William O. Stoddard

“ If he could have understood those men, he might also have comprehended one important feature of the tangled politics of Mexico, and why ambitious military men were every now and then able to set up for themselves, and defy the central government until it could manage to capture them, and have them shot as rebels. Wiser men than he, looking at the matter from the outside, might also have understood how greatly it was to the credit of President Paredes that he was making so good a stand against the power of the United States while hampered by so many difficulties. ”

“ Señora Tassara laughed merrily, as she responded:
“You are a dreadfully obstinate young patriot, my darling. But you must be a little more gracious. The gringo armies will never come to Vera Cruz. They are away up north on the Rio Grande.”
“Well, mother, I will a little,” said the señorita, proudly. “Señor Carfora, your generals will be beaten all to pieces. You wait till you see our soldiers. You haven’t anything like them. They are as brave as lions. My father is a soldier, and he is to command a regiment. I wish I were a man to go and fight.” ”

“ 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?” ”

“ A few minutes later, if Ned had been awake instead of sleeping so soundly, he might have heard what two men were saying, in half-whispers, close to the door of his tent.
“Colonel,” said Zuroaga, “we are well-hidden in here. The bushes are very thick along the edge of the road.”
“Hark!” interrupted Tassara. “Do you hear that? There they are!”
“I hear them,” replied the general. “It may be so. If it is, they have followed us well. But there cannot be more than half a dozen of them. It is not any mere squad like that that we need be afraid of.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The front door opened to admit them, and shut quickly behind them as they passed in.
“Señora Paez,” said Zuroaga to a shadow in the unlighted hall, “the armistice is ended, but I shall command my Oaxaca regiment in the fighting which is now sure to come. Let us all meet in the parlor and hear from Señor Carfora the American account of these lost battles.”
“Carfora?” she exclaimed. “Is he here? Oh, how I do wish to hear him! I believe we have been told altogether too many lies. Our troops do not half know how badly they have been beaten, nor what is the real strength of the American army.” ”

“ We have had revolution after revolution.”
“Anarchy after anarchy!” growled the captain. “Such a nation as that needs a king of some kind, or else the strong hand of either England or France or the United States.”
“Mexico! A nation!” exclaimed Señor Zuroaga, after a moment of silence. “We are not a nation yet. Within our boundaries there are several millions of ignorant Indians, peons, rancheros and the like, that are owned rather than ruled by a few scores of rich landholders who represent the old Spanish military grants. ”

“ You will not see me again, dead or alive, until a week or two after the Americans have taken the city of Mexico, as in my opinion they surely will. I shall be there then, with five hundred lancers, to uphold the new government which will take the place of the bloody dictatorship of Paredes, unless the new affair is to be Santa Anna. In any event, I shall be able to help you, and I will.”
“You are a gloomy prophet,” responded Tassara, “but you are an old student of military operations. Do you really think the Americans will capture our capital? It will be well defended.” ”

“ In one small tent, in the camp of the Seventh Infantry, the first boom stirred up a young man who had been sleeping, and he may have been dreaming of home. He was in the uniform of a second lieutenant, and in one respect he was exactly like all the other younger officers and most of the men of that army, for never before had they heard the sound of a hostile cannon. ”

“ Well to the westward, with every sail spread that she could carry, the Goshawk sped along in apparent safety, but she was once more carrying the American flag, and Ned Crawford, busy below at his breakfast, felt a great deal easier in his patriotic mind. He could almost forget, for the moment, that he was taking a cargo of the worst kind of contraband of war goods to the armies of the enemies of his country. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ General Zuroaga was not there, but there had been a message from him that there would be a great battle in the morning, for the Americans were moving forward.
“We are in greater numbers than they are,” muttered General Tassara. “But we have no General Scott, and we have no officers like his. Almost all that we really have is courage and gunpowder, and these are not enough to defeat such an attack as he will make. The city is lost already!” ”

“ Our flag! Our men! Hurrah! Those are the colors of the Seventh! It is my own regiment, and if there isn’t Lieutenant Grant himself!”
“Do not go!” she said. “Do not leave me!” but she was too late, for he had darted away, and in a moment more he was greeted with:
“Hullo, Ned! I’m glad you didn’t make out to get killed. I knew you couldn’t get out, and I’d about given you up. Is that where you live?”
“It’s the house I told you of,” said Ned. “They are the best kind of people—”
“Go back there, then,” commanded the lieutenant. ”

“ Men will make use of anything, from a donkey to a steamboat, to engineer a trial of speed and endurance. Then they will stand around and watch the running, as if the future welfare of the human race depended upon the result. Even the Goshawk sailors, who had previously grumbled at the British flag above them, were entirely reconciled to the situation, now that it included the interesting question whether or not their swift bark could show her heels to the cruiser. They were very much in doubt about it, for the ships of the American navy had a high and well-earned reputation as chasers. ”

“ I’m only a plain señor in all this region of the country. I only hope that some men in Vera Cruz do not already know that I am here. If they did, I am afraid I should not get out so easily. This is your horse. He is a good one.”
Hitched to a post near the wall was a fat, undersized animal, black as jet, and with more mane and tail than was at all reasonable. He carried a Mexican saddle with wooden stirrups and a tremendous curb-bit bridle. In front of the saddle were pistol holsters, and behind it hung an ammunition case, as if Ned were about to become a trooper. ”

“ If the Goshawk should drag her anchors and go ashore, I hope there won’t be too much sea running for good boats to live in.”
“I’m all ready now!” exclaimed Ned, as he sprang away, but he went with a curious question rising in his mind: “What if a cable were more’n half cut through? Wouldn’t it be likely to break and let go of an anchor, if it were pulled at too hard by a gale of wind? I don’t really know anything about it, but Señor Zuroaga thinks that Captain Kemp is a curious man to deal with. Father thinks that he is a good sailor, too.” ”

“ 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 want to learn, too, just how Cortes and his men took the old city. I suppose that when the Americans come, it will be a different kind of fight—more cannon.”
“They won’t get here at all,” quietly remarked a military-looking old gentleman sitting near the other end of the table. “It is a long road from the Rio Grande, and President Paredes is to march, in a few days, to crush our enemies with an army of twenty thousand men. They have not so much as taken Monterey yet. You are right, though. If they should ever get here, they will find the city harder to take than Cortes did. ”

“ He was thinking about it, however, rather than asking questions, and the señor went on:
“It’s a rich, beautiful country, all that eastern part of Oaxaca. There are splendid mountains and great forests of mahogany, rosewood, and pine. Through it runs the Coatzacoalcos River, northerly, to the gulf. Along the rivers and through the mountain passes, there is an old road that Cortes himself made to lead his little army across to the Pacific.”
“I’d like to go over on it!” exclaimed Ned. “I guess I will, some day. I want to know all about Mexico.” ”

“ 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.182 “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. ”

“ Zuroaga had told him, moreover, that it was from the latter that any gringo like himself would be in danger of violence. They were a vindictive, bloodthirsty class of men, most of them, for they retained undiminished the peculiar characteristics of their Indian ancestors.
“I don’t care to run against any of them,” thought Ned. “I don’t like this tierra caliente country, anyhow. It’s too hot to live in.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ We may be four days’ sail from Vera Cruz in a bee-line, and the Goshawk is a racer, but we may not be able to make a straight course. Well, well, the captain will keep on all the canvas that’s safe, and we may get there. Hullo! the day is beginning to dawn. Now our real danger begins.”
He said no more, and Ned walked forward with something altogether new on his mind. An American boy, crammed full of patriotism, and wishing that he were in General Taylor’s army, he was, nevertheless, by no fault of his own, one of the crew of a ship which was carrying ammunition to the enemy. ”

“ The morning came, and even before the sun was up some of the troops were moving.
“I guess it’ll be an all-day’s job,” thought277 Ned, as he and one of the engineer officers reached the first steep declivity. “Hullo! they are unhitching those artillery horses. What’s that for?”
He was soon to know, for strong men took the places of the animals, and the guns were hauled up and over the mountain by human hands. It was severe work, but it was done with eager enthusiasm, and a few hours later Ned was able to shout:
“Hurrah! Here we are, right in behind them. Hurrah for General Scott!” ”