The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 28

The old man's lips quivered slightly, and the great brown hand laid upon the table trembled for an instant; with a strong effort he recovered himself, and said hurriedly,--

"Concho's mule is saddled and ready for you at the foot of the garden.

You will follow the beach a league beyond the Indians' cross. In the boat will await you the trusty messenger of the Church. You will say to him, 'Guadalajara,' and give him these letters. One is to the captain.

You will require no other introduction." He laid the papers on the table, and, turning to Hurlstone, lifted his tremulous hands in the air.

"And now, my son, may the grace of G.o.d"--

He faltered and stopped, his uplifted arms falling helplessly on Hurlstone's shoulders. For an instant the young man supported him in his arms, then placed him gently in the chair he had just quitted, and for the first time in their intimacy dropped upon his knee before him. The old man, with a faint smile, placed his hand upon his companion's head.

A breathless pause followed; Father Esteban's lips moved silently.

Suddenly the young man rose, pressed his lips hurriedly to the Father's hand, and pa.s.sed out into the night.

The moon was already suffusing the dropping veil of fog above him with that nebulous, mysterious radiance he had noticed the first night he had approached the Mission. When he reached the cross he dismounted, and gathering a few of the sweet-scented blossoms that crept around its base, placed them in his breast. Then, remounting, he continued his way until he came to the spot designated by Concho as a fitting place to leave his tethered mule. This done, he proceeded on foot about a mile further along the hard, wet sand, his eyes fixed on the narrow strip of water and sh.o.r.e before him that was yet uninvaded by the fog on either side.

The misty, nebulous light, the strange silence, broken only by the occasional low hurried whisper of some spent wave that sent its film of spume across his path, or filled his footprints behind him, possessed him with vague presentiments and imaginings. At times he fancied he heard voices at his side; at times indistinct figures loomed through the mist before him. At last what seemed to be his own shadow faintly impinged upon the mist at one side impressed him so strongly that he stopped; the apparition stopped too. Continuing a few hundred paces further, he stopped again; but this time the ghostly figure pa.s.sed on, and convinced him that it was no shadow, but some one actually following him. With an angry challenge he advanced towards it. It quickly retreated inland, and was lost. Irritated and suspicious he turned back towards the water, and was amazed to see before him, not twenty yards away, the object of his quest--a boat, with two men in it, kept in position by the occasional lazy dip of an oar. In the pursuit of his mysterious shadow he had evidently overlooked it. As his own figure emerged from the fog, the boat pulled towards him. The priest's pa.s.sword was upon his lips, when he perceived that the TWO men were common foreign sailors; the messenger of the Church was evidently not there.

Could it have been he who had haunted him? He paused irresolutely. "Is there none other coming?" he asked. The two men looked at each other.

One said, "Quien sabe!" and shrugged his shoulders. Hurlstone without further hesitation leaped aboard.

The same dull wall of vapor--at times thickening to an almost impenetrable barrier, and again half suffocating him in its soft embrace--which he had breasted on the night he swam ash.o.r.e, carried back his thoughts to that time, now so remote and unreal. And when, after a few moments' silent rowing, the boat approached a black hulk that seemed to have started forward out of the gloom to meet them, his vague recollection began to take a more definite form. As he climbed up the companion-ladder and boarded the vessel, an inexplicable memory came over him. A petty officer on the gangway advanced silently and ushered him, half dazed and bewildered, into the cabin. He glanced hurriedly around: the door of a state-room opened, and disclosed the indomitable and affable Senor Perkins! A slight expression of surprise, however, crossed the features of the Liberator of Quinquinambo as he advanced with outstretched hand.

"This is really a surprise, my dear fellow! I had no idea that YOU were in this affair. But I am delighted to welcome you once more to the Excelsior!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE RETURN OF THE EXCELSIOR.

Amazed and disconcerted, Hurlstone, nevertheless, retained his presence of mind.

"There must be some mistake," he said coolly; "I am certainly not the person you seem to be expecting."

"Were you not sent here by Winslow?" demanded Perkins.

"No. The person you are looking for is probably one I saw on the sh.o.r.e.

He no doubt became alarmed at my approach, and has allowed me quite unwittingly to take his place in the boat."

Perkins examined Hurlstone keenly for a moment, stepped to the door, gave a brief order, and returned.

"Then, if you did not intend the honor of this visit for me," he resumed, with a smile, "may I ask, my dear fellow, whom you expected to meet, and on what ship? There are not so many at Todos Santos, if my memory serves me right, as to create confusion."

"I must decline to answer that question," said Hurlstone curtly.

The Senor smiled, with an accession of his old gentleness.

"My dear young friend," he said, "have you forgotten that on a far more important occasion to YOU, I showed no desire to pry into your secret?"

Hurlstone made a movement of deprecation. "Nor have I any such desire now. But for the sake of our coming to an understanding as friends, let me answer the question for you. You are here, my dear fellow, as a messenger from the Mission of Todos Santos to the Ecclesiastical Commission from Guadalajara, whose ship touches here every three years.

It is now due. You have mistaken this vessel for theirs."

Hurlstone remained silent.

"It is no secret," continued Senor Perkins blandly; "nor shall I pretend to conceal MY purpose here, which is on the invitation of certain distressed patriots of Todos Santos, to a.s.sist them in their deliverance from the effete tyranny of the Church and its Government. I have been fortunate enough to antic.i.p.ate the arrival of your vessel, as you were fortunate enough to antic.i.p.ate the arrival of my messenger. I am doubly fortunate, as it gives me the pleasure of your company this evening, and necessitates no further trouble than the return of the boat for the other gentleman--which has already gone. Doubtless you may know him."

"I must warn you again, Senor Perkins," said Hurlstone sternly, "that I have no connection with any political party; nor have I any sympathy with your purpose against the const.i.tuted authorities."

"I am willing to believe that you have no political affinities at all, my dear Mr. Hurlstone," returned Perkins, with unruffled composure, "and, consequently, we will not argue as to what is the const.i.tuted authority of Todos Santos. Perhaps to-morrow it may be on board THIS SHIP, and I may still have the pleasure of making you at home here!"

"Until then," said Hurlstone dryly, "at least you will allow me to repair my error by returning to the sh.o.r.e."

"For the moment I hardly think it would be wise," replied Perkins gently. "Allowing that you escaped the vigilance of my friends on the sh.o.r.e, whose suspicions you have aroused, and who might do you some injury, you would feel it your duty to inform those who sent you of the presence of my ship, and thus precipitate a collision between my friends and yours, which would be promotive of ill-feeling, and perhaps bloodshed. You know my peaceful disposition, Mr. Hurlstone; you can hardly expect me to countenance an act of folly that would be in violation of it."

"In other words, having decoyed me here on board your ship, you intend to detain me," said Hurlstone insultingly.

"'Decoy,'" said Perkins, in gentle deprecation, "'decoy' is hardly the word I expected from a gentleman who has been so unfortunate as to take, unsolicited and of his own free will, another person's place in a boat.

But," he continued, a.s.suming an easy argumentative att.i.tude, "let us look at it from your view-point. Let us imagine that YOUR ship had antic.i.p.ated mine, and that MY messenger had unwittingly gone on board of HER. What do you think they would have done to him?"

"They would have hung him at the yard-arm, as he deserved," said Hurlstone unflinchingly.

"You are wrong," said Perkins gently. "They would have given him the alternative of betraying his trust, and confessing everything--which he would probably have accepted. Pardon me!--this is no insinuation against you," he interrupted,--"but I regret to say that my experience with the effete Latin races of this continent has not inspired me with confidence in their loyalty to trust. Let me give you an instance," he continued, smiling: "the ship you are expecting is supposed to be an inviolable secret of the Church, but it is known to me--to my friends ash.o.r.e--and even to you, my poor friend, a heretic! More than that, I am told that the Comandante, the Padre, and Alcalde are actually arranging to deport some of the American women by this vessel, which has been hitherto sacred to the emissaries of the Church alone. But you probably know this--it is doubtless part of your errand. I only mention it to convince you that I have certainly no need either to know your secrets, to hang you from the yard-arm if you refused to give them up, or to hold you as hostage for my messenger, who, as I have shown you, can take care of himself. I shall not ask you for that secret despatch you undoubtedly carry next your heart, because I don't want it. You are at liberty to keep it until you can deliver it, or drop it out of that port-hole into the sea--as you choose. But I hear the boat returning," continued Perkins, rising gently from his seat as the sound of oars came faintly alongside, "and no doubt with Winslow's messenger. I am sorry you won't let me bring you together. I dare say he knows all about you, and it really need not alter your opinions."

"One moment," said Hurlstone, stunned, yet incredulous of Perkins's revelations. "You said that both the Comandante and Alcalde had arranged to send away certain ladies--are you not mistaken?"

"I think not," said Perkins quietly, looking over a pile of papers on the table before him. "Yes, here it is," he continued, reading from a memorandum: "'Don Ramon Ramirez arranged with Pepe for the secret carrying off of Dona Barbara Brimmer.' Why, that was six weeks ago, and here we have the Comandante suborning one Marcia, a dragoon, to abduct Mrs. Markham--by Jove, my old friend!--and Dona Leonor--our beauty, was she not? Yes, here it is: in black and white. Read it, if you like,--and pardon me for one moment, while I receive this unlucky messenger."

Left to himself, Hurlstone barely glanced at the memorandum, which seemed to be the rough minutes of some society. He believed Perkins; but was it possible that the Padre could be ignorant of the designs of his fellow-councilors? And if he were not--if he had long before been in complicity with them for the removal of Eleanor, might he not also have duped him, Hurlstone, and sent him on this mission as a mere blind; and--more infamously--perhaps even thus decoyed him on board the wrong ship? No--it was impossible! His honest blood quickly flew to his cheek at that momentary disloyal suspicion.

Nevertheless, the Senor's bland revelations filled him with vague uneasiness. SHE was safe with her brother now; but what if he and the other Americans were engaged in this ridiculous conspiracy, this pot-house rebellion that Father Esteban had spoken of, and which he had always treated with such contempt? It seemed strange that Perkins had said nothing of the arrival of the relieving party from the Gulf, and its probable effect on the malcontents. Did he know it? or was the news now being brought by this messenger whom he, Hurlstone, had supplanted?

If so, when and how had Perkins received the intelligence that brought him to Todos Santos? The young man could scarcely repress a bitter smile as he remembered the accepted idea of Todos Santos' inviolability--that inaccessible port that had within six weeks secretly summoned Perkins to its a.s.sistance! And it was there he believed himself secure!

What security had he at all? Might not this strange, unimpa.s.sioned, omniscient man already know HIS secret as he had known the others'?

The interview of Perkins with the messenger in the next cabin was a long one, and apparently a stormy one on the part of the newcomer. Hurlstone could hear his excited foreign voice, shrill with the small vehemence of a shallow character; but there was no change in the slow, measured tones of the Senor. He listlessly began to turn over the papers on the table.

Presently he paused. He had taken up a sheet of paper on which Senor Perkins had evidently been essaying some composition in verse. It seemed to have been of a lugubrious character. The t.i.tular line at the top of the page, "Dirge," had been crossed out for the subst.i.tuted "In Memoriam." He read carelessly:

"O Muse unmet--but not unwept-- I seek thy sacred haunt in vain.

Too late, alas! the tryst is kept-- We may not meet again!

"I sought thee 'midst the orange bloom, To find that thou hadst grasped the palm Of martyr, and the silent tomb Had hid thee in its calm.

"By fever racked, thou languishest On Nicaragua's"--

Hurlstone threw the paper aside. Although he had not forgotten the Senor's reputation for sentimental extravagance, and on another occasion might have laughed at it, there was something so monstrous in this hysterical, morbid composition of the man who was even then contemplating bloodshed and crime, that he was disgusted. Like most sentimental egotists, Hurlstone was exceedingly intolerant of that quality in others, and he turned for relief to his own thoughts of Eleanor Keene and his own unfortunate pa.s.sion. HE could not have written poetry at such a moment!

But the cabin-door opened, and Senor Perkins appeared. Whatever might have been the excited condition of his unknown visitor, the Senor's round, clean-shaven face was smiling and undisturbed by emotion. As his eye fell on the page of ma.n.u.script Hurlstone had just cast down, a slight shadow crossed his beneficent expanse of forehead, and deepened in his soft dark eyes; but the next moment it was chased away by his quick recurring smile. Even thus transient and superficial was his feeling, thought Hurlstone.

"I have some news for you," said Perkins affably, "which may alter your decision about returning. My friends ash.o.r.e," he continued, "judging from the ingenuous specimen which has just visited me, are more remarkable for their temporary zeal and spasmodic devotion than for prudent reserve or lasting discretion. They have submitted a list to me of those whom they consider dangerous to Mexican liberty, and whom they are desirous of hanging. I regret to say that the list is illogical, and the request inopportune. Our friend Mr. Banks is put down as an ally of the Government and an objectionable business rival of that eminent patriot and well-known drover, Senor Martinez, who just called upon me.

Mr. Crosby's humor is considered subversive of a proper respect for all patriotism; but I cannot understand why they have added YOUR name as especially 'dangerous.'"

Hurlstone made a gesture of contempt.