And Mexico was there in various forms to greet her, though in no form animated. Sluggish creatures under peaked sombreros of muddied straw seemed to be growing against the foreground of wharf and dingy warehouses, and fastened to the background of sallow blazing streets and sallow reflecting walls there were still the same human barnacles. But no creature seemed ever to move. They all looked a part of the decay, of putrefying vegetable and flesh and fish everywhere, which grew so rank in life that in death their rotting could never keep pace.
A lazy town stretched up a lazy street. On a hill farther up the river a fortress basked in peace, and had no desire to be disturbed. In the town the buildings were of warped timber, and a few of stone. Parasitic tumors, like loathsome black ulcers, swelled abundantly on the roofs. They were the buzzards, the only form of life held sacred. To clean up nature’s and man’s spendthrift killing was a blessed service in Tampico. It saved exertion.
A strange region, by all odds! But at least one could walk thereon, and Jacqueline thought it droll. An outlandish corner of the earth such as this was something never experienced before. But as to that, the outlandish corner might have said the same about Jacqueline. Men stared like dazed sheep on the astounding apparition of a lady. Some among them were entirely clothed, in sun-yellowed white. There was a merchant or so, a coffee exporter or so, a ranchero or so, and hacendados from the interior. But they were all hard, typical, and often darkly scowling, which seemed an habitual expression inspired by the thought of a foreign Hapsburg emperor so mighty and proud, far off in their capital. There was not an officer among them; nor, quite likely, a gentleman. Never a bit of red was to be seen from the garrison on the hill. The French 13invaders up there, with pardonable taste, kept to themselves. Their policing ended with the smothering of revolt. So against the stain of tainted mankind, the vision of delicate femininity contrasted as a fleck of spotless white on a besmeared palette. But crows, scavengers, men, they were all so many “creatures” to Jacqueline–the setting of a very novel scene, and she would not have had it otherwise.
She turned to her maid, who shrank hesitating in the boat. “Berthe, you pitiful little ninny, are you coming? Then do, and do not forget the satchel.” For a promenade of an hour the inhabitants of two imperial courts must needs have a satchel, filled of course with mysteries of the toilet. The maid obeyed, and followed her mistress up the lazy ascending street. They passed through the Alameda of dense cypresses, an inky blot as on glaring manila paper, while the shade overhead was profane with jackdaws. The lady tripped on, and into the street again. Ney and a sailor hurried to overtake her. The other sailors meantime went on their errand for fresh meat, but Michel had said to the steward in charge, “If there should be any need, I’ll send this man to you. Then you come, all of you, quick!”
Jacqueline pushed on her voyage of discovery, and her retinue trooped behind, single file, over the narrow, burning sidewalks of patched flagstone. The word “Café” on a corner building caught her eye. It was a native fonda, overflowing with straw-bottomed chairs and rusty iron tables half-way across the street, making carts and burros find their way round. Mexico’s outward signs at least were being done over into French. Hence the dignity of “Café.”
“Here is Paris,” the explorer announced. “And this is the Boulevard.” She seated herself before one of the iron tables that rocked on the egg-like cobblestones. She made Ney sit down also, and included Berthe and the sailor. An olive barefoot boy took their order for black coffee. Jacqueline’s 14elbows were on the table and her chin on two finger tips, and she disposed herself placidly, as though this were the Maison Dorée and Tout Paris sauntering by. The town was beginning to stretch after its siesta. That is to say, divers natives manifested symptoms of going to move in the course of time.
“Look!” exclaimed Jacqueline. “Only give yourself the trouble to look!”
She was pointing to a man, of course. The Chasseur stirred uneasily. One could never see to the end of Jacqueline’s slender finger. “There, Berthe,” she cried, “it’s Fra Diavolo, just strayed from the Opéra.”
The stranger she meant was talking darkly to another man in the door of the Café. If a Fra Diavolo, he was at least not disguised in his monk’s cowl, either because the April day was too hot or because he had never owned one. But he stood appareled in his banditti rôle, very picturesque and barbaric and malevolent. And though he posed heavily, he yet had that Satanic fascination which the beautiful of the masculine and the sinister of the devil cannot help having. His battered magnificence of a charro garb fitted well the diabolic character which Jacqueline assigned him. Spurs as bright as dollars jangled on high russet heels. His breeches closed to the flesh like a glove, so that his limbs were as sleek as some glossy forest animal’s. The cloth was of Robin-Hood green, foxed over in bright yellow leather. From hip to ankle undulated a seam of silver clasps. More silver, in braided scrolls, adorned his jacket, and wrapped twice around the waist was a red banda. Jacqueline would have preferred the ends dangling, like a Neapolitan’s. The ranchero, for such he appeared, wore two belts. One was a vibora, or serpent, for carrying money; the other held his weapons, a long hunting knife and a revolver, each in a scabbard of stamped leather embroidered with gold thread. His sombrero was high pointed and heavy, 15of chocolate-colored beaver encircled by a silver rope as thick as a garden hose.
“Now there’s realism in those properties,” Jacqueline noted with an artist’s critical eye. “See, there’s dry mud on his shoes, and his bright colors are faded by weather. That man sleeps among the rocks, I’ll wager, and he’s in the saddle almost constantly too. My faith, our Fra Diavolo is exquisite!”