An American leaned in the cavernous doorway. The tarnished insignia on his collar indicated an officer of Confederate cavalry. He was smoking a cob pipe, of which he seemed quite fond. And as a return for such affection, the venerable Missouri meerschaum lent to its young master an air that was comfortably domestic and peaceable. The trooper wore a woolen shirt. His boots were rough and heavy. Hard wear and weather had softened his gray hat into a disreputable slouch affair. A broad black-leather belt sagged about his middle from the weight of cartridges. Under his ribs on either side protruded the butt of a navy-six, thrust in between shirt and trousers. He watched with dozing interest the muleteers inside as they roped up straw, tightened straps, and otherwise got ready for departure. Then Anastasio Murguía appeared coming up the street, just from his lately recorded interview with Fra Diavolo. The weazened little old Mexican was in a fretful humor, and his glance at the lounging Southerner was anything but cordial. He would have passed on into the mesón, but the other stopped him.
“Well, Murgie, are we projecting to start to-night?” the trooper inquired in English. “Eh?–What say?”
What Don Anastasio had said was nothing at all, but being thus urged, he mumbled a negative.
“Not starting to-night?” his questioner repeated. “Now, why don’t we?–What?–Lordsake, man, dive! Bring up that voice there for once!”
Murguía sank to the chin in his black coat. Glancing apprehensively at the cavalryman’s long arm, he edged away to the farther side of the doorway. Experience had accustomed the ancient trader to despots, but in this cheery youngster of a Gringo the regal title was not clear, which simply made 29tyranny the more irksome. The Gringo was the veriest usurper. He did not justify his sway by the least ferocity. He never uttered a threat. Where, then, was his right to the sceptre he wielded so nonchalantly? Were there only some tangible jeopardy to his pelt, Murguía would have been more resigned. But his latest autocrat was only matter-of-fact, blithely and aggravatingly matter-of-fact.
By every rule governing man’s attitude toward man, the Señor Don should have been the bully, and the youngster the cringing sycophant. For since their very odd meeting two weeks before, the tyrant had been in the power of the tyrannized. It began on Murguía’s own boat, where Murguía was absolute. Any time after leaving Mobile he had merely to follow his inclinations and order the fellow thrown overboard. Yet it was the soldier boy who had assumed the ascendancy, and it could not have been more natural were the boat’s owner a scullion and the intruder an admiral.
“And why don’t we start to-night?” the complacent usurper demanded in that plaintive drawl which so irritated the other. “You went for your passports, didn’t you get ’em?”
“Si–si, señor.”
“Good! Then to-night it is, eh?–Can’t you speak out, my gracious!”
“You might go to-night,” the trader suggested timidly.