A GLANCE AT THE PAST.
In Spanish America, and especially in Peru and Mexico, all the Creoles
of the pure white breed pretend to be descended in a straight line
from the first Conquistadors. We have no need to discuss this claim,
whose falsehood is visible to any man at all conversant with the
sanguinary history of the numberless civil wars--a species of organized
massacre--which followed the establishment of the Spaniards in these
rich countries.
Still there are in America some families, very few in number it is
true, which can justly boast of this glorious origin. Most of these
families live on the estates conceded to their ancestors--they only
marry among themselves, and only interfere against the grain in the
political events of the day. With their eyes turned to the past,
which is so full of great memories for them, they have kept up the
old traditions of the chivalrous loyalty of the time of Charles V.,
which are forgotten everywhere else. They maintain the national honour
unsullied, and those patriarchal virtues of the old time which they
alone still practise with a proud and simple majesty.
The Creoles, half-breeds, and Indians, in spite of the hatred they
affect for their old masters, and the principles of so-called
republican equality which they profess with such absurd emphasis in
the presence of strangers, feel for these families a respect bordering
on veneration; for they seem to understand inwardly the superiority of
these powerful natures, which no political convulsion has been able to
level or even bind, over their own vicious decrepit natures, which have
grown old without ever having been young.
A few leagues from Arispe, the old capital of the Intendancy of Sonora,
but now greatly fallen, and only a second-class city, there stands like
an eagle's nest, on the summit of an abrupt rock, a magnificent showy
mansion, whose strong and haughty walls are crowned with _Almenas_,
which at the time of the Spanish conquest were only permitted to
families of the old and pure nobility, and they alone had the right to
have battlements on their houses.
This fortress-palace--which dates from the first days of the conquest,
and whose antiquity is written on its walls, which have seen so many
bullets flatten, so many arrows break against them, but which time,
that grand destroyer of the most solid things, is gradually crumbling
away by a continuous effort, under the triple influences of the air,
the sun, and rain--has never changed masters since the day of its
construction, and the chiefs of the same family, on dying, have ever
left it to their descendants.
This family is one of those to which we just now referred, whose
origin dates back to the first conquerors, and whose name is Tobar de
Moguer--(Moguer was added at a later date, doubtless in memory of the
Spanish town whence the chief of the family came.)
In 1541, Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, organized
the expedition to Cibola, a mysterious country, visited a few years
previously by Alvaro Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, and about which the most
marvellous and extraordinary reports were spread, all the better suited
to inflame the avarice and unextinguishable thirst for gold by which
the Spanish adventurers were devoured.
The expedition, consisting of 300 Spaniards and 800 Indian allies,
started from Compostela, the capital of New Galicia, on April 17, 1541,
under the orders of Don Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. The officers
nominated by the Viceroy were all gentlemen of distinction; among them
as standard bearer was Don Pedro de Tobar, whose father, Don Fernando
de Tobar, had been Majordomo-Major in the reign of Jane the Mad, mother
of the Emperor Charles V.
We will only say a few words about this expedition, the preparations
for which were immense; and which would have doubtless furnished better
results, and proved to the advantage of all, had the chief thought less
of the immense fortune he left behind in New Spain, and more of the
immense responsibility weighing upon him.
After innumerable fatigues, the expedition reached Cibola, which,
instead of being the rich and magnificent city they expected to see,
was only a wretched insignificant village, built on a rock, and which
the Spaniards seized after an hour's fighting. Still, the Indians
defended themselves bravely, and several Spaniards were wounded. The
General himself, hurled down by a stone, would have been infallibly
killed, had it not been for the devotion of Don Pedro de Tobar and
another officer, who threw themselves before him, and gave their chief
time to rise and withdraw from the fight.
The Spaniards, half discouraged by the extraordinary fatigue they were
forced to endure, and the continual deceptions that awaited them at
every step, but still urged on by that spirit of adventure which never
deserted them, resolved after the capture of Cibola to push further
on and try their fortunes once again. Thus they reached, with extreme
difficulty, the last country visited by Cabeza de Vaca, to which he had
given the name of the Land of Hearts (Tierra de los Corazones)--not,
as might be supposed, because the inhabitants had seemed so gentle and
amiable, but solely because, at the period of his passing, the only
food they offered him had been stags' hearts.
On reaching this place the Spaniards halted. Don Tristán de Arellano,
who had taken the command of the army in place of Don Francisco
Coronado, who was ailing from the wound received at Cibola, seeing the
rich and fertile appearance of this country, resolved to found a town,
which he called San Hieronima de los Corazones. This town was, however,
almost immediately abandoned by the Spaniards, who carried the various
elements further, and started a new town, to which they gave the name
of Señora, afterwards corrupted into Sonora, which eventually became
the name of the province.
During this long expedition Don Pedro de Tobar distinguished himself
on several occasions. At the head of seventeen horsemen, four foot
soldiers, and a Franciscan monk of the name of Fray Juan de Padella
who in his youth had been a soldier, Don Pedro de Tobar discovered the
province of Tutaliaco, which contained several towns, the houses being
of several storeys. All these towns, or rather villages, were carried
by storm by Don Pedro, and the province was subjugated in a few days.
When, twenty years after, the Viceroy wishing to recompense Don
Pedro's services, offered him estates, the latter, who held Señora
in pleasant recollection, asked that land should be granted him in
this province, which reminded him of the prowess of his youth, and
to which he was attached by the very fatigues he had undergone and
the dangers he had incurred. During the twenty years that had elapsed
since Coronado's expedition, Don Pedro had married the daughter of Don
Rodrigo Maldonado, brother-in-law of the Duke of Infantado, and one
of his old comrades in arms. As Don Rodrigo had settled in Sonora,
Don Pedro, in order to be near him, took up his abode on the site of
Cibola, which had long been destroyed and abandoned, and built on the
crest of the rock the magnificent Hacienda del Toro, which, as we have
said, remained for centuries in the family, with the immense estates
dependent on it.
Like all first-class haciendas in Mexico, El Toro was rather a town
than a simple habitation, according to the idea formed in Europe of
private estates. It comprised all the old territory of Cibola. On all
sides its lofty walls, built on the extremity of the rock, hung over
the abyss. It contained princely apartments for the owners, a chapel,
workshops of every description, storehouses, barracks, quarters for the
pious, and corrals for the horses and cattle, with an immense _huerta_,
planted with the finest trees and the most fragrant flowers. In a word,
it was, and probably still is, one of those gigantic abodes which
appear built for Titans, and of which the finest feudal châteaux in the
Old World offer but an imperfect idea.
The fact is, that at the time when the conquerors built these vast
residences, inhabitants were sparse in these countries, as is indeed
the case now. The owners having their elbows at liberty, could take
what land they liked, and hence each ultimately became, without
creating any surprise, possessors of a territory equal in size to one
of our counties.
It was in 1811, twenty-nine years before the period when our story
begins, at the dawn of that glorious Mexican revolution the first
cry of which had been raised on the night of September 16, 1810, by
Hidalgo--at that time a simple parish priest in the wretched town of
Dolores, and whose success, sixteen months later, was so compromised
by the disastrous battle of Calderón, in which countless bands of
fantastic Indians were broken by the discipline of the old Spanish
troops--that the most sensible men regarded it as an unimportant
insurrection--a fatal error which caused the ruin of the Spanish
domination.
But on November 25, 1811, the day on which we begin this narrative, the
insurgents had not yet been conquered at Calderón; on the contrary,
their first steps had been marked by successes; from all sides Indians
came to range themselves beneath their banner, and their army, badly
disciplined, it is true, but full of enthusiasm, amounted to 80,000
men. Already master of several important towns, Hidalgo assembled
all his forces with the evident design of dealing a great blow, and
generalizing the insurrection, which had hitherto been confined to two
provinces.
About two in the afternoon, that is to say, the time when in these
climes the heat is most oppressive, a horseman, mounted on a
magnificent mustang, was following at a gallop the banks of a small
stream, half dried up by the torrid heat of the southern sun, and by
whose side a few sickly cottonwood trees were withering.
The dust, reduced to impalpable atoms, formed a dense cloud round the
horseman, who, plunged into sad and gloomy thought, with pale forehead
and brows contracted till they touched, continued his journey without
noticing the desolate aspect of the country he was traversing, and the
depressing calm that prevailed around him. In fact, an utter silence
brooded over this desert: the birds had hidden themselves gasping
under the foliage, and no other sound could be heard save the shrill,
harsh cry of the grasshoppers, which occupied in countless myriads
the calcine grass that bordered the road, or rather the track, the
traveller was following.
This rider appeared to be about twenty-five years of age; his features
were handsome, his glance proud, and the expression of his face
haughty, although marked with kindness and courtesy. He was tall and
well built; his gestures, which were pleasing, though not stiff,
indicated a man who, through his position in the world, was accustomed
to a certain deference, and to win the respect of those who surrounded
him. His dress had nothing remarkable about it: it was that usually
worn by wealthy Spaniards when travelling; still, a short sword in a
silver sheath and with a curiously carved hilt, the only weapon he
openly carried, showed him to be a gentleman; besides, his complexion,
clearer than that of the Creoles, left no doubt as to his Spanish
origin.
This horseman, who had left Arispe at sunrise, had been travelling, up
to the moment we join him, without stopping or appearing to notice the
stifling heat that made the perspiration run down his cheek--so deep
was he in thought. On reaching a spot where the track he was following
turned sharply to the left, his horse suddenly stopped. The rider, thus
aroused from his reverie, raised his head and looked before him, with
grief, almost despair, in his glance.
He was at the foot of the rock on the summit of which stands the
Hacienda del Toro in all its gloomy majesty. For some minutes he gazed
with an expression of regret and sorrow at these frowning buildings,
which doubtless recalled happy memories. He shook his head several
times, a sigh escaped from his overburdened chest, and, seemed to form
a supreme resolution, he said, in a choking voice, "I will go;" and
letting his horse feel the spur, he began slowly scaling the narrow
path that led to the summit of the rock and the hacienda gate. A
violent contest seemed to be going on in his mind: his flexible face
changed each moment, and reflected the various feelings that agitated
him; several times his clenched hand drew up the bridle, as if he
wished to check his horse and turn back. But each time his will was
the more powerful; he constantly overcame the instinctive repugnance
that seemed to govern him, and he continued his ascent, with his eyes
constantly looking ahead, as if he expected to see someone whose
presence he feared come round an angle of the track. But he did not see
a soul the whole way.
When he reached the hacienda gate, it was open, and the drawbridge
lowered; but though he was evidently expected, there was no one to bid
him welcome.
"It must be so," he murmured sadly. "I return to my paternal roof, not
as a master, but as a stranger, a fugitive--an accursed man, perhaps."
He crossed the drawbridge, the planks of which re-echoed his horse's
footfall, and entered the first courtyard. Here, too, there was no one
to greet him. He dismounted; but instead of throwing the bridle on
his horse's neck, he held it in his hand and fastened it to a ring in
the wall, saying, in a low, concentrated voice--"Wait for me, my poor
Bravo; you, too, are regarded as an accursed one: be patient; we shall
doubtless soon set out again."
The noble animal as if understanding its master's words and sharing in
his grief, turned its delicate, intelligent head toward him, and gave a
soft and plaintive whine. The young man after giving a parting glance
at his steed, crossed the first yard with a firm and resolute step, and
entered a second one considerably larger. At the end of this court two
men were standing motionless on the first step of a magnificent marble
staircase, apparently leading to the apartments of the master of the
hacienda.
On seeing these two men, the young horseman drew himself up; his face
assumed a gloomy and ironical expression, and he walked rapidly toward
them. They still remained motionless and stiff, with their eyes fixed
on him. When he was but a few paces from them, they uncovered by an
automatic movement, and bowed ceremoniously.
"The Marquis is waiting for you, Señor Conde," one of them said.
"Very good," the strange visitor answered; "one of you can announce my
arrival to his lordship my father, while the other will guide me to the
apartment where I am expected."
The two men bowed a second time, and with heads still uncovered,
preceded the young man, who followed with a firm and measured tread.
On reaching the top of the steps, one of the servants hurried forward,
while the second, slightly checking his speed, continued to guide the
horseman. When the footsteps of the first man died out in the immense
corridors, the face of the second one suddenly lost its indifferent
expression, and he turned round, his eyes full of tears.
"Oh, my young master!" he said, in a voice broken by emotion, "What a
misfortune! Oh, Heavens! What a misfortune!"
"What?" the young man asked anxiously; "Has anything happened to the
marquis? Or is my lady mother ill?"
The old servant shook his head sadly. "No," he answered; "Heaven be
blessed! Both are in good health: but why did you leave the paternal
mansion, your lordship? Alas! Now the misfortune is irremediable."
A cloud of dissatisfaction flitted across the young man's forehead.
"What has happened so terrible during my absence, Perote?"
"Does not your Excellency know?" the servant asked in amazement.
"How should I know, my friend?" he answered, mildly. "Have you
forgotten that I have been absent from the hacienda for two years?"
"That is true, Excellency;--forgive me, I had forgotten it. Alas! Since
the misfortune has burst upon us, my poor head has been so bad."
"Recover yourself, my good fellow," the young man said, kindly. "I know
how much you love me. You have not forgotten," he added, with a bitter
sorrow, "that your wife, poor Juana, nourished me with her milk. I know
nothing; am even ignorant why my father ordered me so suddenly to come
hither. The servant who handed me the letter was doubtless unable to
tell anything, and, indeed, I should not have liked to question him."
"Alas! Excellency," the old servant continued, "I am myself ignorant
why you have been summoned to the hacienda; but Hernando, he may know."
"Ah!" said the young man, with a nervous start, "My brother is here,
then?"
"Did you not know it?"
"Have I not already told you that I am utterly ignorant of everything
connected with this house?"
"Yes, yes, Excellency. Don Hernando is here, and has been here a long
time. Heaven guard me from saying anything against my master's son;
but perhaps it would have been better had he remained at Guadalajara,
for all has greatly changed since his arrival. Take care, Sir, for Don
Hernando does not love you."
"What do I care for my brother's hatred?" the young man answered
haughtily. "Am I not the elder son?"
"Yes, yes," the old servant repeated, sadly, "you are the elder son;
and yet your brother commands here as master. Since his arrival, it
seems as if everything belonged to him already."
The young man let his head sink on his chest, and remained for some
minutes crushed; but he soon drew himself up, with flashing eye, and
gently laid his hand on the old servant's shoulder.
"Perote," he said to him affectionately, "what is the motto of my
family?"
"What do you mean, Excellency?" the manservant asked, startled at the
singular question his master asked him.
"You do not remember it," the young man continued, with a smile, as he
pointed to an escutcheon over a door. "Well; look, what do you read
there?"
"What does your Excellency want?"
"Read--read, I tell you."
"You know that motto better than I do, as it was given to one of your
ancestors by King Don Ferdinand of Castile himself."
"Yes, Perote, I know it," he replied, in a firm voice; "and since you
will not read it, I will repeat it to you. The motto is: 'Everything
for honour, no matter what may happen.' That motto dictates my conduct
to me; and be assured, Perote, that I will not fail in what it orders
me."
"Oh, your Excellency, once again take care. I am only a poor servant of
your family, but I saw you born, and I tremble as to what may happen in
the coming interview."
"Do not be anxious, my old friend," he answered, with an expression of
haughty pride, full of nobleness. "Whatever may happen, I will remember
not only what I owe to the memory of my ancestors, but also what I owe
to myself; and, without going beyond the limits of that obedience and
respect those who gave me birth have a right to, I shall be able to
defend myself against the accusations which will doubtless be brought
against me."
"Heaven grant, Sir, that you may succeed in dissipating the unjust
suspicions so long gathering in the minds of your noble parents, and
carefully kept up by the man who, during your lifetime, dares to look
with an eye of covetousness on your rich inheritance."
"What do I care for this inheritance?" the young man exclaimed,
passionately. "I would gladly abandon it entirely to my brother, if he
would cease to rob me of a more precious property, which I esteem a
hundred times higher--the love of my father and my mother."
Old Perote only answered with a sigh.
"But," the young man continued, "let us not delay any longer. His
lordship must be informed of my arrival; and the slight eagerness
I seem to display in proceeding to him and obeying his orders will
probably be interpreted to my injury by the man who has for so many
years conspired my ruin."
"Yes, you are right: we have delayed too long as it is; come, follow
me."
"Where are you taking me?" the young man remarked. "My father's
apartments are not situated in this part of the hacienda."
"I am not leading your Excellency to them," he answered, sorrowfully.
"Where to, then?" he asked, stopping in surprise.
"To the Red Room," the old servant remarked in a low voice.
"Oh!" the young man muttered; "Then my condemnation is about to be
pronounced."
Perote only answered by a sigh; and his young master, after a moment's
hesitation, made him a sign to go on; and he silently followed him,
with a slow step that had something almost solemn in it.