Part 11

“_Epa!_ Fear not, sisterling, for the goblins touch not those that are true. Remember, it is for Spain!” And pushing her gently inside their own doorway, and stooping to kiss her, he hurried down the street.

Lina dared not climb the noisy stairs to the deserted rooms. She crouched in the hall, shivering, drawing the manta about her shoulders as if with cold, but shutting her teeth bravely. The shuffle of Vicente’s broken shoes had already died away; and it seemed as if the whole world had slipped past with him. Ages and ages she waited, till she was ready to scream with fear; and then she sprang nervously to the door at a sound in the street. It was only a patrol shambling over the crazy cobblestones, but as it drew nigh she was seized with a sudden access of fear. Between them stumbled Vicente, a heavy hand on either shoulder.

“Let him go!” she cried, rushing upon the soldiers as if to strike them down. “He is my little brother, and has done nothing. Only we found the——”

“_Cállete_, Lina!” spoke up Vicente sharply. “If only the señor official will be so good as to take her with me to the general—for she is quite alone, señor.”

“It is well—come on, little Amazon!” said the officer, from whom war and starvation had not dried up all Andalusian humor. “Snails! But I thought she was to capture us! March!”

IV.

General Rodil pushed back his chair from the table, and his grave face took on a puzzled look as the officer and his odd prisoners were ushered into the room. “The general who never sleeps,” they called him—for at whatever hour of day or night, he was always appearing suddenly here, there, everywhere. Well masked was the faint heart into whose depths those gray eyes did not bore; tiny indeed the slackness that escaped them. Well might the ignorant invest him with a superstitious terror—this man who was really the garrison of Callao.

“_Que cosa?_” he demanded in a low, clear voice.

“_Pues, señor generál_,” said the officer, still standing at “salute.” “This boy we found in the Street of the Pelicans, as if waiting for some one. And when we searched him _this_ was in his shirt.”

Rodil uncrumpled the paper and bent to read it by the flickering candle. Suddenly his haggard face turned even paler, and then a dark flush rose as he sprang to his feet and took two steps forward. As suddenly he stopped, and threw at the children a glance that seemed fairly to burn them.

“Are there none but traitors?” he cried, with a choke. “Even to the babies! And now, my Ponce de Leon!” for the smuggled note read:

“_Todo listo. No mas se espera al comandante rúbio. Arregla todo de San Rafael._”

[All ready. Only waiting the blonde commander. Fix everything in the castle of San Rafael.]

The “blonde commander” could be none other than Rodil’s dear friend and trusted officer, in charge of one of the twin castles—a man whom he had “made” in rank and fortune. The general’s face seemed of stone as he demanded:

“Boy! From where is this letter?”

“_Vueséncia_, I picked it up from a fraile who fell over us in the street; and because he had been rough to my little sister, I followed to see where he would go.”

“Carefully! For when it is between the king’s honor and traitors, even youth counts not! What should a fraile be doing with letters of the insurgents?”

“For _that_, I think he was no fraile,” answered Vicente sturdily, holding his head erect, though his knees wavered; and he told all the happenings of the evening, while Lina nodded an earnest corroboration. Before he was done, something of the hardness had faded from Rodil’s face.

“Your _cuenta_ runs well,” he said at last. “Give me proof and I will fill your hat with gold. But if not—if you are old enough to be a traitor, you are old enough to die one!”

Vicente’s ragged shoulders squared still straighter. “When I _ask_ you for money, señor _generál_!” he replied proudly. “We are of Spain, and for _that_ I do it. He that made as priest went not to the convento, but into the house 74, Street of the Viceroy.”

“_Hola!_ _Señor teniente_, take twenty men in the instant and round-up that house, bringing hither all that are in it; and that everything be searched. And send the teniente Ochoa with another file to bring hither prisoner the Comandante Ponce de Leon. _Corriendo!_”

For twenty minutes “the sleepless general” walked the room—sometimes apparently unconscious of the children, and suddenly flinging at them some question, sharp and searching as a javelin. Then there were reluctant feet upon the stairs.

“It has to report, your Excellency,” said Lieutenant Ochoa, “that the Señor Comandante Ponce de Leon is not to be found. Since the first dusk no one has seen him.”

Rodil struck his forehead; but before he seemed able to command his voice, there was another commotion outside, and a group of officers bustled into the room.

“What is this, _mi generál_?” cried one of them angrily. “Here we are dragged from the house like criminals! What means this rat-catcher of a lieutenant?”

“Little by little, gentlemen mine!” answered Rodil in a suspiciously quiet tone. “You will excuse the molestation for my sake, since I ordered it. And now, I beg you, have the goodness to tell me of a fraile who entered your house half an hour ago.”

“_Fraile_, señor _generál_? No priest has entered the house,” answered the first speaker, sharply. He was a tall, handsome officer, upon whom even the shabbiness of a uniform that had seen twenty-one months’ fighting sat becomingly. “I think your Excellency might have asked the question with less violence to us.”

“Ill it fits me to show discourtesy to such loyal gentlemen,” Rodil replied, with an added dryness. “And I am glad to learn that no priest has been among you—for I fancied, my Señor Captain Baca, that he might be converting you to the brotherhood. You would half pass for a fraile yourself, now that I see”—and in spite of himself the general’s voice rose ever so little—“the moustache which was the pride of the company is shorn off since midday.”

“_Pues_—your Excellency,” stammered the tall captain. “For the heat—and—and—since time hangs heavily on our hands, I shaved for a joke.”

“Well edged is thy humor, captain mine!” The ironic respect had given place to the contemptuous _tu_. “_Ójala_ we had earlier guessed thy wit, to ease the weariness of the siege. Tell me, boy—_is this thy fraile?_” The question came like a bullet.

“I know not, Excellency,” said Vicente, hesitatingly. “Of that size he was, but his face I saw not well.”

“But it is his voice!” cried Lina impetuously. “And had he the hood, I would know if it is his face—for the _capucho_ covered him well.”

“Little animals!” growled the captain, starting as if to spring at them. But then, commanding himself, he said sullenly: “Until what will your Excellency carry this farce? Am I to be _burlado_ by lying brats of the street? With these gentlemen I have passed the time since I came off duty.”

“It is true, señor _generál_,” declared the others, who had nervously watched their spokesman, the ranking officer among them. “We have all been together since——”

“_Alto!_” interrupted Rodil sternly. “You must bring me better witnesses than your tongues. For by my faith, I would see this joke of the moustache played through. _Sargento_, search this captain of the wits.”

“For pity, _mi generál_! Shame me not thus!” And the officer fell on his knees.

For answer, Rodil only stretched his lean finger grimly. The sergeant, awkward at disrespectful approach to his superior, laid his hand upon the arm of the risen captain, and in another moment lay sprawling upon the floor. Baca was a young and muscular man; and almost in the same motion with the blow he sprang at the window.

The dumbfounded privates had no time to reach him; but Vicente, in a flash of rage, flung himself at his legs, and the tall officer crashed upon the floor. Before he could rise a dozen soldiers were upon him, and Rodil, his slender sword quivering at half-arm, faced the four other officers.

“There is nothing in his pockets, Excellency,” announced the sergeant.

“_Claro!_ For he who changes his face so soon can as well change his clothing. In his shoes, then.”

There was a renewed scuffle; but in a moment a cry of exultation—and the sergeant dragged a thin, soiled paper from Baca’s stocking.

“Still given to jests, _capitan mio_—that you walk on the mines which are to blow the rebels up at the next assault. It is a clever diagram, and Salom would have paid thee well for it, I warrant. _Hola!_”

For the door let in four soldiers and their petty officer; and over the arm of the latter hung the long gray-brown habit of a Franciscan friar.

“It was between the mattresses of the señor _capitan_ Baca,” announced the sergeant. “And as for these little ones, I am their witness—for to my patrol passed first a tall fraile, and soon came running this womanling after him for her brother, who was very sick.”

“And the boy is he to whom I carried a cup of broth—and I found him well fevered,” spoke up one of the soldiers, scared at his own thick voice before the grim general.

“It is enough,” interrupted Rodil. “I give thanks to God that there are patriots yet—and eyes in them, too. These children stay with me. For the Señor Captain Baca, and for these gentlemen who ‘were with him all the time,’” he continued with grim terseness, “sunrise against the wall of San Felipe. Until then, your heads answer for theirs!”

* * * * *

That is all there is to tell of the habit of the fraile—except that it served for a shroud to the traitor who had masqueraded in it.

But already was the beginning of the end. The desertion of the Comandante Ponce de Leon, who had dropped over the wall and fled to the enemy, gave to the insurgents plans and information of fatal importance. Then Riera, the other comandante, turned traitor too, and delivered to the foe the castle of San Rafael.

Resistance was no longer possible, even to “the Spartan of Peru.” On the 11th of January he entered into correspondence which ended with the honorable and advantageous capitulation of Callao, January 23, 1826. Of the original 2,800 soldiers only three hundred and seventy-six remained, and a scant seven hundred citizens of all the former thousands. There was little left save glory—but of that so proud a share as was earned by no other man of either side in the war of the colonial rebellion. For that matter, history has few pages like the resistance of Spain’s last fort in America.

When Rodil, in full uniform, boarded the English frigate “Briton” to sail away to the long years and high honors that awaited him in Spain, he carried with the banners of his favorite regiments a boy and girl who seemed less embarrassed by their fine new dress than by the attention which everywhere greeted “the little orphans of Callao.”

The Great Magician.

The Great Magician.

Really know one? Well, I should say so—better than I know any one else alive. No, it was not Herrmann, nor Signor Blitz before him; though each in turn seemed to my young eyes the most marvelous conjurer possible, and the latter remained for years a haunting wonder. But I was already getting acquainted with a magician to whom both of these put together were a fool. For that matter, we had always been neighbors; but for years I never really knew him well, nor was even aware that he was in the conjuring business at all. Had we boys realized that we were growing up next door to the greatest living prestidigitator, he doubtless would have got a little more attention from us; but he was very quiet, and not at all given to “showing off;” and, to tell the truth, we left him pretty much to himself. Even in our games he was hardly ever asked to take part; though I can see now where he could have given us a good many points on three-old-cat and follow-my-leader, or any of our other sports. It makes one feel cheap to find that one has been living so long next door to such a genius without ever getting on intimate terms with him, or fairly discovering who he is. It was not his fault, either, for there was never anything stuck up about him, despite his wonderful gifts. With some people, it is true, he never was known to associate; but that was merely because he did not push himself. To any one who gave him to understand that his company was agreeable he was always cordial. That I call downright obliging in one who has got so high up in the world—for he is known and respected everywhere, and has been invited to appear before kings and queens when even their prime ministers were shut out. You see, he has been a great traveler. Perhaps there is not a place in the whole world that he does not know. But, then, it’s easy to travel when one has plenty of means and leisure, and a free pass everywhere. Possibly he would not get around quite so much if he had to pay fare.

Though it took us so long to get acquainted, we rather “cottoned to” one another after the ice was broken, and for the last twenty years have been great chums. In that time we have knocked about the world a good bit together. _Really_, I mean, not like our first travel. In the younger days he used to drop in on me every now and then with a serious air, and remark:

“Say, want to go to Shanghai this evening? Well, shut your eyes. Presto! change! here we are! Now, come around, and we’ll see the sights.”

And there we were in Shanghai, using our eyes and holding our noses. But all that, you understand, was one of his sleight-of-hand tricks. It was very pleasant and inexpensive travel, and I learned a good deal from it; but the grind of it was that I could not bring back any of the wonderful things we saw in the bazars. I’d just about as soon not travel as to be unable to collect trophies from the country I am visiting. It was really not his fault, of course. He is the most accommodating fellow in the world; but even jugglery has its limits; and after a friend has given you a trip to any part of the world you choose, and brought you back safe and sound, and paid all your expenses out of his own pocket, no well bred guest could have the face to ask him to bring also a cargo of all sorts of truck. When I used to groan at coming away empty-handed, he would say frankly: “Sorry my boy, but it really can’t be helped. I’m glad to take you anywhere, and make it as pleasant for you as I can; but my pass is for passengers only, and the baggage business is strictly prohibited. It is too bulky; and then think what trouble I should get into with the customs officers if we went to bringing in such cargoes outside the regular channels.”

In later years we have pretty thoroughly made up for that aggravation; for nowadays I am the host, and wouldn’t think of starting on a journey without inviting him to come along; and we bring back all sorts of interesting plunder from everywhere, until the house we occupy together looks more like a museum than anything else. He himself admits that it’s a good deal ahead of the old way; but even the delight of collecting—and no boy or man half knows what life is until he “collects” something, and earnestly—even that pleasure would not compensate me for the loss of his company. He is the very best traveling companion I ever found; so ready to do whatever you wish, so full of information, so helpful in emergencies of any sort. Some people who have traveled with him have tried to tell me that he cowardly deserted them in time of danger; but there must be two sides to this story, for I have seen him in a great many tight pinches, and he was clear-headed and quick as a wink to do the right thing. To tell the truth, he has saved my life a score of times, all by his dexterity; so you may be sure that when people talk of his running away and leaving them in the lurch, I resent the imputation, and conclude they were the ones really to blame. In knocking about the frontiers I have found a good many men, of several different colors, who make you feel, “Well, if it came to a fight for life, with my back against a rock, _that_ would be a good fellow to have beside me.” But among all those brave men—all of whom I admire, and some of whom I love—I would rather have him by me, in a pinch, than any other one.

You must not think from this that my friend is a desperado, or a professional fighter, or anything of the sort. On the contrary, his disposition is as peaceful as his habits are quiet, and he hates any sort of a row. It is only in the crises which any man may meet, and every man must sometimes meet who travels outside the beaten tracks, when it is necessary and manful to fight, that he suddenly turns combative and pitches in. Ordinarily, he is a plain, practical business man, who, for his own part, might have retired long ago, but remains in the firm for the sake of the junior partners. He works harder than any of them—and then, when business hours are over, diverts himself and his friends by little exhibitions of his matchless skill as a conjurer. At such times he likes to forget work and worry altogether, and to be jolly and free of care and full of pranks as a boy. I have seen people so inconsiderate as to insist on boring him by “talking shop” out of office hours, but he always resents it. He is rather nervous and very impressionable, apt to fall into the mood of those who are with him; and he sometimes gets so tired and confused as to show very little of his usual wisdom. Indeed, I have seen him, when very weary, make a flat failure of some trick at magic, which ordinarily he could do with astounding cleverness.

Undoubtedly his greatest claim to public respect is in the quiet, every-day wisdom of his practical career; but his gifts as a magician are so brilliant and so fascinating that one naturally thinks of them first. And, in spite of his long business training, there isn’t a mercenary streak in him. Some of his most wonderful performances are given gratis, and he even seems to prefer an audience of one to what the managers would call “a paying house.”

Eh? You would like to know what he can _do_ that is so much bigger than the tricks of the wizards that get their $200 a night? Well, if I were to tell you all I’ve _seen_ him do, we wouldn’t be done this side of 1900; but here are some few things, and if you do not admit that Herrmann and all the rest are mere greenhorns to him, I’ll agree never to go near another of his performances.

I never knew him to fry eggs in a stove-pipe hat, nor to pick twenty-dollar gold pieces out of people’s eyes, nor to chop off a man’s head and then stick it on again, nor any of those threadbare sensations, though he sometimes practices simple illusions like making things appear where they are not, or causing them to seem not to be where you really know they are. But those are trifles, just to keep his hand in; his claim as champion conjurer of the world rests on very different accomplishments. For instance, one of his favorite tricks is to take a careless fly-away boy and turn him into a strong, wise man—turn him “for keeps,” too. I’ve seen him do that a hundred times, and you will agree that that is a very useful trick, as well as a very difficult one. When one sees how smoothly he does it, one is doubly sorry that he doesn’t get _all_ the boys up on the stage and experiment on them; but, of course, a complete change of personality is a serious thing, and he would not be justified in taking any such liberties without the full consent of the subject.

An almost equally remarkable trick, and one he is equally fond of, is to take a thoroughly homely girl and put a brand-new face on her. Not exactly a beautiful face, for he says that is none of his business, but a face that every one likes to look at. Yet I know girls so foolish as to decline treatment by this great specialist, and to think cosmetics better.

My friend’s hobby for experimenting upon young people, and his innate fondness for them, as shown by his patience with their frequently slighting treatment of him, made me remark one evening: “How is it you are so good-natured with these rattleheads? Nobody else would have the patience. Even when a fellow has snubbed you in the most discourteous way you seem to bear no grudge, but to be always ready to do him a good turn if there is a chance.”

“Well,” said my friend, slowly, dropping a new sleight-of-hand he was practicing, “you see, I was once young and a fool myself, and had to grow and develop; and the process was so tedious that I’m not apt to forget. And, somehow, I feel as if I should always keep young in spite of the years. There is always something to interest me, and that keeps me from growing old.”

“By the way,” I put in, “when did you begin conjuring? Such marvelous proficiency as yours can have been attained only by lifelong practice. Did you take it up deliberately, or drift into it by chance?”

My friend gazed soberly for a moment at the crackling cedar sticks in my adobe fireplace—he had come out to visit me in New Mexico—before replying.

“Do you know, this reminds me very strongly of my own early life. These Indians who are your neighbors, this simple way of life, recall old times. You might not believe it, but my own folks were nomad savages, and my infancy was passed among scenes compared to which your surroundings here are highly civilized. Yes, I don’t wonder you are astonished; in sober earnest, you cannot imagine how brutal and squalid were the surroundings. Nothing to wear, very little to eat, and that little always raw; in fact, not one of the conveniences which even an Indian now deems necessary to his existence. Why, we hadn’t even a way to warm ourselves; and as for houses or clothing, they were quite unknown. Education? Not a bit more than the monkeys have. I was nearly a grown man before I learned to read and write.”

“Why, you have risen even further than from rail splitter to president!”

“Ah, Lincoln got as high as man can get. We were very dear friends, and I believe I helped him materially in the great crises through which he was called upon to lead the nation. At any rate, he always consulted me before taking any important step.”

Now in any one else, this would have seemed the end of impudence and mendacity, if not half blasphemy. But when my friend the magician said it, I knew it must be true. He went on in his quiet way: