NED'S NEWS
"Hullo, young man! I've been looking for you. How are you?"
"Captain Kemp!" shouted Ned, in astonishment. "Where did you come from?
Who dreamed of seeing you here?"
"Nobody, I hope," said the captain; "but here I am, and I've brought you
half a dozen letters. They are among my baggage. First thing, though,
tell me all about yourself. Where have you been?"
They were standing in the grand plaza, not many paces from the front of
the cathedral, and Ned had come there for another look at the building
which had taken the place of the old-time temple of the murderous
Mexican god of war. He was wildly excited for a moment, and he began to
ask questions, rather than to tell anything about himself.
"Keep cool, now, my boy," said the captain. "We don't know who's
watching us. I didn't have much trouble in running the Yankee blockade
at Vera Cruz. I brought a cargo from New York, just as if it had been
sent from Liverpool, but I've had to prove that I'm not an American ever
since I came ashore. Spin us your yarn as we walk along."
Ned was now ready to do so, and the captain listened to him with the
most intense interest, putting in remarks every now and then.
"All this," he said, "is precisely what your father wishes you to do, if
you can do it. The way of it is this. He knows, and we all know, that
this war can't be a long one. As soon as it's over, his concern means to
go into the Mexican trade heavier than they ever did before. They think
it will be worth more, and I mean to be in it myself. So it just suits
him to have you here, making friends and learning all about the country
you are to deal with. He says you are in the best kind of business
school. There will be a fortune in it for you some day."
"I don't exactly see how," remarked Ned, doubtfully.
"Well," replied the captain, "not many young American business men know
ten cents' worth about Mexico. You'd better go right on and learn all
there is to know. Keep shy of all politics, though. This war is going to
break Paredes and a lot of others. After they are out of power, your own
friends, like Tassara, Zuroaga, and the rest of them, may be in office,
and you will be in clover. It's a wonderfully rich country, if it were
only in the right hands and had a good government. I'll give you the
letters when we get to my lodgings. Then I must make my way back to Vera
Cruz, but I had to come all this distance to get my pay from the
authorities. I obtained it, even now, only by promising to bring over
another cargo of British gunpowder, to fight the Yankees with."
That was a thing which Ned did not like, but he could not do anything to
prevent it. He could not expect an Englishman to be an American, and it
was all a matter of trade to Captain Kemp, aside from his personal
friendship for Ned and his father. There was more talk of all sorts, and
Ned obtained a great deal of information concerning the war and what the
United States were likely to do. After he had received his precious
letters, however, and had said good-by to Captain Kemp, he almost ran
against people in his haste to reach the Paez mansion. He did not pause
to speak to anybody on arriving, but darted up-stairs and made his way
to the library. It was lighter now in the wonderful book-room, and the
man in armor did not say anything as Ned came in. In a moment he was in
the chair by the window, and he appeared to himself to be almost talking
with the dear ones at home, from whom he had so long been separated.
"Stay where you are," he read from his father's long letter, and at that
hour he felt as if he did not wish to stay. He dropped the letter on the
table, and leaned back in his chair and looked around him. Pretty soon,
however, a little slowly to begin with, but then faster and faster, the
strong and fascinating spirit of adventure came once more upon him. His
very blood tingled, and he sprang to his feet to all but shout to his
mailed acquaintance in the corner:
"Yes, sir, I'll stay! I'll do anything but become a Mexican. Tell you
what, before the war's over, I mean to be in the American army, somehow.
I don't exactly see how I'm to do it, though."
It was time to go down-stairs and report to his faithful friends, for he
knew it would be very mean not to do so, and the first person he met was
Senora Tassara herself.
"I have letters from home!" he exclaimed, bluntly--"newspapers, too!"
and she held up both hands in astonishment, as she responded:
"Letters from the United States? How on earth did they come through the
blockade, and how did they know where you are?"
"I guess they didn't," said Ned. "The English captain that used to
command the _Goshhawk_ brought them. I met him at the plaza, hunting for
me. He was a friend of General Zuroaga, and besides, the British consul
at Vera Cruz knew I was with Colonel Tassara's family. So, if I hadn't
met him, he would have tried to find you. My father writes that I am to
stay in Mexico, and learn all about it."
"I am glad of that," she said. "Why, you could not get out at all just
now without danger to yourself and getting all of us into trouble."
"I wouldn't do that for anything!" exclaimed Ned, and then he went on
with his tremendous budget of miscellaneous news.
It was an exceedingly interesting heap of information, for the captain
had given him both English and American journals, which were a rare
treat at that time in the interior of the beleaguered Mexican republic.
Senora Tassara was busy with these, when Ned and all the other
news-bringers were pounced upon by a yet more eager inquirer.
"Senor Carfora!" exclaimed Felicia, her black eyes flashing curiously at
him. "Where did you get them? I never before saw such big newspapers.
They won't tell us about our army, though."
"Yes, they will," he said, and, while she was searching the broad-faced
prints for army information, he repeated for her benefit all that he had
previously told her mother. Poor Senorita Felicia! She did not obtain at
all what she wanted, for there were no accounts of brilliant Mexican
victories. All of these must have been meanly omitted by the editors,
and at last she angrily threw down a newspaper to say to him:
"Senor Carfora, I am glad you are to stay here, but you will never be
anything better than a gringo, no matter how much you learn. I was up in
the library this morning, and I pulled out six more books for you. You
may read them all, if they will do you any good. One of them is about
Spain, too. What I want to do is to travel all over Spain. It must be
the most beautiful country in the world."
Ned had noticed long ago that her eyes always grew dreamy whenever her
thoughts were turned toward the peninsula which has had so wonderful a
history, but he did not know that his own longings for foreign travel
were very like her own in their origin when he replied:
"Well, I'd like to see Spain. I mean to some day, but I want to see
England first, and Scotland and Ireland. One of my ancestors was an
Irishman, and the Crawfords were from Scotland. It isn't as hot a
country as Spain is. You are a Mexican, not a Spaniard."
"So I am," she said, "and most of the Mexicans are Indians. We ought to
have more Spaniards, but we can't get them. Anyhow, we don't want too
many gringos to come in. They are all heretics, too."
Ned knew what she meant, and he hastened to tell her that his country
contained more church people of her religion than Mexico did, and he
added, to her great disgust:
"And our priests are a hundred times better than yours are. General
Zuroaga says so, and so does your father. I don't like your Mexican
priests. The general says he wishes they were all dead, and their
places filled by good, live men from Europe and the United States."
"Felicia," interrupted her mother, "you must not talk with Senor Carfora
about such things. What I wish is that we had the American common
schools all over our poor, ignorant country. Oh, dear! What if this
horrible war should prove to be really a blessing to us? As things look
now, we are to have another revolution within a year. More men will be
shot, just as they have been before, and nobody can see what the end is
to be."
It was now time for the noonday luncheon, and they went to the
dining-room, where Senora Paez herself was glad to see the foreign
journals and to know that Ned had letters from home.
Many things appeared to be settled, as far as he was concerned. At all
events, his mind was no longer to busy itself with wild plans for
squirming out from among the Aztecs and finding his way to the United
States. After luncheon he went up to the library again. At first it was
only to read his letters over and over, and then it was a kind of relief
to go to his books and try to forget everything else in going on with
his queer schooling. It was unlike any that his old schoolmates at the
North were having, and he caught himself wondering what kind of man it
might make of him. He could not tell, but he was to have yet another
lesson that day, and with it came a promise of a strange kind of
vacation.
It came to him in the evening, when he was so tired of books that he
preferred the company of Senorita Felicia, no matter what saucy or
overpatriotic things she might see fit to say to him. They were sitting
near one of the drawing-room windows, when Senora Paez came quietly
behind him and touched him on the shoulder.
"Come with me," she said. "There is a man up in Senora Tassara's room
who wishes to see you."
"O Senor Carfora!" whispered Felicia. "Don't say a word! I know who it
is. Go right along. He is an old friend of yours."
Up jumped Ned, and he and the senorita followed Senora Paez eagerly.
Half a minute later, he felt as if he had never been so astonished
before in all his life, for his hand was heartily grasped, and the voice
of General Zuroaga said to him:
"Here I am, Senor Carfora. How are you?"
"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed Ned. "I'm all right, but isn't
it awfully dangerous for you to be here?"
"It would be, if some men knew it," replied Zuroaga, "or if I were
unwise enough to remain too long. The fact is that I can give you only a
few minutes, anyhow, this evening. I must be out of the city before
daylight, if I can, but I will return at the end of a week or so. Then I
shall take you with me to the valley of the Tehuantepec. You must see
all that region. After that I shall have a tour to make on political
affairs, through several States, and you will have a chance to see two
thirds of the republic before winter."
"That is just what my father would wish me to do," said Ned, and he
proceeded to tell the general the contents of his letters and all the
news he had heard from Captain Kemp.
"Very good!" said Zuroaga, at last. "I would have been glad to have seen
the captain. He is a rough sort of fellow, but he can be depended on. It
is evident that your father's firm trusts him, but I believe they do not
know exactly all that he has been doing. He is quite willing to make a
few dollars for himself while he is working for others."
The general was in good spirits, but more than once he spoke of the
necessity he was under of keeping out of the reach of his old enemies,
and among these he appeared to consider the absent Santa Anna even more
dangerous, in the long run, than President Paredes himself. Senora
Tassara had now joined them, but she seemed disposed to be silent, and
most of the conversation was in the hands of Senora Paez. It was
noticeable that she appeared to have a remarkably good knowledge of the
politics of her country. Perhaps, if Ned had been a few years older and
the least bit of a politician, he might have suspected the truth, that
she was one of the most subtle plotters in the whole country. If she was
also a deadly enemy of President Paredes, it was because she was a
sister of a revolutionary leader whom he had caused to be shot, years
ago, without the formality of a court-martial. Ned saw her eyes flash
and her bosom heave when she spoke of him, and after that he somehow
felt safer than ever under her roof. He also saw that she and General
Zuroaga were the best of friends, and that they had a long private
conference of their own.
"I guess he feels at home here," thought Ned, as he went down-stairs
with Felicia and Senora Tassara, and his confidence in that state of
affairs grew stronger as he walked along the central hall of the house.
"Pablo!" he exclaimed, to a man who lay sprawled out upon the floor, but
the general's Oaxaca follower made him no reply. He and three more like
him, who lay near him, were sound asleep, and there was no good cause
for stirring them up just then.
"They are all well armed," said Ned to himself. "The general will be
protected when he rides away in the morning. But this is the biggest
kind of thing to come to me. The best _I_ can do will be to take to my
books till he gets back. Oh, but won't it be grand fun to make a
complete tour of the mountains and of all the Pacific coast of Mexico?
He says I shall see the tallest peaks of the Cordilleras and that I may
visit some of the great silver mines."
With all that exciting expectation running through his head, it was not
easy for him to get to sleep that night. When he arose in the morning,
his friend, the mysterious general, had already departed.