Legends of the City of Mexico

by Thomas A. Janvier

Very naturally, the Viceroy put a great many keen questions to him; and to those questions he gave his answers—or said plainly that he could not give any answers—with the assured air of an old soldier who would not lightly suffer his word to be doubted even by a Viceroy; and who was ready, in dealing with persons of less consequence, to make good his sayings with his fists or with his sword.

In part, his explanation of himself was straightforward and satisfactory. What he told about the regiment to which he belonged was known to be true; and equally known to be true was much of what he told—being in accord with the news brought thence by the latest galleon—about affairs in the Filipinas. But when it came to explaining the main matter—how he had been shifted across the ocean and the earth, and all in a single moment, from his guard-mount before the Governor's Palace in Manila to his guard-mount before the Viceroy's Palace in the City of Mexico—Gil Pérez was at a stand. How that strange thing had happened, he said, he knew no more than Don Luis himself knew. All that he could be sure of was that it had happened: because, certainly, only a half hour earlier he had been in Manila; and now, just as certainly, he was in the City of Mexico—as his lordship the Viceroy could see plainly with his own eyes. As to the even greater marvel—how he knew that on the previous evening the Governor of the Filipinas had had his head murderously split open, and was dead of it, in the Molucca Islands—he said quite freely that he did not in the least know how he knew it. What alone he could be sure of, he said, was that in his heart he did know that Don Gómez had been killed on the previous evening in that bad manner; and he very stoutly asserted that the truth of what he told would be clear to Don Luis, and to everybody, when the news of the killing of Don Gómez had had time to get to Mexico in the ordinary way.

And then Gil Pérez—having answered all of the Viceroy's questions which he could answer, and having said all that he had to say—stood quite at his ease before the Viceroy: with his feet firmly planted, and his right hand on his hip, and his right arm akimbo—and so waited for whatever might happen to be the next turn.

Well, Señor, the one thing of which anybody really could be sure in this amazing matter—and of which, of course, everybody was sure—was that the devil was at both the bottom and the top of it; and, also, there seemed to be very good ground for believing that Gil Pérez was in much closer touch with the devil than any good Christian—even though he were an old soldier, and not much in the way of Christianity expected of him—had any right to be. Therefore the Viceroy rid himself of an affair that was much the same to him as a basket of nettles by turning Gil Pérez over to the Holy Office—and off he was carried to Santo Domingo and clapped into one of the strongest cells.

Most men, of course, on finding themselves that way in the clutches of the Inquisition, would have had all the insides of them filled with terror; but Gil Pérez, Señor—being, as I have mentioned, an old campaigner—took it all as it came along to him and was not one bit disturbed. He said cheerfully that many times in the course of his soldiering he had been in much worse places; and added that—having a good roof over his head, and quite fair rations, and instead of marching and fighting only to sit at his ease and enjoy himself—he really was getting, for once in his life, as much of clear comfort as any old soldier had a right to expect would come his way. Moreover, in his dealings with the Familiars of the Holy Office his conduct was exemplary. He stuck firmly to his assertion that—whatever the devil might have had to do with him—he never had had anything to do with the devil; he seemed to take a real pleasure in confessing as many of his sins as he conveniently could remember; and in every way that was open to him his conduct was that of quite as good a Christian as any old soldier reasonably could be expected to be.

Therefore—while he staid on in his cell very contentedly—the Familiars of the Holy Office put their heads together and puzzled and puzzled as to what they should do with him: because it certainly seemed as though the devil, to suit his own devilish purposes, simply had made a convenience of Gil Pérez without getting his consent in the matter; and so it did not seem quite fair—in the face of his protest that he was as much annoyed as anybody was by what the devil had done with him—to put him into a flame-covered sanbenito, and to march him off to be burned for a sorcerer at the next auto de fé. Therefore the Familiars of the Holy Office kept on putting their heads together and puzzling and puzzling as to what they should do with him; and Gil Pérez kept on enjoying himself in his cell in Santo Domingo—and so the months went on and on.

And then, on a day, a new turn was given to the whole matter: when the galleon from the Filipinas arrived at Acapulco and brought with it the proof that every word that Gil Pérez had spoken was true. Because the galleon brought the news that Don Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas—the crew of the ship that he was on having mutinied—really had had his head murderously split open, and was dead of it, in the Molucca Islands; and that this bad happening had come to him at the very time that Gil Pérez had named. Moreover, one of the military officers who had come from the Filipinas in the galleon, and up from Acapulco to the City of Mexico with the conducta, recognized Gil Pérez the moment that he laid eyes on him; and this officer said that he had seen him—only a day or two before the galleon's sailing—on duty in Manila with the Palace Guard. And so the fact was settled beyond all doubting that Gil Pérez had been brought by the devil from Manila to the City of Mexico; and, also, that the devil—since only the devil could have done it—had put the knowledge of the murderous killing of Don Gómez into his heart. Wherefore the fact that Gil Pérez was in league with the devil was clear to all the world.

Then the Familiars of the Holy Office for the last time put their heads together and puzzled and puzzled over the matter; and at the end of their puzzling they decided that Gil Pérez was an innocent person, and that he undoubtedly had had criminal relations with the devil and was full of wickedness. Therefore they ordered that, being innocent, he should be set free from his cell in Santo Domingo; and that, being a dangerous character whose influence was corrupting, he should be sent back to Manila in the returning galleon. And that was their decree.