Coming from amidst his plundering followers, the celebrated Mina advanced towards Ronald Stuart. His dress was in no way different from that of his followers, save that a pair of gay French epaulets adorned his sheep-skin jacket, and a black ostrich feather floated from the band of his sombrero over his left shoulder. Pasted upon his shoulder-belt was a picture of the Virgin Mary, and a golden image of the same personage hung round his neck. He was accoutred with sword and dagger, and carried a short carbine in his hand, the ammunition for which was in a cartouch-box on his left side, balanced on his right by a copper bugle for summoning his followers. He had a fine open countenance, of a very mild and prepossessing expression, quite different from what Stuart expected to find in the leader of many thousand guerillas.
The following description (taken from a journal of the period of which I write) will best illustrate his character to the reader. "Espoz y Mina was at this time between twenty and thirty years old, and his frame, both of body and mind, had received the stamp which the circumstances of his country required. When he lies down at night it is always with his pistols in his girdle; and on the few nights that he ever passes under a roof, the door is well secured. Two hours' sleep is sufficient for him. When his shirt is dirty, he goes to the nearest house, and changes it with the owner for a clean one. He makes his own powder in a cave among the mountains, and has his hospital in a mountain village, which the French have repeatedly attempted to surprise, but always unsuccessfully, for the hearts of the whole country are with Mina. He receives intelligence of every movement of the enemy, and on the first tidings of danger the villagers carry the sick and wounded upon litters on their shoulders into the fastnesses, where they remain in perfect security till the baffled enemy retires. The alcaldes of every village, when they are ordered by the French to make any requisition, must instantly inform Mina; if they fail in this duty, he goes himself in the night, seizes them in their beds, and shoots them."
Although not above five-and-twenty, the hard service he had seen, in this irregular mode of warfare, made him seem much older. Mina was the idol of the Spanish people, who styled him the king of Navarre, and extolled his deeds beyond those of the Cid, or the most famous knights of Spanish chivalry and romance. Mina was a true patriot, and the Hoffer of the Spaniards. Although his guerillas were well drilled, and consisted of ten or twelve battalions, which he ruled with a rod of iron, he never restrained them from plundering the French. On his approach, Ronald raised his bonnet in greeting the great guerilla chief, for though he was originally but a humble farmer of Pampeluna, yet Francisco Mina had the heart of a hero, and was brave as a lion.
"Senor Capitan," said he, bowing profoundly, after the most approved Spanish manner, "we have been somewhat late in coming to your rescue; but the fire of your soldiers has told superbly, and the base ladrones lie here pretty thick. The old proverb should be changed to—"the more French, the more gain for us."[*] However, I never put my own hands to a man after he is dead: the plunder I leave to my followers,—'tis all their pay, poor fellows! and Our Lady del Pilar knows that they earn it hard."
[*] A very old Spanish proverb, still universally current in Spain, says, "The more Moors, the more gain."
"A mode of payment I very little admire," said Stuart with a smile. "But I trust, Senor Francisco, that your people will see them buried after this unharnessing is over?"
"Satanas seize us if we bury a hair of their heads!" exclaimed the guerilla vehemently. "Pho! Senor Cavalier, you forget yourself. They are only Frenchmen; and what say the priests every day,—'Love all mankind but Frenchmen, who are the spawn of hell!' They lie under the ban of his holiness the Pope, and with this excuse three hundred unfrocked friars serve in my band,—and brave fellows they are as ever grasped hilt! But as for the soldiers of the Corsican tyrant, they may feast the wolves of the mountains or the birds of the air, for aught that Mina cares about the matter."
He now unslung a huge leathern flask of aguardiente from his sash, and after giving Stuart and his subs each a draught, he handed the rest to Sergeant Macrone, to distribute among the light company. Macrone gave his best bow and carried off the flask, with many a wish that "Got might pless her honour's ainsel, and gie her lots o' ta sneeshin and ta gude Ferintosh!" To the good wishes of Macrone, Mina replied only by a stare, without comprehending a syllable. He next gave some cigars to each of the officers, saying, at the same time, it was no compliment to present them with what cost him nothing, one of his guerillas having found them in a Frenchman's havresack.
"But they are prime cigars, senores, and from the manufactory at Guadalaxara, in Mexico," said he, lighting one adroitly by means of flashing powder in the pan of one of his pistols. "Excellent!" continued he, puffing away with an air of satisfaction, which would have driven the royal author of the 'Counter-blaste' to his wit's-end. "Excellent indeed, par Diez! And I ought to be a judge, senores, having smoked some hundred thousands in my time, and though but a poor peasant who dug the earth and planted cabbages at Pampeluna, I am descended in a direct line from the noble cavalier Don Hernandez de Toledo, who in 1559 introduced the famous leaf into Europe, from the province of Tabaca in San Domingo."
"Truly, Senor Espoz y Mina, your worthy ancestor deserves the gratitude of his countrymen," said Chisholm, in a tone of raillery. "He contrived a very agreeable amusement for them. From day-dawn till sunset they do little else than draw smoke into their mouths, and watch it curling out again."