The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL

  I

  The Senor Capitan Don Luis de la Torre walked impatiently up and downbefore the grist-mill wherein were quartered the soldiers sent by Mexicoto protect the building of the Mission of San Gabriel. The Indianworkmen were slugs; California, a vast region inhabited only by savagesand a few priests, offered slender attractions to a young officercraving the gay pleasures of his capital and the presence of the womanhe was to marry. For months he had watched the mission church mountslowly from foundation to towers, then spread into pillared corridorsand rooms for the clergy. He could have mapped in his mind every acre ofthe wide beautiful valley girt by mountains snowed on their crest. Hehad thought it all very lovely at first: the yellow atmosphere, the softabiding warmth, the blue reflecting lake; but the green on mountain andflat had waxed to gold, then waned to tan and brown, and he was tired.Not even a hostile Indian had come to be killed.

  He was very good-looking, this tall young Spaniard, with his impatienteyes and haughty intelligent face, and it is possible that the lady inMexico had added to his burden by doleful prayers to return. He took aletter from his pocket, read it half through, then walked rapidly overto the mission, seeking interest in the work of the Indians. Under thekeen merciless supervision of the padres,--the cleverest body of menwho ever set foot in America,--they were mixing and laying the adobes,making nails and tiles, hewing aqueducts, fashioning great stone fontsand fountains. De la Torre speculated, after his habit, upon the futureof a country so beautiful and so fertile, which a dozen priests had madetheir own. Would these Indians, the poorest apologies for human beingshe had ever seen, the laziest and the dirtiest, be Christianized andterrified into worthy citizens of this fair land? Could the clear whiteflame that burned in the brains of the padres strike fire in theirneophytes' narrow skulls, create a soul in those grovelling bodies? Hedismissed the question.

  Would men of race, tempted by the loveliness of this great gold-hairedhouri sleeping on the Pacific, come from old and new Spain and dreamaway a life of pleasure? What grapes would grow out of this rich soilto be crushed by Indian slaves into red wine! And did gold vein thosevelvet hills? How all fruits, all grains, would thrive! what superbbeasts would fatten on the thick spring grass! Ay! it was a magnificentdiscovery for the Church, and great would be the power that could wrestit from her.

  There was a new people, somewhere north of Mexico, in the United Statesof America. Would they ever covet and strive to rob? The worse for themif they molested the fire-blooded Spaniard. How he should like to fightthem!

  That night the sentinel gave a sudden piercing shout of warning, thendropped dead with a poisoned arrow in his brain. Another moment, andthe soldiers had leaped from their swinging beds of hide, and headed bytheir captain had reached the church they were there to defend. Throughplaza and corridors sped and shrieked the savage tribe, whose invasionhad been made with the swiftness and cunning of their race. The doorshad not been hung in the church, and the naked figures ran in upon theheels of the soldiers, waving torches and yelling like the soullessfiends they were. The few neophytes who retained spirit enough to fightafter the bleaching process that had chilled their native fire andproduced a result which was neither man nor beast, but a sort ofbarnyard fowl, hopped about under the weight of their blankets and werepromptly despatched.

  The brunt of the battle fell upon the small detachment of troops, andat the outset they were overwhelmed by numbers, dazzled by the glare oftorches that waved and leaped in the cavern-like darkness of the church.But they fought like Spaniards, hacking blindly with their swords,cleaving dusky skulls with furious maledictions, using their fists,their feet, their teeth--wrenching torches from malignant hands andhurling them upon distorted faces. Curses and wild yells intermingled.De la Torre fought at the head of his men until men and savages, deadand living, were an indivisible mass, then thrust back and front,himself unhurt. The only silent clear-brained man among them, he couldreason as he assaulted and defended, and he knew that the Spaniardshad little chance of victory--and he less of looking again upon thetreasures of Mexico. The Indians swarmed like ants over the great naveand transept. Those who were not fighting smashed the altar and slashedthe walls. The callous stars looked through the apertures left forwindows, and shed a pallid light upon the writhing mass. The padres haddefended their altar, behind the chancel rail; they lay trampled, witharrows vibrating in their hard old muscles.

  De la Torre forced his way to the door and stood for a moment, solitary,against the pale light of the open, then turned his face swiftly tothe night air as he fell over the threshold of the mission he had sogallantly defended.

  II

  Delfina de Capalleja, after months of deferred hope, stood with thecrowd at the dock, awaiting the return of the troop which had gone todefend the Mission of San Gabriel in its building. There was no flutterof colour beneath her white skin, and the heavy lids almost concealedthe impatient depths of her eyes; the proud repose of her head indicateda profound reserve and self-control. Over her white gown and black densehair she wore a black lace mantilla, fastened below the throat with alarge yellow rose.

  The ship swung to anchor and answered the salute from the fort. Boatswere lowered, but neither officers nor soldiers descended. The murmurof disappointment on shore rose to a shout of execration. Then, as theship's captain and passengers landed, a whisper ran through the crowd,a wail, and wild sobbing. They flung themselves to the earth, beatingtheir heads and breasts,--all but Delfina de Capalleja, who drew hermantilla about her face and walked away.

  The authorities of the city of Mexico yielded to public clamour anddetermined to cast a silver bell in honour of the slaughtered captainand his men. The casting was to take place in the great plaza before thecathedral, that all might attend: it was long since any episode of warhad caused such excitement and sorrow. The wild character and remotenessof the scene of the tragedy, the meagreness of detail which stung everyimagination into action, the brilliancy and popularity of De la Torre,above all, the passionate sympathy felt for Delfina de Capalleja,served to shake society from peak to base, and no event had ever beenanticipated with more enthusiasm than the casting of that silver bell.

  No one had seen Delfina since the arrival of the news had broken so manyhearts, and great was the curiosity regarding her possible presence atthe ceremony. Universal belief was against her ever again appearing inpublic; some said that she was dead, others that she had gone into aconvent, but a few maintained that she would be high priestess at themaking of the bell which was to be the symbol and monument of herlover's gallantry and death.

  The hot sun beat upon the white adobe houses of the stately city. At theupper end of the plaza, bending and swaying, coquetting and languishing,were women clad in rich and vivid satins, their graceful heads andshoulders draped with the black or white mantilla; caballeros, gay invelvet trousers laced with gold, and serape embroidered with silver.Eyes green and black and blue sparkled above the edge of large blackfans; fiery eyes responded from beneath silver-laden sombreros. Thepopulace, in gala attire, crowded the rest of the plaza and adjacentstreets, chattering and gesticulating. But all looked in vain forDelfina de Capalleja.

  Much ceremony attended the melting of the bell. Priests in white robesstiff with gold chanted prayers above the silver bubbling in thecaldron. A full-robed choir sang the Te Deum; the regiment to which Dela Torre had belonged fired salutes at intervals; the crowd sobbed andshouted.

  Thunder of cannon, passionate swell of voices: the molten silver wasabout to be poured into the mould. The crowd hushed and parted. Down theway made for her came Delfina de Capalleja. Her black hair hung over herlong white gown. Her body bent under the weight of jewels--the jewels ofgenerations and the jewels of troth. Her arms hung at her sides. In hereyes was the peace of the dead.

  She walked to the caldron, and taking a heavy gold chain from her neckflung it into the silver. It swirled like a snake, then disappeared. Oneby one, amidst quivering silence, the magnificent
jewels followedthe chain. Then, as she took the last bracelet from her arm, madnesspossessed the breathless crowd. The indifferent self-conscious men,the lanquid coquetting women, the fat drowsy old dowagers, all rushed,scrambling and screaming, to the caldron, tore from their heads andbodies the superb jewels and ropes of gold with which they werebedecked, and flung them into the molten mass, which rose like a tide.The electric current sprang to the people; their baubles sped like hailthrough the air. So great was the excitement that a sudden convulsingof the earth was unfelt. When not a jewel was left to sacrifice, thecaldron held enough element for five bells--the five sweet-voiced bellswhich rang in the Mission of San Gabriel for more than a century.

  Exhausted with shouting, the multitude was silent. Delfina de Capalleja,who had stood with panting chest and dilating nostrils, turned fromthe sacrificial caldron, the crowd parting for her again, the LaudateDominum swelling. As she reached the cathedral, a man who loved her,noting a change in her face, sprang to her side. She raised herbewildered eyes to his and thrust out her hands blankly, then fell deadacross the threshold.

  WHEN THE DEVIL WAS WELL

  The Devil locked the copper gates of Hell one night, and sauntered downa Spacian pathway. The later arrivals from the planet Earth had been ofa distressingly commonplace character to his Majesty--a gentlemanof originality and attainments, whatever his disagreements with theconventions. He was become seriously disturbed about the moral conditionof the sensational little twinkler.

  "What are my own about?" he thought, as he drifted past planets whichyielded up their tributes with monotonous regularity. "What a squeezedold orange would Earth become did I forsake it! I must not neglect it solong again; my debt of gratitude is too great. Let me see. Where shallI begin? It is some years since I have visited America in person,and unquestionably she has most need of my attention; Europe is inmagnificent running order. This is a section of her, if my geographydoes not fail me; but what? I do not recall it."

  He poised above a country that looked as if it still hung upon the edgeof chaos: wild, fertile, massive, barren, luxuriant, crouching on theragged line of the Pacific. From his point of vantage he saw long rangesof stupendous mountains, some but masses of scowling crags, some greenwith forests of mammoth trees projecting their gaunt rigid arms abovea carpet of violets; indolent valleys and swirling rivers; snow on theblack peaks of the North; the riotous colour of eternal summer in theSouth. Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation and swept downward,halting but a mile above the ground. He frowned heavily, then smiled--along, placid, sardonic smile. There appeared to be but few inhabitantsin this country, and those few seemed to live either in great whiteirregular buildings, surmounted by crosses, in little brown huts nearby, in the caves, or in hollowed trees on the mountains. The largebuildings were situated about sixty miles apart, in chosen valleys; theywere imposing and rambling, built about a plaza. They boasted pillaredcorridors and bright red tiles on their roofs. Within the belfries weremassive silver bells, and the crosses could be seen to the furthermostend of the valley and from the tops of the loftiest mountain.

  "California!" exclaimed the Devil. "I know of her. Her scant historyis outlined in the Scarlet Book. I remember the points: Climate, thefinest, theoretically, in the world; satanically, simply magnificent.I have waited impatiently for the stream of humanity to deflectthitherward, but priests will answer my present purpose exactly--unlessthey are all too tough. To continue, gold under that grass inchunks--aha! I shall have to throw out an extra wing in Hell! Parcheddeserts where men will die cursing; fruitful valleys, more gratifying tomy genius; about as much of one as of the other, but the latter willget all the advertising, and the former be carefully kept out of sight.Everything in the way of animal life, from grizzly bears to fleas. Avery remarkable State! Well, I will begin on the priests."

  He shot downward, and alighted in a valley whose proportions pleased hiseye. Its shape was oval; the bare hills enclosing it were as yellow andas bright as hammered gold; the grass was bronze-coloured, baking in theintense heat; but the placid cows and shining horses nibbled it with thecontentment of those that know not of better things. A river, almostconcealed by bending willows and slender erect cottonwoods, woundcapriciously across the valley. The mission, simpler than some of theothers, was as neatly kept as the farm of older civilizations. Peace,order, reigned everywhere; all things drowsed under the relentlessoutpouring of the midsummer sun.

  "It is well I do not mind the heat," thought his Majesty; "but I amsensible of this. I will go within."

  He drew a boot on his cloven foot, thus rendering himself invisible, andentered a room of the long wing that opened upon the corridor. Here thetemperature was almost wintry, so thick were the adobe walls.

  Two priests sat before a table, one reading aloud from a bulkymanuscript, the other staring absently out of the window. The readerwas an old man; his face was pale and spiritual; no fires burned in hissunken eyes; his mouth was stern with the lines of self-repression. TheDevil lost all interest in him at once, and turned to the younger man.His face was pale also, but his pallor was that of fasting and the hairshirt; the mouth expressed the determination of the spirit to conquerthe restless longing of the eyes; his nostrils were spirited; his figurewas lean and nervous; he moved his feet occasionally, and clutched atthe brown Franciscan habit.

  "Paulo," said the older priest, reprovingly, as he lifted his eyes andnoted the unbowed head, "thou art not listening to the holy counsel ofour glorious Master, our saint who has so lately ascended into heaven."

  "I know Junipero Serra by heart," said Paulo, a little pettishly. "Iwish it were not too hot to go out; I should like to take a walk.Surely, San Miguel is the hottest spot on earth. The very fleas aregasping between the bricks."

  "The Lord grant that they may die before the night! Not a wink have Islept for two! But thou shouldest not long for recreation until the hourcomes, my son. Do thy duty and think not of when it will be over, forit is a blessed privilege to perform it--far more so than any idlepleasure--just as it is more blessed to give than to receive--"

  Here the Devil snorted audibly, and both priests turned with a jump.

  "Did you hear that, my father?"

  "It is the walls cracking with the intense heat. I will resume myreading, and do thou pay attention, my son."

  "I will, my father."

  And for three hours the Devil was obliged to listen to the droning voiceof the old man. He avenged himself by planting wayward and alarmingdesires in Paulo's fertile soul.

  Suddenly the mission was filled with the sound of clamorous silver:the bells were ringing for vespers--a vast, rapid, unrhythmical, sweetvolume of sound which made the Devil stamp his hoofs and gnash histeeth. The priests crossed themselves and hurried to their eveningduties, Satan following, furious, but not daring to let them out of hissight.

  The church was crowded with dusky half-clothed forms, prostrate beforethe altar. The Devil, during the long service, wandered amongst them,giving a vicious kick with his cloven foot here, pricking with the sharppoint of his tail there, breeding a fine discord and routing devotion.When vespers were over he was obliged to follow the priests to therefectory, but found compensation in noting that Paulo displayed a keenrelish for his meat and wine. The older man put his supper away morselby morsel, as if he were stuffing a tobacco-pouch.

  The meal finished, Paulo sallied forth for his evening walk. The Devilhad his chance.

  He was a wise Devil--a Devil of an experience so vast that the worldwould go crashing through space under its weight in print. He wastedno time with the preliminary temptations--pride, ambition, avarice. Hebrought out the woman at once.

  The young priest, wandering through a grove of cottonwoods, his handsclasped listlessly behind him, his chin sunken dejectedly upon hisbreast, suddenly raised his eyes and beheld a beautiful woman standingnot ten paces away. She was not a girl like her whom he had renouncedfor the Church, but a woman about whose delicate warm face and slenderpalpitating bosom hung th
e vague shadow of maturity. Her hair was thehot brown of copper, thick and rich; her eyes were like the meeting offlame and alcohol. The emotion she inspired was not the pure glow whichonce had encouraged rather than deprecated renunciation; but at themoment he thought it sweeter.

  He sprang forward with arms outstretched, instinct conquering vows ina manner highly satisfactory to the Devil; then, with a bitterimprecation, turned and fled. But he heard light footfalls behind him;he was conscious of a faint perfume, born of no earthly flower, felt asoft panting breath. A light hand touched his face. He flung his vows toanxious Satan, and turned to clasp the woman in his arms. But she coylyretreated, half-resentfully, half-invitingly, wholly lovely. Satanclosed his iron hand about the vows, and the priest ran toward thewoman, the lines of repression on his face gone, the eyes conquering themouth. But again she retreated. He quickened his steps; she acceleratedhers; his legs were long and agile; but she was fleet of foot. Finallyshe ran at full speed, her warm bright hair lifted and spreading, hertender passionate face turned and shining through it.

  They left the cottonwoods, and raced down the wide silent valley, thecows staring with stolid disapproval, the stars pulsing in sympathy. Thepriest felt no fatigue; he forgot the Church behind him, the future ofreward or torment. He wanted the woman, and was determined to have her.He was wholly lost; and the Devil, satisfied, returned to the mission.

  "Now," thought he, "for revenge on that old fool for defying me forsixty years!"

  He raised his index finger and pointed it straight at the planet Hell.Instantly the sky darkened, the air vibrated with the rushing soundof many forms. A moment later he was surrounded by a regiment ofabbreviated demons--a flock as thick as a grasshopper plague, twisted,grinning, leering, hideous. He raised his finger again and they leapedto the roofs of the mission, wrenched the tiles from their place andsent them clattering to the pavement. They danced and wrestled on thenaked roof, yelling with their hoarse unhuman voices, singing awfulchants.

  The Devil passed within, and found the good old priest on his knees, acrucifix clasped to his breast, his white face upturned, shouting avemarias and pater nosters at the top of his aged voice as if fearful theywould not ascend above the saturnalia on the roof. The Devil added tohis distraction by loud bursts of ribald laughter; but the father,revolving his head as if it were on a pivot, continued to pray. Satanbegan to curse like a pirate.

  Suddenly, above the crashing of tiles, the hideous voices of Devil anddemon, the prayers of the padre, sounded the silver music of thebells. Not the irregular clash which was the daily result of Indianmanipulation, but long rhythmic peals, as sweet and clear and trueas the singing of angels. The Devil and his minions, with one long,baffled, infuriated howl, shot upward into space. Simultaneously a greatwind came roaring down the valley, uprooting trees, shaking the sturdymission. Thunder detonated, lightning cut its zigzag way through blackclouds like moving mountains; hail rattled to the earth; water fellas from an overturned ocean. And through all the bells pealed and thepriest prayed.

  Morning dawned so calm and clear that but for the swimming ground andthe broken tiles bestrewing it, the priest would have thought he haddreamed a terrible nightmare. He opened the door and looked anxiouslyforth for Paulo. Paulo was not to be seen. He called, but his tiredvoice would not carry. Clasping his crucifix to his breast, he totteredforth in search of his beloved young colleague. He passed the rancheriaof the Indians, and found them all asleep, worn out from a night ofterror.

  He was too kind to awaken them, and pursued his way alone down thevalley, peering fearfully to right and left. The ground was ploughed,dented, and strewn with fallen trees; the river roared like a tidalwave. Shuddering, and crossing himself repeatedly, he passed betweenthe hills and entered a forest, following a path which the storm hadblasted. After a time he came to an open glade where he and Paulohad loved to pray whilst the spring and the birds made music. To hissurprise he saw a large stone lying along the open. He wondered if somemeteor had fallen. Mortal hands--Indian hands, at least--were not strongenough to have brought so heavy a bulk, and he had not seen it in forestor valley before.

  He approached and regarded it; then began mumbling aves and paters,running them together as he had not done during the visitation andstorm. The stone was outlined with the shape of a man, long, young,and slender. The face was sharply cut, refined, impassioned, andintellectual. A smile of cynical contentment dwelt on the strong mouth.The eyes were fixed on something before him. Involuntarily the priest'sfollowed them, and lingered. A tree also broke the open--one which neverhad been there before--and it bore an intoxicating similitude to thefeatures and form of a surpassingly beautiful woman.

  "Paulo! Paulo!" murmured the old man, with tears in his eyes, "wouldthat I had been thou!"