We had no letters to deliver in Pittsburg, and no desire either to wade the unpaved streets or to linger beneath a sky whose shower of soot bore out only too well the boast of the townsfolk that good coal could be bought in their streets at five cents a bushel. For my part, I would prefer to pay more for wood fires, and escape the smearing of house and garments with lampblack. However, the residents may consider this inconvenience offset by their numerous social and cultural advantages, which are unequalled among all our trans-Alleghany towns, unless it may be at Lexington or Cincinnati.
As we put off again into the stream, I pointed out the site of Fort Pitt, built by the British to replace the French Fort Duquesne. But a storm cloud drove down over the Pittsburg hills, and Alisanda hastened to withdraw with her uncle into the cabin to escape the April rain which soon poured upon us in torrents. It was not, as I had hoped, a mere squall. With the passing of the first roaring wind gusts that rocked our heavy craft, the rain settled into a steady drizzle, which obscured river and banks for the rest of the afternoon, and sheeted us in like a black pall throughout the night.
With the nightfall, trusting to the height of the flood to carry us over all shoals and rocks, I made no attempt to effect a landing or to tie up to the half-submerged willows along the bank. We had wood enough aboard to last for three days or more, and our fireplace, with its pots and ranger, saved the necessity of a shore camp to prepare food.
As there was no call for Don Pedro to suffer a needless wetting, I argued that I could not trust him on watch so dark a night,—which was no more than the truth of the matter. My supper was brought to me in the prow by Chita, and her peppery stew was doubly welcome after my afternoon's drenching. She carried back with her instructions to obtain one of my dry suits from Don Pedro and take it through to the kitchen. About midnight, the boat chancing to swing about stern foremost in the current, I left my watch long enough to shift into dry garments before a crackling fire.
With the first gray glimmer of dawn through the breaking rain clouds, Don Pedro came to take my post, and Chita slipped out in her nightshift to set on her coffee pot. By the time I had breakfasted, the sun had dispelled the mists, and I saw that we were already in the Long Reach, having passed during the night by Steubenville and Wheeling. It was a run possible only at the height of the Spring fresh.
Upon my inquiry, Don Pedro informed me that he did not wish to stop at Marietta, that prim New England village planted by Rufus Putnam and his fellow Yankees on the site of Old Wyandot Town. He had, however, a letter to deliver to Mr. Harmon Blennerhasset, owner of an island some fourteen or fifteen miles below Marietta. So, having made a rough calculation of the speed of the current, I went in to my bunk, after explaining that they need not waken me before midday, unless the boat tended to leave the current.
Sharp upon the noon hour I was roused by the don, and informed that we had already passed Marietta, some five miles back. His description of the Muskingum River and the block houses and other buildings of the town would have convinced me that it was indeed Marietta, had I not known that it was the only settlement of the size between Wheeling and Gallipolis. What was more, I recognized the greater width of the river bottoms, which were now flooded to the higher levels, the many islands which divided the current, and the lowness of the densely wooded hills.
But having, as I felt sure, something over an hour to wait before sighting Mr. Blennerhasset's well-known island, I made my toilet, and leaving Don Pedro at the steer-oar, indulged myself in the great pleasure of sitting down at table with the señorita. Either because of her determination to live up to the customs of the country, or owing to my watch in the rain,—which any riverman would have taken as a matter of course,—she was most friendly and gracious in her manner, greeting me with a smile and giving me her hand to salute. Not content with this, she saw to it that Chita served me with particular attention, and herself pressed food and drink upon me.
Only one who has lived among the Spanish people can realize what a privilege it was to be thus received into the intimate society of my travelling companions. We conversed with cousinly gaiety and freedom on all subjects which came to mind, from the ambition of the great Corsican to the latest fashionable ditties, and Alisanda filled me with delightful anticipations by stating that amongst her baggage was a guitar, which she and Don Pedro were not unskilled in fingering.
After the dessert of sweets, ordulces, to use the Spanish term, I went out to relieve Don Pedro at the steer-oar and to inquire whether he wished to stop over at the island. He replied that it might be necessary to confer at some length with Mr. Blennerhasset.
A half-hour later we were sheering our craft toward the Virginia bank, to make the wharf which faced the Ohio shore, near the upper end of Blennerhasset Island. As the channel which separated the island from Virginia was scarcely a stone's-throw across, our course brought us well to the left of the river's centre. With the ready aid of Don Pedro at the steer-oar, I managed, between sculling and poling, to bring the flat alongside the wharf. Before I could leap out, a negro ran down the bank and made fast the line tossed him from the stern by Chita.
Another slave who had sighted us from the crest of the bank turned and ran with the news of our landing, so that before we could straighten our garments and step ashore, Mr. Blennerhasset himself came hastening down the bank to welcome us. Our visit had been unheralded, and, so far as he knew at the moment, we were no more than chance strangers. But it was enough for this cultured, unworldly Irish gentleman that persons of quality had stopped at his gate.
Señor Vallois introduced Alisanda and myself with all the stateliness of a Spanish hidalgo, and followed by delivering over the letter from Colonel Burr. With no more than a glance at the address, Mr. Blennerhasset thrust the letter into his pocket, and pressed us to accompany him at once to his house, where, he said, Mrs. Blennerhasset would be anxiously awaiting her guests.
Such warmth of hospitality would have melted even a reluctant visitor, and we were far from unwilling to view the famed beauties of the place. My one regret was that I could not claim the privilege of escorting the señorita. Don Pedro and I ascended the bank behind the others, Chita remaining aboard the boat.
Entering through the handsome stone-columned gateway at the top of the bank, we passed between the shrubbery and a meadow, along a gravelled walk, for somewhat over a hundred paces, to the front of the mansion. The façade was remarkable for the semi-circular shape of the pillared porticos which curved forward from each front corner of the main body of the house. Though built of wood, the handsome proportions and two stories of the mansion lent to it an air of distinction rarely to be found west of the mountains.
Mr. Blennerhasset bowed us into a small front parlor, where we found his comely and charming wife waiting to receive us, in the company of their two little sons. After we had been welcomed by this pleasant lady no less cordially than by her husband, Don Pedro stated that there might be matters of mutual interest to discuss when our host had read his letter.
At this Mrs. Blennerhasset suggested that the gentlemen should be left to their privacy, and Don Pedro invited me to share in the conference. But I explained that I did not consider myself at liberty to do so, in view of the fact that I was not yet irrevocably committed to the projects of Mr. Burr. Mrs. Blennerhasset at once invited me to join with her and Alisanda in an inspection of the mansion.
We entered first a dining-room of ample proportions, where our hostess gave the little boys into the charge of their nurse. The apartment was furnished with a richness and taste which compelled a look of surprise even from the señorita. We were soon to learn that the mansion was furnished throughout in the same lavish style.
What most interested me at the time was Mr. Blennerhasset's scientific workroom in the rear of a second parlor which led off behind from the dining-room. Here it was our host conducted his experiments in chemistry and physics, and here he had properly arranged a fair-sized apothecary's stock. Upon my remarking that I wished to purchase a quantity of Peruvian bark and calomel,—my stock of which, in my haste, I had neglected to replenish before leaving Washington,—the lady immediately requested me to measure out the quantity I desired, and absolutely refused any compensation.
We next visited the library at the end of one of the curved porticos. Here, much against my desire, I was given permission to remain while the ladies visited the kitchens in the other wing.
Tactfully as I was dismissed, the shaft rankled none the less sorely. Yet happening to open a choice volume of European travels, I so lost myself in the printed pages that the appearance of my host some two hours later came as a surprise.
He explained that arrangements had been made for our party to join them at dinner, and would not take a refusal from me. A servant had already been sent aboard the boat, that Chita might attend on her mistress. The man had orders to remain until morning, should I, following the example of Señor Vallois and his niece, agree to lie the night in the house. Unwilling to tax their hospitality so far, I excused myself from this last, on the plea of my duties as boat captain, but before leaving I gladly accepted his invitation to return and join them at dinner.
In due time I returned, and I trust that my appearance did full credit to my country. Enough said that nay hat, shoes, breeches and waistcoat were of the latest mode, that my coatcuffs extended to my finger tips, that my shirt-frill was like a snowy waterfall, and that my coatfront was padded to the fulness of a swelling bullfrog. As for my luckless throat, it was so swathed about with its bandages of cambric that my chin had a most supercilious elevation, and to look about I must first turn my body. The neck was all but immovable.
This martyrdom was, however, small price to pay for my evening. Of all costumes calculated to reveal and enhance the lovelinesses of women, the Empire modes are by far the foremost. Indeed, such is the thinness of gauzy materials and the scantness of breadth required, that,—if I may venture my opinion not alone as a physician but as a gentleman,—the flimsy, graceful costumes, though to be praised for the absence of injurious stays, are too apt to over-expose the forms of the fair sex.
Yet a modest woman, by stopping short of the utmost extremes of fashion, and no less by comporting herself with dignity and decorum, can suggest thoughts no less elevating than enravishing through the graces of this mode. With this by way of guide to my meaning, I shall not be misunderstood when I speak of my rapture over the swell of my lady's firm white bosom and the exquisite curves of her lissome young body beneath the clinging sarsenet of her low-cut waist and narrow skirt. I looked and adored as the artist adores the perfect lines of a masterpiece. Yet with my adoration there flamed a fire of passion of so white a heat that it burned away all dross of base imaginings.
I say nothing of our hostess,—not that she lacked in beauty or charm; but who looks at the moon when the sun is in the sky?
The dinner did not disappoint the expectations roused by the lavish display of the household; though I cannot say that Mr. Blennerhasset's wines compared well with those of President Jefferson, unless it might be the Madeira.
Upon the withdrawal of the ladies, Mrs. Blennerhasset urged me so cordially to join them soon, and Alisanda seconded the invitation with so sweet a smile, that I did not linger at table above half an hour. My going was hastened by the conjecture that our host and Don Pedro might wish to resume their conference. That I was not mistaken in this was evidenced by the fact that they did not follow me for two hours or more.
In the meantime I had been led up a spacious stairway to the drawing-room, directly above where we had dined. The room was notable for the stucco work of the rounded cornices and ceiling, and the harmonious tones of the wall-hangings, of which those above the chair rail were green, bordered with gold, and those below reddish gray.
My entrance found the ladies seated together at a large forte piano, in the execution of a duet which gave full display alike to their accomplished skill and to the genius of the composer, the noted German musician Beethoven. After the duet, our hostess favored us with a ballad, and Alisanda no less readily followed with a Castilian song in the Spanish. Her voice, even better trained than Mrs. Blennerhasset's fine high soprano, was a liquid contralto that had in it the murmur of sparkling waters, the sweetness of silver bells, and the sadness of tears. I was affected almost beyond self-control, and it was as much this as the disability from my high cravat which forced me to decline my turn.
At my request, the ladies returned to another round of duet and song, and followed with the reverse,—playing solos and singing a duet. In the end they persuaded me to join them in a trio, and afterwards were so gracious as to compliment me on my baritone.
On the whole, it was the most heavenly evening I had ever known, and when, upon the appearance of the other gentlemen, I begged my leave of our hostess, it was to dance my way down to the boat on winged feet. Such a feast of divine music and diviner beauty seldom falls to the lot of mere mortals.
Dawn found me clad in my buckskins, ready for the start. All my articles of finery lay again in their snug retreat, and with those nightmares of beaudom disposed of in a way to give me most comfort, I was once more at my ease. Of all costumes suitable to action, there is none to equal our old-time forest ranger's dress of fur cap, buckskin shirt, thigh leggings, and good elk or buffalo moccasins.
To my surprise, the Spanish woman came aboard while I was toasting my bacon, with word that her mistress and Don Pedro would follow as soon as they had risen from the breakfast table. Alisanda had sent her down to prepare food for me. The announcement of this brought a glow to my face which I saw did not pass unnoticed by the woman. But she masked all expression under her hard stolidity, and when I declined her services, set about arranging her mistress's evening attire and returning it to its box.
Shortly afterwards Mr. Blennerhasset and his wife made their appearance, escorting my fellow travellers to the river bank and down to the boat itself. I hastened to add my adieus to the others, and the tactful couple, seeing that I was impatient to be under way, cut short what had threatened to be a protracted parting.
With repeated last calls of farewell and wavings of hat and handkerchief, we swung out into the current and drifted swiftly away from our over-hospitable host and hostess. A few minutes carried us below the cultivated upper portion of the island, and I noticed Don Pedro eying the wooded remainder with a peculiar intentness. Afterwards I was told that certain of the huge cypresses shadowed a bayou, in which at the time we passed there were already being collected boats and munitions for the flotilla that was to form the nucleus of Colonel Burr's ill-starred expedition.
Of this and the nefarious plans since charged to that great dreamer, I then had not the remotest suspicion, and soon turned my attention from the pondering señor.
Scattered up and down the midchannel for three miles or more was a string of barges, flats, and keelboats, laden with flour, lumber, and other up-river products, for the market at New Orleans. Like ourselves, they were coming down from the higher shipping-ports with the Spring fresh.
At my request, Alisanda kept within the house, until, by a vigorous bit of sculling, I had sent our craft beyond earshot of the nearest of these barges. The huge, clumsy craft, which must have been upwards of four hundred tons burden, was manned by the usual crew of twenty-five or thirty rowdy, drunken rivermen, whose ribaldry and rude jests were unfitted for the ears of a gentlewoman.
By adroit steering and an occasional return to my sculling, we were fortunate enough to keep our distance from these other boats, and for the greater part of the day I had the pleasure of pointing out to Alisanda the beauties of the river scenery. Rightful in fact, and most appropriate in truth, is the interpretation which tells us that "Ohio" means "the beautiful river."
A day of clear, warm sunshine, marred by only one shower, gave us our first chance to share the ever-shifting views of headlands and rolling, wooded hills. Though the forest was as yet only half in leaf, and the height of the flood covered all other than the highest of the bottoms, the nature of the scene was an unending wonder to my companions, who in turn compared it with the sterile mountains of Old Spain and the deserts of New Spain. They could not liken it to the tamed woodlands of England; for, notwithstanding a generation of settlement, with the river long since the main artery of a great commerce, these banks were as yet in many places unbroken wilderness, the abode of elk and deer and wolf, of tigerish panther and lumbering bear.
High above us soared eagles and turkey buzzards, spying for carrion and live prey, each according to his nature, as they had soared and spied in the late sixties and early seventies, when Gist and Boone and the great Washington first threaded the untraced wilderness and skimmed downstream in their bark canoes to the dark and bloody hunting-grounds of the hostile tribes. Since then what vast changes had come over the land! What thousands of homesteads hewn out of the gloomy depths of beech and oak, walnut and maple forest! What scores of settlements and towns, ranging in size up to Cincinnati, with its three hundred and more houses, many of brick and stone, its fifteen hundred whites and thousand slaves, its genteel coaches and chariots, and its educational institutions!
Yet, aside from the slaughtered buffalo and the backward-driven savage, how small the change in the forest life! Along the rocky banks the deadly rattlesnake and copperhead still lay coiled in wait; the deer came timidly down to the water along old game traces where the panther still lurked; and flocks of screaming, chattering paroquets still flew up river from the southwest, their emerald plumage contrasting with the bright hues of the redbirds and woodpeckers, the orioles and kingfishers.
The following day, below the mouth of the Scioto River, we had view of one of the strangest sights of the West,—a flight of passenger pigeons. The flock passed upstream above the left shore in a dense column and with a tremendous roaring sound of their millions of wings. Though we were going in a contrary direction, hours passed before we saw the last stragglers of their amazing multitude, and this despite the fact that they are among the swiftest of birds. While making a southward bend of the stream, we came beneath them, the lowermost flying so near overhead that I was able to kill a number simply by flinging fagots among them. As their flesh, though dark, is choice eating, we enjoyed a most savory pie at the evening meal.
During the night the boat caught me nodding and gave itself into the grasp of an eddy, which held it fast for two hours or more. My regret over the delay was short-lived, since at dawn I made the welcome discovery that it had caused us to part company with the last of the cargo flotilla. The rivermen were well supplied with skiffs, and as some of them are not above theft and even outright piracy, I had spent most of these two nights in vigilant watch, with my rifle and Don Pedro's pistols charged and primed against a night attack.
Less welcome than the absence of such consorts was the cold rain which set in before dawn and lasted well along toward noon, with now and then a slashing drive of sleet. I spent the dreary hours fast asleep in my bunk, for Don Pedro insisted upon his right to share the hardships of our voyage.
When I turned out, the sun had burst through, and the leaden clouds were rolling away to the eastward. My first act was to sweep the Ohio shore with an anxious glance. The swiftly changing vistas of winding river and pleasant hills that undulated beneath their cloak of budding green, told me that we had entered upon the run of the Great Bend. By good fortune, I was just in time to sight the well-remembered hills of my childhood home. Another twist of the channel brought us in view of the Little Miami.
Cap in hand, I stepped to the side of the flat, and stood quiet and apart, gazing at the rough, white stone that rose clear against the sky-line on the first crest below the stream's mouth. What memories of childhood rushed in upon me! what bitterness and grief!
At last the envious river swept us around a masking hill. I turned slowly about, with all my heaviness plainly written in my look. Less than three paces behind me stood the señorita, her dark eyes fixed upon me with a soft pity far different from their usual mockery.
"You grieve!" she murmured.
"It is the grave of my mother."
Don Pedro dropped the handle of the steer-oar and turned to me with a courtesy that went far deeper than outer form. "Your mother? May the Virgin bless her!"
Alisanda made the sign of the cross, and her lips moved in quick prayer: "Ave Maria purisima—"
After a little the don ventured a word of consolation: "It is a beautiful place for a tomb,—serene and grand on its solitary hillcrest. When my own time comes, may I rest as well!"
Serene!—beautiful! The words roused me from my unmanly weakness.
"You do not know!" I cried. "Her grave was dug among the ashes of our home. She was murdered by the Shawnees."
"You speak of the Indian savages?" murmured Alisanda. "Is it so long ago as that?"
"In my boyhood—in ninety-one—the Spring before St. Clair's terrible defeat. The northern tribes raided the settlements from above Pittsburg to the lower Kentucky, with a fury before unknown. The ferocious braves crept by night through the very streets of Cincinnati and under the walls of Fort Washington. Our home, outlying yonder on the Little Miami, was one of the first struck. The memory of that morning is burned deep into my brain. My father had gone into town to barter some skins for flour, and my mother was part way down the hillside, ploughing for corn. I had gone up to the cabin to fetch a jug of cider, and was half-way back, when a score of Shawnees in their black war paint leaped from the ravine and set upon my mother.
"I ran to help her, but she, striking bravely at the treacherous savages with the ox-goad, screamed to me to fly for the guns. I turned as she fell under the stroke of a tomahawk. The murderers leaped after me, yelling and firing. Rifle balls and arrows whistled about me, some piercing my shirt. But I gained the cabin unhurt. On the pegs beside the door lay my father's rifle and his old Queen Anne musket of the Revolution, which I had that morning charged half to the muzzle with swanshot in preparation for a bear which had been stealing our porkers.
"Barring the door with one hand, I caught down the musket with the other, and fired through the nearest loophole. My pursuers were coming on fairly in a body, and the distance was such that the swanshot scattered just enough to cover the foremost warriors. One fell dead and three more were wounded. In a twinkling all others than the one killed leaped to either side and checked their rush.
"But their chief came bounding up from the rear through their midst, flourishing his bloody tomahawk and yelling to them to come on. Young as I was, if given a support for the heavy barrel, I could handle my father's rifle as well as he himself. The chief fell within twenty paces of the door, with the hole of the rifle ball between his glaring eyes. At this, fearful that they had run upon a trap, the red warriors ran dodging and side-leaping to the nearest brush, while I caught up a knife and rushed out to scalp the chief—"
"Por Dios!" cried Don Pedro. "You ran out!—you took the scalp of the chief under the eyes of his followers?"
"My mother's scalp hung at his belt. I was mad with fury. I would have struck the murderer even had the others already turned."
"They did turn?" asked Alisanda, her eyes widening with the horror of the vision she pictured.
"They turned as I burst from the cabin. I was surrounded—seized fast—but not before I had torn off the scalp of their chief and shaken it in their painted faces!" My eyes flamed at the memory of that fierce vengeance.
"Madre de Dios!" breathed the Spaniard—"You stung them to wildest fury!"
"I sought to make them strike me down. Better death under the tomahawk than the slow agony of torture at the stake. What greater shame to them than for a boy of twelve to kill two of their most famous warriors,—to taunt them with the bloody scalp of their chief?"
"Yet they spared you!" whispered Alisanda, her eyes fixed upon my flushed face.
"For the torture. When they took me north to the Shawnee towns, I was made to run the gantlet. Being quick-footed and nimble, I avoided most of the heavier blows and midway of the line dodged out sideways, tripping up the old squaw who sought to stop me. Before the rabble could overtake me, I had set myself in the midst of the chiefs and foremost warriors of the village, whose dignity had prevented them from joining in the lesser torture.
"My craft in tripping the squaw and avoiding the greater number of my tormentors won me the protection of the chiefs, and while they waved off the boys and squaws, the young warrior Tecumseh, one of the brothers of the chief I had killed, claimed me for adoption in place of his kinsman. The other brother, Elskwatawa, promptly seconded Tecumseh. After much dispute, their claim was allowed, and for three years I lived as a member of the tribe, always watched against escape, yet treated with utmost kindness.
"That Fall the leading members of my tribe were present with the braves of the Miamis, Delawares, Wyandots, Iroquois, and other tribes, who made a second Braddock's Defeat of their battle with General St. Clair. They brought back no captives, but such quantities of plunder and such tales of slaughter that I could hardly credit either my eyes or my ears.
"After this I was taken to the neighborhood of the British fort near the Maumee Rapids, where the notorious renegade McKee proved that even the worst of men have their better nature. He sought to ransom me from my adopted brothers. This was refused, but I was permitted to come and go freely to the fort. One day, chancing upon a book of physic in the scant library of the post surgeon, I showed such interest that the portly old doctor seized upon me as aprotégé.
"Within a year I was forced to return to the Shawnee towns, but with me I took a Latin grammar and my precious treatise on physic. Again I was brought to the Maumee, and there placed for safekeeping in the fort during General Wayne's cautious but steady advance north from Fort Washington. This meant months more of study under the tuition of my kindly surgeon; so that upon the day of Wayne's glorious victory at Fallen Timbers, when he drove the routed warriors of the allied tribes past the very walls of the fort, I was further advanced in my studies than many an English schoolboy of seventeen or eighteen, and, I must confess, fast acquiring British sympathies.
"But the sight of Wayne's victorious cavalry, who rode up defiantly within pistol-shot of the palisades, roused in me such a feverish desire to escape that I should have flung myself upon the bayonets of the sentinels rather than have remained. Fortunately the garrison was so intent upon the burning of the dwellings and trading establishments without the fort by our army, that I was able to slip over the stockade with the aid of a rope, and make off safely in the darkness."
Alisanda sighed her relief of the suspense that had held her tense. "So you escaped!" she exclaimed.
"To the American camp where I found both my father and my mother's cousin, Captain Van Rensselaer. The captain had been shot from his saddle during the battle, but was able to return with us to Cincinnati when my father's term of service as a mounted volunteer expired. It was Captain Rensselaer who, upon his return to New York, sent for me to complete my medical and other studies in Columbia College."
"Por Dios!What a life!" cried Don Pedro. "We also have our Indian battles. But to live among the ferocious savages—Santa Maria! Small wonder you men of the forest wilderness are men of iron!"
"Many settlers of soft fibre have come over the mountains since the days of peace. But the men who first hewed their homes in the wilderness had to be of iron. Such are those who now press on to the new frontiers of the South, the Lakes, and the Mississippi."
"Among whom is our friend Don Juan," replied Alisanda.
I looked, thinking to see a mocking glance, and instead found myself gazing down into the fathomless depths of her eyes.
So far I have written at some length of our voyage, for it was these first days that set the stamp upon the relations of our little party. From the hills of Cincinnati, which we sighted as I ended the story of my boyhood, on down the long descent to Natchez, I was as one of Don Pedro's own kinsmen. The name spoken by Alisanda, seemingly in jest, became the name by which all addressed me, only that before we entered the Mississippi both the señor and she had begun to drop the "Don" in favor of the familiar "Juan."
So "Juan" and "Alisanda" it became between my lady and me, and Don Pedro looked on and smiled. Yet with and beneath it all, both held to a subtle reserve which told me plainer than words that the barriers were down only for a truce, and not for a treaty,—that our freedom of conduct as fellow-travellers would at the journey's end be barred by a return to customs not of the country.
At times when alone on watch at night, I thought with misgiving of the approaching days when my lady would resume her fine Castilian hauteur and Don Pedro his punctilious politeness. But on the whole I was content to make the most of my opportunities,—to drift with the current of our companionship as the boat drifted with the stream.
Milder days came to us as we floated down into the Southwest,—days of grateful sunshine and lessening rains,—heavenly hours beneath the blue sky, when, inspired by the blossoming springtime upon the verdant shores, we sat together in the open stern and sang solos and duets and trios to the accompaniment of the guitar.
With the coming of nightfall I learned to look longingly for fog or wet, for a clear moon meant a night on watch, that we might lose nothing of the drift. But a dark sky gave me excuse to tie up to the bank for the night and join in an evening of music and genteel talk about our crackling beechwood fire.
Then there were lessons for me in Spanish from the don, and in the playing of the guitar by Alisanda. It was strange how clumsy were my fingers and how repeatedly I had to ask my fair teacher to place them correctly.
And so we swept on down the beautiful river, the swirling depth of the Spring fresh bearing us clear over the rocks of the Ohio Falls at Louisville, as over the hundreds of miles of inundated flats and shoals above and below.
At Lusk's Ferry Don Pedro had planned to leave the river and cut across country horseback, over the forty-league road to Kaskaskia, which would have saved nearly half the keelboat journey up the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis. For this we should have taken aboard our horses at Louisville or at the little settlement of Shawnee Town below the Wabash, since at Lusk's Ferry suitable mounts for our party were not to be had at any price. In the outcome, however, the miscarriage of plans proved truly fortunate.
Having no other choice, we dropped on downstream past the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, to Fort Massac, our lonesome American stockade, built near the site of the old French post of the same name. We tied up to the steep bank of clay and gravel, and I made a landing. Upon inquiry at the post, Captain Bissell, the commandant, whom I had met the previous Fall on my eastward journey, informed me at some length as to the movements of General Wilkinson. Report having been received that General Herrera, the Spanish commander in Texas, was gathering a force to march upon Natchitoches, the Commander-in-Chief had descended the Mississippi for the double purpose of strengthening the forts at New Orleans and of assembling a force to repel the expected invasion.
I intimated to the captain that Señor Vallois was not averse to a war which might give his country opportunity to throw off the Spanish yoke. At this he confided to me as his opinion that the long-impending hostilities seemed now inevitable, and that he would welcome a change which would not only relieve him of hisennuiin this solitary post, but would tend to break up the general stagnation of the service.
His urgent invitation brought Don Pedro and Alisanda ashore for a much needed change. Neither had set foot on shore for days, and I persuaded Don Pedro that the recreation was well worth the delay. But my pleasure over the enjoyment of the exercise was not added to by the sight of the gallant captain and his no less gallant lieutenant receiving the smiles of Alisanda for their attentions. As a good excuse for avoiding the painful spectacle, I secured some spare jars of sweetmeats from Chita, and bartered them in the little settlement near the fort stockade for chickens, eggs, and butter,—all of which would be still higher in price and harder to obtain after we entered the Mississippi.
Soon after the landing of my companions, so strong a head wind set in that we were forced to lie moored over night. Toward morning it fell to a pleasant breeze, and I put off at dawn, without waiting to rouse the others.
Midday found us afloat on the broad bosom of the Father of Waters, whose noble flood, swollen above St. Louis by the silty downpourings of the Missouri, and here by the Spring torrent of the Ohio, rolled on gulfwards in full-banked majesty. It was a grand sight, but one to which Don Pedro and Alisanda gave more thought than myself. Captain Bissell had dropped me a word of warning as to possible trouble from canoe parties of Chickasaw and other Indians, which, in view of Alisanda's presence, gave me no little uneasiness.
That night and the next I called upon Don Pedro to watch, turn about, with myself. I even went so far as to land at New Madrid; but the villagers knew nothing of the Indians. At last, late in the afternoon of the third day, we sighted a canoe full of warriors putting out from the left bank, with the evident intention of intercepting us. At my command Alisanda and her woman sought shelter in their room, while I left the steering to the don, and stood ready with my rifle and his pistols.
When I signed the party to hold off at hailing distance, the foremost warrior signed back that they were friends. But they were now near enough for me to see their black war paint. Again I signed the leader to keep off, and he in turn hailed me in Shawnee, demanding lead and gunpowder. Before I realized what I was saying, I had answered him in his own tongue, telling him to bring his party around under our stern.
At this unexpected address, the chief raised the hand which I knew had been grasping his rifle. I responded with three or four quick signs that drew a guttural exclamation from the least stolid of the warriors. They were not used to meeting white men who could claim fellowship in their tribe. But as they paddled nearer, I stared back at their chief, hardly less astonished. There could be no mistaking his noble, powerful features. He was my adopted brother Tecumseh!
The instant I recognized him with certainty, I laid down my rifle, and called to him in Shawanese: "Tecumseh, many years have come and gone since we parted at the British fort on the Maumee, yet do you not know again your white brother Scalp Boy?"
At the word he rose from his knees and stood grandly erect in the bow of the canoe, staring at me from beneath his levelled palm. The craft was now within twenty yards of us, and Don Pedro could not withhold a muttered exclamation of apprehension and warning. Almost at the same moment Tecumseh stooped, and catching up a corner of his blanket, wiped the grim war paint from his face. The paddlers at once paused to follow his example.
"Santisima!" muttered Don Pedro. "Why do they rub their faces?"
"They remove the war paint in proof of friendship. Their chief is one of my Indian brothers, who saved me from torture."
"But they come close! You will not permit them to enter the boat, with Alisanda—"
"Fear nothing," I hastened to assure him. "We are safer now than when we were alone. My brother and his people can be trusted with our lives and our property."
"It is true, señor," remarked Tecumseh in clear though guttural English. "Scalp Boy and his friends are sacred in the eyes of all Shawnees. He is a member of our tribe and my brother."
I reached out and grasped the hand of the chief as the canoe came alongside.
"Come aboard and feast with us," I said.
He shook his head. "No, Scalp Boy; that may not be. It warms my heart to again grasp your hand; but you are an American white man; you have long ago forgotten your Shawnee kindred—"
"No, no, Tecumseh! I have always remembered you and Elskwatawa, my true-hearted brothers—"
"Tecumseh does not blame his white brother for returning to his white kindred. There is no enmity between us. But Elskwatawa our brother has become a communer with the Great Spirit, and he has told the redman how evil are the customs and food and firewater of the white man. It is evil for the redman to mingle with the white people."
"Have you then taken the warpath, my brother? Is that why you came out against us in war paint?" I asked.
"We came out to attack you because we had need of powder, and I would not beg. But we are not on the warpath."
"You are far from home," I remarked.
He swept his hand around in a grand gesture. "Elskwatawa the Prophet and I make a great journey to our red cousins. We visit all the tribes from the Great Lakes to that greater water in the South which the white people call the Gulf."
"To form a great conspiracy against my people!" I exclaimed.
"Your people!" he repeated. "No, we seek to convince the tribes of my people that they are all brothers, and should join in one nation."
"That they may seek to destroy the white people!"
"That they may hold back the white man from stealing any more of their land."
He had me there. I could only look my regret; for I knew that, whatever his intent, the result must be war.
He returned to the object of his averted attack. "Give us powder and lead, Scalp Boy. We cannot eat the white man's food. We need powder and lead to shoot game."
"Not to make war?" I asked.
"I speak with a straight tongue," he said.
At this I went into the cabin and fetched out a small keg of powder and a quarter-hundredweight of lead. He motioned me to hand the gifts to the warrior in the stern of the canoe, and when I turned again to him, he held out a beautifully wrought belt of wampum.
"It is little I can give to my brother," he said.
"I take the gift because my brother offers it," I replied. "What I have given is nothing. All that I could give would not repay what Tecumseh did for me in my boyhood!"
He looked me up and down with an approving glance. "Scalp Boy has grown to be a great warrior. I will ask the Great Spirit that we may never meet on the battlefield."
Before I could respond, he signed his warriors to push off, and the canoe shot away at arrowy speed. At once Alisanda slipped out of the cabin, to peer after the darting craft and the grim savages, whose naked, bronzed forebodies, fantastically streaked with the war paint, swayed to the paddle strokes so vigorously as to bob their plumed war locks about in a most comical manner. It was a sight she was not apt to see again even on the Mississippi, if only because of the redman's dislike to exert himself except when hunting or on the warpath.
Though we had come so well through this adventure, the accident of our escape from attack did not lessen my fear of visits from Indians belonging to other tribes. To my vast relief, the following day brought us safely in the approach of a great flotilla of flour-laden flats, whose draught of water gave them better headway than our boat. The drift of our craft, which sat so much higher in the water, was at times more retarded by the head winds. The difference was so slight that we were able to keep the others in sight until another flotilla overtook us. In fact, so vast was the extent of the river traffic that from this point until our landing at Natchez, we were never beyond view of one or more descending vessels, while even keelboats, ascending under sail or poles, were not uncommon.
Though far from as swift as the flooded Ohio, the Mississippi bore us rapidly on our way. Divided by island after island and contorted this way and that by out-jutting points, its mighty current, swollen to vast width, yet swept on in majestic grandeur past towering bluffs and inundated lowlands and wildernesses as virgin as in the remote days of De Soto the Spaniard, and La Salle the Frenchman, other than for an occasional plantation and, at longer intervals, the log cabins of the little settlements.
I will not speak of our difficulties from snags and sawyers and delaying eddies, or of the extreme difficulty of shooting the waterfowl, which, though abundant, had long since been taught wariness by the guns aboard the swarming river craft. I shot a swan and now and then a duck, but for the most part was held too close to the navigation of our awkward flat to hunt such shy game.
On the other hand, our well-stocked larder supplied us with all else than fresh meat and milk, and to obtain fish we had only to trail a line over the stern. The season was favorable to the avoidance of fevers and agues; the high water obviated in a measure the danger of shoals and sawyers, and I had had the forethought to provide nettings, which saved us when within the cabin the torments which at night we would otherwise have suffered from mosquitoes and gnats, even out in midchannel.
So, on the whole, our days would have passed pleasantly, even without those joys of companionship of which I have written. Aside from an occasional fierce thunder storm, our May days on the lower river were ideal to southern-born persons like my companions, though the fervid sunrays on the water darkened Don Pedro's aristocratic face to a coffee brown, and burned my ruddy complexion until it presented one unvaried expanse of brick red.
When not at work, Chita was accustomed to doze, uncovered, in the full blaze, mumbling in answer to my repeated warnings, that it would take a lifetime of basking to draw the fog and wet of England and my country from her bones. But she took great care that her mistress should never venture out into the sun-glare unmasked. Though the señorita could endure the heat as well as herself, there was always the señorita's complexion to be considered.
By tacit agreement, throughout our long voyage no mention had been made of its purpose since the evening of our visit with the Blennerhassets. Intimate as had been my relations with Alisanda and her uncle, it was not the part of an honorable man to receive confidences bearing on Don Pedro's plans, until I had seen General Wilkinson and learned whether Colonel Burr's test of influence would stand. Unless committed to the furtherance of the far-reaching projects which the Colonel had outlined to me, I felt that I had no right to share the secrets of the scheme.
In compliance with my wish, Don Pedro had refrained from all allusion to the subject, going so far as seldom to mention his home and country. In consequence, this being Alisanda's first voyage to New Spain, I learned so little of their plans that when we landed at Natchez I knew only that they expected to sail from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, and from there to travel either bydiligenciaor private coach to a town named Chihuahua, in the desert interior, where the don was possessed of a great estate. Even of the nature and customs of the country I had gathered few facts to add to the vague information acquired in past years from the Spanish Creoles.
But with our approach to Natchez, that which had been least in my thoughts became the uppermost. General Wilkinson was at Natchez, and the nature of his response to my letters from Colonel Burr was a matter of vital importance to me. A few days after our arrival would bring about my inevitable parting from Alisanda. If that parting took place without the knitting of new ties for the future, what hope had I of ever again looking into the depths of her dark eyes?
But should the Commander-in-Chief prove the feasibility of Colonel Burr's plans by agreeing to precipitate war and support the invasion of Mexico, and should he, in addition, give to me the leadership of the Western expedition, how strong my cause for hope! At once I could enter into the plans of Don Pedro, and while he journeyed back to Chihuahua, to prepare his friends for the revolution, I could lead my expedition across the great plains, my approach to Santa Fe to be the signal for the uprising. With war raging on the Sabine River and in Texas, the interior provinces would be drained of Spanish troops; so that the revolution could be gotten well under way before the Viceroy could send up an army from the City of Mexico.
Though not a man of military training, I then believed, and am still convinced, that this plan of campaign would have met with certain success. Thousands of our hardy frontiersmen were ready at the word to fling themselves across the Spanish borders, and with such men as the fiery General Jackson to lead them, they would have soon crushed all the forces which General Herrera could have brought against them. Their march across Texas and to the City of Mexico would have been marked by an unbroken succession of victories, while I, fighting side by side with Don Pedro in the revolutionary army of Mexico, with Alisanda to win!—
But enough of idle dreams! Those who base their plans on the leadership of wild schemers and double-dyed traitors should be grateful if the outcome finds them unsmirched by the company they have kept.
We moored to the wharf under the bluff at Natchez, and I, dressed fittingly for the occasion, had the pleasure of escorting Alisanda up to the little town on the hilly slope behind the bluff-crest,—my companion finding much to interest her in the motley crowd of Spanish and French Creoles, Americans, negro slaves, and Chickasaw Indians.
The don had not expected to stop at this seat of the Government of Mississippi Territory; else I have no doubt Colonel Burr would have provided him with a letter to insure hospitality from the persons who had sofêtedthat statesman the preceding Fall. As it was, I arranged for the best accommodation to be had at Mickie's Hotel, and at once set about the disposal of our floating home.
It being understood that I might be required to hasten north to St. Louis, Don Pedro had decided to sell the flat, since, without my company, it would be more convenient to continue the voyage to New Orleans in a passenger boat. A flat is worth so little at this end of the river trade that I was glad to bargain the craft for twenty dollars to a family of French creoles. At New Orleans I might have sought in vain for a purchaser. Scores of flats are there abandoned by the rivermen, many of whom return to the upper shipping towns afoot.
After some hours of delay at the water front, I returned to Mickie's Tavern with a cartload of impedimenta, including my own chest. Don Pedro met me at the door, with the information that he had already seen General Wilkinson, who, upon learning that I also bore despatches, had sent him to summon me to the headquarters. The don's expression, so far as one might read his proud features, told me that the interview had not been over-satisfactory.
"You are not pleased at General Wilkinson?" I asked.
"Nada, John," he answered with a terseness which spoke volumes.
I could well imagine what he would have said, had not his courtesy prevented.
"I will hasten," I said. "It may be he will meet you in a more favorable mood after he has seen the letters I bear."
"God knows! Who can tell?" he murmured in Spanish.
"I hope to know within the hour," I replied.
"Sabe Dios—Quien sabe?" he repeated, as I set off.
I found the General's headquarters without difficulty, and upon mentioning my name, was at once passed in by the sentinel on guard in the piazza. When I entered the office, I found the General studying a map of Lower Louisiana, in company with Colonel Cushing, his second in command. For a moment he stared at me with stupid pomposity, as if he had been overcome with the whiskey, a bottle of which stood on the table before him. But even as I gave my name, he recognized me and beckoned me to a seat at the table, with a fussy show of cordiality.
"Of course, of course, Dr. Robinson! Take a seat! I'm pestered with all kinds of visitors in these days of impending war. But a gentleman is always welcome. Colonel Cushing, you have met Dr. Robinson?—No?—One of our most promising young physicians,—already favorably known for his skill, both in the Upper and Lower Territory. He has, I understand, a private claim to present for my consideration. That is my understanding, doctor."
"You have been so kind, sir, as to give me opportunity to present a matter of private business, if I am not mistaken."
Colonel Cushing promptly rose, excused himself, and withdrew. The General leaned toward me, his fat, red face flushing still deeper, his breath hurried and labored.
"You bring me letters?" he puffed.
I took out my packet, broke the seal before his eyes, and handed over the first two letters, which were addressed to him. He tore open both with pudgy fingers that shook, either from excitement or excess of drink. The more bulky one he stared at for a moment, with knitted brows, only to fling it into a drawer.
"Cypher again!" he muttered.
"You spoke to me, sir?" I asked.
He glared across at me, with what I could have sworn was panicky fear. His voice shook: "You—you—Do you know what is in these letters?"
"You saw me break the seal of the packet," I replied. "I do not know the contents of Colonel Burr's messages; though, from what he told me, one letter relates to myself, and the other bears upon the death of Pitt."
"Pitt!—Pitt dead?" he gasped, losing thought of the one fear in another.
"Have you not heard?" I asked, astonished. "It is months since his death—midwinter."
"But—but—that puts another face on the plans! Without Pitt—without the British ships—"
"British ships!" I exclaimed.
He started, and sought to gather together his scattered wits, hastily pouring out and drinking half a glass of raw whiskey before again speaking. I waved aside the bottle and a second glass which he thrust toward me, and pointed to the other letter. "Your Excellency, may I ask you to read what Colonel Burr has written with regard to myself?"
He caught up the letter, and after a hasty glance about the room from door to window, began to read. I could see by the quickness with which his eyes followed the lines that, unlike the first, it was written in a legible hand. At the end he went back and re-read the latter part. Coming again to the end, he laid the letter down, and addressed me with a most bombastic assumption of dignity: "Sir, Colonel Burr takes too much upon himself—far too much! The granting of your request, sir, is impossible—impossible!"
Away puffed my aircastles at a word, and left me stunned and heartsick. I had not looked for so sudden a blow. Yet I managed to protest: "Your Excellency, I have ventured to imagine that I am not altogether lacking in the qualities needed by the leader of such an expedition."
He unbent a trifle. "Sir, I do not question your qualifications."
"Then what prevents my appointment, Your Excellency? Is it that you wish further recommendations? If only my friend Lieutenant Pike were here to speak for me!"
"That, sir, is the point. I cannot give you the place, because Lieutenant Pike has already been assigned to it."
"He!" I cried. "But he is at the sources of the Mississippi!"
"He was, sir, and the Government shall hear of it, to his just credit. He has explored the headwaters of the river; entered into treaties with the powerful tribes of the Sioux and Chippewas; hauled down the British flags at the fur-trading posts, and compelled an agreement of the Northwest Company to pay us our import duties at Michilmackinac."
"And he has returned!" I muttered.
"In April. By now he is fitting out this present expedition."
I rose and bowed. "Such being the case, Your Excellency, permit me to wish you good-day."
"One moment," he said, leaning toward me, with a leer which doubtless he meant for an ingratiating glance. "Has your ambition so narrow a range, doctor?"
"My ambition?" I inquired.
"Your ambition and your interest in the projects of one who shall at present go unnamed. I must read and consider what the gentleman has written to me. Whatever my decision as to—those matters, I cannot give you what you have asked; but—you will understand—there may be possibilities—vast possibilities!—a vast Empire, stretching westward from the Alleghanies—"
"Alleghanies!" I cried, astounded.
At sight of my face, his own turned a mottled gray. He caught at the whiskey bottle and poured himself out a second drink. Fortified by the draught, he gasped something about an attack of bilious fever, and added, with a crafty smile: "You, sir, as a physician, know how this cursed malaria flies to the head. I have the word Arkansas on my tongue, yet say Alleghany."
The explanation at once allayed the terrible suspicion which had flashed into my mind. It was common knowledge throughout the West that this man had been involved with Innes and other conspirators of the separatist plots in the nineties. But that he or Colonel Burr or any other man not insane could dream of such treason to the Republic in these days was a thought seemingly so preposterous that it needed only the pompous old fellow's word of explanation to make me banish the suspicion. Yet I realized that I had had quite enough of his company.
"Sir," I said, "my interest in the affairs of Colonel Burr hinged entirely upon this question of the expedition. Since the honor of its leadership has fallen to my friend Lieutenant Pike, I have nothing to ask of you."
"You will remain in Natchez a day or two?" he inquired.
"I cannot say."
"It might prove to your interest to delay over. I may again send for you, notwithstanding your reluctance to receive other favors than the one I cannot grant."
I bowed and withdrew, leaving him in the act of pouring a third drink of whiskey.
It was not with a light heart that I returned to Mickie's Hotel. I had made my cast, and fortune was against me. In the afternoon I had left Alisanda smiling down upon me from the balcony of her inn window; I was returning at nightfall to meet—Señorita Vallois. Though to the last she and Don Pedro might hold to the familiar "Juan," how little might even her smiles lighten the shadow of a hopeless parting!
As I entered the inn door, Mickie bustled forward to inform me, with an air of vast importance, that at the request of the Spanish grandee, he had arranged to serve the evening meal to the señor's party above stairs. When he added that a plate was to be laid for myself, I hastened to my own room for a change of linen.
My heart was too heavy for me to linger over foppish details of dress. It was not long before I found myself at the door of the room set apart for the private dining-parlor. Chita, who was overlooking the spreading of the cloth by the negro attendants of the inn, conducted me through to the balcony, where I found the don indolently puffing at hiscigarro.
Before I could take the seat to which he waved me, Alisanda floated out into the moonlight from the window behind him. She was a vision all heavenly white but for her scarlet lips and sombre eyes and brows. Even the soft tresses of her hair were hidden beneath the gauzy white drape of tulle and lace which took the place of her black mantilla.
"Buenas noches, Juan," she greeted me, in a tone of liquid silver.
"God be with you, Alisanda!" I responded.
"Be seated,amigo," urged Don Pedro. "You have a weary look."
"I bring what to me is heavy news," I replied.
"You had in mind to ask a favor of General Wilkinson," said Alisanda. "You have asked the favor, and—he has refused it?"
The note of sympathy in her voice soothed my despairing anger. I did not stop to wonder at the intuition by which she had divined the object of my visit to the General. It was enough for me that she had perceived my heaviness, and held out to me her sympathy.
"It is true," I said, and in a few words I told them of my shattered plans,—how I had hoped to gain fame by leading an expedition of exploration to the West, as Lewis and Clark were exploring the Northwest, and as my friend Pike had explored the headwaters of the Mississippi; and how the statements of Colonel Burr had led me to hope for still greater fame as a sharer in the freeing of Mexico.
Don Pedro leaned toward me, his eyes glowing with friendly fire. "Por Dios!Your one thought was to help us break the yoke! You would give your life for the winning of liberty!"
I looked across at Alisanda, and the soft loveliness of her beauty in the moonlight filled me to overflowing with the bitterness of my blasted hopes.
"Do not think me so noble!" I replied. "I thought to fight for the freedom of your country, but it was in hope of a reward a thousandfold greater than my service!"
Alisanda raised her fan and gazed at me above its fluted edge with widened eyes,—I feared in resentful wonder at my audacity. But Don Pedro was too intent upon his own thoughts to perceive the meaning of my words.
"Por Dios!" he protested. "Those who have risen against Spanish oppression have ever met with short shrift. Shall not they who brave death in our cause look for glorious reward in the hour of victory?"
"That is true of those who may be blessed with the chance to join your ranks. As for me, the opportunity which I had thought to be golden has turned to ashes in my grasp."
"Sabe Dios!" murmured Alisanda in so soft a tone that the words came to me like a whisper of the evening breeze. Was it possible that after all I still had cause for hope?
Chita's voice, drawling the usual Spanish phrase, summoned us to the table. We rose, and Alisanda accepted my arm with a queenly graciousness of manner which in the same moment thrilled and disheartened me. I read it to mean that she was in a kindly mood, but that the kindliness was due to the condescension of Señorita Vallois, and not to the frank companionship of my fellow-traveller Alisanda. This surmise was borne out by her manner at table, where she rallied her uncle and myself upon our gravity, and with subtle skill, confined the talk to the lightest of topics. The Don was as abstemious as most of his countrymen, and Mickie's wine was a libel on the name, yet he soon mellowed to the gay chit-chat of his niece.
It was beyond me to enter into this spirit of merriment. I forced myself to smile outwardly and to meet their lively quips and sallies with such nimbleness of wit as I possessed. But it went no deeper than show on my part. The longer we sat, the heavier grew my heart. I had no joy of my food. Even the peaches and the other fruits of the lower river tasted bitter in my mouth. For with each fresh turn of the conversation I saw my Alisanda slipping farther away from me, her kindly glance giving place to the haughty gaze of the Spanish lady of blood, her familiar address cooling to stately condescension. I was no longer "Juan," but "doctor" and "señor," and, near the end, "Doctor Robinson."
We had come to the sweetmeats, and I noted with despair that she was on the point of withdrawing. She had even thrust back her chair to rise, when, with scant ceremony, a young soldier in uniform entered and stated that His Excellency, General Wilkinson, desired the immediate presence of Señor Vallois.
"Carambo!" exclaimed Don Pedro, looking regretfully at the sweetmeats. "He might have chosen a fitter time! It is in my mind to wait."
"Is not your business with him the affair of others no less than your own?" murmured Alisanda.
"Santisima Virgen!You do well to remind me! Juan, with your permission—"
"Adios!Good fortune to you!" I cried, as he rose.
Another moment and he and the soldier had left the room. I was alone with Alisanda. She rose, with a trace of inquietude beneath her calm hauteur. I moved around the table to join her.
"Spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "It is unkind to take a man of English blood from his wine."
"Señorita," I answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the country. I do not wonder. Our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end. There is no longer need for such slight service as I was able to render—"
"Service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip.
Though cut to the quick, I could not give over.
"Alisanda," I said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days since we met on the Monongahela?"
She raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose strand of hair down her cheek.
"Santisima Virgen!" she murmured, with fine-drawn irony. "It has ever been a marvel to me—so chance a meeting."
"Chance, indeed!" I replied. "Chance that the utmost of my effort could not trace the road by which you left Washington; chance that Colonel Burr gave me the clew for which I sought; chance that of the nine horses I rode to a stand between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, none failed me in my need."
She gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "Madre de los Dolores!What a pity! A little time, and the gulf will roll between."
"I will cross that gulf!"
"Not so; for it is the gulf of the Cross," she mocked. "I go the way of Vera Cruz—the True Cross. No heretic may pass that way."
The words struck down my last hope. It was the truth—a double truth. The way of my body was barred by the city of the Cross; the way of my spirit by that which to her the Cross symbolized.
"So this is the end," I replied. "We have come to the parting of the ways. Do not fear that I shall weary you with annoying persistence. I shall go my way before sunrise to-morrow. Only—let me ask that this last hour with you may hold its share of sweetness with the bitterness of parting,—Alisanda!"
"An hour?" she repeated. "The air in here is close."
She laid her fingers lightly upon my arm, and we passed out into the moonlit balcony. For a time we sat silent, she gazing out across the broken slopes of the town, I gazing at her still white face and shadowy eyes. Her loveliness was part with the night and the moonlight and the scarlet bloom of the climber upon the balcony rail.
At last I could no longer endure the thought that she was lost to me; I could no longer deny utterance to my love and longing.
"Alisanda! dearest one! Is there then no hope that I may win you? I have no gallant speeches—my love is voiceless; no less is it a love that shall endure always. Alisanda!mydearest one! is my love of no worth to you? Let your heart speak! Can it not give me one word of hope?"
My voice failed me. Throughout my passionate appeal I failed to see the slightest change in her calm face. I had failed to stir her even to mockery. Truly all was now at an end! I bowed my head and groaned in most unmanly fashion.
The low murmur of her voice roused me to despairing eagerness. She spoke in a tone of light inconsequence, yet I seized upon the words as the drowning man clutches at straws.
"Love?—love?" she repeated. "The word has become a jest. Men protest that they know the meaning of love—that they suffer its bitterest pangs. Yet speak to them of the days of chivalry, when gallant knights bore the colors of their ladies through deadly battle, and the ogling beaux turn an epigram onles sauvages nous ancêtres!"
"Show me the way to the battlefield—I ask no more!" I cried.
"Words—words!" she mocked. "The Cid would have found his way to the field of glory without asking. Were the way barred, El Campeador would have hewn his way through, though the barrier were of solid rock! But the men of to-day—!"
"Wait!" I broke in. "Have you not yourself said that the way of the gulf is impassable for me?"
"True," she assented, "true! And not alone the gulf, but the barrier—the gulf of water and of the Cross; the barrier of rock and of blood."
"Blue blood and red have been known to intermingle," I argued.
"With love for solvent!" she murmured. The softness was only for the instant. "Yet what of that other barrier?" she demanded. "Between your land and the land to which I go lies the blood of Christ."
"Is it then religion that is the insurmountable barrier—the impassable gulf? You have not lived all your life in Spain. I had hoped that not even your faith could close your heart against me, if only I might prove to you the greatness of my love."
She sat silent for what seemed an endless time, toying idly with her fan. When at last she spoke, it was again in that light, inconsequential tone: "To the eastward or northeastward of Santa Fe lies a vast snow-clad sierra. My kinsman once saw it from a great distance. He says it is called theSangre de Cristo."
"Sangre de Cristo—the Blood of Christ!" I said, lost in wonderment. Then a great light flashed upon me. I knelt on one knee and caught to my lips a white hand that did not seek to escape my grasp. "The barrier—the barrier of rock!—Alisanda! you give me hope! If I come to you there—if I cross that barrier? Dearest one!—dearest! can you doubt it? Though I have to find my way alone among the fierce savages of the vast prairies; though I find that snowy range a mountain of ice and fire, I will come to you, Alisanda—my love!"
I saw the quick rise of her bosom and the blush that suffused her cheeks with glorious scarlet before she could raise her masking fan.
"Santisima Virgen!" she murmured, and broke into a little quavering, uncertain laugh. "They speak of the cold blood of your race!"
"Alisanda!—Dearest one! Tell me I may come!"
She rose quietly, already calm again, and cold as the moonlight which shone full upon her face. I rose with her, still clasping her hand.
"Tell me, Alisanda, may I come?"
"Why ask me that?" she said, in an even voice. "Could I prevent if you wished to try?"
"If I cross the barrier, may I hope?"
"There would yet be the gulf."
"Gulf or barrier, I swear I will find my way to you, though it be through fire and flood! I will seek you out and win you, though you hide your beauty beneath a nun's veil!"
Such was the force of my passion, I again saw her bosom rise to a deep-drawn breath and the edges of her sensitive nostrils quiver. Yet this time she did not blush, and her voice cut with its fine-drawn irony: "Words—words!"
"I offer love. I ask nothing in turn but a word or a token—nothing but—my lady's colors."
She turned and opened her eyes full to my gaze as she had opened them at our parting in far-off Washington, and I looked down into their depths, vainly seeking to penetrate the darkness. At last it seemed to me I saw a gleam far down in the wells of mystery—a glow, faint yet warm, that seemed to light my way to hope.
Suddenly the glow burst into a flame of golden glory—She was swaying toward me, a line of pearls showing between her curving lips. But even as I sought to clasp her in my arms, she eluded me and glided away, vanishing through the farther window.
Half mad with delight, yet unable to believe my own eyes, I sought to follow, the blood drumming in my ears from the wild intoxication of my love. None too soon I heard behind me the sharp call of Don Pedro: "Hola, amigo!Have you gone deaf, that you do not answer?"
This, then, was why she had eluded me! It was his return which had robbed me of that moment of all moments. My look as I turned was as bitter as his was keen. My voice sounded to me like that of another man: "What! Back so soon, señor?"