Nor, indeed, was it ever much known in New Orleans. His second, Duperon, for his own sake not desiring to make it public, had refrained from speaking of it; and their doctor, a close little Frenchman, controlled by Duperon, remained equally reticent; while all those on the other side—Kearney, Crittenden, Rock and the surgeon—had taken departure for Texas on the very day of the duel; from that time forward having “other fish to fry.”
But there were still the two hackney-drivers, who, no doubt, had they stayed in the Crescent City in pursuit of their daily avocation, would have given notoriety to an occurrence curious as it was scandalous.
It chanced, however, that both the jarveys were Irishmen; and suddenly smitten with warlike aspirations—either from witnessing the spectacle of the duel, or the gallant behaviour of their young countryman—on that same day dropped the ribbons, and, taking to a musket instead, wore among the men who composed the ill-started expedition which came to grief on the Rio Grande.
So, for the time, Carlos Santander had escaped the brand of infamy due to his dastardly act.
His reappearance on the scene in such grand garb needs little explanation. A fairly brave and skilled soldier, a vainer man than General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna never wore sword, and one of his foibles was to see himself surrounded by a glittering escort. The officers of his staff were very peacocks in their gaudy adornment, and as a rale, the best-looking of them were his first favourites. Santander, on returning to Mexico, was appointed one of his aides-de-camp, and being just the sort—a showy fellow—soon rose to rank; so that the defeated candidate for a captaincy of Texan Volunteers, was now a colonel in the Mexican Army, on the personal staff of its Commander-in-Chief.
Had Florence Kearney and Cris Rock but known they were to meet this man in Mexico—could they have anticipated seeing him, as he was now, at the door of their prison-cell—their hearts would have been fainter as they toiled along the weary way, and perchance in that lottery of life and death they might have little cared whether they drew black or white.
At the sight of him there rose up all at once in their recollection that scene upon the Shell Road; the Texan vividly recalling how he had ducked the caitiff in the ditch, as how he looked after crawling out upon the bank—mud bedraggled and covered with the viscous scum,—in strange contrast to his splendid appearance now! And Kearney well remembered the same, noting in addition a scar on Santander’s cheek—he had himself given—which the latter vainly sought to conceal beneath whiskers since permitted to grow their full length and breadth.
These remembrances were enough to make the heart of the captive Irishman beat quick, if it did not quail; while that of the Texan had like reason to throb apprehensively.
Nor could they draw any comfort from the expression on Santander’s face. Instead, they but read there what they might well believe to be their death sentence. The man was smiling, but it was the smile of Lucifer in triumph—mocking, malignant, seeming to say, without spoken word but, for all that, emphatically and with determination—
“I have you in my power, and verily you shall feel my vengeance.”