I regret that I am compelled to leave this exemplary merchant in
captivity; but the exigencies of my story, the moral of which
beckons me away to the distant coast of Mexico, require it at my
hands. The reader may be consoled, however, by the knowledge that he
obtained his liberation in due time, his Dutch creditor being
entirely satisfied that nothing whatsoever could be squeezed out of
him by passing him between the bars of the debtor's prison, though
that was all the satisfaction he ever did get. How he accompanied his
young wife to Europe and there lived by the coining of her voice
into drachmas, as her father had done before him, needs not to be
told here; nor yet how she was divorced from him, and made another
matrimonial venture in partnership with De B----. I have nothing to
do with him or her, after the bargain and sale of which she was the
object, and the consequences which immediately resulted from it; and
here, accordingly, I take my leave of them. But my story is not
quite done yet; it must now pursue the fortunes of the enterprising
_impresario_, Signor G----, who had so deftly turned his daughter
into a ship-load of fine linens.
This excellent person sailed, as M. M. ---- told Mr. Schulemberg, for
Vera Cruz, with an assorted cargo, consisting of singers, fiddlers,
and, as aforesaid, of Mynheer Van Holland's fine linens. The voyage
was as prosperous as was due to such an argosy. If a single Amphion
could not be drowned by the utmost malice of gods and men, so long as
he kept his voice in order, what possible mishap could befall a
whole ship-load of them? The vessel arrived safely under the shadow
of San Juan de Ulua, and her precious freight in all its varieties
was welcomed with a tropical enthusiasm. The market was bare of
linen and of song, and it was hard to say which found the readiest
sale. Competition raised the price of both articles to a fabulous
height. So the good G---- had the benevolent satisfaction of clothing
the naked and making the ears that heard him to bless him at the
same time. After selling his linens at a great advance on the cost
price, considering he had only paid his daughter for them, and
having given a series of the most successful concerts ever known in
those latitudes, Signor G---- set forth for the Aztec City. As the
relations of _meum_ and _tuum_ were not upon the most satisfactory
footing just then at Vera Cruz, he thought it most prudent to carry
his well-won treasure with him to the capital. His progress thither
was a triumphal procession. Not Cortés, not General Scott, himself,
marched more gloriously along the steep and rugged road that leads
from the sea-coast to the table-land, than did this son of song.
Every city on his line of march was the monument of a victory, and
from each one he levied tribute and bore spoils away. And the
vanquished thanked him for this spoiling of their goods.
Arrived at the splendid city, at that time the largest and most
populous on the North American continent, he speedily made himself
master of it, a welcome conqueror. The Mexicans, with the genuine
love for song of their Southern ancestors, had had but few
opportunities for gratifying it such as that now offered to them. G----
was a tenor of great compass, and a most skilful and accomplished
singer. The artists who accompanied him were of a high order of merit,
if not of the very first class. Mexico had never heard the like, and,
though a hard-money country, was glad to take their notes and give
them gold in return. They were feasted and flattered in the
intervals of the concerts, and the bright eyes of Señoras and
Señoritas rained influence upon them on the off nights, as their
fair hands rained flowers upon the _on_ ones. And they have a very
pleasant way, in those golden realms, of giving ornaments of diamonds
and other precious stones to virtuous singers, as we give
pencil-cases and gold watches to meritorious railway conductors and
hotel clerks, as a testimonial of the sense we entertain of their
private characters and public services. The gorgeous East herself
never showered on her kings barbaric pearl and gold with a richer
hand than the city of Mexico poured out the glittering rain over the
portly person of the happy G----. Saturated at length with the
golden flood and its foam of pearl and diamond,--if, indeed, singer
were ever capable of such saturation, and were not rather permeable
forever like a sieve of the Danaides,--saturated, or satisfied that
it was all run out, he prepared to take up his line of march back
again to the City of the True Cross. Mexico mourned over his going,
and sent him forth upon his way with blessings and prayers for his
safe return.
But, alas! the blessings and the prayers were alike vain. The saints
were either deaf or busy, or had gone a journey, and either did not
hear or did not mind the vows that were sent up to them. At any rate,
they did not take that care of the worthy G---- which their devotees
had a right to expect of them. Turning his back on the Halls of the
Montezumas, where he had revelled so sumptuously, he proceeded on
his way towards the Atlantic coast, as fast as his mules thought fit
to carry him and his beloved treasure. With the proceeds of his
linens and his lungs, he was rich enough to retire from the
vicissitudes of operatic life, to some safe retreat in his native
Spain or his adoptive Italy. Filled with happy imaginings, he fared
onward, the bells of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy
of his heart, until he had descended from the _tierra caliente_ to
the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road
turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a
dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind
intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the
_impresario_ was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature
of man's hopes and the vanity of his joys. When his train wound into
the rough open space, it found itself surrounded by a troop of men
whose looks and gestures bespoke their function without the
intermediation of an interpreter. But no interpreter was needed in
this case, as Signor G---- was a Spaniard by birth, and their
expressive pantomime was a sufficiently eloquent substitute for
speech. In plain English, he had fallen among thieves, with very
little chance of any good Samaritan coming by to help him.
Now Signor G---- had had dealings with brigands and banditti all his
operatic life. Indeed, he had often drilled them till they were
perfect in their exercises, and got them up regardless of expense.
Under his direction they had often rushed forward to the footlights,
pouring into the helpless mass before them repeated volleys of
explosive crotchets. But this was a very different chorus that now
saluted his eyes. It was the real thing, instead of the make-believe,
and, in the opinion of Signor G----, at least, very much inferior to
it. Instead of the steeple-crowned hat, jauntily feathered and looped,
these irregulars wore huge _sombreros_, much the worse for time and
weather, flapped over their faces. For the velvet jacket with the
two-inch tail, which had nearly broken up the friendship between
Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, when the latter gentleman proposed
induing himself with one, on the occasion of Mrs. Leo Hunter's
fancy-dress breakfast,--for this integument, I say, these minions of
the moon had blankets round their shoulders, thrown back in
preparation for actual service. Instead of those authentic
cross-garterings in which your true bandit rejoices, like a new
Malvolio, to tie up his legs, perhaps to keep them from running away,
these false knaves wore, some of them, ragged boots up to their
thighs, while others had no crural coverings at all, and only rough
sandals, such as the Indians there use, between their feet and the
ground. They were picturesque, perhaps, but not attractive to wealthy
travellers. But the wealthy travellers were attractive to them; so
they came together, all the same. Such as they were, however, there
they were, fierce, sad, and sallow, with vicious-looking knives in
their belts, and guns of various parentage in their hands, while
their Captain bade our good man stand and deliver.
There was no room for choice. He had an escort, to be sure; but it
was entirely unequal to the emergency,--even if it were not, as was
afterwards shrewdly suspected, in league with the robbers. The enemy
had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was
nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or
to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily
administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs,--as the King
of France, by virtue of his _Droit d'Aubaine_, would have
confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in
spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced
to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions. As Signor G----
had an estate in his breath, from which he could draw a larger yearly
rent than the rolls of many a Spanish grandee could boast, he wisely
chose the part of discretion and surrendered at the same. His new
acquaintances showed themselves expert practitioners in the breaking
open of trunks and the rifling of treasure-boxes. All his beloved
doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever
felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers
to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his
pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the
sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished
from the shirt-frills,--for in those days studs were not,--and the
rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining
testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the
celerity of magic into the possession of the chivalry of the road.
Not Faulconbridge himself could have been more resolved to come on
at the beckoning of gold and silver than were they, and, good
Catholics though they were, it is most likely that Bell, Book, and
Candle would have had as little restraining influence over them as
he professed to feel.
At last they rested from their labors. To the victors belonged the
spoils, as they discovered with instinctive sagacity that they
should do, though the apophthegm had not yet received the authentic
seal of American statesmanship. Science and skill had done their
utmost, and poor G---- and his companions in misery stood in the
centre of the ring stripped of everything but the clothes on their
backs. The duty of the day being satisfactorily performed, the
victors felt that they had a right to some relaxation after their
toils. And now a change came over them which might have reminded
Signor G---- of the banditti of the green-room, with whose habits he
had been so long familiar and whose operations he had himself
directed. Some one of the troop, who, however fit for stratagems and
spoils, had yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea
was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized
results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were
unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him
some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued.
Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground,
a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G---- for a song.
A rock which projected itself from the side of the hill served for a
stage as well as the "green plat" in the wood near Athens did for
the company of Manager Quince, and there was no need of "a
tyring-room," as poor G---- had no clothes to change for those he
stood in. Not the Hebrews by the waters of Babylon, when their
captors demanded of them a song of Zion, had less stomach for the
task. But the prime tenor was now before an audience that would
brook neither denial nor excuse. Nor hoarseness, nor catarrh, nor
sudden illness, certified unto by the friendly physician, would
avail him now. The demand was irresistible; for when he hesitated,
the persuasive though stern mouth of a musket hinted to him in
expressive silence that he had better prevent its speech with song.
So he had to make his first appearance upon that "unworthy scaffold,"
before an audience which, multifold as his experience had been, was
one such as he had never sung to yet. As the shadows of evening
began to fall, rough torches of pine wood were lighted and shed a
glare such as Salvator Rosa loved to kindle, upon a scene such as he
delighted to paint. The rascals had taste,--that the tenor himself
could not deny. They knew the choice bits of the operas which held
the stage forty years ago, and they called for them wisely and
applauded his efforts vociferously. Nay, more, in the height of
their enthusiasm, they would toss him one of his own doubloons or
dollars, instead of the bouquets usually hurled at well-deserving
singers. They well judged that these flowers that never fade would
be the tribute he would value most, and so they rewarded his
meritorious strains out of his own stores, as Claude Du Val or
Richard Tarpin, in the golden days of highway robbery, would
sometimes generously return a guinea to a traveller he had just
lightened of his purse, to enable him to continue his journey. It
was lucky for the unfortunate G---- that their approbation took this
solid shape, or he would have been badly off indeed; for it was all
he had to begin the world with over again. After his appreciating
audience had exhausted their musical repertory and had as many
encores as they thought good, they broke up the concert and betook
themselves to their fastnesses among the mountains, leaving their
patient to find his way to the coast as best he might, with a pocket
as light as his soul was heavy. At Vera Cruz a concert or two
furnished him with the means of embarking himself and his troupe for
Europe, and leaving the New World forever behind him.
And here I must leave him, for my story is done. The reader hungering
for a moral may discern, that, though Signor G---- received the
price he asked for his lovely daughter, it advantaged him nothing,
and that he not only lost it all, but it was the occasion of his
losing everything else he had. This is very well as far as it goes;
but then it is equally true that M. M. ---- actually obtained his
wife, and that Mynheer Van Holland paid for her. I dare say all this
can be reconciled with the eternal fitness of things; but I protest
I don't see how it is to be done. It is "all a muddle," in my mind.
I cannot even affirm that the banditti were ever hanged; and I am
quite sure that the unlucky Dutch merchant, whose goods were so
comically mixed up with this whole history, never had any poetical
or material justice for his loss of them. But it is as much the
reader's business as mine to settle these casuistries. I only
undertook to tell him who it was that paid for the _Prima Donna_,--
and I have done it.