The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 21

Ruiz shrugged his shoulders, and cast a glance at his friend Martinez, lowered his voice and lifted his eyelashes at the same moment, and, jerking his yellow, tobacco-stained thumb over his arm, said,--

"Ah--of a verity--on the beach--two leagues away."

"Do you hear that?" said Winslow, turning complacently to Brace and rising to his feet. "Don't you see now what hogwash the Commander, Alcalde, and the priest have been cramming down our throats about this place being sealed up for fifty years. What he says is all Gospel truth.

That's what I wanted you fellows to hear, and you might have heard before, only you were afraid of compromising yourselves by talking with the people. You get it into your heads--and the Comandante helped you to get it there--that Todos Santos was a sort of Sleepy Hollow, and that no one knew anything of the political changes for the last fifty years.

Well, what's the fact? Ask Ruiz there, and Martinez, and they'll both tell you they know that Mexico got her independence in 1826, and that the Council keep it dark that they may perpetuate themselves. They know," he continued, lowering his voice, "that the Commander's commission from the old Viceroy isn't worth the paper it is stamped upon."

"But what about the Church?" asked Brace hesitatingly, remembering Banks' theory.

"The Church--caramba! the priests were ever with the Escossas, the aristocrats, and against the Yorkenos, the men of the Republic--the people," interrupted Martinez vehemently; "they will not accept, they will not proclaim the Republic to the people. They shut their eyes, so--. They fold their hands, so--. They say, 'Sicut era principio et nunc et semper in secula seculorum!' Look you, Senor, I am not of the Church--no, caramba! I snap my fingers at the priests. Ah! what they give one is food for the bull's horns, believe me--I have read 'Tompano,' the American 'Tompano.'"

"Who's he?" asked Brace.

"He means Tom Paine! 'The Age of Reason'--you know," said Winslow, gazing with a mixture of delight and patronizing pride at the Radicals of Todos Santos. "Oh! he's no fool--is Martinez, nor Ruiz either! And while you've been flirting with Dona Isabel, and Banks has been trying to log-roll the Padre, and Crosby going in for siestas, I'VE found them out. And there are a few more--aren't there, Ruiz?"

Ruiz darted a mysterious glance at Brace, and apparently not trusting himself to speak, checked off his ten fingers dramatically in the air thrice.

"As many of a surety! G.o.d and liberty!"

"But, if this is so, why haven't they DONE something?"

Senor Martinez glanced at Senor Ruiz.

"Hasta manana!" he said slowly.

"Oh, this is a case of 'Hasta manana!'" said Brace, somewhat relieved.

"They can wait," returned Winslow hurriedly. "It's too big a thing to rush into without looking round. You know what it means? Either Todos Santos is in rebellion against the present Government of Mexico, or she is independent of any. Her present Government, in any event, don't represent either the Republic of Mexico or the people of Todos Santos--don't you see? And in that case WE'VE got as good a right here as any one."

"He speaks the truth," said Ruiz, grasping a hand of Brace and Winslow each; "in this we are--as brothers."

"G.o.d and liberty!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Martinez, in turn seizing the other disengaged hands of the Americans, and completing the mystic circle.

"G.o.d and liberty!" echoed a thin chorus from their host and a few loungers who had entered unperceived.

Brace felt uneasy. He was not wanting in the courage or daring of youth, but it struck him that his att.i.tude was by no means consistent with his attentions to Dona Isabel. He managed to get Winslow aside.

"This is all very well as a 'free lunch' conspiracy; but you're forgetting your parole," he said, in a low voice.

"We gave our parole to the present Government. When it no longer exists, there will be no parole--don't you see?"

"Then these fellows prefer waiting"--

"Until we can get OUTSIDE help, you understand. The first American ship that comes in here--eh?"

Brace felt relieved. After all, his position in regard to the Alcalde's sister would not be compromised; he might even be able to extend some protection over her; and it would be a magnanimous revenge if he could even offer it to Miss Keene.

"I see you don't swear anybody to secrecy," he said, with a laugh; "shall I speak to Crosby, or will you?"

"Not yet; he'll only see something to laugh at. And Banks and Martinez would quarrel at once, and go back on each other. No; my idea is to let some outsider do for Todos Santos what Perkins did for Quinquinambo. Do you take?"

His long, thin, dyspeptic face lit up with a certain small political cunning and shrewdness that struck Brace with a half-respect.

"I say, Winslow; you'd have made a first-cla.s.s caucus leader in San Francisco."

Winslow smiled complacently. "There's something better to play on here than ward politics," he replied. "There's a material here that--like the mine and the soil--ain't half developed. I reckon I can show Banks something that beats lobbying and log-rolling for contracts. I've let you into this thing to show you a sample of my prospecting. Keep it to yourself if you want it to pay. Dat's me, George! Good-by! I'll be out to the office to-morrow!"

He turned back towards his brother politicians with an expression of satisfied conceit that Brace for a moment envied. The latter even lingered on the veranda, as if he would have asked Winslow another question; but, looking at his watch, he suddenly recollected himself, and, mounting his horse, cantered down towards the plaza.

The hour of siesta was not yet over, and the streets were still deserted--probably the reason why the politicians of Todos Santos had chosen that hour for their half secret meeting. At the corner of the plaza he dismounted and led his horse to the public hitching-post--gnawn and nibbled by the teeth of generations of mustangs--and turned into the narrow lane flanked by the walls of the Alcalde's garden. Halfway down he stopped before a slight breach in the upper part of the adobe barrier, and looked cautiously around. The long, shadowed vista of the lane was un.o.bstructed by any moving figure as far as the yellow light of the empty square beyond. With a quick leap he gained the top of the wall and disappeared on the other aide.

CHAPTER III.

INTERNATIONAL COURTESIES.

The garden over whose wall Brace had mysteriously vanished was apparently as deserted as the lane and plaza without. But its solitude was one of graceful shadow and restful loveliness. A tropical luxuriance, that had perpetuated itself year after year, until it was half suffocated in its own overgrowth and strangled with its own beauty, spread over a variegated expanse of starry flowers, shimmering leaves, and slender inextricable branches, pierced here and there by towering rigid cactus spikes or the curved plumes of palms. The repose of ages lay in its hushed groves, its drooping vines, its lifeless creepers; the dry dust of its decaying leaves and branches mingled with the living perfumes like the spiced embalmings of a forgotten past.

Nevertheless, this tranquillity, after a few moments, was singularly disturbed. There was no breeze stirring, and yet the long fronds of a large fan palm, that stood near the breach in the wall, began to move gently from right to left, like the arms of some graceful semaph.o.r.e, and then as suddenly stopped. Almost at the same moment a white curtain, listlessly hanging from a canopied balcony of the Alcalde's house, began to exhibit a like rhythmical and regular agitation. Then everything was motionless again; an interval of perfect peace settled upon the garden.

It was broken by the apparition of Brace under the balcony, and the black-veiled and flowered head of Dona Isabel from the curtain above.

"Crazy boy!"

"Senorita!"

"Hush! I am coming down!"

"You? But Dona Ursula!"

"There is no more Dona Ursula!"

"Well--your duenna, whoever she is!"

"There is no duenna!"

"What?"

"Hush up your tongue, idiot boy!" (this in English.)

The little black head and the rose on top of it disappeared. Brace drew himself up against the wall and waited. The time seemed interminable.

Impatiently looking up and down, he at last saw Dona Isabel at a distance, quietly and unconcernedly moving among the roses, and occasionally stooping as if to pick them. In an instant he was at her side.

"Let me help you," he said.

She opened her little brownish palm,--