“One of you out there,” he shouted in French, “quick, go to the fort. Bring the soldiers!”
The Mexicans did not understand, and before they could prevent, a sailor had taken to his heels.
Then Fra Diavolo comprehended. “You idiots!” he bellowed. “You–Pedro! Catch him! Faster!–Catch him, I say!”
A little demon darted away in pursuit of the sailor. Obviously, the situation hung on the swifter in the race.
27CHAPTER IV
La Luz, Blockade Runner
“For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”
–Romeo and Juliet.
“Mesón” is Spanish for hostelry. In the ancient caravansaries, like the one at Bethlehem sacred to the Christ child, the same accommodations were meted out to man and beast alike. More recently there are “hotels,” which distinguish a man from his beast, usually; though sometimes undeservedly. And so the word “mesòn” got left behind along with its primitive meaning. But in Mexico word and meaning still go together to this day, and both described pretty well the four walls in Tampico where Anastasio Murguía tarried. Excepting the porter’s lodge at the entrance, the establishment’s only roof formed an open corridor against one of the walls, in which species of cloister the human guests were privileged to spread their blankets in case of rain or an icy norther. Otherwise they slept in the sky-vaulted court among the four-footed transients, for what men on the torrid Gulf coast would allow his beast more fresh air than himself?
Don Anastasio’s caravan filled the mesón with an unflurried, hay-chewing promise of bustle-to-be at some future date. Except for the camels and costume lacking, the Mexican trader might have been a sheik in an oasis khan. His bales littered the patio’s stone pavement. They were of cotton mostly, which he had bought in the Confederate States, in exchange for necessities of warfare and life. Complacent burros and 28horses were juggling into their mouths some final grains from the sacks over their noses. Peon servants stolidly busied themselves around charcoal braziers.