An Infamous Epistle.
There is an interest—will any man deny it?—in awaking from one’s slumber, and finding that the postman has been; the fact made manifest by the presence of an epistle tying proximate to your pillow, and within reach of your hand.
It is an interest of a peculiarly pleasant nature, if the epistle be perfumed, the envelope of limited dimensions, crested, cream-laid, and endorsed by a chirography of the “angular” type.
The effect, though sometimes as startling, is not quite so pleasant, when the “cover” is of a bluish tint, the superscription “clerkly,” and, instead of a crest enstamped upon the seal, you read the cabalistic words, “Debt, Dunn, and Co.”
As I awoke from my matutinal slumber—under canvas that had sheltered his Excellency Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna—my eyes looked upon a letter, or something that resembled one.
The sight inspired me neither with the thought which would have been suggested by a billet-doux nor a dun, but yet with an interest not much yielding to either; for in the superscription placed fair before my eyes I read the full cognomen and titles of the Mexican tyrant:—
“Al excellentissimo Señor, Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, General en gefe del Ejercito Mexicano.”
The presence of the epistle was easily explained, for I was lying on the camp-bedstead upon which, the night before, had reclined the despot of Anahuac—perhaps after sleeping less tranquilly than I. Protruding from under the leathern catre was the letter, where it had, in all probability, been deposited after perusal.
On perceiving it, my feeling was one of curiosity—perhaps something more. I was, of course, curious to peruse the correspondence of an individual, in my way of thinking, more notorious than distinguished. At the same time a vague hope had entered my mind, that the envelope enclosed some private despatch, the knowledge of which might be of service to the Commander-in-chief of the American army.
I had no scruples about reading the epistle—not the slightest. There was no seal to be broken; and if there had been, I should have broken it without a moment’s hesitation.