SENOR CARFORA TRAPPED
"I never saw anything finer than this," said Ned, aloud, as he slowly
turned his telescope from one point to another. "It is the old
battle-ground of Cortes, when he and his Spaniards and Tlascalans took
the city of Mexico. It was called Tenochtitlan, then."
He was standing upon a granite ledge, on the slope of the mountains
south of the city, and below him the nearest objects of interest were
the white tents of the American army, encamped there while negotiations
for peace were going forward between the United States government and
Santa Anna. These were not progressing well, for the invaders were
demanding more than any Mexican government could be ready to grant. Not
only was Texas itself demanded, but with it also all the vast
Territories of California, New Mexico, and Arizona.
"Here we are," said Ned again, "but it has taken us two weeks of awful
fighting to get here. There isn't any use in disputing the pluck of the
Mexicans. Away yonder is Churubusco, and over there is Contreras. Didn't
they fight us there! General Scott and his engineers laid out the
battles, but I was with the Seventh everywhere it went. I'll have loads
of yarns to spin when I get home, if I ever do."
Battle after battle had been fought, and the Americans had paid dearly
for the long delay in the arrival of their reinforcements. All that time
had been employed by the Mexican President, with really splendid energy,
in raising a new army and in fortifying the approaches to the city. It
was almost pitiful to see with what patriotism and self-sacrifice the
Mexican people rallied for their last hopeless struggle with superior
power. It was not, however, that they were to contend with superior
numbers, for the forces under Santa Anna were at least three times those
under General Scott. The difference was that the latter was a perfect
army led by a great general, while the former were not an army at all
and had very few capable officers.
Ned had apparently gazed long enough, and he now made his way down the
rugged slope. He did not halt until he reached the door of his own
tent, and there he was met by his friend and supervisor somewhat tartly.
"Well! You are back, at last, are you? I didn't know but what you'd run
away. You may come along with me to-night. You may try and see your
friends. The provision train I am to take in will get out again about
daylight. You may stay there one day, and come away with a train that
will run in to-morrow night, but you'd better wear your Mexican rig, if
you don't mean to have your throat cut."
"All right, sir," said Ned. "I'll run the risk."
"I might not let you," said Grant, "if you were an enlisted man, but you
may learn something of value to them and to us, too. Get ready!"
The fact was that Ned and his army, commanded for him by General Scott,
were in a somewhat peculiar position. An armistice had been declared
while the negotiations were going on, and while, at the same time, the
power of Santa Anna was crumbling to pieces under him. It had been
agreed, on both sides, that all military operations should temporarily
cease, and that American army-trains of wagons might come into the
city, with armed escorts, to obtain supplies. After some unpleasant
experiences with the angry mob of the city, it had been deemed best that
the trains should come and go in the night, when the unruly Mexican
soldiers were in their quarters, and the too patriotic citizens were in
their beds. Ned had several times asked permission to accompany a train,
and it had been refused, but it was now explained that this train would
like to have one more man with it who could talk Spanish. When, however,
an hour or so later, he reported for duty, Lieutenant Grant remarked to
him:
"Well, yes, you can talk it and you can look it, but you can't walk it.
Don't step off so lively, if you mean to pass for a Mexican."
"Hold on, Grant," said another officer, standing near them. "Don't you
think the Mexicans have been lively enough since we left Perote? I've
had to step around a good deal myself on their account."
"Just so," said Grant. "But that's while they're fighting. When they're
at anything like work, though, it's a different kind of movement. Don't
walk fast, Ned, or they'll shoot you for a gringo."
It was nearly midnight when the supply-train, commanded by Lieutenant
Grant, entered the city, and an hour was consumed in obtaining the
supplies and getting them into the wagons, for not a pound of anything
had been made ready for delivery. No true-hearted Mexican really wished
to sell provisions to the enemies of his country.
"Lieutenant, may I go now?" asked Ned, as the last wagon prepared to
move away. "There isn't a patrol in sight, and the Paez place is within
a few squares from this."
Grant replied only by a wave of the hand, for at that moment he had
become engaged in a sharp controversy with the one Mexican officer who
was present on duty for his own side. He had been fairly polite, but he
had not pretended to be pleased to see gringos in Mexico. Therefore, it
was almost without express permission that Ned slipped away from his
train and his escort upon his exceedingly perilous errand.
The streets were dark and deserted, for the heavy-hearted people had
nothing to call them out of their houses at that hour. Nevertheless, Ned
was feverishly on the alert, and, almost without his knowing it, his
machete had jumped out of its sheath, ready for whatever might turn up.
"Halt!" suddenly came from a deep voice at his right, as he stealthily
turned a street corner, and a tall form stepped out of the near shadows
to stand in front of him.
Ned saw the long, bright blade of a lance pointed at his bosom, and
there seemed but one thing left for him to do. The holder of the lance
was beyond his reach, even if he had wished to strike him, but the lance
itself was not. All the strength he had in him seemed to go into the
sudden blow with which he severed the wooden shaft, an inch or so behind
its fitting of sharp steel.
"Diablos!" exclaimed the astonished Mexican, as he struck back a heavy
blow with the cudgel which remained in his hand.
Ned parried as well as he could with his machete, but there was some
force left in the stick when it reached his head, and down he went. He
had made a discovery at that very moment, however.
"Pablo!" he exclaimed, just as a second Mexican sprang toward him with a
long knife in his hand.
"Senor Carfora!" loudly responded Pablo. "Hold back your knife, Manuelo!
It is one of our own men. O Santos! My lance! I have no other weapon. I
told them it was of the soft wood. How are you here, senor?"
[Illustration: NED SAW A LONG, BRIGHT BLADE OF A LANCE POINTED AT HIS
BOSOM]
"To see Senora Paez and General Zuroaga," said Ned. "Is he in the city?"
"Hush! Be careful, Senor Carfora!" said Pablo, as Manuelo almost
reluctantly sheathed his too ready long knife. "We were waiting here for
him. He has been to the palace, to meet General Bravo. Our regiment has
already joined the army, but he is not yet sure about Santa Anna and
some other men. It is a dark time, senor!"
"Now, Pablo," said Ned, "there isn't much to tell about me. I was
captured when Vera Cruz surrendered. I was with General Morales. I got
in to-night, and I have a great deal to say to the general and Senora
Paez and the Tassaras."
"Zuroaga is here now," said a low, cautiously speaking voice behind him.
"Put up your sword, Carfora, and come along with me. I want to see you
more than you do me. I must know the latest news from General Scott's
army. Pablo, it was of no use. Santa Anna would make no terms with me,
but his day is nearly over. Bravo's government has rejected the treaty
offered by the United States, and we are to fight it out to the bitter
end. The gates have been shut, and there will be no more sending out of
supplies. I think the war will begin again to-morrow."
"Oh, dear me!" thought Ned. "There goes all my chance for getting out
again until after our army has captured the city. How my head does
ache!"
The rap from Pablo's lance-staff had not really injured him, however,
and all three of them walked on till they reached the Paez place without
saying another word. Here it was at once evident that they, or, at
least, the general and Pablo, were waited for. The front door opened to
admit them, and shut quickly behind them as they passed in.
"Senora Paez," said Zuroaga to a shadow in the unlighted hall, "the
armistice is ended, but I shall command my Oaxaca regiment in the
fighting which is now sure to come. Let us all meet in the parlor and
hear from Senor Carfora the American account of these lost battles."
"Carfora?" she exclaimed. "Is he here? Oh, how I do wish to hear him! I
believe we have been told altogether too many lies. Our troops do not
half know how badly they have been beaten, nor what is the real strength
of the American army."
They walked on into the parlor, and here there were lights burning, but
Ned was not thinking of them. He was gazing at the pale face of a man
in uniform and on crutches, who came slowly forward between a woman and
a young girl, with a mournful smile upon his face.
"Colonel Tassara!" exclaimed Ned. "I knew you were wounded, but are you
not getting well?"
"Senor Carfora!" quickly interrupted Senorita Felicia. "He was hit in
the leg by a bullet at Angostura. He had a bayonet wound, too, and they
thought he would die, but they made him a general--"
"I am getting better, Carfora," said General Tassara, courageously, "but
I can do no more fighting just now. I sincerely wish that there might
not be any. The plans of Santa Anna--"
"Tassara!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "What we heard is true. He is utterly
ruined. But the peace terms are rejected by all the government we have
left, and our city defences must soon go down as did those at Cerro
Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. We are to hear more about those
affairs from Senor Carfora. He was an eye witness of them."
"Oh, my dear young friend," said Senora Tassara, "were you with the
American army in all those battles?"
"No, not exactly," said Ned. "I was with General Morales at Vera Cruz.
Then I came on with General Scott all the way from the seacoast to this
place. He has troops enough now, and he will fight his way in. I'm real
sorry about it, too, for no more men need to be killed."
"I think the gringos are just terrible," said Felicia, as she came over
and sat down by Ned. "I want to hear about them. I do hope they won't be
defeated now, though, for if they are nobody can guess who will be
Emperor of Mexico when they are driven away."
"She is not so far wrong," said Tassara, sadly. "The future of our
country is all in the dark. Please let us hear your report."
Pablo, of course, had not followed his superiors into the parlor, and
all who were there were free to discuss the situation. The morning sun
was looking in at the windows when all of the talk was finished. Ned had
learned that only the family and a few trusted servants remained in the
house, but he would have eaten his breakfast with even a more complete
sense of security from any emissaries of the military authorities if he
had known how much they had upon their hands that day, the 4th of
September, 1847. There had already been a sharp correspondence between
the commanders of the two armies, and now General Scott himself declared
the armistice at an end. All the angry patriotism of the Mexican people
arose to meet the emergency, and every possible preparation was rapidly
made for the last desperate struggle in defence of their capital. It was
as if the idea prevailed that, if this American force now here could be
defeated, the United States would give the matter up, instead of sending
more troops to the assistance of their first insufficient battalions.
"Senor Carfora," said Senorita Felicia, "you must not go out of the
house. I do not want you to be killed."
"That is so," added her father. "As the affair stands now, they would
surely regard you as a spy. You would be shot without a trial. All is
confusion. I fear that even General Zuroaga is safe from arrest only
among his own men. The army is the government. This nation needs a
change."
"General Tassara," said Ned, "isn't our army bringing one?"
"The war is promising a great deal," replied Tassara, gloomily. "It has
already delivered us from King Paredes and Santa Anna and from half a
dozen other military usurpers. Moreover, all the lands which the United
States propose to take away will be rescued from any future anarchy and
will be made some use of. They will be lost to Mexico forever within one
week from to-day, for we cannot hold the city."
General Zuroaga had quietly disappeared. Very soon, the Tassara family
went to their own room. Then not even the servants could tell what had
become of Senora Paez. Ned Crawford did not at all know what to do with
himself. He walked around the rooms below; then he went out to the
stables and back again, but he was all alone, for Pablo and the Oaxaca
men had gone to their regiment. He went up to the library and had a
one-sided talk with the man in armor, but it did not do him any good,
and he did not care a cent for all the books on the shelves. They could
tell only of old wars, fought long ago, and here was a real war right on
hand, that seemed to be wandering all around the house.
During all the long, hot days of the armistice, a kind of dull quiet had
appeared to brood over the city and its forts and over the camps and
entrenchments of the besiegers. It had been something like a
thundercloud, which was all the while growing blacker and hanging
lower, and before the end of the first day of renewed hostilities the
anxious watchers in the city houses could hear something which sounded
like distant thunder. It was the occasional roar of a gun from one or
another of the batteries on either side, as a warning of the more
terrible things which were about to come, and more than once Ned groaned
to himself:
"Oh, how I wish I were out there, with Lieutenant Grant and the Seventh.
This is worse than being shut up in Vera Cruz. I didn't have any
regiment of my own, then, but now I belong in General Scott's army."
Evening came at last, and all of the family was gathered behind the
lattices of the parlor windows, to watch the detachments of soldiers
march past, and to wonder where they were going. General Zuroaga was not
there, but there had been a message from him that there would be a great
battle in the morning, for the Americans were moving forward.
"We are in greater numbers than they are," muttered General Tassara.
"But we have no General Scott, and we have no officers like his. Almost
all that we really have is courage and gunpowder, and these are not
enough to defeat such an attack as he will make. The city is lost
already!"