Gustave Aimard
The Gold-Seekers: A Tale of California
CHAPTER VII
A RETROSPECT
Before carrying our story further we must give the reader certain details about the family and antecedents of Don Sebastian Guerrero, who is destined to play a great part in our narrative.
The family of Don Sebastian was rich; he descended in a straight line from one of the early kings of Mexico, and pure Aztec blood flowed in his veins. Like several other great Mexican families, his ancestors had not been dispossessed by the conquerors, to whom they rendered important services; but they were obliged to add a Spanish name to the Mexican one, which sounded harshly in Castilian ears.
Still the Guerrero family boasted loudly of its Aztec origin, and if it seemed ostensibly devoted to Spain, it secretly maintained the hope of seeing Mexico one day regain her liberty.
Thus, when the heroic Hidalgo, the humble curate of the little village of Dolores, suddenly raised the standard of revolt against the oppressors of his country, Don Eustaquio Guerrero, though married but a short time previously to a woman he adored, and father of a son hardly six years of age, was one of the first to respond to the appeal of the insurgents, and join Hidalgo at the head of four hundred resolute men raised on his own enormous estates.
The Mexican revolution was a singular one; for nearly all the promoters and heroes were priests – the only country in the world where the clergy have openly taken the initiative in progress, and thus displayed profound sympathy for the liberty of the people.
Don Eustaquio Guerrero was in turn companion of those modest heroes whom disdainful history has almost forgotten, and whose names were, Hidalgo, Morelos, Hermenegildo Galeana, Allende, Abasolo, Aldama, Valerio Trujano, Torres, Rayon, Sotomayor, Manuel Mier-y-Teran, and many others whose names have escaped me; and who, after fighting gloriously for the liberty of their country, now repose in their bloody tombs, protected by that glorious nimbus which Heaven places round the brow of martyrs, whatever be the cause they have defended, so long as that cause is just.
More fortunate than the majority of his brave comrades in arms, who were destined to fall one after the other, some as victims to Spanish barbarity, others conquered by treachery, Don Eustaquio escaped as if by a miracle from the innumerable dangers of this war, which lasted ten years, and at length witnessed the complete expulsion of the Spaniards and the proclamation of independence.
The brave soldier, prematurely aged, covered with wounds, and disgusted by the ingratitude of his fellow countrymen, who, scarce free, began attacking each other, and inaugurated that fatal era of pronunciamientos, the list of which is already so long, and will only be closed by the ruin of the country, and the loss of its nationality, retired, gloomy and sad, to his Hacienda del Palmar, situated in the province of Valladolid, and sought, in the company of his wife and son, to recover some sparks of that happiness he had formerly enjoyed when he was but an obscure citizen.
But this supreme consolation was denied him; his wife died in his arms scarce two years after their reunion, attacked by an unknown disease, which dragged her to the grave in a few weeks.
After the death of the woman he loved with all the strength of his soul, Don Eustaquio, crushed by sorrow, only dragged on a wretched existence, which terminated exactly one year after his wife's death. Her name was the last word that wandered on his pallid lips as he drew his parting breath.
Don Sebastian, who was scarce twenty years of age, was left an orphan. Alone, without relatives or friends, the young man shut himself up in his hacienda, where he silently bewailed the two beings he had lost, and on whom he had concentrated all his affections.
Don Sebastian would probably have remained for many years in retirement, without seeing the world, or caring how it went on – leading the careless, idle, and brutalising life of those great land-holders whom no idea of progress or amelioration impels to trouble themselves about their estates, timid and fearful, like all men who live alone, spending his days in hunting and sleeping – had not chance, or rather his lucky star, brought to Palmar an old partisan chief who had long fought by the side of Don Eustaquio, and who, happening to pass a few leagues from the place, felt old reminiscences aroused in him, and determined to press the hand of his old comrade, whose death he was not aware of.
The name of this man was Don Isidro Vargas. He was of lofty stature, his shoulders were wide, his limbs athletic, and his features imprinted with an uncommon energy; in a word, he presented in his person the type of that powerful and devoted race which is daily dying out in Mexico, and of which, ere long, not a specimen will be left.
The unexpected arrival of this guest, whose heavy spurs and long steel-scabbarded sabre re-echoed noisily on the tiled floors of the hacienda, brought life into the mansion which had been so long devoted to silence and the gloomy tranquillity of the cloister.
Like all old soldiers, Captain Don Isidro had a rough voice and sharp way of speaking; his manners were brusque, but his character was gay, and gifted with a rare equanimity of temper.
When he entered the house Don Sebastian was out hunting, and the hacienda seemed uninhabited. The captain at first found enormous difficulty in meeting with anyone to address. At length, by careful search, he detected a peon half asleep under a verandah, who gave some sort of answer to the questions asked him. By great patience and questions made with that craft peculiar to the Mexicans, the captain succeeded in obtaining some valuable information.
The death of Don Eustaquio only astonished the worthy soldado slightly; he expected it, indeed, from the moment he learnt the death of the señora, for whom he knew his old comrade professed so deep a love; but on learning the idle life Don Sebastian had led since his father's death, the captain burst out in a furious passion, and swore by all the saints in the Spanish calendar (and they are tolerably numerous), that this state of things should not last much longer.
The captain had known the young man when he was but a child. Many times he had dandled him on his knee, and thus, with his ideas of honour and generosity, he thought himself obliged, as an old friend of his father, to remove the son from the slothful existence he led.
Consequently the old soldier installed himself authoritatively in the hacienda, and firmly awaited the return of the man he had been accustomed to regard for a long time almost in the light of a son.
The day passed peacefully. The Indian peons, long accustomed to profess the greatest respect for embroidered hats and jingling sabres, left him free to act as he pleased – a liberty the old soldier did not at all abuse, for he contented himself with ordering an immense vase full of an infusion of tamarinds, which he placed on a table, up to which he drew a butaca, and amused himself with smoking an enormous quantity of husk cigarettes, which he made as he wanted them, with that dexterity alone possessed by the Spanish race.
At about oración time, or six in the evening, the captain, who had fallen quietly asleep, was aroused by a great noise, mingled with shouts, barking, and the neighing of horses, which he heard outside.
"Ah, ah!" he said, turning up his moustache, "I fancy the muchacho has at last arrived."
It was, indeed, Don Sebastian returning from the chase.
The old partisan, who was sitting opposite a window, was enabled to examine his friend's son at his ease, without being perceived in his turn. He could not repress a smile of satisfaction at the sight of the vigorous young man, with his haughty features bearing the imprint of boldness, wildness, and timidity, and his well-built limbs.
"What a pity," he muttered to himself, "if such a fine fellow were to be expended here without profit to himself or to others! It will not be my fault if I do not succeed in rousing the boy from the state of lethargy into which he is plunged. I owe that to the memory of his poor father."
While making these reflections, as he heard the clanking of spurs in the room before that in which he was, he fell back on his butaca, and put on again his usual look of indifference. Don Sebastian entered. He had not seen the captain for several years. The greeting he gave him, though slightly awkward and embarrassed, was, however, affectionate. After the first compliments they sat down face to face.
"Well, muchacho," the captain said, suddenly plunging in medias res, "you did not expect a visit from me, I fancy?"
"I confess, captain, that I was far from supposing that you would come. To what fortunate accident do I owe your presence in my house?"
"I will tell you presently, muchacho. For the present we will talk about other matters, if you have no objection."
"At your ease, captain; I do not wish to displease you in any way."
"We will see that presently, cuerpo de Dios! And in the first place, to speak frankly, I will tell you that I did not come to see you, but your worthy father, my brave general. Voto a brios! The news of his death quite upset me, and I am not myself again yet."
"I am very grateful, captain, for the kindly memory in which you hold my father."
"Capa de Cristo!" the captain said, who, among other habits more or less excellent, possessed to an eminent degree that of seasoning each of his phrases with an oath, at times somewhat unorthodox, "of course I hold in kind memory the man by whose side I fought for ten years, and to whom I owe it that I am what I am. Yes, I do remember him, and I hope soon, canarios! To prove it to his son."
"I thank you, captain, though I do not perceive in what way you can give me this proof."
"Good, good!" he said, gnawing his moustache. "I know how to do it, and that is enough. Everything will come at its right season."
"As you please, my old friend. At any rate, you will be kind enough to remember that you are at home here, and that the longer you stay the greater pleasure you will afford me."
"Good, muchacho! I expected that from you. I will avail myself of the hospitality so gracefully offered, but will not abuse it."
"An old comrade in arms of my father's cannot do that in his house, captain, and you less than anyone else. But," he added, seeing a peon enter, "here is a servant come to announce that the dinner is served. I confess to you that, as I have been hunting all day, I am now dying of hunger: if you will follow me we will sit down to the table and renew our acquaintance glass in hand."
"I ask nothing better, rayo de Dios!" the captain said as he rose. "Though I have not been hunting, I think I shall do honour to the repast."
And without further talking they passed into a dining room, where a sumptuously and abundantly-served table awaited them.
According to a patriarchal custom, which, unfortunately, like all good things, is beginning to die out, at Palmar the master and servants took their meals together. This custom, which had existed in the family since the conquest, Don Sebastian kept up – in the first place, through respect for his father's memory, and secondly, because the servants at the hacienda were devoted to their master, and to some extent supplied the place of a family.
The evening passed away, without any incident worthy of remark, in chatting about war and the chase. Captain Don Isidro Vargas was an old soldier, as cunning as a monk. Too clever to assail the young man's ideas straightforwardly, he resolved to study him for some time, in order to discover the weak points of his character, and see how he must attack him in order to drag him out of that slothful and purposeless life he led in this forgotten province. Thus several days were passed in hunting and other amusements, and the captain never once alluded to the subject he had at heart. At times he might make a covert allusion to the active life of the capital, the opportunities of securing a fine position which a man of Don Sebastian's age could not fail to find at Mexico, if he would take the trouble to go there, and many other insinuations of the same nature; but the young man let them pass without making the slightest observation, or even appearing to understand them.
"Patience!" the captain muttered. "I shall eventually find the flaw in his cuirass; and if I do not succeed, I must be preciously clumsy."
And he recommenced his covert attacks, not allowing the young man's impassive indifference to rebuff him.
Don Sebastian performed his duties as master of the house with thoroughly Mexican grace, amenity, and sumptuousness; that is, he invented every sort of amusement which he thought would be most suited to the worthy captain's tastes. The latter let him do so with the utmost coolness, and conscientiously enjoyed the pleasures the young man procured him, charmed in his heart by the activity he displayed in pleasing him, and more and more persuaded that, if he succeeded in arousing in him the feelings which he supposed were slumbering in his mind, it would be easy to convert him to his own ideas, and make him abandon the absorbing life of a campesino.
More than once, during the few days they spent in hunting in the magnificent plains that surrounded the hacienda, accident enabled the captain to admire the skill with which the young man managed his steed, and his superiority in all those exercises which demand strength, activity, and, above all, skill.
On one occasion especially, at the moment the hunters galloped in pursuit of a magnificent stag they had put up, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a cougouar, which threatened to dispute their progress. The cougouar is the American lion. It has no mane. Like all the other carnivora of the New World it cares little about attacking a man, and it is only when reduced to the last extremity that it turns upon him; but then it fights with a courage and energy that frequently render its approach extremely dangerous.
On the occasion to which we allude the cougouar seemed resolved to await its enemies boldly. The captain, but little accustomed to find himself face to face with such enemies, experienced that internal tremor which assails the bravest man when he finds himself exposed to a serious danger. Still, as the old soldier was notoriously brave, he soon recovered from this involuntary emotion, and cocked his gun, while watching the crouching animal, which fixed its glaring eyes on him.
"Do not fire, captain," Don Sebastian said with a perfectly calm voice; "you are not used to this chase, and, without wishing it, might injure the skin, which you see is magnificent, and that would be a pity."
Don Sebastian thereupon let his gun fall, took a pistol from his holster, and spurring his horse at the same time that he checked it, made it rear. The animal rose, and stood almost on its hind legs; the cougouar suddenly bounded forward with a terrible roar; the young man dug his knees into his horse, which bounded on one side, while Don Sebastian pulled the trigger. The monster rolled on the ground in convulsive agony.
"Cuerpo de Cristo!" the captain shouted; "why, you've killed it on the spot! No matter, muchacho; you played for a heavy stake."
"Bah!" the other said as he dismounted; "it is not so difficult as you fancy; it only requires practice."
"Hum! It must require practice to shoot such an animal on the wing. The ball has entered its eye."
"Yes, we generally shoot them there, so as not to spoil the skin."
"Ah, very good! To tell you the truth, though, I, who am by no means a bad shot, should not like to try the experiment."
"You are calumniating yourself."
"Very possibly."
"Poor Pepe, my tigrero, will lose by that a reward of ten piastres – all the worse for him. Shall we return to the hacienda, and send someone to bring the brute in?"
"With all my heart."
They went back.
"Hum!" the captain said to himself as they galloped on, "I must have a definitive explanation with him this very evening."
CHAPTER VIII
A MEXICAN'S PROGRESS
The Hispano-Americans usually drink nothing with their meals: it is only when the dulces, or cakes and sweetmeats, have been eaten, and each guest has swallowed the glass of water intended to facilitate digestion, that the liquors are put on the table, and the Catalonian refino begins to circulate; then the puros and pajillos are lighted, and the conversation, always rather stiff during the meal, becomes more intimate and friendly, owing to the absence of the inferior guests, who then retire, leaving the master of the house and his guests at perfect liberty.
The captain had judiciously chosen this moment to commence his attack. Not that he hoped to have a better chance with the young man at the termination of the meal – for the sobriety of the Southern Americans is proverbial – but because at that moment Don Sebastian, being freed from all cares, must more easily yield to the influence the captain fancied he could exercise over him.
The captain poured some refino into a large glass, which he filled with water, lit a puro, leant his elbows on the table, and looked fixedly at the young man.
"Muchacho," he said to him abruptly, "does the life you lead in the desert possess a great charm for you?"
Surprised at this question, which he was far from expecting, Don Sebastian hesitated ere he replied.
"Yes," the captain said, emptying his glass, "do you amuse yourself greatly here? Answer me frankly."
"On my word, captain, as I never knew any other existence than that I am leading at this moment, I cannot answer your question thoroughly: it is certain that I feel myself hipped at times."
The captain struck his tongue against his palate with evident satisfaction.
"Ah, ah!" he said, "I am glad to hear you speak so."
"Why?"
"Because I hope you will easily accept the proposition I am about to make to you."
"You!"
"Who else, then, if not I?"
"Speak!" the young man said with a careless air; "I am listening."
The captain threw away his cigar, gave vent to two or three sonorous hums, and at length said in a sharp voice, —
"Sebastian, my dear fellow! Do you think that, if your worthy father could return to this world, he would be well pleased to see you thus idly wasting the precious hours of your youth?"
"I do not at all understand your meaning, captain."
"That is possible. I never pretended to be a great orator, and today less than at any other period of my long career. I will, however, try to explain myself so clearly that, if you do not understand me, caray! It is because you will not."
"Go on; I am listening."
"Your father, muchacho, whose history you probably do not know, was at once a brave soldier and a good officer. He was one of the founders of our liberty, and his name is a symbol of loyalty and devotion to every Mexican. For ten years your father fought the enemies of his country on every battlefield, enduring, though rich and a gentleman, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, gaily and without complaining; and yet, had he wished it, he might have led a luxurious and thoroughly easy life. You loved your father?"
"Alas, captain! Can I ever be consoled for his loss?"
"You will be consoled. You have many things to learn yet, and that among others. Poor boy! There is nothing eternal in the world – neither joy, nor sorrow, nor pleasure. But let us return to what I was saying. Were your father permitted to quit the abode of the just, where he is doubtlessly sojourning, and return for a few moments to earth, he would speak to you as I am now doing; he would ask an account of the useless indolence in which you spend your youth, thinking no more of your country, which you can and ought to serve, than if you lived in the heart of a desert. Did your father endure so many sacrifices in order to create such an existence – tell me, muchacho?"
The worthy captain, who had probably never preached so much in his life, stopped, awaiting a reply to the question he had asked; but this reply did not come. The young man, with his arms crossed on his chest, his body thrown back, and his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground, seemed plunged in deep thought. The captain continued after a lengthened delay, —
"We," he said, "demolished; you young men must rebuild. No one at the present day has the right to deprive the Republic of his services. Each must, under penalty of being considered a bad citizen, carry his stone to the social edifice, and you more than anyone else, muchacho – you, the son of one of the most celebrated heroes of the War of Independence. Your country calls you – it claims you: you can no longer remain deaf to its voice. What are you doing here among your dogs and horses, wasting ingloriously your courage, dissipating your energy without profit to anyone, and growing daily more brutalised in a disgraceful solitude? Cuerpo de Cristo! I can understand that a man may love his father, and even weep for him – for that is the duty of a good son, and your father certainly deserves the sacred recollection you give him – but to make of that grief a pretext to caress and satisfy your egotism, that is worse than a bad action – it is cowardice!"
At this word the young man's tawny eye flashed lightning.
"Captain!" he shouted, as he struck the table with his clenched fist.
"Rayo de Dios!" the old soldier continued boldly, "the word is spoken, and I will not withdraw it: your father, if he hear me, must approve me. Now, muchacho, I have emptied my heart; I have spoken frankly and loyally, as it was my duty to do. I owed it to myself to fulfil this painful duty. If you do not understand the feeling that dictated the rough words I uttered, all the worse for you; it is because your heart is dead to every generous impulse, and you are incapable of feeling how much I must have loved you to find the courage to speak to you in that way. Now do as you think proper; I shall not have to reproach myself for having hidden the truth from you. It is late. Good night, muchacho. I will go to bed, for I start early tomorrow. Reflect on what I have said to you. The night is a good counsellor, if you will listen in good faith to the voices that chatter round your pillow in the darkness."
And the captain emptied his glass and rose. Don Sebastian imitated him, took a step toward him, and laid his hand on his shoulder.
"One moment," he said to him.
"What do you want?"
"Listen to me in your turn," the young man said in a gloomy voice. "You have been harsh with me, captain. Those truths you have told me you might perhaps have expressed in milder language, in consideration of my age, and the solitude and isolation in which I have hitherto lived. Still I am not angry at your rude frankness; on the contrary, I am grateful to you for it, for I know that you love me, and the interest you take in me alone urged you to be so severe. You say that you depart tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Where do you intend going?"
"To Mexico."
"Very good, captain; you will not go alone. I shall accompany you."
The old soldier looked at the young man for a moment tenderly; then pressing with feverish energy the hand held out to him, —
"It is well, muchacho," he said to him with great emotion. "I was not mistaken in you; you are a brave lad, and, caray! I am satisfied with you."
The two men left Palmar together the next morning, and rode toward Mexico, which city they reached after a ten days' journey. But during those ten days, spent tête-à-tête with the captain, the young man's ideas were completely modified, and a perfect change came over his aspirations.
General Guerrero's son belonged unconsciously to that numerous class of men who are utterly ignorant of themselves, and pass their lives in indolence until the moment when, an object being suddenly offered them, their imagination is inflamed, their ambition is aroused, and they become as eager in the chase as they had been previously negligent and indifferent as to their future.
Captain Don Isidro Vargas heartily praised the intelligence with which the young man he emphatically called his pupil understood the lessons he gave him as to his behaviour in the world.
Don Sebastian experienced no difficulty – thanks to his name, and the reputation his father so justly enjoyed – in obtaining his grade as lieutenant in the army. This step was, for the young man, the first rung of the ladder, which he prepared to climb as rapidly as possible.
It was fine work at that day, in Mexico, for an intelligent man to fish in troubled waters; and, unfortunately, we are obliged to confess that, in spite of the long years that have passed since the proclamation of its independence, nothing is as yet changed in that unhappy country, where anarchy has been systematised.
If ever a country could do without an army, it was Mexico after the recognition of her liberty and the entire expulsion of the Spaniards, owing to her isolation in the midst of peaceful nations, and the security of her frontiers, which no enemy menaced. Unhappily, the war of independence had lasted ten years. During that long period the peaceful and gentle population of that country, held in guardianship by its oppressors, had become transformed. A warlike ardour had seized on all classes of society, and a species of martial fever had aroused in every brain a love of arms.
Hence that naturally came about which all sensible people expected; that is to say, when the army had no longer enemies before it to combat, the troops turned their arms against their fellow citizens, vexing and tyrannising over them at their pleasure.
The government, instead of disbanding this turbulent army, or at any rate reducing it to a minimum by only keeping up the depôts of the various corps, considered it far more advantageous to lean on it, and organise a military oligarchy, which pressed heavily on the country. This deplorable system has plunged this unhappy country into disastrous complications, against which it struggles in vain, and has dug the abyss in which its nationality will sooner or later be swallowed up.
The army, then, after the war, assumed an influence which it has ever since retained, and which increased in proportion as the men placed at the head of the government more fully understood that it alone could maintain them in power or overthrow them at its good pleasure. The army, therefore, made revolutions that its leaders might become powerful. From the lowest alférez up to the general of division, all the officers look to troubles for promotion – the alférez to become lieutenant, the colonel to exchange his red scarf for the green one of the brigadier general, and the general of division to become President of the Republic.
Hence pronunciamientos are continual; for every officer wearied of a subaltern grade, and who aspires to a higher rank, pronounces himself; that is to say, aided by a nucleus of malcontents like himself, which is never wanting, he revolts by refusing obedience to the government, and that the more easily because, whether conqueror or conquered, the rank he has thus appropriated always remains his.
The military career is, therefore, a perfect steeplechase. We know a certain general, whose name we could write here in full if we wished, who attained the presidency by stepping from pronunciamiento to pronunciamiento without ever having smelt fire, or knowing the first movement of platoon drill – an ignorance which is not at all extraordinary in a country where one of our sergeant conductors would be superior to the most renowned generals.
Don Sebastian judged his position with the infallible eye of an ambitious man; and suddenly attacked by a fever of immense activity, he resolved to profit cleverly by the general anarchy to gain a position. He clambered up the first steps at full speed and became a full colonel with startling rapidity. On reaching that position he married, in order to secure himself, and to give him that solidity he desired for the great game he intended to play, and which, in his mind, only ended with the presidential chair.
Already very rich, his marriage increased his fortune, which he sought to augment, however, by every possible scheme; for he was aware what the cost of a successful pronunciamiento was, and he did not mean to suffer a defeat.
As if everything was destined to favour this man in all he undertook, his wife, a dear and charming woman, whose love and devotion he never comprehended, died after a short illness, and left him father of a girl as charming and amiable as herself – that lovely Angela whom we have already met several times in the course of our narrative.
Don Sebastian could have married again if he liked; but by his first marriage he had obtained what he wanted, and preferred to remain free. At the period we have now reached he had attained general's rank, and secured the appointment of political governor of the state of Sonora, the first stepping-stone for his ambitious projects.
Colossally rich, he was interested in all the great industrial enterprises, and a shareholder in most of the mining operations. It was for the object of watching these operations more closely, that he had asked for the government of Sonora, a new country, almost unknown, where he hoped to fish more easily in troubled waters, owing to its distance from the capital, and the slight surveillance he had to fear from the government, in which he had, moreover, all-powerful influences.
In a word, General Guerrero was one of those gloomy personages who, under a most fascinating exterior, the most affable manners, and most seductive smiles, conceal the most perverse instincts, the coldest ferocity, and the most rotten soul.
Still this man had in his heart one feeling which, by its intensity, expiated many faults.
He loved his daughter.
He loved her passionately, without calculation or afterthought; yet this paternal love had something terrible about it: he loved his daughter as the jaguar or the panther loves its cubs, with fury and jealousy.
