Heart of the World

by H. Rider Haggard

Of these there were several on board, perhaps twenty in all, Mexican landowners and officials returning to their haciendas and native towns after a visit to Vera Cruz, or the capital, some of them pleasant companions enough and others not so. Three or four of these gentlemen were accompanied by their wives, but the ladies had already retired to the bunks opening out of the cabin, where, although the sea was quite smooth, they could be heard suffering the pains of sickness.

Among the passengers was one, a man of not more than thirty years of age, who particularly attracted our attention because of the gorgeousness of his dress. In appearance he was large, handsome, and coarse, and he had Indian blood in his veins, as was shown by the darkness of his colour and the thick black eyebrows that gave a truculent expression to his face. While I was wondering who he might be, Molas made a sign to me to come aside, and said:

“You see yonder man with the silver buttons on his coat: he is Don José Moreno, the son of that Don Pedro Moreno who waylaid and robbed me of the nuggets which the old Indian gave me for the cost of my journey to find you. I heard at the time that he was away from the hacienda in Vera Cruz or Mexico, and now doubtless he returns thither. Beware of him, lord, and bid the Englishman to do the same, for, like his father, he is a bad man—” and he told me certain things connected with him and his family.

While Molas was talking, a bell had been rung for dinner, but I waited till he had finished before going down. At the door of the cabin I met the captain, a stout man with a face like a full moon and a bland smile.

“What do you seek, señor?” he asked.

“My dinner, señor,” I answered.

“It shall be sent to you on the deck,” he said, not without confusion. “I do not wish to be rude, señor, but you know that these Mexicans—I am a Spaniard myself and do not care—hate to sit at meat with an Indian, so, if you insist upon coming in, there will be trouble.”

Now I heard, and though the insult was deep, it was one to which I was accustomed, for in this land, which belongs to them and where their fathers ruled, to be an Indian is to be an outcast.

Therefore, not wishing to make a stir, I bowed and turned away. Meanwhile, it seems that the Señor Strickland, missing me in the cabin, asked the captain where I was, saying that perhaps I did not know that the meal was ready.

“If you refer to your servant, the Indian,” said the captain, “I met him at the door and sent him away. Surely the señor knows that we do not sit at table with these people.”