The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley

He succeeded in making a thrust, though not the one he intended. For having aimed at Kearney’s heart, missing it, his blade passed through the buckle of the young Irishman’s braces, where in an instant it was entangled.

Only for half a second; but this was all the skilled swordsman required. Now, first since the fight began, his elbow was seen to bend. This to obtain room for a thrust, which was sent, to all appearance, home to his adversary’s heart.

Every one on the ground expected to see Santander fall; for by the force of the blow and direction Kearney’s blade should have passed through his body, splitting the heart in twain. Instead, the point did not appear to penetrate even an inch! As it touched, there came a sound like the chinking of coin in a purse, with simultaneously the snap of a breaking blade, and the young Irishman was seen standing as in a trance of astonishment, in his hand but the half of a sword, the other half gleaming amongst the grass at his feet.

It seemed a mischance, fatal to Florence Kearney, and only the veriest dastard would have taken advantage of it. But this Santander was, and once more drawing back, and bringing his blade to tierce, he was rushing on his now defenceless antagonist, when Crittenden called “Foul play!” at the same time springing forward to prevent it.

His interference, however, would have been too late, and in another instant the young Irishman would have been stretched lifeless along the sward, but for a second individual who had watched the foul play – one who had been suspecting it all along. The sword of Santander seen flying off, as if struck out of his grasp, and his arm dropping by his side, with blood pouring from the tips of his fingers, were all nearly simultaneous incidents, as also the crack of a rifle and a cloud of blue smoke suddenly spurting up over one of the carriages, and half-concealing the colossal figure of Cris Rock, still seated on the box. Out of that cloud came a cry in the enraged voice of the Texan, with words which made all plain —

“Ye darned Creole cuss! Take that for a treetur an’ a cowart! Strip the skunk! He’s got sumthin’ steely under his shirt; I heerd the chink o’ it.”

Saying which he bounded down from the box, sprang over the water-ditch, and rushed on towards the spot occupied by the combatants.

In a dozen strides he was in their midst, and before either of the two seconds, equally astonished, could interfere, he had caught Santander by the throat, and tore open the breast of his shirt!

Underneath was then seen another shirt, not flannel, nor yet linen or cotton, but link-and-chain steel!

Chapter Eight

A Disgraced Duellist

Impossible to describe the scene which followed, or the expression upon the faces of those men who stood beside Santander. The Texan, strong as he was big, still kept hold of him, though now at arm’s length; in his grasp retaining the grown man with as much apparent ease as though it were but a child. And there, sure enough, under the torn flannel shirt, all could see a doublet of chain armour, impenetrable to sword’s point as plate of solid steel.

Explanation this of why Carlos Santander was so ready to take the field in a duel, and had twice left his antagonist lifeless upon it. It explained also why, when leaping across the water-ditch, he had dropped so heavily upon the farther bank. Weighted as he was, no wonder.

By this time the two doctors, with the pair of hackney-drivers, seeing that something had turned up out of the common course, parting from the carriages, had also come upon the ground; the jarveys, in sympathy with Cris Rock, crying, “Shame!” In the Crescent City even a cabman has something of chivalry in his nature – the surroundings teach and invite it – and now the detected scoundrel seemed without a single friend. For he – hitherto acting as such, seeing the imposture, which had been alike practised on himself, stepped up to his principal, and looking him scornfully in the face, hissed out the word “Lâche!”

Then turning to Kearney and Crittenden he added —

“Let that be my apology to you, gentlemen. If you’re not satisfied with it, I’m willing and ready to take his place – with either of you.”

“It’s perfectly satisfactory, monsieur,” frankly responded the Kentuckian, “so far as I’m concerned. And I think I may say as much for Captain Kearney.”

“Indeed, yes,” assented the Irishman, adding: “We absolve you, sir, from all blame. It’s evident you knew nothing of that shining panoply till now;” as he spoke, pointing to the steel shirt.

The French-Creole haughtily, but courteously, bowed thanks. Then, facing once more to Santander, and repeating the “Lâche” strode silently away from the ground.

They had all mistaken the character of the individual, who, despite a somewhat forbidding face, was evidently a man of honour, as he had proved himself.

“What d’ye weesh me to do wi’ him?” interrogated the Texan, still keeping Santander in firm clutch. “Shed we shoot him or hang him?”

“Hang!” simultaneously shouted the two hackney-drivers, who seemed as bitter against the disgraced duellist as if he had “bilked” them of a fare.

“So I say, too,” solemnly pronounced the Texan; “shootin’s too good for the like o’ him; a man capable o’ sech a cowardly, murderous trick desarves to die the death o’ a dog.”

Then, with an interrogating look at Crittenden, he added: “Which is’t to be, lootenant?”

“Neither, Cris,” answered the Kentuckian. “If I mistake not, the gentleman has had enough punishment without either. If he’s got so much as a spark of shame or conscience – ”

“Conshence!” exclaimed Rock, interrupting. “Sech a skunk don’t know the meanin’ o’ the word. Darn ye!” he continued, turning upon his prisoner, and shaking him till the links in the steel shirt chinked, “I feel as if I ked drive the blade o’ my bowie inter ye through them steel fixin’s an’ all.”

And, drawing his knife from its sheath, he brandished it in a menacing manner.

“Don’t, Rock! Please don’t!” interposed the Kentuckian, Kearney joining in the entreaty. “He’s not worth anger, much less revenge. So let him go.”

“You’re right thar, lootenant,” rejoined Rock. “He ain’t worth eyther, that’s the truth. An’ ’twould only be puttin’ pisen on the blade o’ my knife to smear it wi’ his black blood. F’r all, I ain’t a-gwine to let him off so easy’s all that, unless you an’ the captain insists on it. After the warmish work he’s had, an’ the sweat he’s put himself in by the wearin’ o’ two shirts at a time, I guess he won’t be any the worse of a sprinkling o’ cold water. So here goes to gie it him.”

Saying which, he strode off towards the ditch, half-dragging, half-carrying Santander along with him.

The cowed and craven creature neither made resistance, nor dared. Had he done so, the upshot was obvious. For the Texan’s blade, still bared, was shining before his eyes, and he knew that any attempt on his part, either to oppose the latter’s intention or escape, would result in having it buried between, his ribs. So, silently, sullenly, he allowed himself to be taken along, not as a lamb to the slaughter, but a wolf, or rather dog, about to be chastised for some malfeasance.

In an instant after, the chastisement was administered by the Texan laying hold of him with both hands, lifting him from off his feet, and then dropping him down into the water-ditch, where, weighted with the steel shirt, he fell with a dead, heavy plunge, going at once to the bottom.

“That’s less than your desarvin’s,” said the Texan, on thus delivering his charge. “An’ if it had been left to Cris Rock ’twould ’a been up, ’stead o’ down, he’d ’a sent ye. If iver man desarved hangin’, you’re the model o’ him. Ha – ha – ha! Look at the skunk now!”

The last words, with the laugh preceding them, were elicited by the ludicrous appearance which Santander presented. He had come to the surface again, and, with some difficulty, owing to the encumbrance of his under-shirt, clambered out upon the bank. But not as when he went under. Instead, with what appeared a green cloak over his shoulders, the scum of the stagnant water long collecting undisturbed. The hackney-driver – there was but one now, the other taken off by Duperon, who had hired him, their doctor too – joined with Rock in his laughter, while Kearney, Crittenden, and their own surgeon could not help uniting in the chorus. Never had tragic hero suffered a more comical discomfiture.

He was now permitted to withdraw from the scene of it, a permission of which he availed himself without further delay; first retreating for some distance along the Shell Road, as one wandering and distraught; then, as if seized by a sudden thought, diving into the timbered swamp alongside, and there disappearing.

Soon after the carriage containing the victorious party rattled past; they inside it scarce casting a look to see what had become of Santander. He was nothing to them now, at best only a thing to be a matter of ludicrous remembrance. Nor long remained he in their thoughts; these now reverting to Texas, and their necessity for hastening back to the Crescent City, to make start for “The Land of the Lone Star.”

Chapter Nine

A Spartan Band

In ancient days Sparta had its Thermopylae, while in those of modern date Sicily saw a thousand men in scarlet shirts make landing upon her coast, and conquer a kingdom defended by a military force twenty or thirty times their number!

But deeds of heroism are not alone confined to the history of the Old World. That of the New presents us with many pages of a similar kind, and Texas can tell of achievements not surpassed, either in valour or chivalry, by any upon record. Such was the battle of San Jacinto, where the Texans were victorious, though overmatched in the proportion of ten to one: such the defence of Fort Alamo, when the brave Colonel Crockett, now world-known, surrendered up his life, alongside the equally brave “Jim Bowie,” he who gave his name to the knife which on that occasion he so efficiently wielded – after a protracted and terrible struggle dropping dead upon a heap of foes who had felt its sharp point and keen edge.

Among the deeds of great renown done by the defenders of the young Republic, none may take higher rank, since none is entitled to it, than that known as the battle of Mier. Though they there lost the day – a defeat due to the incapacity of an ill-chosen leader – they won glory eternal. Every man of them who fell had first killed his foeman – some half a score – while of those who survived there was not one so craven as to cry “Quarter!” The white flag went not up till they were overwhelmed and overpowered by sheer disparity of numbers.

It was a fight at first with rifles and musketry at long range; then closer as the hostile host came crowding in upon them; the bullets sent through windows and loopholed walls – some from the flat parapetted roofs of the houses – till at length it became a conflict hand to hand with knife, sword, and pistol, or guns clubbed – being empty, with no time to reload them – many a Texan braining one antagonist with the butt of his piece after having sent its bullet through the body of another!

Vain all! Brute strength, represented by superior numbers, triumphed over warlike prowess, backed by indomitable courage; and the “Mier Expedition,” from which Texas had expected so much, ended disastrously, though ingloriously; those who survived being made prisoners, and carried off to the capital of Mexico.

Of the Volunteer Corps which composed this ill-fated expedition – and they were indeed all volunteers – none gave better account of itself than that organised in Poydras Street, New Orleans, and among its individual members no man behaved better than he whom they had chosen as their leader. Florence Kearney had justified their choice, and proved true to the trust, as all who outlived that fatal day ever after admitted. Fortunately, he himself was among the survivors; by a like good luck, so too were his first-lieutenant Crittenden and Cris Rock. As at “Fanning’s Massacre,” so at Mier the gigantic Texan performed prodigies of valour, laying around him, and slaying on all sides, till at length wounded and disabled, like a lion beset by a chevaux-de-frise of Caffre assegais, he was compelled to submit. Fighting side by side, with the man he had first taken a fancy to on the Levee of New Orleans, and afterwards became instrumental in making captain of his corps – finding this man to be what he had conjecturally believed and pronounced him – of the “true grit” – Cris Rock now felt for Florence Kearney almost the affection of a father, combined with the grand respect which one gallant soul is ever ready to pay another. Devotion, too, so strong and real, that had the young Irishman called upon him for the greatest risk of his life, in any good or honourable cause, he would have responded to the call without a moment’s hesitancy or murmur. Nay, more than risk; he would have laid it down, absolutely, to save that of his cherished leader.

Proof of this was, in point of fact, afforded but a short while after. Any one acquainted with Texan history will remember how the Mier prisoners, while being taken to the city of Mexico, rose upon their guards, and mastering them, made their escape to the mountains around. This occurred at the little town of El Salado, and was caused by the terrible sufferings the captives had endured upon the march, added to many insults and cruelties, to which they had been subjected, not only by the Mexican soldiers, but the officers having them in charge. These had grown altogether insupportable, at El Salado reaching the climax.

It brought about the crisis for a long time accumulating, and which the Texans anticipated. For they had, at every opportunity afforded them, talked over and perfected a plan of escape.

By early daybreak on a certain morning, as their guards were carelessly lounging about an idle hour before continuing that toilsome journey, a signal shout was heard.

“Now, boys, up and at them!” were the words, with some others following, which all well understood – almost a repetition of the famous order of Wellington at Waterloo. And as promptly obeyed; for on hearing it the Texans rushed at the soldiers of the escort, wrenched from them their weapons, and with those fought their way through the hastily-formed ranks of the enemy out into the open country.

So far they had succeeded, though in the end, for most of them, it proved a short and sad respite. Pursued by an overwhelming force – fresh troops drawn from the garrisons in the neighbourhood, added to the late escort so shamefully discomfited, and smarting under the humiliation and defeat – the pursuit carrying them through a country to which they were entire strangers – a district almost uninhabited, without roads, and, worse still, without water, – not strange that all, or nearly all, of them were recaptured, and carried back to El Salado.

Then ensued a scene worthy of being enacted by savages, for little better than savages were those in whose custody they were. Exulting fiend-like over their recapture, at first the word went round that all were to be executed; this being the general wish of their captors. No doubt the deed of wholesale vengeance would have been done, and our hero, Florence Kearney, with his companion, Cris Rock, never more have been heard of; in other words, the novel of the “Free Lances” would not have been written. But among those reckless avengers there were some who knew better than to advocate indiscriminate slaughter. It was “a far cry to Loch Awe,” all knew; the Highland loch typified not by Texas, but the United States. But the more knowing ones always knew that, however far, the cry might be heard, and then what the result? No mere band of Texan filibusters, ill-organised, and but poorly equipped, to come across the Rio Grande; instead a well-disciplined army in numbers enough for sure retaliation, bearing the banner of the “Stars and Stripes.”