“As his last information was only up to 1792, he might have forgotten it,” said Crosby gravely. “So perhaps it would be safer to go on the general invitation.”
“As Mr. Brimmer’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower, long before 1792, it doesn’t seem so very impossible, if it comes to that,” said Mrs. Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; “provided always that you are not joking, Mr. Crosby. One never knows when you are serious.”
“Mrs. Brimmer is quite right; we must all go. This is no mere formality,” said Senor Perkins, who had returned to the ladies. “Indeed, I have myself promised the Comandante to bring YOU,” he turned towards Miss Keene, “if you will permit Mrs. Markham and myself to act as your escort. It was Don Miguel’s express request.”
A slight flush of pride suffused the cheek of the young girl, but the next moment she turned diffidently towards Mrs. Brimmer.
“We must all go together,” she said; “shall we not?”
“You see your triumphs have begun already,” said Brace, with a nervous smile. “You need no longer laugh at me for predicting your fate in San Francisco.”
Miss Keene cast a hurried glance around her, in the faint hope–she scarcely knew why–that Mr. Hurlstone had overheard the Senor’s invitation; nor could she tell why she was disappointed at not seeing him. But he had not appeared on deck during the presence of their strange visitors; nor was he in the boat which half an hour later conveyed her to the shore. He must have either gone in one of the other boats, or fulfilled his strange threat of remaining on the ship.
The boats pulled away together towards the invisible shore, piloted by Captain Bunker, the first officer, and Senor Perkins in the foremost boat. It had grown warmer, and the fog that stole softly over them touched their faces with the tenderness of caressing fingers. Miss Keene, wrapped up in the stern sheets of the boat, gave way to the dreamy influence of this weird procession through the water, retaining only perception enough to be conscious of the singular illusions of the mist that alternately thickened and lightened before their bow. At times it seemed as if they were driving full upon a vast pier or breakwater of cold gray granite, that, opening to let the foremost boat pass, closed again before them; at times it seemed as if they had diverged from their course, and were once more upon the open sea, the horizon a far-off line of vanishing color; at times, faint lights seemed to pierce the gathering darkness, or to move like will-o’-wisps across the smooth surface, when suddenly the keel grated on the sand. A narrow but perfectly well defined strip of palpable strand appeared before them; they could faintly discern the moving lower limbs of figures whose bodies were still hidden in the mist; then they were lifted from the boats; the first few steps on dry land carried them out of the fog that seemed to rise like a sloping roof from the water’s edge, leaving them under its canopy in the full light of actual torches held by a group of picturesquely dressed people before the vista of a faintly lit, narrow, ascending street. The dim twilight of the closing day lingered under this roof of fog, which seemed to hang scarcely a hundred feet above them, and showed a wall or rampart of brown adobe on their right that extended nearly to the water; to the left, at the distance of a few hundred yards, another low brown wall appeared; above it rose a fringe of foliage, and, more distant and indistinct, two white towers, that were lost in the nebulous gray.
One of the figures dressed in green jackets, who seemed to be in authority, now advanced, and, after a moment’s parley with Senor Perkins while the Excelsior’s passengers were being collected from the different boats, courteously led the way along the wall of the fortification. Presently a low opening or gateway appeared, followed by the challenge of a green-jacketed sentry, and the sentence, “Dios y Libertad” It was repeated in the interior of a dusky courtyard, surrounded by a low corridor, where a dozen green- jacketed men of aboriginal type and complexion, carrying antique flintlocks, were drawn up as a guard of honor.
“The Comandante,” said Senor Perkins, “directs me to extend his apologies to the Senor Capitano Bunker for withholding the salute which is due alike to his country, himself, and his fair company; but fifty years of uninterrupted peace and fog have left his cannon inadequate to polite emergencies, and firmly fixed the tampion of his saluting gun. But he places the Presidio at your disposition; you will be pleased to make its acquaintance while it is still light; and he will await you in the guard-room.”
Left to themselves, the party dispersed like dismissed school- children through the courtyard and corridors, and in the enjoyment of their release from a month’s confinement on shipboard stretched their cramped limbs over the ditches, walls, and parapets, to the edge of the glacis.
Everywhere a ruin that was picturesque, a decay that was refined and gentle, a neglect that was graceful, met the eye; the sharp exterior and reentering angles were softly rounded and obliterated by overgrowths of semitropical creepers; the abatis was filled by a natural brake of scrub-oak and manzanita; the clematis flung its long scaling ladders over the escarpment, until Nature, slowly but securely investing the doomed fortress, had lifted a victorious banner of palm from the conquered summit of the citadel! Some strange convulsions of the earth had completed the victory; the barbette guns of carved and antique bronze commemorating fruitless and long-forgotten triumphs were dismounted; one turned in the cheeks of its carriage had a trunnion raised piteously in the air like an amputated stump; another, sinking through its rotting chassis, had buried itself to its chase in the crumbling adobe wall. But above and beyond this gentle chaos of defense stretched the real ramparts and escarpments of Todos Santos–the impenetrable and unassailable fog! Corroding its brass and iron with saline breath, rotting its wood with unending shadow, sapping its adobe walls with perpetual moisture, and nourishing the obliterating vegetation with its quickening blood, as if laughing to scorn the puny embattlements of men–it still bent around the crumbling ruins the tender grace of an invisible but all-encompassing arm.
Senor Perkins, who had acted as cicerone to the party, pointed out these various mutations with no change from his usual optimism.
“Protected by their peculiar isolation during the late war, there was no necessity for any real fortification of the place. Nevertheless, it affords some occupation and position for our kind friend, Don Miguel, and so serves a beneficial purpose. This little gun,” he continued, stopping to attentively examine a small but beautifully carved bronze six-pounder, which showed indications of better care than the others, “seems to be the saluting-gun Don Miguel spoke of. For the last fifty years it has spoken only the language of politeness and courtesy, and yet through want of care the tampion, as you see, has become swollen and choked in its mouth.”
“How true in a larger sense,” murmured Mrs. Markham, “the habit of courtesy alone preserves the fluency of the heart.”
“I know you two are saying something very clever,” said Mrs. Brimmer, whose small French slippers and silk stockings were beginning to show their inadequacy to a twilight ramble in the fog; “but I am so slow, and I never catch the point. Do repeat it slowly.”
“The Senor was only showing us how they managed to shut up a smooth bore in this country,” said Crosby gravely. “I wonder when we’re going to have dinner. I suppose old Don Quixote will trot out some of his Senoritas. I want to see those choir girls that sang so stunningly a while ago.”
“I suppose you mean the boys–for they’re all boys in the Catholic choirs–but then, perhaps you are joking again. Do tell me if you are, for this is really amusing. I may laugh–mayn’t I?” As the discomfited humorist fell again to the rear amidst the laughter of the others, Mrs. Brimmer continued naively to Senor Perkins,–“Of course, as Don Miguel is a widower, there must be daughters or sisters-in-law who will meet us. Why, the priest, you know–even he–must have nieces. Really, it’s a serious question–if we are to accept his hospitality in a social way. Why don’t you ask HIM?” she said, pointing to the green-jacketed subaltern who was accompanying them.
Senor Perkins looked half embarrassed.
“Repeat your question, my dear lady, and I will translate it.”
“Ask him if there are any women at the Presidio.”
Senor Perkins drew the subaltern aside. Presently he turned to Mrs. Brimmer.
“He says there are four: the wife of the baker, the wife of the saddler, the daughter of the trumpeter, and the niece of the cook.”
“Good heavens! we can’t meet THEM,” said Mrs. Brimmer.
Senor Perkins hesitated.
“Perhaps I ought to have told you,” he said blandly, “that the old Spanish notions of etiquette are very strict. The wives of the officials and higher classes do not meet strangers on a first visit, unless they are well known.”
“That isn’t it,” said Winslow, joining them excitedly. “I’ve heard the whole story. It’s a good joke. Banks has been bragging about us all, and saying that these ladies had husbands who were great merchants, and, as these chaps consider that all trade is vulgar, you know, they believe we are not fit to associate with their women, don’t you see? All, except one–Miss Keene. She’s considered all right. She’s to be introduced to the Commander’s women, and to the sister of the Alcalde.”
“She will do nothing of the kind,” said Miss Keene indignantly. “If these ladies are not to be received with me, we’ll all go back to the ship together.”
She spoke with a quick and perfectly unexpected resolution and independence, so foreign to her usual childlike half dependent character, that her hearers were astounded. Senor Perkins gazed at her thoughtfully; Brace, Crosby, and Winslow admiringly; her sister passengers with doubt and apprehension.
“There must he some mistake,” said Senor Perkins gently. “I will inquire.”
He was absent but a few moments. When he returned, his face was beaming.
“It’s a ridiculous misapprehension. Our practical friend Banks, in his zealous attempts to impress the Comandante’s secretary, who knows a little English, with the importance of Mr. Brimmer’s position as a large commission merchant, has, I fear, conveyed only the idea that he was a kind of pawnbroker; while Mr. Markham’s trade in hides has established him as a tanner; and Mr. Banks’ own flour speculations, of which he is justly proud, have been misinterpreted by him as the work of a successful baker!”
“And what idea did he convey about YOU?” asked Crosby audaciously; “it might be interesting to us to know, for our own satisfaction.”
“I fear they did not do me the honor to inquire,” replied Senor Perkins, with imperturbable good-humor; “there are some persons, you know, who carry all their worldly possessions palpably about with them. I am one of them. Call me a citizen of the world, with a strong leniency towards young and struggling nationalities; a traveler, at home anywhere; a delighted observer of all things, an admirer of brave men, the devoted slave of charming women–and you have, in one word, a passenger of the good ship Excelsior.”
For the first time, Miss Keene noticed a slight irony in Senor Perkins’ superabundant fluency, and that he did not conceal his preoccupation over the silent saluting gun he was still admiring. The approach of Don Miguel and Padre Esteban with a small bevy of ladies, however, quickly changed her thoughts, and detached the Senor from her side. Her first swift feminine impression of the fair strangers was that they were plain and dowdy, an impression fully shared by the other lady passengers. But her second observation, that they were more gentle, fascinating, child-like, and feminine than her own countrywomen, was purely her own. Their loose, undulating figures, guiltless of stays; their extravagance of short, white, heavily flounced skirt, which looked like a petticoat; their lightly wrapped, formless, and hooded shoulders and heads, lent a suggestion of dishabille that Mrs. Brimmer at once resented.
“They might, at least, have dressed themselves,” she whispered to Mrs. Markham.
“I really believe,” returned Mrs. Markham, “they’ve got no bodices on!”
The introductions over, a polyglot conversation ensued in French by the Padre and Mrs. Brimmer, and in broken English by Miss Chubb, Miss Keene, and the other passengers with the Commander’s secretary, varied by occasional scraps of college Latin from Mr. Crosby, the whole aided by occasional appeals to Senor Perkins. The darkness increasing, the party reentered the courtyard, and, passing through the low-studded guard-room, entered another corridor, which looked upon a second court, enclosed on three sides, the fourth opening upon a broad plaza, evidently the public resort of the little town. Encompassing this open space, a few red-tiled roofs could be faintly seen in the gathering gloom. Chocolate and thin spiced cakes were served in the veranda, pending the preparations for a more formal banquet. Already Miss Keene had been singled out from her companions for the special attentions of her hosts, male and female, to her embarrassment and confusion. Already Dona Isabel, the sister of the Alcalde, had drawn her aside, and, with caressing frankness, had begun to question her in broken English,–
“But Miss Keene is no name. The Dona Keene is of nothing.”
“Well, you may call me Eleanor, if you like,” said Miss Keene, smiling.
“Dona Leonor–so; that is good,” said Dona Isabel, clapping her hands like a child. “But how are you?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Keene, greatly amused, “but I don’t understand.”
“Ah, Caramba! What are you, little one?” Seeing that her guest still looked puzzled, she continued,–“Ah! Mother of God! Why are your friends so polite to you? Why does every one love you so?”
“Do they? Well,” stammered Miss Keene, with one of her rare, dazzling smiles, and her cheeks girlishly rosy with naive embarrassment, “I suppose they think I am pretty.”
“Pretty! Ah, yes, you are!” said Dona Isabel, gazing at her curiously. “But it is not all that.”
“What is it, then?” asked Miss Keene demurely.
“You are a–a–Dama de Grandeza!”
CHAPTER VI.
“HAIL AND FAREWELL.”
Supper was served in the inner room opening from the corridor lit by a few swinging lanterns of polished horn and a dozen wax candles of sacerdotal size and suggestion. The apartment, though spacious, was low and crypt-like, and was not relieved by the two deep oven- like hearths that warmed it without the play of firelight. But when the company had assembled it was evident that the velvet jackets, gold lace, silver buttons, and red sashes of the entertainers not only lost their tawdry and theatrical appearance in the half decorous and thoughtful gloom, but actually seemed more in harmony with it than the modern dresses of the guests. It was the Excelsior party who looked strange and bizarre in these surroundings; to the sensitive fancy of Miss Keene, Mrs. Brimmer’s Parisian toilet had an air of provincial assumption; her own pretty Zouave jacket and black silk skirt horrified her with its apparent ostentatious eccentricity; and Mrs. Markham and Miss Chubb seemed dowdy and overdressed beside the satin mantillas and black lace of the Senoritas. Nor were the gentlemen less outres: the stiff correctness of Mr. Banks, and the lighter foppishness of Winslow and Crosby, not to mention Senor Perkins’ more pronounced unconventionality, appeared as burlesques of their own characters in a play. The crowning contrast was reached by Captain Bunker, who, in accordance with the habits of the mercantile marine of that period when in port, wore a shore-going suit of black broadcloth, with a tall hat, high shirt collar, and diamond pin. Seated next to the Commander, it was no longer Don Miguel who looked old- fashioned, it was Captain Bunker who appeared impossible.
Nevertheless, as the meal progressed, lightened by a sweet native wine made from the Mission grape, and stimulated by champagne–a present of Captain Bunker from the cabin lockers of the Excelsior– this contrast, and much of the restraint that it occasioned, seemed to melt away. The passengers became talkative; the Commander and his friends unbent, and grew sympathetic and inquiring. The temptation to recite the news of the last half century, and to recount the wonderful strides of civilization in that time, was too great to be resisted by the Excelsior party. That some of them– notwithstanding the caution of Senor Perkins–approached dangerously near the subject of the late war between the United States and Mexico, of which Todos Santos was supposed to be still ignorant, or that Crosby in particular seized upon this opportunity for humorous exaggeration, may be readily imagined. But as the translation of the humorist’s speech, as well as the indiscretions of his companions, were left to the Senor, in Spanish, and to Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Keene, in French, any imminent danger to the harmony of the evening was averted. Don Ramon Ramirez, the Alcalde, a youngish man of evident distinction, sat next to Miss Keene, and monopolized her conversation with a certain curiosity that was both grave and childish in its frank trustfulness. Some of his questions were so simple and incompatible with his apparent intelligence that she unconsciously lowered her voice in answering them, in dread of the ridicule of her companions. She could not resist the impression, which repeatedly obtruded upon her imagination, that the entire population of Todos Santos were a party of lost children, forgotten by their parents, and grown to man and womanhood in utter ignorance of the world.
The Commander had, half informally, drunk the health of Captain Bunker, without rising from his seat, when, to Miss Keene’s alarm, Captain Bunker staggered to his feet. He had been drinking freely, as usual; but he was bent on indulging a loquacity which his discipline on shipboard had hitherto precluded, and which had, perhaps, strengthened his solitary habit. His speech was voluble and incoherent, complimentary and tactless, kindly and aggressive, courteous and dogmatic. It was left to Senor Perkins to translate it to the eye and ear of his host without incongruity or offense. This he did so admirably as to elicit not only the applause of the foreigners who did not understand English, but of his own countrymen who did not understand Spanish.
“I feel,” said Senor Perkins, in graceful peroration, “that I have done poor justice to the eloquence of this gallant sailor. My unhappy translation cannot offer you that voice, at times trembling with generous emotion, and again inaudible from excessive modesty in the presence of this illustrious assembly–those limbs that waver and bend under the undulations of the chivalrous sentiment which carries him away as if he were still on that powerful element he daily battles with and conquers.”
But when coffee and sweets were reached, the crowning triumph of Senor Perkins’ oratory was achieved. After an impassioned burst of enthusiasm towards his hosts in their own tongue, he turned towards his own party with bland felicity.
“And how is it with us, dear friends? We find ourselves not in the port we were seeking; not in the goal of our ambition, the haven of our hopes; but on the shores of the decaying past. ‘Ever drifting’ on one of those–
‘Shifting
Currents of the restless main,’
if our fascinating friend Mrs. Brimmer will permit us to use the words of her accomplished fellow-townsman, H. W. Longfellow, of Boston–we find ourselves borne not to the busy hum and clatter of modern progress, but to the soft cadences of a dying crusade, and the hush of ecclesiastical repose. In place of the busy marts of commerce and the towering chimneys of labor, we have the ruined embattlements of a warlike age, and the crumbling church of an ancient Mission. Towards the close of an eventful voyage, during which we have been guided by the skillful hand and watchful eye of that gallant navigator Captain Bunker, we have turned aside from our onward course of progress to look back for a moment upon the faded footprints of those who have so long preceded us, who have lived according to their lights, and whose record is now before us. As I have just stated, our journey is near its end, and we may, in some sense, look upon this occasion, with its sumptuous entertainment, and its goodly company of gallant men and fair women, as a parting banquet. Our voyage has been a successful one. I do not now especially speak of the daring speculations of the distinguished husband of a beautiful lady whose delightful society is known to us all–need I say I refer to Quincy Brimmer, Esq., of Boston” (loud applause)–“whose successful fulfillment of a contract with the Peruvian Government, and the landing of munitions of war at Callao, has checked the uprising of the Quinquinambo insurgents? I do not refer especially to our keen-sighted business friend Mr. Banks” (applause), “who, by buying up all the flour in Callao, and shipping it to California, has virtually starved into submission the revolutionary party of Ariquipa–I do not refer to these admirable illustrations of the relations of commerce and politics, for this, my friends–this is history, and beyond my feeble praise. Let me rather speak of the social and literary triumphs of our little community, of our floating Arcadia–may I say Olympus? Where shall we find another Minerva like Mrs. Markham, another Thalia like Miss Chubb, another Juno like Mrs. Brimmer, worthy of the Jove-like Quincy Brimmer; another Queen of Love and Beauty like–like”–continued the gallant Senor, with an effective oratorical pause, and a profound obeisance to Miss Keene, “like one whose mantling maiden blushes forbid me to name?” (Prolonged applause.) “Where shall we find more worthy mortals to worship them than our young friends, the handsome Brace, the energetic Winslow, the humorous Crosby? When we look back upon our concerts and plays, our minstrel entertainments, with the incomparable performances of our friend Crosby as Brother Bones; our recitations, to which the genius of Mrs. M’Corkle, of Peoria, Illinois, has lent her charm and her manuscript” (a burlesque start of terror from Crosby), “I am forcibly impelled to quote the impassioned words from that gifted woman,–
‘When idly Life’s barque on the billows of Time, Drifts hither and yon by eternity’s sea; On the swift feet of verse and the pinions of rhyme My thoughts, Ulricardo, fly ever to thee!'”
“Who’s Ulricardo?” interrupted Crosby, with assumed eagerness, followed by a “hush!” from the ladies.
“Perhaps I should have anticipated our friend’s humorous question,” said Senor Perkins, with unassailable good-humor. “Ulricardo, though not my own name, is a poetical substitute for it, and a mere figure of apostrophe. The poem is personal to myself,” he continued, with a slight increase of color in his smooth cheek which did not escape the attention of the ladies,–“purely as an exigency of verse, and that the inspired authoress might more easily express herself to a friend. My acquaintance with Mrs. M’Corkle has been only epistolary. Pardon this digression, my friends, but an allusion to the muse of poetry did not seem to me to be inconsistent with our gathering here. Let me briefly conclude by saying that the occasion is a happy and memorable one; I think I echo the sentiment of all present when I add that it is one which will not be easily forgotten by either the grateful guests, whose feelings I have tried to express, or the chivalrous hosts, whose kindness I have already so feebly translated.”
In the applause that followed, and the clicking of glasses, Senor Perkins slipped away. He mingled a moment with some of the other guests who had already withdrawn to the corridor, lit a cigar, and then passed through a narrow doorway on to the ramparts. Here he strolled to some distance, as if in deep thought, until he reached a spot where the crumbling wall and its fallen debris afforded an easy descent into the ditch. Following the ditch, he turned an angle, and came upon the beach, and the low sound of oars in the invisible offing. A whistle brought the boat to his feet, and without a word he stepped into the stern sheets. A few strokes of the oars showed him that the fog had lifted slightly from the water, and a green light hanging from the side of the Excelsior could be plainly seen. Ten minutes’ more steady pulling placed him on her deck, where the second officer stood with a number of the sailors listlessly grouped around him.
“The landing has been completed?” said Senor Perkins interrogatively.
“All except one boat-load more, which waits to take your final instructions,” said the mate. “The men have growled a little about it,” he added, in a lower tone. “They don’t want to lose anything, it seems,” he continued, with a half sarcastic laugh.
Senor Perkins smiled peculiarly.
“I am sorry to disappoint them. Who’s that in the boat?” he asked suddenly.
The mate followed the Senor’s glance.
“It is Yoto. He says he is going ashore, and you will not forbid him.”
Senor Perkins approached the ship’s side.
“Come here,” he said to the man.
The Peruvian sailor rose, but did not make the slightest movement to obey the command.
“You say you are going ashore?” said Perkins blandly.
“Yes, Patrono.”
“What for?”
“To follow him–the thief, the assassin–who struck me here;” he pointed to his head. “He has escaped again with his booty.”
“You are very foolish, my Yoto; he is no thief, and has no booty. They will put YOU in prison, not him.”
“YOU say so,” said the man surlily. “Perhaps they will hear me– for other things,” he added significantly.
“And for this you would abandon the cause?”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Why not?” he glanced meaningly at two of his companions, who had approached the side; “perhaps others would. Who is sending the booty ashore, eh?”
“Come out of that boat,” said the Senor, leaning over the bulwarks with folded arms, and his eyes firmly fixed on the man.
The man did not move. But the Senor’s hand suddenly flew to the back of his neck, smote violently downwards, and sent eighteen inches of glittering steel hurtling through the air. The bowie- knife entered the upturned throat of the man and buried itself halfway to the hilt. Without a gasp or groan he staggered forward, caught wildly at the side of the ship, and disappeared between the boat and the vessel.
“My lads,” said Senor Perkins, turning with a gentle smile towards the faces that in the light of the swinging lantern formed a ghastly circle around him, “when I boarded this ship that had brought aid and succor to our oppressors at Callao, I determined to take possession of it peacefully, without imperiling the peace and property of the innocent passengers who were intrusted to its care, and without endangering your own lives or freedom. But I made no allowance for TRAITORS. The blood that has been shed to-night has not been spilt in obedience to my orders, nor to the cause that we serve; it was from DEFIANCE of it; and the real and only culprit has just atoned for it.”
He stopped, and then stepped back from the gangway, as if to leave it open to the men.
“What I have done,” he continued calmly, “I do not ask you to consider either as an example or a warning. You are free to do what HE would have done,” he repeated, with a wave of his hand towards the open gangway and the empty boat. “You are free to break your contract and leave the ship, and I give you my word that I will not lift a hand to prevent it. But if you stay with me,” he said, suddenly turning upon them a face as livid as their own, “I swear by the living God, that, if between this and the accomplishment of my design, you as much as shirk or question any order given by me, you shall die the death of that dog who went before you. Choose as you please–but quickly.”
The mate was the first to move. Without a word, he crossed over to the Senor’s side. The men hesitated a moment longer, until one, with a strange foreign cry, threw himself on his knees before the Senor, ejaculating, “Pardon! pardon!” The others followed, some impulsively catching at the hand that had just slain their comrade, and covering it with kisses!
“Pardon, Patrono–we are yours.”
“You are the State’s,” said Senor Perkins coldly, with every vestige of his former urbanity gone from his colorless face. “Enough! Go back to your duty.” He watched them slink away, and then turned to the mate. “Get the last boat-load ready, and report to me.”
From that moment another power seemed to dominate the ship. The men no longer moved listlessly, or slunk along the deck with perfunctory limbs; a feverish haste and eagerness possessed them; the boat was quickly loaded, and the mysterious debarkation completed in rapidity and silence. This done, the fog once more appeared to rise from the water and softly encompass the ship, until she seemed to be obliterated from its face. In this vague obscurity, from time to time, the faint rattling of chains was heard, the soft creaking of blocks, and later on, the regular rise and fall of oars. And then the darkness fell heavier, the sounds became more and more indistinct and were utterly lost.
Ashore, however, the lanterns still glittered brightly in the courtyard of the Presidio; the noise of laughter and revel still came from the supper-room, and, later, the tinkling of guitars and rhythmical clapping hands showed that the festivities were being wound up by a characteristic fandango. Captain Bunker succumbed early to his potations of fiery aguardiente, and was put to bed in the room of the Commander, to whom he had sworn eternal friendship and alliance. It was long past midnight before the other guests were disposed of in the various quarters of the Presidio; but to the ladies were reserved the more ostentatious hospitalities of the Alcalde himself, the walls of whose ambitious hacienda raised themselves across the plaza and overlooked the gardens of the Mission.
It was from one of the deep, quaintly barred windows of the hacienda that Miss Keene gazed thoughtfully on the night, unable to compose herself to sleep. An antique guest-chamber had been assigned to her in deference to her wish to be alone, for which she had declined the couch and vivacious prattle of her new friend, Dona Isabel. The events of the day had impressed her more deeply than they had her companions, partly from her peculiar inexperience of the world, and partly from her singular sensitiveness to external causes. The whole quaint story of the forgotten and isolated settlement, which had seemed to the other passengers as a trivial and half humorous incident, affected her imagination profoundly. When she could escape the attentions of her entertainers, or the frivolities of her companions, she tried to touch the far-off past on the wings of her fancy; she tried to imagine the life of those people, forgetting the world and forgotten by it; she endeavored to picture the fifty years of solitude amidst these decaying ruins, over which even ambition had crumbled and fallen. It seemed to her the true conventual seclusion from the world without the loss of kinship or home influences; she contrasted it with her boarding-school life in the fashionable seminary; she wondered what she would have become had she been brought up here; she thought of the happy ignorance of Dona Isabel, and–shuddered; and yet she felt herself examining the odd furniture of the room with an equally childlike and admiring curiosity. And these people looked upon HER as a superior being!
From the deep embrasure of the window she could see the tops of the pear and olive trees, in the misty light of an invisible moon that suffused the old Mission garden with an ineffable and angelic radiance. To her religious fancy it seemed to be a spiritual effusion of the church itself, enveloping the two gray dome-shaped towers with an atmosphere and repose of its own, until it became the incarnate mystery and passion where it stood.
She was suddenly startled by a moving shadow beside the wall, almost immediately below her–the figure of a man! He was stealing cautiously towards the church, as if to gain the concealment of the shrubbery that grew beside it, and, furtively glancing from side to side, looked towards her window. She unconsciously drew back, forgetting at the moment that her light was extinguished, and that it was impossible for the stranger to see her. But she had seen HIM, and in that instant recognized Mr. Hurlstone!
Then he HAD come ashore, and secretly, for the other passengers believed him still on the ship! But what was he doing there?–and why had he not appeared with the others at the entertainment? She could understand his avoidance of them from what she knew of his reserved and unsocial habits; but when he could so naturally have remained on shipboard, she could not, at first, conceive why he should wish to prowl around the town at the risk of detection. The idea suddenly occurred to her that he had had another attack of his infirmity and was walking in his sleep, and for an instant she thought of alarming the house, that some one might go to his assistance. But his furtive movements had not the serene impassibility of the somnambulist. Another thought withheld her; he had looked up at her window! Did he know she was there? A faint stirring of shame and pleasure sent a slight color to her cheek. But he had gained the corner of the shrubbery and was lost in the shadow. She turned from the window. A gentle sense of vague and half maternal pity suffused her soft eyes as she at last sought her couch and fell into a deep slumber.
Towards daybreak a wind arose over the sleeping town and far outlying waters. It breathed through the leaves of the Mission garden, brushed away the clinging mists from the angles of the towers, and restored the sharp outlines of the ruined fortifications. It swept across the unruffled sea to where the Excelsior, cradled in the softly heaving bay, had peacefully swung at anchor on the previous night, and lifted the snowy curtain of the fog to seaward as far as the fringe of surf, a league away.
But the cradle of the deep was empty–the ship was gone!
CHAPTER VII.
THE GENTLE CASTAWAYS.
Miss Keene was awakened from a heavy sleep by a hurried shake of her shoulder and an indefinite feeling of alarm. Opening her eyes, she was momentarily dazed by the broad light of day, and the spectacle of Mrs. Brimmer, pale and agitated, in a half-Spanish dishabille, standing at her bedside.
“Get up and dress yourself, my dear, at once,” she said hurriedly, but at the same time attentively examining Miss Keene’s clothes, that were lying on the chair: “and thank Heaven you came here in an afternoon dress, and not in an evening costume like mine! For something awful has happened, and Heaven only knows whether we’ll ever see a stitch of our clothes again.”
“WHAT has happened?” asked Miss Keene impatiently, sitting up in bed, more alarmed at the unusual circumstance of Mrs. Brimmer’s unfinished toilet than at her incomplete speech.
“What, indeed! Nobody knows; but it’s something awful–a mutiny, or shipwreck, or piracy. But there’s your friend, the Commander, calling out the troops; and such a set of Christy Minstrels you never saw before! There’s the Alcalde summoning the Council; there’s Mr. Banks raving, and running round for a steamboat–as if these people ever heard of such a thing!–and Captain Bunker, what with rage and drink, gone off in a fit of delirium tremens, and locked up in his room! And the Excelsior gone–the Lord knows where!”
“Gone!” repeated Miss Keene, hurrying on her clothes. “Impossible! What does Father Esteban tell you? What does Dona Isabel say?”
“That’s the most horrible part of it! Do you know those wretched idiots believe it’s some political revolution among ourselves, like their own miserable government. I believe that baby Isabel thinks that King George and Washington have something to do with it; at any rate, they’re anxious to know to what side you belong! So; for goodness’ sake! if you have to humor them, say we’re all on the same side–I mean, don’t you and Mrs. Markham go against Miss Chubb and me.”
Scarcely knowing whether to laugh or cry at Mrs. Brimmer’s incoherent statement, Miss Keene hastily finished dressing as the door flew open to admit the impulsive Dona Isabel and her sister Juanita. The two Mexican girls threw themselves in Miss Keene’s arms, and then suddenly drew back with a movement of bashful and diffident respect.
“Do, pray, ask them, for I daren’t,” whispered Mrs. Brimmer, trying to clasp a mantilla around her, “how this thing is worn, and if they haven’t got something like a decent bonnet to lend me for a day or two?”
“The Senora has not then heard that her goods, and all the goods of the Senores and Senoras, have been discovered safely put ashore at the Embarcadero?”
“No?” said Mrs. Brimmer eagerly.
“Ah, yes!” responded Dona Isabel. “Since the Senora is not of the revolutionary party.”
Mrs. Brimmer cast a supplicatory look at Miss Keene, and hastily quitted the room. Miss Keene would have as quickly followed her, but the young Ramirez girls threw themselves again tragically upon her breast, and, with a mysterious gesture of silence, whispered,–
“Fear nothing, Excellencia! We are yours–we will die for you, no matter what Don Ramon, or the Comandante, or the Ayuntamiento, shall decide. Trust us, little one!–pardon–Excellencia, we mean.”
“What IS the matter?” said Miss Keene, now thoroughly alarmed, and releasing herself from the twining arms about her. “For Heaven’s sake let me go! I must see somebody! Where is–where is Mrs. Markham?”
“The Markham? Is it the severe one?–as thus,”–said Dona Isabel, striking an attitude of infantine portentousness.
“Yes,” said Miss Keene, smiling in spite of her alarm.
“She is arrested.”
“Arrested!” said Eleanor Keene, her cheeks aflame with indignation. “For what? Who dare do this thing?”
“The Comandante. She has a missive–a despatch from the insurrectionaries.”
Without another word, and feeling that she could stand the suspense no longer, Miss Keene forced her way past the young girls, unheeding their cries of consternation and apology, and quickly reached the patio. A single glance showed her that Mrs. Brimmer was gone. With eyes and cheeks still burning, she swept past the astounded peons, through the gateway, into the open plaza. Only one idea filled her mind–to see the Commander, and demand the release of her friend. How she should do it, with what arguments she should enforce her demand, never occurred to her. She did not even think of asking the assistance of Mr. Brace, Mr. Crosby, or any of her fellow-passengers. The consciousness of some vague crisis that she alone could meet possessed her completely.
The plaza was swarming with a strange rabble of peons and soldiery; of dark, lowering faces, odd-looking weapons and costumes, mules, mustangs, and cattle–a heterogeneous mass, swayed by some fierce excitement. That she saw none of the Excelsior party among them did not surprise her; an instinct of some catastrophe more serious than Mrs. Brimmer’s vague imaginings frightened but exalted her. With head erect, leveled brows, and bright, determined eyes she walked deliberately into the square. The crowd parted and gave way before this beautiful girl, with her bared head and its invincible crest of chestnut curls. Presently they began to follow her, with a compressed murmur of admiration, until, before she was halfway across the plaza, the sentries beside the gateway of the Presidio were astonished at the vision of a fair-haired and triumphant Pallas, who appeared to be leading the entire population of Todos Santos to victorious attack. In vain a solitary bugle blew, in vain the rolling drum beat an alarm, the sympathetic guard only presented arms as Miss Keene, flushed and excited, her eyes darkly humid with gratified pride, swept past them into the actual presence of the bewildered and indignant Comandante.
The only feminine consciousness she retained was that she was more relieved at her deliverance from the wild cattle and unbroken horses of her progress than from the Indians and soldiers.
“I want to see Mrs. Markham, and to know by what authority she is arrested,” said Miss Keene boldly.
“The Senor Comandante can hold no conference with you until you disperse your party,” interpreted the secretary.
She was about to hurriedly reply that she knew nothing of the crowd that had accompanied her; but she was withheld by a newly-born instinct of tact.
“How do I know that I shall not be arrested, like my friend?” she said quickly. “She is as innocent as myself.”
“The Comandante pledges himself, as a hidalgo, that you shall not be harmed.”
Her first impulse was to advance to the nearest intruders at the gate and say, “Do go away, please;” but she was doubtful of its efficiency, and was already too exalted by the situation to be satisfied with its prosaic weakness. But her newly developed diplomacy again came to her aid. “You may tell them so, if you choose, I cannot answer for them,” she said, with apparent dark significance.
The secretary advanced on the corridor and exchanged a few words with her more impulsive followers. Miss Keene, goddess-like and beautiful, remained erect behind him, and sent them a dazzling smile and ravishing wave of her little hand. The crowd roared with an effusive and bovine delight that half frightened her, and with a dozen “Viva la Reyna Americanas!” she was hurried by the Comandante into the guard-room.
“You ask to know of what the Senora Markham is accused,” said the Commander, more gently. “She has received correspondence from the pirate–Perkins!”
“The pirate–Perkins?” said Miss Keene, with indignant incredulity.
“The buccaneer who wrote that letter. Read it to her, Manuel.”
The secretary took his eyes from the young girl’s glowing face, coughed slightly, and then read as follows:–
“ON BOARD THE EXCELSIOR, of the Quinquinambo Independent States Navy, August 8, 1854.
“To Captain Bunker.–Sir,” . . .
“But this is not addressed to YOU!” interrupted Miss Keene indignantly.
“The Captain Bunker is a raving madman,” said the Commander gravely. “Read on!”
The color gradually faded from the young girl’s cheek as the secretary continued, in a monotonous voice:–
“I have the honor to inform you that the barque Excelsior was, on the 8th of July, 1854, and the first year of the Quinquinambo Independence, formally condemned by the Federal Council of Quinquinambo, for having aided and assisted the enemy with munitions of war and supplies, against the law of nations, and the tacit and implied good-will between the Republic of the United States and the struggling Confederacies of South America; and that, in pursuance thereof, and under the law of reprisals and letters of marque, was taken possession of by me yesterday. The goods and personal effects belonging to the passengers and yourself have been safely landed at the Embarcadero of Todos Santos–a neutral port– by my directions; my interpretation of the orders of the Federal Council excepting innocent non-combatants and their official protector from confiscation or amercement.
“I take the liberty of requesting you to hand the inclosed order on the Treasury of the Quinquinambo Confederate States to Don Miguel Briones, in payment of certain stores and provisions, and of a piece of ordnance known as the saluting cannon of the Presidio of Todos Santos. Vigilancia!
“Your obedient servant,
“LEONIDAS BOLIVAR PERKINS,
“Generalissimo Commanding Land and Sea Forces, Quinquinambo Independent States.”
In her consternation at this fuller realization of the vague catastrophe, Miss Keene still clung to the idea that had brought her there.
“But Mrs. Markham has nothing to do with all this?”
“Then why does she refuse to give up her secret correspondence with the pirate Perkins?” returned the secretary.
Miss Keene hesitated. Had Mrs. Markham any previous knowledge of the Senor’s real character?
“Why don’t you arrest the men?” she said scornfully. “There is Mr. Banks, Mr. Crosby, Mr. Winslow, and Mr. Brace.” She uttered the last name more contemptuously, as she thought of that young gentleman’s protestations and her present unprotected isolation.
“They are already arrested and removed to San Antonio, a league hence,” returned the secretary. “It is fact enough that they have confessed that their Government has seized the Mexican province of California, and that they were on their way to take possession of it.”
Miss Keene’s heart sank.
“But you knew all this yesterday,” she faltered; “and our war with Mexico is all over years ago.”
“We did not know it last night at the banquet, Senora; nor would we have known it but for this treason and division in your own party.”
A sudden light flashed upon Miss Keene’s mind. She now comprehended the advances of Dona Isabel. Extravagant and monstrous as it seemed, these people evidently believed that a revolution had taken place in the United States; that the two opposing parties had been represented by the passengers of the Excelsior; and that one party had succeeded, headed by the indomitable Perkins. If she could be able to convince them of their blunder, would it be wise to do so? She thought of Mrs. Brimmer’s supplication to be ranged “on her side,” and realized with feminine quickness that the situation might be turned to her countrymen’s advantage. But which side had Todos Santos favored? It was left to her woman’s wit to discover this, and conceive a plan to rescue her helpless companions.
Her suspense was quickly relieved. The Commander and his secretary exchanged a few words.
“The Comandante will grant Dona Leonora’s request,” said the secretary, “if she will answer a question.”
“What is it?” responded Miss Keene, with inward trepidation.
“The Senora Markham is perhaps beloved by the Pirate Perkins?”
In spite of her danger, in spite of the uncertain fate hanging over her party, Miss Keene could with difficulty repress a half hysterical inclination to laugh. Even then, it escaped in a sudden twinkle of her eye, which both the Commander and his subordinate were quick to notice, as she replied demurely, “Perhaps.”
It was enough for the Commander. A gleam of antique archness and venerable raillery lit up his murky, tobacco-colored pupils; a spasm of gallantry crossed the face of the secretary.
“Ah–what would you?–it is the way of the world,” said the Commander. “We comprehend. Come!”
He led the way across the corridor, and suddenly opened a small barred door. Whatever preconceived idea Miss Keene may have had of her unfortunate country-woman immured in a noisome cell, and guarded by a stern jailer, was quite dissipated by the soft misty sunshine that flowed in through the open door. The prison of Mrs. Markham was a part of the old glacis which had been allowed to lapse into a wild garden that stretched to the edge of the sea. There was a summer-house built on–and partly from–a crumbling bastion, and here, under the shade of tropical creepers, the melancholy captive was comfortably writing, with her portable desk on her knee, and a traveling-bag at her feet. A Saratoga trunk of obtrusive proportions stood in the centre of the peaceful vegetation, like a newly raised altar to an unknown deity. The only suggestion of martial surveillance was an Indian soldier, whose musket, reposing on the ground near Mrs. Markham, he had exchanged for the rude mattock with which he was quietly digging.
The two women, with a cry of relief, flew into each other’s arms. The Commander and his secretary discreetly retired to an angle of the wall.
“I find everything as I left it, my dear, even to my slipper-bag,” said Mrs. Markham. “They’ve forgotten nothing.”
“But you are a captive!” said Eleanor. “What does it mean?”
“Nothing, my dear. I gave them a piece of my mind,” said Mrs. Markham, looking, however, as if that mental offering had by no means exhausted her capital, “and I have written six pages to the Governor at Mazatlan, and a full account to Mr. Markham.”
“And they won’t get them in thirty years!” said Miss Keene impetuously. “But where is this letter from Senor Perkins. And, for Heaven’s sake, tell me if you had the least suspicion before of anything that has happened.”
“Not in the least. The man is mad, my dear, and I really believe driven so by that absurd Illinois woman’s poetry. Did you ever see anything so ridiculous–and shameful, too–as the ‘Ulricardo’ business? I don’t wonder he colored so.”
Miss Keene winced with annoyance. Was everybody going crazy, or was there anything more in this catastrophe that had only enfeebled the minds of her countrywomen! For here was the severe, strong- minded Mrs. Markham actually preoccupied, like Mrs. Brimmer, with utterly irrelevant particulars, and apparently powerless to grasp the fact that they were abandoned on a half hostile strand, and cut off by half a century from the rest of the world.
“As to the letter,” said Mrs. Markham, quietly, “there it is. There’s nothing in it that might not have been written by a friend.”
Miss Keene took the letter. It was written in a delicate, almost feminine hand. She could not help noticing that in one or two instances corrections had been made and blots carefully removed with an eraser.
“Midnight, on the Excelsior.
“MY FRIEND: When you receive this I shall probably be once more on the bosom of that mysterious and mighty element whose majesty has impressed us, whose poetry we have loved, and whose moral lessons, I trust, have not been entirely thrown away upon us. I go to the deliverance of one of those oppressed nations whose history I have often recited to you, and in whose destiny you have from time to time expressed a womanly sympathy. While it is probable, therefore, that my MOTIVES may not be misunderstood by you, or even other dear friends of the Excelsior, it is by no means impossible that the celerity and unexpectedness of my ACTION may not be perfectly appreciated by the careless mind, and may seem to require some explanation. Let me then briefly say that the idea of debarking your goods and chattels, and parting from your delightful company at Todos Santos, only occurred to me on our unexpected– shall I say PROVIDENTIAL?–arrival at that spot; and the necessity of expedition forbade me either inviting your cooperation or soliciting your confidence. Human intelligence is variously constituted–or, to use a more homely phrase, ‘many men have many minds’–and it is not impossible that a premature disclosure of my plans might have jeopardized that harmony which you know it has been my desire to promote. It was my original intention to have landed you at Mazatlan, a place really inferior in climate and natural attractions to Todo Santos, although, perhaps, more easy of access and egress; but the presence of an American steamer in the offing would have invested my enterprise with a certain publicity foreign, I think, to all our tastes. Taking advantage, therefore, of my knowledge of the peninsular coast, and the pardonable ignorance of Captain Bunker, I endeavored, through my faithful subordinates, to reach a less known port, and a coast rarely frequented by reason of its prevailing fog. Here occurred one of those dispensations of an overruling power which, dear friend, we have so often discussed. We fell in with an unknown current, and were guided by a mysterious hand into the bay of Todos Santos!
“You know of my belief in the infinite wisdom and benignity of events; you have, dear friend, with certain feminine limitations, shared it with me. Could there have been a more perfect illustration of it than the power that led us here? On a shore, historic in interest, beautiful in climate, hospitable in its people, utterly freed from external influences, and absolutely without a compromising future, you are landed, my dear friend, with your youthful companions. From the crumbling ruins of a decaying Past you are called to construct an Arcadia of your own; the rudiments of a new civilization are within your grasp; the cost of existence is comparatively trifling; the various sums you have with you, which even in the chaos of revolution I have succeeded in keeping intact, will more than suffice to your natural wants for years to come. Were I not already devoted to the task of freeing Quinquinambo, I should willingly share this Elysium with you all. But, to use the glowing words of Mrs. M’Corkle, slightly altering the refrain–
‘Ah, stay me not! With flying feet O’er desert sands, I rush to greet
My fate, my love, my life, my sweet Quinquinambo!’
“I venture to intrust to your care two unpublished manuscripts of that gifted woman. The dangers that may environ my present mission, the vicissitudes of battle by sea or land, forbid my imperiling their natural descent to posterity. You, my dear friend, will preserve them for the ages to come, occasionally refreshing yourself, from time to time, from that Parnassian spring.
“Adieu! my friend. I look around the familiar cabin, and miss your gentle faces. I feel as Jason might have felt, alone on the deck of the Argo when his companions were ashore, except that I know of no Circean influences to mar their destiny. In examining the state-rooms to see if my orders for the complete restoration of passengers’ property had been carried out, I allowed myself to look into yours. Lying alone, forgotten and overlooked, I saw a peculiar jet hair-pin which I think I have observed in the coils of your tresses. May I venture to keep this gentle instrument as a reminder of the superior intellect it has so often crowned? Adieu, my friend.
“Ever yours, LEONIDAS BOLIVAR PERKINS.”
“Well?” said Mrs. Markham impatiently, as Miss Keene remained motionless with the letter in her hand.
“It seems like a ridiculous nightmare! I can’t understand it at all. The man that wrote this letter may be mad–but he is neither a pirate nor a thief–and yet”–
“He a pirate?” echoed Mrs. Markham indignantly; “He’s nothing of the kind! It’s not even his FAULT!”
“Not his fault?” repeated Miss Keene; “are you mad, too?”
“No–nor a fool, my dear! Don’t you see? It’s all the fault of Banks and Brimmer for compromising the vessel: of that stupid, drunken captain for permitting it. Senor Perkins is a liberator, a patriot, who has periled himself and his country to treat us magnanimously. Don’t you see it? It’s like that Banks and that Mrs. Brimmer to call HIM a pirate! I’ve a good mind to give the Commander my opinion of THEM.”
“Hush!” said Miss Keene, with a sudden recollection of the Commander’s suspicions, “for Heaven’s sake; you do not know what you are saying. Look! they were talking with that strange man, and now they are coming this way.”
The Commander and his secretary approached them. They were both more than usually grave; but the look of inquiry and suspicion with which they regarded the two women was gone from their eyes.
“The Senor Comandante says you are free, Senoras, and begs you will only decide whether you will remain his guests or the guests of the Alcalde. But for the present he cannot allow you any communication with the prisoners of San Antonio.”
“There is further news?” said Miss Keene faintly, with a presentiment of worse complications.
“There is! A body from the Excelsior has been washed on shore.”
The two women turned pale.
“In the pocket of the murdered man is an accusation against one Senor Hurlstone, who was concealed on the ship; who came not ashore openly with the other passengers, but who escaped in secret, and is now hiding somewhere in Todos Santos.”
“And you suspect him of this infamous act?” said Eleanor, forgetting all prudence in her indignation. “You are deceiving yourself. He is as innocent as I am!”
The Commander and the secretary smiled sapiently, but gently.
“The Senor Comandante believes you, Dona Leonora: the Senor Hurlstone is innocent of the piracy. He is, of a surety, the leader of the Opposition.”
CHAPTER VIII.
IN SANCTUARY.
When James Hurlstone reached the shelter of the shrubbery he leaned exhaustedly against the adobe wall, and looked back upon the garden he had just traversed. At its lower extremity a tall hedge of cactus reinforced the crumbling wall with a cheval de frise of bristling thorns; it was through a gap in this green barrier that he had found his way a few hours before, as his torn clothes still testified. At one side ran the low wall of the Alcalde’s casa, a mere line of dark shadow in that strange diaphanous mist that seemed to suffuse all objects. The gnarled and twisted branches of pear-trees, gouty with old age, bent so low as to impede any progress under their formal avenues; out of a tangled labyrinth of figtrees, here and there a single plume of feathery palm swam in a drowsy upper radiance. The shrubbery around him, of some unknown variety, exhaled a faint perfume; he put out his hand to grasp what appeared to be a young catalpa, and found it the trunk of an enormous passion vine, that, creeping softly upward, had at last invaded the very belfry of the dim tower above him; and touching it, his soul seemed to be lifted with it out of the shadow.
The great hush and quiet that had fallen like a benediction on every sleeping thing around him; the deep and passionless repose that seemed to drop from the bending boughs of the venerable trees; the cool, restful, earthy breath of the shadowed mold beneath him, touched only by a faint jessamine-like perfume as of a dead passion, lulled the hurried beatings of his heart and calmed the feverish tremor of his limbs. He allowed himself to sink back against the wall, his hands tightly clasped before him. Gradually, the set, abstracted look of his eyes faded and became suffused, as if moistened by that celestial mist. Then he rose quickly, drew his sleeve hurriedly across his lashes, and began slowly to creep along the wall again.
Either the obscurity of the shrubbery became greater or he was growing preoccupied; but in steadying himself by the wall he had, without perceiving it, put his hand upon a rude door that, yielding to his pressure, opened noiselessly into a dark passage. Without apparent reflection he entered, followed the passage a few steps until it turned abruptly; turning with it, he found himself in the body of the Mission Church of Todos Santos. A swinging-lamp, that burned perpetually before an effigy of the Virgin Mother, threw a faint light on the single rose-window behind the high altar; another, suspended in a low archway, apparently lit the open door of the passage towards the refectory. By the stronger light of the latter Hurlstone could see the barbaric red and tarnished gold of the rafters that formed the straight roof. The walls were striped with equally bizarre coloring, half Moorish and half Indian. A few hangings of dyed and painted cloths with heavy fringes were disposed on either side of the chancel, like the flaps of a wigwam; and the aboriginal suggestion was further repeated in a quantity of colored beads and sea-shells that decked the communion-rails. The Stations of the Cross, along the walls, were commemorated by paintings, evidently by a native artist–to suit the same barbaric taste; while a larger picture of San Francisco d’Assisis, under the choir, seemed to belong to an older and more artistic civilization. But the sombre half-light of the two lamps mellowed and softened the harsh contrast of these details until the whole body of the church appeared filled with a vague harmonious shadow. The air, heavy with the odors of past incense, seemed to be a part of that expression, as if the solemn and sympathetic twilight became palpable in each deep, long-drawn inspiration.
Again overcome by the feeling of repose and peacefulness, Hurlstone sank upon a rude settle, and bent his head and folded arms over a low railing before him. How long he sat there, allowing the subtle influence to transfuse and possess his entire being, he did not know. The faint twitter of birds suddenly awoke him. Looking up, he perceived that it came from the vacant square of the tower above him, open to the night and suffused with its mysterious radiance. In another moment the roof of the church was swiftly crossed and recrossed with tiny and adventurous wings. The mysterious light had taken an opaline color. Morning was breaking.
The slow rustling of a garment, accompanied by a soft but heavy tread, sounded from the passage. He started to his feet as the priest, whom he had seen on the deck of the Excelsior, entered the church from the refectory. The Padre was alone. At the apparition of a stranger, torn and disheveled, he stopped involuntarily and cast a hasty look towards the heavy silver ornaments on the altar. Hurlstone noticed it, and smiled bitterly.
“Don’t alarm yourself. I only sought this place for shelter.”
He spoke in French–the language he had heard Padre Esteban address to Mrs. Brimmer. But the priest’s quick eye had already detected his own mistake. He lifted his hand with a sublime gesture towards the altar, and said,–
“You are right! Where should you seek shelter but here?”
The reply was so unexpected that Hurlstone was silent. His lips quivered slightly.
“And if it were SANCTUARY I was seeking?” he said.
“You would first tell me why you sought it,” said Padre Esteban gently.
Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely for a moment and then said, with the hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his fate,–
“I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday. I came ashore with the intention of concealing myself somewhere here until she had sailed. When I tell you that I am not a fugitive from justice, that I have committed no offense against the ship or her passengers, nor have I any intention of doing so, but that I only wish concealment from their knowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand that you run no risk in giving me assistance. I can tell you no more.”
“I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or ashore,” said the priest. “How did you come here?”
“I swam ashore before they left. I did not know they had any idea of landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have been no need for concealment then. But I am not lucky,” he added, with a bitter laugh.
The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea, but remained silent.
“Do you think I am lying?”
The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
“Not to me–but to God!”
The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric church with a slight look of scorn. But the profound isolation, the mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued and overcame his rebellious spirit. He lifted his eyes to the priest.
“Nor to God,” he said gravely.
“Then why withhold anything from Him here?” said the priest gently.
“I am not a Catholic–I do not believe in confession,” said Hurlstone doggedly, turning aside.
But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man’s shoulder. Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again into his seat.
“Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house–a sanctuary bought by that contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To the first worldly shelter you sought–the peon’s hut or the Alcalde’s casa–you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You would not conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough,” he said kindly, as Hurlstone was about to reply. “You shall have your request. You shall stay here. I will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know not of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will assist me to find it. I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory until the ship has sailed. And then”–
He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man’s hand paternally in his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his soul.
And then . . . Ah, yes . . . What then? Hurlstone glanced once more around him. He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace that had fallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the promise of a greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense from those venerable walls. He thought of that crumbling barrier, that even in its ruin seemed to shut out, more completely than anything he had conceived, his bitter past, and the bitter world that recalled it. He thought of the long days to come, when, forgetting and forgotten, he might find a new life among these simple aliens, themselves forgotten by the world. He had thought of this once before in the garden; it occurred to him again in this Lethe-like oblivion of the little church, in the kindly pressure of the priest’s hand. The ornaments no longer looked uncouth and barbaric–rather they seemed full of some new spiritual significance. He suddenly lifted his eyes to Padre Esteban, and, half rising to his feet, said,–
“Are we alone?”
“We are; it is a half-hour yet before mass,” said the priest.
“My story will not last so long,” said the young man hurriedly, as if fearing to change his mind. “Hear me, then–it is no crime nor offense to any one; more than that, it concerns no one but myself– it is of”–
“A woman,” said the priest softly. “So! we will sit down, my son.”
He lifted his hand with a soothing gesture–the movement of a physician who has just arrived at an easy diagnosis of certain uneasy symptoms. There was also a slight suggestion of an habitual toleration, as if even the seclusion of Todos Santos had not been entirely free from the invasion of the primal passion.
Hurlstone waited for an instant, but then went on rapidly.
“It is of a woman, who has cursed my life, blasted my prospects, and ruined my youth; a woman who gained my early affection only to blight and wither it; a woman who should be nearer to me and dearer than all else, and yet who is further than the uttermost depths of hell from me in sympathy or feeling; a woman that I should cleave to, but from whom I have been flying, ready to face shame, disgrace, oblivion, even that death which alone can part us: for that woman is–my wife.”
He stopped, out of breath, with fixed eyes and a rigid mouth. Father Esteban drew a snuff-box from his pocket, and a large handkerchief. After blowing his nose violently, he took a pinch of snuff, wiped his lip, and replaced the box.
“A bad habit, my son,” he said apologetically, “but an old man’s weakness. Go on.”
“I met her first five years ago–the wife of another man. Don’t misjudge me, it was no lawless passion; it was a friendship, I believed, due to her intellectual qualities as much as to her womanly fascinations; for I was a young student, lodging in the same house with her, in an academic town. Before I ever spoke to her of love, she had confided to me her own unhappiness–the uncongeniality of her married life, the harshness, and even brutality, of her husband. Even a man less in love than I was could have seen the truth of this–the contrast of the coarse, sensual, and vulgar man with an apparently refined and intelligent woman; but any one else except myself would have suspected that such a union was not merely a sacrifice of the woman. I believed her. It was not until long afterwards that I learned that her marriage had been a condonation of her youthful errors by a complaisant bridegroom; that her character had been saved by a union that was a mutual concession. But I loved her madly; and when she finally got a divorce from her uncongenial husband, I believed it less an expression of her love for me than an act of justice. I did not know at the time that they had arranged the divorce together, as they had arranged their marriage, by equal concessions.
“I was the only son of a widowed mother, whose instincts were from the first opposed to my friendship with this woman, and what she prophetically felt would be its result. Unfortunately, both she and my friends were foolish enough to avow their belief that the divorce was obtained solely with a view of securing me as a successor; and it was this argument more than any other that convinced me of my duty to protect her. Enough, I married, not only in spite of all opposition–but BECAUSE of it.
“My mother would have reconciled herself to the marriage, but my wife never forgave the opposition, and, by some hellish instinct divining that her power over me might be weakened by maternal influence, precipitated a quarrel which forever separated us. With the little capital left by my father, divided between my mother and myself, I took my wife to a western city. Our small income speedily dwindled under the debts of her former husband, which she had assumed to purchase her freedom. I endeavored to utilize a good education and some accomplishments in music and the languages by giving lessons and by contributing to the press. In this my wife first made a show of assisting me, but I was not long in discovering that her intelligence was superficial and shallow, and that the audacity of expression, which I had believed to be originality of conviction, was simply shamelessness, and a desire for notoriety. She had a facility in writing sentimental poetry, which had been efficacious in her matrimonial confidences, but which editors of magazines and newspapers found to be shallow and insincere. To my astonishment, she remained unaffected by this, as she was equally impervious to the slights and sneers that continually met us in society. At last the inability to pay one of her former husband’s claims brought to me a threat and an anonymous letter. I laid them before her, when a scene ensued which revealed the blindness of my folly in all its hideous hopelessness: she accused me of complicity in her divorce, and deception in regard to my own fortune. In a speech, whose language was a horrible revelation of her early habits, she offered to arrange a divorce from me as she had from her former husband. She gave as a reason her preference for another, and her belief that the scandal of a suit would lend her a certain advertisement and prestige. It was a combination of Messalina and Mrs. Jarley”–
“Pardon! I remember not a Madame Jarley,” said the priest.
“Of viciousness and commercial calculation,” continued Hurlstone hurriedly. “I don’t remember what happened; she swore that I struck her! Perhaps–God knows! But she failed, even before a western jury, to convict me of cruelty. The judge that thought me half insane would not believe me brutal, and her application for divorce was lost.
“I need not tell you that the same friends who had opposed my marriage now came forward to implore me to allow her to break our chains. I refused. I swear to you it was from no lingering love for her, for her presence drove me mad; it was from no instinct of revenge or jealousy, for I should have welcomed the man who would have taken her out of my life and memory. But I could not bear the idea of taking her first husband’s place in her hideous comedy; I could not purchase my freedom at that price–at any price. I was told that I could get a divorce against HER, and stand forth before the world untrammeled and unstained. But I could not stand before MYSELF in such an attitude. I knew that the shackles I had deliberately forged could not be loosened except by death. I knew that the stains of her would cling to me and become a part of my own sin, even as the sea I plunged into yesterday to escape her, though it has dried upon me, has left its bitter salt behind.
“When she knew my resolve, she took her revenge by dragging my name through the successive levels to which she descended. Under the plea that the hardly-earned sum I gave to her maintenance apart from me was not sufficient, she utilized her undoubted beauty and more doubtful talent in amateur entertainments–and, finally, on the stage. She was openly accompanied by her lover, who acted as her agent, in the hope of goading me to a divorce. Suddenly she disappeared. I thought she had forgotten me. I obtained an honorable position in New York. One night I entered a theater devoted to burlesque opera and the exhibition of a popular actress, known as the Western Thalia, whose beautiful and audaciously draped figure was the talk of the town. I recognized my wife in this star of nudity; more than that, she recognized me. The next day, in addition to the usual notice, the real name of the actress was given in the morning papers, with a sympathizing account of her romantic and unfortunate marriage. I renounced my position, and, taking advantage of an offer from an old friend in California, resolved to join him secretly there. My mother had died broken- hearted; I was alone in the world. But my wife discovered my intention; and when I reached Callao, I heard that she had followed me, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and that probably she would anticipate me in Mazatlan, where we were to stop. The thought of suicide haunted me during the rest of that horrible voyage; only my belief that she would make it appear as a tacit confession of my guilt saved me from that last act of weakness.”
He stopped and shuddered. Padre Esteban again laid his hand softly upon him.
“It was God who spared you that sacrifice of soul and body,” he said gently.
“I thought it was God that suggested to me to take the SIMULATION of that act the means of separating myself from her forever. When we neared Mazatlan, I conceived the idea of hiding myself in the hold of the Excelsior until she had left that port, in the hope that it would be believed that I had fallen overboard. I succeeded in secreting myself, but was discovered at the same time that the unexpected change in the ship’s destination rendered concealment unnecessary. As we did not put in at Mazatlan, nobody suspected my discovery in the hold to be anything but the accident that I gave it out to be. I felt myself saved the confrontation of the woman at Mazatlan; but I knew she would pursue me to San Francisco.
“The strange dispensation of Providence that brought us into this unknown port gave me another hope of escape and oblivion. While you and the Commander were boarding the Excelsior, I slipped from the cabin-window into the water; I was a good swimmer, and reached the shore in safety. I concealed myself in the ditch of the Presidio until I saw the passengers’ boats returning with them, when I sought the safer shelter of this Mission. I made my way through a gap in the hedge and lay under your olive-trees, hearing the voices of my companions, beyond the walls, till past midnight. I then groped my way along the avenue of pear-trees till I came to another wall, and a door that opened to my accidental touch. I entered, and found myself here. You know the rest.”
He had spoken with the rapid and unpent fluency of a man who cared more to relieve himself of an oppressive burden than to impress his auditor; yet the restriction of a foreign tongue had checked repetition or verbosity. Without imagination he had been eloquent; without hopefulness he had been convincing. Father Esteban rose, holding both his hands.
“My son, in the sanctuary which you have claimed there is no divorce. The woman who has ruined your life could not be your wife. As long as her first husband lives, she is forever his wife, bound by a tie which no human law can sever!”
CHAPTER IX.
AN OPEN-AIR PRISON.
An hour after mass Father Esteban had quietly installed Hurlstone in a small cell-like apartment off the refectory. The household of the priest consisted of an old Indian woman of fabulous age and miraculous propriety, two Indian boys who served at mass, a gardener, and a muleteer. The first three, who were immediately in attendance upon the priest, were cognizant of a stranger’s presence, but, under instructions from the reverend Padre, were loyally and superstitiously silent; the vocations of the gardener and muleteer made any intrusion from them impossible. A breakfast of fruit, tortillas, chocolate, and red wine, of which Hurlstone partook sparingly and only to please his entertainer, nevertheless seemed to restore his strength, as it did the Padre’s equanimity. For the old man had been somewhat agitated during mass, and, except that his early morning congregation was mainly composed of Indians, muleteers, and small venders, his abstraction would have been noticed. With ready tact he had not attempted, by further questioning, to break the taciturnity into which Hurlstone had relapsed after his emotional confession and the priest’s abrupt half-absolution. Was it possible he regretted his confidence, or was it possible that his first free and untrammeled expression of his wrongs had left him with a haunting doubt of their real magnitude?
“Lie down here, my son,” said the old ecclesiastic, pointing to a small pallet in the corner, “and try to restore in the morning what you have taken from the night. Manuela will bring your clothes when they are dried and mended; meantime, shift for yourself in Pepito’s serape and calzas. I will betake me to the Comandante and the Alcalde, to learn the dispositions of your party, when the ship will sail, and if your absence is suspected. Peace be with you, son! Manuela, attend to the caballero, and see you chatter not.”
Without doubting the substantial truth of his guest’s story, the good Padre Esteban was not unwilling to have it corroborated by such details as he thought he could collect among the Excelsior’s passengers. His own experience in the confessional had taught him the unreliability of human evidence, and the vagaries of both conscientious and unconscious suppression. That a young, good- looking, and accomplished caballero should have been the victim of not one, but even many, erotic episodes, did not strike the holy father as being peculiar; but that he should have been brought by a solitary unfortunate attachment to despair and renunciation of the world appeared to him marvelous. He was not unfamiliar with the remorse of certain gallants for peccadillos with other men’s wives; but this Americano’s self-abasement for the sins of his own wife– as he foolishly claimed her to be–whom he hated and despised, struck Father Esteban as a miracle open to suspicion. Was there anything else in these somewhat commonplace details of vulgar and low intrigue than what he had told the priest? Were all these Americano husbands as sensitive and as gloomily self-sacrificing and expiating? It did not appear so from the manners and customs of the others,–from those easy matrons whose complacent husbands had abandoned them to the long companionship of youthful cavaliers on adventurous voyages; from those audacious virgins, who had the freedom of married women. Surely, this was not a pious and sensitive race, passionately devoted to their domestic affections! The young stranger must be either deceiving him–or an exception to his countrymen!
And if he was that exception–what then? An idea which had sprung up in Father Esteban’s fancy that morning now took possession of it with the tenacity of a growth on fertile virgin soil. The good Father had been devoted to the conversion of the heathen with the fervor of a one-ideaed man. But his successes had been among the Indians–a guileless, harmless race, who too often confounded the practical benefits of civilization with the abstract benefits of the Church, and their instruction had been simple and coercive. There had been no necessity for argument or controversy; the worthy priest’s skill in polemical warfare and disputation had never been brought into play; the Comandante and Alcalde were as punctiliously orthodox as himself, and the small traders and artisans were hopelessly docile and submissive. The march of science, which had been stopped by the local fogs of Todos Santos some fifty years, had not disturbed the simple Aesculapius of the province with heterodox theories: he still purged and bled like Sangrado, and met the priest at the deathbed of his victims with a pious satisfaction that had no trace of skeptical contention. In fact, the gentle Mission of Todos Santos had hitherto presented no field for the good Father’s exalted ambition, nor the display of his powers as a zealot. And here was a splendid opportunity.
The conversion of this dark, impulsive, hysterical stranger would be a gain to the fold, and a triumph worthy of his steel. More than that, if he had judged correctly of this young man’s mind and temperament, they seemed to contain those elements of courage and sacrificial devotion that indicated the missionary priesthood. With such a subaltern, what might not he, Father Esteban, accomplish! Looking further into the future, what a glorious successor might be left to his unfinished work on Todos Santos!
Buried in these reflections, Padre Esteban sauntered leisurely up the garden, that gradually ascended the slight elevation on which the greater part of the pueblo was built. Through a low gateway in the wall he passed on to the crest of the one straggling street of Todos Santos. On either side of him were ranged the low one- storied, deep-windowed adobe fondas and artisans’ dwellings, with low-pitched roofs of dull red pipe-like tiles. Absorbed in his fanciful dreams, he did not at first notice that those dwellings appeared deserted, and that even the Posada opposite him, whose courtyard was usually filled with lounging muleteers, was empty and abandoned. Looking down the street towards the plaza, he became presently aware of some undefined stirring in the peaceful hamlet. There was an unusual throng in the square, and afar on that placid surface of the bay from which the fog had lifted, the two or three fishing-boats of Todos Santos were vaguely pulling. But the strange ship was gone.
A feeling of intense relief and satisfaction followed. Father Esteban pulled out his snuff-box and took a long and complacent pinch. But his relief was quickly changed to consternation as an armed cavalcade rapidly wheeled out of the plaza and cantered towards him, with the unmistakable spectacle of the male passengers of the Excelsior riding two and two, and guarded by double files of dragoons on each side.
At a sign from the priest the subaltern reined in his mustang, halted the convoy, and saluted respectfully, to the astonishment of the prisoners. The clerical authority of Todos Santos evidently dominated the military. Renewed hope sprang up in the hearts of the Excelsior party.
“What have we here?” asked Padre Esteban.
“A revolution, your Reverence, among the Americanos, with robbery of the Presidio saluting-gun; a grave affair. Your Reverence has been sent for by the Comandante. I am taking these men to San Antonio to await the decision of the Council.”
“And the ship?”
“Gone, your Reverence. One of the parties has captured it.”
“And these?”
“Are the Legitimists, your Reverence: at least they have confessed to have warred with Mexico, and invaded California–the brigands.”
The priest remained lost for a moment in blank and bitter amazement. Banks took advantage of the pause to edge his way to the front.
“Ask him, some of you,” he said, turning to Brace and Crosby, “when this d—-d farce will be over, and where we can find the head man– the boss idiot of this foolery.”
“Let him put it milder,” whispered Winslow. “You got us into trouble enough with your tongue already.”
Crosby hesitated a moment.
“Quand finira ce drole representation?–et–et–qui est ce qui est l’entrepreneur?” he said dubiously.
The priest stared. These Americans were surely cooler and less excitable than his strange guest. A thought struck him.
“How many are still in the ship?” he asked gently.
“Nobody but Perkins and that piratical crew of niggers.”
“And that infernal Hurlstone,” added Winslow.
The priest pricked up his ears.
“Hurlstone?” he repeated.
“Yes–a passenger like ourselves, as we supposed. But we are satisfied now he was in the conspiracy from the beginning,” translated Crosby painfully.
“Look at his strange disappearance–a regular put-up job,” broke in Brace, in English, without reference to the Padre’s not comprehending him; “so that he and Perkins could shut themselves up together without suspicion.”
“Never mind Hurlstone now; he’s GONE, and we’re HERE,” said Banks angrily. “Ask the parson, as a gentleman and a Christian, what sort of a hole we’ve got into, anyhow. How far is the next settlement?”
Crosby put the question. The subaltern lit a cigarette.
“There is no next settlement. The pueblo ends at San Antonio.”
“And what’s beyond that?”
“The ocean.”
“And what’s south?”
“The desert–one cannot pass it.”
“And north?”
“The desert.”
“And east?”
“The desert too.”
“Then how do you get away from here?”
“We do not get away.”
“And how do you communicate with Mexico–with your Government?”
“When a ship comes.”
“And when does a ship come?”
“Quien sabe?”
The officer threw away his cigarette.
“I say, you’ll tell the Commander that all this is illegal; and that I’m going to complain to our Government,” continued Banks hurriedly.
“I go to speak to the Comandante,” responded the priest gravely.
“And tell him that if he touches a hair of the ladies’ heads we’ll have his own scalp,” interrupted Brace impetuously.
Even Crosby’s diplomatic modification of this speech did not appear entirely successful.
“The Mexican soldier wars not with women,” said the priest coldly. “Adieu, messieurs!”
The cavalcade moved on. The Excelsior passengers at once resumed their chorus of complaint, tirade, and aggressive suggestion, heedless of the soldiers who rode stolidly on each side.
“To think we haven’t got a single revolver among us,” said Brace despairingly.
“We might each grab a carbine from these nigger fellows,” said Crosby, eying them contemplatively.
“And if they didn’t burst, and we weren’t shot by the next patrol, and if we’d calculated to be mean enough to run away from the women–where would we escape to?” asked Banks curtly. “Hold on at least until we get an ultimatum from that commodious ass at the Presidio! Then we’ll anticipate the fool-killer, if you like. My opinion is, they aren’t in any great hurry to try ANYTHING on us just yet.”
“And I say, lie low and keep dark until they show their hand,” added Winslow, who had no relish for an indiscriminate scrimmage, and had his own ideas of placating their captors.
Nevertheless, by degrees they fell into a silence, partly the effect of the strangely enervating air. The fog had completely risen from the landscape, and hung high in mid-air, through which an intense sun, shorn of its fierceness, diffused a lambent warmth, and a yellowish, unctuous light, as if it had passed through amber. The bay gleamed clearly and distinctly; not a shadow flecked its surface to the gray impenetrable rampart of fog that stretched like a granite wall before its entrance. On one side of the narrow road billows of monstrous grain undulated to the crest of the low hills, that looked like larger undulations of the soil, furrowed by bosky canadas or shining arroyos. Banks was startled into a burst of professional admiration.
“There’s enough grain there to feed a thousand Todos Santos; and raised, too, with tools like that,” he continued, pointing to a primitive plow that lay on the wayside, formed by a single forked root. A passing ox-cart, whose creaking wheels were made of a solid circle of wood, apparently sawn from an ordinary log, again plunged him into cogitation. Here and there little areas of the rudest cultivation broke into a luxuriousness of orange, lime, and fig trees. The joyous earth at the slightest provocation seemed to smile and dimple with fruit and flowers. Everywhere the rare beatitudes of Todos Santos revealed and repeated its simple story. The fructifying influence of earth and sky; the intervention of a vaporous veil between a fiery sun and fiery soil; the combination of heat and moisture, purified of feverish exhalations, and made sweet and wholesome by the saline breath of the mighty sea, had been the beneficent legacy of their isolation, the munificent compensation of their oblivion.
A gradual and gentle ascent at the end of two hours brought the cavalcade to a halt upon a rugged upland with semi-tropical shrubbery, and here and there larger trees from the tierra templada in the evergreens or madrono. A few low huts and corrals, and a rambling hacienda, were scattered along the crest, and in the midst arose a little votive chapel, flanked by pear-trees. Near the roadside were the crumbling edges of some long-forgotten excavation. Crosby gazed at it curiously. Touching the arm of the officer, he pointed to it.
“Una mina de plata,” said the officer sententiously.
“A mine of some kind–silver, I bet!” said Crosby, turning to the others. “Is it good–bueno–you know?” he continued to the officer, with vague gesticulations.
“En tiempos pasados,” returned the officer gravely.
“I wonder what that means?” said Winslow.
But before Crosby could question further, the subaltern signaled to them to dismount. They did so, and their horses were led away to a little declivity, whence came the sound of running water. Left to themselves, the Americans looked around them. The cavalcade seemed to have halted near the edge of a precipitous ridge, the evident termination of the road. But the view that here met their eyes was unexpected and startling.
The plateau on which they stood seemed to drop suddenly away, leaving them on the rocky shore of a monotonous and far-stretching sea of waste and glittering sand. Not a vestige nor trace of vegetation could be seen, except an occasional ridge of straggling pallid bushes, raised in hideous simulation of the broken crest of a ghostly wave. On either side, as far as the eye could reach, the hollow empty vision extended–the interminable desert stretched and panted before them.
“It’s the jumping-off place, I reckon,” said Crosby, “and they’ve brought us here to show us how small is our chance of getting away. But,” he added, turning towards the plateau again, “what are they doing now? ‘Pon my soul! I believe they’re going off–and leaving us.”
The others turned as he spoke. It was true. The dragoons were coolly galloping off the way they came, taking with them the horses the Americans had just ridden.
“I call that cool,” said Crosby. “It looks deuced like as if we were to be left here to graze, like cattle.”
“Perhaps that’s their idea of a prison in this country,” said Banks. “There’s certainly no chance of our breaking jail in that direction,” he added, pointing to the desert; “and we can’t follow them without horses.”
“And I dare say they’ve guarded the pass in the road lower down,” said Winslow.
“We ought to be able to hold our own here until night,” said Brace, “and then make a dash into Todos Santos, get hold of some arms, and join the ladies.”
“The women are all right,” said Crosby impatiently, “and are better treated than if we were with them. Suppose, instead of maundering over them, we reconnoitre and see what WE can do here. I’m getting devilishly hungry; they can’t mean to starve us, and if they do, I don’t intend to be starved as long as there is anything to be had by buying or stealing. Come along. There’s sure to be fruit near that old chapel, and I saw some chickens in the bush near those huts. First, let’s see if there’s any one about. I don’t see a soul.”
The little plateau, indeed, seemed deserted. In vain they shouted; their voices were lost in the echoless air. They examined one by one the few thatched huts: they were open, contained one or two rude articles of furniture–a bed, a bench, and table–were scrupulously clean–and empty. They next inspected the chapel; it was tawdry and barbaric in ornament, but the candlesticks and crucifix and the basin for holy water were of heavily beaten silver. The same thought crossed their minds–the abandoned mine at the roadside!
Bananas, oranges, and prickly-pears growing within the cactus-hedge of the chapel partly mollified their thirst and hunger, and they turned their steps towards the long, rambling, barrack-looking building, with its low windows and red-tiled roof, which they had first noticed. Here, too, the tenement was deserted and abandoned; but there was evidence of some previous and more ambitious preparation: in a long dormitory off the corridor a number of scrupulously clean beds were ranged against the whitewashed walls, with spotless benches and tables. To the complete astonishment and bewilderment of the party another room, fitted up as a kitchen, with the simpler appliances of housekeeping, revealed a larder filled with provisions and meal. A shout from Winslow, who had penetrated the inner courtyard, however, drew them to a more remarkable spectacle. Their luggage and effects from the cabins of the Excelsior were there, carefully piled in the antique ox-cart that had evidently that morning brought them from Todos Santos!
“There’s no mistake,” said Brace, with a relieved look, after a hurried survey of the trunks. “They have only brought our baggage. The ladies have evidently had the opportunity of selecting their own things.”
“Crosby told you they’d be all right,” said Banks; “and as for ourselves, I don’t see why we can’t be pretty comfortable here, and all the better for our being alone. I shall take an opportunity of looking around a bit. It strikes me that there are some resources in this country that might pay to develop.”
“And I shall have a look at that played-out mine,” said Crosby; “if it’s been worked as they work the land, they’ve left about as much in it as they’ve taken out.”
“That’s all well enough,” said Brace, drawing a dull vermilion- colored stone from his pocket; “but here’s something I picked up just now that ain’t ‘played out,’ nor even the value of it suspected by those fellows. That’s cinnabar–quicksilver ore–and a big per cent. of it too; and if there’s as much of it here as the indications show, you could buy up all your SILVER mines in the country with it.”
“If I were you, I’d put up a notice on a post somewhere, as they do in California, and claim discovery,” said Banks seriously. “There’s no knowing how this thing may end. We may not get away from here for some time yet, and if the Government will sell the place cheap, it wouldn’t be a bad spec’ to buy it. Form a kind of ‘Excelsior Company’ among ourselves, you know, and go shares.”
The four men looked earnestly at each other. Already the lost Excelsior and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents of the morning–their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and the fact that they were in the hands of a hostile community– appeared but as trivial preliminaries to the new life that opened before them! They suddenly became graver than they had ever been– even in the moment of peril.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” said Brace quickly. “We started out to do that sort of thing in California, and I reckon if we’d found such a spot as this on the Sacramento or American River we’d have been content. We can take turns at housekeeping, prospect a little, and enter into negotiations with the Government. I’m for offering them a fair sum for this ridge and all it contains at once.”
“The only thing against that,” said Crosby slowly, “is the probability that it is already devoted to some other use by the Government. Ever since we’ve been here I’ve been thinking–I don’t know why–that we’ve been put in a sort of quarantine. The desertion of the place, the half hospital arrangements of this building, and the means they have taken to isolate us from themselves, must mean something. I’ve read somewhere that in these out-of-the-way spots in the tropics they have a place where they put the fellows with malarious or contagious diseases. I don’t want to frighten you boys: but I’ve an idea that we’re in a sort of lazaretto, and the people outside won’t trouble us often.”
CHAPTER X.
TODOS SANTOS SOLVES THE MYSTERY.
Notwithstanding his promise, and the summons of the Council, Father Esteban, on parting with the Excelsior prisoners in the San Antonio Road, did not proceed immediately to the presence of the Comandante. Partly anxious to inform himself more thoroughly regarding Hurlstone’s antecedents before entering upon legislative functions that might concern him, partly uneasy at Brace’s allusion to any possible ungentleness in the treatment of the fair Americanas, and partly apprehensive that Mrs. Brimmer might seek