It was on one of the early days of October in that fatal year, 1805,
that my worthy master called me into his room and looked at me with
the severity that was habitual to him--a severity that was only on the
surface for his nature was gentleness itself--he said:
"Gabriel, are you a brave man?"
I did not know what to answer, for, to tell the truth, in my fourteen
years of life no opportunity had ever presented itself for me to
astonish the world with any deed of valor; still, it filled me with
pride to hear myself called a man, and thinking it ill-judged to deny
myself the credit of courage before any one who held it in such high
estimation, I answered, with boyish boldness:
"Yes, sir, I am a brave man."
At this the noble gentleman, who had shed his blood in a hundred
glorious fights and who nevertheless did not disdain to treat a
faithful servant with frank confidence, smiled at me kindly, signed to
me to take a seat, and seemed on the point of informing me of some
business of importance, when his wife, my mistress, Doña Francisca
entered the study, and, to give further interest to the discussion,
began to declaim with vehemence.
"You are not to go," she said, "I declare you shall not join the
fleet. What next will you be wanting to do?--at your age and when you
have long retired as superannuated! No, no, Alonso my dear. You are
past sixty and your dancing days are over."
I can see her now, that respectable and indignant dame--with her
deep-bordered cap, her muslin dress, her white curls, and a hairy mole
on one side of her chin. I describe these miscellaneous details, for
they are inseparable from my recollection of her. She was pretty even
in old age, like Murillo's Santa Anna, and her sober beauty would have
justified the comparison if only the lady had been as silent as a
picture. Don Alonso somewhat cowed, as he always was, by her flow of
words, answered quietly:
"I must go, Paquita. From the letter I have just now received from my
worthy friend Churruca, I learn that the united squadrons are either
to sail from Cadiz and engage the English or to wait for them in the
bay in case they are so bold as to enter. In either case it will be no
child's play."
"That is well, and I am glad to hear it," replied Doña Francisca.
"There are Gravina, Valdés, Cisneros, Churruca, Alcalá Galiano, and
Alava; let them pound away at the English dogs. But you are a piece of
useless lumber who can do no good if you go. Why you cannot move that
left arm which they dislocated for you at Cape St. Vincent."
My master lifted his arm, with a stiff attempt at military precision,
to show that he could use it. But his wife, not convinced by so feeble
an argument, went on with shrill asseveration.
"No, you shall not go, what can they want of a piece of antiquity like
you. If you were still forty as you were when you went to Tierra del
Fuego and brought me back those green Indian necklaces.--Then indeed!
But now!--I know, that ridiculous fellow Marcial fired your brain this
morning with talking to you about battles. It seems to me that Señor
Marcial and I will come to quarrelling.--Let him go to the ships if he
likes and pay them out for the foot he lost! Oh! Saint Joseph the
blessed! If I had known when I was a girl what you seamen were!
Endless worry; never a day's peace! A woman marries to live with her
husband and one fine day a dispatch comes from Madrid and he is sent
off at two minutes notice to the Lord knows where--Patagonia or Japan
or the infernal regions. For ten or twelve months she sees nothing of
him and at last, if the savages have not eaten him meanwhile, he comes
back again the picture of misery--so ill and yellow that she does not
know what to do to restore him to his right color. But old birds are
not to be caught in a trap, and then suddenly another dispatch comes
from Madrid, with orders to go to Toulon or Brest or Naples--go here
and go there--wherever it is necessary to meet the whims of that
rascally First Consul...! If you would all do as I say, you would soon
payout these gentlemen who keep the world in a turmoil!"
My master sat smiling and gazing at a cheap print, badly colored by
some cheap artist, which was nailed against the wall, and which
represented the Emperor Napoleon mounted on a green charger, in the
celebrated "redingote" which was smeared with vermilion. It was no
doubt the sight of this work of art, which I had seen daily for four
years, which had modified my ideas with respect to the smuggler's
costume of the great man of the day, and had fixed his image in my
mind as dressed something like a cardinal and riding a green horse.
"This is not living!" Doña Francisca went on, throwing up her arms:
"God forgive me, but I hate the sea, though they say it is one of His
most glorious works. What is the use of the Holy Inquisition, will you
tell me, if it is not to burn those diabolical ships of war to ashes?
What is the good of this incessant firing of cannon,--balls upon
balls, all directed against four boards, as you may say, which are
soon smashed to leave hundreds of hapless wretches to drown in the
sea? Is not that provoking God?--And yet you men are half-wild as soon
as you hear a cannon fired! Merciful Heaven! my flesh creeps at the
sound, and if every one was of my way of thinking, we should have no
more sea-fights, and the cannon would be cast into bells. Look here,
Alonso," she said, standing still in front of her husband, "it seems
to me that they have done you damage enough already; what more do you
want? You and a parcel of madmen like yourself,--had you not enough to
satisfy you on the 14th?"[1]
[1] The battle of Cape St. Vincent was fought on February 14,
1797.
Don Alonso clenched his fists at this bitter reminiscence, and it was
only out of consideration for his wife, to whom he paid the utmost
respect, that he suppressed a good round oath.
"I lay all the blame of your absurd determination to join the fleet to
that rascally Marcial," the lady went on, warming with her own
eloquence; "that maniac for the sea who ought to have been drowned a
hundred times and over, but that he escaped a hundred times to be the
torment of my life. If he wants to join, with his wooden leg, his
broken arm, his one eye, and his fifty wounds--let him go, by all
means, and God grant he may never come back here again--but you shall
not go, Alonso, for you are past service and have done enough for the
King who has paid you badly enough in all conscience. If I were you, I
would throw those captain's epaulettes you have worn these ten years
in the face of the Generalissimo of the land and sea forces. My word!
they ought have made you admiral, at least; you earned that when you
went on that expedition to Africa and brought me back those blue beads
which I gave with the Indian necklace to decorate the votive urn to
the Virgin 'del Cármen.'"
"Admiral or not, it is my duty to join the fleet, Paquita," said my
master. "I cannot be absent from this struggle. I feel that I must pay
off some of my arrears to the English."
"Do you talk of paying off arrears!" exclaimed my mistress; "you--old,
feeble, and half-crippled...."
"Gabriel will go with me," said Don Alonso, with a look at me which
filled me with valor.
I bowed to signify that I agreed to this heroic scheme, but I took
care not to be seen by my mistress, who would have let me feel the
full weight of her hand if she had suspected my bellicose
inclinations. Indeed, seeing that her husband was fully determined,
she was more furious than ever, declaring that if she had to live her
life again nothing should induce her to marry a sailor. She cursed the
Emperor, abused our revered King, the Prince of Peace, and all those
who had signed the Treaty of Subsidies, ending by threatening the
brave old man with punishment from Heaven for his insane rashness.
During this dialogue, which I have reported with approximate exactness
as I have to depend on my memory, a loud barking cough in the
adjoining room revealed the fact that Marcial, the old sailor, could
overhear with perfect ease, my mistress's vehement harangue, in which
she had so frequently mentioned him in by no means flattering terms.
Being now desirous of taking part in the conversation, as his intimacy
in the house fully justified his doing, he opened the door and came
into Don Alfonso's room. Before going any farther I must give some
account of my master's former history, and of his worthy wife, that
the reader may have a better understanding of what follows.