by Jules Vernes
Don Orteva, turning towards the handful of men who had gathered round him exclaimed, ‘Stand by me, good lads!’ Then, striding towards Martinez, ‘Arrest that officer!’ he exclaimed.
‘Death to the commander,’ Martinez retorted.
Pablo and two of the officers drew their swords and grasped their pistols. A few of the men, led by Jacopo, were rushing to their help. But these were at once stopped by the mutineers, disarmed, and rendered powerless.
Don Orteva pointed his pistol at Martinez.
Then a rocket soared above the Asia.
‘They’ve won!’ shouted Martinez.
Don Orteva’s bullet was lost in space.
The scene did not last long. The captain grappled with the lieutenant: but, overcome by numbers and seriously wounded, he was easily mastered, and a few moments later his officers shared his fate.
Blue lights were now let off in the rigging of the brig, and they were replied to by those of the Asia. The mutiny had broken out and been successful on both ships.
Lieutenant Martinez had mastered the Constanzia and his prisoners were thrust pell-mell into the main cabin. But the sight of blood had aroused the crew’s ferocious instincts. It was not enough to have overcome, they wanted to kill.
‘Cut their throats!’ yelled some of the most ferocious. ‘Kill them! Dead men tell no tales!’
Lieutenant Martinez, at the head of these bloodthirsty mutineers, was rushing towards the cabin, but the rest of the crew protested against the massacre, and the officers were saved.
‘Bring Don Orteva up on deck!’ Martinez gave the order.
It was obeyed.
‘Orteva,’ Martinez addressed him. ‘I’m in command of both vessels now. Don Roque is my prisoner, too. Tomorrow we’re going to maroon you both on some lonely shore; then we’re going to steer for the Mexican coast, to sell these ships to the Republican Government.’
‘Traitor!’ was Don Orteva’s only reply.
‘Set the courses! Trim sails! Fasten this man on the poop.’
He pointed to Don Orteva, and again his orders were obeyed.
‘Put the others down in the hold. Prepare to go about! Be smart about it, boys!’
The manoeuvre was promptly executed. Don Orteva had been fastened on the lee side of the brig, hidden by the sails, and he could be heard still denouncing his lieutenant as a scoundrel and a traitor.
Suddenly Martinez, now completely beside himself, leaped on to the poop with an axe in his hand. He was kept from reaching the captain: instead, with one vigorous stroke, he cut the main sheet. The boom, swinging before the wind, struck Don Orteva and smashed his skull.
A cry of horror arose.
‘Killed by accident,’ commented Martinez. ‘Heave that carcase into the sea.’
And as usual his order was obeyed.
The two ships, keeping close together, made for the Mexican coast.
Next day an island came into sight abeam. The boats of both vessels were lowered, and, with the exception of the midshipman Pablo and the boatswain Jacopo, who had both submitted to Martinez, the officers were marooned on its desert shore. But fortunately, a few days later, they were picked up by an English whaler and taken to Manila.
But why had Pablo and Jacopo gone over to the mutineers? Wait awhile before judging them.
A few weeks later the two vessels anchored in Monterey Bay, in the north of Old California; here Martinez explained his plans to the military commander of the port. He offered to hand over to Mexico both the Spanish ships, with their stores and guns, and to put their crews under the Confederation’s orders, but, in return, the latter must pay the crew’s wages since they had left Spain.
In reply, the governor declared that he lacked the necessary authority. He advised Martinez to go on to Mexico City, where he could soon settle the whole business. The lieutenant followed this advice; he left the Asia at Monterey and, after a month of jollifications, he put out to sea in the Constanzia. Pablo, Jacopo, and José formed part of the crew, and the brig, with a following wind, hoisted all sail to reach Acapulco as quickly as possible.
2-From Acapulco to Cigualan
Of the four ports on the Mexican coast, Acapulco has the finest harbour; surrounded by lofty cliffs, it looks like a mountain lake. It was at that time protected by three forts and a battery, while another fort, San Diego, armed with thirty pieces of artillery, commanded the whole anchorage, and could at once have sunk any ship which tried to force an entrance.
But though the town had nothing to fear, a general panic seized its inhabitants three months after the events just described.
A vessel had been sighted off the coast. Doubtful about its intentions, the townspeople were not easily to be reassured. Indeed, the new Confederation still feared, not without some reason, a return of Spanish domination. In spite of the commercial treaties it had signed with Great Britain, which had recognised the new republic, and although a charge d’affaires had arrived from London, the Mexican government had not even a solitary ship to protect its coasts!
Whatever else it might be, this vessel was obviously some daring adventurer, driven with shivered canvas before the north westerly gales of winter. So the townspeople did not know what to think and at all events they were getting ready to repel an attack by this stranger, when the vessel they so much suspected unfurled at her peak the flag of Mexican independence.
Arrived at half a cannonshot from the harbour, the Constanzia, whose name was plainly visible on her stern, suddenly anchored. Her sails were furled, and a boat was at once lowered and soon arrived in the harbour.
Once ashore, Lieutenant Martinez went to the governor and explained the circumstances which had brought him there. The governor fully agreed with the lieutenant’s decision to go to Mexico so that General Guadalupe Vittoria, President of the Confederation, could ratify the bargain. Hardly was the news known in the town when the people broke into transports of delight. The whole of the population turned out to admire the first vessel of the Mexican navy and saw in its possession – with evidence of the indiscipline that prevailed in the Spanish service – a means of more effectively opposing any new effort of their former masters.
Martinez went back on board, and a few hours later the Constanzia was anchored in the harbour, and her crew were being welcomed by the townsfolk.
But when Martinez called the roll of his followers, Pablo and Jacopo had vanished.
Mexico is noteworthy among the countries of the world for the extent and height of its central plateau. Between Acapulco and Mexico City, about eighty leagues apart, the hills are less rugged and the slopes less steep than between Mexico and Vera Cruz.
And on the former route, a few days after the Constanzia had anchored, two horsemen were riding side by side.
They were Martinez and José. The sailor knew the road quite well: he had often climbed the mountains of Anahuac. So the Indian guide who had offered his services had been refused: and, mounted on excellent steeds, the two adventurers were speeding towards the Mexican capital.
After two hours of a rapid trot which kept them from talking, the two horsemen came to a halt.
‘Avast, Lieutenant,’ cried José, completely out of breath. ‘I’d sooner be astride one of the yards for a couple of hours in a north-westerly gale!’
‘We must push on,’ replied Martinez. ‘You know the road, José? You’re sure you know it?’
‘As well as you know your way from Cadiz to Vera Cruz, and we shan’t have either the tempests of the gulf or the bars of Taspan on Santander to delay us! But not so fast!’
‘Faster, I tell you,’ Martinez spurred on his horse. ‘I don’t like the way Pablo and Jacopo vanished! Do they want to clinch the deal for their own benefit and rob us of our share?’
‘By St James! It would only need that,’ the sailor replied cynically. ‘Trust a thief to rob a thief!’
‘How many days’ ride before we get to Mexico?’
‘Four or five, Lieutenant! Just a walk! But le
t’s walk it! You can see how the ground’s rising!’
And, indeed, the first slopes of the hills were beginning to make themselves felt.
‘Our horses aren’t shod,’ the sailor continued, as he pulled up. ‘And their hooves will soon be worn out on this granite. But after all, don’t let’s run the earth down. There’s gold in it, and because we’ve got to go over it. Lieutenant, that doesn’t say we’ve got to despise it.’
The two travellers had climbed to the top of a little hill; at their feet was a broad cultivated plain, clothed in a rich vegetation, which seemed to take on a new life under the sunlight. But in this unbearable heat the unfortunate inhabitants are often writhing in the grasp of yellow fever. This is why these regions, uninhabited and deserted, seem to be devoid of sound or movement.
‘What’s that cone rising in front of us on the horizon?’ Martinez asked José.
‘That’s the cone of La Brea, and it doesn’t rise far above the plain,’ was the sailor’s contemptuous reply.
It is the first important peak of the immense chain of the Cordilleras.
‘We’d better get on,’ said Martinez, preaching by example. ‘Our horses come from the haciendas of Northern Mexico, and their journeys across the Savannahs have accustomed them to these inequalities of the ground, so let’s take advantage of the slopes and get out of these lonely places, which weren’t made to cheer us up!’
‘Is Lieutenant Martinez beginning to feel remorse?’ José shrugged his shoulders.
‘Remorse!... No!’
Martinez fell into complete silence, and the two spurred on their steeds to a rapid trot.
They reached the cone of La Brea, crossing it by steep footpaths, beside precipices which had not yet become the bottomless gulfs of the Sierra Madre. Then, having descended the opposite slope, they stopped to rest their steeds.
The sun was beginning to vanish beneath the horizon when they reached the village of Cigualan. All it consisted of was a few huts inhabited by the poor Indians known as mansos, meaning peasants. These people are most of them very lazy, for all they have to do is to gather the wealth which the fertile earth lavishes on them. Their sloth distinguishes them from the Indians of the higher plateaux, made industrious by sheer necessity, and from the nomadic tribes of the north who, living by raids and plunder, have no fixed abode.
The Spaniards received only meagre hospitality in the village. Recognising them as their former oppressors, the inhabitants were obviously hardly inclined to be useful to them. What was more, two other travellers had recently passed through the village and had bought up what little food they could find.
The lieutenant and the seaman paid little attention to this, which was indeed nothing out of the ordinary.
They were glad to shelter in a sort of hut, and prepared a boiled sheep’s head for their meal. They dug a hole in the ground, and, after having filled it with burning wood and some stones to retain the heat, they allowed the combustible materials to be burned completely up. Then on the red-hot ashes they placed, without any preparation, the meat wrapped in aromatic leaves, and they covered it hermetically with branches and piled-up earth. A few hours later their dinner was done to a turn, and they ate it like men whose appetite had been whetted by a long journey.
Their meal over, they stretched on the ground with their daggers in their hands. Then, their weariness overcoming the hardness of their beds and the incessant biting of the mosquitoes, they were not long in falling asleep.
But Martinez was troubled by dreams in which he several times repeated the names of Jacopo and Pablo.
3-From Cigualan to Tasco
At daybreak next morning the horses were saddled and bridled. Following the half-effaced footpaths which wound before them, the travellers made their way eastwards, towards the rising sun. Their journey began under favourable auspices. But for the taciturnity of the lieutenant, which contrasted with the seaman’s good humour, they might have been taken for the most honest people in the world.
The ground rose more and more. The vast plateau of Chalpanzingo, which enjoys the finest climate of Mexico, soon came into sight, spreading out to the farthest limits of the horizon. This region, which belongs to the temperate zone, is about 10,000 feet above sea-level and it knows neither the heat of the lowlands nor the cold of the higher ground. Leaving the oasis on their right, the two Spaniards reached the small village of San Pedro, and after a three hours’ halt they made their way towards the little town of Tutela-del-Rio.
‘Where shall we sleep tonight?’ asked Martinez.
‘At Tasco,’ José replied. ‘A large town, Lieutenant, after these hamlets.’
‘We’ll find a good inn there?’
‘Yes, under a clear sky in a lovely climate! The sun’s less scorching there than down by the sea. And in the same way, if we keep going up, we’ll finish, so gradually that we won’t notice it, by freezing on the crests of Popocatapetl.’
‘When shall we be crossing the mountains, José?’
‘The day after tomorrow, Lieutenant, in the evening. And from the crest, which is still some way off, it’s true, we’ll be able to see the end of our journey! A golden city, Mexico is! Do you know what I’m thinking about, Lieutenant?’
Martinez made no response.
‘I’m wondering what can have happened to the officers of our ship – and the brig – whom we marooned on that island.’
Martinez shuddered. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied sullenly.
‘I’d like to be able to think,’ José continued, ‘that those haughty fellows are all dead of hunger! All the same, when we landed them some of them fell into the sea, and in these parts there’s the tintorea, a kind of shark, who won’t let you off! Santa Maria! If Captain Don Orteva were to come to life again, the best thing we could do would be to hide in the belly of a whale! But very luckily his head was just at the height of that boom, and when the sheets snapped – very queer that was ...’
‘Will you hold your tongue!’ snapped Martinez.
After that the sailor kept his mouth shut. ‘Here’s a nice place to have scruples,’ he said to himself. ‘Anyhow,’ he continued aloud, ‘when I get back I’ll settle down in this charming land of Mexico, where you can go on the spree through the pineapples and the bananas, and run aground on reefs of gold and silver!’
‘Was that what you mutinied for?’ Martinez asked him.
‘Why not, Lieutenant? A question of cash!’
‘Ah!...’ Martinez gave an exclamation of disgust.
‘Well, what about you?’
‘Me!... A question of rank ...’ What the lieutenant really wanted was to be avenged on his captain.
‘Ah!...’ now José gave an exclamation of disgust.
Whatever their motives, the two men were equally worthless.
‘Quiet!’ Martinez pulled up sharply. ‘What was that I saw?’
José stood erect in his stirrups. ‘There isn’t anything,’ he said.
‘I saw a man slinking under cover!’ Martinez insisted.
‘Imagination!’
‘I saw him!’ the lieutenant insisted.
‘Well, look for him at your leisure ...’ and José pushed on.
Martinez went by himself to a clump of mangroves whose branches, taking root wherever they touched the ground, formed an impenetrable thicket.
The lieutenant dismounted. The solitude was complete.
He suddenly caught sight of a sort of spiral moving about in the shadows. It was a small snake, its head crushed under a boulder while its hinder parts twisted as though it had been galvanised.
‘There’s been someone here!’ he exclaimed.
Superstitious and guilt-stricken, he stared round him. He began to tremble.
‘Who? Who?’ he muttered.
‘Well?’ asked José, who had come up beside him.
‘It’s nothing,’ Martinez replied. ‘Let’s get on!’
The travellers now followed the banks of the Mexala, a small tributary of the Ba
lsas, and followed its course upwards. Soon some smoke betrayed the presence of the natives, and the little town of Tutela-del-Rio came into sight. But the Spaniards, anxious to get to Tasco before nightfall, soon left it, after a few moments’ rest.
The road now became very steep, so that they could get only the slowest pace out of their steeds. Here and there olive groves appeared on the side of the hills, and remarkable differences developed in the soil, in the temperature, in the vegetation.
Evening was not long in coming. Martinez followed a few paces behind his guide José, who could find his way only with difficulty among these dense shadows. He looked for the practicable footpaths, swearing now at a stump which made him stumble, now at a branch which whipped across his face and threatened to put out the excellent cigar he was smoking.
The lieutenant let his horse follow his companion’s; a vague remorse was troubling him, and he could no longer account for the obsession of which he was the prey.
Night had soon come, and the travellers hurried on. They passed without stopping through the little villages of Contapex and Iguala, and at last reached the town of Tasco.
José had spoken the truth. It was a large city compared to the wretched hamlets they had left behind them, and a sort of inn opened on the main street. Having entrusted their horses to the ostler, they went into the largest room, where a long narrow table was already laid.
The Spaniards took their seats opposite one another, and wolfed down a meal which might have pleased the native palates, but which hunger alone could make palatable to a European. There were fragments of chicken swimming in a sauce of green pimento; dishes of rice mixed with red pepper and saffron; old hens stuffed with olives, dried grapes, peanuts and onions, sugared pumpkins and purslane, the whole accompanied by tortillas, a sort of maize cake cooked on an iron griddle. Then, after the meal, the drink.
Whatever this might lack in the way of taste, hunger was satisfied, and fatigue made Martinez and José sleep to a late hour next morning.
4- From Tasco to Cuemavaca
The lieutenant was the first awake.