GLIMPSES OF FATE
The day before our arrival at Chihuahua, when Lieutenant Malgares
despatched ahead a courier with letters to his wife's father and General
Salcedo, I was suddenly struck with the fact that this First of April,
like that other Day of All Fools out of Philadelphia, was bringing me to
the senorita high in hopes yet none the less uncertain. Then I had
chilled with the dread that my journey's end would find her dear
presence vanished beyond my reach; now I suffered the far more poignant
fear that I might find her heart lost to another.
With such a thought lying like a torpid snake upon my breast, it is not
strange that I slept ill that night. But I was astir in the morning no
earlier than Malgares, who betrayed the liveliest apprehension over his
coming interview with the Commandant-General. It was the first time that
he had been permitted to come south to the seat of government since
leaving it for his daring expedition into our territories, nearly a year
past. Pike and I were astonished to find that he was not beaming with
expectation of the rewards his gallant exploit deserved. Instead he rode
along between us in silence, his fine Castilian face creased with lines
of anxiety, almost of dread.
We were now passing over the last few miles of the vast
mountain-encircled plain which surrounds the city of Chihuahua and upon
which, as well as similar vast ranges in this Province of Nuevo Viscaya,
_los haciendados_ pasture herds of thousands and tens of thousands of
cattle. Only in the most favored spots was the dreary landscape broken
by trees, most of them the acacia-like mesquite, which here grows to a
height of thirty or forty feet. There was little cultivation of the soil
in this region, whose inhabitants depend upon cattle and the rich silver
mines for their subsistence. A far from pleasant proof of this fact was
to be seen in the great number of smoking ore furnaces and the enormous
extent of the cinder heaps all about the city.
From the time we swung into our high-pommelled, high-cantled saddles, my
gaze was fixed through the smoke haze of the furnaces upon the lofty
towers of the _Parroquia_--the magnificent parish church of
Chihuahua--and the older and lower structure of the Jesuit Church of the
Campania. Noticing my intentness, even in his distraction, Malgares
courteously told the story of how the _Parroquia_ had been paid for by a
contribution from the silver produced by the great Santa Eulalia mine,
in all something over a million dollars, estimated in our money.
Aside from the _Parroquia_ and a few other imposing stone edifices, such
as the royal treasury, the hospital, the military academy, and the
three or four lesser churches, the city of Chihuahua proved to be
interesting but not magnificent. A few of the private buildings were of
stone and of more than one story, but the greater part of the city was
built of the ubiquitous unbaked mud brick.
Passing within sight of the huge arches of the great aqueduct, or
waterway, which bends around from the south to the east side of the
city, we at last found ourselves in the neat, close outskirts of
Chihuahua. Our course carried us toward the plaza through the better
streets, and it was evident from the number of ladies who crowded out
into their balconies to see us pass that the news of our coming had been
announced.
That Malgares was well and favorably known among these bright-eyed
senoras and senoritas soon became apparent as we swept along at the head
of our clattering, swashbuckling dragoons. Fans were waved, _rebozas_
and mantillas fluttered, and greetings called. Despite the anxiety which
damped his spirit, our companion responded with the most gallant of bows
and compliments.
In the midst, a gay young senorita, more daring than her sisters, cried
out: "_Viva, los Americanos!_"
Our response, I trust, was as gallant in spirit if not in effect as the
bows of Malgares. I qualify because Pike had to endure the mortification
of riding beneath the gaze of all those sparkling eyes in a costume
better fitting a backwoods farmer than a military gentleman. He was
still in his scarlet cap and blanket cloak. Yet, encouraged by our
acknowledgment of the first greeting, others of the ladies caught up the
cry, until we found ourselves being welcomed no less warmly and
frequently than Malgares himself.
This should have been fair enough augury to reassure the most despondent
of travellers. But as we jingled past house after house, I found myself,
between bows, scanning the gay groups on the balconies with a sinking
heart. We were nearing the plaza. I could see the trees between the
blank, bare walls of the dwellings which flanked the narrow street. In a
little more we should pass the last of the balconies,--and I had seen no
sign of my lady.
We neared the last balcony. Upon it were only three ladies, one of whom
held back behind the others, so much of her head and shoulders as showed
being muffled in a silk _reboza_, the Mexican head-drape or shawl. The
other two leaned eagerly forward over the balustrade, and the younger, a
plump beauty with the blackest and most brilliant of eyes, flashed at
Malgares a look that told me she was his wife, even before he called to
her in terms of extravagant endearment. Unlike so many of the Spanish
marriages, his had been a love match.
The senora and her yet plumper companion at the rail called down a
welcome to _los Americanos_. Pike and I swept off our hats and bowed our
handsomest. I straightened and looked up. Malgares had not checked his
horse for an instant, so that we were now opposite the balcony, and I,
being on the right, was almost directly beneath it. My heart gave a
great leap. Smiling down upon me, over the rail, I saw the lovely face
of my lady. I started to cry out her name: "Al--"
But already her finger was on her scarlet lips. I checked myself so
quickly that my exclamation sounded more like an "Ah!"
My lady let fall her _reboza_ over her face and drew back out of view.
When at last I gave over craning my head about, Malgares met me with a
smile. "So you have discovered her already, Don Juan!" he remarked in
French.
"My senorita!" I murmured. "She is the loveliest lady in the world!"
"The most beautiful--that is true, but I cannot admit that she is the
loveliest," he returned, with the loyalty of a true gentleman.
"I trust soon to repeat that last to your senora!" I exclaimed. "She was
the one to whom you called."
He bowed in confirmation of my surmise. "It is the house of Senor
Vallois. That other was Senora Marguerite Vallois, his wife. The house
of my wife's father is on the cross-street. She came to the house of her
friends to see me pass, for she knew I could not turn out of my direct
way to the _palacio_."
"What! Not a few moments to greet your lady after an absence of almost a
year?" I cried.
"This is not a free republic as is your country. Our ruler--" He checked
himself, and looked from me to Pike with an anxious glance. "Friends, I
have not darkened your journey with sombre anticipations. But now is the
time for warning. Do not be surprised if a few hours hence you find
yourselves in the _calabozo_."
"No!" said Pike, without raising his voice, but speaking in a tone of
indomitable resolution. "Your people may kill us, Don Faciendo, but they
shall neither disarm nor imprison us so long as there is breath left in
our bodies. My men have their orders."
Malgares shook his head sadly. "You free-born _Americanos_! You do not
yet know what it means to stand before a despot!" He glanced back over
his shoulder as if fearful of being overheard. The nearest of the escort
was beyond earshot. He drew in a deep breath, and murmured bitterly:
"You see what it means. I am not accounted a coward, yet I turn cold at
the very thought of the man who can dishonor me."
"Dishonor!" I repeated.
"Death is a little thing! But who does not fear a life--or death--of
disgrace?"
Our looks assured him of our sympathy. We came into the _alamo_, or
shaded ride, through the plaza. He pointed across at the fort-like mass
of the Governor's residence. "There lies the fate of all the Northern
Provinces, from the borders of Louisiana Territory to the Pacific, in
the grasp of one man!"
"You have an appeal to His Catholic Majesty," remarked Pike.
Malgares shrugged his shoulders in the manner of a Frenchman, a
gesture of which we would have considered his haughty pride incapable.
"It is a long journey to Old Spain to one who would oppose the
Commandant-General, and a far longer journey through the Court to the
Hall of Justice. No, _amigos_. Be advised. Discretion is sometimes the
better part of valor. Diplomacy wins many victories beyond reach of the
sword."
"You have our thanks, Don Faciendo," replied my friend, soberly. "I
shall not forget that I am here as an officer of the Army of the
Republic. My first and only concern is the interests of my country, and
I will use all means to conserve those interests."
We were by now approaching the great arched gateway which gaped in the
centre of the _palacio's_ stuccoed _facade_. The guard turned out with a
smartness which I could see impressed Pike not a little. There was a
moment's halt, and then we all clattered through the tunnel-like archway
into the brick-paved court enclosed by the building.
This was not the first _patio_ we had entered, but it was by far the
largest. Here and there the court was ornamented with small trees and
potted shrubs, some already in flower. A line of them screened off in
the rear the view of the kitchens and stables. All around this court ran
the arched entrances of the building's inner tiers of rooms, the gallery
of the upper story being reached with outside stairways in opposite
corners.
As the audience chamber was on the lower floor, we were ushered with
Malgares into the hall of the guards by one of the aides-de-camp, a
heavy-set, dark-browed Andalusian whom Malgares introduced as Lieutenant
Don Jesus Maria de Gonzales y Medina. Our six privates were left outside
in the care of the dragoons of the escort, with whom they had long since
come to the best of terms.
Word had at once been taken in to the Captain-General that we were
awaiting his pleasure. Presently an aide appeared and bowed to Malgares.
This left Pike and me seated alone on a stone bench, under the eyes of
the guard and of a rabble of house and stable servants, who had pressed
in to gape at those strange creatures, _los Anglo-Americanos_. It was no
easy test for my temper to bear, nor, I judge, for Pike's. Added to
this, we were by now fairly on needles and pins as to the manner in
which this despotic ruler should choose to receive us.
Lieutenant Medina had withdrawn. In his place appeared a ferret-eyed
little Frenchman, who snuffled complaints of how he had been abused in
this vile land, and sought to draw from us expressions of opinion
regarding the Spanish Government. Suspecting him to be a spy, Pike
pointed to the outer door, and gave him his _conge_ in Spanish: "_Vaya,
carrejo!_"
The scoundrel went, followed by a muffled yet none the less hearty laugh
over his discomfiture from the rough, honest soldiers. After a time
Medina returned with a sandy, pale-eyed but well-built young officer
whom he introduced as Alferez Don Juan Pedro Walker. The newcomer
hastened to explain, in English, that he was the same John Peter Walker
of New Orleans who in 1798 aided Mr. Ellicott in surveying the Florida
line.
At this moment Malgares appeared in the doorway of the audience chamber,
and requested Pike to enter. I started to follow, but he waved me back,
with an anxious frown. This boded ill for us. To conceal my concern, I
expressed to Walker my surprise that an American should have entered the
service of Spain. He answered quickly that he was not my countryman,
since his father was English and his mother French, and he had been born
and reared in New Orleans under Spanish rule.
While he was explaining this, in rather an apologetic tone, Medina was
called away. There followed a summons to Walker to attend upon the
Governor-General, and I found myself left quite alone in the midst of
the gaping, muttering rabble. This was no throng of simple, hospitable
rustics such as I had met and liked in the North Province; but a stable
and kitchen mob, the low scullions and hostlers and lackeys of a great
man, puffed with reflected pride and saucy with second-hand arrogance.
Soon I began to overhear jeers and scurrilous flings, of which the word
"spy" was the least galling. Before long all my apprehensions as to the
Governor-General were drowned in the swelling tide of my indignation and
anger. It was unendurable to sit for what seemed an endless time before
the insolent leers and coarse raillery of this scum. The soldiers looked
on, without attempting either to join in their scoffs or to silence
them.
At last, when I was about to seize the foremost two of the rascals by
the scruff of the neck and crack their heads together, the aide-de-camp
Medina sauntered back from out in the court. I cried to him sharply in
Spanish: "Senor lieutenant! do you not know whether it is time to take
me in?"
Such at least was what I intended to say. But, in my heat, I must have
slipped on my Spanish verb. The aide, mistaking me to mean that I had
been summoned before the Governor-General, immediately ushered me into
the audience chamber.
My first glance gave me a general impression of a large apartment,
severe in its furnishings; the second took in a table at which sat Pike
and Walker and two or three others, all engaged in sorting books and
papers which I ruefully recognized as the charts and journals of our
expedition.
The sight of Malgares, staring at me in open consternation, caused me to
fix my gaze upon the gray-headed, irascible little man at the head of
the table. We had expected a great show of regalia and the other
trumpery of court display about the Commandant-General. Of this there
was no sign to be seen anywhere in the room. Yet the bearing of the man
at the head of the table and the attitude of all others present in
facing him, told me that this was none less than His Excellency, Don
Nimesio Salcedo, the despotic ruler of provinces greater in total
extent than the United States and all their possessions other than
Louisiana Territory. Yet by now I was so goaded to indignant anger that
I held my head high and met his stern glance with the curtest of bows.
"_Caramba!_" he swore, turning to Malgares. "Whom have we here?"
"Senor Juan Robinson, Your Excellency," explained Malgares--"that most
excellent physician of whom I spoke, the surgeon attached to the
expedition of Lieutenant Don Montgomery Pike."
It was only a fair example of Malgares's noble courtesy and friendliness
to seek thus to mollify in my favor the man whose single word could send
me to the garrotte as a spy. I thanked him with a look.
Salcedo flashed a fiery glance at the luckless Medina. "Why do you bring
him in--_imbecil_? Let him retire."
I turned on my heel, too heated now to care, whatever the tyrant might
have in mind to do. But the moment the door closed behind me, I found
Lieutenant Medina at my elbow, and he was as angry as myself.
"_Satanas!_" he hissed, his little beady eyes snapping with fury. "I
have lost standing with His Excellency by this frightful blunder.
Explain! You told me I was to conduct you in! Explain!"
"_Na-da!_" I drawled. "I did not tell you."
"You said it!" he insisted.
I gave him the Spanish equivalent for our adage not to cry over spilt
milk, adding that I preferred his room to his company. At this he went
off fairly boiling with rage, fearful, I take it, that if he stayed he
would explode, and so draw upon himself the wrath of his lord and
master. As by this time the rabble had dispersed, I was left to my own
bitter reflections.
Surely if Salcedo had not scrupled to seize the records of the
expedition, he would not scruple to treat me as an outright spy. The
best I could forecast from that meant an indefinite confinement in the
terrible Spanish _calabozo_, compared with which the worst of our filthy
flea-and-fever-infested seaboard gaols is a palace of comfort. Yet the
thought of Alisanda spurred me to wild resolve. Let them fling me into
their dungeons. I would break through their bars and stone walls. I had
not crossed the Barrier to be daunted now. Nothing should keep me from
her!
In the midst of my angry scheming, the door opened to permit the exit of
Walker, Pike, and Malgares. Walker bowed, and addressed me in French,
out of courtesy to Malgares: "If you please, Dr. Robinson, the General
has expressed his wish that yourself and Lieutenant Pike should honor me
by becoming my guests while you are in Chihuahua. We go now to permit
yourself and Lieutenant Pike to arrange your dress before returning to
dine with His Excellency."
This was decidedly different from being invited to descend into a
dungeon. I bowed my acknowledgments.
Malgares held out a hearty hand to Pike and myself.
"God with you!" he exclaimed. "Pardon my haste. But I will see you again
at dinner. Now I fly to my Dolores!"
"_Vaya usted con Dios!_" we replied, waving him not to linger.
It would have been cruel to delay his departure an instant, seeing that
he had been separated from his senora for the greater part of a year. I
saw Pike heave a sigh, and knew he was thinking of the beloved wife and
children whom he had not seen for so many months, and might not see for
many other weary months to come, possibly never.
My own thoughts, however, turned back to Alisanda. As Walker conducted
us across the plaza to the house where, in company with other young
bachelor officers, he had his quarters, a question or two set him to
gossiping upon the ladies, and, inevitably, to singing the praises of
Senorita Vallois. That was music to which I could have listened
unwearying for hours.
But time pressed. Walker insisted upon loaning both of us neckcloths,
and Pike various other articles of dress suitable to the occasion. He
would have been as insistent upon sharing his wardrobe with myself had
not my size prevented. I had to content myself with the neckcloth and a
pair of silk stockings which I had in my saddlebags. In our prinking we
enjoyed the officious services of Walker's quaint old negro servant
Caesar, who had been taken in Texas with other members of Captain Nolan's
party, and was said by Walker to be the only man of his race in all
this region.
Washed and dressed, we returned to the _palacio_ still escorted by
Walker, who had seen to it that we should not for an instant find
opportunity to speak a word in private. Arriving at our destination, we
found Malgares there before us, his fine eyes still beaming from the
meeting with his loving senora.
This time we were shown in without delay to the _sala_, or salon, where
Salcedo received us with a formal bow, and then directed his attentions
to Pike and Malgares with an urbanity which belied the gash-like crease
between his shaggy gray brows. I was introduced to Senor Trujillo, the
treasurer, who, however, paired off with Walker. This left me to go into
table with the portly padre Father Rocus, who was the only other member
of the party. Our seats proved to be at the far end of the longish
board, and as the padre at once contrived to divert and hold my
attention, I heard and saw little of what took place among the others.
Unlike the native-born priests I had met in the north, Father Rocus was
a man of profound learning and ability. Without allowing the
conversation to interfere in the least with his enjoyment of our elegant
French-cooked repast and the very superior wines, he quickly sounded the
none too profound depths of my learning in the sciences. He then touched
adroitly upon politics and religion. The thought flashed upon me that he
was seeking to lead me into some snare, yet I stated my convictions
candidly. If Salcedo wished to condemn me, he would condemn me, and that
was all there was in it.
At the end Father Rocus sat for some moments sipping his wine, holding
the glass as daintily and caressingly between his plump white fingers as
I would have held my lady's hand. He set it down to be refilled by the
assiduous lackey at his elbow, and addressed me in English: "Republican,
heretic, and Anglo-American--it is unfortunate. None are popular in the
domains of His Most Catholic Majesty."
"I did not come here to curry favor with your people, padre," I replied.
"Not with all, perhaps, but--" Again he raised his glass and sipped for
several moments. Yet I observed that his half-shut eyes were fixed upon
me in a penetrating gaze. "You are acquainted in Chihuahua?" he
remarked, in a tone as much of statement as inquiry.
"Lieutenant Malgares has honored us with his friendship."
"Are there not others?" he queried.
"If so, I am not at liberty to mention their names," I said.
"Good!" he commented. "Discretion is the one quality in which I thought
you lacking. I now feel justified in returning to you an article which I
have reason to believe is your property."
"An article--my property?" I repeated, not a little puzzled.
He smiled, and, unobserved by the attendants, handed me my lady's
handkerchief. I gazed at it, first astounded, then dismayed. It was all
too clear that my message had been intercepted, probably by Don Pedro,
and intrusted to this priest, to be returned as a courteous hint that my
suit for the niece's hand was not acceptable. But as, greatly downcast,
I thrust the handkerchief into my bosom, the padre raised his brows, and
spoke in evident surprise: "You do not appear pleased, senor doctor.
From what she said, I was led to infer--"
"What she said?" I broke in. "She? You mean--"
"A certain senorita who voyaged down a long river in company with her
uncle and a certain gallant young heretic," he answered over his glass.
"She--my Alisanda! Then it is from her you bring the kerchief! You are
our friend!"
"I am her confessor, and, I trust, her best friend," he replied. "As for
yourself, God grant I may also become your friend and confessor."
"Friend--yes!" I assented eagerly.
"And confessor!" he urged. "Remember, you are now in the Kingdom of New
Spain. It is in point to remark that a heretic was burned at the city of
Mexico within the last three years."
My head sank forward in gloomy meditation. I had crossed the Barrier, it
is true; but now I saw yawning before me the abyss of the Gulf.