Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte Part 13

Then rose above the plain a mingled yell Of rage and triumph,--a demoniac whoop: The Padre heard it like a pa.s.sing knell, And would have loosened his unchristian loop; But the tough raw-hide held the captive well, And held, alas! too well the captor-dupe; For with one bound the savage fled amain, Dragging horse, Friar, down the lonely plain.

Down the arroyo, out across the mead, By heath and hollow, sped the flying maid, Dragging behind her still the panting steed And helpless Friar, who in vain essayed To cut the la.s.so or to check his speed.

He felt himself beyond all human aid, And trusted to the saints,--and, for that matter, To some weak spot in Felipe's riata.

Alas! the la.s.so had been duly blessed, And, like baptism, held the flying wretch,-- A doctrine that the priest had oft expressed, Which, like the la.s.so, might be made to stretch, But would not break; so neither could divest Themselves of it, but, like some awful fetch, The holy Friar had to recognize The image of his fate in heathen guise.

He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow; He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill; He saw the gopher standing in his burrow; He saw the squirrel scampering at his will:-- He saw all this, and felt no doubt how thorough The contrast was to his condition; still The squaw kept onward to the sea, till night And the cold sea-fog hid them both from sight.

The morning came above the serried coast, Lighting the snow-peaks with its beacon-fires, Driving before it all the fleet-winged host Of chattering birds above the Mission spires, Filling the land with light and joy, but most The savage woods with all their leafy lyres; In pearly tints and opal flame and fire The morning came, but not the holy Friar.

Weeks pa.s.sed away. In vain the Fathers sought Some trace or token that might tell his story; Some thought him dead, or, like Elijah, caught Up to the heavens in a blaze of glory.

In this surmise some miracles were wrought On his account, and souls in purgatory Were thought to profit from his intercession; In brief, his absence made a "deep impression."

A twelvemonth pa.s.sed; the welcome Spring once more Made green the hills beside the white-faced Mission, Spread her bright dais by the western sh.o.r.e, And sat enthroned, a most resplendent vision.

The heathen converts thronged the chapel door At morning ma.s.s, when, says the old tradition, A frightful whoop throughout the church resounded, And to their feet the congregation bounded.

A tramp of hoofs upon the beaten course, Then came a sight that made the bravest quail: A phantom Friar on a spectre horse, Dragged by a creature decked with horns and tail.

By the lone Mission, with the whirlwind's force, They madly swept, and left a sulphurous trail: And that was all,--enough to tell the story, And leave unblessed those souls in purgatory.

And ever after, on that fatal day That Friar Pedro rode abroad la.s.soing, A ghostly couple came and went away With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing, Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey, And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing; For ere ten years had pa.s.sed, the squaw and Friar Performed to empty walls and fallen spire.

The Mission is no more; upon its wall.

The golden lizards slip, or breathless pause, Still as the sunshine brokenly that falls Through crannied roof and spider-webs of gauze; No more the bell its solemn warning calls,-- A holier silence thrills and overawes; And the sharp lights and shadows of to-day Outline the Mission of San Luis Rey.

IN THE MISSION GARDEN

(1865)

FATHER FELIPE

I speak not the English well, but Pachita, She speak for me; is it not so, my Pancha?

Eh, little rogue? Come, salute me the stranger Americano.

Sir, in my country we say, "Where the heart is, There live the speech." Ah! you not understand? So!

Pardon an old man,--what you call "old fogy,"-- Padre Felipe!

Old, Senor, old! just so old as the Mission.

You see that pear-tree? How old you think, Senor?

Fifteen year? Twenty? Ah, Senor, just fifty Gone since I plant him!

You like the wine? It is some at the Mission, Made from the grape of the year eighteen hundred; All the same time when the earthquake he come to San Juan Bautista.

But Pancha is twelve, and she is the rose-tree; And I am the olive, and this is the garden: And "Pancha" we say, but her name is "Francisca,"

Same like her mother.

Eh, you knew HER? No? Ah! it is a story; But I speak not, like Pachita, the English: So! if I try, you will sit here beside me, And shall not laugh, eh?

When the American come to the Mission, Many arrive at the house of Francisca: One,--he was fine man,--he buy the cattle Of Jose Castro.

So! he came much, and Francisca, she saw him: And it was love,--and a very dry season; And the pears bake on the tree,--and the rain come, But not Francisca.

Not for one year; and one night I have walk much Under the olive-tree, when comes Francisca,-- Comes to me here, with her child, this Francisca,-- Under the olive-tree.

Sir, it was sad;... but I speak not the English; So!... she stay here, and she wait for her husband: He come no more, and she sleep on the hillside; There stands Pachita.

Ah! there's the Angelus. Will you not enter?

Or shall you walk in the garden with Pancha?

Go, little rogue--st! attend to the stranger!

Adios, Senor.

PACHITA (briskly).

So, he's been telling that yarn about mother!

Bless you! he tells it to every stranger: Folks about yer say the old man's my father; What's your opinion?

THE LOST GALLEON*

In sixteen hundred and forty-one, The regular yearly galleon, Laden with odorous gums and spice, India cottons and India rice, And the richest silks of far Cathay, Was due at Acapulco Bay.

Due she was, and overdue,-- Galleon, merchandise and crew, Creeping along through rain and shine, Through the tropics, under the line.

The trains were waiting outside the walls, The wives of sailors thronged the town, The traders sat by their empty stalls, And the Viceroy himself came down; The bells in the tower were all a-trip, Te Deums were on each Father's lip, The limes were ripening in the sun For the sick of the coming galleon.

All in vain. Weeks pa.s.sed away, And yet no galleon saw the bay.

India goods advanced in price; The Governor missed his favorite spice; The Senoritas mourned for sandal And the famous cottons of Coromandel; And some for an absent lover lost, And one for a husband,--Dona Julia, Wife of the captain tempest-tossed, In circ.u.mstances so peculiar; Even the Fathers, unawares, Grumbled a little at their prayers; And all along the coast that year Votive candles wore scarce and dear.

Never a tear bedims the eye That time and patience will not dry; Never a lip is curved with pain That can't be kissed into smiles again; And these same truths, as far as I know, Obtained on the coast of Mexico More than two hundred years ago, In sixteen hundred and fifty-one,-- Ten years after the deed was done,-- And folks had forgotten the galleon: The divers plunged in the gulf for pearls, White as the teeth of the Indian girls; The traders sat by their full bazaars; The mules with many a weary load, And oxen dragging their creaking cars, Came and went on the mountain road.

Where was the galleon all this while?

Wrecked on some lonely coral isle, Burnt by the roving sea-marauders, Or sailing north under secret orders?

Had she found the Anian pa.s.sage famed, By lying Maldonado claimed, And sailed through the sixty-fifth degree Direct to the North Atlantic Sea?

Or had she found the "River of Kings,"

Of which De Fonte told such strange things, In sixteen forty? Never a sign, East or west or under the line, They saw of the missing galleon; Never a sail or plank or chip They found of the long-lost treasure-ship, Or enough to build a tale upon.

But when she was lost, and where and how, Are the facts we're coming to just now.

Take, if you please, the chart of that day, Published at Madrid,--por el Rey; Look for a spot in the old South Sea, The hundred and eightieth degree Longitude west of Madrid: there, Under the equatorial glare, Just where the east and west are one, You'll find the missing galleon,-- You'll find the San Gregorio, yet Riding the seas, with sails all set, Fresh as upon the very day She sailed from Acapulco Bay.

How did she get there? What strange spell Kept her two hundred years so well, Free from decay and mortal taint?

What but the prayers of a patron saint!

A hundred leagues from Manilla town, The San Gregorio's helm came down; Round she went on her heel, and not A cable's length from a galliot That rocked on the waters just abreast Of the galleon's course, which was west-sou'-west.

Then said the galleon's commandante, General Pedro Sobriente (That was his rank on land and main, A regular custom of Old Spain), "My pilot is dead of scurvy: may I ask the longitude, time, and day?"