The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War

"May Heaven favour us!" he said, as he piously crossed himself. "Now, Caballeros, it is our turn."

"We are ready," the three men answered.

El Alferez took a rapid glance round the room. The pulquero, either through curiosity, want of occupation, or some other cause, was standing motionless in a distant corner of the room, following with an attentive glance the movements of his singular customers.

"Hilloh!" El Alferez said to him, "come hither."

The pulquero obsequiously doffed his straw hat, and hastened to obey this injunction, which admitted of no reply.

"What do you desire, Excellency?" he asked.

"To ask you a question."

"Pray do so."

"Are you fond of money?

"Well, tolerably so, Excellency," he replied, with a crafty grimace, which doubtless had pretensions to be a smile.

"Very good, here is an onza: when we go away, we will give you a second; but bear in mind that you must be deaf and blind."

"That is easy," he replied, as he pocketed the gold coin, and drew aside.

Since the Jaguar's departure, the two officers had been suffering from an anxiety they did not attempt to conceal, but which El Alferez did not appear to notice, for his face was quite radiant. In fact, the expedition they were going to attempt in the company of the daring partisan seemed to them not only rash but mad, especially since El Alferez had so cavalierly given up to the Jaguar the thirty resolute men, whose support they considered indispensable.

"Come, come, Señors," the young man said, with a smile, after attentively watching them for some moments, "regain your courage; hang it all, you look as if you had been buried and dug up again; and we are not dead yet, I suppose."

"That is true; but we are not much better," Don Serapio said significantly.

El Alferez frowned. "Can you be frightened?" he said, haughtily.

"We are not afraid of dying, but only of failing."

"That is my business: I answer for success on my head."

"We are perfectly aware of what you are capable, Señor; but we are only four men, and after all – "

"And the boat's crew?"

"That is true; but they are only sixteen men."

"They will be enough."

"I wish it, but can hardly reckon on it."

"Well, say whether you are resolved to obey me at all hazards?"

"We have made the sacrifice of our lives."

"Then, whatever happens, you will act?"

"Whatever happens."

"It is well – "

El Alferez appeared to reflect for a moment, and then addressed the pulquero, who was standing anxiously near him – "Has anything been left with you for me?" he asked him.

"Yes, Excellency; this evening at Oración a man brought a trunk on his shoulders."

"Where is it?"

"As the man assured me that it contained articles of considerable value, I had the chest placed in my bedroom, in order that it might be in safety."

"Lead me to your room."

"Whenever you please, Excellency."

"Señors," El Alferez said, addressing the two naval officers and Ramirez, "wait for me in this room; in ten minutes I will join you again."

And without awaiting a reply, he made a sign to the pulquero to lead the way, and left the room with a rapid step. There was a momentary silence with the three men; they seemed to be engaged in sad thoughts, and looked anxiously around them. Time, which never stands still, had rapidly advanced during the course of the events we have narrated. Nearly the whole night had passed away, the first gleams of dawn were beginning to whiten the smoky walls of the pulqueria, and already some inhabitants, who had risen earlier than the others, were venturing into the streets; ere long the sun would make its appearance.

"Day will soon be here," Don Serapio remarked, as he shook his head anxiously.

"What matter?" Ramirez answered.

"What matter, do you say?" Don Serapio replied in amazement; "but it seems to me that one of the most important conditions for the enterprise we are about to attempt, is darkness."

"Certainly," Don Cristoval supported him, "if we wait till the sun has risen, any surprise will be impossible."

Ramirez shrugged his shoulders.

"You do not know the man under whose orders you have voluntarily placed yourselves," he answered; "impossible things are those he prefers attempting."

"You know him better than we do then, as you speak thus of him?"

"Better than you or anyone," the sailor said with considerable animation; "I have the greatest faith in him; for ten years I have lived by his side, and have many times been able to appreciate all the nobility and generosity that exist in his heart."

"Ah," the two officers said, walking quickly up to him, "who is he, then?"

An ironical smile curled Ramirez's delicate lip.

"You know as well as I do: a warm patriot, and one of the most renowned Chiefs of the revolutionary movement."

"Hum!" Don Sandoval remarked, "that is not what we want to know."

"What then?" he asked with almost imperceptible irony.

"Hang it, you say that you have lived ten years with this man," Don Serapio went on; "you must know certain peculiarities about him which no one else is acquainted with, and which we should not be sorry to know."

"That is possible; unfortunately, I am utterly unable to satisfy your curiosity on that point; if El Alferez has not thought proper to give you certain intimate details about his private life, it is not my place to reveal them to you."

Don Serapio was about to reply rather sharply to the sailor, when the door opened through which Don Alferez had gone out, and the pulquero entered, followed by a lady. The two officers could scarce refrain from a cry of surprise on recognising beneath this dress El Alferez himself. The young Chief wore feminine attire with considerable grace and reality; he walked with such ease, and appeared so accustomed to the thousand knick-nacks of a lady's dress – in a word, the metamorphosis was so complete, that, had it not been for the eye whose strange lustre the young man had not quite succeeded in subduing, the three men could have sworn that this singular being was really a woman.

The costume of El Alferez, though not rich, was elegant, and in good taste; his face, half concealed beneath the silken folds of his rebozo, partly hid his haughty expression; in his right hand he held a pretty sandalwood fan, with which he played with that graceful nonchalance so full of skill which is only possessed by Spanish women and their American daughters.

"Well, Caballeros," the young man said mincingly, in a sweet and harmonious voice; "do you not recognize me? I am the daughter of your friend Doña Leonora Salcedo, Doña Mencia."

The three men bowed respectfully.

"Pardon me, Señorita," Don Serapio replied as he gravely kissed the tips of El Alferez's fingers; "we know you perfectly well, but were so far from anticipating the happiness of meeting you here, that – "

"Even at this moment, after hearing you speak, we dare not yet believe in the reality of what we see."

The pulquero looked in alarm from one to the other. The worthy man understood nothing of what was going on, and he asked himself confidentially were he asleep or awake. In fact, he was not far from believing himself under a spell.

"I do not understand your surprise, Caballeros," the feigned Doña Mencia said with a stress on her words; "was it not arranged some days back between yourselves, my mother, and my husband, that we should go this morning and breakfast with Commandant Rodriguez, on board the Libertad corvette?"

"Of course," Don Serapio quickly exclaimed; "excuse me, Señorita, but I really do not know where my head is. How could I have forgotten that?"

"I will excuse you," El Alferez replied with a smile, "but on condition that you repair your inexplicable forgetfulness, and rather ungallant behaviour, by offering me your arm to go on board the corvette at once."

"The more so," Don Cristoval added, "as we have rather a long distance to go, and I have no doubt the Commandant is expecting us."

"Canarios! I should think he was," Ramirez ejaculated; "why, Señor, he sent me with a boat to take you aboard."

"Since that is the case, I think we shall do well by starting without further delay."

"We are at your orders, Señorita."

"Stay, my good man," El Alferez added in a soft voice, and addressing the pulquero, "take this in recollection of me."

The good man, half stunned by what he saw, mechanically held out his right hand, into which the mysterious adventurer carelessly let a gold onza fall; then, taking Don Serapio's arm, he went out, preceded by Don Cristoval and Ramirez, who hurried to get the boat ready. The pulquero stood in his doorway, and looked after the strange visitors who had spent the whole night in his house, as long as he could see them; then he went in again, shaking his head thoughtfully, and muttering, as he jingled the coin he had received – "All this is not clear; a man who is a woman, friends who do not recognize each other after two hours' conversation, that is preciously queer; I am certain something is going to happen. But hang me if I mix myself up in it; it is well, in certain circumstances, to know how to hold one's tongue; besides, it is no business of mine; the money they gave me is good, and I have no right to look further."

Strengthened by this philosophic reasoning, and filled with prudence, the pulquero closed his door, and went to bed in order to fetch up by day the sleep his singular curiosities had made him lose during the night.

CHAPTER XIX.

AT SEA

It was about four in the morning; the dawn was beginning to mark the horizon with wide white bands; on the extreme line of the water, a bright red reflection, the harbinger of sunrise, announced that the sun would soon appear. At this moment a light brig gradually emerged from the dense fog that hid it, and could be seen sailing close to the wind along the dangerous and rugged coast which forms the entrance of Galveston Bay, at the mouth of the Rio Trinidad.

It was a neat vessel of three hundred tons at the most, with a gracefully-built hull, and its tall masts coquettishly raking. The rigging was carefully painted and tarred, the yards symmetrically square, and more than all, the menacing muzzles of four eight-pounder carronades which peered out of the bulwarks on either side, and the long thirty-two pounder swivel in the bows, indicated that, although a man-of-war pennant might not be flying from the mainmast, it was not the less resolved, in case of necessity, to fight energetically against the cruisers that might attempt to check its progress.

At the moment when we first notice the brig, with the exception of the man at the wheel, and an individual walking up and down the poop smoking his pipe, at the first glance the brig's deck seemed deserted; still, on examining it carefully, fifteen men constituting the watch might have been seen sleeping in the bows, whom the slightest signal would be sufficient to awaken.

"Halloh!" the walker said suddenly, as he halted near the binnacle, and addressed the helmsman; "I fancy the wind is shifting."

"Yes, Master Lovel," the sailor answered, as he raised his hand to his woollen cap; "it has veered round two points."

As the individual who answered to the pleasant name of Lovel is destined to play a certain part in the scenes we have undertaken to describe, we ask our readers' permission to draw his portrait. Physically, he was a man of about fifty, nearly as broad as he was tall, and bearing a striking resemblance to a barrel mounted on feet, but for all that gifted with far from common strength and activity; his violet nose, his thick lips, and highly-coloured face, with large red whiskers, gave him a jovial appearance, to which, however, two small grey and deep-set eyes, full of fire and resolution, imparted something skeptical and mocking.

Morally, he was an honest, worthy man, open-hearted and loyal, an excellent sailor, and loving only two things, or rather beings, in the world: his Captain, who had brought him up, and, as he often said, had taught him to make his first splice by administering tobacco to him, and his ship, which he had seen built, which he had gone aboard when ready for sea, and had never quitted since.

Master Lovel had never known either father or mother; hence he had made the brig and his Captain his family. All his loving faculties, a long time driven back and slumbering in his heart, were so fully concentrated on them, that what he felt for both went beyond the limits of a reasonable affection, and had acquired the veritable proportions of a gigantic fanaticism. However, the Captain, of whom we shall soon speak, amply requited the old sailor's friendship.

"By the way, Lieutenant, I ask your pardon," the helmsman continued, doubtless encouraged by the manner in which his officer had spoken to him; "do you know that we have been making a precious queer navigation the last few days?"

"Do you think so, lad?"

"Hang it, sir, these continued tacks, and that boat we sent ashore yesterday, and has not yet returned – all that is rather singular."

"Hum!" the officer said, without any other expression of his opinion.

"Where may we be going, Lieutenant?" the sailor went on.

"Are you very anxious to know?" Lovel asked him, with a half-sweet, half-bitter tone.

"Well," the other said, as he turned his quid in his mouth, and sent forth a stream of blackish saliva, "I confess that I should not be sorry to know."

"Really now? – well, my boy," the old sailor said, with a crafty smile, "if you are asked, you will answer that you do not know; in that way you are certain of not compromising, and, before all, of not deceiving, yourself."

Then, after looking for an instant at the helmsman's downcast face on receiving this strange answer, he added – "Strike eight bells, my dear; there is the sun rising over there behind the mountains: we will call the watch."

And, after restoring his pipe to the corner of his mouth, he resumed his walk. The sailor seized the cord fastened to the clapper of the bell, and struck four double strokes. At this signal they knew so well, the men lying in the forecastle sprang up tumultuously, and rushed to the hatchway, shouting —

"Up with you, starboard watch; up, up, it is four o'clock. Starboard watch, ahoy!"

So soon as the watch was changed, the master gave the necessary orders to dress the vessel. Then, as the sun was beginning to rise above the horizon in a flood of ruddy vapour, which gradually dispersed the dense fog, that had enveloped the brig throughout the night, like a winding-sheet, he set a man to the foretop to look seaward, and examine the coast they were sailing along. When all these various duties had been discharged, the old sailor resumed his walk, taking a look every now and then at the masts, and muttering between his teeth – "Where can we be going? He would be very kind, if he would tell me: we are making a regular blind man's traverse, and we shall be very lucky if we get out of it safe and sound."

All at once his face brightened, and a glad smile spread over it. The Captain had just left his cabin and come upon deck. Captain Johnson was at this period a man of hardly three-and-thirty years of age, above the middle height; his gestures were simple, graceful, and full of natural elegance; his features were masculine and marked, and his black eyes, in which intelligence sparkled, gave his countenance an expression of grandeur, strength, and loyalty.

"Good morning, father," he said to Master Lovel, as he cordially offered him his hand.

"Good morning, lad," the latter replied; "did you sleep well?"

"Very well, thank you, father. Is there anything new?"

At this question, apparently so simple, the lieutenant drew himself up, raised his hand to his hat, and answered deferentially —

"Captain, there is nothing new on board. I tacked at three o'clock, and, according to your orders, we have been sailing as close to the wind as we could, at a rate of six three-quarter knots an hour, under foretop sails, and always keeping Galveston Point on the larboard quarter."

"That is well," the Captain answered, as he took a glance at the compass and the sails.

In all matters connected with duty, Master Lovel, in spite of the reiterated remarks of his Chief, constantly maintained toward the latter the tone and manner of a subordinate to his superior. The Captain, seeing that the old sailor could not be turned from this, ended by paying no attention to it, and left him free to speak as he thought proper.

"By the way, Captain," the Lieutenant continued, with some hesitation, "we are drawing near the gut; do you intend to pass through it?"

"I do."

"But we shall be sunk."

"Not such fools."

"Hum! I do not see how we shall escape it."

"You will see; besides, must we not go and pick up our boat, which has not yet returned?"

"That is true; I did not think of it."

"Well, you see; and our passengers?"

"I have not seen them yet this morning."

"They will soon come on deck."

"A ship in sight," the watch shouted.

"That is what I was waiting for," said the Captain.

"To tack?"

"On the contrary, to pass without a shot in front of the fort that commands the entrance of the bay."

"I do not understand."

"All right; you soon will."

And speaking to the look-out man, he said —

"In what direction is that ship?"

"To starboard, to windward of us; it is coming out of a creek, in which it was hidden, and steering straight down on the brig."

"Very good," the Captain answered; then, turning to Lovel, he continued: "This ship is chasing us; we shall, by constant short tacks, pass the fort and the battery which crosses fire with it. The Mexicans, who are watching us, feeling convinced that we cannot escape their cruiser, will not take the trouble to fire at us, but let us pass through without offering any obstacle."

And, leaving his lieutenant astounded at this singular line of argument, which he did not at all comprehend, the Captain went on the quarterdeck, and leaning over the gangway, began carefully watching the movements of the ship signalled by the lookout. An hour passed thus, without producing any change in the respective position of the two ships; but the brig, which had no intention of getting too far away from the cruiser, did not carry half the sail it could.

The men had been quietly beaten to quarters, and thirty powerful sailors, armed to the teeth, were holding the running rigging, ready to obey the slightest signal from their Captain. For more than an hour the brig had been approaching the coast, and the Captain, being now compelled to skirt a submarine reef, whose situation was not positively known to him, ordered sail to be reduced, and advanced, sounding lead in hand. The cruiser, on the contrary, was literally covered with canvas, and grew momentarily larger, while assuming the imposing proportions of a first class corvette; its black hull could be clearly distinguished, along which ran a long white stripe, containing sixteen portholes, through which passed the muzzles of her Paixhan guns. On the shore, to which the brig was now close, could be seen a great number of persons of both sexes, who, shouting, yelling, and clapping their hands, eagerly followed the incidents of this strange chase. Suddenly a light cloud of smoke rose from the bow of the corvette, the sound of a gun was dully heard, and a Mexican flag was hoisted at the peak.

"Ah, ah," Captain Johnson said, as he mechanically chumped the end of a cigarette held between his teeth, "she has at length decided on throwing off her incognito. Come, lieutenant, politeness deserves the same; show her our colours; hang it all, they are worth showing."

A minute later, a large star-spangled flag was majestically fluttering at the stern of the brig. At the appearance of the United States colours, so audaciously hoisted, a shout of fury was raised aboard the Mexican corvette, which was taken up by the crowd assembled at the point, though it was impossible to tell, owing to the distance, whether they were shouts of joy or anger.

In the meanwhile the sun was beginning to rise, the morning was growing apace, and there must be an end to the affair, especially as the corvette, confiding in her strength, and now almost within gunshot, would not fail to open fire on the American vessel. Strange to say, the garrisons of the fort and the battery, as the Captain had foreseen, had allowed the brig to double the point without trying to stop it, which it would have been most easy for them to do, owing to the crossfire.

The Captain gave his lieutenant a sign to come to him, and bending down to his ear, whispered something in it.

"Eh, eh!" the lieutenant said with a hearty laugh, "That is an idea! By Jove! We may have some fun."

And, without saying another word, he proceeded forwards. On reaching the swivel gun he had it unlashed and carefully loaded, adding a ball and a grape shot to the ordinary charge. Bending over the sight he seized the screw placed under the breech, then making a sign to the men who stood on either side with handspikes, he began laying the gun slowly and with the utmost precaution, scrupulously calculating the distance that separated the two ships, and the deviation caused by the rolling. At length, when he believed he had attained the desired result, he seized the lanyard, fell back, and made a signal to the Captain, who was impatiently awaiting the termination of his proceedings.

"Attention!" the latter shouted; "Stand by, all."

There was a moment of supreme expectation.

"Is all clear?"

"Yes," the lieutenant replied.

"Ready about," the Captain ordered; "down with the helm! Ease off the jib sheets! Sheet home top sails! Sheet home lower sails! Haul the bowlines taut!"

The sailors hurried to the running rigging, and the ship, obedient to the impulse given it, majestically swung round. At the moment when it fell, and had its bows turned toward the broadside of the corvette, Master Lovel, who was watching for a favourable opportunity to carry out the orders he had received, sharply pulled the lanyard and fired. The Mexicans, confounded by this sudden aggression, which they were far from anticipating from an enemy apparently so weak, replied furiously, and a shower of iron and lead hurtled over the deck and through the rigging of the American ship. The fort and battery continued to preserve the strictest neutrality, and Captain Johnson did not take the trouble to reply.

"Brace up closer to the wind!" he shouted. "Haul down the sheets! We have had fun enough, lads."

The brig continued its course, and when the smoke had dispersed the Mexican corvette could be perceived in a pitiable condition. The shot fired by Master Lovel had carried away her bowsprit close by the head, which naturally entailed the fall of the foremast, and the poor corvette, half rendered unserviceable, and unable longer to pursue its audacious enemy, bore up to repair hastily the worst of the damage.

On board the brig, owing to the hurry in which the Mexicans had returned the fire, only one man had been killed and three slightly wounded. As for the damage, it was trifling; only a few ropes were cut, that was all.

"Now," the Captain said, as he came down from the quarterdeck, "in ten minutes, father, you will tack, and when we are abreast of the fort you will lie to, let down a boat, and let me know."

"What!" the lieutenant could not refrain from saying, "You mean to go ashore?"

"Hang it," said the Captain; "why, I only came here for that purpose."

"Are you going to the fort?"

"Yes. Still, as it is always as well to be on the right side, you will send into the boat the ten most resolute men of the crew, with axes, cutlasses, muskets, and pistols. Let all be in order, and ready for fighting."

"I fancy those precautions will be unnecessary," said a man who had just come on deck and walked up to the spectators.

"Ah! it is you, Master Tranquil," the Captain replied, as he shook hands with the old hunter; for it was he who had so unexpectedly interfered in the conversation. "What do you say?"

"I say," the Canadian replied, in his calm voice, "that your precautions will probably be unnecessary."

"Why so?"

"Hang it! I don't know, for I am not a sailor. But look for yourself. Do you not think as I do – that something extraordinary is taking place on board the corvette?"