LA LUZ, BLOCKADE RUNNER
"For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
--_Romeo and Juliet._
"Meson" is Spanish for hostelry. In the ancient caravansaries, like the
one at Bethlehem sacred to the Christ child, the same accommodations
were meted out to man and beast alike. More recently there are "hotels,"
which distinguish a man from his beast, usually; though sometimes
undeservedly. And so the word "meson" got left behind along with its
primitive meaning. But in Mexico word and meaning still go together to
this day, and both described pretty well the four walls in Tampico where
Anastasio Murguia tarried. Excepting the porter's lodge at the entrance,
the establishment's only roof formed an open corridor against one of the
walls, in which species of cloister the human guests were privileged to
spread their blankets in case of rain or an icy norther. Otherwise they
slept in the sky-vaulted court among the four-footed transients, for
what men on the torrid Gulf coast would allow his beast more fresh air
than himself?
Don Anastasio's caravan filled the meson with an unflurried, hay-chewing
promise of bustle-to-be at some future date. Except for the camels and
costume lacking, the Mexican trader might have been a sheik in an oasis
khan. His bales littered the patio's stone pavement. They were of cotton
mostly, which he had bought in the Confederate States, in exchange for
necessities of warfare and life. Complacent burros and horses were
juggling into their mouths some final grains from the sacks over their
noses. Peon servants stolidly busied themselves around charcoal
braziers.
An American leaned in the cavernous doorway. The tarnished insignia on
his collar indicated an officer of Confederate cavalry. He was smoking a
cob pipe, of which he seemed quite fond. And as a return for such
affection, the venerable Missouri meerschaum lent to its young master an
air that was comfortably domestic and peaceable. The trooper wore a
woolen shirt. His boots were rough and heavy. Hard wear and weather had
softened his gray hat into a disreputable slouch affair. A broad
black-leather belt sagged about his middle from the weight of
cartridges. Under his ribs on either side protruded the butt of a
navy-six, thrust in between shirt and trousers. He watched with dozing
interest the muleteers inside as they roped up straw, tightened straps,
and otherwise got ready for departure. Then Anastasio Murguia appeared
coming up the street, just from his lately recorded interview with Fra
Diavolo. The weazened little old Mexican was in a fretful humor, and his
glance at the lounging Southerner was anything but cordial. He would
have passed on into the meson, but the other stopped him.
"Well, Murgie, are we projecting to start to-night?" the trooper
inquired in English. "Eh?--What say?"
What Don Anastasio had said was nothing at all, but being thus urged, he
mumbled a negative.
"Not starting to-night?" his questioner repeated. "Now, why don't
we?--What?--Lordsake, man, dive! Bring up that voice there for once!"
Murguia sank to the chin in his black coat. Glancing apprehensively at
the cavalryman's long arm, he edged away to the farther side of the
doorway. Experience had accustomed the ancient trader to despots, but in
this cheery youngster of a Gringo the regal title was not clear, which
simply made tyranny the more irksome. The Gringo was the veriest
usurper. He did not justify his sway by the least ferocity. He never
uttered a threat. Where, then, was his right to the sceptre he wielded
so nonchalantly? Were there only some tangible jeopardy to his pelt,
Murguia would have been more resigned. But his latest autocrat was only
matter-of-fact, blithely and aggravatingly matter-of-fact.
By every rule governing man's attitude toward man, the Senor Don should
have been the bully, and the youngster the cringing sycophant. For since
their very odd meeting two weeks before, the tyrant had been in the
power of the tyrannized. It began on Murguia's own boat, where Murguia
was absolute. Any time after leaving Mobile he had merely to follow his
inclinations and order the fellow thrown overboard. Yet it was the
soldier boy who had assumed the ascendancy, and it could not have been
more natural were the boat's owner a scullion and the intruder an
admiral.
"And why _don't_ we start to-night?" the complacent usurper
demanded in that plaintive drawl which so irritated the other. "You went
for your passports, didn't you get 'em?"
"Si--si, senor."
"Good! Then to-night it is, eh?--Can't you speak out, _my_
gracious!"
"_You_ might go to-night," the trader suggested timidly.
"Alone?--N-o, parting isn't the sweet sorrow it's cracked up to be.
Besides, I don't know the roads, but of course that's nothing to losing
a jovial old mate like you, Murgie."
Don Anastasio smirked at the pleasantry. "But _I_ can't go
to-night, senor. I--I have to see--someone--first."
The trooper betrayed the least impatience. "Now look here--usurer,
viper, blanketed thief, honorable sir, you _know_ I'm in a hurry!"
That his haste could be any concern of Murguia's was preposterous, and
Murguia would have liked nothing better than to tell him so. But he did
not, and suffered inwardly because somehow he could not. He harbored a
dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable
cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough,
though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the
doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from the Missouri
meerschaum.
"I'm sorry," Don Anastasio paid out the hard-found words through his
teeth, "but possibly we can leave to-morrow. Will, will that suit Your
Mercy, Senor Coronel?"
"Oh perhaps. Anyhow, don't go to forgetting, now, that I'm in a hurry."
Don Anastasio breathed easier, and he even grew so bold as to recall a
certain suspicion he had entertained. "Your errand down here must be of
considerable importance, Senor Coronel?" he ventured.
"There you are again--crawling again." It was evident that the trooper's
normal condition was a great, hearty, calm good humor.
But the Mexican's shriveled features grew sharper and his moist eyes
more prying. His suspicion had tormented him ever since fate had thrown
the Confederate in his way. This had happened one stormy night at
Mobile. The night in question was pitch dark. The tide was favorable,
too, but a norther was blowing, the very same norther that had turned
the _Imperatrice Eugenie_ off her course. Murguia's skipper had
chosen the hour of midnight for running the Federal blockade outside,
and he had already given the order to cast off, when a horseman in a
cape overcoat rode to the edge of the wharf.
"Wait there!" the horseman trumpeted through his hand.
It was the first word Murguia had ever heard from his future tyrant, and
even then the cool tone of authority nettled him. But he reflected that
here might be a passenger, and a passenger through the blockade usually
meant five hundred dollars in gold. He ordered the plank held for a
moment.
"They tell me--whoa, Demijohn!--you are going to Tampico?" hallooed the
same voice.
"Yes," Murguia answered, and was going to name his price, when without
more ado the cavalier rode across, dismounted on the deck, and tossed
his bridle to the first sailor.
"Ca-rai!" sneered the astonished Mexican, "one would think you'd just
reached your own barnyard, senor."
"My own barnyard?" echoed the stranger bitterly. "I haven't seen my own
barnyard, or anything that is mine, during these four years past. But
you were about to start?"
"Not so fast, senor. Fare in advance, seven hundred dollars." Murguia
looked for the haggling to come next, but somehow the sniff he heard was
not promising.
"Usurer, viper, blanketed thief, benevolent old rascal," the trooper
enumerated as courteously as "Senor Don" or "Your Mercy," "you don't
surprise me a bit, not when you charge us three thousand dollars gold
for freight on a trunk of quinine!"
"G-g-get back on your horse! G-get off this boat!"
But the intruder calmly drew off his great coat, and Murguia saw the
butts of pistols at his waist. Yet they had no reference to the removal
of the cape. The latter was a simple act of making oneself at home.
"I reckon," said the newcomer cheerily, "there's no question of fare.
Here, I've got a pass."
By a lantern Murguia read the paper handed him. It was signed:
"Jefferson Davis, President C. S. A." Therein Mr. Anastasio Murguia or
any other blockade runner was required on demand of the bearer, Lieut.
Col. Jno. D. Driscoll, to transport the said Driscoll to that part
outside the Confederacy which might happen to be the blockade runner's
destination.
The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again,
hesitated again, and at last handed it back, his mind made up.
"Have the goodness, senor, to remove yourself from my boat."
But the lieutenant colonel placidly inquired, "Carry any government
cotton this trip? No, I know you don't. Then you're in debt to the
government? Correct. So I reckon you'll carry me in place of the
cotton."
The demand was just. For their golden privileges the blockade runners
took a portion of their cargo on government account. But Murguia knew
that the army of Northern Virginia must surrender soon. The Confederacy
was really at an end, and this would be his last trip. Why, then, pay a
dying creditor?
"The favor, senor! Or must I have you kicked off?"
The senor, however, with his charger behind him, was foraging over the
deck to find a stall, and in a fury Murguia plucked at his sleeve. But
Driscoll wheeled of his own accord to inquire about horse
accommodations, and then the Mexican wondered in his timid soul at his
own boldness. It loomed before him as unutterably more preposterous than
the lone wanderer's preposterous act of taking possession single handed.
Yet the lone wanderer was only gazing down on him very benignly. But
what experience of violent life, of cool dealing in death, did poor Don
Anastasio behold on those youthful features! In a panic he realized
certain vital things. To evade his debt to a government that could never
claim it was very seductive and business-like. But there were the
Confederate batteries on the wharf, and a line of torpedoes across the
entrance to the bay. There were the Federal cannon of Fort Morgan, just
beyond. His passenger, if rejected, had only to give the word, and there
would be some right eager shooting. And as the Southerners shot, in
their present mood, they would remember various matters. They would
remember the treasure he had wrung from their distress; the cotton
bought for ten cents and sold abroad for a dollar; the nitre, the
gunpowder, the clothing and medicines, rated so mercilessly dear; the
profits boosted a thousand per cent., though an army was starving.
And yet Murguia could not lift his soul from the few hundred dollars of
passage money. He almost had his man by the sleeve again. But no, there
were four hundred odd bales on board. There was _La Luz_, his fleet
L20,000 Clyde-built side-wheeler, bought out of the proceeds of a single
former trip. Even if torpedoes and cannon missed, the Fort and
blockaders outside would be thankful for the alarm, and make sure of
him. A few hundred dollars was an amount, but the benignity in
Driscoll's whimsical brown eyes meant a great deal more, such for
instance, as cotton and steamer and Don Anastasio plunging to the bottom
of the bay.
"Oh I s'y, sir," interrupted a voice in vigorous cockney, "this 'ere
tide ain't in the 'abit o' waitin'. If we go to-night, we go this
minute, sir!" It was the skipper, and the skipper's ultimatum.
"W'y yes," drawled the lieutenant colonel, "let's be marching. I forgot
to tell you, I'm in a hurry. Come on, Demijohn," and man and horse went
in search of beds.
Murguia looked venomous, but the plank was drawn on board.