Kitabı oku: «The Rifle Rangers», sayfa 2

Chapter Two.
An Adventure among the Creoles of New Orleans

In the “fall” of 1846 I found myself in the city of New Orleans, filling up one of those pauses that occur between the chapters of an eventful life – doing nothing. I have said an eventful life. In the retrospect of ten years, I could not remember as many weeks spent in one place. I had traversed the continent from north to south, and crossed it from sea to sea. My foot had pressed the summits of the Andes, and climbed the Cordilleras of the Sierra Madre. I had steamed it down the Mississippi, and sculled it up the Orinoco. I had hunted buffaloes with the Pawnees of the Platte, and ostriches upon the pampas of the Plata: to-day, shivering in the hut of an Esquimaux – a month after, taking my siesta in an aery couch under the gossamer frondage of the corozo palm. I had eaten raw meat with the trappers of the Rocky Mountains, and roast monkey among the Mosquito Indians; and much more, which might weary the reader, and ought to have made the writer a wiser man. But, I fear, the spirit of adventure – its thirst – is within me slakeless. I had just returned from a “scurry” among the Comanches of Western Texas, and the idea of “settling down” was as far from my mind as ever.

“What next? what next?” thought I. “Ha! the war with Mexico.”

The war between the United States and that country had now fairly commenced. My sword – a fine Toledo, taken from a Spanish officer at San Jacinto – hung over the mantel, rusting ingloriously. Near it were my pistols – a pair of Colt’s revolvers – pointing at each other in sullen muteness. A warlike ardour seized upon me, and clutching, not the sword, but my pen, I wrote to the War Department for a commission; and, summoning all my patience, awaited the answer.

But I waited in vain. Every bulletin from Washington exhibited its list of new-made officers, but my name appeared not among them. In New Orleans – that most patriotic of republican cities – epaulettes gleamed upon every shoulder, whilst I, with the anguish of a Tantalus, was compelled to look idly and enviously on. Despatches came in daily from the seat of war, filled with newly-glorious names; and steamers from the same quarter brought fresh batches of heroes – some legless, some armless, and others with a bullet-hole through the cheek, and perhaps the loss of a dozen teeth or so; but all thickly covered with laurels.

November came, but no commission. Impatience and ennui had fairly mastered me. The time hung heavily upon my hands.

“How can I best pass the hour? I shall go to the French opera, and hear Calve.”

Such were my reflections as I sat one evening in my solitary chamber. In obedience to this impulse, I repaired to the theatre; but the bellicose strains of the opera, instead of soothing, only heightened my warlike enthusiasm, and I walked homeward, abusing, as I went, the president and the secretary-at-war, and the whole government – legislative, judicial, and executive. “Republics are ungrateful,” soliloquised I, in a spiteful mood. “I have ‘surely put in strong enough’ for it; my political connections – besides, the government owes me a favour – ”

“Cl’ar out, ye niggers! What de yer want?”

This was a voice that reached me as I passed through the dark corner of the Faubourg Tremé. Then followed some exclamations in French; a scuffle ensued, a pistol went off, and I heard the same voice again calling out:

“Four till one! Injuns! Murder! Help, hyur!”

I ran up. It was very dark; but the glimmer of a distant lamp enabled me to perceive a man out in the middle of the street, defending himself against four others. He was a man of giant size, and flourished a bright weapon, which I took to be a bowie-knife, while his assailants struck at him on all sides with sticks and stilettoes. A small boy ran back and forth upon the banquette, calling for help.

Supposing it to be some street quarrel, I endeavoured to separate the parties by remonstrance. I rushed between them, holding out my cane; but a sharp cut across the knuckles, which I had received from one of the small men, together with his evident intention to follow it up, robbed me of all zest for pacific meditation; and, keeping my eye upon the one who had cut me, I drew a pistol (I could not otherwise defend myself), and fired. The man fell dead in his tracks, without a groan. His comrades, hearing me re-cock, took to their heels, and disappeared up a neighbouring alley.

The whole scene did not occupy the time you have spent in reading this relation of it. One minute I was plodding quietly homeward; the next, I stood in the middle of the street; beside me a stranger of gigantic proportions; at my feet a black mass of dead humanity, half doubled up in the mud as it had fallen; on the banquette, the slight, shivering form of a boy; while above and around were silence and darkness.

I was beginning to fancy the whole thing a dream, when the voice of the man at my side dispelled this illusion.

“Mister,” said he, placing his arms akimbo, and facing me, “if ye’ll tell me yur name, I ain’t a-gwine to forgit it. No, Bob Linkin ain’t that sorter.”

“What! Bob Lincoln? Bob Lincoln of the Peaks?”

In the voice I had recognised a celebrated mountain trapper, and an old acquaintance, whom I had not met for several years.

“Why, Lord save us from Injuns! it ain’t you, Cap’n Haller? May I be dog-goned if it ain’t! Whooray! – whoop! I knowed it warn’t no store-keeper fired that shot. Haroo! whar are yur, Jack?”

“Here I am,” answered the boy, from the pavement.

“Kum hyur, then. Ye ain’t badly skeert, air yur?”

“No,” firmly responded the boy, crossing over.

“I tuk him from a scoundrelly Crow thet I overhauled on a fork of the Yellerstone. He gin me a long pedigree, that is, afore I kilt the skunk. He made out as how his people hed tuk the boy from the Kimanches, who hed brought him from somewhar down the Grande. I know’d it wur all bamboozle. The boy’s white – American white. Who ever seed a yeller-hided Mexikin with them eyes and ha’r? Jack, this hyur’s Cap’n Haller. If yur kin iver save his life by givin’ yur own, yur must do it, de ye hear?”

“I will,” said the boy resolutely.

“Come, Lincoln,” I interposed, “these conditions are not necessary. You remember I was in your debt.”

“Ain’t worth mentioning Cap; let bygones be bygones!”

“But what brought you to New Orleans? or, more particularly, how came you into this scrape?”

“Wal, Cap’n, bein’ as the last question is the most partickler, I’ll gin yur the answer to it fust. I hed jest twelve dollars in my pouch, an’ I tuk a idee inter my head thet I mout as well double it. So I stepped into a shanty whar they wur a-playin’ craps. After bettin’ a good spell, I won somewhar about a hundred dollars. Not likin’ the sign I seed about, I tuk Jack and put out. Wal, jest as I was kummin’ roun’ this hyur corner, four fellers – them ye seed – run out and jumped me, like so many catamounts. I tuk them for the same chaps I hed seed parley vooin’ at the craps-table; an’ tho’t they wur only jokin’, till one of them gin me a sockdolloger over the head, an’ fired a pistol. I then drewed my bowie, an’ the skrimmage begun; an’ thet’s all I know about it, cap’n, more’n yurself.

“Let’s see if it’s all up with this’n,” continued the hunter, stooping. “I’deed, yes,” he drawled out; “dead as a buck. Thunder! ye’ve gin it him atween the eyes, plum. He is one of the fellers, es my name’s Bob Linkin. I kud sw’ar to them mowstaches among a million.”

At this moment a patrol of night gendarmes came up; and Lincoln, and Jack, and myself were carried off to the calaboose, where we spent the remainder of the night. In the morning we were brought before the recorder; but I had taken the precaution to send for some friends, who introduced me to his worship in a proper manner. As my story corroborated Lincoln’s, and his mine, and “Jack’s” substantiated both; and as the comrades of the dead Creole did not appear, and he himself was identified by the police as a notorious robber, the recorder dismissed the case as one of “justifiable homicide in self-defence”; and the hunter and I were permitted to go our way without further interruption.

Note. Craps is a game of dice.

Chapter Three.
A Volunteer Rendezvous

“Now, Cap,” said Lincoln, as we seated ourselves at the table of a café, “I’ll answer t’other question yur put last night. I wur up on the head of Arkansaw, an’ hearin’ they wur raisin’ volunteers down hyur, I kim down ter jine. It ain’t often I trouble the settlements; but I’ve a mighty puncheon, as the Frenchmen says, to hev a crack at them yeller-bellies. I hain’t forgot a mean trick they sarved me two yeern ago, up thar by Santer Fé.”

“And so you have joined the volunteers?”

“That’s sartin. But why ain’t you a-gwine to Mexico? That ’ere’s a wonder to me, cap, why you ain’t. Thur’s a mighty grist o’ venturin’, I heern; beats Injun fightin’ all holler, an’ yur jest the beaver I’d ’spect to find in that ’ar dam. Why don’t you go?”

“So I purposed long since, and wrote on to Washington for a commission; but the government seems to have forgotten me.”

“Dod rot the government! git a commission for yourself.”

“How?” I asked.

“Jine us, an’ be illected – thet’s how.”

This had crossed my mind before; but, believing myself a stranger among these volunteers, I had given up the idea. Once joined, he who failed in being elected an officer was fated to shoulder a firelock. It was neck or nothing then. Lincoln set things in a new light. They were strangers to each other, he affirmed, and my chances of being elected would therefore be as good as any man’s.

“I’ll tell yur what it is,” said he; “yur kin turn with me ter the rendevooz, an’ see for yurself; but if ye’ll only jine, an’ licker freely, I’ll lay a pack o’ beaver agin the skin of a mink that they’ll illect ye captain of the company.”

“Even a lieutenancy,” I interposed.

“Ne’er a bit of it, cap. Go the big figger. ’Tain’t more nor yur entitled to. I kin git yur a good heist among some hunters thet’s thur; but thar’s a buffalo drove o’ them parleyvoos, an’ a feller among ’em, one of these hyur creeholes, that’s been a-showin’ off and fencin’ with a pair of skewers from mornin’ till night. I’d be dog-gone glad to see the starch taken out o’ that feller.”

I took my resolution. In half an hour after I was standing in a large hall or armoury. It was the rendezvous of the volunteers, nearly all of whom were present; and perhaps a more variegated assemblage was never grouped together. Every nationality seemed to have its representative; and for variety of language the company might have rivalled the masons of Babel.

Near the head of the room was a table, upon which lay a large parchment, covered with signatures. I added mine to the list. In the act I had staked my liberty. It was an oath.

“These are my rivals – the candidates for office,” thought I, looking at a group who stood near the table. They were men of better appearance than the hoi polloi. Some of them already affected a half-undress uniform, and most wore forage-caps with glazed covers, and army buttons over the ears.

“Ha! Clayley!” said I, recognising an old acquaintance. This was a young cotton-planter – a free, dashing spirit, – who had sacrificed a fortune at the shrines of Momus and Bacchus.

“Why, Haller, old fellow! glad to see you. How have you been? Think of going with us?”

“Yes, I have signed. Who is that man?”

“He’s a Creole; his name is Dubrosc.”

It was a face purely Norman, and one that would halt the wandering eye in any collection. Of oval outline, framed by a profusion of black hair, wavy and perfumed. A round black eye, spanned by brows arching and glossy. Whiskers that belonged rather to the chin, leaving bare the jawbone, expressive of firmness and resolve. Firm thin lips, handsomely moustached; when parted, displaying teeth well set and of dazzling whiteness. A face that might be called beautiful; and yet its beauty was of that negative order which we admire in the serpent and the pard. The smile was cynical; the eye cold, yet bright; but the brightness was altogether animal– more the light of instinct than intellect. A face that presented in its expression a strange admixture of the lovely and the hideous – physically fair, morally dark – beautiful, yet brutal!

From some undefinable cause, I at once conceived for this man a strange feeling of dislike. It was he of whom Lincoln had spoken, and who was likely to be my rival for the captaincy. Was it this that rendered him repulsive? No. There was a cause beyond. In him I recognised one of those abandoned natures who shrink from all honest labour, and live upon the sacrificial fondness of some weak being who has been enslaved by their personal attractions. There are many such. I have met them in the jardins of Paris; in the casinos of London; in the cafés of Havanna, and the “quadroon” balls of New Orleans – everywhere in the crowded haunts of the world. I have met them with an instinct of loathing – an instinct of antagonism.

“The fellow is likely to be our captain,” whispered Clayley, noticing that I observed the man with more than ordinary attention. “By the way,” continued he, “I don’t half like it. I believe he’s an infernal scoundrel.”

“Such are my impressions. But if that be his character, how can he be elected?”

“Oh! no one here knows another; and this fellow is a splendid swordsman, like all the Creoles, you know. He has used the trick to advantage, and has created an impression. By the by, now I recollect, you are no slouch at that yourself. What are you up for?”

“Captain,” I replied.

“Good! Then we must go the ‘whole hog’ in your favour. I have put in for the first lieutenancy, so we won’t run foul of each other. Let us ‘hitch teams’.”

“With all my heart,” said I.

“You came in with that long-bearded hunter. Is he your friend?”

“He is.”

“Then I can tell you that among these fellows he’s a ‘whole team, and a cross dog under the waggon’ to boot. See him! he’s at it already.”

I had noticed Lincoln in conversation with several leather-legging gentry like himself, whom I knew from their costume and appearance to be backwoodsmen. All at once these saturnine characters commenced moving about the room, and entering into conversation with men whom they had not hitherto deigned to notice.

“They are canvassing,” said Clayley.

Lincoln, brushing past, whispered in my ear, “Cap’n, I understan’ these hyur critters better’n you kin. Yer must mix among ’em – mix and licker – thet’s the idee.”

“Good advice,” said Clayley; “but if you could only take the shine out of that fellow at fencing, the thing’s done at once. By Jove! I think you might do it, Haller!”

“I have made up my mind to try, at all events.”

“Not until the last day – a few hours before the election.”

“You are right. It would be better to wait; I shall take your advice. In the meantime let us follow that of Lincoln – ‘mix and licker’.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Clayley; “let us come, boys,” he added, turning to a very thirsty-looking group, “let’s all take a ‘smile’. Here, Captain Haller! allow me to introduce you;” and the next moment I was introduced to a crowd of very seedy-looking gentlemen, and the moment after we were clinking glasses, and chatting as familiarly as if we had been friends of forty years’ standing.

During the next three days the enrolment continued, and the canvass was kept up with energy. The election was to take place on the evening of the fourth.

Meanwhile my dislike for my rival had been strengthened by closer observation; and, as is general in such cases, the feeling was reciprocal.

On the afternoon of the day in question we stood before each other, foil in hand, both of us nerved by an intense, though as yet unspoken, enmity. This had been observed by most of the spectators, who approached and formed a circle around us; all of them highly interested in the result – which, they knew, would be an index to the election.

The room was an armoury, and all kinds of weapons for military practice were kept in it. Each had helped himself to his foil. One of the weapons was without a button, and sharp enough to be dangerous in the hands of an angry man. I noticed that my antagonist had chosen this one.

“Your foil is not in order; it has lost the button, has it not?” I observed.

“Ah! monsieur, pardon. I did not perceive that.”

“A strange oversight,” muttered Clayley, with a significant glance.

The Frenchman returned the imperfect foil, and took another.

“Have you a choice, monsieur?” I inquired.

“No, thank you; I am satisfied.”

By this time every person in the rendezvous had come up, and waited with breathless anxiety. We stood face to face, more like two men about to engage in deadly duel than a pair of amateurs with blunt foils. My antagonist was evidently a practised swordsman. I could see that as he came to guard. As for myself, the small-sword exercise had been a foible of my college days, and for years I had not met my match at it; but just then I was out of practice.

We commenced unsteadily. Both were excited by unusual emotions, and our first thrusts were neither skilfully aimed nor parried. We fenced with the energy of anger, and the sparks crackled from the friction of the grazing steel. For several minutes it was a doubtful contest; but I grew cooler every instant, while a slight advantage I had gained irritated my adversary. At length, by a lucky hit, I succeeded in planting the button of my foil upon his cheek. A cheer greeted this, and I could hear the voice of Lincoln shouting out:

“Wal done, cap’n! Whooray for the mountain-men!” This added to the exasperation of the Frenchman, causing him to strike wilder than before; and I found no difficulty in repeating my former thrust. It was now a sure hit; and after a few passes I thrust my adversary for the third time, drawing blood. The cheer rang out louder than before. The Frenchman could no longer conceal his mortification; and, grasping his foil in both hands, he snapped it over his knee, with an oath. Then, muttering some word about “better weapons” and “another opportunity”, he strode off among the spectators. Two hours after the combat I was his captain. Clayley was elected first lieutenant, and in a week from that time the company was “mustered” into the service of the United States government, and armed and equipped as an independent corps of “Rifle Rangers”. On the 20th of January, 1847, a noble ship was bearing us over the blue water, toward the shores of a hostile land.

Chapter Four.
Life on the Island of Lobos

After calling at Brazos Santiago, we were ordered to land upon the island of Lobos, fifty miles north of Vera Cruz. This was to be our “drill rendezvous.” We soon reached the island. Detachments from several regiments debarked together; the jungle was attacked; and in a few hours the green grove had disappeared, and in its place stood the white pyramids of canvas with their floating flags. It was the work of a day. When the sun rose over Lobos it was a desert isle, thickly covered with a jungle of mangrove, manzanel, and icaco trees, green as an emerald. How changed the scene! When the moon looked down upon this same islet it seemed as if a warlike city had sprung suddenly out of the sea, with a navy at anchor in front of its bannered walls!

In a few days six full regiments had encamped upon the hitherto uninhabited island, and nothing was heard but the voice of war.

These regiments were all “raw”; and my duty, with others, consisted in “licking them into shape”. It was drill, drill, from morning till night; and, by early tattoo, I was always glad to crawl into my tent and go to sleep – such sleep as a man can get among scorpions, lizards, and soldier-crabs; for the little islet seemed to have within its boundaries a specimen of every reptile that came safely out of the ark.

The 22nd of February being Washington’s birthday, I could not get to bed as usual. I was compelled to accept an invitation, obtained by Clayley, to the tent of Major Twing, where they were – using Clayley’s own words – “to have a night of it.”

After tattoo we set out for the major’s marquee, which lay near the centre of the islet, in a coppice of caoutchouc-trees. We had no difficulty in finding it, guided by the jingling of glasses and the mingling of many voices in boisterous laughter.

As we came near, we could perceive that the marquee had been enlarged by tucking up the flaps in front, with the addition of a fly stretched over an extra ridge-pole. Several pieces of rough plank, spirited away from the ship, resting upon empty bread-barrels, formed the table. Upon this might be recognised every variety of bottles, glasses, and cups. Open boxes of sardines, piles of ship-biscuits, and segments of cheese filled the intervening spaces. Freshly-drawn corks and glistening fragments of lead were strewed around, while a number of dark conical objects under the table told that not a few champagne bottles were already “down among the dead men.”

On each side of the table was a row of colonels, captains, subalterns, and doctors seated without regard to rank or age, according to the order in which they had “dropped in”. There were also some naval officers, and a sprinkling of strange, half-sailor-looking men, the skippers of transport brigs, steamboats, etcetera; for Twing for a thorough republican in his entertainments; besides, the day levelled all distinctions.

At the head of the table was the major himself, who always carried a large pewter flask suspended from his shoulders by a green string, and without this flask no one ever saw Major Twing. He could not have stuck to it more closely had it been his badge of rank. It was not unusual, on the route, to hear some wearied officer exclaim, “If I only had a pull at old Twing’s pewter!” and “equal to Twing’s flask” was an expression which stamped the quality of any liquor as superfine. Such was one of the major’s peculiarities, though by no means the only one.

As my friend and I made our appearance under the fly, the company was in high glee, everyone enjoying himself with that freedom from restraint of rank peculiar to the American army-service. Clayley was a great favourite with the major, and at once caught his eye.

“Ha, Clayley! that you? Walk in with your friend. Find seats there, gentlemen.”

“Captain Haller – Major Twing,” said Clayley, introducing me.

“Happy to know you, Captain. Can you find seats there? No. Come up this way. Cudjo, boy! run over to Colonel Marshall’s tent, and steal a couple of stools. Adge, twist the neck off that bottle. Where’s the screw? Hang that screw! Where is it anyhow?”

“Never mind the screw, Mage,” cried the adjutant; “I’ve got a patent universal here.” So saying, this gentleman held out a champagne bottle in his left hand, and with a down-stroke of his right cut the neck off, as square as if it had been filed.

“Nate!” ejaculated Hennessy, an Irish officer, who sat near the head of the table, and who evidently admired that sort of thing.

“What we call a Kentucky corkscrew,” said the adjutant coolly. “It offers a double advantage. It saves time, and you got the wine clear of – ”

“My respects, gentlemen! Captain Haller – Mr Clayley.”

“Thank you, Major Twing. To you, sir.”

“Ha! the stools at last! Only one! Come, gentlemen, squeeze yourselves up this way. Here, Clayley, old boy; here’s a cartridge-box. Adge! up-end that box. So – give us your fist, old fellow; how are you? Sit down, Captain; sit down. Cigars, there!”

At that moment the report of a musket was heard without the tent, and simultaneously a bullet whistled through the canvas. It knocked the foraging-cap from the head of Captain Hennessy, and, striking a decanter, shivered the glass into a thousand pieces!

“A nate shot that, I don’t care who fired it,” said Hennessy, coolly picking up his cap. “An inch of a miss – good as a mile,” added he, thrusting his thumb into the bullet-hole.

By this time every officer present was upon his feet, most of them rushing towards the front of the marquee. A dozen voices called out together:

“Who fired that gun?”

There was no answer, and several plunged into the thicket in pursuit. The chaparral was dark and silent, and these returned after a fruitless search.

“Some soldier, whose musket has gone off by accident,” suggested Colonel Harding. “The fellow has run away, to avoid being put under arrest.”

“Come, gentlemen, take your sates again,” said Hennessy; “let the poor divil slide – yez may be thankful it wasn’t a shell.”

“You, Captain, have most cause to be grateful for the character of the missile.”

“By my sowl, I don’t know about that! – a shell or a twenty-four would have grazed me all the same; but a big shot would have been mighty inconvanient to the head of my friend Haller, here!”

This was true. My head was nearly in range; and had the shot been a large one, it would have struck me upon the left temple. As it was, I felt the “wind” of the bullet, and already began to suffer a painful sensation over the eye.

“I’m mighty curious to know which of us the fellow has missed, Captain,” said Hennessy, turning to me as he spoke.

“If it were not a ‘bull’ I should say I hope neither of us. I’m inclined to think, with Colonel Harding, that it was altogether an accident.”

“By the powers! an ugly accident too, that has spoiled five dollars’ worth of an illigant cap, and a pint of as good brandy as ever was mixed with hot water and lemon-juice.”

“Plenty left, Captain,” cried the major. “Come, gentlemen, don’t let this damp us; fill up! till up! Adge, out with the corks! Cudjo, where’s the screw?”

“Never mind the screw, Mage,” cried the adjutant, repeating his old trick upon the neck of a fresh bottle, which, nipped off under the wire, fell upon a heap of others that had preceded it.

And the wine again foamed and sparkled, and glasses circled round, and the noisy revelry waxed as loud as ever. The incident of the shot was soon forgotten. Songs were sung, and stories told, and toasts drunk; and with song and sentiment, and toast and story, and the wild excitement of wit and wine, the night waned away. With many of those young hearts, old with hope and burning with ambition, it was the last “Twenty-second” they would ever celebrate. Half of them never hailed another.