Tales from Blackwood Volume V Part 8

This was soon done, and the negro despatched on his errand. The judge waited till he heard the sound of the horse's feet galloping away, and then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars, lit the first which came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also one that I took. They were Principes, and as good as I ever tasted.

I pa.s.sed the whole of that day alone with the judge, who, I soon found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the circ.u.mstances under which I had come to Texas, and the intention I had of settling there, should I find the country to my liking. During our long conversation, I was able to form a very different, and much more favourable, estimate of his character, than I had done from his interview with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great energy, sound judgment, enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. They looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted, idle, and ignorant Mexicans, whilst the difference of religion, and interference of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the Spanish and Anglo-American races.

Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it was discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. "It is the interest of every man to keep it secret," said the judge; "and there can be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause, by the success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in Texas, the offscourings of the United States--men like Bob, or far worse than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken villains though they be, they are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time arrives, they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their fellow-citizens, and of the new and independent republic of Texas. At this moment we must wink at many things which would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each man's arm is of immense value to the State; for on the day of battle we shall have, not two to one, but twenty to one opposed to us."

I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet; and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang.

The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken off the rack.

Hastily putting on my clothes, I hurried down stairs and opened the house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck, and his hands crossed, shivering and groaning. When I spoke to him, he looked up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post, and taking his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a child, apparently without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him a chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him, and shook the house. I could not get him to speak, and was about to return to my room to complete my toilet, when I again heard the tramp of mustangs.

This was a party of half-a-dozen hors.e.m.e.n, all dressed in hunting-shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets, and armed with rifles and bowie-knives; stout, daring-looking fellows, evidently from the south-western states, with the true Kentucky half-horse half-alligator profile, and the usual allowance of thunder, lighting, and earthquake.

It struck me, when I saw them, that two or three thousand such men would have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the latter were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in each hand.

They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes in the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into the house with the air of people who make themselves at home everywhere, and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a "good morning" to me, rather coldly to be sure, for they had seen me talking with Bob, which probably did not much recommend me. Presently, four more hors.e.m.e.n rode up, and then a third party, so that there were now fourteen of them a.s.sembled, all decided-looking men, in the prime of life and strength.

The judge, who slept in an adjoining room, had been awakened by the noise. I heard him jump out of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before he entered the parlour.

After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me to them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the others _buenos hombres_, or freeholders. They did not seem, however, to prize their t.i.tles much, for they addressed one another by their surnames only.

The negro brought a light, opened the cigar-box, and arranged the chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard and to the cigars, and then sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.

Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as if they were collecting their thoughts, or as though it were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of deliberation, which is met with among certain cla.s.ses, and in certain provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at his council fire, and of the stern religious gravity of the early Puritan settlers in America.

During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his face concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when all had drunk and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.

"Men!" said he.

"Squire!" answered they.

"We've a business before us, which I calculate will be best explained by him whom it concerns."

The men looked at the Squire, then at Bob, then at me.

"Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to say, say it!" continued the judge.

"Said it all yesterday," muttered Bob, his face still covered by his hands.

"Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither judge you, nor allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday. Besides, it was all between ourselves, for I don't reckon Mr Morse as anything; I count him still as a stranger."

"What's the use of so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said Bob peevishly, raising his head as he spoke.

The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to behold: his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow; his beard wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and deep sunk in their sockets. His appearance was scarcely human. "I tell you again," said the judge, "I will condemn no man upon his own word alone; much less you, who have been in my service, and eaten of my bread. You accused yourself yesterday, but you were delirious at the time--you had the fever upon you."

"It's no use, Squire," said Bob, apparently touched by the kindness of the judge. "You mean well, I see; but though you might deliver me out of men's hands, you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies buried."

The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another, but said nothing.

"It's no use," again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonising tone. "If he had attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child. What you intend brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle down--levelled--fired--"

The man's agony was so intense that even the iron-featured jury seemed moved by it. They cast sharp but stolen glances at Bob. There was a short silence.

"So you have killed a man?" said a deep ba.s.s voice at last.

"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.

"And how came that?" continued his questioner.

"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me his belt full of money."

"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.

"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my twenty dollars fifty----"

"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting game."

The men nodded.

"And then, because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same deep-toned voice as before.

"No--some hours after--by the Jacinto--near the Patriarch--met him down there, and killed him."

"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"

Mr Heart nodded.

"Met him by the river, and wanted halves of his money," continued Bob mechanically. "He said he'd give me something to buy a quid, and more than enough for that, but not halves. 'I've wife and child,' said he----"

"And you?" asked the juror with the deep voice, which, this time, had a hollow sound in it.

"Shot him down," said Bob, with a wild, hoa.r.s.e laugh.

There was a dead pause of some duration. The jury sat with eyes fixed upon the ground.

"And who was the man?" said a juror at last.

"Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a mudhead, is more than I can say."

"The thing must be investigated, Alcalde," said another of the jury, after a second pause.

"It must so," answered the Alcalde.

"What's the good of so much investigation?" grumbled Bob.

"What good?" repeated the Alcalde. "Because we owe it to ourselves, to the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you without having held an inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your attention to," continued he, turning to the jury; "the man is half out of his mind--not _compos mentis_, as they say. He's got the fever, and had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved that gentleman's life yonder, Mr Edward Nathaniel Morse."

"Did he so?" said one of the jury.

"That did he," replied I, "not only by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me, half-dead and helpless, into the river, but also by the care and attention he forced Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be alive at this moment."

Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.