That was enough to satisfy even the notary; and as nothing more was to be done there they came out, and gladly, from that bad dark place into the sunshine. As for Padre Lanchitas, Señor, he was all mazed and daunted—knowing then the terrible truth that he had confessed a dead man; and, what was worse, that he had given absolution to a sinful soul come hot to him from hell! He held his hat in his hand as he came out from the house—and never did he put it on again: bareheaded he went thenceforward until the end of his days! He was a very good man, and his life had been always a very holy life; but from that time on, till the death of him, he made it still holier by his prayings and his fastings and his endless helpings of the poorest of the poor. At last he died. And it is said, Señor, that in the walls of that old house they found dead men's bones.
LEGEND OF THE LIVING SPECTRE[8]
Apparitions of dead people, Señor, of course are numerous and frequent. I myself—as on other occasions I have mentioned to you—have seen several spectres, and so have various of my friends. But this spectre of which I now am telling you—that appeared on the Plaza Mayor at noonday, and was seen by everybody—was altogether out of the ordinary: being not in the least a dead person, but a person who wore his own flesh and bones in the usual manner and was alive in them; yet who certainly was walking and talking here on the Plaza Mayor of this City of Mexico in the very self-same moment that he also was walking and talking in a most remote and wholly different part of the world. Therefore—in spite of his wearing his own flesh and bones in the usual manner and being alive in them—it was certain that he was a spectre: because it was certain that his journeying could have been made only on devils' wings. The day on which this marvel happened is known most exactly: because it happened on the day after the day that the Governor of the Filipinas, Don Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, had his head murderously split open, and died of it, in the Molucca Islands; and that gentleman was killed in that bad manner on the 25th of October in the year 1593. Therefore—since everything concerning this most extraordinary happening is known with so great an accuracy—there can be no doubt whatever but that in every particular all that I now am telling you is strictly true.
Because it began in two different places at the same time, it is not easy to say certainly, Señor, which end of this story is the beginning of it; but the beginning of it is this: On a day, being the day that I have just named to you, the sentries on guard at the great doors of the Palace—and also the people who at that time happened to be walking near by on the Plaza Mayor—of a sudden saw an entirely strange sentry pacing his beat before the great doors of the Palace quite in the regular manner: marching back and forth, with his gun on his shoulder; making his turns with a soldierly propriety; saluting correctly those entitled to salutes who passed him; and in every way conducting himself as though he duly had been posted there—but making his marchings and his turnings and his salutings with a wondering look on the face of him, and having the air of one who is all bedazzled and bemazed.
What made every one know that he was a stranger in this City was that the uniform which he wore was of a wholly different cut and fabric from that belonging to any regiment at that time quartered here: being, in fact—as was perceived by one of the sentries who had served in the Filipinas—the uniform worn in Manila by the Palace Guard. He was a man of forty, or thereabouts; well set up and sturdy; and he had the assured carriage—even in his bedazzlement and bemazement—of an old soldier who had seen much campaigning, and who could take care of himself through any adventure in which he might happen to land. Moreover, his talk—when the time came for him to explain himself—went with a devil-may-care touch to it that showed him to be a man who even with witches and demons was quite ready to hold his own.
His explanation of himself, of course, was not long in coming: because the Captain of the Guard at once was sent for; and when the Captain of the Guard came he asked the stranger sentry most sharply what his name was, and where he came from, and what he was doing on a post to which he had not been assigned.
To these questions the stranger sentry made answer—speaking with an easy confidence, and not in the least ruffled by the Captain's sharpness with him—that his name was Gil Pérez; that he came from the Filipinas; and that what he was doing was his duty as near as he could come to it: because he had been duly detailed to stand sentry that morning before the Governor's Palace—and although this was not the Governor's Palace before which he had been posted it certainly was a governor's palace, and that he therefore was doing the best that he could do. And to these very curious statements he added—quite casually, as though referring to an ordinary matter of current interest—that the Governor of the Filipinas, Don Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, had had his head murderously split open, and was dead of it, in the Molucca Islands the evening before.
Well, Señor, you may fancy what a nest of wasps was let loose when this Gil Pérez gave to the Captain of the Guard so incredible an account of himself; and, on top of it, told that the Governor of the Filipinas had been badly killed on the previous evening in islands in the Pacific Ocean thousands and thousands of miles away! It was a matter that the Viceroy himself had to look into. Therefore before the Viceroy—who at that time was the good Don Luis de Velasco—Gil Pérez was brought in a hurry: and to the Viceroy he told over again just the same story, in just the same cool manner, and in just the same words.