CHAPTER XI.NED’S NEWS
“Hullo, young man! I’ve been looking for you. How are you?”
“Captain Kemp!” shouted Ned, in astonishment. “Where did you come from? Who dreamed of seeing you here?”
“Nobody, I hope,” said the captain; “but here I am, and I’ve brought you half a dozen letters. They are among my baggage. First thing, though, tell me all about yourself. Where have you been?”
They were standing in the grand plaza, not many paces from the front of the cathedral, and Ned had come there for another look at the building which had taken the place of the old-time temple of the murderous Mexican god of war. He was wildly excited for a moment, and he began to ask questions, rather than to tell anything about himself.
“Keep cool, now, my boy,” said the captain.“We don’t know who’s watching us. I didn’t have much trouble in running the Yankee blockade at Vera Cruz. I brought a cargo from New York, just as if it had been sent from Liverpool, but I’ve had to prove that I’m not an American ever since I came ashore. Spin us your yarn as we walk along.”
Ned was now ready to do so, and the captain listened to him with the most intense interest, putting in remarks every now and then.
“All this,” he said, “is precisely what your father wishes you to do, if you can do it. The way of it is this. He knows, and we all know, that this war can’t be a long one. As soon as it’s over, his concern means to go into the Mexican trade heavier than they ever did before. They think it will be worth more, and I mean to be in it myself. So it just suits him to have you here, making friends and learning all about the country you are to deal with. He says you are in the best kind of business school. There will be a fortune in it for you some day.”
“I don’t exactly see how,” remarked Ned, doubtfully.
“Well,” replied the captain, “not many young American business men know ten cents’ worth about Mexico. You’d bettergo right on and learn all there is to know. Keep shy of all politics, though. This war is going to break Paredes and a lot of others. After they are out of power, your own friends, like Tassara, Zuroaga, and the rest of them, may be in office, and you will be in clover. It’s a wonderfully rich country, if it were only in the right hands and had a good government. I’ll give you the letters when we get to my lodgings. Then I must make my way back to Vera Cruz, but I had to come all this distance to get my pay from the authorities. I obtained it, even now, only by promising to bring over another cargo of British gunpowder, to fight the Yankees with.”
That was a thing which Ned did not like, but he could not do anything to prevent it. He could not expect an Englishman to be an American, and it was all a matter of trade to Captain Kemp, aside from his personal friendship for Ned and his father. There was more talk of all sorts, and Ned obtained a great deal of information concerning the war and what the United States were likely to do. After he had received his precious letters, however, and had said good-by to Captain Kemp, he almost ran against people in his haste to reach the Paez mansion. He didnot pause to speak to anybody on arriving, but darted up-stairs and made his way to the library. It was lighter now in the wonderful book-room, and the man in armor did not say anything as Ned came in. In a moment he was in the chair by the window, and he appeared to himself to be almost talking with the dear ones at home, from whom he had so long been separated.
“Stay where you are,” he read from his father’s long letter, and at that hour he felt as if he did not wish to stay. He dropped the letter on the table, and leaned back in his chair and looked around him. Pretty soon, however, a little slowly to begin with, but then faster and faster, the strong and fascinating spirit of adventure came once more upon him. His very blood tingled, and he sprang to his feet to all but shout to his mailed acquaintance in the corner:
“Yes, sir, I’ll stay! I’ll do anything but become a Mexican. Tell you what, before the war’s over, I mean to be in the American army, somehow. I don’t exactly see how I’m to do it, though.”
It was time to go down-stairs and report to his faithful friends, for he knew it would be very mean not to do so, and the first person he met was Señora Tassara herself.
“I have letters from home!” he exclaimed, bluntly—“newspapers, too!” and she held up both hands in astonishment, as she responded:
“Letters from the United States? How on earth did they come through the blockade, and how did they know where you are?”
“I guess they didn’t,” said Ned. “The English captain that used to command theGoshawkbrought them. I met him at the plaza, hunting for me. He was a friend of General Zuroaga, and besides, the British consul at Vera Cruz knew I was with Colonel Tassara’s family. So, if I hadn’t met him, he would have tried to find you. My father writes that I am to stay in Mexico, and learn all about it.”
“I am glad of that,” she said. “Why, you could not get out at all just now without danger to yourself and getting all of us into trouble.”
“I wouldn’t do that for anything!” exclaimed Ned, and then he went on with his tremendous budget of miscellaneous news.
It was an exceedingly interesting heap of information, for the captain had given him both English and American journals, which were a rare treat at that time in theinterior of the beleaguered Mexican republic. Señora Tassara was busy with these, when Ned and all the other news-bringers were pounced upon by a yet more eager inquirer.
“Señor Carfora!” exclaimed Felicia, her black eyes flashing curiously at him. “Where did you get them? I never before saw such big newspapers. They won’t tell us about our army, though.”
“Yes, they will,” he said, and, while she was searching the broad-faced prints for army information, he repeated for her benefit all that he had previously told her mother. Poor Señorita Felicia! She did not obtain at all what she wanted, for there were no accounts of brilliant Mexican victories. All of these must have been meanly omitted by the editors, and at last she angrily threw down a newspaper to say to him:
“Señor Carfora, I am glad you are to stay here, but you will never be anything better than a gringo, no matter how much you learn. I was up in the library this morning, and I pulled out six more books for you. You may read them all, if they will do you any good. One of them is about Spain, too. What I want to do isto travel all over Spain. It must be the most beautiful country in the world.”
Ned had noticed long ago that her eyes always grew dreamy whenever her thoughts were turned toward the peninsula which has had so wonderful a history, but he did not know that his own longings for foreign travel were very like her own in their origin when he replied:
“Well, I’d like to see Spain. I mean to some day, but I want to see England first, and Scotland and Ireland. One of my ancestors was an Irishman, and the Crawfords were from Scotland. It isn’t as hot a country as Spain is. You are a Mexican, not a Spaniard.”
“So I am,” she said, “and most of the Mexicans are Indians. We ought to have more Spaniards, but we can’t get them. Anyhow, we don’t want too many gringos to come in. They are all heretics, too.”
Ned knew what she meant, and he hastened to tell her that his country contained more church people of her religion than Mexico did, and he added, to her great disgust:
“And our priests are a hundred times better than yours are. General Zuroaga says so, and so does your father. I don’t like your Mexican priests. The generalsays he wishes they were all dead, and their places filled by good, live men from Europe and the United States.”
“Felicia,” interrupted her mother, “you must not talk with Señor Carfora about such things. What I wish is that we had the American common schools all over our poor, ignorant country. Oh, dear! What if this horrible war should prove to be really a blessing to us? As things look now, we are to have another revolution within a year. More men will be shot, just as they have been before, and nobody can see what the end is to be.”
It was now time for the noonday luncheon, and they went to the dining-room, where Señora Paez herself was glad to see the foreign journals and to know that Ned had letters from home.
Many things appeared to be settled, as far as he was concerned. At all events, his mind was no longer to busy itself with wild plans for squirming out from among the Aztecs and finding his way to the United States. After luncheon he went up to the library again. At first it was only to read his letters over and over, and then it was a kind of relief to go to his books and try to forget everything else in going on with his queer schooling. It was unlike any that hisold schoolmates at the North were having, and he caught himself wondering what kind of man it might make of him. He could not tell, but he was to have yet another lesson that day, and with it came a promise of a strange kind of vacation.
It came to him in the evening, when he was so tired of books that he preferred the company of Señorita Felicia, no matter what saucy or overpatriotic things she might see fit to say to him. They were sitting near one of the drawing-room windows, when Señora Paez came quietly behind him and touched him on the shoulder.
“Come with me,” she said. “There is a man up in Señora Tassara’s room who wishes to see you.”
“O Señor Carfora!” whispered Felicia. “Don’t say a word! I know who it is. Go right along. He is an old friend of yours.”
Up jumped Ned, and he and the señorita followed Señora Paez eagerly. Half a minute later, he felt as if he had never been so astonished before in all his life, for his hand was heartily grasped, and the voice of General Zuroaga said to him:
“Here I am, Señor Carfora. How are you?”
“Oh, but I’m glad to see you!” exclaimed Ned. “I’m all right, but isn’t it awfully dangerous for you to be here?”
“It would be, if some men knew it,” replied Zuroaga, “or if I were unwise enough to remain too long. The fact is that I can give you only a few minutes, anyhow, this evening. I must be out of the city before daylight, if I can, but I will return at the end of a week or so. Then I shall take you with me to the valley of the Tehuantepec. You must see all that region. After that I shall have a tour to make on political affairs, through several States, and you will have a chance to see two thirds of the republic before winter.”
“That is just what my father would wish me to do,” said Ned, and he proceeded to tell the general the contents of his letters and all the news he had heard from Captain Kemp.
“Very good!” said Zuroaga, at last. “I would have been glad to have seen the captain. He is a rough sort of fellow, but he can be depended on. It is evident that your father’s firm trusts him, but I believe they do not know exactly all that he has been doing. He is quite willing to make a few dollars for himself while he is working for others.”
The general was in good spirits, but more than once he spoke of the necessity he was under of keeping out of the reach of his old enemies, and among these he appeared to consider the absent Santa Anna even more dangerous, in the long run, than President Paredes himself. Señora Tassara had now joined them, but she seemed disposed to be silent, and most of the conversation was in the hands of Señora Paez. It was noticeable that she appeared to have a remarkably good knowledge of the politics of her country. Perhaps, if Ned had been a few years older and the least bit of a politician, he might have suspected the truth, that she was one of the most subtle plotters in the whole country. If she was also a deadly enemy of President Paredes, it was because she was a sister of a revolutionary leader whom he had caused to be shot, years ago, without the formality of a court-martial. Ned saw her eyes flash and her bosom heave when she spoke of him, and after that he somehow felt safer than ever under her roof. He also saw that she and General Zuroaga were the best of friends, and that they had a long private conference of their own.
“I guess he feels at home here,” thought Ned, as he went down-stairs with Feliciaand Señora Tassara, and his confidence in that state of affairs grew stronger as he walked along the central hall of the house.
“Pablo!” he exclaimed, to a man who lay sprawled out upon the floor, but the general’s Oaxaca follower made him no reply. He and three more like him, who lay near him, were sound asleep, and there was no good cause for stirring them up just then.
“They are all well armed,” said Ned to himself. “The general will be protected when he rides away in the morning. But this is the biggest kind of thing to come to me. The bestIcan do will be to take to my books till he gets back. Oh, but won’t it be grand fun to make a complete tour of the mountains and of all the Pacific coast of Mexico? He says I shall see the tallest peaks of the Cordilleras and that I may visit some of the great silver mines.”
With all that exciting expectation running through his head, it was not easy for him to get to sleep that night. When he arose in the morning, his friend, the mysterious general, had already departed.
CHAPTER XII.A STORM COMING
“A monarchy! a monarchy! nothing but the one-man power will ever do anything for this miserable multitude of Indians, negroes, and rebellion-making Spanish aristocrats. Royalty is our only resource, and I am nearly ready to strike the required blow. I think that Don Maria Paredes would make as good an emperor as Augustin de Yturbide, and he will wear the crown of Mexico somewhat longer. But I must look out for Santa Anna. If he were to return from Cuba too soon, there would be nothing left for me but to have him shot as soon as he came ashore. Or else he might have me shot not many days afterward. His emissaries and spies are all the while working against me, but I shall catch some of them. Oh, how I would like to get hold of that venomous conspirator, Zuroaga!”
The President and practically the dictatorof the nominal republic of Mexico was standing in his own luxurious chamber of the government palace in the city of Mexico. He was in the full uniform of a general officer, for he was preparing to ride out and attend a review of a division of the really large army which he had gathered to move against the American invaders at the north. He deemed himself favored by fortune, for all things had thus far appeared to operate in the direction of his high ambition. He was in possession of undisputed power, and his time for making his supremacy permanent had arrived. It was the morning of the 4th of August, 1846, and it promised to be a splendid day for a parade. He had eloquently appealed to all the patriotism in the land, and he had used his last dollar in raising the troops who were to win his victories and place him firmly upon the throne of Anahuac, the lost throne of the Montezumas. A large part of his forces had already marched, and he was now to follow with the remainder. It was high time that he should do so, for General Taylor’s army was daily drawing nearer the Mexican lines at the city of Monterey. Not many minutes later, he rode away from the palace, attended by a brilliant staff, through crowded streets,where every hat went off and all the voices shouted “Viva Paredes” with every appearance of enthusiasm.
That morning Ned Crawford had not felt like going out of the city to see any review. Days had passed since the departure of General Zuroaga, but Ned’s head was full of what his friend had said to him, and he did not care much in what direction his feet might take him. So, having all that responsibility to themselves, they carried him on across the city until, when he looked around him, he saw that he had almost reached the front gate of the out-of-date fort, which was known as “the citadel.” It always contained a large garrison, not by any means for the defence of the capital from external foes, but for the protection of whatever might be the “government” for the time being from any sudden tumult or attempted revolution. There were officers and a squad of soldiers standing a few paces out in front of the wide-open military portal, and they all were gazing intently in the same direction. Ned also turned to look, but all that he could see was a solitary rider, upon what seemed to be an all but exhausted horse, urging the panting animal toward the citadel.
“Colonel Guerra!” exclaimed Ned.“What has brought him all the way from Vera Cruz? Has our army come? Is the city taken?”
Nothing of that kind had yet occurred, but there was a reason for the arrival of the trusted commander of the important fortress on the sea. Ned was very near him when the horse fell, and his rider sprang to the earth, covered with dust and evidently in great excitement. The officers at the gate rushed forward toward him, and one of them loudly demanded:
“Colonel Guerra! What is it? Has he come? All is ready here!”
Guerra himself had not fallen with his horse. Off came his hat and his sword flashed from the sheath, while his voice rang out clearly, fiercely:
“Viva Santa Anna! The entire force at Vera Cruz and the garrison of San Juan de Ulua have pronounced for him. He is now on his way home from Havana. We shall soon have with us the one hero who can save us from the American invaders and from the tyranny of King Paredes!”
Possibly, this had been the day calculated upon for the arrival of precisely such tidings. It might even have been that all these officers and soldiers were gathered there, prepared both to hear and to act,while President Paredes should be temporarily absent from the city. At all events, they were swinging their hats, drawing their swords, and their enthusiastic acclamations for the returning general were at once followed by a rush back into the citadel and a hasty closing of its gates. When that was done, and when the rest of the garrison had joined in “pronouncing” for Santa Anna, the military control of the Mexican capital had passed out of the hands of President Paredes.
It was startling news, therefore, which was brought out to him by a friendly messenger, as he rode so proudly on in front of his shouting soldiery, believing that they were all his own and ready to do his bidding. The grand review ended instantaneously, and he came galloping back in all haste to look out for his tumbling crown. He came with his brilliant staff and a mixed crowd of friends and unfriends, only to discover that crown and throne and scepter had disappeared like the changing figures in a kaleidoscope. He could not even order anybody to be arrested and shot, for the Vice-President, General Bravo, and all the members of the national Congress, then in session, were thoughtfully saying to themselves, if not to each other:
“Santa Anna is coming! The seacoast forces are already his. He will be right here in a few days. We must be careful what we say or do just now. We do not even know what these new troops will say to this thing.”
They were not to remain long in ignorance upon that point. As the news went out from regiment to regiment that afternoon, the undisciplined, ragged mobs of raw recruits began to shout for Santa Anna. Perhaps many of them had previously served under the one-legged veteran of the old French and Texan wars and at least half a dozen revolutions.
Ned Crawford turned and hurried homeward, as soon as he felt sure that his head was still upon his shoulders and that he had heard his remarkable news correctly. His eyes were busy, too, and he heard what men were saying to each other. Excited shouts were carrying the errand of Colonel Guerra swiftly over the city, and everywhere it was discovering hearers as ready for it as had been the officers at the gate. He may have been looking a little pale when he entered the parlor of the Paez mansion, for Señora Paez at once arose and came to meet him, inquiring, anxiously:
“Señor Carfora, what is the matter? Has anything happened?”
“Santa Anna—” began Ned, but she stepped quickly forward and put her hand upon his mouth, whispering sharply:
“Speak lower! we do not know who may hear you. What is it?”
She took away her hand, and Ned also whispered, as he hurriedly told her what he had seen and heard at the citadel. As he did so, her face and that of Señora Tassara, standing by her, grew much paler than his own.
“My dear Mercedes,” said Señora Tassara to her cousin, “this is all as my husband and General Zuroaga predicted. But the tiger is not here yet, and by the time he arrives they will be beyond his reach. It takes some days to travel from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. Señor Carfora, you are in no danger. Neither are we.”
“No!” angrily exclaimed Señora Paez. “Not for to-day nor to-morrow, perhaps, but down goes the Paredes monarchy! Ah, me! There is a terrible time coming for poor Mexico. Who shall tell what the end of it all will be!”
“Nobody!” said Señora Tassara, sadly, but Felicia whispered to Ned:
“Señor Carfora, the gringos could notdo us much harm if their army had a revolution springing up behind it at home. I wish they had one.”
“I don’t,” replied Ned. “If we did have one, though, it would be bigger than this is. I don’t believe we have any Santa Annas to make one, anyhow. There isn’t a man in all America that would think of being king. I guess that if we found one we’d hang him.”
“Well,” said Felicia, “President Paredes would like to hang a great many people, or shoot them, but I hope he can’t. What are you going to do?”
“He does not know, dear,” interposed her mother. “We must stop talking about this thing now. Some of our friends are coming in. It is better to let them tell us what has happened, just as if we had not heard it at all. Be very careful what you say.”
Perhaps everybody in the Paez mansion was accustomed to that kind of caution, and when a number of excited women neighbors poured into the parlor to bring the great tidings and discuss the situation, they found no one in it who was to be surprised into saying a word which might not have been heard without offence by the friends of either Paredes or Santa Anna.
Great changes in public affairs may produce changes in the plans of individuals, and it was not remarkable if General Zuroaga’s intended week of absence should be somewhat shortened. It may have ended at the moment when the garrison of the citadel “pronounced” in favor of the tyrant in exile and against the tyrant in nominal power. Ned, however, had a small surprise waiting for him. It actually arrived not a great while after luncheon, when he was feeling as if he would like to sit down by himself and think over this very curious piece of political business. He went up into the library, as the safest kind of thinking-place, and, hardly had he opened the door, before he discovered that it had another tenant besides the man in armor in the corner.
“General Zuroaga!” he exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Not quite so loud, please,” quietly responded the general. “Yes, Carfora, here I am. Here I must hide, too, for a few hours. The camp is no longer a safe place for me, even in the disguise I was wearing. There is really nothing more to keep me there now. I do not need to run any further risks on account of Paredes and his tin monarchy. He is already utterly ruined.I must get out of the reach of Santa Anna’s lieutenants, however, if I do not wish to be locked up. You and I can slip away all the more easily while this tumult is going on, and by noon to-morrow we may be well out on the road to Oaxaca. Will you be ready?”
“It’s just what I was wishing for!” exclaimed Ned. “I know enough to see that it isn’t a good thing for Señora Paez to have me in the house. She has troubles enough of her own. So has Señora Tassara. If an enemy of theirs found that they had a gringo here, it would make things worse for them. They’ve been real good to me, but I want to go with you.”
“Right!” said the general. “And there will be sharp eyes on the watch while Santa Anna’s friends are getting ready for his arrival. He may appear to come peaceably, but do I not know him? He never yet forgot or forgave an enemy. He will come back to settle up all old accounts.”
“Well,” said Ned, “we need not be here to be shot at. I packed up, all ready, days ago. But, general, I guess I can ride better than I did the other time. I don’t need to have so fat a pony.”
“My dear fellow,” replied the general, soberly, “you will be mounted on a horsethat can make a swift run, if necessary. I am glad that you will know what to do with him.”
In other things than horsemanship, Ned had made wonderful advances since he came ashore out of the norther, in the Bay of Vera Cruz. It was as if he had grown a number of years older in becoming so much more experienced. Moreover, he knew so much already about the plots and counterplots which were going on that it was of little use to keep some things from him. He was, in fact, almost full-grown as a Mexican conspirator, and he was sure to do whatever he could against either a monarchy under Paredes or a dictatorship under Santa Anna. It was a full hour later when they were joined by Señora Paez. She came on a special errand, for almost her first remark was:
“General, there will be danger from robbers of all sorts. I shall not dare to keep a great deal of money in the house. I have not much, either, that I can spare for yourself, but you must take this and spend it to beat them. What’s more, I want you to take my jewels with you and hide them somewhere in the mountains. Señora Tassara’s are already in a safe place. I hope Señor Carfora has enough.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Ned. “I have hardly spent anything, and Captain Kemp gave me another hundred, from father. I almost wish it were all in bank-bills, though, for gold and silver are heavy things to carry.”
“Well, as to that,” laughed the general, “I do not know what kind of paper money we could make in Mexico, just now. That sort of thing will do only under a pretty solid government. But then, a dollar will go further in this country than it will in the United States. It looks as if horses were worth only five dollars a head, and men about half as much. There are too many that seem ready to sell themselves for nothing.”
He said that wearily and sadly, for he was at heart a true patriot and he believed himself to be doing his best to bring a better state of things out of all this anarchy and confusion.
Señora Paez left the room. Ned and the general lay down on the floor to sleep for awhile, and it was just when the first dim light of dawn was beginning to creep in at the narrow window that Pablo came to awaken them. He put his finger on his lip as he did so, and they understood that there might be danger close at hand. It was notuntil they were out of the house, however, leaving it silently by way of the back door, that he ventured to whisper:
“General, there is a guard already stationed in front. President Paredes is making his last effort to stop his downfall, and he has heard that you are in the city. All your friends will be closely watched, to-day.”
“I wanted to say good-by to them,” began Ned, but here they were.
“General, this is the jewel case,” said Señora Paez, as she handed him a small rosewood box. “Here is the money. Now, Señor Carfora, be a brave fellow. Learn all you can of our poor country. I hope to see you again.”
Señora Tassara was saying something in a very low voice to Zuroaga, when Felicia turned to Ned and said to him:
“You are a wicked gringo, but I like you pretty well and I do hope you will get away safely. Take good care of yourself.”
“Well, señorita,” replied Ned, “I will do that, and so must you. I’d rather be out among the mountains than here in the city. You’d be safer there, too. Anyhow, you are not a Mexican. You are a Spaniard and you would rather be in Spain.”
“Maybe I would, just now,” she told himwith a very melancholy look in her brilliant black eyes. “But I do love Mexico, and I do know enough to wish we were not to have any more revolutions. That is, not any more after Paredes and Santa Anna and some other men have been killed.”
“That is the way they all feel about each other,” broke in the general. “Come, Carfora. We have horses waiting for us on one of the back streets.”
There were a few hasty good-bys then. The three fugitives passed out of sight among the shadows of the buildings, and the women returned to the house to wait for the downfall of King or Emperor Paredes.
CHAPTER XIII.THE REVOLUTION
There had been a curious impression upon the minds of some American statesmen that General Santa Anna would return to his native country with a purpose of making peace. It was for that reason that he was permitted to pass unhindered through the blockading fleet in the Gulf, but he had no such idea in his cunning and ambitious head. His real objects in returning were to take vengeance upon his enemies, to restore himself to the supreme power which he had lost by the revolution of 1840, and, for that purpose, to prosecute the war with the United States with all possible vigor. His personal feeling in that matter might have been understood by recalling the fact that his downfall had resulted from his severe defeat in attempting to conquer the earlier American settlers in Texas. On his arrival in Vera Cruz, on the 16th of August, aproclamation which he at once issued, denouncing alike the monarchical ambition of President Paredes and the wicked invasion of Mexico by the armies of the northern republic, opened the eyes of all concerned. When, however, with all the troops at his disposal, he slowly approached the city of Mexico, he put on a cloak of patriotic moderation. The existing government, consisting of Vice-President Bravo and the Congress, had succeeded in imprisoning and then in banishing their would-be emperor, Paredes. They now, as the returning exile drew near the capital, offered him a temporary dictatorship of the disordered national affairs, but he modestly replied that he did not desire so much. He had returned, he said, as a pure and unselfish patriot, only to serve his country. All that he would be willing to accept would be the absolute control of the army, as if any power worth speaking of might be supposed to remain outside of his bayonets and lances. This small request was readily granted, and from that hour onward he was, for the time being, more completely the dictator of Mexico than he or any other man had ever been before. He entered the city and assumed command on the 15th of September. Only a week later, on the 22dand 23d, the fall and surrender of Monterey strengthened his hold upon the people, for it made them feel more keenly than ever their need of a good general. He certainly did act with great energy, for, as early as the 8th of October, he had advanced with his army as far north as San Luis Potosi, and was straining every possible resource to prepare for his coming conflict with General Taylor. It is said that he even mortgaged his private property to obtain the money required for his military supplies.
During all these weeks and months there had been stormy times in the Congress of the United States, and the war of the politicians was by no means ended. General Winfield Scott, however, had been left at the head of the army, with authority to invade Mexico in any manner he might choose, but with about half as many troops as he declared to be necessary for such an undertaking. It was late in December, 1846, when General Scott in person arrived at the mouth of the Rio Grande and assumed the direction of military operations. As he did not propose any considerable further advance into Mexico, except by way of Vera Cruz, he decided to take his best troops with him to that field of thecoming campaign. This meant that General Taylor was to lose nearly all his regular army men and officers, their places being filled, as to numbers, by new regiments of exceedingly brave but untried volunteers. He was therefore left to face, with raw troops, any intended onslaught of Santa Anna, who would bring with him several times as large a force, of all sorts, most of it composed of recent levies, imperfectly organized and disciplined. It remained to be seen which of the two kinds of men, the Mexican Indian or the American rifleman, could be the more rapidly changed into a trained soldier, fitted for a hard day’s fight.
Throughout all the interior of Mexico there was a fair degree of peace and order, although robber bands were reported here and there. No signs of a coming revolution appear to have been discovered, for nearly all the great leaders who might have set one on foot were either banished or shot, or were serving in Santa Anna’s army, half hoping for his defeat and destruction that he might be taken out of the way of their ambitions.
There came one cloudless day near the end of February, when a kind of cool and beautiful summer seemed to rule over allthe fair land of Anahuac, except among the snow-clad Cordilleras. There were roses in bloom in many gardens of the city of Mexico, and all things in and about the national capital wore an exceedingly peaceful air. The very guards at the citadel were pacing listlessly up and down, as if they were lazily aware that all evil-minded gringos and other foes of their comfort were several hundreds of miles away. At the city gates there were no sentries of any kind, and a young fellow who rode in on a spirited pony, at an hour or so after noon, was not questioned by anybody as to where he came from or what he was doing there. He cast sharp glances in all directions as he rode onward, but he seemed to have no need for inquiring his way. He went steadily, moreover, as if he might have business rather than pleasure on his hands, and he did not pull in his pony until he had reached the front of the Paez mansion. There was no one on the piazza but a short, fat old woman, in a blazing red cotton gown, who sprang to her feet almost as if he had frightened her, exclaiming:
“Señor Carfora!”
“Dola!” he responded, sharply. “Don’t say another loud word! Are either of theseñoras at home? I must see them right away.”
“Oh, yes!” she said, turning to run into the house. “I will tell them. They are in the parlor, and the señorita.”
Down sprang Ned and hitched his pony to a post, but then he hurried through the front door as quickly as Dola herself had done. Perhaps it was well that he should get in without being recognized by too many eyes. He did not have to actually get into the parlor before he was welcomed, for a light form sprang out into the hall, and Felicia herself shouted, eagerly:
“Oh, Señor Carfora! Are you here? This is wonderful!”
“Señorita,” he interrupted her, “I have letters for your mother and Señora Paez. Where are they?”
“They are right here,” she said, “but we have letters, too. All the flags in the city are out and they are firing salutes of rejoicing.”
“I saw the flags,” he said, “and I heard some firing, but what on earth are they rejoicing over? Is there any news?”
The two grown-up women were standing behind her, with faces in which there was no joy whatever when Felicia exultingly told him:
“Why, have not you heard? General Santa Anna has beaten your gringo army all to pieces. The United States fleet is coming to Vera Cruz with another army, and the American soldiers will not dare to come on shore. All they can do will be to sit there in their ships and look at the city.”
“Come in, Señor Carfora,” said Señora Paez. “I cannot tell you how glad we are to see you. Yes, we have very important letters. I may suppose that yours are from the general. Please let me have them.”
“Do, Señor Carfora!” said Señora Tassara. “I cannot wait a moment. We will retire to read them, and, while we are gone, Felicia may tell you all the news from the great battle at the north.”
“Yes, so I will,” she exclaimed. “And I want him to tell me all about the places he has been in, and what he has been doing.”
In a moment more they two were alone in the parlor, and she was repeating to him the substance of Santa Anna’s report of the manner in which, at the hard-fought battle of Angostura, or Buena Vista, on the 22d of February, he had shattered the American army under General Taylor. He had,he said, effectively prevented its further advance into Mexico, and there was really a strong appearance of truth in his way of presenting the consequences of the battle, for the American army seemed to have retreated. Horse after horse had been ridden to death in taking such great tidings to the city of Mexico, and, for the hour, at least, the great Mexican commander was more firmly fixed in supreme power than ever.
Of course, the triumphant bulletin did not make any mention of the fact that General Taylor had had no intention of advancing any further, being under express orders from General Scott not to do so, and that Santa Anna’s well-planned and at first nearly successful attempt to crush the northern invaders had really proved a failure. Ned Crawford listened to Felicia’s enthusiastic account of the battle with a curious question in his mind which he was too polite to utter.
“Why,” he thought, “if Santa Anna was so completely victorious, did he not make General Taylor surrender?”
There was no one to inform Ned that the Mexican commander had invited General Taylor to do so before the fight was half over, and that the stubborn old American had unkindly refused the invitation.At this moment, however, the señorita’s tongue began to busy itself with quite another matter. The United States fleet, under Commodore Connor, had, indeed, begun to arrive in front of Vera Cruz on the 18th of February, with a vast convoy of transport ships under its protection, having on board the army of General Scott. Neither Ned nor the señorita was aware, however, how many important questions have to be answered before so many military passengers might undertake to land, with all their baggage, within possible reach of the artillery of an enemy. Felicia, for her part, was positive that they all were too badly scared by the Castle of San Juan de Ulua and by the bad news from Buena Vista to so much as try to make a landing.
“General Santa Anna himself is now marching down to meet them,” she told him, “with his whole victorious army, and he will crush them as fast as they can get out of their ships.”
Owing to the grand reports from their army, this was precisely the idea which was forming in the minds of all the people of Mexico.
“Oh, Señorita Felicia!” said Ned, as if he were quite willing to change the subject. “I’ve had a wonderful time. I’vebeen travelling, travelling, travelling, everywhere with the general.”
“Tell me all about it!” she commanded him. “I want to know. It seems to me as if I had been shut up here and had not seen anybody.”
“Well, I can’t tell it all just now,” he said, “but when we left here we hurried all the way to Oaxaca. Then we stayed there awhile, among his own people, and nobody gave us any trouble. No, I mustn’t forget one thing, though. A band of those mountain robbers came one night, and we had an awful fight with them—”
“Did you kill any of them?” she asked, hastily. “They all ought to be killed. They are ready to murder anybody else.”
“Well,” said Ned, “we beat them, and ten of them were shot. I was firing away all the while, but I don’t know if I hit any of them. It was too dark to tell. The rest of them got away. But I’ve hunted deer, and I killed a good many of them. I shot a lynx, too, and a lot of other game. There’s the best kind of fishing on the general’s estates. I like fishing. Then we went south, to the Yucatan line, and I saw some queer old ruins. After that, the general’s business took him away up north of Oaxaca, and I went with him, and I sawhalf the States of Mexico before we finished the trip. I’ve seen the silver mines and Popocatepetl and Istaccihuatl, and I don’t care to ever see any higher mountains than they are.”
“I have seen Popocatepetl,” she said, “and it almost made me have the headache. They say it is full of sulphur, to make gunpowder with.”
Before she could tell anything more about the possible uses of the tall, old volcano, her mother reëntered the parlor.
“Señor Carfora,” she said, “Felicia will have to give you up. Here are some letters for you that came while you were absent. You had better read them now, for I cannot say how long it will be best for you to remain here. Step this way a moment, if you will.”
Ned followed her, all in a sudden whirl of excitement at the unexpected prospect of hearing from his far-away home, but she still held his promised envelopes in her own hand, while she said to him:
“My dear young friend, you know that Colonel Tassara is with his regiment. He was in the thickest of the fight at Angostura. He was wounded, but he hopes to recover soon, and we have not told Felicia. He writes me that it was really a lost battle,and that the fall of Santa Anna is surely coming, but that nobody can foretell what course he will take, cruel or otherwise, when he and his army return to fight with General Scott, on the road from the sea to this city. Go and read your letters, and then I will see you again.”
Felicia had to give him up, and away he went. The best place to read home letters seemed to him to be the library, and when he entered the dim old room, he half imagined that the man in armor nodded at him, and tried to say how d’ye do. After that, Ned almost forgot that he was in Mexico, while he devoured the news from home. It was a grand thing to learn, too, that the letters which he had feared would never get to New York had all been carefully delivered under the kindly care of the British consular system. He had never before felt quite so high an admiration for the British Empire as he acquired just then.
“I’ll do something good for the next Englishman I get hold of!” he declared, with energy, and then he sat still and stared around the room.
“It was just as well,” he said, “that I did not stay here and try to read all those books. I read enough about the ancient times, too. What father wanted me toknow about is Mexico as it is now, and I’ve seen a great deal of it. What I want to see next is our army, and I’m going to find my way to Vera Cruz. Then I’ll get on board an American ship, somehow or other. I wonder if the Mexican officers will manage to arrest me between this and the seacoast.”
That was a point worth thinking of, for General Zuroaga had told him very plainly that some ignorant or overhasty patriot might easily find an excuse for calling him a spy, and having him shot at a moment’s notice. He did not have a long time to consider that matter, however, for the door opened, and the two señoras walked in, with clouded faces.
“Señor Carfora,” said Señora Tassara, “you will have no time to lose. General Zuroaga is right, and his letter must go at once to his friend, General Morales, who is now in command at Vera Cruz. So must one from my own husband. It is important, for the best interest of Mexico, that Morales should know the whole truth. That is, he must be informed that he cannot expect any help from Santa Anna’s beaten army. Are you too tired to set out immediately? I can give you a fresh horse.”
“I’ll go!” exclaimed Ned. “My ponyisn’t tired. He is a first-rate traveller. I want something to eat, though, and I wish I knew whether or not the army patrols will stop me on the way.”
“I can take care of that,” said Señora Paez. “I have had to send special messengers before this. You will be able to show a government pass.”
As she spoke, she held out to him a sealed envelope. Where or how she had obtained such a thing, she did not explain, but it was an official envelope, and on it was a printed lettering which might have been translated: “Government Business. From the Headquarters of the Army. Despatches from His Excellency, General Bravo.” In her own handwriting was added, moreover: “To His Excellency, General Morales, Vera Cruz.”
“There!” she said. “If it becomes necessary, show that, and any man hindering you will be promptly punished. Do not show it if you can help it, however, for there are many kinds of army officers nowadays.”
“I have seen some of them,” said Ned, but what he was really thinking about most seriously, at that moment, was the supper he had asked for, and he was well pleased to be led down into the dining-room.