“Ah! true, señor. Down there—in Tejas and Tamaulipas—things, I have heard, are bad enough. Carrai! here in New Mexico they are ten times worse. There they have the Comanches and Lipanos. Here we have an enemy on every side. On the east Caygüa and Comanche, on the west the Apache and Navajo. On the south our country is harassed by the Wolf and Mezcalero Apachés, on the north by their kindred, the Jicarillas; while, now and then, it pleases our present allies the Utahs, to ornament their shields with the scalps of our people, and their wigwams with the fairest of our women. Carrambo! señor! a happy country ours, is it not?”
The ironically bitter speech was intended for a reflection, rather than an interrogation, and therefore needed no reply. I made none. “Puez, amigo!” continued the Mexican, “I need hardly tell you that there is scarce a family on the Rio del Norte—from Taos to El Paso—that has not good cause to lament this unhappy condition of things; scarce one that has not personally suffered, from the inroads of the savages. I might speak of houses pillaged and burnt; of maize-fields laid waste to feed the horses of the roving marauder; of sheep and cattle driven off to desert fastnesses; bah! what are all these? What signify such trifling misfortunes, compared with that other calamity, which almost every family in the land may lament—the loss of one or more of its members—wife, daughter, sister, child—borne off into hopeless bandage, to satisfy the will, or gratify the lust, of a merciless barbarian?”
“A fearful state of affairs!”
“Ay señor! Even the bride has been snatched off, from before the altar—from the arms of the bridegroom fondly clasping, and before he has had time to caress her! Ay de mi, cavallero! Truly can I say that: it has been my own story.”
“Yours?”
“Yes—mine. You ask me for souvenirs. There is one that will cling to me for life!” The Mexican pointed to his mutilated limb. “Carrambo!” continued he, “that is nothing. There is another wound here—here in my heart. It was received at the same time; and will last equally as long—only a thousand times more painful.”
These words were accompanied by a gesture. The speaker placed his hand over his heart, and held it there to the end of his speech—as if to still the sad sigh, that I could see swelling within his bosom. His countenance, habitually cheerful—almost comic in its expression—had assumed an air of concentrated anguish. It was easy to divine that he had been the victim of some cruel outrage. My curiosity had become fully aroused; and I felt an eager desire to hear a tale, which, though beyond doubt painful, could not be otherwise than one of romantic interest.
“Your lameness, then, had something to do with the story of your blighted love? You say that both misfortunes happened to you at the same time!” My interrogatives were intended to arouse him from the reverie into which he had fallen. I was successful; and the recital was continued.
“True, señor—both came together; but you shall hear all. It is not often I speak of the affair, though it is seldom out of my thoughts, I have tried to forget it. Carrambo! how could I, with a thing like that constantly recalling it to my memory?” The speaker again pointed to his deformed foot with a smile of bitter significance. “Por Dios, cavallero! I think of it often enough; but just now more than common. Their presence—” he nodded towards the lovers, whose forms were just visible in the grey twilight, “the happiness I see reminds me of my own misery. More especially does she recall the misfortune to my memory—this wild huntress who has had misfortunes of her own. But beyond that, señor, though you may think it strange, your conpaisana is wonderfully like what she was.”
“Like whom?”