Mr. Fortescue Part 7

"I should hope so. Everybody writes in these days. Don't worry yourself on that score, my dear Mr. Bacon. Even though you may write a book, n.o.body will accuse you of being exceptionally intelligent."

"But I cannot make a book of your narrative without your leave," I observed, with a painful sense of having gained nothing by my motion.

"And that leave may be sooner or later forthcoming, on conditions."

As the reader will find in the sequel, the leave has been given and the conditions have been fulfilled, and Mr. Fortescue's personal narrative--partly taken down from his own dictation, but for the most part extended from his ma.n.u.script--begins with the following chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TALE BEGINS.

The morning after the battle of Salamanca (through which I pa.s.sed unscathed) the regiment of dragoons to which I belonged (forming part of Anson's brigade), together with Bock's Germans, was ordered to follow on the traces of the flying French, who had retired across the River Tormes.

Though we started at daylight, we did not come up with their rear-guard until noon. It consisted of a strong force of horse and foot, and made a stand near La Serna; but the cavalry, who had received a severe lesson on the previous day, bolted before we could cross swords with them. The infantry, however, remained firm, and forming square, faced us like men.

The order was then given to charge; and when the two brigades broke into a gallop and thundered down the slope, they raised so thick a cloud of dust that all we could see of the enemy was the glitter of their bayonets and the flash of their musket-fire. Saddles were emptied both to the right and left of me, and one of the riderless horses, maddened by a wound in the head, dashed wildly forward, and leaping among the bayonets and las.h.i.+ng out furiously with his hind-legs, opened a way into the square. I was the first man through the gap, and engaged the French colonel in a hand-to-hand combat. At the very moment just as I gave him the point in his throat he cut open my shoulder, my horse, mortally hurt by a bayonet thrust, fell, half rolling over me and crus.h.i.+ng my leg.

As I lay on the ground, faint with the loss of blood and unable to rise, some of our fellows rode over me, and being hit on the head by one of their horses, I lost consciousness. When I came to myself the skirmish was over, nearly the whole of the French rear-guard had been taken prisoners or cut to pieces, and a surgeon was dressing my wounds. This done, I was removed in an ambulance to Salamanca.

The historic old city, with its steep, narrow streets, numerous convents, and famous university, had been well-nigh ruined by the French, who had pulled down half the convents and nearly all the colleges, and used the stones for the building of forts, which, a few weeks previously, Wellington had bombarded with red-hot shot.

The hospitals being crowded with sick and wounded, I was billeted in the house of a certain Senor Don Alberto Zamorra, which (probably owing to the fact of its having been the quarters of a French colonel) had not taken much harm, either during the French occupation of the town or the subsequent siege of the forts.

Don Alberto gave me a hearty, albeit a dignified welcome, and being a Spanish gentleman of the old school, he naturally placed his house, and all that it contained, at my disposal. I did not, of course, take this a.s.surance literally, and had I not been on the right side, I should doubtless have met with a very different reception. All the same, he made a very agreeable host, and before I had been his guest many days we became fast friends.

Don Zamorra was old, nearly as old as I am now; and as I speedily discovered, he had pa.s.sed the greater part of his life in Spanish America, where he had held high office under the crown. He could hardly talk about anything else, in fact, and once he began to discourse about his former greatness and the marvels of the Indies (as South and Central America were then sometimes called) he never knew when to stop. He had crossed the Andes and seen the Amazon, sailed down the Orinoco and visited the mines of Potosi and Guanajuata, beheld the fiery summit of Cotopaxi, and peeped down the smoky crater of Acatenango. He told of fights with Indians and wild animals, of being lost in the forest, and of perilous expeditions in search of gold and precious stones. When Zamorra spoke of gold his whole att.i.tude changed, the fires of his youth blazed up afresh, his face glowed with excitement, and his eyes sparkled with greed. At these times I saw in him a true type of the old Spanish Conquestadores, who would baptize a cacique to save him from h.e.l.l one day, and kill him and loot his treasure the next.

Don Alberto had, moreover, a firm belief in the existence of the fabled El Dorado, and of the city of Manoa, with its resplendent house of the sun, its h.o.a.rds of silver and gold, and its gilded king. Thousands of adventurers had gone forth in search of these wonders, and thousands had perished in the attempt to find them. Senor Zamorra had sought El Dorado on the banks of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro; others, near the source of the Rio Grande and the Maranon; others, again, among the volcanoes of Salvador and the canons of the Cordilleras. Zamorra believed that it lay either in the wilds of Guiana, or the unexplored confines of Peru and the Brazils.

He had heard of and believed even greater wonders--of a stream on the Pacific coast of Mexico, whose pebbles were silver, and whose sand was gold; of a volcano in the Peruvian Cordillera, whose crater was lined with the n.o.blest of metals, and which once in every hundred years ejected, for days together, diamonds, and rubies, and dust of gold.

"If that volcano could only be found," said the don, with a convulsive clutching of his bony fingers, and a greedy glare in his aged eyes. "If that volcano could only be found! Why, it must be made of gold, and covered with precious stones! The man who found it would be the richest in all the world--richer than all the people in the world put together!"

"Did you ever see it, Don Alberto?" I asked.

"Did I ever see it?" he cried, uplifting his withered hands. "If I had seen that volcano you would never have seen me, but you would have heard of me. I had it from an Indio whose father once saw it with his own eyes; but I was too old, too old"--sighing--"to go on the quest. To undertake such an enterprise a man should be in the prime of life and go alone. A single companion, even though he were your own brother, might be fatal; for what virtue could be proof against so great a temptation--millions of diamonds and a mountain of gold?"

All this roused my curiosity and fired my imagination--not that I believed it all, for Zamorra was evidently a visionary with a fixed idea, and as touching his craze, credulous as a child; but in those days South America had been very little written about and not half explored; for me it had all the charm and fascination of the unknown--a land of romance and adventure, abounding in grand scenery, peopled by strange races, and containing the mightiest rivers, the greatest forests, and highest mountains in the world.

When my host dismounted from his hobby he was an intelligent talker, and told me much that was interesting about Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, and the Spanish Main. He had several books on the subject which I greedily devoured. The expedition of Piedro de Ursua and Lope de Aguirre in search of El Dorado and Omagua; "History of the Conquest of Mexico," by Don Antonio de Solis; Piedrolieta's "General History of the Conquest of the New Kingdom of Grenada," and others; and before we parted I had resolved that, so soon as the war was over, I would make a voyage to the land of the setting sun, and see for myself the wonders of which I had heard.

"You are right," said Senor Zamorra, when I told him of my intention.

"America is the country of the future. Ah, if I were only fifty years younger! You will, of course, visit Venezuela; and if you visit Venezuela you are sure to go to Caracas. I will give you a letter of introduction to a friend of mine there. He is a man in authority, and may be of use to you. I should much like you to see him and greet him on my behalf."

I thanked my host, and promised to see his friend and present the letter.

It was addressed to Don Simon de Ulloa. Little did I think how much trouble that letter would give me, and how near it would come to being my death-warrant.

Zamorra then besought me, with tears in his eyes, to go in search of the Golden Volcano.

"If you could give me a more definite idea of its whereabouts I might possibly make the attempt," I answered, with intentional vagueness; for though I no more believed in the objective existence of the Golden Volcano than in Aladdin's lamp, I did not wish to hurt the old man's feelings by an avowal of my skepticism.

"Ah, my dear sir," he said, with a gesture of despair, "if I knew the whereabouts of the Golden Volcano, I should go thither myself, old as I am. I should have gone long ago, and returned with a h.o.a.rd of wealth that would make me the master of Europe--wealth that would buy kingdoms. I can tell you no more than that it is somewhere in the region of the Peruvian Andes. It may be that by cautious inquiry you may light on an Indio who will lead you to the very spot. It is worth the attempt, and if by the help of St. Peter and the Holy Virgin you succeed, and I am still alive, send me out of your abundance a few arrobas (twenty-five pounds) of gold and a handful of diamonds. It is all I ask."

It was all he asked.

"When I find that volcano, Don Alberto," I said, "not a mere handful of diamonds, but a bucketful."

This was almost our last talk, for the very same day news was brought that Lord Wellington, having been forced to raise the siege of Burgos, was retreating toward the Portuguese frontier, and that Salamanca would almost inevitably be recaptured by the French. Orders were given for the removal of the wounded to the Coa, where the army was to take up its winter quarters, and Zamorra and I had to part. We parted with mutual expressions of good-will, and in the hope, destined never to be realized, that we might soon meet again. I had seen Don Alberto for the last time.

A few weeks later I was sufficiently recovered from my hurts to use my bridle-arm, and before the opening of the next campaign I was fit for the field and eager for the fray. It was the campaign of Vittoria, one of the most brilliant episodes in the military history of England. Even now my heart beats faster and the blood tingles in my veins when I think of that time, so full of excitement, adventure, and glory--the forcing of the Pyrenees, the invasion of France, the battles of Bayonne, Orthes, and Toulouse, and the march to Paris.

But as I am not relating a history of the war, I shall mention only one incident in which I was concerned at this period--an incident that brought me in contact with a man who was destined to exercise a fateful influence on my career.

It occurred after the battle of Vittoria. The French were making for the Pyrenees, laden with the loot of a kingdom and enc.u.mbered with a motley crowd of non-combatants--the wives and families of French officers, fair senoritas flying with their lovers, and traitorous Spaniards, who, by taking sides with the invaders, had exposed themselves to the vengeance of the patriots. So overwhelming was the defeat of the French, that they were forced to abandon nearly the whole of their plunder and the greater part of their baggage, and leave the fugitives and camp-followers to their fate.

Never was witnessed so strange a sight as the valley of Vittoria presented at the close of that eventful day. The broken remains of the French army hurrying toward the Pamplona road, eighty pieces of artillery, served with frantic haste, covering their retreat; thousands of wagons and carriages jammed together and unable to move; the red-coated infantry of England, marching steadily across the plain; the boom of the cannon, the rattle of musketry, the scream of women as the bullets whistled through the air and sh.e.l.ls burst over their heads--all this made up a scene, dramatic and picturesque, it is true, yet full of dire confusion and Dantesque horror; for death had reaped a rich harvest, and thousands of wounded lay writhing on the blood-stained field.

Owing to the bursting of packages, the overturning of wagons, and the havoc wrought by shot and sh.e.l.l, valuable effects, coin, gems, gold and silver candlesticks and vessels, priceless paintings, the spoil of Spanish churches and convents, were strewed over the ground. There was no need to plunder; our men picked up money as they matched, and it was computed that a sum equal to a million sterling found its way into their knapsacks and pockets.

Our Spanish allies, officers as well as privates, were less scrupulous.

They robbed like highwaymen, and protested that they were only taking their own.

While riding toward Vittoria to execute an order of the colonel's, I pa.s.sed a carriage which a moment or two previously had been overtaken by several of Longa's dragoons, with the evident intention of overhauling it.

In the carriage were two ladies, one young and pretty the other good-looking and mature; and, as I judged from their appearance, both being well dressed, the daughter and wife of a French officer of rank.

They appealed to me for help.

"You are an English officer," said the elder in French; "all the world knows that your nation is as chivalrous as it is brave. Protect us, I pray you, from these ruffians."

I bowed, and turning to the Spaniards, one of whom was an officer, spoke them fair; for my business was pressing, and I had no wish to be mixed up in a quarrel.

"Caballeros," I said, "we do not make war on women. You will let these ladies go."

"_Carambo!_ We shall do nothing of the sort," returned the officer, insolently. "These ladies are our prisoners, and their carriage and all it contains our prize."

"I beg your pardon, Senor Capitan, but you are, perhaps not aware that Lord Wellington has given strict orders that private property is to be respected; and no true caballero molests women."

"_Hijo de Dios!_ Dare you say that I am no true caballero? Begone this instant, or--"

The Spaniard drew his sword; I drew mine; his men began to look to the priming of their pistols, and had General Anson not chanced to come by just in the nick of time, it might have gone ill with me. On learning what had happened, he said I had acted very properly and told the Spaniards that if they did not promptly depart he would hand them over to the provost-marshal.

"We shall meet again, I hope, you and I," said the officer, defiantly, as he gathered up his reins.

"So do I, if only that I may have an opportunity of chastising you for your insolence," was my equally defiant answer.

"A thousand thanks, monsieur! You have done me and my daughter a great service," said the elder of the ladies. "Do me the pleasure to accept this ring as a slight souvenir of our grat.i.tude, and I trust that in happier times we may meet again."

I accepted the souvenir without looking at it; reciprocated the wish in my best French, made my best bow, and rode off on my errand. By the same act I had made one enemy and two friends; therefore, as I thought, the balance was in my favor. But I was wrong, for a wider experience of the world than I then possessed has taught me that it is better to miss making a hundred ordinary friends than to make one inveterate enemy.