A Volunteer with Pike Part 29

I drew out the doc.u.ments relating to the Le Lande claim and handed them over to the secretary. His Excellency demanded their purport, which I gave as clearly and briefly as my French would permit.

"We shall see," he commented, when I ended my account. "Your papers will be examined, and I will send for Le Lande. Meantime you will consider yourself under arrest. You will be given quarters in the rooms a.s.signed for officers in confinement, but you are at liberty within the bounds of the town, if accompanied by your guard."

With this, he appointed a corporal of the regular dragoons to attend upon me both as guard and waiter, and I was promptly led out. During the short delay which followed, I had no cause to complain of my treatment.

The corporal proved a most accommodating servant, and my meals were sent to me from His Excellency's own table. In addition, the hospitality of the leading people of Santa Fe was so cordial that I should have enjoyed greatly the two days I had to wait, had it not been for my fears that the Governor might detain me for an indefinite period, or send me eastward out of the province, into the country of the Comanches.

When, therefore, he again called me before him, and stated that he had inquired and found that Le Lande was incapable of discharging the claim presented by me, I declared boldly that I knew this to be a mistake, and that it appeared to me His Excellency was seeking to shelter a refugee debtor of my country, in violation of the treaties between Spain and the United States.

"Look to it, Your Excellency!" I concluded, with all the heat and indignation I could affect. "Look to it! This is no light matter. The man is an outright thief, and the treaty rights of Monsieur Morrison are clear. I insist upon the payment of this claim. If I cannot obtain justice of Your Excellency, I will appeal to the Governor-General."

This last stirred him out of the daze of astonishment into which he had been thrown by the audacity of my heated protest. Governors of Spanish provinces are not accustomed to being bearded by their inferiors in rank, much less by lone foreigners suspected of espionage. But at my mention of his superior, he found his voice.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, and I marked the change in his tone. "_Madre de Dios!_ You would go to Chihuahua?"

"No offence to Your Excellency," I hastened to protest, affecting to believe him alarmed for himself. "It may well be that your authority is so limited that you cannot satisfy my claim. My complaint against your refusal will be purely formal. In truth, I prefer to have the decision of the Governor-General, if only to obtain a precedent in the adjudication of similar claims which may be presented in other provinces under his rule."

"_Por Dios!_ You wish to go to Chihuahua!" he repeated. I believe he would have been less amazed had I urged him to let me go to the gallows.

"To Chihuahua! to Salcedo!" he murmured.

"Why not, Your Excellency?" I inquired.

His sallow cheeks darkened with a sudden return of his suspicions, and he sought to transfix me with his glance.

"_Caramba!_" he muttered. "Tell me clearly how you came across all that vast desert. You came from the northward. Did you then cross the mountains?"

I described briefly that terrible march south and west from the Grand Peak. He listened with growing wonderment.

"_Poder de Dios!_ It is impossible!" he cried. "Malgares has told me of that gigantic peak and the sierra you crossed. It is not possible! The Sangre de Cristo, and in midwinter--afoot!"

"Yet it is true, Your Excellency."

Again his eye sought to pierce me with its suspicious stare.

"Your party?" he demanded. "You have spoken of hunters. Who are they?--and where?"

Having now some of the details of Pursley's adventures to copy, I told a connected tale of having accompanied some Osages from St. Louis to the p.a.w.nee country, in search of the recreant Le Lande, when, learning of his flight to New Mexico, I had wandered westward with a small party of hunters to the Grand Peak and then southwest over the mountains, until we came to what was supposed to be the Red River, where my companions had stopped to hunt.

At the end of my recital, he sat for some moments studying me. Then, with a most disconcerting suddenness: "Senor, you will honor me with your presence at table."

He rose at the words, and leaving all the others gaping, conducted me down a corridor to his dining-room. It was now high noon, and we found the table already spread for the midday meal, which is the princ.i.p.al repast of the day among the Spaniards in Mexico.

A plate was laid for myself opposite His Excellency's, and we sat down in civilized fashion to a meal which would have graced the table of the richest Spanish creole in all Louisiana. There were trout from the neighboring streams, a variety of meats and fowl, good wheaten bread altogether unlike the unappetizing corn _tortillas_ of the commonfolk, chocolate and _dulces_, fine raisins from the Paso del Norte, and a bottle or two of most excellent wine.

Throughout our repast His Excellency addressed himself to me as one gentleman to another, so that I found myself continually in a stress of excitement between apprehension and hope. Our conversation was for the most part directed to European topics, dwelling much, as must every discussion of transatlantic affairs, upon the career of that most marvellous of men, the Emperor of the French.

But with the wine and the _cigarros_, His Excellency seemed to recollect for the first time the small but none the less important affairs of our own personal concern.

"I begin to be convinced, senor physician, that you are indeed a man of genteel breeding," he said. "If, however, you will pardon the remark, I have grave doubt whether a Frenchman of your education would commit so many errors in the use of his native language."

I smiled. "_Mon Dieu!_ Your Excellency, we of St. Louis have not the facilities for visiting _la belle_ France possessed by our fellow creoles of New Orleans. It is a century or more since my ancestors came to the New World."

"And you have dwelt much among the Anglo-Americans," he insinuated.

"It is true," I replied with candor. "I obtained my diploma as a physician from the college of Columbia in the city of New York."

He stiffened with a sudden return of austerity. "Senor, I no longer doubt that you are a _caballero_--a gentleman. I will not press you to confess your ulterior motive in coming into the domains of His Most Catholic Majesty. Yet, if you carry secret doc.u.ments (I am disinclined to have you searched), I ask you to give me your word whether or not you carry such despatches."

"Your Excellency," I answered, "I give you my word that I do not. The doc.u.ments I handed over into Your Excellency's keeping were all I brought with me."

"_Satanas!_" he cried, his face flushing with sudden violent anger.

"Such duplicity! Such treachery!"

"If you will be so kind as to explain, senor," I said with unaffected astonishment.

"You hold to it? _Carrajo!_ How then of the packet in your bosom?"

"That?" I exclaimed, at once perceiving the cause of his continued suspicion. Some one had spied upon me and seen the packet. I reached my hand into my hunting-shirt, only to hesitate and draw it out again, empty. It seemed a profanation to expose my treasures to his gaze.

"You pause! You dare not produce the packet! In it lies your condemnation!" he cried.

The folly of my course flashed upon me. Why should I set a mere fanciful sentiment against the lulling of his suspicions? If I did not myself hand over the packet, he would have it taken from me by force.

He started to rise, but I caught the little bundle from my bosom and reached it across the table. Instead of rising, he bent forward, and, with forced deliberation, began to open the folds of the waxed parchment cover. First exposed was the corner of the flag.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing across at me in fieriest anger.

"Explain that, if you can!--a malicious desecration of the flag of His Most Catholic Majesty!"

"Not so!" I flung back at him. "Look what is marked upon it. Those letters were a message to me. I found it within the undisputed boundaries of my country, at the town of the p.a.w.nee Republicans. It was a message to me, and I took it, for it was mine."

"Ah! ah! a message! You confess, senor spy!"

I pointed to the last unwrapped fold. He turned it open, his face keen with exultant expectation. The now powdered leaves of the magnolia bloom puzzled him for the moment. Not so the handkerchief. His eye was instantly caught by the initials in the corner. Without a second glance, he averted his gaze until he had drawn up the edge of the snowy damask cloth over my stained and crumpled treasures.

"_Perdone, hermano!_" he murmured, with a most apologetic bow. "Be pleased to regain your property."

With that he left the table and stood with his back to me until I had folded up the packet and replaced it within my bosom.

"Your Excellency," I said, "the world has heard much about the chivalrous gallantry of your people. I am now convinced the half has not been told of it!"

"_Muchas gracias_, senor!" he returned. "You pardon my stupid error?

Yours is the act of a true _caballero!_ If the question does not trench upon delicate ground, may I venture an inquiry as to the possible relation of your daring journey--?"

"I have reason to believe that the lady is at Chihuahua, Your Excellency," I explained.

"Ah! ah! now I perceive! Yet what an _amor_ to bring any man across the vast desert!--above all, over the Sangre de Cristo in midwinter!"

"It was the barrier which lay between myself and my lady, Your Excellency."

"_Por Dios!_ You _Americanos!_ You will yet be flying to the moon!