Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 21

So, shaking off my forebodings, the eighteen days of our voyage over green Neptune's back were ideal, and we became objects of envy to all the pa.s.sengers.

Our ship was the Martinique, with French officers and crew, and a fine, manly lot of men they were. The pa.s.sengers were mostly colonial people returning home to the French colonies in the West Indies. They were nice, refined people, but we were rather reserved and kept to ourselves.

One of the pa.s.sengers had a dozen Spanish fighting c.o.c.ks, and they afforded us much amus.e.m.e.nt. There were frequent mains on the after deck and sometimes on the dinner table. These were very popular, particularly with the ladies, who were continually asking to have the c.o.c.ks brought on after dessert. A s.p.a.ce would be made in the centre of the table and two c.o.c.ks placed on it. How they loved fighting! They certainly enjoyed it far better than the spectators. There were four long tables, all crowded, but when the main was started the other tables were deserted and the pa.s.sengers packed around ours.

Our opposite neighbors were two Sisters of Charity who were on their way to the City of Mexico to fill a gap that death had made in the ranks of their order there. They were simple, sainted souls and had never known any life other than the religious, and never emerged from the cloister save only to do deeds of mercy in the country town outside. They had been selected by lot to go to Mexico. We were favored to become fast friends of theirs, and I was glad to have them accept such attentions as we could give. It was delightful to meet such simple, unsophisticated people under circ.u.mstances when, they being travelers, the rules of the Church permitted them to throw off their reserve, to a.s.sociate with strangers and to live--so far as food and drink were concerned--like the people they were a.s.sociated with for the time.

My wife and I grew to like them well, and I was never tired of getting their views of men and things. Truly their lives were a thing apart from the world and the ways of men. They told me with a kind of rapture that the average life of one of their order in Mexico was only five years, and they thought heaven had been very gracious in selecting them, that they might give their lives to the Church and so become members of the mighty army of martyrs who were honored in heaven by looking upon the face of the Virgin and her Son and serving them.

They knew nothing of wines and did not suspect the costliness of those which during the entire voyage they drank at my expense.

The dinners were rather formal affairs and occupied an hour and a half, and between the good sisters and us two we always finished a bottle of claret and two of champagne, and about a like quant.i.ty between dinner and bedtime. I don't believe that up to the hour they left the world they ever quite understood why they were so happy and merry on that voyage.

We used to visit the steerage forward nearly every day. There was an unmistakable lady so unfortunate as to be a pa.s.senger there. She appreciated our visits, and eventually confided the story of her life to my wife, and what a story it was of woman's love and man's perfidy!

I had an electric battery which I frequently took into the steerage to astonish the natives. When I first put a silver piece in a basin of water and told them the man taking it out could keep it, what a rush there was! There was one would-be clever clown who was perfectly willing to test the power of the battery, but was so clever he never would take hold of both handles at once. He dodged around for two or three days greatly pleased with his sharpness, but I determined to have him some day and have him hard when I got him. So one morning when dancing about as usual he happened to be barefooted. Apparently by accident, I upset the basin of water over the deck, making it a good conductor, then accepting his offer to try the machine by holding one handle, I dropped the other on the wet deck and gave him the benefit of the whole power of the battery. He let one terrific yell, then stood rooted to the deck speechless for a moment; then gave vent to a series of whoops that would have made the fortune of a Comanche Indian. When freed from the current the clever fellow made a break for the steerage and never appeared again at any of my electric seances. All those ignorants insisted that my battery was surely el diablo.

After eighteen days we cast anchor in St. Thomas harbor, and pleasant as our voyage had been we were glad to see land. We were to stop a day for coaling.

Taking the two sisters, we went ash.o.r.e in one of the many boats surrounding the ship, all manned by scantily robed black fellows. The town, with its hordes of gaudily dressed and noisy blacks, was most interesting. I had hired the boat for the day, so the three black fellows accompanied us around the town. Each wore a stovepipe hat. The remainder of their furniture consisted of cotton shirt and trousers. The men were barefooted, of course.

My wife was the typical blue-eyed, golden-haired Englishwoman, and was the observed of all observers in that black mob. I myself was all in white, from canvas shoes to white umbrella. So, between the two sisters in their black robes and white bonnets and our attending boatmen, along with a mob of half-naked black boys that followed, we formed quite a circus and created a commotion in the town.

First I took the sisters to the cathedral. Both were grateful and knelt at the altar for a full half hour while we waited. Then after visiting several stores to make some small purchases, we went to a circus showing there that week. I bought ten tickets for my party. Everything they saw in the town was marvelous and strange to them. When we entered the circus tent the sisters were perplexed and thought it must be a new sort of church. But words would fail to express their amazement when they saw the clown and bespangled horseman enter the ring and the performance begin. They were in a new and hitherto undreamed-of world, and gazed in childlike wonderment on the scene, and, like children, only saw the glitter of the spangles and thought both men and women performers were angels of beauty. Even after the thing was over the magic and witchery of it all rested on them. Their hearts were deeply stirred and their thoughts were with the performers. To please them we sat until the audience had dispersed, and, when going out, one of them, speaking of the performers, told my wife they must be "very near to G.o.d."

Then we went to the hotel. I dispersed my cortege and ordered a room for ourselves and one for the sisters, and we all took a nap until evening.

Then we had some negro singing and dancing for our amus.e.m.e.nt in the courtyard of the hotel, and at 9 o'clock we went out for a moonlight walk under the tropical sky. About 10 we found we had had enough of it and were glad to betake ourselves to bed.

We all breakfasted together in the courtyard the next morning and soon after went aboard. At noon up came the anchor and we were off for Havana, our next stopping place, twenty-four hours' sail away. The steamer after one day's detention to take in cargo would continue her voyage to Vera Cruz. It was my intention to go on to that port, and from there across the country to the capital, the City of Mexico. There was no cable to Mexico in 1873, and things there were in rather a primitive condition. Of course, I never antic.i.p.ated pursuit beyond New York, and took it for granted that my friends at Police Headquarters would squelch it there. But once in Mexico there would have been no danger for me. To be in Mexico was like being in the centre of darkest Africa. There was no extradition treaty, no railroads and no telegraph; above all, I had plenty of cash.

I intended to buy an estate near the capital, and settle down for two or three years, and by a liberal expenditure of money secure the friendship of the government officials and the chief people of the country. Official and social morals being not of the best, if my history transpired I would probably become the lion of society, as they would all esteem it a creditable thing to any man to secure a few millions from the English, whose enormous wealth is the plunder of India and all the world for centuries.

The next morning I found we were sailing along the Cuban coast, quite near the land, which looked so inviting that I made up my mind to go ash.o.r.e and stay a month in Havana, so I had my baggage got on deck. Soon after dinner the engines were stopped for some hours for repacking, the captain informing me that it was doubtful whether we should arrive in Havana in time to go ash.o.r.e that night. At 6 o'clock the sunset gun is fired, the custom house closes and no more debarkations are allowed that day. If I went ash.o.r.e the next day I must be up and off at an early hour, as the ship sailed at 7.30, so I told the captain if he arrived before 6 o'clock I would go ash.o.r.e and wait for the next steamer, but if we were late I would go on to Vera Cruz with him.

Once having made up my mind to go ash.o.r.e, I was all eagerness to push matters. To do so I even asked the captain to tell the engineer to force the engines a little if possible. It was well on to 6 o'clock when we steamed past Moro Castle and dropped anchor in the harbor. I engaged two of the boats alongside, our baggage was hurried into them, my wife went down the ladder, and speaking some hurried farewells I ran down after her and sprang lightly into the boat. That instant the sunset gun was fired. Two minutes later and the custom house officers on board would have forbidden my leaving the steamer. I say two minutes, but it was less than half a minute. Half a minute! Thirty seconds changed my destiny.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"HAPPINESS AND I SHAKE HANDS FOR A TIME."

Cuba! What a productive and fertile island it is, with its charming climate and lovely scenery! But, as in so many of the green spots of this world, man has blasted and spoiled all that indulgent nature has lavished here. From the days of Columbus the story of Cuba has been one of wholesale murder of natives, of revolutions--later of insurrections, and deadly civil strife, which have ruined whole provinces once covered with large sugar, coffee and tobacco plantations.

Slavery now, as in all her past Christian history, is everywhere.

Previous to 1861 40,000 slaves were yearly imported in slave ships into the harbor of Havana.

Perhaps all men are cruel when they are absolute masters of the lives and fortunes of their fellows and amenable to none for their acts.

Certainly the white Cubans, as a rule, are cruel masters in all their dealings with their slaves.

Probably to-day, certainly in 1873, most of the large plantations witnessed scenes of cruelty never surpa.s.sed in the long annals of human servitude.

During my stay I was invited to visit many plantations, but visits to two were enough for me, there being too many signs on the surface of the brutality that lay beneath. I could easily give cases that I saw or heard of, but refrain from doing so here.

One day's stay in Cuba convinced us we could spend a month very happily on the island, and, discovering that Don Fernando, the proprietor of the hotel, had a furnished house in a lovely situation to let, we resolved to remain, renting the house for a month at a fixed rate per day. This rate included the ten servants--slaves--in the house, he to furnish good horses and everything except wine. The service proved good, and the cooking exquisite. This was rather expensive, but certainly a handy kind of housekeeping, taking all worry and household cares from my wife's shoulders.

There were a large number of American visitors on the island, lovers of and seekers after sunshine and warmth, which they found in abundance while swinging in hammocks under the palm or cocoanut trees, or in strolling along the white strand, with its innumerable sunny coves, while the Winter storms and blizzards were raging in the Northern States. Here we formed many pleasant acquaintances, and, throwing off much of the reserve maintained during the voyage, we mingled freely in the nice but gossipy society which winters there.

Our house was on a lovely slope in full view of the Gulf of Mexico, and in the midst of what was more like a tropical plantation than a garden.

I made the acquaintance of Gen. Torbert, our Consul, and was introduced by him to the Spanish officials, including the colonel of police. I a.s.siduously cultivated the acquaintance of the latter, and frequently had him out to the house to dinner and lunch, and felt pretty confident that if any telegrams came about me he would certainly bring them to me at once for an explanation. Even if my presence became known, and telegraphic orders for my arrest should arrive, no speedy action would be taken and ample time given me to escape. In all the a.s.semblies, picnics and b.a.l.l.s I was gratified to find my wife very much sought after and admired. It was well she had a few happy days; enough misery lay not far ahead.

In the mean time I had no word from my friends in London. In fact, they did not know where I was. When I bade them good-bye at Calais they told me not to inform them of my destination until I had got there, and then to do so through some relative.

Every day I watched the New York papers to see if there had been any explosion in London, but the silence of the press told me my friends were having an amazing success, and we might expect two or three months more to elapse before there would be any discovery.

We had been some weeks in Havana.

It was well into the month of February when one day, being in my hammock on the veranda, with my wife sitting near me, my servant rode up with the papers, and, handing me the New York Herald, I leisurely opened it, while chatting with my wife, but could not suppress an exclamation when my eyes fell upon an a.s.sociated Press dispatch from London, in staring headlines. They read:

AMAZING FRAUD UPON THE BANK OF ENGLAND!

MILLIONS LOST!

GREAT EXCITEMENT IN LONDON!

5,000 REWARD FOR THE ARREST OF THE AMERICAN PERPETRATOR, F. A. WARREN.

"London, Feb. 14, 1873.

"An amazing fraud has been perpetrated upon the Bank of England by a young American who gave the name of Frederick Albert Warren. The loss of the bank is reported to be from three to ten millions, and it is rumored that many London banks have been victimized to enormous amounts. The greatest excitement prevails in the city, and the forgery, for such it is, is the one topic of conversation on the Exchange and in the street. The police are completely at fault, although a young man named Noyes, who was Warren's clerk, has been arrested, but it is believed that he is a dupe.

"The bank has offered a reward of 5,000 for information leading to the arrest of Warren or any confederate."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I FIRED POINT BLANK, AND DOWN HE WENT AS IF FELLED BY LIGHTNING."--Page 334.]

I took a long walk on the beach to think over the situation. I was alarmed over the arrest of Noyes, which I knew ought not to have occurred if the proper precautions had been taken, but I concluded that at the worst his arrest only meant for him a brief incarceration.

I knew that no human power and no fear could ever make him betray us.

Two things never entered my calculations at all; that is, that my right name would ever transpire, or that George and Mac would ever, by any possibility, be brought into question for the fraud.

So I came back from my walk with my plans outlined. It was to remain quietly where we were for a fortnight longer, then take the steamer to Vera Cruz, go to the City of Mexico and there buy an estate, as I had originally proposed. Then, after a few months, leave my wife there and travel incog. through Northern Mexico and Texas, meet Mac and George and afterward return to Mexico.