Chapter Twenty Three.
The Procession.
Disagreeable as was their job, some of the forzados made light of it, bandying jests with the street passengers, who did not find it safe to go too near them. A scoopful of the inky liquid could be flung so as to spoil the polish on boots, or sent its splashes over apparel still higher. Even the vigilance of the sentries could not prevent this, or rather they cared not to exercise it. The victims of such practical jokes were usually either of the class felado, or the yet more humble aboriginals, accustomed to be put upon by the soldiers themselves, who rather relished the fun.
But only the more abandoned of the gaol-birds behaved in this way, many of them seeming to feel the degradation more than aught else. For among them, as we know, were men who should not have been there. Some may have seen friends passing by, who gave them looks of sympathy or pity, and possibly more than one knew himself under eyes whose expression told of a feeling stronger than either of these—love itself. Indeed this last, or something akin to it, seemed the rule rather than the exception. In Mexico, he must be a deeply disgraced criminal whose sweetheart would be ashamed of him; and every now and then, a brown-skinned “muchacha” might be seen crossing to where the scavengers were at work, and, with a muttered word or two, passing something into a hand eagerly outstretched to receive it. The sentries permitted this, after examining the commodity so tendered, and seeing it a safe thing to be entrusted to the receiver. These gifts of friendship, or gages d’amour, were usually eatables from the nearest cook-shop; their donors well knowing that the fare of the Acordada was neither plentiful nor sumptuous.
But beyond these interested ones, few of the pedestrians stopped or even looked at the chain-gang. To most, if not all, it was an ordinary spectacle, and attracted no more attention than would a crossing-sweeper on a London street. Not as much as the latter, as he is often an Oriental. On that particular day, however, the party of scavengers presented a novelty, in having the two Tejanos in it; with a yet greater one in the odd juxtaposition of Cris Rock and his diminutive “mate.” In Mexico, a man over six feet in height is a rarity, and as Cris exceeded this by six inches, a rarer sight still was he. The colossus coupled to the dwarf, as Gulliver to Lilliputian—a crooked Lilliputian at that—no wonder that a knot of curious gazers collected around them, many as they approached the grotesque spectacle uttering ejaculations of surprise.
“Ay Dios!” exclaimed one. “Gigante y enano!” (a giant and a dwarf)—“and chained together! Who ever saw the like?”
Such remarks were continually passing among the spectators, who laughed as they listened to them. And though the Texan could not tell what they said, their laughter “riled” him. He supposed it a slur upon his extraordinary stature, of which he was himself no little proud, while they seemed to regard it sarcastically. Could they have had translated to them the rejoinders that now and then came from his lips, like the rumbling of thunder, they would have felt their sarcasm fully paid back, with some change over. As a specimen:—
“Devil darn ye, for a set of yaller-jawed pigmies! Ef I hed about a millyun o’ ye out in the open purairu, I’d gie you somethin’ to larf at. Dod-rot me! ef I don’t b’lieve a pack o’ coycoats ked chase as many o’ ye as they’d count themselves; and arter runnin’ ye down ’ud scorn to put tooth into yur stinkin’ carcasses!”
Fortunately for him, the “yaller-jawed pigmies” understood not a word of all this; else, notwithstanding his superior size and strength, he might have had rough handling from them. Without that, he was badly plagued by their behaviour, as a bull fretted with flies; which may have had something to do with his readiness to go down into the drain. There, up to his elbows, he was less conspicuous, and so less an object of curiosity.
It had got to be noon, with the sun at fire heat; but for all the forzados were kept on at work. No rest for them until the task should be completed, and they taken back to their prison quarters at a late hour of the afternoon. The cruel gaoler told them so in a jeering way. He seemed to take a pleasure in making things disagreeable to them, as he strutted to and fro along their line, flourishing his quirt, and giving grand exhibition of his “brief authority.”
A little after midday, however, there came a change in their favour, brought by unlooked-for circumstances. Groups of people began to gather in the Callé de Plateros, swarming into it from side streets, and taking stand upon the foot-walk. Soon they lined it all along as far as the eye could reach. Not pelados, but most of them belonging to a class respectable, attired in their holiday clothes, as on a dia de fiesta. Something of this it was, as the scavengers were presently told, though some of them may have had word of it before without feeling any concern about it. Two, however, whom it did concern—though little dreamt they of its doing so—were only made aware of what the crowd was collecting for, when it began to thicken. These were Kearney and Rivas, who, knowing the language of the country, could make out from what was being said around them that there was to be a funcion. The foundation-stone of a new church was to be laid in the suburb of San Cosmé the chief magistrate of the State himself to lay it—with all ceremony and a silver trowel. The procession, formed in the Plaza Grande, would, of course, pass through the Callé de Plateros; hence the throng of the people in that street.
Funcions and fiestas are of such frequent occurrence in the Mexican metropolis—as indeed everywhere else in that land of the far niente—that this, an ordinary one and not much announced, excited no particular interest, save in the suburb of San Cosmé itself—a quarter where a church might be much needed, being a very den of disreputables. Still, a large number of people had put on their best apparel, and sallied forth to witness the procession.
This did not delay long in showing itself. It came heralded by the stirring notes of a trumpet, then the booming of the big drum in a band of music—military. A troop of cavalry—Lancers—formed the advance, to clear the way for what was to follow; this being a couple of carriages, in which were seated the Bishop of Mexico and his ecclesiastical staff, all in grand, gaudy raiments; on such an occasion the Church having precedence, and the post of honour.
Behind came the gilded coach of the Dictator—flanked on each side by guards in gorgeous uniform—himself in it. Not alone, but with one seated by his side, whose presence there caused Florence Kearney surprise, great as he ever experienced in his life. Despite the coat of diplomatic cut and its glittering insignia, he easily recognised his ci-devant teacher of the Spanish tongue—Don Ignacio Valverde.
But great as was his astonishment, he was left no time to indulge in it, or speculate how his old “crammer” came to be there. For close behind the Dictator’s carriage followed another, holding one who had yet more interest for him than Don Ignacio—Don Ignacio’s daughter!