Pedrillo

“ Great was the grief, and violent the sobbing, when all the girls in the Mission surrounded Juanita to bid her adieu; as she, seated en cavalier on an easy pacing mule, bequeathed her late companions to the keeping of every saint in the calendar, and particularly to the great St Ferdinand himself, under whose especial tutelage all those in the Mission were supposed to live. Pedrillo, poor forsaken Pedrillo, a sullen sulky half-breed, was overcome, not with grief, but with anger at the slight put upon him, and vowed revenge. ”

“ On my soul, I rejoice to see thee with or without thy cheer, for I find the night melancholy."
"Good!" said Pedro. "Then am I doubly welcome. Here, Pedrillo, lay out the supper on this table. Have a care, boy! Spill that soup, thou imp, and I'll make another of thee!"
"Why, amigo," said Cristoval, surveying the repast, "it is a feast! Thy substantial cheer is second only to the spiritual cheer in thine atmosphere. Accept my thanks. Hast supped, thyself?"
"No. No time for it. I prepared the banquet to the Inca and saw it served."
"Then thou'lt sup with me. There is more than enough for two. ”

“ By this time Pedrillo had overtaken Capitana and, seizing her by the bridle, was proceeding to thump her well with a piece of Tia Marta’s broom, broken in the course of the mule’s antics, when Pilarica, putting Don Quixote to his best paces, bore down upon the scene in such distress of pity that the beating had to be given up. But Pedrillo twisted the halter around Capitana’s muzzle and so tied her to the tail of Peregrina. ”

“ After the feast of Santiago there came, in the end of August, the wedding of Tia Marta. Pedrillo had decided, or, rather, she had decided for him, to give up the road and try to make a living out of the soil, whereat Don Manuel, who counted Pedrillo his right-hand man, was sorely vexed.
“Why not leave the world as it is?” urged the master-carrier. “Is not the woman better off under my roof, where she is made one of us and has her spoon in every dish, than living on a mud floor, with goat and pig, in that cabin of yours, munching a crust of bread and an onion? ”

“ Captain Pedrillo rewarded the Mayo with a malignant look. If he had only have suspected this before when he had him in his camp. Whilst he ground his teeth and jerked his stump nervously, his judge pursued:
"I have had you decoyed out of your forces that the savages may not have the benefit of your cultured cunning. You deserve death a hundredfold for warring against Mexico, and that death should be the traitor's—that by the ignoble rope. But I have no hangman's noose here; you are going to be honoured with the soldier's fate—you shall only be shot!" ”

“ Ghosts fear a sword as a live Italian the evil eye, and dread the sign of the cross even more. Come!"
They set out with Pedrillo carrying a lantern, and took a street leading toward the plaza. Just before they reached it Cristoval halted at a small door and pushed it open. "Come this way, Pedro," he said, "and we can avoid the barricade of dead at the end of the street."
"Heaven be praised!" responded Pedro. "On my way to the guard-house I thought never to pass it with my heart in my body. 'T is not as if these people were slain in battle, Cristoval. I fear not a battlefield." ”

“ And now Don Carlos set his face in sterner lines than ever and spoke to the children briskly, as if there were no time to be lost.
“Your Uncle Manuel is a carrier, an expressman, as so many of the Galicians are. He is thrifty and well-to-do and owns his own train of mules. Among the muleteers who hire themselves out to him for trip after trip there is no one whom he trusts as much as Pedrillo here, and so he has sent Pedrillo to conduct you and Grandfather and Tia Marta, if she will go—”
Pedrillo winked. ”

“ He tarried at the cantina only while Pedrillo was saddling his mule, then mounted and struck toward the fortress. Again his errand lay beyond; and he drew rein at the huasi of Municancha. The old Indio gave him welcome, and to him Pedro narrated Rava's flight from Caxamalca with the gallant Viracocha Cristoval. He told of her recent perils and deliverance, and begged Municancha's aid in learning from Xilcala whether the good soldier still lived, and if not, where lay his grave. He found a willing helper. ”

“ Heaven defend us! At court, of all the places in the world, to look at morals through a microscope! Let Fortune come under what haggard form she may, they hug her in their arms, and swear she is a beauty.
My way of thinking was precisely with Pedrillo, and we dinned it so stoutly into both the captain's ears, as to make him the Spanish Siren's uncle against nature and inclination. When we had so far prevailed over his pride, we all three set about drawing up a new memorial for the minister, which was revised, with a copious interlacing of additions and corrections. ”

“ The señora entered. That she came with fell purpose Pedro divined at a glance. He saw flashes of soft lightning in her eyes, more dreaded now than the blaze of her ire. Instinctively he placed himself with the table between.
The lady looked quickly about, and approaching, said in a tone he had not heard her use before, "Pedro, I have a word for thee."
"Oh, the fiend, señora!" he interrupted, paling slightly and looking for Pedrillo. "Say it to some one else—now do! There's a good woman! I—stew me!—I am a busy man. I have a roast on the point of burning, I swear it! ”

“ All except Juan, who throughout abstain’d,
Chewing a piece of bamboo and some lead:
At length they caught two boobies and a noddy,
And then they left off eating the dead body.
And if Pedrillo’s fate should shocking be,
Remember Ugolino condescends
To eat the head of his arch-enemy
The moment after he politely ends
His tale: if foes be food in hell, at sea
’Tis surely fair to dine upon our friends,
When shipwreck’s short allowance grows too scanty,
Without being much more horrible than Dante. ”

“ He declared his extreme abhorrence of becoming a party concerned in a mere swindling trick, and still more of adopting a female adventurer, no better than she should be, into his family, and thus casting a stain upon its immaculate purity. It was not only for himself that he felt all this soreness; there was a recoil of ignominy on his ancestors, which would lay their honors level with the dust. This morbid delicacy seemed out of season to Pedrillo, who could not help expressing his contempt of it thus: You must surely be out of your wits to take the matter up on that footing. ”

“ The floor of the loft was fashioned of rough-hewn planks so clumsily fitted together that the sleepers had a dim sense, all night long, of what was going on in the stable below,—the snoring of Pedrillo, the munching of the donkeys, the jingling of the mule-bells and the capers of Capitana.
With the first glimmer of dawn, Pedrillo began to load the mules.
“Waking and eating only want a beginning,” he shouted up to his comrades of the road.
“Your rising early will not make the sun rise,” groaned Tia Marta. “Ugh! That mule born for my torment has made of me one bruise. ”

“ and there was one That begg'd Pedrillo for an absolution, Who told him to be damn'd—in his confusion. ”

“ The meddlesome barber heard Peregil arrive at an unusual hour at night, and the exclamations of his wife and children. His head was instantly popped out of a little window which served as a look-out, and he saw his neighbour assist a man in Moorish garb into his dwelling. This was so strange an occurrence, that Pedrillo Pedrugo slept not a wink that night. Every five minutes he was at his loophole, watching the lights that gleamed through the chinks of his neighbour's door, and before daylight he beheld Peregil sally forth with his donkey unusually laden. ”

“ It has put Juanito fast to sleep.”
“And Grandfather, too,” added Pilarica.
“The better for them,” remarked Uncle Manuel, patting the glossy neck of his offended mule, for Capitana had just been so rude as to frisk past Coronela and take the lead.
Pedrillo was quite disconcerted by these frank criticisms and croaked dolefully, pushing Peregrina on beside the impudent, triumphant Capitana:
“Unhappy is the tree
That grows in the field alone;
Every wind is its enemy
Till it be overthrown.”
“What on earth is the matter with the man?” queried Tia Marta. ”

“ Enter Pedrillo.
Ped. He! he! he! Yes, my master has certainly married the little nunnery-girl—Ha! ha! ha! Alphonso to demand satisfaction of me! no, no, Don Fernando is a master for the gentlemen, I am a man for the ladies.
AIR XIX.—PEDRILLO.
A soldier I am for a lady,
What beau was e'er arm'd completer? ”

“ You can find your way to the place, Pedrillo. You’ve been there before?”
The Indian nods an affirmative.
“Take this.” Here Uraga hands him the sealed paper. “See you show it to no one you may chance to meet passing out from the settlements. Give it to Barbato, or hand it to the Horned Lizard himself. He’ll know who it’s for. You are to ride night and day, as fast as the animals can carry you. ”

“ He must do anything, anything, rather than sit still and be afraid. He clambered, often slipping back, up to the little peephole and listened, listened, listened until he heard, or thought he heard, the thudding tramp of the mule-train far down the road and the click-clack, ding-dong, tinkle-tinkle of its assorted bells. Oh, surely Coronela would have gone safely down; surely Pilarica would send Uncle Manuel and Pedrillo to his relief. ”

“ They must wait several weeks before a mass
Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals,
Because, till people know what ’s come to pass,
They won’t lay out their money on the dead—
It costs three francs for every mass that ’s said.
Juan got into the long-boat, and there
Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place;
It seem’d as if they had exchanged their care,
For Juan wore the magisterial face
Which courage gives, while poor Pedrillo’s pair
Of eyes were crying for their owner’s case:
Battista; though (a name call’d shortly Tita) ,
Was lost by getting at some aqua-vita. ”

“ But Uncle Manuel, hurrying back from business in the city and expecting to find his string of mules ready and waiting, bent his brows on the scene in evident perplexity.
“It is not too late,” he said to Pedrillo, “to let you take the woman and little girl and the old man on to Santiago by railroad. My nephew may choose for himself, but I think he will like to ride with us.”
“Yes, yes!” urged the muleteers.
“We need a protector,” chuckled Hilario.
“And so do I,” cut in Tia Marta. “The boy is the only man among you. ”

“ There, withal, dwelt Pedro, beloved comrade of Cristoval, and his genial head was silvered for many a long year. And all the children of the valley, when, from Father Tendilla—who gathered his last flock in Xilcala—they had learned about the saints, fixed upon Pedro as the vicar of the Patron Saint of childhood. There, moreover, dwelt the señora, the guardian angel of Pedro. A somewhat surcharged and superheated guardian angel, perhaps, but gradually moderating, under the influence of the repose of the valley, to a mild and kindly warmth. ”

“ You are a liar, Pedro Pedrarias, and were I but free, with my good sword in hand, fain would I render you unable to utter more false statements against me and those who were once true to me!"
"Ha! Would you, then? Here, jailer, double this fellow's irons, and if he protest, weight him to the floor with them! My throat you would slit, eh? Old as I am, you will find that when it comes to the cutting of throats, Don Pedrarias de Avila needs not rely upon his own unaided sword. There is one in my employ who wields a more potent weapon—mark you—and that is Gomez, the headsman. ”

“ Frank said. “Why, he used to think Pedro was the whole works.”
“You say the fellow’s name is not Pedro at all, but Pedrarias?” asked Ned.
“Yes, that is what father says. I gave him the name of Pedro for short. He is an offshoot of the Spanish family that ruled the Isthmus 153 after Balboa was shot. He claims pure Castilian blood, and all that. How he ever consented to become a servant is more than I can make out.” ”

“ Pedro turned away with a gesture as if to wave him off. He faced about. "Do I know her! Warily and charily, señor—as a pup knoweth the family cat! Ah, Madre! Lieutenant Cristoval, she hath a tongue like a flail—like a red-hot rapier. Thou shouldst hear her storm—at some other man—when she is roused! Nay, smile not! I once heard her berating her servants, and they wilted, withered, shrivelled like spiders on a hot skillet. Ah, stew me! Bolio!"
"Thou dost stir mine interest, Pedro," said Cristoval. "Who is the lady?" ”

“ Farewell Pedrarias! Few there are who came to these parts of whom so much of evil, so little of good, may be truthfully said. And thou Death, almighty leveller! who by thy speedy compensation has brought this rusty, crusty old man, these several centuries, 616 and for all the centuries time shall tell, to be no better than Vasco Nuñez, than Córdoba, than the meanest of the multitude of savages he has vilely slain, we praise thee! ”

“ When he beholds Don Pedro in royal robes, standing on the threshold of his gorgeous portal, surrounded by such of the brilliant Castilians who as yet are true to him, the dusky emir is moved to smile, and as he dismounts to kiss Don Pedro’s hand, the Balax gleaming like fire on his head, his steely blue eyes fix on it greedily, and it is clear to Don Juan who stands behind, that strong passion of some kind moves him.
Long he contemplates in silence the turban of the Moor; then, turning abruptly to Don Juan, he whispers: “What right has the Infidel to wear such gems? ”