CHAPTER XX
A MESSAGE TO MY LADY
During the journey to Santa Fe, while stopping over at the town of San Juan, where I was treated with the utmost warmth of hospitality, I was able to inform myself as to the prosperous condition of the trader Le Lande, who had married and settled in the vicinity. But my apprehensions as to my reception by the Governor of this remote province prevented me from taking as deep an interest either in that rascal or in the strange customs and appearance of these Mexican people as I should have felt in easier circumstances.
Unlike Agua Caliente and some of the other small settlements we had passed, I found Santa Fe a town widely scattered in the outskirts. Many of the low adobe buildings which made up the bulk of the place stood each in its tiny patch of field, which, early as was the season, the people were beginning to cultivate with their rude ploughs and mattocks. Within these suburbs, however, the houses crowded closer and closer together, until they were for the most part separated only by streets that were no less narrow and crooked than dirty. A more striking difference between this two-century-old settlement and the ones up-country was the presence of the two huge adobe churches which towered among the hovels, all the more imposing for the contrast. Their windows, like those of the better houses, were glazed with sheets of thin, transparent talc.
I was at once taken past the rectangle of the soldiers' barracks to the great open court, or plaza, in the midst of the town, where we came to the house of the Governor. By this time I and my escort were surrounded by a number of mestizos and tame Indians, all of whom, however, drew away when we entered the palace through an open, brick-paved portico, or shed. After the plainness of the exterior, I was astonished by the ornate furnishings of the rooms within, whose limed walls were hung with bright-figured drapes and whose floors of beaten clay were spread with skin rugs.
Little time was given me to wonder at what to my unaccustomed eyes seemed most magnificent decorations. I was quickly shown on into a large apartment, at the upper end of which sat a sallow-faced, corpulent Spanish don. I had no need to look at the secretary and the other attendants grouped about his high chair to realize that I was in the presence of Don Joachin Allencaster. The harshness of his glance as I was led before him was enough of proof; for until now, all whom I had met, even to the most ignorant and dogmatic of the priests, had treated me with the deference of true hospitality.
Not until this moment had I fully realized the wretchedness of my appearance. Though the kindness of the commandant at Agua Caliente had provided me with a bath and a cotton shirt, I still wore my tattered buckskins; upon my head was my old coonskin cap, which had been half singed by a fall in the fire; my limbs and feet were clad in moccasins and leggings of fresh buffalo hide, the raw surface outward; while about my shoulders my unkempt hair fell down in loose and shaggy locks, as barbarous as the eight months' beard upon my lean, starved face.
"Por Dios!" exclaimed His Excellency. Having doubtless been informed in the despatches that I claimed to be a Frenchman, he addressed me in that language: "Sacre! You have come here, the second American in two years, to spy upon my province!"
"Your Excellency," I replied, "I had thought the Commandant of Agua Caliente wrote you regarding the purpose of my visit to New Spain. As to this Pursley, if it is to him you refer as my fellow spy, I had never before so much as heard of the man until told at Agua Caliente. The Commandant can tell you how astonished I was when he informed me of Pursley's exploit in penetrating the wilderness. For my part, I should surmise that he is no more than one of our venturesome fur-hunters. But if you insist upon your suspicions, why not include Baptiste Le Lande with us in a trio of spies?"
Throughout this the Governor had continued to regard me with great austerity. Quite unmoved by my attempt at lightness, he now signed to his secretary, and spoke to me in a most peremptory tone: "Your papers, fellow!"