signal and fortunate events of his life, his having seen General
Washington. Since then he had taken a part in all the wars of his
country; he could speak experimentally of most of the prisons and
dungeons of the Peninsula; had been lamed of one leg, crippled in his
hands, and so cut up and carbonadoed that he was a kind of walking
monument of the troubles of Spain, on which there was a scar for every
battle and broil, as every year of captivity was notched upon the tree
of Robinson Crusoe. The greatest misfortune of the brave old cavalier,
however, appeared to have been his having commanded at Malaga during a
time of peril and confusion, and been made a general by the inhabitants,
to protect them from the invasion of the French. This had entailed upon
him a number of just claims upon government, that I feared would employ
him until his dying day in writing and printing petitions and memorials,
to the great disquiet of his mind, exhaustion of his purse, and penance
of his friends; not one of whom could visit him without having to listen
to a mortal document of half an hour in length, and to carry away half
a dozen pamphlets in his pocket. This, however, is the case throughout
Spain; everywhere you meet with some worthy wight brooding in a corner,
and nursing up some pet grievance and cherished wrong. Besides, a
Spaniard who has a lawsuit, or a claim upon government, may be
considered as furnished with employment for the remainder of his life.
I visited the veteran in his quarters in the upper part of the Torre del
Vino, or Wine Tower. His room was small but snug, and commanded a
beautiful view of the Vega. It was arranged with a soldier’s precision.
Three muskets and a brace of pistols, all bright and shining, were
suspended against the wall, with a sabre and a cane hanging side by
side, and above them two cocked hats, one for parade, and one for
ordinary use. A small shelf, containing some half dozen books, formed
his library, one of which, a little old mouldy volume of philosophical
maxims, was his favorite reading. This he thumbed and pondered over day
by day; applying every maxim to his own particular case, provided it had
a little tinge of wholesome bitterness, and treated of the injustice of
the world.
Yet he was social and kind-hearted, and, provided he could be diverted
from his wrongs and his philosophy, was an entertaining companion. I
like these old weather-beaten sons of fortune, and enjoy their rough
campaigning anecdotes. In the course of my visits to the one in
question, I learnt some curious facts about an old military commander of
the fortress, who seems to have resembled him in some respects, and to
have had similar fortunes in the wars. These particulars have been
augmented by inquiries among some of the old inhabitants of the place,
particularly the father of Mateo Ximenes, of whose traditional stories
the worthy I am about to introduce to the reader was a favorite hero.
THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY
In former times there ruled, as governor of the Alhambra, a doughty old
cavalier, who, from having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly known
by the name of el Gobernador Manco, or “the one-armed governor.” He in
fact prided himself upon being an old soldier, wore his moustaches
curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning boots, and a toledo as long
as a spit, with his pocket-handkerchief in the basket-hilt.
He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of
all his privileges and dignities. Under his sway the immunities of the
Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one
was permitted to enter the fortress with fire-arms, or even with a sword
or staff, unless he were of a certain rank; and every horseman was
obliged to dismount at the gate, and lead his horse by the bridle. Now
as the hill of the Alhambra rises from the very midst of the city of
Granada, being, as it were, an excrescence of the capital, it must at
all times be somewhat irksome to the captain-general, who commands the
province, to have thus an _imperium in imperio_, a petty independent
post in the very centre of his domains. It was rendered the more
galling, in the present instance, from the irritable jealousy of the old
governor, that took fire on the least question of authority and
jurisdiction; and from the loose vagrant character of the people who had
gradually nestled themselves within the fortress, as in a sanctuary, and
thence carried on a system of roguery and depredation at the expense of
the honest inhabitants of the city.
Thus there was a perpetual feud and heart-burning between the
captain-general and the governor, the more virulent on the part of the
latter, inasmuch as the smallest of two neighboring potentates is always
the most captious about his dignity. The stately palace of the
captain-general stood in the Plaza Nueva, immediately at the foot of the
hill of the Alhambra; and here was always a bustle and parade of guards,
and domestics, and city functionaries. A beetling bastion of the
fortress overlooked the palace and public square in front of it; and on
this bastion the old governor would occasionally strut backwards and
forwards, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down
upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitring his quarry from his nest in a
dry tree.
Whenever he descended into the city, it was in grand parade; on
horseback, surrounded by his guards; or in his state coach, an ancient
and unwieldy Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt leather, drawn by
eight mules, with running footmen, outriders, and lackeys; on which
occasions he flattered himself he impressed every beholder with awe and
admiration as vicegerent of the king; though the wits of Granada,
particularly those who loitered about the palace of the captain-general,
were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and, in allusion to the vagrant
character of his subjects, to greet him with the appellation of “the
king of the beggars.” One of the most fruitful sources of dispute
between these two doughty rivals was the right claimed by the governor
to have all things passed free of duty through the city that were
intended for the use of himself or his garrison. By degrees this
privilege had given rise to extensive smuggling. A nest of
contrabandistas took up their abode in the hovels of the fortress and
the numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove a thriving business under
the connivance of the soldiers of the garrison.
The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal
adviser and factotum, a shrewd meddlesome escribano, or notary, who
rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the
Alhambra, and involving him in a maze of legal subtilties. He advised
the captain-general to insist upon the right of examining every convoy
passing through the gates of his city, and penned a long letter for him
in vindication of the right. Governor Manco was a straight-forward
cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an escribano worse than the devil,
and this one in particular worse than all other escribanos.
“What!” said he, curling up his moustaches fiercely, “does the
captain-general set his man of the pen to practise confusions upon me?
I’ll let him see an old soldier is not to be baffled by schoolcraft.”
He seized his pen and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand, in
which, without deigning to enter into argument, he insisted on the right
of transit free of search, and denounced vengeance on any custom-house
officer who should lay his unhallowed hand on any convoy protected by
the flag of the Alhambra. While this question was agitated between the
two pragmatical potentates, it so happened that a mule laden with
supplies for the fortress arrived one day at the gate of Xenil, by which
it was to traverse a suburb of the city on its way to the Alhambra. The
convoy was headed by a testy old corporal, who had long served under the
governor, and was a man after his own heart; as rusty and stanch as an
old Toledo blade.
As they approached the gate of the city, the corporal placed the banner
of the Alhambra on the pack-saddle of the mule, and drawing himself up
to a perfect perpendicular, advanced with his head dressed to the front,
but with the wary side-glance of a cur passing through hostile ground
and ready for a snap and a snarl.
“Who goes there?” said the sentinel at the gate.
“Soldier of the Alhambra!” said the corporal, without turning his head.
“What have you in charge?”
“Provisions for the garrison.”
“Proceed.”
The corporal marched straight forward, followed by the convoy, but had
not advanced many paces before a posse of custom-house officers rushed
out of a small toll-house.
“Hallo there!” cried the leader. “Muleteer, halt, and open those
packages.”
The corporal wheeled round and drew himself up in battle-array. “Respect
the flag of the Alhambra,” said he; “these things are for the governor.”
“A figo for the governor and a figo for his flag. Muleteer, halt, I
say.”
“Stop the convoy at your peril!” cried the corporal, cocking his musket.
“Muleteer, proceed.”
The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack; the custom-house officer
sprang forward and seized the halter; whereupon the corporal levelled
his piece and shot him dead.
The street was immediately in an uproar.
The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing sundry kicks, and
cuffs, and cudgellings, which are generally given impromptu by the mob
in Spain as a foretaste of the after penalties of the law, he was loaded
with irons and conducted to the city prison, while his comrades were
permitted to proceed with the convoy, after it had been well rummaged,
to the Alhambra.
The old governor was in a towering passion when he heard of this insult
to his flag and capture of his corporal. For a time he stormed about the
Moorish halls, and vapored about the bastions, and looked down fire and
sword upon the palace of the captain-general. Having vented the first
ebullition of his wrath, he dispatched a message demanding the surrender
of the corporal, as to him alone belonged the right of sitting in
judgment on the offences of those under his command. The
captain-general, aided by the pen of the delighted escribano, replied at
great length, arguing, that, as the offence had been committed within
the walls of his city, and against one of his civil officers, it was
clearly within his proper jurisdiction. The governor rejoined by a
repetition of his demand; the captain-general gave a sur-rejoinder of
still greater length and legal acumen; the governor became hotter and
more peremptory in his demands, and the captain-general cooler and more
copious in his replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely
roared with fury at being thus entangled in the meshes of legal
controversy.
While the subtle escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of
the governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal, who, mewed up
in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated window at
which to show his iron-bound visage and receive the consolations of his
friends.
A mountain of written testimony was diligently heaped up, according to
Spanish form, by the indefatigable escribano; the corporal was
completely overwhelmed by it. He was convicted of murder and sentenced
to be hanged.
It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from the
Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put _in
capilla_, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison, as is always done
with culprits the day before execution, that they may meditate on their
approaching end and repent them of their sins.
Seeing things drawing to extremity, the old governor determined to
attend to the affair in person. For this purpose he ordered out his
carriage of state, and, surrounded by his guards, rumbled down the
avenue of the Alhambra into the city. Driving to the house of the
escribano, he summoned him to the portal.
The eye of the old governor gleamed like a coal at beholding the
smirking man of the law advancing with an air of exultation.
“What is this I hear,” cried he, “that you are about to put to death one
of my soldiers?”
“All according to law--all in strict form of justice,” said the
self-sufficient escribano, chuckling and rubbing his hands; “I can show
your Excellency the written testimony in the case.”
“Fetch it hither,” said the governor. The escribano bustled into his
office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his
ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran.
He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long
deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had
collected, listening with out-stretched necks and gaping mouths.
“Prithee, man, get into the carriage, out of this pestilent throng, that
I may the better hear thee,” said the governor.
The escribano entered the carriage, when, in a twinkling, the door was
closed, the coachman smacked his whip,--mules, carriage, guards, and all
dashed off at a thundering rate, leaving the crowd in gaping wonderment;
nor did the governor pause until he had lodged his prey in one of the
strongest dungeons of the Alhambra.
He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel,
or exchange of prisoners,--the corporal for the notary. The pride of the
captain-general was piqued; he returned a contemptuous refusal, and
forthwith caused a gallows, tall and strong, to be erected in the centre
of the Plaza Nueva for the execution of the corporal.
“Oho! is that the game?” said Governor Manco. He gave orders, and
immediately a gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling
bastion that overlooked the Plaza. “Now,” said he, in a message to the
captain-general, “hang my soldier when you please; but at the same time
that he is swung off in the square, look up to see your escribano
dangling against the sky.”
The captain-general was inflexible; troops were paraded in the square;
the drums beat, the bell tolled. An immense multitude of amateurs
gathered together to behold the execution. On the other hand, the
governor paraded his garrison on the bastion, and tolled the funeral
dirge of the notary from the Torre de la Campana, or Tower of the Bell.
The notary’s wife pressed through the crowd, with a whole progeny of
little embryo escribanos at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet
of the captain-general, implored him not to sacrifice the life of her
husband, and the welfare of herself and her numerous little ones, to a
point of pride; “for you know the old governor too well,” said she, “to
doubt that he will put his threat in execution, if you hang the
soldier.”
The captain-general was overpowered by her tears and lamentations, and
the clamors of her callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the
Alhambra, under a guard, in his gallows garb, like a hooded friar, but
with head erect and a face of iron. The escribano was demanded in
exchange, according to the cartel. The once bustling and self-sufficient
man of the law was drawn forth from his dungeon more dead than alive.
All his flippancy and conceit had evaporated; his hair, it is said, had
nearly turned gray with affright, and he had a downcast, dogged look, as
if he still felt the halter round his neck.
The old governor stuck his one arm akimbo, and for a moment surveyed him
with an iron smile. “Henceforth, my friend,” said he, “moderate your
zeal in hurrying others to the gallows; be not too certain of your
safety, even though you should have the law on your side; and above all
take care how you play off your schoolcraft another time upon an old
soldier.”
GOVERNOR MANCO AND THE SOLDIER
While Governor Manco, or “the one-armed,” kept up a show of military
state in the Alhambra, he became nettled at the reproaches continually
cast upon his fortress, of being a nestling-place of rogues and
contrabandistas. On a sudden, the old potentate determined on reform,
and setting vigorously to work, ejected whole nests of vagabonds out of
the fortress and the gypsy caves with which the surrounding hills are
honeycombed. He sent out soldiers, also, to patrol the avenues and
footpaths, with orders to take up all suspicious persons.
One bright summer morning a patrol, consisting of the testy old corporal
who had distinguished himself in the affair of the notary, a trumpeter,
and two privates, was seated under the garden-wall of the Generalife,
beside the road which leads down from the Mountain of the Sun, when they
heard the tramp of a horse, and a male voice singing in rough, though
not unmusical tones, an old Castilian campaigning-song.
Presently they beheld a sturdy, sunburnt fellow, clad in the ragged garb
of a foot-soldier, leading a powerful Arabian horse caparisoned in the
ancient Morisco fashion.
Astonished at the sight of a strange soldier descending, steed in hand,
from that solitary mountain, the corporal stepped forth and challenged
him.
“Who goes there?”
“A friend.”
“Who and what are you?”
“A poor soldier just from the wars, with a cracked crown and empty purse
for a reward.”
By this time they were enabled to view him more narrowly. He had a black
patch across his forehead, which, with a grizzled beard, added to a
certain dare-devil cast of countenance, while a slight squint threw into
the whole an occasional gleam of roguish good-humor.
Having answered the questions of the patrol, the soldier seemed to
consider himself entitled to make others in return. “May I ask,” said
he, “what city is that which I see at the foot of the hill?”
“What city!” cried the trumpeter; “come, that’s too bad. Here’s a fellow
lurking about the Mountain of the Sun, and demands the name of the great
city of Granada!”
“Granada! Madre di Dios! can it be possible?”
“Perhaps not!” rejoined the trumpeter; “and perhaps you have no idea
that yonder are the towers of the Alhambra.”
“Son of a trumpet,” replied the stranger, “do not trifle with me; if
this be indeed the Alhambra, I have some strange matters to reveal to
the governor.”
“You will have an opportunity,” said the corporal, “for we mean to take
you before him.” By this time the trumpeter had seized the bridle of the
steed, the two privates had each secured an arm of the soldier, the
corporal put himself in front, gave the word, “Forward--march!” and away
they marched for the Alhambra.
The sight of a ragged foot-soldier and a fine Arabian horse, brought in
captive by the patrol, attracted the attention of all the idlers of the
fortress, and of those gossip groups that generally assemble about wells
and fountains at early dawn. The wheel of the cistern paused in its
rotations, and the slipshod servant-maid stood gaping, with pitcher in
hand, as the corporal passed by with his prize. A motley train gradually
gathered in the rear of the escort.
Knowing nods and winks and conjectures passed from one to another. “It
is a deserter,” said one; “A contrabandista,” said another; “A
bandolero,” said a third;--until it was affirmed that a captain of a
desperate band of robbers had been captured by the prowess of the
corporal and his patrol. “Well, well,” said the old crones, one to
another, “captain or not, let him get out of the grasp of old Governor
Manco if he can, though he is but one-handed.”
Governor Manco was seated in one of the inner halls of the Alhambra,
taking his morning’s cup of chocolate in company with his confessor,--a
fat Franciscan friar, from the neighboring convent. A demure, dark-eyed
damsel of Malaga, the daughter of his housekeeper, was attending upon
him. The world hinted that the damsel, who, with all her demureness, was
a sly buxom baggage, had found out a soft spot in the iron heart of the
old governor, and held complete control over him. But let that pass--the
domestic affairs of these mighty potentates of the earth should not be
too narrowly scrutinized.
When word was brought that a suspicious stranger had been taken lurking
about the fortress, and was actually in the outer court, in durance of
the corporal, waiting the pleasure of his Excellency, the pride and
stateliness of office swelled the bosom of the governor. Giving back his
chocolate-cup into the hands of the demure damsel, he called for his
basket-hilted sword, girded it to his side, twirled up his moustaches,
took his seat in a large high-backed chair, assumed a bitter and
forbidding aspect, and ordered the prisoner into his presence. The
soldier was brought in, still closely pinioned by his captors, and
guarded by the corporal. He maintained, however, a resolute
self-confident air, and returned the sharp, scrutinizing look of the
governor with an easy squint, which by no means pleased the punctilious
old potentate.
“Well, culprit,” said the governor, after he had regarded him for a
moment in silence, “what have you to say for yourself--who are you?”
“A soldier, just from the wars, who has brought away nothing but scars
and bruises.”
“A soldier--humph--a foot-soldier by your garb. I understand you have a
fine Arabian horse. I presume you brought him too from the wars, besides
your scars and bruises.”
“May it please your Excellency, I have something strange to tell about
that horse. Indeed I have one of the most wonderful things to relate.
Something too that concerns the security of this fortress, indeed of all
Granada. But it is a matter to be imparted only to your private ear, or
in presence of such only as are in your confidence.”
The governor considered for a moment, and then directed the corporal and
his men to withdraw, but to post themselves outside of the door, and be
ready at a call. “This holy friar,” said he, “is my confessor, you may
say anything in his presence;--and this damsel,” nodding towards the
handmaid, who had loitered with an air of great curiosity, “this damsel
is of great secrecy and discretion, and to be trusted with anything.”
The soldier gave a glance between a squint and a leer at the demure
handmaid. “I am perfectly willing,” said he, “that the damsel should
remain.”
When all the rest had withdrawn, the soldier commenced his story. He was
a fluent, smooth-tongued varlet, and had a command of language above his
apparent rank.
“May it please your Excellency,” said he, “I am, as I before observed,
a soldier, and have seen some hard service, but my term of enlistment
being expired, I was discharged, not long since, from the army at
Valladolid, and set out on foot for my native village in Andalusia.
Yesterday evening the sun went down as I was traversing a great dry
plain of Old Castile.”
“Hold!” cried the governor, “what is this you say? Old Castile is some
two or three hundred miles from this.”
“Even so,” replied the soldier, coolly. “I told your Excellency I had
strange things to relate; but not more strange than true, as your
Excellency will find, if you will deign me a patient hearing.”
“Proceed, culprit,” said the governor, twirling up his moustaches.
“As the sun went down,” continued the soldier, “I cast my eyes about in
search of quarters for the night, but as far as my sight could reach
there were no signs of habitation. I saw that I should have to make my
bed on the naked plain, with my knapsack for a pillow; but your
Excellency is an old soldier, and knows that to one who has been in the
wars, such a night’s lodging is no great hardship.”
The governor nodded assent, as he drew his pocket-handkerchief out of
the basket-hilt to drive away a fly that buzzed about his nose.
“Well, to make a long story short,” continued the soldier, “I trudged
forward for several miles until I came to a bridge over a deep ravine,
through which ran a little thread of water, almost dried up by the
summer heat. At one end of the bridge was a Moorish tower, the upper end
all in ruins, but a vault in the foundation quite entire. Here, thinks
I, is a good place to make a halt; so I went down to the stream, and
took a hearty drink, for the water was pure and sweet, and I was parched
with thirst; then, opening my wallet, I took out an onion and a few
crusts, which were all my provisions, and seating myself on a stone on
the margin of the stream, began to make my supper,--intending afterwards
to quarter myself for the night in the vault of the tower; and capital
quarters they would have been for a campaigner just from the wars, as
your Excellency, who is an old soldier, may suppose.”
“I have put up gladly with worse in my time,” said the governor,
returning his pocket-handkerchief into the hilt of his sword.
“While I was quietly crunching my crust,” pursued the soldier, “I heard
something stir within the vault; I listened--it was the tramp of a
horse. By-and-by a man came forth from a door in the foundation of the
tower, close by the water’s edge, leading a powerful horse by the
bridle. I could not well make out what he was, by the starlight. It had
a suspicious look to be lurking among the ruins of a tower, in that wild
solitary place. He might be a mere wayfarer, like myself; he might be a
contrabandista; he might be a bandolero! what of that? thank heaven and
my poverty, I had nothing to lose; so I sat still and crunched my crust.