before the man who had so lately been one of themselves, with marks of
deep reverence, which were only stopped by a significant sign from their
_cidevant_ comrade.
"Always the same man, Alonzo," said the captain with a contemptuous laugh;
"just fit to say '_beso las manos a su senoria_,' and to cringe and bow
before counts and marquises. But it is ill speaking with dogs of that
kind," added he, as he again turned to the young nobleman. "Yes, senor,"
he continued, "Hidalgo was a true man. He it was who first put me out of
conceit with slavery of all kinds. 'Tis just sixteen months and three
weeks to-morrow, since the shell burst. Hidalgo was keeping the tertulia
with his musicians--it was nine in the evening. In came Don Ignacio
Allende y Unzaga, as white as ashes; he had ridden for dear life from
Valladolid, where Iturriaga, in order to secure his place in heaven, had
consigned his sworn brothers to destruction, by confessing every thing to
Father Gil, who in his turn had confessed to the Audiencia. The corregidor
of Valladolid had been immediately arrested as one of the heads of the
conspiracy, and luckily this had reached the ears of Allende and Aldama,
who hastened to horse, and came as fast as spur and whip could bring them,
to take counsel of the only man who could help them in their extremity.
And counsel he gave them. He and the captain deliberated for one hour, and
then out he came, brisk and bold, and declared himself ready for the
fight. Off he started to the prison, put a pistol to the jailer's head,
and compelled him to give up the keys and set loose the prisoners. Allende
went to the houses of the Gachupins and took away their money, giving them
acknowledgments for it. All this was done without blood being spilled.
Only one Gachupin, who behaved roughly to Hidalgo, had been slightly
wounded. The Indians, Metises, and Zambos, rallied round their cura, and
away they all went to Miguel el Grande and Zelaya, where an infantry
regiment and four squadrons of cavalry joined them. On to Guanaxato, where
another battalion came over. _Todos diabolos!_" continued Jago, "Hidalgo
had now more than fifty thousand men at his back; but what were they?
Three thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry among a legion of
Indians. The soldiers were lost amid the brown multitude, like flies in a
pail of pulque. The fifty thousand Indians were shoeless and half-naked,
armed with clubs and slings, or at most with machetes, which might do
well enough to cut up _tasajo_,[38] but were a deal too short to be
measured with Spanish bayonets. Capital fellows were they for plundering
and murdering, but ill fitted for a fight. In Miguel el Grande, in San
Felipe, in Zelaya, the Gachupins had been cut off to a man. That would not
have mattered much, but the _gente irracionale_ had included the Creoles
with the Spaniards. In Guanaxato, it was still worse. I joined Hidalgo
just in time for that dance. We were received with open arms by the
Leperos and Indians, but the Creoles and Gachupins had shut themselves up
in the Alhondega. This was the first resistance our mad mob had met with,
and they rushed like raging savages to attack the granary. They were right
well received, and a desperate fight began. At last a giant of a
_tenatero_ found an enormous flat stone, put it on his head as he might
have done his sombrero, and held it on with his right hand, while with a
lighted torch in his left, he set fire to the door of the Alhondega. A way
was soon opened to the assailants, who rushed in over the smouldering
fragments of the door. In a few minutes fourteen hundred Spaniards and
Creoles, with wives and children, were stabbed, struck down, and torn in
pieces. The Indians waded in blood and treasure. The latter they brought
out by baskets full; and the fools might be seen changing doubloons for
copper money, taking them for half-dollar bits.
"About four thousand Indians had joined us out of the city, and thirty
thousand out of the district, of Guanaxato. Hidalgo was at the summit of
his glory. A council of war had named him generalissimo; Allende was his
second in command; Ballesa, Ximenes, and Aldama, lieutenant-generals;
Abasala, Ocon, and the brothers Martinez were brigadiers. Hidalgo sang a
_Te Deum_, and divided the army into regiments, each of a thousand men,
and gave regular pay; to the officers three dollars a-day, the cavalry one
dollar, and the rest half a dollar. He himself appeared in field-marshal's
uniform, blue with white facings, the medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe
upon his breast. It would have been wiser, however, to have named him
archbishop, and made Allende general-in-chief. Hidalgo was a capital
priest, but a thorough bad general, and could not even maintain discipline
in his army. In his first anger at the Creoles for keeping aloof from the
revolution, he had included them in the cry of '_Mueran los Gachupinos!_'
and now his eighty thousand Indians had taken their cue from him, and
murdered, and ravaged, and burned, wherever they came, like incarnate
devils. In this manner, the Creoles had been rendered our inveterate
enemies--more the pity. My late mother used always, when she went on a
pilgrimage to Guadalupe, to burn two tapers, a white and a black one--the
first for the blessed Virgin, the second for the devil. 'There is no
knowing,' she used to say, 'what one may come to.'"
The interesting nature of Jago's narrative, and his originality of manner,
had by this time riveted the attention of Don Manuel and his attendants.
"When we left Guanaxato," continued the ex-muleteer, "we were more than
eighty thousand men, but only three thousand four hundred of us were
armed. The _gente irracionale_, in their mad rage, had destroyed even the
muskets of the Gachupins. Our numbers, however, still kept increasing, and
Hidalgo continued his march in triumph. On the 27th October we were in
Tolucca. On the 28th we met Truxillo at Las Cruces, and scattered him and
his fifteen hundred men to the winds of heaven. Two days later we were in
sight of Mexico."
The captain paused. His delivery during the latter part of the narrative
had been hurried and broken; he was evidently much excited by the
recapitulation of the stirring scenes in which he had mingled. With
visible effort he resumed--
"Ah, Mexico, _estrella del mundo_! Well might thy beauty and brilliancy
dazzle the judgment of the poor cura. Hidalgo seemed to lose his head.
Instead of marching at once upon the city, he sent General Ximenes with a
summons to it to surrender. Ximenes, the greatest poltroon that ever
disgraced an epaulet, came back with the most exaggerated stories of the
formidable preparations that were making to receive us. This disconcerted
Hidalgo; and on the top of that out came a whole regiment of priests and
shavelings, sent by the Viceroy, and they talked to Hidalgo about
hell-fire and such like, till he swore it would be the most frightful
sacrilege to deliver up Mexico, the seat of our holy religion and of all
piety, to the _gente irracionale_. Moreover, we learned that Callija had
beaten Sanchez at Queretaro, and effected a junction with Cadena. Holy
Virgin!" groaned Jago. "Hidalgo acted like a madman. Instead of taking
possession of Mexico with his hundred and ten thousand Indians and four
thousand troops of the line, which he might have done without opposition,
he ordered a retreat, after we had been a whole day staring at the city
like gaping idiots. Vanegas was already on the start for Vera Cruz with
his two thousand men. Allende, all of us, begged, prayed, entreated; but
it was of no use--retreat we did, and at Aculco ran right into the jaws of
Calleja and Cadena.
"I was in Allende's division," continued Jago. "That chief sent General
Ximenes with a despatch to Hidalgo, and I was ordered to attend him. His
excellency, Hidalgo that is to say, was stationed on the hill of Aculco,
surrounded by his staff; and close beside him were the fourteen cannons
that composed our whole artillery. It was on the 7th of November. We were
scarcely fifty paces from Allende and his aide-de-camps, when Ximenes
turned to me and handed me the despatch, which was written on an agave
leaf.
"'Go,' said he, 'and deliver this to General Hidalgo.'
"I stared at him in astonishment.
"'But, General'----said I.
"'But me no buts. I served ten years in his majesty's troops and never
used the word. Away with you.'
"The style had altered. Our oppressors and enemies were suddenly converted
into his majesty's troops. I said nothing, however, but went forward with
the despatch, while the general turned back. To say the truth, he looked
rather knocked up--and no wonder, for it was the rainy season, the roads
were dreadfully bad, our marches had been long and fatiguing, and time for
rest scanty. Perhaps, too, he had no stomach for the bullets of the
Gachupins, who now appeared advancing like walls of polished steel from
the direction of Aculco. It was curious to observe the astonishment and
childish delight of our Indians, who for the first time in their lives
beheld an army drawn up in rank and file, with its artillery and cavalry.
They danced and jumped about for joy; and soon began to use their slings,
and hurl showers of stones at the Spaniards, who had halted, evidently
startled and intimidated by our numbers. But the stones and arrows
whistled about their ears, and there was nothing for it but to fight. As I
was riding across, at full gallop, to Hidalgo's position, the Spanish
skirmishers spread themselves out along the cactus hedges and over the
aloe fields, and puffed and popped away. The firing soon became warm, as
more miquelets and cacadores joined in it; and from out of every ditch and
hollow, from behind each bush and tree, the bullets came whistling.
Suddenly, in the background, there glared a dozen streams of fire, looking
white in the broad daylight, and accompanied by a light grey smoke, and
down went few score of Indians, never to stand up again in this life. The
infernal music became each moment louder. The smoke was thickest and the
fire hottest around the rising ground on which Hidalgo had stationed
himself, with our regiments of Zelaya and Valladolid in his front, the
Reyna and Principe cavalry covering the flanks. As I approached the
hillock, a body of ten thousand Indians, furious at the murderous fire
kept up by the enemy's artillery, rushed forward like a herd of wild
buffaloes, bearing down all opposition by their mere mass and weight. The
foremost had already reached the guns, and as they had never before in
their lives seen such things, what did the poor devils do but take off
their straw hats and try to stop up the mouths of the cannon! Just then up
came a regiment of the enemy's cavalry, dashed amongst them, and scattered
them like chaff. All was confusion on this part of the line; but our
troops in front of the hillock still stood firm and unbroken.
"'Where is he?' enquired a Spanish major, who at that moment rode up
beside me, leaning forward in his saddle, his feet firm in the stirrups,
his hand clutching his charger's mane. I knew not whom he meant; but he
had scarcely uttered the words when he slid gently off his horse into the
dust. A bullet had struck him--his race was run. My horse was nearly dead
with fatigue. I jumped off and got upon that of the Spaniard. Scarcely was
the exchange effected, when I heard a harsh high-toned voice, like that of
a gallinazo, issuing from the centre of a cloud of smoke.
"'_Adelante!_ Forward!' it cried.
"I knew the tones; they were those of Mexico's destroying angel. I gave my
horse the spur; but I was already in the middle of the enemy's lancers,
who swept me along with them as a whirlwind does a feather. On a sudden
there appeared through the smoke the horses' heads and glittering sabres
of the patriot cavalry. There was a crash--a few dozen pistol-shots--a
hundred thousand curses; the Spaniards had charged and broken through
them.
"'_Adelante!_' again screamed the sharp screeching voice. '_Adelante!
Muera la gavilla! Por la honra de su Magestad, y de la santissima Virgen,
y del Redentor de Atolnico!_'
"A Spaniard always thinks first of his king, then of the Virgin, and in
the last place of his God; and Calleja is a true Spaniard. He was deadly
pale, and seemed rather to hang than sit upon his saddle; from his right
wrist dangled his sabre; his left hand held a rosary and a relic of some
kind, which he kissed repeatedly, while his face was horribly distorted
with rage and anxiety.
"The regiments of Zeluya and Valladolid stood like walls; when a man fell,
one of the officers sprang from the centre of the square to supply his
place.
"'_Adelante, soldados, por la honra de su Magestad!_' croaked Calleja, who
was foaming and writhing with fury. At that moment up came another swarm
of at least ten thousand Indians from the left wing, eager to seek safety
behind the soldiers from the murderous fire of the artillery. The regiment
of lancers wheeled to the right, allowed the Indians to pass, and then,
lowering their lances, drove the defenceless mob upon the bayonets of
their own friends. In an instant the squares were broken. _Adios, Mexico!_
"The cries of rage of the patriots, and the shouts of triumph of our foes,
still ring in my ears. Thanks to the goodness of my horse, I escaped the
slaughter that ensued: and, taking the road to Guanaxato, soon found
myself with Allende, the only one of our generals who had not lost all
judgment and presence of mind. But he was no longer the same man; a ghost,
a skeleton, was he; the last eight days had turned his hair white. He
still hoped, however, to make head against the enemy and save Guanaxato.
With five thousand Indians, and eight hundred recruits, he gave them
battle. We fought like lions over their whelps--but all in vain! The odds
were too great. Hidalgo in his panic had already fled to Guadalajara, and
left us in the lurch. We were obliged to follow.
"Four days after the battle of Marfil, Allende said to me--'Jago, for God
and the saints' sake, go back to Guanaxato, and see how it fares with the
unfortunate city! Go, Jago, for heaven's sake, go!'
"His hair stood on end, and the sweat broke out on his forehead, as he
spoke. I understood what was passing in his mind, and shuddered. Taking
fifty mounted Indians with me, I set out, though I would as soon have gone
to hell itself. Guanaxato had received us on our advance with open arms;
fourteen hundred Gachupins had fallen at the storming of the Alhondega.
After that, its fate was no longer doubtful. But I had not expected any
thing so bad as I found.
"Allende had ordered me to use haste, and I obeyed his orders. On the
second day after leaving him, we rode into Burras, four leagues from
Guanaxato. A solitary Zamba showed herself like a spectre at the door of
the venta. She was the first human being we had seen during our two days'
march, and the only one in the whole village.
"'All is quiet, senores,' said she in a hollow shuddering tone, pointing
with her meagre hand towards the neighbouring _canada_, or gully. I looked
into it. Holy God! it was blood red; filled with a crimson slime. It was
running with gore.
"'For three days past,' grinned the Zamba, 'it runs thus.'
"I threw away the glass of aguardiente she had brought me, for it smelled
of blood. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of gallinazos, coyotes, and
zepilots, were arriving from all quarters, and prowling, running, and
flying in the direction of the unfortunate town.
"It was a cool November morning on which we approached Guanaxato; the air
was clear and transparent, the heavens were a bright blue; over the canada
there floated a cloud of light greyish vapour that extended a full league;
here and there, this vapour seemed to assume a reddish tinge, and then a
steam like the smoke of burning sulphur gave such a look of chaos to the
atmosphere, that it seemed as if the devils of all the seventeen hells had
been roasting beneath. Now and then a flame flickered out of the vapour;
it was a foul and revolting spectacle.
"It was over the suburb of Guanaxato, Marfil by name, and over Guanaxato
itself, the rich city of 60,000 inhabitants, that this long bank of
exhalation hung like a pall. What the place resembled when we entered it,
I can hardly say, for Calleja had been there, and had sat in judgment on
the devoted town. In city and suburb, in the mines and founderies, all was
hushed; not a blow of a hammer was heard, not a wheel was turning; no
footsteps nor voice broke the unnatural stillness. We entered the suburb,
and the signs of the festival of blood began to multiply themselves; dead
bodies became more plentiful; here and there the canada was choked up with
them; while, in other places, broken baggage waggons, dead mules and
horses, were lying in picturesque confusion. Wolves and carrion birds were
tearing and rending the bodies of the unfortunate patriots. From one wall
near the entrance of the town a hundred Indians were hanging; a little
further on, a like number had been literally torn in pieces as if by wild
horses, and their heads and limbs lay scattered about, so frightfully
mangled that even the coyotes turned aside and left them. A fine feast day
must that have been for Calleja, thought I--but pshaw! we had as yet seen
nothing.
"The bridge over the canada had been broken down, but a new one replaced
it; the piles consisted of human bodies, upon which boards were laid. We
were now in the city itself. Truly, they had made clean work of it. Of the
thousands of houses that had nestled themselves along the banks of the
stream, nought remained but fragments of blackened wall and smoking
timber. Among these ruins were other things, fat stinking things, stumps
and shapeless masses, which lay scattered, and in some places piled up,
amid the reeking embers. We took them at first for stones and pieces of
rock; but we were mistaken. They were the roasted carcasses of Guanaxato's
wretched inhabitants--hideous lumps! the feet, hands, and heads burnt
away, the bodies baked by the fire. In many of the huts, or at least on
the places where the huts had stood, heaps of these bodies had burnt
together in one pestilential mass, and now emitted an unbearable stench.
Not a living human creature to be seen, but thousands of wolves and
vultures; although even these neither snarled nor screamed, but seemed
almost as if they felt the desolation by which they were surrounded. My
Indians did not utter a word; our mules scarcely dared to set their feet
down; they pricked their ears, bristled up their manes, refused to
advance, stayed, and some even fell. No wonder. Their path lay over
corpses!
"We reached the Plaza Mayor. It was there that Calleja had held his chief
banquet, and wallowed with his Spaniards in Mexican blood. We waded
through a red slime which covered the whole square to the depth of six
inches; the bodies were heaped up like maize sacks. In the Alhondega we
found a thousand young girls in a state--God be merciful to our poor
souls! The Gachupins had first brutally outraged, and then slain them, but
slain them in a manner--_Jesus, Maria, y Jose!_ Can it be true that
Spaniards are born of woman? Senores! on the market-place alone, fourteen
thousand Mexicans, young women, matrons and children, and men both young
and old, had been butchered with every refinement of cruelty. It would
have taken too much powder to have shot them, quoth Calleja, and forsooth
the rebels were not worth the outlay.
"We had seen enough," continued Jago, over whose cheeks burning tears were
now running, while his voice was choked with rage. "It was not the first
time we had seen bloodshed, and our stomachs could bear something, but
this was too much. We turned back to Guadalajara more dead than alive.
"What followed is scarce worth relating. We strove to make another stand,
brought down forty-three cannons from San Blas, and fortified ourselves at
the bridge of Calderon; but all in vain! The angel of death had marked us
for his prey; Guanaxato had quenched our courage; we were no longer the
same men. At one moment there seemed still a chance of victory and
revenge. Our Indians, who fought like tigers, although without order or
discipline, made a desperate charge upon Calleja's army. The whole line
gave way; the fight was won. At that very instant an ammunition-waggon
blew up; the Indians thought that Satan himself was come amongst them,
were seized with a panic, and took to flight; the Gachupins plucked up
courage; a fresh regiment, which Calleja had kept in reserve, charged
vigorously. All was over.
"It was plain that Hidalgo's star had set. He fled, poor fellow! was
betrayed and delivered up by his own countrymen. But _basta!_ The account
was closed for the year one thousand eight hundred and eleven."
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
"Even as they fell, in files they lay;
Like the mower's grass at the close of day,
When his work is done on the levell'd plain,
Such was the fall of the foremost slain."
_Siege of Corinth._
The patriot captain's animated narrative had not failed to make a lively
impression on his hearers, at the same time that it worked a remarkable
change in his own appearance. Strongly excited by the recollections it
called up, the disagreeable and rather mean expression of his tawny
physiognomy vanished, his forehead seemed to expand, and a sarcastic and
scornful smile that at times played over his features gave him an air of
superiority to his hearers, as, with that extraordinary flexibility of
organ that is to be remarked in southern nations, he narrated the various
stirring events of the first patriot campaign; the struggles and
sufferings of his countrymen, the unbounded cruelty and excesses of their
ruthless oppressors. There was a pause when he finished speaking, which
was shortly broken by the report of a musket in the adjacent wood. Jago
started, and listened. A second and a third report followed.
"_Misericordia! Los Gachupinos!_" shouted the captain, springing upon a
fragment of rock, and rolling his eyes wildly around. "They are upon us!
Run, Mateo, Hippolito! See what they are, and whence they come. Run, I
say! Have you lead at your heels?"
The two Zambos set themselves in motion, but presently paused, and seemed
unwilling to proceed. Jago drew a small silver whistle from his girdle,
and blew it with all the power of his lungs.
"The saints be with us," he exclaimed, "and thou in particular, blessed St
Martin! If they come from the direction of Tesmelucos, then are we
peppered and salted. Holy Virgin of Guadalupe! A silver candlestick and
ten wax tapers, an inch thick, so soon as I can obtain them, if thou wilt
deliver us from this strait!"
He was interrupted in his ejaculations by the sound of a volley of small
arms from the wood, and the next instant a herd of half-naked Indians,
Metises and Zambos, with scarcely any clothing but sheepskins round their
bodies, and straw-hats upon their heads, rushed out from under the trees,
closely pursued by the dragoons of the regiment of Espana, who began to
gallop along the edge of the plateau, and surround the open space on all
sides. The arrieros, at the very first beginning of the firing, had placed
their mules and themselves in safety behind the rock, concealed in the
thicket of dwarf-oak and pines. Jago had spoken once or twice to them and
to the servants in a low and urgent tone, but his whisperings produced no
visible effect.
"_Por todos santos!_" cried he to his Indians, "to the right, children,
_Nombre de Dios!_ or you are all lost. _Jesus Maria!_ they do not hear!"
The unfortunate patriots, who had been surprised during their siesta, now
came running out of the wood in great numbers, with the remainder of the
squadron of dragoons at their heels. Upon finding themselves cut off from
the path down the barranca, they set up a frightful howl, and dispersed to
the right and left, vainly endeavouring to escape the troopers, who formed
line, and, with furious sabre-cuts, and loud shouts of "Viva el Rey!"
drove the fugitives before them like a flock of sheep.