Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Quest of the Four: A Story of the Comanches and Buena Vista

CHAPTER XVI
THE CASTLE OF MONTEVIDEO

The Castle of Montevideo, as its name indicates, commanded a magnificent view. Set in a nicheof a mountain which towered far above, it lookeddown upon and commanded one of the great roads thatled to the heart of Mexico, the city that stood in the valeof Tenochtitlan, the capital, in turn, of the Toltecs, theAztecs, the Spaniards, and the Mexicans, and, for all thatmen yet knew, of races older than the Toltecs. But theSpaniards had built it, completing it nearly a hundredand fifty years ago, when their hold upon the greater partof the New World seemed secure, and the name of Spainwas filled with the suggestion of power.

It was a gloomy and tremendous fortress, standingseven thousand feet above the level of the sea, and havingabout it, despite its latitude, no indication of the tropics.

Spain had lavished here enormous sums of money dugfor her by the slaves of Mexico and Peru. It was builtof volcanic pumice stone, very hard, and of the color ofdark honey. Its main walls formed an equilateraltriangle, eight hundred feet square on the inside, and sixtyfeet from the top of the wall to the bottom of theenclosing moat. There was a bastion at each corner of the mainrampart, and the moat that enveloped the main walls andbastions was two hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep.Fifty feet beyond the outside wall of the moat rose achevaux de frise built of squared cedar logs twelve feetlong, set in the ground and fastened together by longitudinaltimbers. Beyond the chevaux de frise was anotherditch, fourteen feet wide, of which the outer bank was ahigh earthwork. The whole square enclosed by theoutermost work was twenty-six acres, and on the principalrampart were mounted eighty cannon, commanding theroad to the Valley of Tenochtitlan.

Few fortresses, even in the Old World, were morepowerful or complete. It enclosed armories, magazines, workshops, and cells; cells in rows, all of which wereduly numbered when Montevideo was completed in theeighteenth century. And, to give it the last andhappiest touch, the picture of Ferdinand VII., King of Spain,Lord of the Indies and the New World, was painted overthe doorway of every cell, and they were many.

Nor is this the full tale of Montevideo. On the innerside of each angle, broad wooden stairways ascended to thetop, the stairways themselves being enclosed at intervalsby wooden gates twelve feet high. The real fortificationsenclosed a square of nearly five hundred feet, and insidethis square were the buildings of the officers and thebarracks of the soldiers. The floor of the square was pavedwith thick cement, and deep down under the cement wereimmense water tanks, holding millions of gallons, fed bysubterranean springs of pure cold water. By means ofunderground tunnels the moats could be flooded withwater from the tanks or springs.

It has been said that the Spaniards are massivebuilders, the most massive since the Romans, and they haveleft their mark with many a huge stone structure in thesouthern part of the New World. What Montevideo costthe kings of Spain no one has ever known, and, althoughthey probably paid twice for every stick and stone in it,Peru and Mexico were still pouring forth their floods oftreasure, and there was the fortress, honey colored, lofty, undeniably majestic and powerful.

When Mexico displaced Spain, she added to thedefenses of Montevideo, and now, on this spring day in1847, it lowered, dark and sinister, over the road. It wasoccupied by a strong garrison under that alert and valiantsoldier, Captain Pedro de Armijo, raised recently to thatrank, but still stinging with the memories of Buena Vista,he was anxious that the Americans should come andattack him in Montevideo. He stood on the rampart ata point where it was seventy feet wide, and he lookedwith pride and satisfaction at the row of eighty guns.Pedro de Armijo, swelling with pride, felt that he couldhold the castle of Montevideo against twenty thousandmen. Time had made no impression upon those massivewalls, and the moat was filled with water. The castle, mediæval, but grim and formidable, sat in its narrowmountain valley with the Cofre de Montevideo (Trunk ofMontevideo) behind it on the north. This peak wasfrequently covered with snow and at all times was gloomyand forbidding. Even on bright days the sun reached itfor only a few hours.

While Pedro de Armijo walked on the parapet, lookingout at the range of mountain and valley and enjoyingthe sunlight, which would soon be gone, a young manstood at the window of cell No. 87, also looking out atthe mountain, although no sunlight reached him there.He gazed through a slit four inches wide and twelveinches high, and the solid wall of masonry through whichthis slit was cut was twelve feet thick. The young man'sankles were tied together with a chain which, althoughlong enough to allow him to walk, weighed twenty-fivepounds. Once he had been chained with another man.Formerly the prisoners who had been brought with himto the Castle of Montevideo had been chained in pairs, the chain in no case weighing less than twenty pounds, but, since only John Bedford was left, Pedro de Armijoconcluded that it was his duty to carry the chain alone.

John Bedford was white with prison pallor. Althoughas tall, he weighed many pounds less than his youngerbrother, Philip. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyeswere set in deep hollows. The careless observer wouldhave taken him for ten years more than his real age. Hehad shuffled painfully to the slit in the wall, where hewished to see the last rays of the daylight falling on themountainside. The depth of the slit made the sectionof the mountain that he could see very narrow, and heknew every inch of it. There was the big projection ofvolcanic rock, the tall, malformed cactus that put out awhite flower, the little bunch of stunted cedars or pines-hecould never tell which-in the shelter of the rock, andthe yard or two of gully down which he had seen thewater roaring after the big rains or at the melting of thesnows on the Cofre de Montevideo.

How often he had looked upon these things! What alittle slice of the world it was! Only a few yards longand fewer yards broad, but what a mighty thing it wasto him! Even with the slit closed, he could have drawnall of it upon a map to the last twig and pebble. Hewould have suffered intensely had that little view beenwithdrawn, but it tantalized him, too, with the sight ofthe freedom that was denied him. Three years, they toldhim, he had been gazing out at that narrow slit at themountainside, and he only at the beginning of life, strongof mind and body-or at least he was. Never in thattime had he been outside the inner walls or even in thecourt yard. He knew nothing of what had happened inthe world. Sometimes they told him that Texas hadbeen overrun and retaken by the Mexicans, and he fearedthat it was true.

They did not always put the chains upon him, butlately he had been refractory. He was easily caught inan attempt to escape, and a new governor of the castle, lately come, a young man extremely arrogant, haddemanded his promise that he make no other suchattempt. He had refused, and so the chains were ordered.He had worn them many times before, and now theyoppressed him far less than his loneliness. He alone ofthat expedition was left a prisoner in the castle. Howall the others had gone he did not know, but he knew thatsome had escaped. Both he and his comrade of thechains were too ill to walk when the escape was made, and there was nothing to do but leave them behind. Hiscomrade died, and he recovered after weeks, mainlythrough the efforts of old Catarina, the Indian womanwho sometimes brought him his food.

John Bedford's spirits were at the bottom of thedepths that afternoon. How could human beings be socruel as to shut up one of their kind in such a manner, one who was no criminal? It seemed to him that latelythe watch in the castle had become more vigilant thanever. More soldiers were about, and he heard vaguely ofcomings and goings. His mind ran back for thethousandth time over the capture of himself and hiscomrades.

When taken by an overwhelming force they were onehundred and seventy in number, and there were greatrejoicings in Mexico when they were brought southward.They had been blindfolded at some points, once whenhe walked for a long time on sharp volcanic rock, andonce, when, as he was fainting from heat and thirst, awoman with a kind voice had given him a cup of waterat a well. He remembered these things very vividly, andhe remembered with equal vividness how, when they werenot blindfolded, they were led in triumph through theMexican towns, exactly as prisoners were led to celebratethe glory of a general through the streets of old Rome.They, the "Terrible Texans," as they were called, hadpassed through triumphal arches decorated with the brightgarments of women. Boys and girls, brilliant handkerchiefsbound around their heads, and shaking decoratedgourds with pebbles in them, had danced before thecaptives to the great delight of the spectators. Sometimeswomen themselves in these triumphal processions haddone the zopilote or buzzard dance. At night theprisoners had been forced to sleep in foul cattle sheds.

Then had come the Day of the Beans. One hundredand fifty-three white beans and seventeen black beanswere placed in a bowl, and every prisoner, blindfolded, was forced to draw one. The seventeen who drew theblack beans were promptly shot, and the others werecompelled to march on. He remembered how lightly theyhad taken it, even when it was known who had drawn theblack beans. These men, mostly young like himself, hadjested about their bad luck, and had gone to their deathsmiling. He did not know how they could do it, but itwas so, because he had seen it with his own eyes.

Then they had marched on until they came to theCastle of Montevideo. There the world ended. Therewas nothing but time, divided into alternations of nightand day. He had seen nobody but soldiers, except theold woman Catarina, who seemed to be a sort of scullion.After he recovered from the prison fever of which hiscomrade of the chains died, the old woman had shown asort of pity for him; perhaps she liked him as one oftenlikes those upon whom one has conferred benefits. Sheyielded to his entreaties for a pencil for an hour or so, and some paper, just a sheet or two. She smuggledthem to him, and she smuggled away the letter that hewrote. She did not know what would happen, but shewould give it to her son Porfirio, who was a vaquero.Porfirio would give it to his friend Antonio Vaquez, whowas leading a burro train north to Monterey. After thatwas the unknown, but who could tell? Antonio Vaquezwas a kind man, and the Holy Virgin sometimes workedmiracles for the good. As for the poor lad, the prisoner,he must rest now. He had been muy malo (very sick),and it was not good to worry.

John tried not to worry. It was such easy advice togive and so very hard for one to take who had beenburied alive through a time that seemed eternity, andwho had been forgotten by all the world, except hisjailers. That letter had gone more than a year ago, and,of course, it had not reached its destination. He oughtnever to have thought such a thing possible. Very likelyit had been destroyed by Porfirio, the vaquero, oldCatarina's son. He had not seen old Catarina herself in along time. Doubtless they had sent her away becauseshe had been kind to him, or they may have found outabout the letter. He was very sorry. She was far fromyoung, and she was far from beautiful, but her briefpresence at intervals had been cheering.

He watched the last rays of the sun fade on the volcanicslope. A single beam, livid and splendid, lingeredfor a moment, and then was gone. After it came thedark, with all the chilling power of great elevation. Thecold even penetrated the deep slit that led through twelvefeet of solid masonry, and John Bedford shivered. Itwas partly the dark that made him shiver. He rose fromthe stool and made his way slowly and painfully to hiscot against the wall, his chains rattling heavily over thefloor.

He heard a key turning in the lock and the dooropening, but he did not look around. They usually camewith his food at this hour, and the food was always thesame. There was no cause for curiosity. But when heheard the steps of two men instead of one he did lookaround. There was the same soldier bringing his supperof frijoles and tortillas on a tin plate, and a cup of verybad coffee, but he was accompanied by the new governorof the castle, Captain Pedro de Armijo, whom John didnot like at all. The soldier drew up the stool, put thefood on it, and also a candle that he carried.

John began to eat and drink, taking not the slightestnotice of de Armijo. The man from the first had givenhim the impression of cold, malignant cruelty. JohnBedford had often thought that his own spirit wascrushed, but it was far from being so. Pride was strongwithin him, and he resolved that de Armijo should speakfirst.

De Armijo stood in silence for some time, lookingdown at the prisoner. He was not in a good humor, hehad seldom been so since that fatal day when the wholearmy of Santa Anna was hurled back by the little forcefrom the North. He knew many things of which theprisoner did not dream, and he had no thought of givinghim even the slightest hint of them. In him was thevenomous disposition of the cat that likes to play withthe rat it has caught. A curious piece of mockery, orperhaps it was not wholly mockery, had occurred to him.

"Bedford," he said, speaking good English, "youhave been a prisoner here a long time, and no one lovescaptivity."

"I have not heard that any one does," replied John, taking another drink of the bad coffee.

"You cannot escape. You see the impossibility ofany such attempt."

"It does not look probable, I admit. Still, fewthings are impossible."

De Armijo smiled, showing even white teeth. Herather liked this game of playing with the rat in the trap.So much was in favor of the cat.

"It is not a possibility with which one can reckon,"he said, "and I should think that the desire to be freewould be overpowering in one so young as you."

"Have you come here to make sport of me?" saidJohn, with ominous inflection. "Because if you have Ishall not answer another question."

"Not at all," said de Armijo. "I come on business.You have been here, as I said, a long time, and in thattime many changes have occurred in the world."

"What changes?" asked John sharply.

"The most important of them is the growth in powerof Mexico," said de Armijo smoothly. "We triumphover all our enemies."

"Do you mean that you have really retaken Texas?"asked John, with a sudden falling of the heart.

De Armijo smiled again, then lighted a cigarette andtook a puff or two before he gave an answer which wasreally no answer at all, so far as the words themselveswere concerned.

"I said that Mexico had triumphed over her enemieseverywhere," he replied, "and so she has, but I give youno details. It has been the order that you know nothing.You have been contumacious and obstinate, and, free, you would be dangerous. So the world was to be closedto you, and it has been done. You know nothing of itexcept these four walls and the little strip of a mountainthat you can see from the window there. You are as onedead."

John Bedford winced. What the Mexican said wastrue, and he had long known it to be true, but he did notlike for de Armijo to say it to him now. His lonesomenessin his long imprisonment had been awful, but notmore so than his absolute ignorance of everything beyondhis four walls. This policy with him had been pursuedpersistently. Old Catarina, before her departure, had notdared to tell him anything, and now the soldier whoserved him would not answer any question at all. Hehad felt at times that this would reduce him to mentalincompetency, to childishness, but he had fought againstit, and he had felt at other times that the isolation, instead of weakening his faculties, had sharpened them.But he replied without any show of emotion in his voice:

"What you say is true in the main, but why do yousay it."

"In order to lay before you both sides of a proposition.You are practically forgotten here. You can spendthe rest of your life in this cell, perish, perhaps, on thevery bed where you are now sitting, but you can alsorelease yourself. Take the oath of fealty to Mexico, become a Mexican citizen, join her army and fight herenemies. You might have a career there, you might rise."

It was a fiendish suggestion to one who knew nothingof what was passing, and de Armijo prided himself uponhis finesse. To compel brother to fight against brotherwould indeed be a master stroke. He did not notice therising blood in the face before him, that had so longborne the prison pallor.

"Have you reconquered Texas?" asked John sharply.

"What has that to do with it?"

"Do you think I would join you and fight against theTexans? Do you think I would join you anyhow, afterI've been fighting against you? I'd rather rot here thando such a thing, and it seems strange that you, an officerand the governor of this castle, should make such anoffer. It's dishonest!"

Blood flashed through de Armijo's dark face, and heraised his hand in menace. John Bedford instantlystruck at him with all his might, which was not great, wasted as he was by prison confinement. De Armijostepped back a little, drew his sword, and, with the flatof it, struck the prisoner a severe blow across theforehead. John had attempted to spring forward, buttwenty-five pounds of iron chain confining his ankles heldhim. He could not ward off the blow, and he droppedback against the cot, bleeding and unconscious.

When John Bedford recovered his senses he was lyingon the cot, and it was pitch dark, save for a slendershaft of moonlight that entered at the slit, and that laylike a sword-blade across the floor. His head throbbed, and when he put his hand to it he found that it wasswathed in bandages. He remembered the blowperfectly, and he moved his feet, but the chains had beentaken off. They had had the grace to do that much. Hestrove to rise, but he was very weak, and the throbbing inhis head increased. Then he lay still for a long time, watching the moonbeam that fell across the floor. Hewas in a state of mind far from pleasant. To be shut upso long is inevitably to grow bitter, and to be struck downthus by de Armijo, while he was chained and helpless, was an injury to both body and mind that he could neverforgive. He had nothing to do in his cell to distract hismind from grievous wrongs, and there was no chance forthem to fade from his memory. His very soul rose inwrath against de Armijo.

He judged that it was far in the night, and, afterlying perfectly still for about an hour, he rose from thebed. His strength had increased, and the throbbing inhis head was not so painful. He staggered across thefloor and put his face to the slit in the wall. The coldair, as it rushed against his eyes and cheeks, felt verygood. It was spring in the lowlands, but there was snowyet on the peak behind the Castle of Montevideo, andwinter had not yet wholly left the valley in which thecastle itself stood. But the air was not too cold for John, whose brain at this moment was hotter than his blood.

The night was uncommonly clear. One could seealmost as well as by day, and he began to look over, oneby one, the little objects that his view commanded on themountainside. He looked at every intimate friend, thevarious rocks, the cactus, the gully, and the dwarfedshrubs-he still wished to know whether they were pinesor cedars, the problem had long annoyed him greatly.He surveyed his little landscape with great care. Itseemed to him that he saw touches of spring there, andthen he was quite sure that he saw the figure of a man, dark and shadowy, but, nevertheless, a human figure, pass across the little space. It was followed in a momentby a second, and then by a third. It caused himsurprise and interest. His tiny landscape was steep, and hehad never before seen men cross it. Hunters, or perhapsgoat herders, but it was strange that they should betraveling along such a steep mountainside at such an hour.

A person under ordinary conditions would have forgottenthe incident in five minutes, but this was an eventin the life of the lonely captive. Save his encounter withde Armijo, he could not recall another of so muchimportance in many months. He stayed at the loophole along time, but he did not see the figures again noranything else living. Once, about a month before, he hadcaught a glimpse of a deer there, and it had filled himwith excitement, because to see even a deer was a greatthing, but this was a greater. He remained at theloophole until the rocks began to redden with the morning sun, but his little landscape remained as it had ever been, thesame rocks, the same pines or cedars-which, in Heaven'sname, were they? – and the same cactus.

Then he walked slowly back to his cot. The chainswere lying on the floor beside it, and he knew that, intime, they would be put on him again, but he wasresolved not to abate his independence a particle. Norwould he defer in any way to de Armijo. If he cameagain he would speak his opinion of him to his face, lethim do what he would.

There was proud and stubborn blood in every vein ofthe Bedfords. John Bedford's grandfather had been oneof the most noted of Kentucky's pioneers and Indianfighters, and on his mother's side, too, there was a strainof tenacious New England. By some possible chance hemight be able to return de Armijo's blow. He drew thecover over his body and fell into a sleep from which hewas awakened by the slovenly soldier with his breakfast.The man did not speak while John ate, and John wasglad of it. He, too, had nothing to say, and he wishedto be left to himself. When the man left he lay down onthe cot again and slept until nearly noon. Then deArmijo came a second time. He had no apologieswhatever for the manner in which he had struck down anunarmed prisoner, but was hard and sneering.

"I merely tell you," he said, "that you lost your lastchance yesterday. The offer will not be repeated."

John said not a word, but gazed at him so steadilythat the Mexican's swarthy face flushed a little. Hehesitated, as if he would say something, but evidentlythought better of it, and went out. That night he had afever from his wounded head and the exertion that he hadmade in standing so long at the loophole. He becamedelirious, and when he emerged from his delirium a littleweazened old Indian woman was sitting by the side of hiscot. She had kindly and pitying eyes, and Johnexclaimed, in a weak but joyous voice:

"Catarina!"

"Poor boy," she said, "I have watched you one dayand one night."

"Where have you been all the time before?" he askedin the Mexican dialect that he had learned.

"I have been one of the cooks," she said. "Theofficers, they eat so much, tortillas, frijoles, everything, and they drink so much, mescal, pulque, wine, everything.Many busy months for Catarina, and I ask for you, but I cannot see you. They say you bad, very bad.Then they say you try to kill the governor, Captain deArmijo, but he strike you on the head with the flat of hissword to save his own life. You have fever, and at lastthey send me to nurse you as I did that other time."

"Do you believe, Catarina, that I tried to kill deArmijo?" asked John.

She looked about her fearfully, drew the reboso closelyacross her shrunken shoulders, and answered in afrightened tone as if the thick walls themselves could hear:

"How should I know? It is what they say. If Ishould say otherwise they would lash me with the whip, even me, old Catarina."

The captive sighed. Nothing could break the awfulwall of mystery that enveloped him. Catarina even didnot dare to speak, although no one but himself couldpossibly hear.

"You mind I smoke?" said Catarina.

"No," replied John with a wan smile. "Any ladycan smoke in my presence."

She whipped out a cigarrito, lighted it with a match, held it for a moment between the middle and fore finger, then inserted it between her aged lips. She took two orthree long, easy whiffs, letting the smoke come outthrough her nose. John had never learned to smoke, buthe said to her:

"Does it do you good, Catarina?"

"Whether it does me good, I know not," replied theIndian woman, "but it gives me pleasure, so I do it. Ihave to tell you, Señor John, that my son, Porfirio, hasreturned from the north. He has been at Monterey andthe country about it."

John at once was all eagerness.

"And Antonio Vaquez, the leader of the burro train?"he exclaimed. "Has he heard from him? Does he knowif the letter went on beyond the Rio Grande?"

"My son Porfirio has not seen Antonio Vaquez," repliedCatarina, "and so he does not know from AntonioVaquez whether the letter has crossed the Rio Grande ornot. But it is a time of change."

"De Armijo told me that."

The old woman looked at him very keenly, and drovemore smoke of the cigarrito through her nose. Her nextwords made no reference to de Armijo, but they startledJohn:

"You look through the loophole to-night, aboutmidnight," she said, "You see something on the mountainside, fire, a torch, it may mean much. Who can tell?"

Excitement flamed up again in John's veins.

"What do you mean, Catarina?" he exclaimed.

"Last night I crawled to the loophole for air. It wasbright moonlight, and while I was standing there Ithought three human beings passed on the little patch ofthe mountainside that I can see."

"It is all I know," said Catarina. "I can tell you nomore. Now I am concinero (cook) again. Now I go.But watch. There have been many changes. Diego, thesoldier, will bring you your food as before. Watch that, too."

"Poison!" exclaimed John aghast.

"No! No! No! Hai Dios (my God), no! But doas I say!"

She snuffed out the end of the cigarrito, picked up thedishes, and promptly left the cell. She also left thecaptive much excited and wondering. De Armijo had saidthere were changes! Truly there had been changes, saidCatarina, but she had not told what they were. Hemade many surmises, and one was as good as another, even to himself. Let a man cut three years out of hislife and see if he can span the gulf between. But he wassure, despite his ignorance of their nature, that Catarina'swords were full of meaning, and, perhaps among all thegreat changes that had come, one was coming for him, too.

He slept that afternoon in order that he might be sureto keep awake at night, and long before midnight he wason watch at the loophole. There was still soreness in hishead, where the flat of the heavy steel blade had struck, but it was passing away, and his strength was returning.It is hard to crush youth. It was now easier for him, too, as the chains had not been put back upon his ankles.

He waited with great impatience, and, as hisimpatience increased, time became slower. He began to feelthat he was foolish. But Catarina had been good to him.She would not make him keep an idle quest in the longcold hours of the night. And he had seen the threeshadows pass the night before. He was sure now fromwhat Catarina had said that they were the shadows ofhuman beings, and their presence there had beensignificant.

The night was not so bright as the one before, but, bylong looking, he could trace the details of his landscape, all the well known objects, every one in its proper place, with the dusky moonlight falling upon them. He staredso long that his eyes ached. Surely Catarina had beentalking foolish talk! No, she had not! His heart stoppedbeating for a few moments, because, as certainly as hewas at that loophole, a light had appeared on his bit oflandscape. It was but a spark. A spark only at first, but in a moment or two it blazed up like a torch. Itshowed a vivid red streak against the mountainside, andthe heart of the captive, that had stood still for a fewmoments, now bounded rapidly. The words of Catarinahad come true, and he had had a sign. But what didthe sign mean? It must be connected in some way withhim, and nothing could be worse than that which he nowendured. It must mean good.

It was a veritable flame of hope to John Bedford, theprisoner of the Castle of Montevideo. New strengthsuffused his whole body. Courage came back to him in afull tide. A sign had been promised to him, and it hadcome.

The light burned for about half an hour, and thenwent out suddenly. John Bedford returned to his cot, anew hope in his heart.