A MESSAGE TO MY LADY
During the journey to Santa Fe, while stopping over at the town of San
Juan, where I was treated with the utmost warmth of hospitality, I was
able to inform myself as to the prosperous condition of the trader Le
Lande, who had married and settled in the vicinity. But my apprehensions
as to my reception by the Governor of this remote province prevented me
from taking as deep an interest either in that rascal or in the strange
customs and appearance of these Mexican people as I should have felt in
easier circumstances.
Unlike Agua Caliente and some of the other small settlements we had
passed, I found Santa Fe a town widely scattered in the outskirts. Many
of the low adobe buildings which made up the bulk of the place stood
each in its tiny patch of field, which, early as was the season, the
people were beginning to cultivate with their rude ploughs and mattocks.
Within these suburbs, however, the houses crowded closer and closer
together, until they were for the most part separated only by streets
that were no less narrow and crooked than dirty. A more striking
difference between this two-century-old settlement and the ones
up-country was the presence of the two huge adobe churches which towered
among the hovels, all the more imposing for the contrast. Their windows,
like those of the better houses, were glazed with sheets of thin,
transparent talc.
I was at once taken past the rectangle of the soldiers' barracks to the
great open court, or plaza, in the midst of the town, where we came to
the house of the Governor. By this time I and my escort were surrounded
by a number of _mestizos_ and tame Indians, all of whom, however, drew
away when we entered the palace through an open, brick-paved portico, or
shed. After the plainness of the exterior, I was astonished by the
ornate furnishings of the rooms within, whose limed walls were hung with
bright-figured drapes and whose floors of beaten clay were spread with
skin rugs.
Little time was given me to wonder at what to my unaccustomed eyes
seemed most magnificent decorations. I was quickly shown on into a large
apartment, at the upper end of which sat a sallow-faced, corpulent
Spanish don. I had no need to look at the secretary and the other
attendants grouped about his high chair to realize that I was in the
presence of Don Joachin Allencaster. The harshness of his glance as I
was led before him was enough of proof; for until now, all whom I had
met, even to the most ignorant and dogmatic of the priests, had treated
me with the deference of true hospitality.
Not until this moment had I fully realized the wretchedness of my
appearance. Though the kindness of the commandant at Agua Caliente had
provided me with a bath and a cotton shirt, I still wore my tattered
buckskins; upon my head was my old coonskin cap, which had been half
singed by a fall in the fire; my limbs and feet were clad in moccasins
and leggings of fresh buffalo hide, the raw surface outward; while about
my shoulders my unkempt hair fell down in loose and shaggy locks, as
barbarous as the eight months' beard upon my lean, starved face.
"_Por Dios!_" exclaimed His Excellency. Having doubtless been informed
in the despatches that I claimed to be a Frenchman, he addressed me in
that language: "_Sacre!_ You have come here, the second American in two
years, to spy upon my province!"
"Your Excellency," I replied, "I had thought the Commandant of Agua
Caliente wrote you regarding the purpose of my visit to New Spain. As to
this Pursley, if it is to him you refer as my fellow spy, I had never
before so much as heard of the man until told at Agua Caliente. The
Commandant can tell you how astonished I was when he informed me of
Pursley's exploit in penetrating the wilderness. For my part, I should
surmise that he is no more than one of our venturesome fur-hunters. But
if you insist upon your suspicions, why not include Baptiste Le Lande
with us in a trio of spies?"
Throughout this the Governor had continued to regard me with great
austerity. Quite unmoved by my attempt at lightness, he now signed to
his secretary, and spoke to me in a most peremptory tone: "Your papers,
fellow!"
I drew out the documents relating to the Le Lande claim and handed them
over to the secretary. His Excellency demanded their purport, which I
gave as clearly and briefly as my French would permit.
"We shall see," he commented, when I ended my account. "Your papers will
be examined, and I will send for Le Lande. Meantime you will consider
yourself under arrest. You will be given quarters in the rooms assigned
for officers in confinement, but you are at liberty within the bounds of
the town, if accompanied by your guard."
With this, he appointed a corporal of the regular dragoons to attend
upon me both as guard and waiter, and I was promptly led out. During the
short delay which followed, I had no cause to complain of my treatment.
The corporal proved a most accommodating servant, and my meals were sent
to me from His Excellency's own table. In addition, the hospitality of
the leading people of Santa Fe was so cordial that I should have enjoyed
greatly the two days I had to wait, had it not been for my fears that
the Governor might detain me for an indefinite period, or send me
eastward out of the province, into the country of the Comanches.
When, therefore, he again called me before him, and stated that he had
inquired and found that Le Lande was incapable of discharging the claim
presented by me, I declared boldly that I knew this to be a mistake,
and that it appeared to me His Excellency was seeking to shelter a
refugee debtor of my country, in violation of the treaties between Spain
and the United States.
"Look to it, Your Excellency!" I concluded, with all the heat and
indignation I could affect. "Look to it! This is no light matter. The
man is an outright thief, and the treaty rights of Monsieur Morrison are
clear. I insist upon the payment of this claim. If I cannot obtain
justice of Your Excellency, I will appeal to the Governor-General."
This last stirred him out of the daze of astonishment into which he had
been thrown by the audacity of my heated protest. Governors of Spanish
provinces are not accustomed to being bearded by their inferiors in
rank, much less by lone foreigners suspected of espionage. But at my
mention of his superior, he found his voice.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, and I marked the change in his tone. "_Madre de
Dios!_ You would go to Chihuahua?"
"No offence to Your Excellency," I hastened to protest, affecting to
believe him alarmed for himself. "It may well be that your authority is
so limited that you cannot satisfy my claim. My complaint against your
refusal will be purely formal. In truth, I prefer to have the decision
of the Governor-General, if only to obtain a precedent in the
adjudication of similar claims which may be presented in other provinces
under his rule."
"_Por Dios!_ You wish to go to Chihuahua!" he repeated. I believe he
would have been less amazed had I urged him to let me go to the gallows.
"To Chihuahua! to Salcedo!" he murmured.
"Why not, Your Excellency?" I inquired.
His sallow cheeks darkened with a sudden return of his suspicions, and
he sought to transfix me with his glance.
"_Caramba!_" he muttered. "Tell me clearly how you came across all that
vast desert. You came from the northward. Did you then cross the
mountains?"
I described briefly that terrible march south and west from the Grand
Peak. He listened with growing wonderment.
"_Poder de Dios!_ It is impossible!" he cried. "Malgares has told me of
that gigantic peak and the sierra you crossed. It is not possible! The
Sangre de Cristo, and in midwinter--afoot!"
"Yet it is true, Your Excellency."
Again his eye sought to pierce me with its suspicious stare.
"Your party?" he demanded. "You have spoken of hunters. Who are
they?--and where?"
Having now some of the details of Pursley's adventures to copy, I told a
connected tale of having accompanied some Osages from St. Louis to the
Pawnee country, in search of the recreant Le Lande, when, learning of
his flight to New Mexico, I had wandered westward with a small party of
hunters to the Grand Peak and then southwest over the mountains, until
we came to what was supposed to be the Red River, where my companions
had stopped to hunt.
At the end of my recital, he sat for some moments studying me. Then,
with a most disconcerting suddenness: "Senor, you will honor me with
your presence at table."
He rose at the words, and leaving all the others gaping, conducted me
down a corridor to his dining-room. It was now high noon, and we found
the table already spread for the midday meal, which is the principal
repast of the day among the Spaniards in Mexico.
A plate was laid for myself opposite His Excellency's, and we sat down
in civilized fashion to a meal which would have graced the table of the
richest Spanish creole in all Louisiana. There were trout from the
neighboring streams, a variety of meats and fowl, good wheaten bread
altogether unlike the unappetizing corn _tortillas_ of the commonfolk,
chocolate and _dulces_, fine raisins from the Paso del Norte, and a
bottle or two of most excellent wine.
Throughout our repast His Excellency addressed himself to me as one
gentleman to another, so that I found myself continually in a stress of
excitement between apprehension and hope. Our conversation was for the
most part directed to European topics, dwelling much, as must every
discussion of transatlantic affairs, upon the career of that most
marvellous of men, the Emperor of the French.
But with the wine and the _cigarros_, His Excellency seemed to
recollect for the first time the small but none the less important
affairs of our own personal concern.
"I begin to be convinced, senor physician, that you are indeed a man of
genteel breeding," he said. "If, however, you will pardon the remark, I
have grave doubt whether a Frenchman of your education would commit so
many errors in the use of his native language."
I smiled. "_Mon Dieu!_ Your Excellency, we of St. Louis have not the
facilities for visiting _la belle_ France possessed by our fellow
creoles of New Orleans. It is a century or more since my ancestors came
to the New World."
"And you have dwelt much among the Anglo-Americans," he insinuated.
"It is true," I replied with candor. "I obtained my diploma as a
physician from the college of Columbia in the city of New York."
He stiffened with a sudden return of austerity. "Senor, I no longer
doubt that you are a _caballero_--a gentleman. I will not press you to
confess your ulterior motive in coming into the domains of His Most
Catholic Majesty. Yet, if you carry secret documents (I am disinclined
to have you searched), I ask you to give me your word whether or not you
carry such despatches."
"Your Excellency," I answered, "I give you my word that I do not. The
documents I handed over into Your Excellency's keeping were all I
brought with me."
"_Satanas!_" he cried, his face flushing with sudden violent anger.
"Such duplicity! Such treachery!"
"If you will be so kind as to explain, senor," I said with unaffected
astonishment.
"You hold to it? _Carrajo!_ How then of the packet in your bosom?"
"That?" I exclaimed, at once perceiving the cause of his continued
suspicion. Some one had spied upon me and seen the packet. I reached my
hand into my hunting-shirt, only to hesitate and draw it out again,
empty. It seemed a profanation to expose my treasures to his gaze.
"You pause! You dare not produce the packet! In it lies your
condemnation!" he cried.
The folly of my course flashed upon me. Why should I set a mere fanciful
sentiment against the lulling of his suspicions? If I did not myself
hand over the packet, he would have it taken from me by force.
He started to rise, but I caught the little bundle from my bosom and
reached it across the table. Instead of rising, he bent forward, and,
with forced deliberation, began to open the folds of the waxed parchment
cover. First exposed was the corner of the flag.
"Aha!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing across at me in fieriest anger.
"Explain that, if you can!--a malicious desecration of the flag of His
Most Catholic Majesty!"
"Not so!" I flung back at him. "Look what is marked upon it. Those
letters were a message to me. I found it within the undisputed
boundaries of my country, at the town of the Pawnee Republicans. It was
a message to me, and I took it, for it was mine."
"Ah! ah! a message! You confess, senor spy!"
I pointed to the last unwrapped fold. He turned it open, his face keen
with exultant expectation. The now powdered leaves of the magnolia bloom
puzzled him for the moment. Not so the handkerchief. His eye was
instantly caught by the initials in the corner. Without a second glance,
he averted his gaze until he had drawn up the edge of the snowy damask
cloth over my stained and crumpled treasures.
"_Perdone, hermano!_" he murmured, with a most apologetic bow. "Be
pleased to regain your property."
With that he left the table and stood with his back to me until I had
folded up the packet and replaced it within my bosom.
"Your Excellency," I said, "the world has heard much about the
chivalrous gallantry of your people. I am now convinced the half has not
been told of it!"
"_Muchas gracias_, senor!" he returned. "You pardon my stupid error?
Yours is the act of a true _caballero!_ If the question does not trench
upon delicate ground, may I venture an inquiry as to the possible
relation of your daring journey--?"
"I have reason to believe that the lady is at Chihuahua, Your
Excellency," I explained.
"Ah! ah! now I perceive! Yet what an _amor_ to bring any man across the
vast desert!--above all, over the Sangre de Cristo in midwinter!"
"It was the barrier which lay between myself and my lady, Your
Excellency."
"_Por Dios!_ You _Americanos!_ You will yet be flying to the moon!
Malgares told me fully of the perils of the desert, and he had six
hundred men, and it was in the pleasant season. But one man or a mere
handful, however brave--_Santisima Virgen!_"
"Malgares?" I repeated.
"Lieutenant Malgares, who led the expedition to the savages of the East
and North. On your way to Chihuahua you will have opportunity to learn
that he is a true _caballero_."
"Chihuahua?" I exclaimed. "Your Excellency will then permit me to go to
Chihuahua?"
"_Quien sabe?_" he smiled. "God alone knows the future! But I will send
despatches, and it may well happen that they will not be in disfavor of
your going. But as for the decision, that is with His Excellency, Don
Nimesio Salcedo, the Commandant-General."
A sudden thought aided me to rally from my disappointment.
"Your Excellency," I asked, "if I should seal and address one article
contained in my packet before your eyes, might I not ask the favor that
it be delivered at Chihuahua to the lady addressed?"
"_Santa Maria!_" he returned, "it is always a pleasure to aid a lover.
Come now! We will seal your message with my own seal. There are those
between us and your Dulcinea who might otherwise peer within the cover.
The address you shall write upon it in private with my own quill, and
none shall see the name of the senorita. She is not married?" (I signed
that she was not.) "None shall see her name except my messenger when he
opens the despatch-pouch for delivery at Chihuahua."
"_Muchas gracias_, Your Excellency!" I murmured, overcome.
"Ah! ah!" he murmured, leaning upon my bony shoulder as we started. "The
years pass, but I, too, once had my romance, senor!"