Familiars of the Holy Office put their heads together and puzzled and
puzzled as to what they should do with him: because it certainly
seemed as though the devil, to suit his own devilish purposes, simply
had made a convenience of Gil Pérez without getting his consent in the
matter; and so it did not seem quite fair--in the face of his protest
that he was as much annoyed as anybody was by what the devil had done
with him--to put him into a flame-covered sanbenito, and to march him
off to be burned for a sorcerer at the next auto de fé. Therefore the
Familiars of the Holy Office kept on putting their heads together and
puzzling and puzzling as to what they should do with him; and Gil
Pérez kept on enjoying himself in his cell in Santo Domingo--and so
the months went on and on.
And then, on a day, a new turn was given to the whole matter: when
the galleon from the Filipinas arrived at Acapulco and brought with it
the proof that every word that Gil Pérez had spoken was true. Because
the galleon brought the news that Don Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas--the crew
of the ship that he was on having mutinied--really had had his head
murderously split open, and was dead of it, in the Molucca Islands;
and that this bad happening had come to him at the very time that Gil
Pérez had named. Moreover, one of the military officers who had come
from the Filipinas in the galleon, and up from Acapulco to the City of
Mexico with the conducta, recognized Gil Pérez the moment that he laid
eyes on him; and this officer said that he had seen him--only a day or
two before the galleon's sailing--on duty in Manila with the Palace
Guard. And so the fact was settled beyond all doubting that Gil Pérez
had been brought by the devil from Manila to the City of Mexico; and,
also, that the devil--since only the devil could have done it--had put
the knowledge of the murderous killing of Don Gómez into his heart.
Wherefore the fact that Gil Pérez was in league with the devil was
clear to all the world.
Then the Familiars of the Holy Office for the last time put their
heads together and puzzled and puzzled over the matter; and at the end
of their puzzling they decided that Gil Pérez was an innocent person,
and that he undoubtedly had had criminal relations with the devil and
was full of wickedness. Therefore they ordered that, being innocent,
he should be set free from his cell in Santo Domingo; and that, being
a dangerous character whose influence was corrupting, he should be
sent back to Manila in the returning galleon. And that was their
decree.
Gil Pérez, Señor, took that disposition of him in the same easy-going
way that he had taken all the other dispositions of him: save that he
grumbled a little--as was to be expected of an old soldier--over
having to leave his comfortably idle life in his snug quarters and to
go again to his fightings and his guard-mounts and his parades. And so
back he went to the Filipinas: only his return journey was made in a
slow and natural manner aboard the galleon--not, as his outward
journey had been made, all in a moment on devils' wings.
To my mind, Señor, it seems that there is more of this story that
ought to be told. For myself, I should like to know why the Familiars
of the Holy Office did not deal a little more severely with a case
that certainly had the devil at both the bottom and the top of it;
and, also, I should like to know what became of Gil Pérez when he got
back to Manila in the galleon--and there had to tell over again about
his relations with the devil in order to account for his half year's
absence from duty without leave. But those are matters which I never
have heard mentioned; and what I have told you is all that there is to
tell.
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LOS PARADOS
Two dead lovers, Señor, stand always in the Calle de los Parados, one
at each end of it; and that is why--because they remain steadfastly on
parade there, though it is not everybody who happens to see their
yellow skeletons on those corners--the street of the Parados is so
named.
[Illustration: LA CALLE DE LOS PARADOS]
As you may suppose, Señor, the lovers now being dry skeletons, what
brought them there happened some time ago. Just when it happened, I do
not know precisely; but it was when an excellent gentleman, who was an
officer in the Royal Mint, lived in the fine house that is in the
middle of the street on the south side of it, and had living with him
a very beautiful daughter whose hair was like spun gold. This
gentleman was named Don José de Vallejo y Hermosillo; and his daughter
was named (because her mother was of the noble family of Vezca) Doña
María Ysabel de Vallejo y Vezca; and she was of great virtue and
sweetness, and was twenty-two years old.
All the young men of the City sought her in marriage; but there were
two who were more than any of the others in earnest about it. One of
these was Don Francisco Puerto y Solis, a lieutenant of dragoons: who
had to offer her only his good looks--he was a very handsome
gentleman--and the hope of what he might get for himself with his
sword. The other one was the Señor Don Antonio Miguel del Cardonal,
Conde de Valdecebro--who also was a handsome gentleman, and who owned
mills in Puebla of the Angels, and a very great hacienda, and was so
rich that it was the whole business of two old notaries to count his
gold.
And these two posted themselves every day in the street in which was
Doña María's home--one at the corner of the Calle del Reloj, the other
at the corner of the Calle de Santa Catarina--that they might look at
her when she came forth from her house; and that she might see them
waiting to get sight of her, and so know that they loved her. It was
the same custom then, Señor, as it is to-day. In that way all of our
polite young men make love.
And just as our young ladies nowadays wait and wait and think and
think before they make their hearts up, so Doña María waited and
thought then--and the time slipped on and on, and neither the
Lieutenant nor the Conde knew what was in her mind. Then there
happened, Señor, a very dismal thing. A pestilence fell upon the City,
and of that pestilence Doña María sickened and died. But it chanced
that neither of her lovers was on his corner when they took her out
from her house to bury her--you see, Señor, even lovers must eat and
sleep sometimes, and they could not be always on their watch for
her--and in that way it happened that neither of them knew that she
was dead and gone. Therefore they kept on standing on their parade
quite as usual--coming steadfastly to their corners day after day, and
month after month, and year after year. And although, after a while,
they died too, they still stood at their posts--just as though they
and Doña María still were alive. And there, on their corners, they
have remained until this very day.
[Illustration: HOME OF DOÑA MARÍA]
It is told, Señor, that once in broad daylight half the City saw those
honest waiting skeletons. It was on a day when there was a great
festival for the incoming of a new Viceroy, and they were seen by
the crowd that waited in the atrium of the church of Santa Catarina to
see the procession pass. But that was some hundreds of years ago,
Señor. Now, for the most part, it is at night and by moonlight that
they are seen. I have not happened to see them myself--but then I do
not often go that way.
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA JOYA
What this street was called, in very old times, Señor, no one knows:
because the dreadful thing that gave to it the name of the Street of
the Jewel happened a long, long while ago. It was before the
Independence. It was while the Viceroys were here who were sent by the
King of Spain.
In those days there lived in this fine house at the corner of the
Calle de Mesones and what since then has been called the Calle de la
Joya--it is at the northwest corner, Señor, and a biscuit-bakery is on
the lower floor--a very rich Spanish merchant: who was named Don
Alonso Fernández de Bobadilla, and who was a tall and handsome man,
and gentle-mannered, and at times given to fits of rage. He was
married to a very rich and a very beautiful lady, who was named Doña
Ysabel de la Garcide y Tovar; and she was the daughter of the Conde de
Torreleal. This lady was of an ardent and a wilful nature, but Don
Alonso loved her with a sincerity and humored her in all her whims
and wants. When they went abroad together--always in a grand coach,
with servants like flies around them--the whole City stood still and
stared!
Doña Ysabel was not worthy of her husband's love: and so he was told
one day, by whom there was no knowing, in a letter that was thrown
from the street into the room where he was sitting, on the ground
floor. It was his office of affairs, Señor. It is one of the rooms
where the biscuits are baked now. In that letter he was bidden to
watch with care his wife's doings with the Licenciado Don José Raul de
Lara, the Fiscal of the Inquisition--who was a forlorn little man
(_hombrecillo_) not at all deserving of any lady's love--and Don
Alonso did watch, and what came of his watching was a very terrible
thing.
He pretended, Señor, that he had an important affair with the Viceroy
that would keep him at the Palace until far into the night; and so
went his way from his home in the early evening--but went no farther
than a dozen paces from his own door. There, in the dark street,
huddled close into a doorway, his cloak around him--it was a night in
winter--he waited in the creeping cold. After a time along came some
one--he did not know who, but it was the Licenciado--and as he drew
near to the house Doña Ysabel came out upon her balcony, and between
them there passed a sign. Then, in a little while, the door of Don
Alonso's house was opened softly and the Licenciado went in; and then,
softly, the door was shut again.
Presently, Don Alonso also went in, holding in his hand his dagger.
What he found--and it made him so angry that he fell into one of his
accustomed fits of rage over it--was the Licenciado putting on the
wrist of his wife a rich golden bracelet. When they saw him, Señor,
their faces at once went white--and their faces remained white always:
because Don Alonso, before the blood could come back again, had killed
the two of them with his dagger--and they were white in death! Then
Don Alonso did what gave to this street the name of the Street of the
Jewel. From Doña Ysabel's wrist he wrenched loose the bracelet, and as
he left the house he pinned it fast with his bloody dagger to the
door.
In that way things were found the next morning by the watch; and the
watch, suspecting that something wrong had happened--because to see a
bracelet and a bloody dagger in such a place was unusual--called the
Alcalde to come and look into the matter; and the Alcalde, coming,
found Doña Ysabel and the Licenciado lying very dead upon the floor.
So the street was called the Calle de la Joya, and that is its name.
Don Alonso, Señor, was worried by what he had done, and became a
Dieguino--it is the strict order of the Franciscans. They go
barefoot--and it was in the convent of the Dieguinos, over there at
the western end of the Alameda, that he ended his days.
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DE LA MACHINCUEPA
Naturally, Señor, this matter which gave its name to the Calle de la
Machincuepa created a scandal that set all the tongues in the City to
buzzing about it: every one, of course, blaming the young lady--even
though she did it to win such vast riches--for committing so publicly
so great an impropriety; but some holding that a greater blame
attached to the Marqués, her uncle, for punishing her--no matter how
much she deserved punishment--by making her inheritance depend upon so
strange and so outrageous a condition; and some even saying that the
greatest blame of all rested upon the Viceroy: because he did not
forbid an indecorum that was planned to--and that did--take place in
the Plaza Mayor directly in front of his Palace, and so beneath his
very nose. For myself, Señor, I think that the young lady deserved
more blame than anybody: because she was free to make her own choice
in the matter, and that she chose riches rather than propriety very
clearly proved--though that, to be sure, was known before she did her
choosing--that she had a bad heart. As the Viceroy who did not forbid
that young lady to do what she did do was the Duque de Linares--who,
as you know, Señor, took up the duties of his high office in the year
1714--you will perceive that the curious event about which I now am
telling you occurred very nearly two full centuries ago.
At that time there lived in the street that ever since that time has
been called the Street of the Machincuepa a very rich and a very noble
Spanish gentleman whose name was Don Mendo Quiroga y Saurez, and whose
title was Marqués del Valle Salado. In his beginning he was neither
rich nor noble, and not even of good blood: having been begotten by an
unknown father and born of an unknown mother; and having in his young
manhood gone afloat out of Spain as a common sailor to seek his
fortune on the sea. What he did upon the sea was a matter that his
teeth guarded his tongue from talking about in his later years: but it
was known generally that--while in appearance he and his ship had been
engaged in the respectable business of bringing slaves from Africa to
the colonies--his real business had been that of a corsair; and that
on his murdering piracies the corner-stone of his great fortune had
been laid.
Having in that objectionable manner accumulated a whole ship-load of
money, and being arrived at an age when so bustling a life was
distasteful to him, he came to Mexico; and, being come here, he bought
with his ship-load of money the Valle Salado: and there he set up
great salt-works out of which he coined more gold--knowing well how to
grease the palms of those in the Government who could be of service to
him--than could be guessed at even in a dream. Therefore it was known
with certainty that he possessed a fortune of precisely three millions
and a half of dollars--which is a greater sum, Señor, than a hundred
men could count in a whole month of summer days. And of his millions
he sent to the King such magnificent presents that the King, in simple
justice to him, had to reward him; and so the King made him a
marqués--and he was the Marqués del Valle Salado from that time on.
Therefore--being so very rich, and a marqués--his sea-murderings of
his younger days, and his sea-stealings that made the corner-stone of
his great fortune, were the very last things which his teeth suffered
his tongue to talk about: and he lived with a great magnificence a
life that caused much scandal, and he was generally esteemed and
respected, and because of his charities he was beloved by all the
poor.
As old age began to creep upon this good gentleman, Señor, and with it
the infirmities that came of his loose way of living, he found himself
in the world lonely: because, you see--never having perceived any
necessity for marrying--he had no wife to care for him, nor children
whose duty it was to minister to his needs. Therefore--his brother in
Spain about that time dying, and leaving a daughter behind him--he
brought from Spain his dead brother's daughter, whom he put at the
head of his magnificent household, and equally confided himself in his
infirmity to her care. And, that she might be repaid for her care of
him, he heaped upon her every possible luxury and splendor that his
great riches could procure.
The name of this young lady, Señor, was Doña Paz de Quiroga; and the
position to which she was raised by Don Mendo's munificence--and all
the more because she was raised to it from the depths of poverty--was
very much to her mind. Doña Paz was of a great beauty that well became
the rich clothing and the rich jewels that her uncle lavished upon
her; and what with her beauty, and her finery, and her recognized
nobility as the lawful inheritor of her uncle's title, she knew
herself to be--and made no bones of asserting herself to be--the very
greatest lady at the Viceroy's court. She was of a jealous and
rancorous disposition, and very charitable, and excessively selfish,
and her pride was beyond all words. Every one of the young men in the
City immediately fell in love with her; and she won also the respect
of the most eminent clerics and the homage of the very greatest nobles
of the court. So nice was her sense of her own dignity that even in
the privacy of her own household her conduct at all times was marked
by a rigorous elegance; and in public she carried herself with a grave
stateliness that would have befitted a queen.
But this young lady had a bad heart, Señor, as I have already
mentioned; and toward Don Mendo, to whom she owed everything, she did
not behave well at all. So far from ministering to him in his
infirmities, she left him wholly to the care of hired servants; when
she made her rare visits to his sick-room she carried always a scented
kerchief, and held it to her nose closely--telling him that the smell
of balsams and of plasters was distasteful to her; and never, by any
chance whatever, did she give him one single kind look or kind word.
As was most natural, Don Mendo did not like the way that Doña Paz
treated him: therefore, in the inside of him, he made his mind up that
he would pay her for it in the end. And in the end he did pay her for
it: as she found out when, on a day, that worthy old man was called to
go to heaven and they came to read his will.
Doña Paz listened to the reading of the will with the greatest
satisfaction, Señor, until the reading got to the very end of it:
because Don Mendo uniformly styled her his beloved niece--which
somewhat surprised her--and in plain words directed that every one of
his three millions and a half of dollars should be hers. But at the
very end of the will a condition was made that had to be fulfilled
before she could touch so much as a tlaco of her great inheritance:
and that condition was so monstrous--and all the more monstrous
because Doña Paz was so rigorously elegant in all her doings, and so
respectful of her own dignity--that the mere naming of it almost
suffocated her with fright and shame.
And, really, Señor, that Doña Paz felt that way about it is not be
wondered at, because what Don Mendo put at the very end of his will
was this: "So to Paz, my beloved niece, I leave the whole of my
possessions; but only in case that she comply precisely with the
condition that I now lay upon her. And the condition that I now lay
upon her is this: That, being dressed in her richest ball dress, and
wearing her most magnificent jewels, she shall go in an open coach to
the Plaza Mayor at noonday; and that, being come to the Plaza Mayor,
she shall walk to the very middle of it; and that there, in the very
middle of it, she shall bow her head to the ground; and that then, so
bowing, she shall make the turn which among the common people of
Mexico is called a 'machincuepa.' And it is my will that if my
beloved niece Paz does not comply precisely with this condition,
within six months from the day on which I pass out of life, then the
whole of my possessions shall be divided into two equal parts: of
which one part shall belong to the Convent of Nuestra Señora de la
Merced, and the other part shall belong to the Convent of San
Francisco; and of my possessions my beloved niece Paz shall have no
part at all. And this condition I lay upon my beloved niece Paz that,
in the bitterness of the shame of it, she may taste a little of the
bitterness with which her cruelties have filled my dying years."
Well, Señor, you may fancy the state that that most proud and most
dignified young lady was in when she knew the terms on which alone her
riches would come to her! And as to making her mind up in such a case,
she found it quite impossible. On the one side, she would say to
herself that what was required of her to win her inheritance would be
done, and done with, in no more than a moment; and that then and
always--being rich beyond dreaming, and in her own right a
marquésa--she would be the greatest lady in the whole of New Spain.
And then, on the other side, she would say to herself that precisely
because of her great wealth and her title she would be all the more
sneered at for descending to an act so scandalous; and that if she did
descend to that act she would be known as the Marquésa de la
Machincuepa to the end of her days. And what to do, Señor, she did not
know at all. And as time went on and on, and she did not do anything,
the Mercedarios and the Franciscanos--being always more and more sure
that they would share between them Don Mendo's great fortune--talked
pleasantly about new altars in their churches and new comforts in
their convents: and as they talked they rubbed their hands.
And so it came to the very last day of the six months that Don Mendo
had given to Doña Paz in which to make her mind up; and the morning
hours of that day went slipping past, and of Doña Paz the crowds that
filled the streets and the Plaza Mayor saw nothing; and the
Mercedarios and the Franciscanos all had smiling faces--being at last
entirely certain that Don Mendo's millions of dollars would be
theirs.
And then, Señor, just as the Palace clock was striking the half hour
past eleven, the great doors of Don Mendo's house were opened; and out
through the doorway came an open coach in which Doña Paz was seated,
dressed in her richest ball dress and wearing the most magnificent of
her jewels; and Doña Paz, pale as a dead woman, drove through the
crowds on the streets and into the crowd on the Plaza Mayor; and then
she walked, the crowd making way for her, to the very middle of
it--where her servants had laid a rich carpet for her; and there, as
the Palace clock struck twelve--complying precisely with Don Mendo's
condition--Doña Paz bowed her head to the ground; and then, so bowing,
she made the turn which among the common people of Mexico is called a
machincuepa! So did Doña Paz win for herself Don Mendo's millions of
dollars: and so did come into the soul of her the bitterness of shame
that Don Mendo meant should come into it--in reward for the bitterness
with which her cruelties had filled his dying years!
What became of this young lady--who so sacrificed propriety in order
to gain riches--I never have heard mentioned: but it is certain that
the street in which she lived immediately got the name of the Street
of the Machincuepa--and the exact truth of every detail of this
curious story is attested by the fact that that is its name now.
Perhaps the meaning of this word machincuepa, Señor--being, as Don
Mendo said in his will, a word in use among the common people of
Mexico--is unknown to you. The meaning of it, in good Spanish, is
salto mortal--only it means more. And it was precisely that sort of an
excessive somersault--there in the middle of the crowded Plaza Mayor
at noonday--that the most proud and the most dignified Doña Paz
turned!
LEGEND OF THE CALLE DEL PUENTE DEL CUERVO
As you know, Señor, in the street that is called the Street of the
Bridge of the Raven, there nowadays is no bridge at all; also, the
house is gone in which this Don Rodrigo de Ballesteros lived with his
raven in the days when he was alive. As to the raven, however, matters
are less certain. My grand-father long ago told me that more than
once, on nights of storm, he had heard that evil bird uttering his
wicked caws at midnight between the thunderclaps; and a most
respectable cargador of my acquaintance has given me his word for it
that he has heard those cawings too. Yet if they still go on it must
be the raven's spectre that gives voice to them; because, Señor, while
ravens are very long-lived birds, it is improbable that they live--and
that much time has passed since these matters happened--through more
than the whole of three hundred years.
This Don Rodrigo in his youth, Señor, was a Captain of Arcabuceros in
the Royal Army; and, it seems, he fought so well with his crossbowmen
at the battle of San Quintin (what they were fighting about I do not
know) that the King of Spain rewarded him--when the fighting was all
over and there was no more need for his services--by making him a
royal commissioner here in Mexico: that he might get rich comfortably
in his declining years. It was the Encomienda of Atzcapotzalco that
the King gave to him; and in those days Atzcapotzalco was a very rich
place, quite away from the City westward, and yielded a great revenue
for Don Rodrigo to have the fingering of. Nowadays, as you know,
Señor, it is almost a part of the City, because you get to it in the
electric cars so quickly; and it has lost its good fortune and is but
a dreary little threadbare town.