Ahead of the Army Part 6

"One of the men will take your bag," said the colonel to Ned, as soon as they were out on sh.o.r.e. "We will go right along to my house, and we shall hardly meet anybody just now. I'm glad of that. Santa Maria, how dark it is getting! This will be the worst kind of norther."

A couple of lanterns had been taken from the boat. They had previously been lighted by the colonel with much difficulty, and without them it would have been impossible to follow the stony, gra.s.sy pathway by which Ned Crawford made his first invasion of the Mexican territory. He did not now feel like annexing any of it, although Mexican patriots a.s.serted that their t.i.tle to Vera Cruz or the city of Mexico itself was no better than their right to Texas. His gloomy march was a short one, and only a few shadowy, unrecognized human beings pa.s.sed him on the way.

The party came to a halt before a one-story stone dwelling, with a long piazza in front of it, close to the weedy sidewalk of a crooked and straggling street. It was apparent that this was not in the aristocratic quarter of the city, if it had one. A door in the middle of the house swung open as they arrived, and the boatman who carried Ned's bag put it down on the threshold. The lanterns went away with him and his fellow rowers, but other lights made their appearance quickly,--after the door had closed behind Ned and Colonel Ta.s.sara. Not one of the boat's crew had obtained a peep into the house, or had seen any of its occupants.

Ned was now aware that he had entered a broad hall-like pa.s.sageway, which appeared to run through the house, and to have several doors on each side. One of these doors had opened to let the new light in, and through it also came Senor Zuroaga, two other men, and a young girl, who at once threw her arms around the neck of Colonel Ta.s.sara.

"O father!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad! Mother and I were so frightened! We were afraid you would be drowned."

"My dear little daughter," he responded, sadly, "I fear there will be more than one lot of poor fellows drowned to-night. This storm is fearful!"

It seemed, in fact, to be getting worse every minute, and Ned was thinking of the _Goshhawk_ and the state of her cable, even while he was being introduced to the pretty Senorita Felicia Ta.s.sara, and then to her mother, a stately woman, who came to meet her husband without condescending to say how badly she had been alarmed on his account.

"She's just about the proudest-looking woman I ever saw," thought Ned, for, although she welcomed him politely, she at once made him aware that she did not consider him of any importance whatever. He was only a young gringo, from n.o.body knew where, and she was a Mexican lady of high rank, who hated Americans of all sorts.

Ned's only really hearty greeting came from Senor Zuroaga, who seemed to him, under the circ.u.mstances, like an old friend.

"Carfora, my dear fellow," he said, "you and the colonel must come in to your supper----"

"Why, senor," expostulated Ned, "I'm wet through, and so is he."

"I declare!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "What's in my head that I should overlook that? You must change your rig. Come this way with me."

Ned followed him, bag in hand, through a narrow pa.s.sage which opened at the right, and they went on almost to the end of it. The room which they then entered was only seven feet wide, but it was three times as long, and it was oddly furnished. Instead of a bedstead, a handsome hammock, with blankets, sheets, and a pillow in it, hung at one side, and the high window was provided with mosquito nettings. There was no carpet on the floor, but this was clean, and a good enough dressing-bureau stood at the further end of the room. Before the mirror of this, the senor set down the lamp he had been carrying, and said to Ned:

"My dear Carfora, I have explained to the haughty senora that you are the son of an American merchant, and of a good family, so that she will not really treat you like a common person. She is descended from the oldest families of Spain, and there is no republicanism in her. The sooner you are ready, the better. I will be back in five minutes."

Open came the bag, but the best Ned could do in the way of style was a very neat blue suit. What he would have called the swallow-tails, which Senora Ta.s.sara might have expected as the dinner dress of a more important guest, could hardly be required of a young fellow just escaped from a norther. As soon as he felt that he had done his best, he turned toward the door, but it opened to let in Senor Zuroaga in full regulation dinner costume. How he could have put it on so quickly puzzled Ned, but he asked no questions. It was quite possible, however, that even the descendant of Cortes and the Montezumas was a little bit in awe of the matronly descendant of the ancient Spanish grandees. She might be a powerful personage in more ways than one. At all events, Ned was led out to the central hall and across it, to where an uncommonly wide door stood open, letting out a flood of illumination.

"Walk in, senors," said Colonel Ta.s.sara, from just inside this portal, and the next moment Ned was altogether astonished.

He had been impressed, on reaching this house, that it was an old and even dingy affair, of no considerable size, but he did not yet know that the older Spanish mansions were often built with only one story and around a central courtyard. Moreover, at least in Mexico, they were apt to show few windows in front, and to be well calculated for use as a kind of small forts, if revolutionary or similar occasions should ask for thick walls, with embrasures for musketry. One glance around Senora Ta.s.sara's dining-room was enough to work a revolution in Ned's ideas relating to that establishment. It was large, high-ceilinged, and its carpetless floor was of polished mahogany. The walls and ceiling were of brilliant white stucco. Upon the former were hung several trophies of weapons and antlers of deer. In the centre, at the right, in a kind of ornamental shrine, was an ivory and ebony crucifix, which was itself a priceless work of art. The long dining-table had no cloth to conceal the fact that it was of the richest mahogany, dark with age and polished like a mirror. On the table was an abundance of fine china ware, none of it of modern manufacture, but all the more valuable for that reason. At the end nearest Ned stood a ma.s.sive silver coffee-urn, beautifully molded, and it was not wonderful that he stood still a moment to stare at it, for it had taken him altogether by surprise.

Almost instantly a change came over the dark, handsome features of Senora Ta.s.sara. She smiled brightly, for Ned's undisguised admiration of that ma.s.s of silver had touched her upon a tender spot, and she now spoke to him with at least four times as much cordiality as she had shown him in the hall.

"Ah, my young friend," she said, turning gracefully toward him, "so you are pleased with my coffee-urn? No table in your city of New York can show anything like it. It is of the oldest Seville workmanship, and there are not many such remaining in all the world. It is an heirloom."

"Senor Carfora," at that moment interrupted Colonel Ta.s.sara, "I will show you something else that is worth more than any kind of silver ware. Take a good look at this!"

He stepped to a trophy of arms which hung upon the wall near him, and took from it a long, heavy sword, with a worn-looking but deeply chased gold hilt. He drew it from the sheath, gazing with evident pride at its curving blade of dull blue steel.

"I think you have never before seen a sword like that," he said. "It may have been made at Toledo, for all I know, but it is centuries old. It was won from a Moor by an ancestor of mine, at the taking of Granada, when the Moorish power was broken forever by the heroes of Spain. Who can tell? It may have come down from the days of the Cid Campeador himself."

Whoever that military gentleman may have been, Ned had no idea, but he determined to find out some day, and just now he was glad to grasp the golden hilt, and remember all that he had ever heard about the Moors. He had not at all expected to hear of them again, just after escaping from a norther in the Gulf of Mexico, but, without being aware of it, he was learning a great deal about the old Spanish-Mexican aristocracy, and why it could not easily become truly republican, even in the New World, which is beginning to grow old on its own account.

Dinner was now ready, and Ned voted it a prime good one, for it consisted mainly of chicken, with capital corn-cakes and coffee. It was a tremendous improvement upon the dinners he had been eating at sea, cooked in the peculiar style of the caboose of the _Goshhawk_.

One large idea was becoming firmly fixed in the acute mind of the young adventurer, and it tended to make him both watchful and silent. Not only was he in a country which was at war with his own, but he was in a land where men were apt to be more or less suspicious of each other. It was also quite the correct thing in good manners for him to say but little, and he was the better able to hear what the others were saying.

Therefore, he could hardly help taking note that none of the party at the dinner-table said anything about the powder on the _Goshhawk_, or concerning a possible trip to be made to Oaxaca by any one there. They all appeared ready, on the other hand, to praise the patriotism, statesmanship, and military genius of that truly great man, President Paredes. They made no mention whatever of General Santa Anna, but they spoke confidently of the certainty with which Generals Ampudia and Arista were about to crush the invading gringos at the north, under Taylor. They also were sure that these first victories were to be followed by greater ones, which would be gained by the President himself, as soon as he should be able to take command of the Mexican armies in person. If any friend of his, a servant, for instance, of the Ta.s.sara family, had been listening, he would have had nothing to report which would have made any other man suppose that the rulers of Mexico had bitter, revengeful foes under that hospitable roof.

The dinner ended, and Ned was once more in his room, glad enough to get into his hammock and go to sleep. If the norther did any howling around that house, he did not hear it, but he may have missed the swing motion which a hammock obtains on board a ship at sea. His eyes closed just as he was thinking:

"This is great, but I wonder what on earth is going to happen to me to-morrow."

CHAPTER VI.

FORWARD, MARCH

The sun of the next morning arose upon a great deal of doubt and uncertainty in many places. Some of the soldiers of General Taylor's army were altogether uncertain into what bushes of the neighboring chaparral the norther had blown their tents, and they went out in search of their missing cotton duck shelters. The entire force encamped at the Rio Grande border was in the dark as to what it might next be ordered to do, and all sorts of rumors went around from regiment to regiment, as if the rumor manufacturer had gone crazy. General Taylor himself was sure of at least the one point, that he had no right to cross the muddy river in front of him and make a raid into Mexico until he should hear again from the government at Washington, and be officially informed that the war, which he was carrying on so well, had really begun. He and all his army believed that it was already going on, and they grumbled discontentedly that they were compelled to remain in camp, and watch for ranchero lancers on Texan soil, if it was legally Texan at all, until permission arrived to strike their tents and march forward.

The news of the fighting and of what were described as the great battles on the Mexican border had reached New Orleans and Key West. It was travelling northward at full speed, but it had not yet been heard by the government or by the people of the North and West. None of these had as yet so much as imagined what a telegraphic news-bringer might be, and so they could not even wish that they had one, or they would surely have done so. The uncertainties of that morning, therefore, hampered all the councils of the nation. Almost everybody believed that there would soon be a war, although a great many men were strongly opposed to the idea of having one. Taking the war for granted, however, there were doubts and differences of opinion among both military and unmilitary men as to how it was to be carried on. Some were opposed to anything more than a defence of the Rio Grande boundary-line, but these moderate persons were hooted at by the out-and-out war party, whom nothing promised to satisfy but an invasion which intended the capture of the city of Mexico. Nothing less than this, they said, would obtain the objects of the war, and secure a permanent peace at the end of it. Then, supposing such an invasion to be decided on, an important question arose as to how and where the Mexican territory might best be entered by a conquering army. Many declared that General Taylor's forces were already at the right place for pushing ahead, but the commander-in-chief, General Winfield Scott, by all odds the best general the country possessed, responded that the march proposed for Taylor was too long, too difficult, and that it was likely to result in disaster. The shorter and only practicable route, he a.s.serted, was by way of the sea and Vera Cruz. He was also known to be politically opposed to any war whatever.

Thereupon, a number of prominent men, who disagreed with him, set themselves at work to have him removed or put aside, that a commander might take his place who was not so absurdly under the influence of military science, common sense, and of the troubles which might be encountered in marching seven hundred miles or more through an enemy's country. There were, it was said, eloquent politicians, who did not know how to drill an "awkward squad," but who felt sure of their ability to beat Old Scott in such an agreeable affair as a military picnic party to the city of Mexico.

The young military scholars in the camp near Fort Brown were ignorant of all this. They were satisfied with their present commander, as well they might be, for he was a good one. They were satisfied with themselves, and were enthusiastically ready to fight anything which should be put in front of them. They were dreadfully dissatisfied with camp life, however, and especially with the fact that they and all the other raw troops of that army were forced to undergo a great deal of drill and discipline in hot weather. Perhaps, if this had not been given them, they would hardly have rendered so good an account of themselves in the severe tests of soldiership which they underwent a few months later.

The first doubt that came to Ned Crawford that morning, as his eyes opened and he began to get about half-awake, related to his hammock and to how on earth he happened to be in it. Swift memories followed then of the norther, the perilous pull ash.o.r.e, the arrival at the Ta.s.sara place, and the people he had met there. He recalled also something about silver coffee-urns and Moorish warriors, but the next thing, he was out upon the floor, and his head seemed to buzz like a beehive with inquiries concerning his immediate future.

"Here I am," he said aloud. "I'm in Mexico; in Vera Cruz; at this house with Senor Zuroaga; and I don't know yet what's become of the _Goshhawk_.

I don't really ever expect to see her again, but I hope that Captain Kemp and the sailors didn't get themselves drowned. I must see about that, first thing. Then I suppose I must see the American consul, write another letter home, see the merchants our goods were delivered to,--and what I'm to do after that I don't know."

There was a loud rap at his door just then, and in a moment more he was almost repeating that speech to Senor Zuroaga.

"Please say very little to Colonel Ta.s.sara or anybody else in this house," replied the senor, emphatically. "Get used, as soon as you can, to being called Carfora. We must make you look like a young Mexican right away. I've bought a rig which will fit you. It is well that you are so dark-complexioned. A red-haired fellow would never pa.s.s as you will. All the American residents of Vera Cruz are already under military protection, and I am glad there are so few of them, for there are said to have been two or three a.s.sa.s.sinations. Part of the mountain men who are loafing in town just now are wild Indians, as reckless and cruel as any of your Sioux warriors on a war-path. Come along to breakfast. You won't meet the ladies this time, but I believe the senora and senorita like you a little, because you had the good taste to admire their silver and china."

"Oh, that old coffee-urn!" said Ned. "Well, it's as fine as anything I ever saw, even in a jewelry window."

"Yes," laughed the senor, "but the senora wants to have the American consul killed because he told her she had better have that thing melted and made over into one of the modern patterns. She will never forgive him. Tell her again, when you have a chance, that the old-time Seville silversmiths could beat anything we have nowadays, and she will love you. I do not really believe myself that we are getting much ahead of those ancient artists. They were wonderful designers."

Ned was willing to believe that they were, and he made up his mind to praise Senora Ta.s.sara's pet urn to the best of his ability.

He was not to have an opportunity for doing so immediately. Their breakfast was ready for them in the dining-room, but they were allowed to eat it by themselves. It seemed to Ned a very good one, but several times he found himself turning away from it to stare at the silver marvel and at the weapons on the walls. There was no apparent reason for haste, but neither of them cared to linger, and before long they were out on the piazza in front, Zuroaga with his hat pulled down to his eyes and his coat collar up. Ned was at once confirmed in his previous idea that the house was anything but new, and to that he added the conviction that it was much larger than it had appeared to be in the night. He believed, too, that it must have cost a deal of money to build it long ago. He had only a moment for that calculation, however, for his next glance went out toward the gulf, and he came near to being astonished.

The path which he had followed in coming up from the sh.o.r.e had been a steep one, and he was now standing at a place from which he had a pretty good view of the tossing water between the mainland and the castle of San Juan de Ulua. The old fortress was there, unharmed by the norther, but not in any direction, as far as his eyes could reach, was there any sign of a ship, at anchor or otherwise.

"Senor!" he exclaimed. "What has become of them? They are all gone! Do you suppose they have been wrecked?"

"Not all of them, by any means," replied the senor, but he also was searching the sea with a serious face. "As many as could lift their anchors in time to make a good offing before the norther came were sure to do so. If there were any that did not succeed, I can't say where they may have gone to just now."

"The _Goshhawk_--" began Ned, but the senor gripped his arm hard, while he raised his right hand and pointed up the road.

"Silence!" he commanded, in a sharp whisper. "Look! there he comes.

Don't even call him by his name. Wait and hear what he has to say. He can tell us what has become of the bark. They are a used-up lot of men."

So they were, the five who now came walking slowly along from somewhere or other on the coast upon which the disastrous storm had blown.

"Captain Kemp and the crew of his life-boat," thought Ned, but he obeyed the senor at first, and was silent until the haggard-looking party arrived and came to a halt in front of him. Then, however, he lost his prudence for a moment, and anxiously inquired: