THE WORK OF THE NORTHER
During the rest of that day and the earlier part of the next the weather
continued fairly good, and the unloading went steadily on. In the many
intervals of his duties, Ned tried hard to drive his mental fever away,
and amused himself as best he might. The city itself was worth looking
at, with its tiers of streets rising one above another from the shore.
He saw several churches, and some of them were large, with massive
towers and steeples.
"The Mexicans must have been richer than they are now," he said to
himself, "when those things were built. They cost piles of money."
He had no idea how rich a country it is, or how much richer it might be,
if its wonderful natural resources were to be made the most of. As for
the city, he had heard that Vera Cruz contained about seven or eight
thousand people, besides its military garrison, its foreigners, and a
continually varying mob of transient visitors from the interior. Zuroaga
had told him, moreover, that it was from the latter that any gringo like
himself would be in danger of violence. They were a vindictive,
bloodthirsty class of men, most of them, for they retained undiminished
the peculiar characteristics of their Indian ancestors.
"I don't care to run against any of them," thought Ned. "I don't like
this _tierra caliente_ country, anyhow. It's too hot to live in."
Then he thought a great deal of the wonderful land of forests and
mountains which lay beyond the fever-haunted lowlands, and he longed
more and more for a good look at the empire which Hernando Cortes won
from the old Montezumas and their bloody war-god, Huitzilopochtli.
In the afternoon of the second day the sky was manifestly putting on a
threatening aspect. The wind began to rise and the sea began to roughen.
The men discharging the cargo hastened their work, and it was evident
that the last of the lighter barges would soon be setting out for the
shore. Ned was staring at them and recalling all the yarns he had heard
concerning the destructive power of a gulf "norther," when Captain Kemp
came walking slowly toward him, with a face which appeared to express no
sort of unusual concern for anything in the world. Nevertheless, he
said:
"Get ready now, Ned, as sharp as you can. There comes your boat. I shall
send some papers by the colonel. Senor Zuroaga's luggage all went on
shore yesterday. I think some other men will have to be looking out for
themselves before long. If the _Goshhawk_ should drag her anchors and go
ashore, I hope there won't be too much sea running for good boats to
live in."
"I'm all ready now!" exclaimed Ned, as he sprang away, but he went with
a curious question rising in his mind: "What if a cable were more'n half
cut through? Wouldn't it be likely to break and let go of an anchor, if
it were pulled at too hard by a gale of wind? I don't really know
anything about it, but Senor Zuroaga thinks that Captain Kemp is a
curious man to deal with. Father thinks that he is a good sailor, too."
All the wardrobe that Ned had on board was easily contained in a
waterproof satchel of moderate size, and he was half-glad now that
there was no more of it, it went so quickly over into the large yawl
that was waiting alongside when he returned on deck. It was a four-oared
boat, and Colonel Tassara, at the stern, beckoned to him without
speaking, as if he might have reasons for silence as well as haste.
"In with you, Ned," said Captain Kemp. "I'll try to see you within a day
or two. Take good care of yourself. Good day, colonel."
The Mexican officer only bowed, and in a moment more the yawl was
fighting her difficult way over the rapidly increasing waves, for the
first strength of the norther had really come, and there might soon be a
great deal more of it,--for the benefit of the _Goshhawk_.
"There!" muttered Captain Kemp, as he saw them depart, "I haven't more
than a good boat's crew left on board. We'll take to the life-boat as
soon as the cable parts. There isn't any use in trying to save this bark
under all the circumstances. I've done my duty. I couldn't have
calculated on heavy shot first, and then for a whole gang of cruisers
watching for me off the coast. This 'ere norther, too! Well, I didn't
make the war, and I don't see that I ought to lose any money by it. I
won't, either."
Whatever was his exact meaning, the mate and four other men who remained
evidently agreed with him, from what they were shortly saying to one
another. It might also have been taken note of by a careful observer
that the mate was a Scotchman, and that the four others were all from
Liverpool. Whoever had put so much contraband of war on board the
_Goshhawk_ had not entrusted it entirely to the eccentricities of a lot
of out-and-out American sailors, with peculiar notions concerning their
flag.
On went Colonel Tassara's yawl, and it was not likely to meet any other
boat that evening. As the rollers increased in size momentarily, Ned
began to have doubts as to whether such a boat had any reasonable hope
of reaching the shore. It was now pitch-dark also, and he could but feel
that his adventures in Mexico were beginning in a remarkably unpleasant
manner. The landing could not have been made at any place along the
beach, where the surf was breaking so dangerously, and it looked almost
as perilous to approach the piers and wharves.
"How on earth are we to do it?" exclaimed Ned, in English, but no
answer came from the hard-breathing rowers.
Colonel Tassara seemed now to be steering a southerly course, instead of
directly landward, and Ned calculated that this would carry them past
all of the usual landing-places. It also gave them narrow escapes from
rolling over and over in the troughs between several high waves. On the
whole, therefore, it was a pretty rough boating excursion, but it was
not a long one. It did take them almost past the city front, and at last
Ned thought he saw a long, black shadow reaching out at the boat. It was
better than a shadow, for it was a long wooden pier, old enough to have
been built by Cortes himself. The waves were breaking clean over it,
but, at the same time, it was breaking them, so that around in the lee
of it the water was less boisterous, and the yawl might reach the beach
in safety. There was no wharf, but all Ned cared for was that he saw no
surf, and he felt better than he had at any moment since leaving the
_Goshhawk_. It was the same, for they said so, emphatically, with the
boatmen and Colonel Tassara.
"One of the men will take your bag," said the colonel to Ned, as soon as
they were out on shore. "We will go right along to my house, and we
shall hardly meet anybody just now. I'm glad of that. Santa Maria, how
dark it is getting! This will be the worst kind of norther."
A couple of lanterns had been taken from the boat. They had previously
been lighted by the colonel with much difficulty, and without them it
would have been impossible to follow the stony, grassy pathway by which
Ned Crawford made his first invasion of the Mexican territory. He did
not now feel like annexing any of it, although Mexican patriots asserted
that their title to Vera Cruz or the city of Mexico itself was no better
than their right to Texas. His gloomy march was a short one, and only a
few shadowy, unrecognized human beings passed him on the way.
The party came to a halt before a one-story stone dwelling, with a long
piazza in front of it, close to the weedy sidewalk of a crooked and
straggling street. It was apparent that this was not in the aristocratic
quarter of the city, if it had one. A door in the middle of the house
swung open as they arrived, and the boatman who carried Ned's bag put it
down on the threshold. The lanterns went away with him and his fellow
rowers, but other lights made their appearance quickly,--after the door
had closed behind Ned and Colonel Tassara. Not one of the boat's crew
had obtained a peep into the house, or had seen any of its occupants.
Ned was now aware that he had entered a broad hall-like passageway,
which appeared to run through the house, and to have several doors on
each side. One of these doors had opened to let the new light in, and
through it also came Senor Zuroaga, two other men, and a young girl, who
at once threw her arms around the neck of Colonel Tassara.
"O father!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad! Mother and I were so
frightened! We were afraid you would be drowned."
"My dear little daughter," he responded, sadly, "I fear there will be
more than one lot of poor fellows drowned to-night. This storm is
fearful!"
It seemed, in fact, to be getting worse every minute, and Ned was
thinking of the _Goshhawk_ and the state of her cable, even while he was
being introduced to the pretty Senorita Felicia Tassara, and then to her
mother, a stately woman, who came to meet her husband without
condescending to say how badly she had been alarmed on his account.
"She's just about the proudest-looking woman I ever saw," thought Ned,
for, although she welcomed him politely, she at once made him aware
that she did not consider him of any importance whatever. He was only a
young gringo, from nobody knew where, and she was a Mexican lady of high
rank, who hated Americans of all sorts.
Ned's only really hearty greeting came from Senor Zuroaga, who seemed to
him, under the circumstances, like an old friend.
"Carfora, my dear fellow," he said, "you and the colonel must come in to
your supper----"
"Why, senor," expostulated Ned, "I'm wet through, and so is he."
"I declare!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "What's in my head that I should
overlook that? You must change your rig. Come this way with me."
Ned followed him, bag in hand, through a narrow passage which opened at
the right, and they went on almost to the end of it. The room which they
then entered was only seven feet wide, but it was three times as long,
and it was oddly furnished. Instead of a bedstead, a handsome hammock,
with blankets, sheets, and a pillow in it, hung at one side, and the
high window was provided with mosquito nettings. There was no carpet on
the floor, but this was clean, and a good enough dressing-bureau stood
at the further end of the room. Before the mirror of this, the senor set
down the lamp he had been carrying, and said to Ned:
"My dear Carfora, I have explained to the haughty senora that you are
the son of an American merchant, and of a good family, so that she will
not really treat you like a common person. She is descended from the
oldest families of Spain, and there is no republicanism in her. The
sooner you are ready, the better. I will be back in five minutes."
Open came the bag, but the best Ned could do in the way of style was a
very neat blue suit. What he would have called the swallow-tails, which
Senora Tassara might have expected as the dinner dress of a more
important guest, could hardly be required of a young fellow just escaped
from a norther. As soon as he felt that he had done his best, he turned
toward the door, but it opened to let in Senor Zuroaga in full
regulation dinner costume. How he could have put it on so quickly
puzzled Ned, but he asked no questions. It was quite possible, however,
that even the descendant of Cortes and the Montezumas was a little bit
in awe of the matronly descendant of the ancient Spanish grandees. She
might be a powerful personage in more ways than one. At all events, Ned
was led out to the central hall and across it, to where an uncommonly
wide door stood open, letting out a flood of illumination.
"Walk in, senors," said Colonel Tassara, from just inside this portal,
and the next moment Ned was altogether astonished.
He had been impressed, on reaching this house, that it was an old and
even dingy affair, of no considerable size, but he did not yet know that
the older Spanish mansions were often built with only one story and
around a central courtyard. Moreover, at least in Mexico, they were apt
to show few windows in front, and to be well calculated for use as a
kind of small forts, if revolutionary or similar occasions should ask
for thick walls, with embrasures for musketry. One glance around Senora
Tassara's dining-room was enough to work a revolution in Ned's ideas
relating to that establishment. It was large, high-ceilinged, and its
carpetless floor was of polished mahogany. The walls and ceiling were of
brilliant white stucco. Upon the former were hung several trophies of
weapons and antlers of deer. In the centre, at the right, in a kind of
ornamental shrine, was an ivory and ebony crucifix, which was itself a
priceless work of art. The long dining-table had no cloth to conceal the
fact that it was of the richest mahogany, dark with age and polished
like a mirror. On the table was an abundance of fine china ware, none of
it of modern manufacture, but all the more valuable for that reason. At
the end nearest Ned stood a massive silver coffee-urn, beautifully
molded, and it was not wonderful that he stood still a moment to stare
at it, for it had taken him altogether by surprise.
Almost instantly a change came over the dark, handsome features of
Senora Tassara. She smiled brightly, for Ned's undisguised admiration of
that mass of silver had touched her upon a tender spot, and she now
spoke to him with at least four times as much cordiality as she had
shown him in the hall.
"Ah, my young friend," she said, turning gracefully toward him, "so you
are pleased with my coffee-urn? No table in your city of New York can
show anything like it. It is of the oldest Seville workmanship, and
there are not many such remaining in all the world. It is an heirloom."
"Senor Carfora," at that moment interrupted Colonel Tassara, "I will
show you something else that is worth more than any kind of silver
ware. Take a good look at this!"
He stepped to a trophy of arms which hung upon the wall near him, and
took from it a long, heavy sword, with a worn-looking but deeply chased
gold hilt. He drew it from the sheath, gazing with evident pride at its
curving blade of dull blue steel.
"I think you have never before seen a sword like that," he said. "It may
have been made at Toledo, for all I know, but it is centuries old. It
was won from a Moor by an ancestor of mine, at the taking of Granada,
when the Moorish power was broken forever by the heroes of Spain. Who
can tell? It may have come down from the days of the Cid Campeador
himself."
Whoever that military gentleman may have been, Ned had no idea, but he
determined to find out some day, and just now he was glad to grasp the
golden hilt, and remember all that he had ever heard about the Moors. He
had not at all expected to hear of them again, just after escaping from
a norther in the Gulf of Mexico, but, without being aware of it, he was
learning a great deal about the old Spanish-Mexican aristocracy, and
why it could not easily become truly republican, even in the New World,
which is beginning to grow old on its own account.
Dinner was now ready, and Ned voted it a prime good one, for it
consisted mainly of chicken, with capital corn-cakes and coffee. It was
a tremendous improvement upon the dinners he had been eating at sea,
cooked in the peculiar style of the caboose of the _Goshhawk_.
One large idea was becoming firmly fixed in the acute mind of the young
adventurer, and it tended to make him both watchful and silent. Not only
was he in a country which was at war with his own, but he was in a land
where men were apt to be more or less suspicious of each other. It was
also quite the correct thing in good manners for him to say but little,
and he was the better able to hear what the others were saying.
Therefore, he could hardly help taking note that none of the party at
the dinner-table said anything about the powder on the _Goshhawk_, or
concerning a possible trip to be made to Oaxaca by any one there. They
all appeared ready, on the other hand, to praise the patriotism,
statesmanship, and military genius of that truly great man, President
Paredes. They made no mention whatever of General Santa Anna, but they
spoke confidently of the certainty with which Generals Ampudia and
Arista were about to crush the invading gringos at the north, under
Taylor. They also were sure that these first victories were to be
followed by greater ones, which would be gained by the President
himself, as soon as he should be able to take command of the Mexican
armies in person. If any friend of his, a servant, for instance, of the
Tassara family, had been listening, he would have had nothing to report
which would have made any other man suppose that the rulers of Mexico
had bitter, revengeful foes under that hospitable roof.
The dinner ended, and Ned was once more in his room, glad enough to get
into his hammock and go to sleep. If the norther did any howling around
that house, he did not hear it, but he may have missed the swing motion
which a hammock obtains on board a ship at sea. His eyes closed just as
he was thinking:
"This is great, but I wonder what on earth is going to happen to me
to-morrow."