The Crusade of the Excelsior

by Bret Harte

  CHAPTER V.

  TODOS SANTOS.

  It was evident that the two strangers represented some exaltedmilitary and ecclesiastical authority. This was shown in their dress--along-forgotten, half mediaeval costume, that to the imaginativespectator was perfectly in keeping with their mysterious advent, andto the more practical as startling as a masquerade. The foremost figurewore a broad-brimmed hat of soft felt, with tarnished gold lace, and adark feather tucked in its recurved flap; a short cloak of fine blackcloth thrown over one shoulder left a buff leathern jacket and breeches,ornamented with large round silver buttons, exposed until they were metby high boots of untanned yellow buckskin that reached halfway up thethigh. A broad baldric of green silk hung from his shoulder across hisbreast, and supported at his side a long sword with an enormousbasket hilt, through which somewhat coquettishly peeped a whitelace handkerchief. Tall and erect, in spite of the grizzled hair andiron-gray moustaches and wrinkled face of a man of sixty, he suddenlyhalted on the deck with a military precision that made the jinglingchains and bits of silver on his enormous spurs ring again. He wasfollowed by an ecclesiastic of apparently his own age, but smoothlyshaven, clad in a black silk sotana and sash, and wearing theold-fashioned oblong, curl-brimmed hat sacred to "Don Basilo," of themodern opera. Behind him appeared the genial face of Senor Perkins,shining with the benignant courtesy of a master of ceremonies.

  "If this is a fair sample of the circus ashore, I'll take two tickets,"whispered Crosby, who had recovered his audacity.

  "I have the inexpressible honor," said Senor Perkins to Captain Bunker,with a gracious wave of his hand towards the extraordinary figures, "topresent you to the illustrious Don Miguel Briones, Comandante of thePresidio of Todos Santos, at present hidden in the fog, and the veryreverend and pious Padre Esteban, of the Mission of Todos Santos,likewise invisible. When I state to you," he continued, with a slightlifting of his voice, so as to include the curious passengers inhis explanation, "that, with very few exceptions, this is the usualcondition of the atmosphere at the entrance to the Mission and Presidioof Todos Santos, and that the last exception took place thirty-fiveyears ago, when a ship entered the harbor, you will understand why thesedistinguished gentlemen have been willing to waive the formality of yourwaiting upon them first, and have taken the initiative. The illustriousComandante has been generous to exempt you from the usual portregulations, and to permit you to wood and to water"--

  "What port regulation is he talking of?" asked Captain Bunker testily.

  "The Mexican regulations forbidding any foreign vessel to communicatewith the shore," returned Senor Perkins deprecatingly.

  "Never heard of 'em. When were they given?"

  The Senor turned and addressed a few words to the commander, who stoodapart in silent dignity.

  "In 1792."

  "In what?--Is he mad?" said Bunker. "Does he know what year this is?"

  "The illustrious commander believes it to be the year of grace 1854,"answered Senor Perkins quietly. "In the case of the only two vessels whohave touched here since 1792 the order was not carried out because theywere Mexican coasters. The illustrious Comandante explains thatthe order he speaks of as on record distinctly referred to the ship'Columbia, which belonged to the General Washington.'"

  "General Washington!" echoed Bunker, angrily staring at the Senor."What's this stuff? Do you mean to say they don't know any history laterthan our old Revolutionary War? Haven't they heard of the United Statesamong them? Nor California--that we took from them during the late war?"

  "Nor how we licked 'em out of their boots, and that's saying a gooddeal," whispered Crosby, glancing at the Comandante's feet.

  Senor Perkins raised a gentle, deprecating hand.

  "For fifty years the Presidio and the Mission of Todos Santos have hadbut this communication with the outer world," he said blandly. "Hiddenby impenetrable fogs from the ocean pathway at their door, cut off byburning and sterile deserts from the surrounding country, they havepreserved a trust and propagated a faith in enforced but not unhappyseclusion. The wars that have shaken mankind, the dissensions that haveeven disturbed the serenity of their own nation on the mainland,have never reached them here. Left to themselves, they have createda blameless Arcadia and an ideal community within an extent of twentysquare leagues. Why should we disturb their innocent complacency andtranquil enjoyment by information which cannot increase and might impairtheir present felicity? Why should we dwell upon a late political andinternational episode which, while it has been a benefit to us, has beena humiliation to them as a nation, and which might not only imperil ourposition as guests, but interrupt our practical relations to the woodand water, with which the country abounds?"

  He paused, and before the captain could speak, turned to the silentCommander, addressed him in a dozen phrases of fluent and courteousSpanish, and once more turned to Captain Bunker.

  "I have told him you are touched to the heart with his courtesy, whichyou recognize as coming from the fit representative of the great Mexicannation. He reciprocates your fraternal emotion, and begs you to considerthe Presidio and all that it contains, at your disposition and thedisposition of your friends--the passengers, particularly those fairladies," said Senor Perkins, turning with graceful promptitude towardsthe group of lady passengers, and slightly elevating himself on the tipsof his neat boots, "whose white hands he kisses, and at whose feet helays the devotion of a Mexican caballero and officer."

  He waved his hand towards the Comandante, who, stepping forward,swept the deck with his plumed hat before each of the ladies in solemnsuccession. Recovering himself, he bowed more stiffly to the malepassengers, picked his handkerchief out of the hilt of his sword,gracefully wiped his lips, pulled the end of his long gray moustache,and became again rigid.

  "The reverend father," continued Senor Perkins, turning towards thepriest, "regrets that the rules of his order prevent his extending thesame courtesy to these ladies at the Mission. But he hopes to meet themat the Presidio, and they will avail themselves of his aid and counselthere and everywhere."

  Father Esteban, following the speaker's words with a gracious and readysmile, at once moved forward among the passengers, offering an antiquesnuff-box to the gentlemen, or passing before the ladies with slightlyuplifted benedictory palms and a caressing paternal gesture. Mrs.Brimmer, having essayed a French sentence, was delighted and halffrightened to receive a response from the ecclesiastic, and speedilymonopolized him until he was summoned by the Commander to the returningboat.

  "A most accomplished man, my dear," said Mrs. Brimmer, as theExcelsior's cannon again thundered after the retiring oars, "like all ofhis order. He says, although Don Miguel does not speak French, thathis secretary does; and we shall have no difficulty in making ourselvesunderstood."

  "Then you really intend to go ashore?" said Miss Keene timidly.

  "Decidedly," returned Mrs. Brimmer potentially. "It would be mostunpolite, not to say insulting, if we did not accept the invitation.You have no idea of the strictness of Spanish etiquette. Besides, he mayhave heard of Mr. Brimmer."

  "As his last information was only up to 1792, he might have forgottenit," said Crosby gravely. "So perhaps it would be safer to go on thegeneral invitation."

  "As Mr. Brimmer's ancestors came over on the Mayflower, long before1792, it doesn't seem so very impossible, if it comes to that," saidMrs. Brimmer, with her usual unanswerable naivete; "provided always thatyou are not joking, Mr. Crosby. One never knows when you are serious."

  "Mrs. Brimmer is quite right; we must all go. This is no mereformality," said Senor Perkins, who had returned to the ladies. "Indeed,I have myself promised the Comandante to bring YOU," he turned towardsMiss Keene, "if you will permit Mrs. Markham and myself to act as yourescort. It was Don Miguel's express request."

  A slight flush of pride suffused the cheek of the young girl, but thenext moment she turned diffidently towards Mrs. Brimmer.

  "We must all go together," she said; "shall we not?"
>
  "You see your triumphs have begun already," said Brace, with a nervoussmile. "You need no longer laugh at me for predicting your fate in SanFrancisco."

  Miss Keene cast a hurried glance around her, in the faint hope--shescarcely knew why--that Mr. Hurlstone had overheard the Senor'sinvitation; nor could she tell why she was disappointed at not seeinghim. But he had not appeared on deck during the presence of theirstrange visitors; nor was he in the boat which half an hour laterconveyed her to the shore. He must have either gone in one of the otherboats, or fulfilled his strange threat of remaining on the ship.

  The boats pulled away together towards the invisible shore, piloted byCaptain Bunker, the first officer, and Senor Perkins in the foremostboat. It had grown warmer, and the fog that stole softly over themtouched their faces with the tenderness of caressing fingers. MissKeene, wrapped up in the stern sheets of the boat, gave way to thedreamy influence of this weird procession through the water, retainingonly perception enough to be conscious of the singular illusions of themist that alternately thickened and lightened before their bow. At timesit seemed as if they were driving full upon a vast pier or breakwater ofcold gray granite, that, opening to let the foremost boat pass, closedagain before them; at times it seemed as if they had diverged from theircourse, and were once more upon the open sea, the horizon a far-offline of vanishing color; at times, faint lights seemed to pierce thegathering darkness, or to move like will-o'-wisps across the smoothsurface, when suddenly the keel grated on the sand. A narrow butperfectly well defined strip of palpable strand appeared before them;they could faintly discern the moving lower limbs of figures whosebodies were still hidden in the mist; then they were lifted from theboats; the first few steps on dry land carried them out of the fog thatseemed to rise like a sloping roof from the water's edge, leaving themunder its canopy in the full light of actual torches held by a group ofpicturesquely dressed people before the vista of a faintly lit, narrow,ascending street. The dim twilight of the closing day lingered underthis roof of fog, which seemed to hang scarcely a hundred feet abovethem, and showed a wall or rampart of brown adobe on their right thatextended nearly to the water; to the left, at the distance of a fewhundred yards, another low brown wall appeared; above it rose a fringeof foliage, and, more distant and indistinct, two white towers, thatwere lost in the nebulous gray.

  One of the figures dressed in green jackets, who seemed to be inauthority, now advanced, and, after a moment's parley with Senor Perkinswhile the Excelsior's passengers were being collected from the differentboats, courteously led the way along the wall of the fortification.Presently a low opening or gateway appeared, followed by the challengeof a green-jacketed sentry, and the sentence, "Dios y Libertad" Itwas repeated in the interior of a dusky courtyard, surrounded by alow corridor, where a dozen green-jacketed men of aboriginal type andcomplexion, carrying antique flintlocks, were drawn up as a guard ofhonor.

  "The Comandante," said Senor Perkins, "directs me to extend hisapologies to the Senor Capitano Bunker for withholding the salute whichis due alike to his country, himself, and his fair company; but fiftyyears of uninterrupted peace and fog have left his cannon inadequate topolite emergencies, and firmly fixed the tampion of his saluting gun.But he places the Presidio at your disposition; you will be pleased tomake its acquaintance while it is still light; and he will await you inthe guard-room."

  Left to themselves, the party dispersed like dismissed school-childrenthrough the courtyard and corridors, and in the enjoyment of theirrelease from a month's confinement on shipboard stretched their crampedlimbs over the ditches, walls, and parapets, to the edge of the glacis.

  Everywhere a ruin that was picturesque, a decay that was refined andgentle, a neglect that was graceful, met the eye; the sharp exterior andreentering angles were softly rounded and obliterated by overgrowthsof semitropical creepers; the abatis was filled by a natural brake ofscrub-oak and manzanita; the clematis flung its long scaling laddersover the escarpment, until Nature, slowly but securely investingthe doomed fortress, had lifted a victorious banner of palm from theconquered summit of the citadel! Some strange convulsions of the earthhad completed the victory; the barbette guns of carved and antiquebronze commemorating fruitless and long-forgotten triumphs weredismounted; one turned in the cheeks of its carriage had a trunnionraised piteously in the air like an amputated stump; another, sinkingthrough its rotting chassis, had buried itself to its chase in thecrumbling adobe wall. But above and beyond this gentle chaos of defensestretched the real ramparts and escarpments of Todos Santos--theimpenetrable and unassailable fog! Corroding its brass and iron withsaline breath, rotting its wood with unending shadow, sapping itsadobe walls with perpetual moisture, and nourishing the obliteratingvegetation with its quickening blood, as if laughing to scorn the punyembattlements of men--it still bent around the crumbling ruins thetender grace of an invisible but all-encompassing arm.

  Senor Perkins, who had acted as cicerone to the party, pointed out thesevarious mutations with no change from his usual optimism.

  "Protected by their peculiar isolation during the late war, there wasno necessity for any real fortification of the place. Nevertheless, itaffords some occupation and position for our kind friend, Don Miguel,and so serves a beneficial purpose. This little gun," he continued,stopping to attentively examine a small but beautifully carved bronzesix-pounder, which showed indications of better care than the others,"seems to be the saluting-gun Don Miguel spoke of. For the last fiftyyears it has spoken only the language of politeness and courtesy, andyet through want of care the tampion, as you see, has become swollen andchoked in its mouth."

  "How true in a larger sense," murmured Mrs. Markham, "the habit ofcourtesy alone preserves the fluency of the heart."

  "I know you two are saying something very clever," said Mrs. Brimmer,whose small French slippers and silk stockings were beginning to showtheir inadequacy to a twilight ramble in the fog; "but I am so slow, andI never catch the point. Do repeat it slowly."

  "The Senor was only showing us how they managed to shut up a smooth borein this country," said Crosby gravely. "I wonder when we're goingto have dinner. I suppose old Don Quixote will trot out some of hisSenoritas. I want to see those choir girls that sang so stunningly awhile ago."

  "I suppose you mean the boys--for they're all boys in the Catholicchoirs--but then, perhaps you are joking again. Do tell me if you are,for this is really amusing. I may laugh--mayn't I?" As the discomfitedhumorist fell again to the rear amidst the laughter of the others, Mrs.Brimmer continued naively to Senor Perkins,--"Of course, as Don Miguelis a widower, there must be daughters or sisters-in-law who will meetus. Why, the priest, you know--even he--must have nieces. Really, it'sa serious question--if we are to accept his hospitality in a socialway. Why don't you ask HIM?" she said, pointing to the green-jacketedsubaltern who was accompanying them.

  Senor Perkins looked half embarrassed.

  "Repeat your question, my dear lady, and I will translate it."

  "Ask him if there are any women at the Presidio."

  Senor Perkins drew the subaltern aside. Presently he turned to Mrs.Brimmer.

  "He says there are four: the wife of the baker, the wife of the saddler,the daughter of the trumpeter, and the niece of the cook."

  "Good heavens! we can't meet THEM," said Mrs. Brimmer.

  Senor Perkins hesitated.

  "Perhaps I ought to have told you," he said blandly, "that the oldSpanish notions of etiquette are very strict. The wives of the officialsand higher classes do not meet strangers on a first visit, unless theyare well known."

  "That isn't it," said Winslow, joining them excitedly. "I've heard thewhole story. It's a good joke. Banks has been bragging about us all, andsaying that these ladies had husbands who were great merchants, and, asthese chaps consider that all trade is vulgar, you know, they believewe are not fit to associate with their women, don't you see? All, exceptone--Miss Keene. She's considered all right. She's to be introduced tothe Commander's women, an
d to the sister of the Alcalde."

  "She will do nothing of the kind," said Miss Keene indignantly. "Ifthese ladies are not to be received with me, we'll all go back to theship together."

  She spoke with a quick and perfectly unexpected resolution andindependence, so foreign to her usual childlike half dependentcharacter, that her hearers were astounded. Senor Perkins gazed ather thoughtfully; Brace, Crosby, and Winslow admiringly; her sisterpassengers with doubt and apprehension.

  "There must be some mistake," said Senor Perkins gently. "I willinquire."

  He was absent but a few moments. When he returned, his face was beaming.

  "It's a ridiculous misapprehension. Our practical friend Banks, in hiszealous attempts to impress the Comandante's secretary, who knows alittle English, with the importance of Mr. Brimmer's position as a largecommission merchant, has, I fear, conveyed only the idea that he was akind of pawnbroker; while Mr. Markham's trade in hides has establishedhim as a tanner; and Mr. Banks' own flour speculations, of which heis justly proud, have been misinterpreted by him as the work of asuccessful baker!"

  "And what idea did he convey about YOU?" asked Crosby audaciously; "itmight be interesting to us to know, for our own satisfaction."

  "I fear they did not do me the honor to inquire," replied Senor Perkins,with imperturbable good-humor; "there are some persons, you know, whocarry all their worldly possessions palpably about with them. I am oneof them. Call me a citizen of the world, with a strong leniency towardsyoung and struggling nationalities; a traveler, at home anywhere; adelighted observer of all things, an admirer of brave men, the devotedslave of charming women--and you have, in one word, a passenger of thegood ship Excelsior."

  For the first time, Miss Keene noticed a slight irony in Senor Perkins'superabundant fluency, and that he did not conceal his preoccupationover the silent saluting gun he was still admiring. The approach of DonMiguel and Padre Esteban with a small bevy of ladies, however, quicklychanged her thoughts, and detached the Senor from her side. Her firstswift feminine impression of the fair strangers was that they were plainand dowdy, an impression fully shared by the other lady passengers.But her second observation, that they were more gentle, fascinating,child-like, and feminine than her own countrywomen, was purely her own.Their loose, undulating figures, guiltless of stays; their extravaganceof short, white, heavily flounced skirt, which looked like a petticoat;their lightly wrapped, formless, and hooded shoulders and heads, lent asuggestion of dishabille that Mrs. Brimmer at once resented.

  "They might, at least, have dressed themselves," she whispered to Mrs.Markham.

  "I really believe," returned Mrs. Markham, "they've got no bodices on!"

  The introductions over, a polyglot conversation ensued in French by thePadre and Mrs. Brimmer, and in broken English by Miss Chubb, Miss Keene,and the other passengers with the Commander's secretary, varied byoccasional scraps of college Latin from Mr. Crosby, the whole aided byoccasional appeals to Senor Perkins. The darkness increasing, theparty reentered the courtyard, and, passing through the low-studdedguard-room, entered another corridor, which looked upon a secondcourt, enclosed on three sides, the fourth opening upon a broad plaza,evidently the public resort of the little town. Encompassing this openspace, a few red-tiled roofs could be faintly seen in the gatheringgloom. Chocolate and thin spiced cakes were served in the veranda,pending the preparations for a more formal banquet. Already Miss Keenehad been singled out from her companions for the special attentions ofher hosts, male and female, to her embarrassment and confusion. AlreadyDona Isabel, the sister of the Alcalde, had drawn her aside, and, withcaressing frankness, had begun to question her in broken English,--

  "But Miss Keene is no name. The Dona Keene is of nothing."

  "Well, you may call me Eleanor, if you like," said Miss Keene, smiling.

  "Dona Leonor--so; that is good," said Dona Isabel, clapping her handslike a child. "But how are you?"

  "I beg your pardon," said Miss Keene, greatly amused, "but I don'tunderstand."

  "Ah, Caramba! What are you, little one?" Seeing that her guest stilllooked puzzled, she continued,--"Ah! Mother of God! Why are your friendsso polite to you? Why does every one love you so?"

  "Do they? Well," stammered Miss Keene, with one of her rare, dazzlingsmiles, and her cheeks girlishly rosy with naive embarrassment, "Isuppose they think I am pretty."

  "Pretty! Ah, yes, you are!" said Dona Isabel, gazing at her curiously."But it is not all that."

  "What is it, then?" asked Miss Keene demurely.

  "You are a--a--Dama de Grandeza!"