
Its cells, or cloisters--for the building was once a monastery--are
usually well filled with thieves, forgers, ravishers, highway robbers,
and a fair admixture of murderers; none appearing cowed or repentant,
but boldly brazening it out, and even boasting of their deeds of
villainy, fierce and strong as when doing them, save the disabled ones,
who suffer from wounds or some loathsome disease.
Nor is all their criminal action suspended inside the prison walls. It
is carried on within their cells, and still more frequently in the
courtyards of the ancient convent, where they are permitted to meet in
common and spend a considerable portion of their time. Here they may be
seen in groups, most of them ragged and greasy, squatted on the flags,
card-playing--and cheating when they can--now and then quarrelling, but
always talking loud and cursing.
Into the midst of this mass of degraded humanity were thrust two of the
unfortunate prisoners, taken at the battle of Mier--the two with whom
our tale has alone to do.
For reasons that need not be told, most of the captives were excepted
from this degradation; the main body of them being carried on through
the city to the pleasant suburban village of Tacubaya.
But Florence Kearney and Cris Rock were not among the exceptions; both
having been consigned to the horrid pandemonium we have painted.
It was some consolation to them that they were allowed to share the same
cell, though they would have liked it better could they have had this
all to themselves. As it was, they had not; two individuals being
bestowed in it along with them.
It was an apartment of but limited dimensions--about eight feet by ten--
the cloister of some ancient monk, who, no doubt, led a jolly enough
life of it there, or, if not there, in the refectory outside, in the
days when the Acordada was a pleasant place of residence for himself and
his cowled companions. For his monastery, as "Bolton Abbey in the olden
time," saw many a scene of good cheer, its inmates being no anchorites.
Beside the Texan prisoners, its other occupants now were men of Mexican
birth. One of them, under more favourable circumstances, would have
presented a fine appearance. Even in his prison garb, somewhat ragged
and squalid, he looked the gentleman and something more. For there was
that in his air and physiognomy, which proclaimed him no common man.
Captivity may hold and make more fierce, but cannot degrade, the lion.
And just as a lion in its cage seemed this man in a cell of the
Acordada. His face was of the rotund type, bold in its expression, yet
with something of gentle humanity, seen when searched for, in the
profound depths of a dark penetrating eye. His complexion was a clear
olive, such as is common to Mexicans of pure Spanish descent, the
progeny of the Conquistadors; his beard and moustache coal-black, as
also the thick mass of hair that, bushing out and down over his ears,
half concealed them.
Cris Rock "cottoned" to this man on sight. Nor liked him much the less
when told he had been a robber! Cris supposed that in Mexico a robber
may sometimes be an honest man, or at all events, have taken to the road
through some supposed wrong--personal or political. Freebooting is less
a crime, or at all events, more easy of extenuation in a country whose
chief magistrate himself is a freebooter; and such, at this moment,
neither more nor less, was the chief magistrate of Mexico, Don Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna.
Beyond the fact, or it might be only suspicion, that Ruperto Rivas was a
robber, little seemed to be known of him among the inmates of the
Acordada. He had been there only a short while, and took no part in
their vulgar, commonplace ways of killing time; instead, staying within
his cell. His name had, however, leaked out, and this brought up in the
minds of some of his fellow-prisoners certain reminiscences pointing to
him as one of the road fraternity; no common one either, but the chief
of a band of "salteadores."
Altogether different was the fourth personage entitled to a share in the
cell appropriated to Kearney and Cris Rock; unlike the reputed robber as
the Satyr to Hyperion. In short, a contrast of the completest kind,
both physically and mentally. No two beings claiming to be of human
kind could have presented a greater dissimilarity--being very types of
the extreme. Ruperto Rivas, despite the shabby habiliments in which the
gaol authorities had arrayed him, looked all dignity and grandeur, while
El Zorillo--the little fox, as his prison companions called him--was an
epitomised impersonation of wickedness and meanness; not only crooked in
soul, but in body--being in point of fact an _enano_ or dwarf-hunchback.
Previous to the arrival of those who were henceforth to share their
cell, this ill-assorted pair had been kept chained together, as much by
way of punishment as to prevent escape. But now, the gaol-governor, as
if struck by a comical idea, directed them to be separated, and the
dwarf linked to the Texan Colossus--thus presenting a yet more ludicrous
contrast of couples--while the ex-captain of the filibusters and the
reputed robber were consigned to the same chain.
Of the new occupants of the cloister, Cris Rock was the more disgusted
with the situation. His heart was large enough to feel sympathy for
humanity in any shape, and he would have pitied his deformed
fellow-prisoner, but for a deformity of the latter worse than any
physical ugliness; for the Texan soon learnt that the hideous creature,
whose couch as well as chain he was forced to share, had committed
crimes of the most atrocious nature, among the rest murder! It was, in
fact, for this last that he was now in the Acordada--a cowardly murder,
too--a case of poisoning. That he still lived was due to the proofs not
being legally satisfactory, though no one doubted of his having
perpetrated the crime. At first contact with this wretch the Texan had
recoiled in horror, without knowing aught of his past. There was that
in his face which spoke a history of dark deeds. But when this became
known to the new denizens of the cell, the proximity of such a monster
was positively revolting to them.
Vengeance itself could not have devised a more effective mode of
torture. Cris Rock groaned under it, now and then grinding his teeth
and stamping his feet, as if he could have trodden the mis-shapen thing
into a still more shapeless mass under the heels of his heavy boots.
For the first two days of their imprisonment in the Acordada neither of
the Texans could understand why they were being thus punished--as it
were to satisfy some personal spite. None of the other Mier prisoners,
of whom several had been brought to the same gaol, were submitted to a
like degradation. True, these were also chained two and two; but to one
another, and not to Mexican criminals. Why, then, had they alone been
made an exception? For their lives neither could tell or guess, though
they gave way to every kind of conjecture. It was true enough that Cris
Rock had been one of the ringleaders in the rising at El Salado, while
the young Irishman had also taken a prominent part in that affair.
Still, there were others now in the Acordada who had done the same,
receiving treatment altogether different. The attack upon the Guards,
therefore, could scarce be the cause of what they were called upon to
suffer now; for besides the humiliation of being chained to criminals,
they were otherwise severely dealt with. The food set before them was
of the coarsest, with a scarcity of it; and more than once the gaoler,
whose duty it was to look after them, made mockery of their irksome
situation, jesting on the grotesque companionship of the dwarf and
giant. As the gaol-governor had shown, on his first having them
conveyed to their cells, signs of a special hostility, so did their
daily attendant. But for what reason neither Florence Kearney nor his
faithful comrade could divine.
They learnt it at length--on the third day after their entrance within
the prison. All was explained by the door of their cell being drawn
open, exposing to view the face and figure of a man well-known to them.
And from both something like a cry escaped, as they saw standing
without, by the side of the gaol-governor--Carlos Santander.