A Volunteer with Pike Part 33

Malgares shrugged his shoulders in the manner of a Frenchman, a gesture of which we would have considered his haughty pride incapable.

"It is a long journey to Old Spain to one who would oppose the Commandant-General, and a far longer journey through the Court to the Hall of Justice. No, _amigos_. Be advised. Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. Diplomacy wins many victories beyond reach of the sword."

"You have our thanks, Don Faciendo," replied my friend, soberly. "I shall not forget that I am here as an officer of the Army of the Republic. My first and only concern is the interests of my country, and I will use all means to conserve those interests."

We were by now approaching the great arched gateway which gaped in the centre of the _palacio's_ stuccoed _facade_. The guard turned out with a smartness which I could see impressed Pike not a little. There was a moment's halt, and then we all clattered through the tunnel-like archway into the brick-paved court enclosed by the building.

This was not the first _patio_ we had entered, but it was by far the largest. Here and there the court was ornamented with small trees and potted shrubs, some already in flower. A line of them screened off in the rear the view of the kitchens and stables. All around this court ran the arched entrances of the building's inner tiers of rooms, the gallery of the upper story being reached with outside stairways in opposite corners.

As the audience chamber was on the lower floor, we were ushered with Malgares into the hall of the guards by one of the aides-de-camp, a heavy-set, dark-browed Andalusian whom Malgares introduced as Lieutenant Don Jesus Maria de Gonzales y Medina. Our six privates were left outside in the care of the dragoons of the escort, with whom they had long since come to the best of terms.

Word had at once been taken in to the Captain-General that we were awaiting his pleasure. Presently an aide appeared and bowed to Malgares.

This left Pike and me seated alone on a stone bench, under the eyes of the guard and of a rabble of house and stable servants, who had pressed in to gape at those strange creatures, _los Anglo-Americanos_. It was no easy test for my temper to bear, nor, I judge, for Pike's. Added to this, we were by now fairly on needles and pins as to the manner in which this despotic ruler should choose to receive us.

Lieutenant Medina had withdrawn. In his place appeared a ferret-eyed little Frenchman, who snuffled complaints of how he had been abused in this vile land, and sought to draw from us expressions of opinion regarding the Spanish Government. Suspecting him to be a spy, Pike pointed to the outer door, and gave him his _conge_ in Spanish: "_Vaya, carrejo!_"

The scoundrel went, followed by a m.u.f.fled yet none the less hearty laugh over his discomfiture from the rough, honest soldiers. After a time Medina returned with a sandy, pale-eyed but well-built young officer whom he introduced as Alferez Don Juan Pedro Walker. The newcomer hastened to explain, in English, that he was the same John Peter Walker of New Orleans who in 1798 aided Mr. Ellicott in surveying the Florida line.

At this moment Malgares appeared in the doorway of the audience chamber, and requested Pike to enter. I started to follow, but he waved me back, with an anxious frown. This boded ill for us. To conceal my concern, I expressed to Walker my surprise that an American should have entered the service of Spain. He answered quickly that he was not my countryman, since his father was English and his mother French, and he had been born and reared in New Orleans under Spanish rule.

While he was explaining this, in rather an apologetic tone, Medina was called away. There followed a summons to Walker to attend upon the Governor-General, and I found myself left quite alone in the midst of the gaping, muttering rabble. This was no throng of simple, hospitable rustics such as I had met and liked in the North Province; but a stable and kitchen mob, the low scullions and hostlers and lackeys of a great man, puffed with reflected pride and saucy with second-hand arrogance.

Soon I began to overhear jeers and scurrilous flings, of which the word "spy" was the least galling. Before long all my apprehensions as to the Governor-General were drowned in the swelling tide of my indignation and anger. It was unendurable to sit for what seemed an endless time before the insolent leers and coa.r.s.e raillery of this sc.u.m. The soldiers looked on, without attempting either to join in their scoffs or to silence them.

At last, when I was about to seize the foremost two of the rascals by the scruff of the neck and crack their heads together, the aide-de-camp Medina sauntered back from out in the court. I cried to him sharply in Spanish: "Senor lieutenant! do you not know whether it is time to take me in?"

Such at least was what I intended to say. But, in my heat, I must have slipped on my Spanish verb. The aide, mistaking me to mean that I had been summoned before the Governor-General, immediately ushered me into the audience chamber.

My first glance gave me a general impression of a large apartment, severe in its furnis.h.i.+ngs; the second took in a table at which sat Pike and Walker and two or three others, all engaged in sorting books and papers which I ruefully recognized as the charts and journals of our expedition.

The sight of Malgares, staring at me in open consternation, caused me to fix my gaze upon the gray-headed, irascible little man at the head of the table. We had expected a great show of regalia and the other trumpery of court display about the Commandant-General. Of this there was no sign to be seen anywhere in the room. Yet the bearing of the man at the head of the table and the att.i.tude of all others present in facing him, told me that this was none less than His Excellency, Don Nimesio Salcedo, the despotic ruler of provinces greater in total extent than the United States and all their possessions other than Louisiana Territory. Yet by now I was so goaded to indignant anger that I held my head high and met his stern glance with the curtest of bows.

"_Caramba!_" he swore, turning to Malgares. "Whom have we here?"

"Senor Juan Robinson, Your Excellency," explained Malgares--"that most excellent physician of whom I spoke, the surgeon attached to the expedition of Lieutenant Don Montgomery Pike."

It was only a fair example of Malgares's n.o.ble courtesy and friendliness to seek thus to mollify in my favor the man whose single word could send me to the garrotte as a spy. I thanked him with a look.

Salcedo flashed a fiery glance at the luckless Medina. "Why do you bring him in--_imbecil_? Let him retire."

I turned on my heel, too heated now to care, whatever the tyrant might have in mind to do. But the moment the door closed behind me, I found Lieutenant Medina at my elbow, and he was as angry as myself.

"_Satanas!_" he hissed, his little beady eyes snapping with fury. "I have lost standing with His Excellency by this frightful blunder.

Explain! You told me I was to conduct you in! Explain!"

"_Na-da!_" I drawled. "I did not tell you."

"You said it!" he insisted.

I gave him the Spanish equivalent for our adage not to cry over spilt milk, adding that I preferred his room to his company. At this he went off fairly boiling with rage, fearful, I take it, that if he stayed he would explode, and so draw upon himself the wrath of his lord and master. As by this time the rabble had dispersed, I was left to my own bitter reflections.

Surely if Salcedo had not scrupled to seize the records of the expedition, he would not scruple to treat me as an outright spy. The best I could forecast from that meant an indefinite confinement in the terrible Spanish _calabozo_, compared with which the worst of our filthy flea-and-fever-infested seaboard gaols is a palace of comfort. Yet the thought of Alisanda spurred me to wild resolve. Let them fling me into their dungeons. I would break through their bars and stone walls. I had not crossed the Barrier to be daunted now. Nothing should keep me from her!

In the midst of my angry scheming, the door opened to permit the exit of Walker, Pike, and Malgares. Walker bowed, and addressed me in French, out of courtesy to Malgares: "If you please, Dr. Robinson, the General has expressed his wish that yourself and Lieutenant Pike should honor me by becoming my guests while you are in Chihuahua. We go now to permit yourself and Lieutenant Pike to arrange your dress before returning to dine with His Excellency."

This was decidedly different from being invited to descend into a dungeon. I bowed my acknowledgments.

Malgares held out a hearty hand to Pike and myself.

"G.o.d with you!" he exclaimed. "Pardon my haste. But I will see you again at dinner. Now I fly to my Dolores!"

"_Vaya usted con Dios!_" we replied, waving him not to linger.

It would have been cruel to delay his departure an instant, seeing that he had been separated from his senora for the greater part of a year. I saw Pike heave a sigh, and knew he was thinking of the beloved wife and children whom he had not seen for so many months, and might not see for many other weary months to come, possibly never.

My own thoughts, however, turned back to Alisanda. As Walker conducted us across the plaza to the house where, in company with other young bachelor officers, he had his quarters, a question or two set him to gossiping upon the ladies, and, inevitably, to singing the praises of Senorita Vallois. That was music to which I could have listened unwearying for hours.

But time pressed. Walker insisted upon loaning both of us neckcloths, and Pike various other articles of dress suitable to the occasion. He would have been as insistent upon sharing his wardrobe with myself had not my size prevented. I had to content myself with the neckcloth and a pair of silk stockings which I had in my saddlebags. In our prinking we enjoyed the officious services of Walker's quaint old negro servant Caesar, who had been taken in Texas with other members of Captain Nolan's party, and was said by Walker to be the only man of his race in all this region.

Washed and dressed, we returned to the _palacio_ still escorted by Walker, who had seen to it that we should not for an instant find opportunity to speak a word in private. Arriving at our destination, we found Malgares there before us, his fine eyes still beaming from the meeting with his loving senora.

This time we were shown in without delay to the _sala_, or salon, where Salcedo received us with a formal bow, and then directed his attentions to Pike and Malgares with an urbanity which belied the gash-like crease between his s.h.a.ggy gray brows. I was introduced to Senor Trujillo, the treasurer, who, however, paired off with Walker. This left me to go into table with the portly padre Father Rocus, who was the only other member of the party. Our seats proved to be at the far end of the longish board, and as the padre at once contrived to divert and hold my attention, I heard and saw little of what took place among the others.

Unlike the native-born priests I had met in the north, Father Rocus was a man of profound learning and ability. Without allowing the conversation to interfere in the least with his enjoyment of our elegant French-cooked repast and the very superior wines, he quickly sounded the none too profound depths of my learning in the sciences. He then touched adroitly upon politics and religion. The thought flashed upon me that he was seeking to lead me into some snare, yet I stated my convictions candidly. If Salcedo wished to condemn me, he would condemn me, and that was all there was in it.

At the end Father Rocus sat for some moments sipping his wine, holding the gla.s.s as daintily and caressingly between his plump white fingers as I would have held my lady's hand. He set it down to be refilled by the a.s.siduous lackey at his elbow, and addressed me in English: "Republican, heretic, and Anglo-American--it is unfortunate. None are popular in the domains of His Most Catholic Majesty."

"I did not come here to curry favor with your people, padre," I replied.

"Not with all, perhaps, but--" Again he raised his gla.s.s and sipped for several moments. Yet I observed that his half-shut eyes were fixed upon me in a penetrating gaze. "You are acquainted in Chihuahua?" he remarked, in a tone as much of statement as inquiry.

"Lieutenant Malgares has honored us with his friends.h.i.+p."

"Are there not others?" he queried.

"If so, I am not at liberty to mention their names," I said.

"Good!" he commented. "Discretion is the one quality in which I thought you lacking. I now feel justified in returning to you an article which I have reason to believe is your property."

"An article--my property?" I repeated, not a little puzzled.

He smiled, and, un.o.bserved by the attendants, handed me my lady's handkerchief. I gazed at it, first astounded, then dismayed. It was all too clear that my message had been intercepted, probably by Don Pedro, and intrusted to this priest, to be returned as a courteous hint that my suit for the niece's hand was not acceptable. But as, greatly downcast, I thrust the handkerchief into my bosom, the padre raised his brows, and spoke in evident surprise: "You do not appear pleased, senor doctor.

From what she said, I was led to infer--"

"What she said?" I broke in. "She? You mean--"

"A certain senorita who voyaged down a long river in company with her uncle and a certain gallant young heretic," he answered over his gla.s.s.

"She--my Alisanda! Then it is from her you bring the kerchief! You are our friend!"