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CHAPTER XXVII. GUAJUAQUALLA

There are few things in this world gold cannot buy: but one among their number assuredly is – “a happy dream.” Now, although I went to sleep in a great bed with damask hangings and a gilt crown upon it, my pillow fringed with deep lace, my coverlet of satin edged with gold, I dreamed the whole night through of strifes, combats, and encounters. At one time my enemy would be an Indian; at another, a half-breed; now, a negro; now, a jaguar or a rattlesnake: but with whom, or whatever the struggle, it was always for money! Nothing else seemed to have any hold upon my thoughts. Wealth, and wealth alone, appeared the guiding principle of my being; and, as the penalty, I was now to learn the ceaseless anxieties, the torturing dreads, this passion begets.

With daylight, however, I awoke, and the bright sun, streaming in, brought the glorious reality of my happy lot before me, and reminded me of the various duties my high state imposed. My first care was to ascertain the amount and security of my riches; and I resolved to proceed regularly and in the most business-like manner in the matter. To this end I ordered my carriage, and proceeded to pay my visit to the banker, Don Xafire.

I had devised and demolished full fifty ingenious narratives of myself when I drove into the courtyard where the banker resided, and found myself actually without one single satisfactory account of who I was, whence I came, and by what means I became possessed of the formidable papers I carried. “Let circumstances pilot the event” was my old maxim; and, so saying, I entered.

The rattling tramp of my six mules, the cracking of whips, and the crash of the wheels, brought many a head to the windows of the old jail-like palace when my carriage drove up to the door, and the two outriders stood in “a salute” at each side while I descended. “Sua Eccelenza El Condé de Cregano” resounded through the arched hall and passages, as an old servant in a tawdry suit of threadbare livery led the way to Don Xafire’s private apartment.

After a brief wait in a large but meagrely furnished chamber, an old man – or a middle-aged one, with a look of age – entered, and, with a profusion of ceremonial, in which he assured me that his house, his wife, his oxen, his mules, his asses, and in fact everything “that was his,” stood at my disposal, asked to what fortunate event he owed the honor of my visit.

“I am the representative, Señhor Xafire,” said I, “of the great house of Cregan and Company, of which doubtless you have heard, whose ships walk the waters of the icy seas, and lay at anchor amid the perfumes of the spice islands, and whose traffic unites two hemispheres.”

“May they always be prosperous!” said the polite Spaniard, bowing.

“They have hitherto enjoyed that blessing,” responded I, almost thankfully. “Even as the youngest member of the firm, I have nothing to complain of on the score of prosperity.” I smiled, took forth a most gorgeous snuff-box, all glittering with brilliants, and, presenting it to the Spaniard, laid it carelessly on the table. After a brief pause, to let the splendor settle down into his heart, I proceeded to inform him that in the course of commercial transactions a vast number of bills, receipts for deposits and other securities, had fallen into our hands, upon many of which we had advanced large sums, seeing that they bore the name of that most respectable house, the Bank of Don Xafire, of Guajuaqualla. “These would,” I added, “have been dispersed through the various channels of trade, had it not been the wish of my partners to open distinct relations with your house, and consequently they have retained the papers until a favorable occasion presented itself of personally making the proposition. This happy opportunity has arisen by our recent purchase of the great gold mines of the ‘Arguareche’ for seventy millions of piastres, of which you may have read in the ‘Faros de la Habanas.’”

He bowed a humble negative; and I went on to state that, our mining operations requiring co-operation and assistance, we desired to open relations with the great house of Don Xafire, whose good fame was well established on the ‘Change of Liverpool.

“You spoke of paper securities and such like, Señhor; may I ask of what nature they are?”

“You shall see them, Don Xafire,” said I, opening a very magnificent pocket-book, and presenting first a receipt, dated forty-eight years back, for the sum of twelve thousand piastres in silver, and four bags, weighing two hundred and eighty pounds of gold dust, from the hands of Menelaus Crick, of the mines of Hajoras, near Guajuaqualla. The Spaniard’s dark cheek trembled, and a faint tinge of sickly yellow seemed to replace the dusky olive of his tint, as he said, “This is but waste paper, Señhor, and I trust your excellent house has advanced nothing on its credit.”

“On the contrary, Señhor Banquiero,” responded I, “we have given the full sum, being much advised thereto by competent counsel.”

The battle was now opened, and the combat begun.

It is needless I should weary my reader by recapitulating the tissue of inventions in which, as in a garment, I wrapped myself. I saw quickly that if I was a rogue, so was my antagonist, and that for every stratagem I possessed, he was equally ready with another. At last, pushed hard by his evasions, equivocations, and subterfuges, I was driven to utter a shadowy kind of menace, in which I artfully contrived to mix the name of the General Santa Anna, – a word, in those days, of more than talismanic power.

“And this reminds me,” said I, “that one of my suite who lost his way, and was taken prisoner in the Rocky Mountains, committed to my charge a letter, in which I fancy the General is interested.” This was a random shot, but it struck the bull’s-eye through the very centre. The Señhora Dias’s letter was enclosed in an envelope, in which a few words only were written; but these, few as they were, were sufficient to create considerable emotion in Don Xafire, who retired into a window to read and re-read them.

Another shot, thought I, and he’s disabled! “It is needless, then, Don Xafire, to prolong an interview which promises so little. I will therefore take my leave; my next communication will reach you through the General Santa Anna.”

“May I not crave a little time for consideration, Señhor?” said he, humbly. “These are weighty considerations; there may be other demands still heavier in store for us of the same kind.”

“You are right, Señhor; there are other and still heavier claims, as you very properly opine. Some of them I have here with me; others are in the hands of our house; but all shall be forthcoming, I assure you.”

“What may be the gross amount, Señhor?” said the banker, trying, but very ineffectually, to look at his ease.

“Without pretending to minute accuracy, I should guess the sum at something like seven hundred thousand piastres, – this, exclusive of certain claims for compensation usual in cases of inquiry. You understand me, I believe.” The last menace was a shot in the very centre of his magazine, and so the little usurer felt it, as he fidgeted among his papers and concealed his face from me.

“Come, Señhor Xafire,” said I, with the air of a man who means to deal mercifully, and not to crush the victim in his power, “I will be moderate with you. These bills and receipts shall be all placed in your hands on payment of the sums due, without any demand for interest whatever. We will not speak of the other claims at all. The transaction shall be strictly in honor between us, and nothing shall ever transpire to your disadvantage regarding it. Is this enough?”

The struggle in the banker’s mind was a difficult one; but after several hours passed in going over the papers, after much discussion, and some altercation, I gained the day; and when I arose to take my leave, it was with my pocket-book stuffed full of bills on Pernambuco, Mexico, Santa Cruz, and the Havannah, with letters of credit, bonds, and other securities; the whole amounting to four hundred thousand piastres. The remaining sum of three hundred thousand, I had agreed to leave in Don Xafire’s hands at reasonable interest. In fact, I was but too happy in the possession of so much to think twice about what became of the remainder.

I presented my friend Xafire with my ruby brooch, as a souvenir, – not, indeed, that he needed anything to remind him of our acquaintance; and we parted with all the regrets of brothers about to separate.

“You will stay some days with us here, I hope?” said he, as he conducted me to my carriage.

“I intend a short visit to some of the old ‘Placers’ in your neighborhood,” replied I, “after which I mean to return here;” and so, with a last embrace, we parted.

My next care was to pay a visit to Don Estaban, for I was burning with anxiety to see Donna Maria once more, and to open my campaign as a rich suitor for her hand. The day chosen for this expedition seemed a fortunate one, for the road, which led through a succession of vineyards, was thronged with townspeople and peasants in gay holiday dresses, all wending their way in the same direction with ourselves. I asked the reason, and heard that it was the fête of the Virgin de los Dolores, whose chapel was on the estate of Don Estaban. I bethought me of the time when I had planned a pilgrimage to that same shrine, – little suspecting that I was to make it in my carriage, with six mules and two outriders!

In less than an hour’s drive we came in sight of Don Estaban’s villa, built on the side of a richly wooded mountain, and certainly not betraying any signs of the reduced fortune of which I had heard. A series of gardens, all terraced in the mountain, lay in front, among which fountains were playing and jets d’eau springing. A small lake spread its calm surface beneath, reflecting the whole scene as in a mirror, with its feathery palm-trees and blossoming mimosas, beneath whose shade hundreds of visitors were loitering or sitting, while the tinkling sounds of guitar and mandolin broke the stillness.

It was a strange and curious sight; for while pleasure seemed to hold unbounded sway on every side, the procession of priests in rich vestments, the smoke of censers, the red robes of acolytes, mingled with the throng, and the deep chanting of the liturgies was blended with the laughter of children and the merry sounds of light-hearted joy. “I have come in the very nick of time,” thought I, “to complete this scene of festivity;” and finding that my carriage could only advance slowly along the crowded avenue, I descended, and proceeded on foot, merely attended by two lacqueys to make way for me in front.

A lively controversy ran among the spectators at each side of me, of which I was evidently the subject, some averring that I was there as a portion of the pageant, an integral feature in the procession; others, with equal discrimination, insisting that my presence was a polite attention on the part of Our Lady de “Los Dolores,” who had sent an illustrious personage to grace the festival as her representative. On one point all were agreed, – that my appearance amongst them was a favor which a whole life of devotion to me could not repay; and so rapidly was this impression propagated that it sped up the long approach through various groups and knots of people, and actually reached the villa itself long before my august person arrived at the outer court.

Never was dignity – at least such dignity as mine – intrusted to better hands than those of my “Caçadores.” They swaggered along, pushing back the crowds on each side as though it were a profanation to press too closely upon me. They flourished their great gold-headed canes as if they would smash the skulls of those whose eager curiosity outstepped the reverence due to me; and when at length we reached the gates of the court-yard, they announced my name with a grandeur and pomp of utterance that, I own it frankly, actually appalled myself! I had not, however, much time given me for such weaknesses, as, directly in front of the villa, at a table spread beneath an awning of blue silk, sat a goodly company, whose splendor of dress and profusion of jewellery bespoke them the great guests of the occasion. The host – it was easy to detect him by the elevated seat he occupied – rose as I came forward, and, with a humility I never can praise too highly, assured me that if any choice were permitted him in the matter, he would prefer dying on the spot, now that his worldly honors could never exceed the triumph of that day; that all the happiness of the festivity was as gloom and darkness to his soul, compared to the brilliancy my presence diffused; and not only was everything he owned mine from that moment forth, but, he ardently hoped he might have a long line of grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be my slaves in succeeding generations.

While the worthy man poured forth these “truths” in all the flourish of his purest Castilian, and while I listened to them with the condescending urbanity with which a sovereign may be presumed to hear the strains of some national melody in their praise, as pleasant, though somewhat stale, another individual was added to the group, whose cunning features evinced nothing either of the host’s reverence or of my grandeur. This was Fra Miguel, the Friar, who, in a costume of extraordinary simplicity, stood staring fixedly at me.

“Il Condé de Cregauo!” repeated Don Estaban. “I have surely heard the name before. Your highness is doubtless a grandee of Spain?”

“Of the first class!” said I, with a slight cough; for the confounded Friar never took his eyes off me.

“And we have met before, Señhor Condé,” said he, with a most equivocal stress upon the last words. “How pleasant for me to thank the Condé for what I believed I owed to the mere wayfarer.” These words he uttered in a whisper close to my own ear.

“Better that, than ungratefully desert a benefactor!” said I, in the same low tone; then, turning to Don Estaban, who stood amazed at our dramatic asides, I told him pretty much what I had already related to the banker at Guajuaqualla; only adding that during an excursion which it was my caprice to make alone and unaccompanied, I had been able to render a slight service to his fair daughter, Donna Maria de Los Dolores, and that I could not pass the neighborhood without inquiring after her health, and craving permission to kiss her hand.

“Is this the Señhor Cregan of the ‘Rio del Crocodielo ‘?” cried Don Estaban, in rapture.

“The same whom we left in safe keeping with our Brothers of Mercy, at Bexar!” exclaimed the Friar, in affected amazement.

“The very same, Fra Miguel, whom you humanely consigned to the Lazaretto of Bexar, – an establishment which has as little relation to ‘mercy’ as need be; the same who, having resumed the rank and station that belong to him, can afford to forget your cold-hearted desertion.”

“San Joachim of Ulloa knows if I did not pay for masses for your soul’s repose!” exclaimed he.

“A very little care of me in this world,” said I, “had been to the full as agreeable as all your solicitations for me in the next; and as for San Joachim,” added I, “no witness can be received as evidence who will not appear in court.”

“It is a pleasure to see your Excellency in the perfect enjoyment of your faculties,” said the Fra, with a deceitful smile; but I paid little attention to his sneer, and turned willingly to Don Estaban, whose grateful acknowledgments were beyond all bounds. He vowed that he owed his daughter’s life to my heroism, and that he and she, and all that were theirs, were mine.

“Very gratifying tidings these,” thought I, “for a man who only asks for an ‘instalment of his debt,’ and will be satisfied with the lady.”

“Maria shall tell you so herself,” added Don Estaban, in a perfect paroxysm of grateful emotion. “Don Lopez y Cuesta y Goloso can never forget your noble conduct.” Not caring much how retentive the memory of the aforesaid hidalgo might prove, – whom I at once set down as an uncle or a godfather, – I hastened after the host to where his daughter sat at the table. I had but time to see that she was dressed in black, with a profusion of diamonds scattered, not only through her hair, but over her dress, when she arose, and, ere I could prevent it, fell at my feet and covered my hands with kisses, calling me her “Salvador,” in a voice of the wildest enthusiasm, – an emotion which seemed most electrically to seize upon the whole company; for I was now laid hold of by every limb, and hugged, kissed, and embraced by a score of people, the large majority of whom, I grieve to say, were the very hardest specimens of what is called the softer sex.

One member of the company maintained a look of cold distrust towards me, the very opposite of all this cordiality. This was Don Lopez, who did not need this air of dislike to appear to my eyes the ugliest mortal I had ever beheld. He was exceedingly short of stature, but of an immense breadth; and yet, even with this, his head was far too big for his body. A huge spherical mass, party-colored with habits of debauch, looked like a terrestrial globe, of which the mouth represented the equator. His attempts at embellishment had even made him more horrible; for he wore a great wig, with long curls flowing upon his shoulders, and his immense moustachios were curled into a series of circles, like a ram’s horn. His nose had been divided across the middle by what seemed the slash of a cutlass, the cicatrix remaining of an angry red color, amid the florid hue of the countenance.

The expression of these benign features did not disgrace their symmetry. It was a cross between a scowl and a sneer; the eyes and brow performed the former, the mouth assuming the latter function.

Blushing with shame and trembling with emotion, Maria led me towards him, and, in accents I can never forget, told how I had rescued her in the passage of the Crocodile River. The wretch scowled more darkly than before, as he listened, and when she ended, he muttered something between his bloated lips that sounded marvellously like “Picaro!”

“Your godfather scarcely seems so grateful as one might expect, Señhora,” said I.

“Muerte de Dios!” he burst out, “I am her husband.”

Whether it was the simple fact so palpably brought forward, the manner of its announcement, or the terrible curse that involuntarily fell from my lips, I know not, but Donna Maria fell down in a swoon. Fainting, among foreigners, I have often found, is regarded next door to actually dying; and so it was here. A scene of terror and dismay burst forth that soon converted the festivity into an uproar of wild confusion. Every one screamed for aid, and dashed water in his neighbor’s face. The few who retained any presence of mind filled out large bumpers of wine, and drank them off. Meanwhile, Donna Maria was sufficiently recovered to be conducted into the house, whither she was followed by her “marido,” Don Lopez, whose last look as he passed me was one of insulting defiance.

The cause of order having triumphed, as the newspapers say, I was led to one side by Don Estaban, who in a few words told me that Don Lopez was a special envoy from the Court of Madrid, come out to arrange some disputed question of a debt between the two countries; that he was a Grandee d’Espana, a Golden Fleece, and I don’t know what besides; his title of Donna Maria’s husband being more than enough to swallow up every other consideration with me. The ceremony had been performed that very morning. It was the wedding breakfast I had thrown into such confusion and dismay.

Don Estaban, in his triumphal narrative of his daughter’s great elevation in rank, of the proud place she would occupy in the proud court of the Escurial, her wealth, her splendor, and her dignity, could not repress the fatherly sorrow he felt at such a disproportioned union; nor could he say anything of his son-in-law but what concerned his immense fortune. “Had it been you, Señhor Condé,” cried he, throwing himself into my arms, – “you, young, handsome, and well-born as you are, I had been happy.”

“Is it too late, Don Estaban?” said I, passionately. “I have wealth that does not yield to Don Lopez, and Maria is not – at least, she was not – indifferent regarding me.”

“Oh, it is too late, far too late!” cried the father, wringing his hands.

“Let me speak with Maria herself. Let me also speak with this Don Lopez. I may be able to make him understand reason, however dull his comprehension.”

“This cannot be, Señhor Caballero,” said another voice. It was Fra Miguel, who, having heard all that passed, now joined the colloquy. “Nothing short of a dispensation from the Holy See could annul the marriage, and Don Lopez is not likely to ask for one.”

“I will not suffer it,” cried I, in desperation. “I would rather carry her away by force than permit such a desecration.”

“Hush! for the love of the Virgin, Señhor,” cried Don Estaban. “Don Lopez is captain of the Alguazils of the Guard, and a Grand Inquisitor.”

“What signifies that in Mexico?” said I, boldly.

“More than you think for, Señhor,” whispered Fra Miguel. “We have not ceased to be good Catholics, although we are no longer subjects of Old Spain.” There was an air of cool menace in the way these words were spoken that made me feel very ill at ease. I soon rallied, however, and, drawing the Friar to one side, said, “How many crowns will buy a candelabrum worthy of your chapel?”

He looked at me fixedly for a few seconds, and his shrewd features assumed a character of almost comic cunning. “The Virgin de los Dolores is too simple for such luxuries, Señhor Condé,” said he, with a sly drollery.

“Would she not condescend to wear a few gems in her petticoat?” asked I, with the easy assurance of one not to be balked.

“She has no pleasure in such vanities,” said the Fra, with an hypocritical casting down of his eyes.

“Would she not accept of an embroidered handkerchief,” said I, “to dry her tears? I have known one of this pattern to possess the most extraordinary powers of consolation;” and as I spoke I drew forth a bank-note of some amount, and gently drew it across his knuckles.

A slight tremor shook his frame, and a short, convulsive motion was perceptible in the hand I had “galvanized;” but in an instant, with his habitual calm smile and mellow voice, he said, “Your piety will bring a blessing upon you, Señhor, but our poor shrine is unused to such princely donations.”

“Confound the old hypocrite,” muttered I to myself; “what is he at? – Fra Miguel,” said I, assuming the business-like manner of a man who could not afford to lose time, “the Virgin may be, and doubtless is, all that you say of her; but there must needs be many excellent and devout men here, yourself doubtless among the number, who see numberless objects of charity, for whom their hearts bleed in vain. Take this, and remember that he who gave it, only asks as a return your prayers and good wishes.”

The Friar deposited the present in some inscrutable fold of his loose garment, and then, drawing himself proudly up, said, “Well, now what is it?”

“Am I too late?” asked I, with the same purpose-like tone.

“Of course you are; the ceremony is finished, the contracts are signed and witnessed. In an hour they will be away on their road to the Havannah.”

“You have no consolation to offer me, – no hope?”

“None of an earthly character,” said he, with a half-closed eye.

“Confound your hypocrisy!” cried I, in a rage.

“Don’t be profane,” said he, calmly. “What I have said is true. Heaven will some day take Don Lopez, – he is too good for this wicked world; and then, who knows what may happen?”

This was but sorry comfort, waiting for the bride to become a widow; but, alas, I had no better! Besides it had cost me a heavy sum to obtain, and accordingly I prized it the more highly.

If my anxieties were acute, apparently Don Lopez’s mind was not in a state of perfect serenity. He stormed and raved at everybody and everything. He saw, or, what was pretty much the same thing, he fancied he saw, a plot in the whole business, and swore he would bring the vengeance of the Holy Office upon everybody concerned in it. In this blessed frame of mind the departure of the newly wedded pair took place in spite of all my entreaties; Don Lopez drove away with his young bride, – the last I beheld of her was a white hand waving a handkerchief from the window of the carriage. I looked, and – she was gone!

If some were kind-hearted enough to pity me, the large majority of the company felt very differently, and bore anything but friendly feelings to one who had marred the festivities and cut short – Heaven could only tell by what number of days – the eating, dancing, singing, and merriment.

The old ladies were peculiarly severe in their comments, averring that no well-bred man would have thought of interfering with a marriage. It was quite time enough to talk of his passion when the others were six or eight months married!

Of the younger ladies, a few condoled with me, praised my heroism and my constancy, and threw out sly hints that when I tried my luck next, fortune might possibly be more generous to me. Don Estaban himself appeared to sympathize sincerely with my sorrow, and evinced the warmest sense of gratitude for the past. Even the Fra tried a little good-nature; but it sat ill upon him, and it was easy to see that he entertained a great mistrust of me.

From the brief experience of what I suffered in these few days, I am decidedly of opinion that rich men are far more impatient under reverses and disappointments than poor ones! It was a marvellous change for one like me, whose earlier years, it is unnecessary to remind the reader, were not passed in the lap of that comfortable wet nurse called “affluence;” and yet with all this brilliant present and still more fascinating future, at the very first instance of an opposition to my will, I grew sad, dispirited, and morose. I should have been very angry with myself for my ingratitude, but that I set it all down to the score of love; and so I went about the house, visiting each room where Donna Maria used to sit, reading her books, gazing at her picture, and feeding my mind with a hundred fancies which the next moment of thought told me were now impossible.

Don Estaban, whose grief for the loss of his daughter was in a manner divided with mine, would not suffer me to leave him; and although the place itself served to keep open the wound of my regret, and the Fra’s presence was anything but conciliatory, I passed several days at the villa.

It would have been the greatest relief to me could I have persuaded myself to be candid with Don Estaban, and told him frankly the true story of my life. I felt that all the consolations which he offered me were of no avail, simply because I had misled him! The ingenious tissue of fiction in which I enveloped myself was a web so thin that it tore whenever I stirred, and my whole time was spent, as it were, in darning, patching, and piecing the frail garment with which I covered my nakedness.

A dozen times every day I jumped up, determined to reveal my humble history; but as regularly did a sentiment of false shame hold me back, and a dread of old Fra Miguel’s malicious leer, should he hear the story. Another, and a strange feeling, too, influenced me. My imaginary rank, birth, and station had, from the mere force of repetition, grown to be a portion of myself. I had played the part with such applause before the world that I could not find in my heart to retire behind the scenes and resume the humble dress of my real condition.

By way of distracting my gloomy thoughts, I made little excursions in the surrounding country, in one of which I contrived to revisit the “placer,” and carry away all the treasure which I had left behind me. This was much more considerable than I had at first believed, the gems being of a size and beauty far beyond any I had ever seen before; while the gold, in actual coined money, amounted to a large sum.

Affecting to have changed my original intention of investing a great capital in the mines of Mexico, and resolved instead to return to Europe, I consulted Don Estaban as to the safest hands in which to deposit my money. He named a certain wealthy firm at the Havannah, and gave me a letter of introduction to them, requesting for me all the attention in their power to bestow; and so we parted.

It was with sincere sorrow I shook his hand for the last time; his cordiality was free-hearted and affectionate; and I carry with me, to this hour, the memory of his wise counsels and honest precepts, as treasures, not the least costly, I brought away with me from the New World.

I arrived safely at the Havannah, travelling in princely state with two carriages and a great baggage-wagon guarded by four mounted “carabinieros” who had taken a solemn oath at the shrine of a certain Saint Magalano to eat any bandits who should molest us, – a feat of digestion which I was not sorry their devotion was spared.

The bankers to whom Don Estaban’s letters introduced me were most profuse in their offers of attention, and treated me with all the civilities reserved for the most favored client. I only accepted, however, one invitation to dinner, to meet the great official dignitaries of the place, and the use of their box each evening at the opera, affecting to make delicacy of health the reason of not frequenting society, – a pretext I had often remarked in use among people of wealth and distinction, among whose privileges there is that of being sick without suffering.

There was a French packet-ship to sail for Malaga in about ten days after my arrival; and as I knew that Don Lopez intended to leave that port for Europe, I quietly waited in the Havannah, determined to be his fellow-traveller. In preparing for this voyage, every thought of my mind was occupied, resolved to outdo the old Spaniard in luxury and magnificence. I ordered the most costly clothes, I engaged the most accomplished servants, I bespoke everything which could make the tediousness of the sea less irksome, even to the services of a distinguished performer on the guitar, who was about to visit Europe, and engaged to begin his journey under such distinguished patronage as that of the Condé de Cregano.