At length, when the two magistrates had finished speaking, the count bowed gracefully, and replied to them with a few of those words which come straight from the heart. They produced a perfect frenzy. The crowd yelled with joy, waving their hats and handkerchiefs; while from every window a perfect shower of flowers escaped from the dainty hands of the señoritas, and literally inundated the adventurers, who cordially responded to this delicate attention.
The company then entered the barrack; it was a large house, with an enormous inner court, admirably adapted for the use to which it was put at this moment. Within an hour, the adventurers, with that eminent knack peculiar to Frenchmen, were comfortably installed, and appeared to have occupied their quarters for the last six months.
The count fancied he had got rid of the alcalde and juez de letras: but it was not so; they had still several requests to make of him before they left him at liberty, and would not neglect them.
As in all other centres of population in Mexico, at Guaymas everyone lives pretty much as he pleases, without troubling himself greatly about the authorities. This liberty, or rather license, may be advantageous to one portion of the population, but is evidently extremely prejudicial to the other; in this sense, that the rascals, having entire liberty to commit all the wicked actions Satan constantly breathes in their ear, the honest people are obliged to defend themselves, and not count in any way upon the protection of a problematical police, which, if it happen to exist, naturally makes common cause with the brigands.
The magistrates had judged in their wisdom to profit by the stay of the Frenchmen at Guaymas, in order to disperse the scoundrels of every description, with whom the city abounds, with a salutary terror. Consequently, they begged the count to guard the principal posts of the pueblo with men belonging to his company, and to organise patrols to traverse the streets by night, and watch over the tranquillity of the citizens and public security.
When, after much circumlocution, the magistrates at length ventilated their request, the count answered them with a smile, that he was entirely at the service of the Mexican government, and if they considered his assistance useful, they might dispose of him and his men as they thought proper. The magistrates thanked him heartily, and, incited by the facility with which the count granted their first request, they ventured to bring forward the second, which, in their idea being of much more delicate nature, they feared would be refused. It was as follows:—
Corpus Christi is the most important religious ceremony of Mexico. This festival, to augment the splendour of which the people undergo the heaviest sacrifices, fell this year just a few days after the arrival of the French in Sonora. They wished the count to promise to have his little mountain guns fired during the whole period the procession went about the streets.
Guaymas had many guns in the forts; but unfortunately they were dismounted, and completely honeycombed with rust.
It may be easily understood, that in the mind of the superstitious Sonorians, on so solemn a festival as this, the bells were not sufficient, and that the ceremony would entirely lose its solemn character, unless a few gunshots were fired.
The worthy magistrates little expected that they were causing the count a lively pleasure, by asking of him two things as a favour, which, had he dared, he would have claimed as a right, for the following reasons.