The Crusade of the Excelsior Part 31

The shadow of Hurlstone's figure falling across his paper caused him to look up.

Whatever anxiety Hurlstone had begun to feel, it was quickly dissipated by the hearty, affable, and even happy greeting of the prisoner.

"Ah! what! my young friend Hurlstone! Again an unexpected pleasure," he said, extending his white hands. "And again you find me wooing the Muse, in, I fear, hesitating numbers." He pointed to the sheet of paper before him, which showed some attempts at versification. "But I confess to a singular fascination in the exercise of poetic composition, in instants of leisure like this--a fascination which, as a man of imagination yourself, you can appreciate."

"And I am sorry to find you here, Senor Perkins," began Hurlstone frankly; "but I believe it will not be for long."

"My opinion," said the Senor, with a glance of gentle contemplation at the distant Comandante, "as far as I may express it, coincides with your own."

"I have come," continued Hurlstone earnestly, "to offer you my services.

I am ready," he raised his voice, with a view of being overheard, "to bear testimony that you had no complicity in the baser part of the late conspiracy,--the revolt of the savages, and that you did your best to counteract the evil, although in doing so you have sacrificed yourself.

I shall claim the right to speak from my own knowledge of the Indians and from their admission to me that they were led away by the vague representations of Martinez, Brace, and Winslow."

"Pardon--pardon me," said Senor Perkins deprecatingly, "you are mistaken. My general instructions, no doubt, justified these young gentlemen in taking, I shall not say extreme, but injudicious measures."

He glanced meaningly in the direction of the Commander, as if to warn Hurlstone from continuing, and said gently, "But let us talk of something else. I thank you for your gracious intentions, but you remember that we agreed only yesterday that you knew nothing of politics, and did not concern yourself with them. I do not know but you are wise. Politics and the science of self-government, although dealing with general principles, are apt to be defined by the individual limitations of the enthusiast. What is good for HIMSELF he too often deems is applicable to the general public, instead of wisely understanding that what is good for THEM must be good for himself. But,"

said the Senor lightly, "we are again transgressing. We were to choose another topic. Let it be yourself, Mr. Hurlstone. You are looking well, sir; indeed, I may say I never saw you looking so well! Let me congratulate you. Health is the right of youth. May you keep both!"

He shook Hurlstone's hand again with singular fervor.

There was a slight bustle and commotion at the door of the guard-room, and the Commander's attention was called in that direction. Hurlstone profited by the opportunity to say in a hurried whisper:

"Tell me what I can do for you;" and he hesitated to voice his renewed uneasiness--"tell me if--if--if your case is--urgent!"

Senor Perkins lifted his shoulders and smiled with grateful benevolence.

"You have already promised me to deliver those papers and ma.n.u.scripts of my deceased friend, and to endeavor to find her relations. I do not think it is urgent, however."

"I do not mean that," said Hurlstone eagerly. "I"--but Perkins stopped him with a sign that the Commander was returning.

Don Miguel approached them with disturbed and anxious looks.

"I have yielded to the persuasions of two ladies, Dona Leonor and the Senora Markham, to ask you to see them for a moment," he said to Senor Perkins. "Shall it be so? I have told them the hour is nearly spent."

"You have told them--NOTHING MORE?" asked the Senor, in a whisper unheard by Hurlstone.

"No."

"Let them come, then."

The Commander made a gesture to the sentries at the guard-room, who drew back to allow Mrs. Markham and Eleanor to pa.s.s. A little child, one of Eleanor's old Presidio pupils, who, recognizing her, had followed her into the guard-room, now emerged with her, and momentarily disconcerted at the presence of the Commander, ran, with the unerring instinct of childhood, to the Senor for protection. The filibuster smiled, and lifting the child with a paternal gesture to his shoulder by one hand, he extended the other to the ladies.

"The Commander," said Mrs. Markham briskly, "says it's against the rules; that visiting time is up; and you've already got a friend with you, and all that sort of thing; but I told him that I was bound to see you, if only to say that if there's any meanness going on, Susannah and James Markham ain't in it! No! But we're going to see you put right and square in the matter; and if we can't do it here, we'll do it, if we have to follow you to Mexico!--that's all!"

"And I," said Eleanor, grasping the Senor's hand, and half blushing as she glanced at Hurlstone, "see that I have already a friend here who will help me to put in action all the sympathy I feel."

Senor Perkins drew himself up, and cast a faint look of pride towards the Commander.

"To HEAR such a.s.surances from beautiful and eloquent lips like those before me," he said, with his old oratorical wave of the hand, but a pa.s.sing shadow across his mild eyes, "is more than sufficient. In my experience of life I have been favored, at various emergencies, by the sympathy and outspoken counsel of your n.o.ble s.e.x; the last time by Mrs.

Euphemia M'Corkle, of Peoria, Illinois, a lady of whom you have heard me speak--alas! now lately deceased. A few lines at present lying on yonder table--a tribute to her genius--will be forwarded to you, dear Mrs.

Markham. But let us change the theme. You are looking well--and you, too, Miss Keene. From the roses that bloom on your cheeks--nourished by the humid air of Todos Santos--I am gratified in thinking you have forgiven me your enforced detention here."

At a gesture from the Commander he ceased, stepped back, bowed gravely, and the ladies recognized that their brief audience had terminated. As they pa.s.sed through the gateway, looking back they saw Perkins still standing with the child on his shoulder and smiling affably upon them.

Then the two ma.s.sive doors of the gateway swung to with a crash, the bolts were shot, and the courtyard was impenetrable.

A few moments later, the three friends had pa.s.sed the outermost angle of the fortifications, and were descending towards the beach. By the time they had reached the sands they had fallen into a vague silence.

A noise like the cracking and fall of some slight scaffolding behind them arrested their attention. Hurlstone turned quickly. A light smoke, drifting from the courtyard, was mingling with the fog. A faint cry of "Dios y Libertad!" rose with it.

With a hurried excuse to his companions, Hurlstone ran rapidly back, and reached the gate as it slowly rolled upon its hinges to a file of men that issued from the courtyard. The first object that met his eyes was the hat of Senor Perkins lying on the ground near the wall, with a terrible suggestion in its helpless and pathetic vacuity. A few paces further lay its late owner, with twenty Mexican bullets in his breast, his benevolent forehead bared meekly to the sky, as if even then mutely appealing to the higher judgment. He was dead! The soul of the Liberator of Quinquinambo, and of various other peoples more or less distressed and more or less ungrateful, was itself liberated!

With the death of Senor Perkins ended the Crusade of the Excelsior.

Under charge of Captain Bunker the vessel was sent to Mazatlan by the authorities, bearing the banished and proscribed Americans, Banks, Brace, Winslow, and Crosby; and, by permission of the Council, also their friends, Markham and Brimmer, and the ladies, Mrs. Brimmer, Chubb, and Markham. Hurlstone and Miss Keene alone were invited to remain, but, on later representations, the Council graciously included Richard Keene in the invitation, with the concession of the right to work the mines and control the ranches he and Hurlstone had purchased from their proscribed countrymen. The complacency of the Council of Todos Santos may be accounted for when it is understood that on the day the firm of Hurlstone & Keene was really begun under the t.i.tle of Mr. and Mrs.

Hurlstone, Richard had prevailed upon the Alcalde to allow him to add the piquant Dona Isabel also to the firm under the t.i.tle of Mrs. Keene.

Although the port of Todos Santos was henceforth open to all commerce, the firm of Hurlstone & Keene long retained the monopoly of trade, and was a recognized power of intelligent civilization and honest progress on the Pacific coast. And none contributed more to that result than the clever and beautiful hostess of Excelsior Lodge, the charming country home of James Hurlstone, Esq., senior partner of the firm. Under the truly catholic shelter of its veranda Padre Esteban and the heretic stranger mingled harmoniously, and the dissensions of local and central Government were forgotten.

"I said that you were a dama de grandeza, you remember," said the youthful Mrs. Keene to Mrs. Hurlstone, "and, you see, you are!"