Old Mission Stories of California

by Charles Franklin Carter

“No,”, he said. “Wait until the excitement of last night dies away; then we shall stand a better chance of winning. But now the mission will be on guard, and we should be defeated.”

This cogent reasoning prevailed, but the hotheaded youths grumbled much and long at the delay.

Pomponio, himself, chafed at their enforced inaction, necessary though he knew it to be. Then another thing that troubled him was the thought of his wife. Would they think she knew of his attempt that night, and punish her? He had told her nothing, but whether she could make the Father believe it, was another matter. Much he wished he could have some communication with her, and tell her where he was, and beg her to join him. But it was too dangerous. Without a doubt she was watched closely, if she were not actually imprisoned. So he gave up all thought of it.

The days dragged slowly along for Pomponio and his companions. Several times during the following two weeks he heard reports of the doings of the mission from different ones of the Indians who went thitherto reconnoitre. From these he learned that the soldiers were still kept there, and while they remained on guard, nothing could be done. Once Pomponio stole up to the more distant houses of the mission in the gathering dusk of approaching night. He heard the chant of the fathers and their servants at their evening devotions. All was calm and quiet, and he was just about to risk the attempt to go to his old home, in the hope of seeing Rosa, when a soldier came into view from behind the church. Pomponio crouched down behind a shrub near which he was standing, and waited until the man disappeared again from sight in his round of the buildings. Then noiselessly he crawled away to his companions in the forest.

It was about two weeks after Pomponio’s flight. He had been holding a council of war with his followers, and had told them that, at last, the time was come to strike for liberty. The soldiers at the mission had not been seen for some days, and it was thought they had returned to the presidio. What a shout of exultation went up from the Indians! Now the time was at hand, the time they had looked forward to for so long, when, at one single blow, they hoped to free themselves from their hated oppressors. Vain hope! Had they forgotten already what was the fate of a similar uprising in the southern missions only a few months before? But each one learns from his own experience. The Indian is sanguine, and hopes to succeed where others have failed, or carries out his purposes, desperately and without hope, to end in certain failure. This is not an Indian trait exclusively; it is a question of the weak overpowered by the strong, and has shown itself in all parts of the earth and in every race of mankind. See how well treated were the Indians of Nueva California by their conquerors, mild, humane and devoted to their interests, having given up home and friends to isolate themselves in a wild new country, solely to bestow on these gentiles the blessings of civilization and, above all, the gift of Christ’s religion. We may wonder why they were not willing and glad to follow the fathers’, almost without exception, gentle guidance. But the one thing necessary to make it a complete success was wanting—freedom. That was the keystone on which all depended: lacking that, the whole mission system was, by just so much, a failure.

Pomponio was returning to his hut late that day after telling his followers to hold themselves in readiness for marching on to the mission on the nightfall of the morrow. He had nearly reached his habitation, and was walking slowly and with downcast head, buried deep in thought over the approaching conflict which he had wished for so long. Pomponio saw clearly that the task before him and his band was a difficult one. He was not blind to the fact that, even should they succeed at this mission, there would be left in the land twenty others, each one of which would give aid in quelling a revolt at San Francisco, and punishing the insurgents. But Pomponio was in a desperate mood. He preferred failure and death to his life at the mission, and he knew his present life as a fugitive could not last; he would certainly be captured sooner or later.

He walked slowly on. Had not he been so absorbed in thought of the crisis of his life, on the brink of which he stood, the indications of something unusual and foreboding would have arrested his attention. A rustling among the leaves and brush of the undergrowth told of the presence of some animated thing, human or brute. Once a gleam, as of some highly burnished metal flashing in the sun, was to be detected—that surely was no animal! But Pomponio walked on oblivious to these signs which, at any other time, he would have been the first to notice. He was within a few yards of the hut, and on the edge of the clearing, when he heard a crackling among the branches underfoot, and a rushing toward him. One glance was enough. Three soldiers, armed with muskets, were upon him, one on each side, the third in front. They were close to him before he was aware of their presence, and escape was impossible, for he was seized and his arms bound behind him almost as soon as he knew he was captured.

“Aha! we have you at last,” cried the leader. “You thought we could not find you out here, hiding in the forest. And I must say it has been hard enough and taken long enough. But we have you safe now, you rascal.”

Pomponio said not a word. From the first, so soon as he saw he was helpless, he submitted quietly, and suffered the soldiers to bind his arms with the leather thong they had brought with them. Had his Indian followers been within sound of his voice, he would have shouted to them to come, not to rescue him—that could not have been done, for the soldiers, at the instant of his call and the answering cries of the Indians, would have shot him dead—but to kill the soldiers. The Indians were too far distant for this. How the soldiers had escaped the savages was a mystery. They must have been at his hut soon after his leaving it that morning, and kept watch for the return of its inmate, thinking it might be Pomponio himself, or some one who would lead to the discovery of his whereabouts. Only in this way could they have missed the Indians roaming in the forest that day, as they made their preparations for the eventful morrow.

“Now, my man, off to the presidio,” said the leader, after they had finished binding Pomponio’s arms securely. “We have no time to lose; the sun is low in the west, and will be set long before we get there. So step lively all.”