The Eternal Adam and other stories (4 page)

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.

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
let’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.

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 ...’