Ahead of the Army Part 5

"I declare!" he said to himself, "he believes that Senor Zuroaga brought the powder, and he didn't. He believes that the senor is going in for old Santa Anna, and he isn't. He believes that the senor and I are enemies of Paredes, and so we are. I am! I hope that he'll be beaten out of his boots by General Taylor, and then upset by the new revolution. I guess he's right, though, about this ship, and I must find out how I can send a letter home. I want father and mother to know all about this business. Go ash.o.r.e and hide? I'm ready for that, but I'd like to get a good look at the old city somehow."

Ned had been laboring under many perplexities and a great deal of depression of spirits during several days, but now he felt a kind of exhilarating fever creeping all over him, and at first he did not know exactly what it might be. When his father had taken him with him across the Atlantic,--it seemed so long ago now,--he had gone eagerly enough, and he had had a grand time looking at Liverpool and London. It had been a rare treat for a youngster who had but recently pa.s.sed up from a grammar school into the counting-room of a New York shipping-house.

After that, when he had been sent on this trip, to make his voyage home by way of Mexico, he had considered himself exceedingly lucky. But what was all that in comparison with this in the way of strange and wild adventure? Why, he had sailed through a naval engagement, cannonading and all, and right on out of that into a full-grown war and a half-grown revolution. The thrill which went over him was, therefore, the adventure fever. Something like this fever, in the veins of all sorts of men, young and old, has made the world what it is, discovering its new countries, its new sciences, its new inst.i.tutions, and leading it forward and upward out of its old-time dullness and barbarism. So Ned stood straighter and felt older and had a pair of very brave, bright eyes when he walked forward to try and have a few words with Captain Kemp.

"Captain," he asked, "when can I go ash.o.r.e?"

"Not quite yet," said the captain. "Don't bother me now. Of course, the ammunition for the castle goes out first. Then all the rest of the cargo must go ash.o.r.e as fast as it can, and you are bound to attend to that.

I'm glad that all of it is apparently on English account, and not for the American part of the concern. That makes all things easy. I hardly know what to do with the ship, though. We can't repair her here."

That was evidently the disadvantage of having a vessel get out of order in a place where there were no good dockyards. As for the unlading, there were already "lighter" barges on their way from the fort, and others, no doubt, would soon be on hand from the city. Haste was the main object, under the circ.u.mstances, and the entire work would be rapidly accomplished.

Zuroaga went below, and Ned followed him, for there was nothing more that he could do on deck just then.

"Senor," he asked, as soon as they were in the cabin, "how can I send a letter home? I don't know exactly what to say, either."

"Say anything you please," replied the senor. "Your letter will go by the mail of the English consul, and the mails for England will not be meddled with by the Mexican authorities."

"I'll sit right down and begin one," said Ned, but the senor interrupted him very soberly with:

"One word before you begin, please. I know you overheard what Colonel Guerra said to me. You and I must get on sh.o.r.e as soon as we can, and it will not do for either of us to remain in Vera Cruz. I have decided that I must take you with me to Oaxaca."

"Well," hesitated Ned, "I understand that you must go, but what am I in danger of if I should stay here?"

"Edward, my dear fellow," said the senor, "I will tell you, and you had better put it into your letter. First, you just wait and see what becomes of the _Goshhawk_. She will never sail out of the Gulf of Mexico again. The captain and crew will get away as best they can, and I can't tell how long it will be before they can do it. Meantime, you would be around on sh.o.r.e, and you would be known for a Yankee, a gringo. That might mean danger for you from any evil-minded Mexican. Some of this coast population are worse than savages, and they all carry knives.

You'd never know who hurt you."

"That's awful!" exclaimed Ned. "I never thought of that."

"There is another reason," calmly continued the senor, "for your not lingering down here in the _tierra caliente_--the hot country--any later in the season. It is the yellow fever, and that is pretty sure to show itself before long. It takes people from the north quicker, a good deal, than it does those who were born here. I have even heard that there is a rumor of some cases occurring already. Your father is an old friend of mine, and he would never forgive me if I were to permit you to be exposed to it, when you can so easily get away into the uplands, where it is never heard of. Be a good clerk now, and attend to your cargo, and be glad that it hasn't been sent to the bottom of the gulf."

Ned had been thinking of that pretty seriously, and he sat down to write his home letter, well pleased that he had nothing to do with the unloading of the contraband of war part of the cargo. With reference to that, moreover, he had learned from Zuroaga that a Mexican post-commander of the rank of Colonel Guerra was a kind of local military dictator. Only so much of the ammunition as he might see fit to send would ever find its way into any other hands than his own. The senor had added that it was almost the same with whatever customs duties were collected by the civil officers of the port, with the one drawback that a dishonest army collector, if discovered, might possibly get himself shot as a kind of supposable revolutionist, stealing the profits of the others.

The lighter barges were now swarming around the bark, and a hundred busy workmen were doing their best, quite patriotically, for the guns and gunners of the castle. It was easy to see that the American sailors did not fancy that job, and were willing to keep out of it. So they sauntered around, attending to a few ship's duties here and there, while now and then one or another of them might have been heard to grumble his unwillingness to ever again go to sea under an English captain. The truth was that they had excellent reasons for discontent concerning the sc.r.a.pe into which they had been led, and they were well aware that they had not yet by any means seen the end of it. Almost the best they could hope for was that they were to be sent back to some country of Europe, on some ship or other which had not yet arrived at Vera Cruz, and which might not sail away with them on board for a number of weeks to come.

Any man among them was now almost willing to have had the _Portsmouth_ sink the _Goshhawk_.

Heavy shot may be craned over into boats, and kegs or barrels of gunpowder may be let down tenderly, gently, as well by moonlight and lantern-light as by any other. Therefore, the coming on of night did not interfere with the landing processes. Moreover, any amount of sleep may be performed by a healthy boy in a battered ship lying safely at anchor. So Ned made up, more or less, for the sleep he had lost during the long race of the _Goshhawk_, and it was not early when he came on deck the next morning. When he did so, he found his duties as nominal supercargo cut out for him, and Captain Kemp appeared to be especially anxious that a son of one of the owners should supervise whatever was to be done with the peaceable part of his cargo. He even explained to Ned that he might yet be called upon in some law court to testify to the honest accuracy of all the papers he was now to sign.

"It'll take about two days more," he told him, "and you mustn't go ash.o.r.e till the ship's empty. The American consul hasn't taken his pa.s.sports yet, but he expects to get away soon, somehow or other. Most likely, he'll be taken off by a ship of war. So, perhaps, will other Americans. You might wait and get away then, if you think best, but you can't hope to ever go on this ship."

Ned had an increasingly strong feeling that he did not now care to go on that or any other craft of war or peace. He would much rather go to Oaxaca than to New York, and he felt more sure than ever that his father would not wish him to run any risk of the dreadful yellow fever.

So he worked on industriously, learning a great deal concerning the processes required in getting a cargo out of a ship. During several hours, he was so occupied that he almost forgot the existence of his Mexican friend, but he was dimly aware that a small rowboat had come to the off-sh.o.r.e side of the ship, and had shortly pulled away without any interference on the part of the officials, military or civil. Perhaps she was understood to have come there by order of Colonel Guerra. Toward nightfall, however, that boat came again, as she did before, not running in among the barges, but seeming to avoid them. There were five men in her, and one of them stood up to say to a sailor at the rail:

"I wish to see young Senor Carfora. Is he on board?"

"Hullo!" thought Ned. "That's the Spanish name Senor Zuroaga told me I was to go by." Then he sang out aloud, as he hurried across the deck, "Here I am. What do you want of me?"

"Lean over and talk low," responded the man in the boat, but the one sailor near them did not understand a word of Spanish, and he might suppose, if he wished to do so, that it was something about the cargo.

Ned himself listened eagerly, while the speaker went on: "I am Colonel Ta.s.sara. Senor Zuroaga must not come to the ship again. I will be here to-morrow evening. May I be a.s.sured that you will then be ready to come to my house?"

"Tell him of course you will!" said a voice behind Ned, peremptorily, and it was Captain Kemp who had come over for a few words with Ta.s.sara.

"I'll be ready, colonel," said Ned, when his turn came to speak, and the boat pulled away, leaving him and the captain by themselves.

"It's a good arrangement for you, my boy," said the captain. "Unless I am mistaken, though, there are signs of the worst kind of a northeasterly storm. This is a dangerous anchorage for that sort of thing. I don't think I shall risk having too many men on board when the norther gets here. The cargo will be all out, and the ship's well insured. The American consul doesn't know a thing about the ammunition or the running away from the cruisers. He has enough else on his hands just now."

Ned did not care a great deal about that, but he was more than ever in a hurry to see the end of his supercargo business. The fact was that an air of something like mystery appeared to be gathering around him, and there is a tremendous fascination in anything mysterious. What if he were now getting right in behind the war, after a fashion, and at the same time into the darkest kind of revolution or rebellion against the power of President Paredes, in company with that wonderful adventurer, General Santa Anna, and all the desperate characters of Mexico?

CHAPTER V.

THE WORK OF THE NORTHER

During the rest of that day and the earlier part of the next the weather continued fairly good, and the unloading went steadily on. In the many intervals of his duties, Ned tried hard to drive his mental fever away, and amused himself as best he might. The city itself was worth looking at, with its tiers of streets rising one above another from the sh.o.r.e.

He saw several churches, and some of them were large, with ma.s.sive towers and steeples.

"The Mexicans must have been richer than they are now," he said to himself, "when those things were built. They cost piles of money."

He had no idea how rich a country it is, or how much richer it might be, if its wonderful natural resources were to be made the most of. As for the city, he had heard that Vera Cruz contained about seven or eight thousand people, besides its military garrison, its foreigners, and a continually varying mob of transient visitors from the interior. Zuroaga had told him, moreover, that it was from the latter that any gringo like himself would be in danger of violence. They were a vindictive, bloodthirsty cla.s.s of men, most of them, for they retained undiminished the peculiar characteristics of their Indian ancestors.

"I don't care to run against any of them," thought Ned. "I don't like this _tierra caliente_ country, anyhow. It's too hot to live in."

Then he thought a great deal of the wonderful land of forests and mountains which lay beyond the fever-haunted lowlands, and he longed more and more for a good look at the empire which Hernando Cortes won from the old Montezumas and their b.l.o.o.d.y war-G.o.d, Huitzilopochtli.

In the afternoon of the second day the sky was manifestly putting on a threatening aspect. The wind began to rise and the sea began to roughen.

The men discharging the cargo hastened their work, and it was evident that the last of the lighter barges would soon be setting out for the sh.o.r.e. Ned was staring at them and recalling all the yarns he had heard concerning the destructive power of a gulf "norther," when Captain Kemp came walking slowly toward him, with a face which appeared to express no sort of unusual concern for anything in the world. Nevertheless, he said:

"Get ready now, Ned, as sharp as you can. There comes your boat. I shall send some papers by the colonel. Senor Zuroaga's luggage all went on sh.o.r.e yesterday. I think some other men will have to be looking out for themselves before long. If the _Goshhawk_ should drag her anchors and go ash.o.r.e, I hope there won't be too much sea running for good boats to live in."

"I'm all ready now!" exclaimed Ned, as he sprang away, but he went with a curious question rising in his mind: "What if a cable were more'n half cut through? Wouldn't it be likely to break and let go of an anchor, if it were pulled at too hard by a gale of wind? I don't really know anything about it, but Senor Zuroaga thinks that Captain Kemp is a curious man to deal with. Father thinks that he is a good sailor, too."

All the wardrobe that Ned had on board was easily contained in a waterproof satchel of moderate size, and he was half-glad now that there was no more of it, it went so quickly over into the large yawl that was waiting alongside when he returned on deck. It was a four-oared boat, and Colonel Ta.s.sara, at the stern, beckoned to him without speaking, as if he might have reasons for silence as well as haste.

"In with you, Ned," said Captain Kemp. "I'll try to see you within a day or two. Take good care of yourself. Good day, colonel."

The Mexican officer only bowed, and in a moment more the yawl was fighting her difficult way over the rapidly increasing waves, for the first strength of the norther had really come, and there might soon be a great deal more of it,--for the benefit of the _Goshhawk_.

"There!" muttered Captain Kemp, as he saw them depart, "I haven't more than a good boat's crew left on board. We'll take to the life-boat as soon as the cable parts. There isn't any use in trying to save this bark under all the circ.u.mstances. I've done my duty. I couldn't have calculated on heavy shot first, and then for a whole gang of cruisers watching for me off the coast. This 'ere norther, too! Well, I didn't make the war, and I don't see that I ought to lose any money by it. I won't, either."

Whatever was his exact meaning, the mate and four other men who remained evidently agreed with him, from what they were shortly saying to one another. It might also have been taken note of by a careful observer that the mate was a Scotchman, and that the four others were all from Liverpool. Whoever had put so much contraband of war on board the _Goshhawk_ had not entrusted it entirely to the eccentricities of a lot of out-and-out American sailors, with peculiar notions concerning their flag.

On went Colonel Ta.s.sara's yawl, and it was not likely to meet any other boat that evening. As the rollers increased in size momentarily, Ned began to have doubts as to whether such a boat had any reasonable hope of reaching the sh.o.r.e. It was now pitch-dark also, and he could but feel that his adventures in Mexico were beginning in a remarkably unpleasant manner. The landing could not have been made at any place along the beach, where the surf was breaking so dangerously, and it looked almost as perilous to approach the piers and wharves.

"How on earth are we to do it?" exclaimed Ned, in English, but no answer came from the hard-breathing rowers.

Colonel Ta.s.sara seemed now to be steering a southerly course, instead of directly landward, and Ned calculated that this would carry them past all of the usual landing-places. It also gave them narrow escapes from rolling over and over in the troughs between several high waves. On the whole, therefore, it was a pretty rough boating excursion, but it was not a long one. It did take them almost past the city front, and at last Ned thought he saw a long, black shadow reaching out at the boat. It was better than a shadow, for it was a long wooden pier, old enough to have been built by Cortes himself. The waves were breaking clean over it, but, at the same time, it was breaking them, so that around in the lee of it the water was less boisterous, and the yawl might reach the beach in safety. There was no wharf, but all Ned cared for was that he saw no surf, and he felt better than he had at any moment since leaving the _Goshhawk_. It was the same, for they said so, emphatically, with the boatmen and Colonel Ta.s.sara.