"Dios!" cried Malgares.
"Arreste!" shrilled Walker, springing to stoop over the fallen man. "Sacre! I thought him dead. He is only stunned."
In confirmation of this, Medina stirred, opened his eyes, and, assisted by Walker, staggered to his feet.
"Señor Walker," demanded Malgares, "as your principal is the challenger, I now ask if he is satisfied."
Medina muttered something in the ear of Walker, who replied to the inquiry: "Señor, we contend that, so far, the honors are even. My principal has been stunned, yours wounded. By the time Señor Robinson's injury is bound up, Lieutenant Medina will have recovered a clear head."
"The sword of my principal is broken," objected Malgares, as he spoke producing the bandage I had provided. No artery having been severed, there was no need of a tourniquet, and he bound up the wound during the discussion.
Walker consulted Medina, and replied: "We hold that each principal was given a sword of equal quality, and that the duel must continue until the matter is settled."
"Good!" I exclaimed to Malgares, before he could remonstrate. "We continue to fight each with his weapon. I shall use my broken blade as a dart and the hilt as a tomahawk. I am far better armed than before."
At this Medina drew away for a consultation with his second. Walker came back alone.
"We protest against the use of our opponent's sword as a missile," he stated.
"We refuse to consider the protest," rejoined Malgares.
"We then suggest that the fight be continued with rapiers. My principal has a pair at hand."
"The naming of the weapons lies with my principal," replied Malgares. "If you insist upon a second choice, we name duelling pistols, with which we have come provided."
Walker returned to Medina, and after a brief consultation, brought us his assent to the use of pistols. Malgares immediately conducted me around to the coach. As we turned the corner, we were astonished to see Father Rocus racing toward us on a large white mule. He waved his hand to us, and urged his mule to yet greater speed as Malgares drew out the pistols and turned to go back.
"Wait!" I said. "The padre wishes to speak to me. Insist upon Medina firing both pistols as a test. That will give me time. Walker knows my manner of loading."
Malgares nodded and disappeared as Father Rocus galloped up and drew rein beside the coach, purple-faced and gasping for breath. I gave him my right shoulder, else he would have fallen in his descent.
"Virgen!" he panted. "It is over already! You have killed him!"
"No. We have tried swords without success. Now it will be the pistols. I will shatter his right shoulder in the joint. He shall boast no more of his swordsmanship."
"Nada, my son! That is not enough. Carrajo! He must die! Listen! This scoundrel has wormed himself into all the secrets of the revolution. He has demanded Alisanda as his price—"
"My God!" I cried. "But Salcedo—?"
"If she could put her heart into luring him, Salcedo might be won over. But now this scoundrel calls checkmate. He pledges faith to the revolution in return for her hand. Carrajo! I now know the utmost of his baseness. He pledges faith, yet, once he has her, thinks to betray all and gain the estate of her uncle as reward for his treachery."
"God!" I cried.
A shot rang out on the far side of the pier.
"What is that?" exclaimed the padre.
I explained, and my statement was punctuated with the report of the second pistol.
"So—he has tried them," said the padre. "Now they will be reloaded. You will kill him, my son! It is God's will!... Malgares is not yet of the revolution, but he is a true friend of Don Pedro. At dawn I went to appeal to him to challenge Medina—His wife confessed that he had come here as your second. I have ridden at breakneck speed—God be praised, I am in time! You will kill the traitor!"
"You are in time," I said. "I will place my ball so exactly between his eyes that you cannot measure a hair's-breadth farther on the one side than on the other."
"God bless you, my son! You will save Alisanda and the revolution with the same shot!"
"I did not suspect that you were one of the revolutionists," I muttered.
"For years,—like Padre Hidalgo in the South. But come. Malgares signs to us."
We hastened forward to the corner of the pier, where Malgares stood ready to hand me my pistol. Medina already was in waiting, ten paces from the spot to which Malgares led me. At sight of Father Rocus, the aide and Walker started. But the padre at once reassured them: "It is well, gentlemen. I come only to act as witness."
Walker bowed. "Your Reverence is welcome. Señor Robinson, the terms have been stated to my principal. I now repeat them. You will each stand in the present position, with pistol pointed upward. Lieutenant Malgares will say, 'One, two, three. Fire! One, two, three.' At the word 'Fire!' you can aim and fire, during the time of the second count of three. If either fires before the word, or after the count, you know the penalty. Gentlemen, are you ready?"
Medina and I bowed, and Walker took his station with Father Rocus and Malgares against the face of the pier, out of the line of fire.
"Ready!" called Malgares. We raised our pistols as directed. "One!" he counted. "Two!—"
Down came Medina's pistol! I saw the black dot of the muzzle only to lose it instantly in a puff of smoke. The ball grazed the side of my head. So unexpected and sudden was the dastardly deed, I stood motionless, the report of the pistol ringing in my ears, but listening for Malgares to continue the count. Instead he uttered a sharp cry and rushed upon Medina. Before the aide could so much as turn, Malgares's Toledo lunged through his heart.
Whipping his sword from the body as it fell prone, Malgares faced Walker, with his head high and his eyes flashing.
"Witness!" he demanded.
Walker bowed. "He fired before the word. You have done right to strike him dead."
"You have done right! Satanas has claimed his own!" confirmed Father Rocus. Suddenly he thought of me and hastened to my side. "We forget Juan! My son, did the ball strike you?"
I put up my hand and reached out to him one of my locks, which had been clipped by the ball.
"So close as that!" exclaimed Walker.
"You know the saying, 'A miss is as good as a mile,'" I replied, as Malgares took my loaded pistol and carefully lowered the trigger. "The question now is to agree on an account for His Excellency that will clear my noble friend and second, and place all the blame upon me, where it belongs."
"Nada!" rejoined Malgares. "He shall know the exact truth."
"Leave the matter to me," said Father Rocus. "You know my standing with the Governor-General. I engage to prevent any unpleasant consequences."
"But—the—body?" murmured Walker, glancing askance at Medina's huddled corpse.
"I will take it in my coach," said Malgares, without hesitation. "You will ride his horse, and lend your own to Señor Robinson."
We each offered to take his place in the grewsome part he had chosen. But all that he would accept of us was our assistance in stanching the wound and carrying the body to the coach. Walker then set off ahead to notify Medina's servants, while Father Rocus and I returned to the city by a roundabout road.
The moment we were alone I asked my companion a dozen and one questions about Alisanda.
He shook his head to them all. "There is nothing to tell, Juan, other than she is holding out bravely against their persuasions and commands. The point now is to convince Salcedo that the death of Medina has rid him of one rival, and that he can free himself of another by sending you away with your indomitable friend."
"But if it is to leave her behind—!" I cried.
"We shall see about that in due course," he replied. "One thing at a time. Rome was not built in a day. Now ride on, and leave me, my son. We approach streets where we are both known. Adios!"
There was nothing for me to do but to obey.
Upon my return I found the Lieutenant so preoccupied over an intended visit to Salcedo that one or two vague answers satisfied his curiosity about my early morning excursion. He started out at last, an hour or so before noon, when I contrived with the help of old Cæsar to wash my wound and dress it in proper manner. Lest the Lieutenant or any one else should notice something amiss and make inquiries, I told Cæsar he might say I had been bitten by a scorpion, of which, truth to tell, there were enough and to spare in and about Chihuahua.
The Lieutenant returned much sooner than I had expected. He had been informed that His Excellency was closeted with Father Rocus, and could see no callers. This he took as an unfavorable indication of Salcedo's temper, until I assured him I had reason to believe that the padre was a friend and had called on the Governor-General in our behalf. The confirmation came during the afternoon in the form of a polite message, brought by Walker, requesting Pike to call at the palacio that evening without ceremony.
When he returned, it was with the news that all was settled except as to myself. The papers of the expedition were to be held, but Pike and the six men with him were to march for Natchitoches in three or four days, to be followed shortly by the detachment under Sergeant Meek, which all this time had been carefully held back somewhere on the El Paso road. The Lieutenant was inclined to be anxious over my fate, but I could not but trust to the good offices of Father Rocus.
He met the padre at Salcedo's table the following noon, and answered in his usual fearless manner the adroit questions put to him by His Reverence. This, I believe, must have proved the last straw to the Governor-General, for that evening, while we were visiting Malgares, Walker brought word that I was free to accompany Pike. In his excitement, he spoke of the padre's cleverness in mollifying His Excellency over the death of Medina, but Malgares averted a disclosure of my share in the affair by the laconic statement to Pike that he had killed the aide during a duel.
Such a happy termination of the affair would have given me great satisfaction had I not been distressed over my failure to hear a word either of or from Alisanda. Even Doña Dolores was still refused admittance to her.
This was on a Sunday. Monday we spent in our preparations for marching. I had need of all the diversion I could find, to keep down the maddening thought that I should have to go without seeing my lady. In my despair I called upon Father Rocus, who counselled patience, and promised to do what he could to obtain for me a last meeting. But he warned me that even should he succeed, I could expect to see her only in the presence of the family. I begged him to give me some hope for the future. But he shook his head.
"Sabe Dios!—Quien sabe?" he said. "All that I can now say is that, if she cannot follow you to your free republic, she will take the veil."
"No!" I cried. "I cannot give her up!"
"You can if you must, my son. There are few mortals who at some time during their lives do not have to bear a heavy cross. If this one is laid upon your shoulders, you will bear it with manly strength. But there is still a hope for you. I shall advise with her before you pay your farewell call at Señor Vallois's. If there seems a way of escape, you will receive a message either from her or from myself."
I thanked the good padre, and left him, my heart in a tumult between fondest hope and blackest despair.
In the morning, which was that of the twenty-eighth of April, the day set for us to march, we visited about the city to say farewell to all our friends. But when we came to Don Pedro's I informed the Lieutenant that I wished him to make only a brief call and then go without me. Malgares, who was to march in charge of our escort, and with whom we had called upon the weeping Doña Dolores, assented to my request no less heartily than did Pike.
As I had expected, Don Pedro and Doña Marguerite received us with the utmost cordiality—but alone. In the midst of our call Father Rocus entered in a casual manner, but, unlike the Vallois, he greeted us with a marked coolness. I was seized with the dreadful suspicion that he had all along been playing double with me. Yet there was the memory of that meeting at the Parroquia to shame my doubt.
Before I could calm my thoughts, Pike and Malgares rose to leave. I followed them slowly to the door, then suddenly turned back and bent upon one knee to take the hand of Doña Marguerite.
"Señora," I begged, "for the love of God, give me a last word with her! I am going away all those thousands of miles—I fear I shall never again see her—have pity upon me! One word, señora!"
"Ave Maria purisima!" she murmured, bowing her head and sighing.
I had touched her heart. Another plea might have persuaded her. But Don Pedro came hastening back, his face as cold and hard as a stone.
"Your friends will be delayed, Señor Robinson," he said.
"Señor," I replied, rising to face him, "at the least have the justice to hear me out. You know that I love your niece with my whole heart and body and soul. You know that she loves me with a love that will last as long as life itself. Our love was born the first time we looked into each other's eyes; since then our love has never wavered. It drew me to her over deserts and mountains, through wildernesses before known only to the red savages; it forced me to face singly the soldiers and prisons and garrottes of your tyrannical rulers. I know now that I cannot hope for you to turn from your cruel purpose. Yet for the sake of the friendship you once professed to bear me and for the sake of her love, give me at least a moment's farewell—a word of parting!"
Despite the desperate earnestness of my plea, he stood throughout without a trace of relentment in his cold face. But Doña Marguerite was a woman, and I had spoken from the depths of my heart.
"Santisima Virgen!" she cried. "It is only for a last moment's adieu!—Padre! padre, advise us!"
My heart gave a leap of wild hope as I saw Don Pedro look about at the padre with respectful attention.
"It is a hard question to decide, my children," deliberated Father Rocus. "It may well cause her more sorrow than relief. And yet—and yet—"
He paused and seemed to sink into prayerful meditation. Don Pedro and Doña Marguerite bowed their heads and murmured "Ave!" I stood waiting, in a tremendous stress of doubt and joy, of hope and despair. At last the padre raised his head, and pronounced his opinion: "As her guardian, Don Pedro, yours is the decision. Yet as her confessor, I advise, for the good of her soul, that you do not deprive her of this last consolation. Even the meekest will rebel if pressed too hard, and she has a high spirit."
"Since you advise it, padre," acquiesced Don Pedro, though with evident reluctance. "For the good of her soul, they may say adieu. But it must be here, in our presence."
Doña Marguerite hastened to pull the bell-cord. Chita appeared.
"Prepare your mistress to say adieu to Señor Robinson."
Chita darted away. We waited, I burning with impatience, the others murmuring prayers. At last my sweet lady appeared in the curtained doorway. Though she sought to smile, her face was wan and sad, and her beautiful eyes heavy as if she had wept much and slept little. Had not Doña Marguerite taken the precaution to lay a restraining hand on my wrist, I should have rushed forward and clasped the poor oppressed darling in my arms.
We were permitted to approach each other. I bent on one knee and pressed my lips to the little white hand she gave me. The others watched our every movement and listened for every word. Yet I could not restrain myself from speaking out the love with which my heart overflowed.
"Dearest one!" I murmured, "it seems that we must now part—it may be forever! I do not see how I can bear to lose you, my darling. But, as the good padre says, we all have our crosses, and it may be that strength will be given to me to endure. Yet most of all my heart aches for your grief, Alisanda. God grant you surcease of sorrow!"
My voice failed me. I heard Doña Marguerite sob. But Alisanda neither wept nor sobbed. She gazed upward, with a spiritual glow in her dark eyes.
"God will do unto us according to His holy will!" she said.
"Ave Maria de los Dolores!" sobbed Doña Marguerite.
Alisanda looked down at me with the gaze which opened to me those fathomless wells of mystery.
"Juan," she said, "they tell me we can never wed. If such be the will of God, we must submit. But—" She held up the gold crucifix of the rosary which hung about her neck—"by la vera cruz I vow to you, beloved, I will wed none other mortal than yourself. If I may not be your bride, I will become the bride of Christ!"
"Caramba!" swore Don Pedro. "Recall that vow! I command you!"
"God has heard it!" she answered.
"The vow is registered in heaven," confirmed Father Rocus.
"Absolve her!" demanded the don, fairly beside himself with chagrin at this sudden turn that threatened to frustrate all his designs.
"Peace, peace," soothed the padre. "I will consider the matter with prayer and meditation."
"Satanas!" cried Don Pedro, turning upon me in a rage. "But for you, she would not have vowed! Go!—"
"Nada!" I rejoined. "You said I could bid her farewell. I hold you to your word as a gentleman."
He turned on his heel, and strode over to stand beside Father Rocus, doubtless fearful that he could not otherwise restrain himself from attacking me.
"Be quick!" urged Doña Marguerite.
Alisanda took the rosary from about her white throat and held it out to me. Her voice kept to the same clear, brave note: "Adieu, my Juan! We part. You are not a Christian, I know, yet as a sign for the guidance of your faith, I give you this golden symbol—la vera cruz!"
As her dear hand placed the cross in my palm, my love and despair burst all bounds. Forgetful of all else, I caught her to me and pressed my lips to hers in passionate grief. But in a moment she was torn from me by Don Pedro, who carried her off, half fainting, from the room. I would have followed had not Doña Marguerite and Father Rocus clung to me on either side and implored me to leave before the return of Don Pedro.
Half stupefied with despair, I permitted them to lead me to the stairway, where Doña Marguerite sobbed out an "Adios!" and turned back. The padre hurried me down the stairway and out into the street, where, after a hasty benediction, he hastened back to pacify the violence of Don Pedro.
He left me none too soon. I could hear Don Pedro cursing furiously in the courtyard. Fearful that if matters came to blows, I might do an injury to the kinsman of my lady, I dragged myself away, heavy with despair. Not until I was half across the plaza did I notice that I still held her rosary in my hand. I stared at the little gold cross with bitter hatred. It seemed so harsh a mockery that she should have given me as parting gift that symbol of the gulf that now yawned between us, wider and deeper than ever. Yet the gift was from her, and—I must bear my cross!
For a moment I was tempted to put a pistol to my head and end all. But the life within me was sane and strong, and the memory of my lost lady too sweet for me to hurl myself into the unknown. In reflex from that last black thought of self-destruction there came to me even a feeble consciousness of resignation—a feeling that for her sake I must endeavor to live my life in a manner worthy of her memory. And this feeling did not leave me, but increased in strength throughout the weary weeks of our long homeward journey.
We started that afternoon, immediately after the siesta, and proceeded in a southerly direction on the road toward Durango. But I do not propose to give here the tedious details of our trip. Greatly to our disappointment, a few days brought us a parting from our noble friend Malgares, who turned over his instructions and despatch-pouch to a Captain Barelo. The latter took us so far south before rounding the lower end of the terrible Bolson de Mapimi Desert that we at one time thought he had secret orders to march us to the City of Mexico.
Whatever the object of this long detour, it served the purpose of enabling Pike and myself to take many more observations of the mines, towns, and other features of the country than if we had followed a shorter route. By the time we had swung around, north by east, up through the Province of Coahuila, and crossed over the Rio del Norte, which here is more often called the Rio Grande, we had all but one of the musket barrels closely packed with notes.
From the Rio Grande we proceeded northeastward, and crossing the border of the Province of Texas, arrived at San Antonio on the seventh of June. Here we were received with the utmost hospitality by the gallant and beloved General Herrera and by Governor Cordero, who took us into his own quarters, offered us every favor within his power, and had a house especially prepared for the men.
Many other prominent persons of the town were no less cordial and hospitable. Among them was a Captain Ugarte, to whom we brought letters of introduction from Malgares. His charming wife Doña Anita was a sister of Doña Dolores. Hardly had we been introduced to her when the kindly señora led me aside and showed me a letter which she had received from Señora Malgares a week before our arrival.
"My sister has roused my deepest interest, Señor Robinson, by the story of your doleful separation from your Dulcinea," she explained. "This letter begs me to do what little I can to console you."
"You are most kind, señora," I replied. "But I know of nothing—unless I might ask you to send a message by Doña Dolores to Señorita Alisanda."
"Gladly! Have you received no message from her?"
I shook my head sadly. She thought a moment, and then pressed me to tell her of my last meeting with Alisanda. The moment I mentioned the cross her face brightened.
"Permit me to see the rosary," she said.
I drew the bitter-sweet gift from my bosom and handed it over to her. To my surprise, she began to examine the beads with a minute scrutiny, feeling and shaking each in turn as she passed it along the cord. Whatever she had thought to discover, she found nothing. At the last she took up the little crucifix and turned it over in her slender hand.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, holding it closer to her sparkling eyes. "Her name is Alisanda Vallois."
"Alisanda Vallois," I repeated, wondering at the remark.
"A. V.—Alisanda Vallois. You have planned for a meeting in August?"
"No, señora. We did not plan. I have heard of no such plan."
"Santa Maria! Men are so stupid!" she rejoined. "Look, there is your message: 'A V—AUG'! What ever else can that mean than Alisanda Vallois, in August?"
"What?" I cried, half mad with delight. "But where?—what place, señora? Tell me where!"
She laughed at my blindness. "Where, señor? You ask that? What did she call this gift—the exact words?"
"La vera cruz!" Even as the words passed my lips, the truth flashed upon me. I had indeed been stupid—blind!—blind not to have seen those faintly scratched letters on the gold; stupid not to have joined the symbolism of the gift to her words, "La Vera Cruz"!
I kissed the señora's hand with a fervor which, I trust, did not disturb the peace of mind of Captain Ugarte. Later she undertook to send to the care of Doña Dolores a message which, for the sake of precaution, I restricted to the one line:—
"La vera cruz is my guide and comforter."
Despite so joyful a revelation to glorify our stay at San Antonio, I felt no regrets when another week saw us started on to the north and east for Nacogdoches, the most eastward of the Spanish presidios in Texas.
The second day beyond that place we crossed the Sabine, and were left by our Spanish escort, being in the neutral zone.
On the afternoon of July the first we at last arrived at Natchitoches, only fifteen days short of a full year since we had departed on our long and eventful journey from Belle Fontaine.
Such greeting as we received from our officers at the fort may be better imagined than expressed. And not the least of my joys upon this happy occasion was that of hearing my brave and resolute friend hailed by his fellows, not as Lieutenant, but as Captain! We were alike astonished and gratified to learn that he had been entitled to that advanced rank since the twelfth of the preceding August. What was more, his services had been most handsomely noticed to Congress by President Jefferson.
As the Captain had arrived at the journey's end outworn and in miserable health, I restrained myself to remain with him long enough to assist in arranging the great mass of notes which, to the exultant delight of our countrymen, we brought to view by filing off the barrels of the six muskets.
There would have been no end to the questions of the officers of the fort had not Pike intimated that discretion required silence with regard to all the important details until after he had made his report to General Wilkinson and the Secretary of War. The doughty General, we were informed, had hurried east to Richmond some weeks past, to take part in the trial of Colonel Burr and Harmon Blennerhasset for treason.
But as to the facts of the great case, I observed that our countrymen were decidedly circumspect in their statements; for it seems that the General himself was accused by his numerous enemies of complicity in the alleged treasonous conspiracy. Captain—I write the word with pride—Captain Pike was highly indignant at this attempt to implicate the friend and patron who had so helped him in his career. But I, remembering what I had learned from Burr and from the General himself, and above all considering that hideous charge by the aide Medina, had the greatest difficulty in giving the passive assent of silence when my friend said that he would include my respects in his letter to the General.
Truth to tell, having now the possibility of again meeting and of winning my lady, I was extremely desirous for a commission in the Army. It was an ambition which the Captain and I had frequently discussed since our departure from Chihuahua, and which he told me he intended to call to the attention not only of General Wilkinson but of the Secretary of War, General Dearborn.
I need hardly say that we had also discussed, in confidence, my plans for a voyage to Vera Cruz. But as he knew even less about the sea than myself, he could only commend my intention of applying for assistance to Mr. Daniel Clark, and insist upon my leaving him as soon as his health was a little improved and the notes partly arranged.
At last my growing impatience and anxiety forced me to bend to his urging. We parted, with more than brotherly regard and affection, in the fond expectation of rejoining each other within a few months as brothers in arms. His last words were an assurance that he could obtain me a captaincy, and a heart-felt wish that I might succeed in my venture.
It was a wearisome journey by river and forest and swamp to New Orleans in the swelter of the July heat, but I pushed on by horse and boat to the mosquito-and-fever-plagued city of the delta. Having long since become hardened to the torments of the Southern insect pests and to the dangers of ague, dengue, and yellow jack, I endured the first with resignation and braved the last without a qualm.
The sight of the creole city, with our glorious flag afloat above the bold little forts, St. Louis and St. Charles, filled me with joy and a sense of accomplishment. This marked my point of departure in the crossing of the Gulf, which alone, I hoped, now separated me from my lady. Though, even with the influx of our native-born Americans since the annexation, the city could claim only nine thousand inhabitants, the amount of its trade and shipping was enormous. Among the scores and hundreds of sea-going craft which lay moored along the wharfs and the levees or swung at anchor in the stream, I felt certain I should find one to bear me to Vera Cruz.
Of all the merchants of the city, I knew that few if any stood so well with the Spanish authorities in the New World or carried on so extensive a trade with the Spanish colonies as my acquaintance, Mr. Daniel Clark. Accordingly I waited upon him the evening of my arrival, and stated my keen desire to obtain passage to Vera Cruz.
He took occasion to congratulate me on my share in the expedition, a general account of which had come to him, I suspect through secret sources of communication with the Spaniards. He, however, shook his head over my request for advice and assistance, until, in desperation, I confessed that the object of my intended voyage was to meet the lady to whom I was betrothed.
"Why did you not tell me that at the first, sir?" he snapped. "I set you down for an agent of that double-dealing scoundrel and traitor James Wilkinson."
"Mr. Clark," I replied, "General Wilkinson will, I presume, be subjected to the searching cross-examination of the counsel for Colonel Burr. Personally I have little liking for the General, and have so expressed myself in the past. But for the present I think it only just to him, as to Colonel Burr, to await the publication of the facts of this deplorable scandal and the verdict of the trial."
"Ay, ay! You can take a dispassionate view, doctor. You have not shared in all the heat and tumult of this last year. Very well. Be as nonpartisan as you wish, just so you do not join in the hounding of honorable men who chanced to show courtesies to that misguided dreamer, Burr."
"Sir, I have no other thought, no other object in life that I can consider until I have returned this to my lady," I said, showing him the rosary.
He turned to his portfolio, and at once wrote a letter in a neat, clerky hand. Having folded and addressed it, he handed it to me unsealed.
"Present that to Monsieur Lafitte. You will find his sloop, the Siren, somewhere along the water front. Wait. Are you in funds?"
"Enough for the present, sir. But this Monsieur Lafitte—he sails for Vera Cruz?"
"I have written him that you wish to land in that port. He bears papers from me which will enable you to effect a landing and a stay of a few weeks. Should you need funds to carry you through with your venture in that city, this letter will enable you to draw upon Captain Lafitte for a hundred doubloons."
I sought to express my gratitude, but he cut me short, and rang for his mulatto boy to show me out. As it was by now past nine o'clock and a dark, cloudy evening, I returned to my hotel for the night.
But sunrise found me down in the midst of the hurly-burly and confusion of the water front. Such a scene was never known elsewhere than here in the port of the Father of Waters. Rowdy rivermen from the Ohio and Mississippi settlements, and no less rowdy seamen from the four quarters of the globe, lewd women and dock workmen, black and white, swarthy creole merchants and weather-beaten ship's officers,—all jostling and hurrying about wharf and levee in the cool of the early morning.
Upon starting to inquire, I discovered that it was not so simple a matter to find the sloop Siren as I had imagined. The slaves and creoles were polite in their replies, the sailors and rivermen gruff, but all alike expressed their inability to enlighten me.
At last I accosted at a venture a splendidly built gentleman of about my own age and breadth but a full two inches taller.
"Monsieur," I said, noting his black hair and French features, "your pardon, but I am in search of the schooner Siren, Captain Lafitte."
"Ah," he replied, eying me with a polite yet penetrating gaze. "May I request you to name your business with Captain Lafitte?"
"Sir," I answered, bowing, "my business with Monsieur Lafitte is private. If you cannot favor me with the location of the Siren—"
"If I cannot favor you with that, I can at least with the location of Jean Lafitte," he said, bowing in turn. "Monsieur, permit me to introduce myself as Jean Lafitte, at your service."
"Monsieur, your servant, Dr. John H. Robinson, with a letter from Monsieur Daniel Clark," I responded.
His fine hazel eyes glowed. "A friend of Monsieur Clark!"
I handed him the letter. He bowed with the polished ease of a courtier, and after a polite apology, opened and read the letter. At the end he slipped the letter into his wallet, and smilingly held out to me a shapely, bronzed hand.
"Monsieur Clark has explained your reason for sailing, doctor," he said, with a manner that won him my regard on the spot. "I shall be more than pleased to do all in my power to aid you. We shall first send for your chests."
I explained my lack of wardrobe.
"Sacre!" he exclaimed. "But I sail at once. Come! I have it. I lost my third mate in a brush with an English privateer last month. He was a cleanly man of much your build. You shall ship in his berth."
I pointed to the nearest flatboat. "That is the extent of my seamanship, Monsieur Captain."
He shrugged. "The clothes will fit, if the berth does not. You can save your present costume for your landing."
I bowed assent, and we at once swung along side by side to a wharf where his boat was in waiting for him. With a courtesy which I did not then appreciate, though I noted how it impressed the half-dozen swarthy, red-capped oarsmen, he sprang first into the stern-sheets. The moment I stepped in after him, the men pushed off. They rowed with a skill and regularity of stroke that speedily brought us out around the brig which blocked our view, when we approached the most graceful sloop upon which I had ever set eyes.
Not being a seaman, I can only say that the Siren's masts and yards seemed to me to be unusually long, and the former strongly inclined to the stern—raked, I believe is the marine term. Her hull, which was painted a dull gray, with a narrow stripe of red, was sharp in the bow, broad and overhanging at the stern, and low-set in the water.
When we came aboard, I noticed that the sloop's decks were cleaner and more orderly than those of any other merchant vessel I had seen at close quarters, and that besides a number of carronades, she carried abaft the mainmast a great pivot-gun that could have found few mates afloat elsewhere than aboard a man-of-war. It was a long French twenty-four-pounder, which is really a twenty-six-and-a-half-pounder by English weight. As is well known, many frigates carry no heavier longs than eighteen-pounders.
Observing my interested glance, Captain Lafitte said, with a smile: "As you see, doctor, Monsieur Clark is disinclined to deliver his sloop and cargo to the Spanish privateers without a protest."
"Is the Siren, then, his vessel?" I asked in surprise.
"For this voyage, at least," he answered; and leaving me to guess what this might mean, he turned and called out a series of nautical orders in a voice like a trumpet.
Instantly such a swarm of sailors poured up from the forecastle and hatchways and rushed here and there about the decks that I wondered they did not run one another down. Between times the Captain beckoned to a grinning imp of a cabin-boy and told him to show me below.
It was three days before I again saw the deck. Once the sloop was under way, Captain Lafitte came down long enough to start me overhauling the chests of the dead third mate. This kept me occupied until the mid-afternoon, aside from the time it took me to eat the savory meal brought to me by the cabin-boy. Captain Lafitte remained all the time on deck with the pilot who conned us down to the Gulf. When at last he did come below, the sloop was pitching in a rough cross-sea and I was most disgracefully nauseated.
The gale freshening to a downright storm, we were, as I was afterwards told, compelled to run before it under a storm jib. At the time I knew only that I was too seasick to care whether the ship floated or foundered.
But on the fourth day the storm abated to a half gale, and the sloop, being brought about and put under more sail, became so much steadier that I made shift to eat a scant meal and crawl on deck. Such of the weary-eyed crew as took heed of me grinned at the pale-faced landsman, but they took on another look when at noon I helped the captain to take his observations and work out the result. I had not spent all those months with Pike for nothing.
Lafitte appeared highly amused at this discomfiture of his tars, and promptly declared in their hearing that I should be rated as third mate. The following day, when I really found my sea-legs, he proposed in all seriousness that I should accept the berth. Having candidly declared his bitter hatred of the British, he sought to sting me to a like hatred by relating in full detail the account of the shameful, brutal outrage of the Leopard upon the Chesapeake, off Hampton Roads, hardly more than a month past.
Despite my anger and humiliation at this unavenged insult to my flag, I felt no longing for a seafaring life other than such as was necessary to win me my lady. Lafitte acknowledged that, in my situation, my decision was probably a wise one. But he went on with the statement that he, for one, would live and die in the contest against tyranny on the high seas, and repeated a terrible vow which he had taken against all Britons and Spaniards. His hatred of the first I could well understand, since he was a Frenchman. But his enmity to the latter, now the allies of his country, I could explain only as the result of private injuries. On this point he was as reserved as he was free in expressing his determination to wreak vengeance upon the ships of both nations.
Not two days later we were roused at dawn by the muffled cry of "Ship, ho!" and slipping up on deck, found the Siren within a cable's-length of a British frigate. The surprise was complete, for the British sighted us within a few moments after they were themselves seen. Detecting Lafitte's attempt to set more sail, they fired a solid shot across our bows. Our captain could do no other than obey this grim signal to heave-to, since disobedience would have meant the blowing of the sloop to matchwood by the frigate's broadside of long eighteen-pounders.
According to a prearranged plan, the half-dozen British seamen in our crew and a dozen of the more English-appearing Americans at once slipped down into the hold, where they were hidden by their shipmates in a stow-hole prepared for the purpose in the midst of the cargo. Meantime, cursing beneath his breath, Captain Lafitte paced his little quarterdeck, if so it may be called, and stared at the frigate's cutter, which came racing toward us over the dancing waves in the refulgent glow of the low, red sunrays. It was a pretty sight, but one which not a man aboard looked upon with other than a sour face.
Very shortly the cutter came alongside, and we were boarded by a pert young cockerel of a midshipman, with a following of six or eight heavy-jawed British tars. Meeting Captain Lafitte's punctilious bow with a curt nod, the young fellow demanded to see his papers, and added with the lordliness of an admiral: "Pipe all hands on deck, and let there be no stowaways, for I warn you I shall exercise the rights of search and impressment."
Captain Lafitte made a formal protest against these so-called rights of search and impressment aboard an American sloop sailing from the neutral port of New Orleans to the unblockaded port of Vera Cruz. Without waiting for the insolent reply which this elicited, he sent for the ship's papers and ordered all hands on deck. While the midshipman glanced through the papers and log, all the crew, other than those concealed, assembled in the bows for inspection.
Unable to find a flaw in the papers, for Lafitte and the Siren were alike certified to as belonging to the port of New Orleans, our unwelcome visitor ordered the crew to file before him. In all the lot there was not one British subject nor one who looked like a Briton, yet the young tyrant picked out, without hesitancy, ten of the likeliest looking men, seven of them lean, lantern-jawed Yankees and three French creoles. In answer to the protests of the first that they were New Englanders, he snapped out the one word "Hull"—to the creoles, "Guernsey."
"Good God!" I cried to Captain Lafitte, who stood by, gnawing his mustache in silent fury. "You know these are native-born citizens of the United States. Can you submit to such an outrage?"
Far better had I held my peace! Instantly the middy demanded of the nearest of our men who I was. The fellow, a stupid mulatto, mumbled something about my being the third mate.
"So!" snapped the Englishman. "Third mate? It is well known that all Yankee ships are officered by British deserters. I'll take this loud-mouthed sea-lawyer."
"Not alive!" I rejoined. "I'm a free-born citizen of the Republic. I'll not submit, you lying young scoundrel!—Captain Lafitte!—shipmates! Show these bullies we can die like men!"
My appeal was in vain. Lafitte still stood silent, and the men turned to stare shamefaced at the guns of the frigate. I stepped back to catch up a marlin-spike, but the British crimps were too well trained in their despicable business. They sprang at and about me in a body. I struck out right and left; then a belaying-pin crashed upon my head with stunning force.
When I recovered consciousness, I found myself swinging in a sailor's hammock that was suspended from the beams of a low wooden ceiling. I felt strangely weak and faint, but made shift to turn my head enough to see that I was in a long, wide space between decks. The rows of cannon resting each before its open port roused in me a sort of dull, vague wonderment. A puff of salt sea air through the nearest port tempered the suffocating heat of the place and revived me to a clearer self-consciousness, though all my memory seemed, as it were, wrapped in a gray mist.
The first clear idea was that there was about my neck something precious which must not be lost. I fumbled about with a feeble hand, and drew out the rosary and cross from the open bosom of my shirt. I was gazing at this, still bewildered, when there came to my side a dried-up, kindly faced, bespectacled little gentleman who, at sight of my open eyes, nodded and chirruped almost gayly: "Ahoy, Jack! Pleased to see your wits out of limbo! You've had a narrow squeak of it, my man."
"Who are you? Where am I?" I murmured.
He took a pinch of snuff, sneezed with hearty enjoyment, and then answered me with genial condescension: "In due order, Jack, I reply that I am Dr. Cuthbert, surgeon to His Majesty's frigate Belligerent, of whose crew you are a member."
I stared at him, my memory still in that gray mist. Seeing my bewilderment, he was thoughtful enough to explain: "You were so foolish as to resist, my man, when Midshipman Hepburn impressed you. Either the blow which stunned you, or the close air of the forecastle, or the seeds of disease in your system, brought on a fever and delirium in which you have lain for the past fortnight."
"Fortnight!" I gasped. "But—I remember now—I must get to Vera Cruz—Vera Cruz! Fortnight! What is the date?"
"August the ninth."
I groaned.
"Vera Cruz?" he cackled. "Why should you wish to go to Vera Cruz?"
I put my hand to my head, and tried to think—to penetrate that gray mist. "I cannot remember—I cannot remember—only I know I must go—at once—and it has to do with this cross."
"Eh! eh!" he cackled. "I thought there was something in that rosary. Third mates of merchantmen do not usually go about with Romish crucifixes and beads about their necks. Your name?"
I opened my lips, but not a syllable came from them. I racked my brains, groping in that terrible mist of oblivion. It was in vain. I could not remember my own name!
"Eh! eh!" he murmured, when I told him the dreadful truth. "You are in a pretty pickle. I have known before of such cases, resulting from a crack on the head. The famous John Hunter agrees with Jean Louis Petit that it is due to a bloodclot on the brain, which, in favorable cases, dissolves, and the patient becomes fully restored."
I stared, uncomprehending. I had forgotten Hunter and Petit; I had forgotten all my learning—everything of my past life. I did not even realize that I was a physician.
He went on cheerily: "So you have some little hope for a full return of memory, Jack. In the meantime you will soon regain strength enough to leave the sick bay. For your own good, let me advise you to obey orders and do your duty, with no further attempts at vain and foolish resistance to your superiors. Whether or not you are a British subject,—which personally I strongly doubt,—you are entered in the crew of the 'Belligerent,' and the iron rules of the Royal Navy deal severely with the slightest infractions of discipline."
It was another week before I recovered a fair share of my usual strength, and I believe the kindly little surgeon kept me under his charge two or three days longer than was strictly necessary. Meantime the mist still shrouded my memory, and though otherwise my wits were as clear as they had ever been, so far as knowledge of anything other than the commonest matters of daily life was concerned I was in a dense night of ignorance.
Dr. Cuthbert took care to explain this to the officer of the watch in which I was put, and the lieutenant was sufficiently humane to set me at tasks which required no skill of seamanship. As it chanced, I saw nothing of the midshipman who had impressed me. He was, as I afterwards learned, in another watch.
The day I was ordered on deck we sighted a palm-fringed coast, which my fellow seamen spoke of as Yucatan. The word meant nothing to me, for my memory was still in the mist, and the only name left me out of the past was Vera Cruz.
From Yucatan the Belligerent cruised off in an easterly direction toward Cuba. But the second day we fell in with a west-bound frigate, which signalled the Belligerent to patrol the mouths of the Mississippi, on the lookout for a noted French privateer sloop La Belle Silène, whose master, Jean Laffat or Lafayette, was rumored to have turned pirate.
Had I been in full possession of my mental faculties, I must surely have noted the similarity of names. Jean Lafitte was not so far from Jean Laffat, and the Siren from La Belle Silène. As it was, I doubt whether at this time the shouting of Lafitte's name in my ear would have stirred the faintest echo of memory.
The following morning, just at the change of the dog watch, the frigate was suddenly roused from its dull, precise routine by the sound of a heavy gun booming down the wind from the westward. Instantly the ship was brought about, to tack to windward, and the order was given to clear for action. The call to quarters was sounded, the marines paraded, and the cannon run out ready for firing, all before we sighted the supposed enemy.
Meantime the boom of the heavy cannon had come rolling down the wind to us at such regular intervals that the men about me swore there could be only one big gun. Before many minutes we distinguished the hoarse, barking roar of many carronades. At the same time we sighted the square topsails of a Spanish merchantman, and, a little later, the gaff-topsail of a sloop.
Soon the word was shouted down from our lookout at the masthead that the ship was running from the sloop, which carried the big gun and was evidently having far the better of the engagement. The flag of the ship now confirmed the opinion that she was a Spanish merchantman. But the strongest of spyglasses were unable to make clear the small flag of the sloop. It was enough, however, for the British captain, that, upon sighting us, the Spaniard flew a signal for help, and veered so as to run down to us. That her crew should thus seek to put their ship in the way of certain capture was considered by the men about me clear proof that the sloop was a pirate.
As I had been left to pull and haul on deck, I was able to witness all the fierce contest of the fight, and the race of the frigate to rescue the assailed Spaniard. Sail after sail was set, and the bellying sheets tautened as flat as the nimble seamen could draw them.
But swiftly as we tacked to windward, and swiftly as the Spaniard slanted down the wind to obtain shelter of us, the unfortunate vessel was already in terrible distress from the relentless attack of her little enemy. With an audacity which amazed the Britons, the sloop stood on, undaunted by our approach, hanging close upon the quarter of her victim.
The fire of the ship was already silenced, while from half a cable's-length the carronades of the sloop belched their missiles into the rigging of the Spaniard with ever-increasing rapidity, and the great gun on the mid-deck sent shot after shot crashing into the bulging hull at the waterline.
Suddenly we saw the mizzenmast of the Spaniard totter. It fell forward and sideways, dragging after it the splintered mainmast. As the ship broached-to, we could see that she was settling down by the stern. Even I, despite the night of ignorance which lay upon me, realized that she was beginning to founder.
Certain of the fate of her victim, the sloop now sheered off. The Belligerent opened fire with the long eighteen-pounder bow-chasers, but the shots fell short of the sloop by fifty yards or more. Within half a minute the sloop had the stupendous audacity to fire her great gun at us. By a rare chance, the ponderous ball struck the starboard shrouds, snapping them like packthread, and hurled on aslant the after deck, to chip a splinter from the mizzenmast and smash a great hole through the roof of the cabin.
Only the quickness with which the frigate was brought up into the wind and the main and mizzen sails blanketed by the foresails saved the main and mizzenmasts from being sprung, if not carried overboard. Never, I fancy, did the crew of a man-of-war have to suffer such a maddening checkmate. They dared not even come about to give the saucy sloop a broadside, but could only bark away with the ineffective bow-chasers. The sloop packed on what was a tremendous spread of canvas for so small a craft, and fled away aslant the wind at a speed that the frigate could not have hoped to equal on the same course, even had the rigging been in perfect trim.
By the time the British had stoppered the broken shrouds, reeved preventer braces, and strengthened the splintered mizzenmast, the Spanish ship had drifted down within hailing distance. She now sat very low astern, and such of her people as had not been slain or helplessly wounded had crowded up into her high-flung bows and were shrieking to us for rescue. There was not one of their boats which had escaped the fierce fire of the sloop's carronades. Seeing this, and that pursuit of the sloop was now hopeless, the British captain ordered out all the frigate's boats to take off the imperilled Spaniards.
This was a simple matter, as there was little sea running and the wind no more than a fair breeze. Soon the first boatload of Spaniards was brought over from the sinking ship and rowed along our starboard side toward the stern. As the boat passed, I looked down from the lofty deck in the idle curiosity of my empty head. Seated in the stern-sheets I saw a portly man in robes, and beside him a slender woman in the white veil of a novice. The woman looked up—It was Alisanda!
A cry burst from my lips, and I staggered back with a hand to my forehead. In a twinkling everything had come back to me—full consciousness and memory of myself, my life, my love! But in the same instant all memory of my days aboard the Belligerent became a blank.
I stared about me in amazement. Then I remembered that my lady was being rowed alongside this strange ship. I glanced over, and saw that the boat had made fast alongside the ship's quarter,—that preparations were under way to lift Alisanda to the deck.
Heedless of all else in the strange unknown scene about me, I ran aft, half mad with the mystery and joy of such a meeting. But suddenly a marine sprang before me with lowered bayonet.
"Halt!" he ordered.
I stopped short, with the point against my breast.
"Let me past—let me past!" I panted. "I must go to my lady! I am Dr. Robinson! I must see her—at once!"
"What's this?" demanded an insolent young voice, and the midshipman who had impressed me swung around beside the marine. I recognized him on the instant.
"You!" I cried.
"The dunce!" he rejoined. "Back before the mast, you damned Yankee!"
"You!" I repeated. "Get out of my way. I'm going to my lady!"
"Your lady!" he sneered, and he added a term which stung me to madness. As he spoke, he struck me a heavy blow with his fist upon my jaw. Catching him by the wrist, I jerked him forward and struck him a blow between the eyes that would have felled him had I not held to his wrist. The marine cried out, and sprang around for an opening to lunge at me without striking his officer. I caught the staggering young scoundrel by the shoulders and hurled him against the man. Both rolled to the deck.
At the same moment some one sprang upon me from behind and bore me down. As I fell, others flung themselves upon my legs. My arms were wrenched around behind my back and lashed together, my ankles bound fast, despite my desperate struggles. Then a stern voice gave the order for me to be taken below and placed in irons. I sought to cry out an appeal—to attempt an explanation. But one of the men thrust a balled kerchief into my mouth and tied in the gag with another kerchief which covered my eyes as well. Dumb, blind, and bound, I was carried below, still struggling.
The moment they had replaced my bonds with handcuffs and bilboes and relieved me of the gag, down in the foul, cell-like prison, I so implored and raved to see the captain that they thought I was beside myself,—as, indeed, it may well be said I was. Instead of the captain, they sent for Dr. Cuthbert, who was a perfect stranger to my restored memory. He listened to my now incoherent statements that I was Dr. John Robinson and must go to my lady, and sought to soothe me. My constant repetitions convinced him that I was quite out of my head, and to quiet me, he cunningly administered an opiate in wine and water.
Discipline is swift-handed aboard a man-of-war. Before I had fully slept off the effects of the drug, I was roused and taken before the court-martial convened to try me. The judge-advocate was the officer of my watch, though at the time I had no memory of him. For the first time I saw the captain near at hand. He was a granite-faced Cornishman, and looked upon me with a cold, blue-gray eye which condemned me before a word had been spoken.
My ankles had been freed from the bilboes before I was brought up, but when I was ordered to stand, I could not readily obey because of the continued numbness of my limbs. At this two of my guards jerked me up with brutal roughness, and the charge against me was read. To my amazement and horror, I learned that I was upon trial, under the name Jack Numskull, for the crime of striking my superior officer, the penalty for which was death.
Ignorant of the procedure of the court, I sought to protest, but was ordered to keep silent. In quick succession, the witnesses were called and questioned,—first the midshipman I had struck, then the marine, and after that four or five seamen. All testified without contradiction to the damnable fact that I had struck Midshipman Hepburn.
"Enough," said Captain Powers. "Has the prisoner anything to say?"
The question was repeated to me. I bowed to the court as best I could with my wrists locked together behind my back.
"Gentlemen," I said, "I wish first to explain—"
"Speak to the point," commanded the judge-advocate. "The law does not require you to confess. Yet if you wish to meet death with a free conscience, the court will receive your statement. Do you admit that you struck your superior officer?"
"No. I deny it."
"You deny it—in the face of this positive testimony?"
"I admit that I struck Midshipman Hepburn,—if that is his name. I deny that I struck my superior officer."
"Explain!" demanded Captain Powers, irascibly.
"I deny that Midshipman Hepburn is my superior officer,—that any man on this ship or in the Navy of George the Third is my superior officer. I deny the jurisdiction of this court. I am a native-born citizen of the United States of America. I was aboard a neutral vessel sailing from one free port to another when this same Midshipman Hepburn boarded the craft and unlawfully impressed me. In resisting, I was struck senseless. Of whatever has happened since I have barely a vague consciousness. Only I know that immediately before the affray for which I am now being tried, I saw a lady being brought alongside in a boat, and at once full memory came back to me. I am John H. Robinson, a physician of the Louisiana Territory, born in the State of Pennsylvania, reared at Cincinnati on the Ohio River, and educated at Columbia College, in the city of New York."
During my recital, all present except the captain regarded me with lively curiosity, mingled with varying degrees of incredulity. Powers did not betray the slightest interest or emotion.
"We have heard the statement of the prisoner," he said. "Whether it is or is not true is irrelevant. The fact remains that the prisoner, while serving as a seaman in the service of His Majesty King George, did strike a midshipman in said service, the same being his superior officer."
"Sir, may I suggest the doubt of the prisoner's sanity, in mitigation of his crime?" interposed the judge-advocate.
"Remove the prisoner," commanded the captain.
I was led out and kept waiting for half an hour, while my life hung in the balance. At last they led me back to receive the decree of the court. By now I was in a half stupor of agonized despair, my thoughts fixed upon Alisanda and all I was to lose. The terrible word "Death!" roused me to consciousness of my surroundings.
The judge-advocate paused, drew a deep breath, and continued the reading of the sentence: "But, it being testified to by Surgeon Wilbur Cuthbert that said prisoner was not at the time of the committance of his crime rational or sane, said sentence of death is hereby commuted to the sentence of one hundred lashes—"
"Hold! hold!" I cried. "Not that! Shoot me!—murder me! But spare me that shame!"
This time when they dragged me out and down to the foul prison black-hole they had no need of a gag. After that one wild protest, I fell dumb. I had seen two floggings of twenty strokes of the cat since coming aboard. With the words of my sentence the memory had come back to me, and with the memory of those shameful floggings had returned the remembrance of all my life aboard the Belligerent.
When, an hour or so after my sentence, Dr. Cuthbert came to condole with me, I recognized him and his kindness, but sat in sullen misery when he sought to question me. The trial was over—sentence imposed. Why should I accept the sympathy of these brutes?
He may have divined my frame of mind, for presently he fell to deploring the rigors of the times, brought about by the boundless ambition of Bonaparte. England, he argued, alone interposed by means of her navy a barrier against the world-wide domination of the Corsican adventurer. That navy was the hope of the world. Yet, thanks to the French privateers and Bonaparte's strength upon the Continent, Britain had lost much of her commerce to the United States, to whose ships the British seamen were constantly deserting to escape the harsh yet necessary discipline of the Royal Navy. What, then, if occasionally a native American was impressed? The struggle between Britain and the Corsican was a struggle of life and death. Britain must man her ships, or submit to destruction, and with Britain crushed, what nation or alliance of nations could hope to withstand the infernal genius of Bonaparte?
I waited for a pause, and inquired in a casual tone as to the welfare of the Spanish lady rescued from the sinking ship. He started up, retreated a pace or two, with his eyes fixed upon me, and then hurried off, tapping his head significantly. I bowed my head with a sigh of relief. The temptation had been taken from me. My weakness should not have another opportunity to betray me. My lady should not know of my shame.