By law of entail the elder brother received the land and fortunes of that once powerful family. A lieutenantship in the army was the portion of the young Jesus Maria y José, a slender consolation, it might seem, but the bold-spirited youth accepted it with gracious willingness.
His eighteenth year found him embarking on a transport bound for the dangerous service of the Philippines, with a soldiery gathered from the Spanish prisons. To quell and govern such men was a pleasing experience to the Castilian boy; not that the task was an easy one, or that he would have it so.
In the becalmed waters of the tropics the sterling metal of the youthful officer first showed itself. Here the mutinous intent of the men, long smoldering under restraint of discipline, resolved into action.
Early one morning the alarm bell rang loud of danger. The officers hurried on deck to find nearly every soldier under arms and calling aloud for vengeance on the oppressors, as they called their superiors. The leader was a huge, bull-necked cutthroat who once had been a bandit in the Pyrenees.
"Each mincing ladies' man among you shall walk the plank, before the guns of my brave fellows here, and we'll cheer you pretty, scented gentlemen as you battle in the water with the sharks," shouted the jeering leader.
Shouts of applause came from the men, mingled with jibes and curses.
Mendoza asked of his captain that he be allowed to speak with the chief mutineer. He stated briefly his purpose. Permission was given, for the situation was desperate.
The officers, but a score, faced full five hundred men, all armed. Even the artillery of the regiment, shotted to the mouth, was gaping angrily at them from the ranks of the ruffians across deck.
The lieutenant walked to the front bearing his naked rapier in his hand, while the mutinous soldiers, half drunken with liquor looted from the stores of the ship, howled at him.
"Mamma's pet comes straight from the bath to drive about as cattle men that are men. Back to your crib, you reptile infant, or I'll grind you under my heel," threatened the leader.