“What do you wish the general to do?” I inquired, as the old gentleman became a little tranquillised, after a spasmodic outburst of grief.
“Señor,” he replied, “we have all heard of the humanity of the American ‘Gefe.’ Though he is our country’s enemy, we respect him for the compassion he has shown to a conquered people. Entreat him to take my unhappiness to heart. I know you will do so. Ask him to send out a troop of his valiant dragoons, and recover my lost children. At sight of your brave soldiers the robbers would take to flight, and leave the poor muchachas to be restored to their sorrowing father. O kind capitan; do not deny me! My only hope is in you!”
Although the story of a father thus brutally bereft of his children was of itself calculated to excite commiseration, I should, perhaps, not have felt it very keenly, but for a souvenir it had stirred up within me.
There was nothing at all strange in what he had told me. It was only one of the “Cosas de Mexico,” though, perhaps, not among the commonest. Still it would have given me little more concern than one might feel on reading the account of a lady in London streets—Bloomsbury-square, for instance—having been stopped by a fustian-coated garotter, and relieved of her pocket handkerchief, her card case, and vinaigrette.
Any chagrin the story caused me was but a resuscitation of that already in my mind—the remembrance of my murdered friend, and my antipathy to the whole fraternity of salteadores.
Both might have been freshly excited by his narrative, and nothing more; but for the aroused remembrance, of which I have spoken; and which secured him a sympathy I could scarcely explain. Besides, there was something touching in the appeal of the old Don—not the less that it was made with all the elegance and in the diction of an educated gentleman.
I had no desire to resist it. On the contrary, I at once determined to lay his case before the general, and strengthen it with my own influence—so far as that went.
There was not much generosity in my motive. Without knowing it, the Mexican had done me a service. I felt certain I should now have the chance of chastising—if not the same brigands who had assassinated my artist acquaintance—some who would have behaved quite as badly, had the opportunity occurred to them.
Before turning to translate what had been communicated to me, I thought it might be as well to make myself acquainted with the patronymic of the petitioner.
“Your name?” I inquired, looking him full in the face, and with a vague impression that I had somewhere seen him before, “You have not told me that? The general may wish to know it.”