CHAPTER III.
THE FORTUNE OF WAR
The morning of the 9th of May dawned brightly on the ocean and on theshore. There was a heavy sea running on the Gulf of Mexico, but the windthat was blowing was little more than a ten-knot breeze. Before this, atdistances of a few miles from each other, a trio of armed vessels,representing three of the great powers of the world, were dashing alongunder full sail, as if they were in a hurry. They were so, for they allwere searching hungrily after a double-flagged bark, which they hadcaught the day before, but which had managed to escape from them in thenight. She had done it mysteriously and impudently. Instead of her,there now toiled along, away behind them, a dingy-looking Braziliancoffee schooner, the skipper of which did not conceal his satisfactionover the idea that he had unintentionally aided some other sailor--hedid not care who--to get away from all those war-sharks. Well to thewestward, with every sail spread that she could carry, the _Goshhawk_sped along in apparent safety, but she was once more carrying theAmerican flag, and Ned Crawford, busy below at his breakfast, felt agreat deal easier in his patriotic mind. He could almost forget, for themoment, that he was taking a cargo of the worst kind of contraband ofwar goods to the armies of the enemies of his country. He was shortly ondeck again, to be heartily greeted by Captain Kemp with:
"Hullo, my boy, where are all your ships of war?"
Ned took a long, sweeping glance around the horizon, and replied:
"It looks as if we'd lost 'em."
"We've done it!" chuckled the captain. "I think we'll not see any moreof that lot. We made a fine run in the night, and we may be within threedays' sail of Vera Cruz. But that depends a great deal on the wind andon our luck in keeping out of difficulties."
The captain turned away to his duties, and Ned went forward among thesailors. He could always manage to have good chats with them, and theywere especially ready just now to discuss the war and their chances forrunning against more cruisers. Ned did not count as one of them exactly,but he was not to be looked down upon as a mere passenger. His fatherhad sent him out as a kind of honorary supercargo, or ship's clerk, inthe hope that he might learn something which would be of use to him whenhe should grow up into a full-sized merchant. Perhaps he had alreadyfound out a number of things upon which his father had not calculatedwhen he said good-by to him. He was about to learn some other thingswhich were not upon the ship's books, for he had reached the heel of thebowsprit, where Senor Zuroaga was standing, gazing dreamily westward.
"Good morning, senor!" said Ned. "We did get away."
"I don't know how good a morning it is for me," replied the dark-facedMexican, wearily. "I may have only three or four days to wait before Ishall know whether or not I am to be shot at Vera Cruz by order of hisExcellency, President Paredes. My best chance is that he cannot knowthat I am coming. After I get ashore, my life may very soon depend uponhis being beaten out of power by the armies of the United States."
"It couldn't be so in any other country," said Ned. "What have you everdone against him?"
"I won't say just now," replied the senor, "but he knows that I am hisenemy. So I am of Santa Anna, if he is to get back. He murdered myfather and confiscated our property in Oaxaca. Do you know where thatis?"
"No," said Ned; "I don't know anything about the States of Mexico. It'shard enough to keep track of the United States. They make a new oneevery few weeks. They may have let in half a dozen while we've been atsea."
"No," said Zuroaga, "but they've tightened their grip on Texas, and Ihope they'll hold on hard, if only to keep Paredes and Santa Anna frommurdering all the best men in it. Well, Oaxaca lies due south of theState of Vera Cruz, and I can escape into it if I have half a chance.I'd be safe then, for I have plenty of friends there. We have owned hugetracts of land in Oaxaca ever since the Spaniards conquered Mexico."
"How did your folks get so much of it?" inquired Ned.
"I'll tell you," said the senor, proudly, and with a fiery flash in hiscoal-black eyes. "A man by the name of Hernando Cortes really conqueredMexico, without much help from the King of Spain. The king made a greatdeal of him for it, at first. He made him a marquis, which was a greatthing in those days, whatever it is now. He also gave him a royal grantof some of the land he had won for Spain. This land was the valley ofthe Tehuantepec River, that empties into the Pacific Ocean near theeastern boundary of Oaxaca. So his title was Marquis del Valle, and hisdescendants hold a great deal of that land to this day. I am one ofthem,--one of the Marquisanas, as they call us. I am a direct descendantof Hernando Cortes, and that isn't all. One of my ancestors married anAztec princess, and so I am also descended from the Montezumas, who wereemperors of Mexico before the Spaniards came. I'm an Indian on one side,and I've more than one good reason for hating a Spaniard and a tyrant."
Ned Crawford had read the story of the conquest of Mexico, like a greatmany other American boys. That is, he had read it as if it had been atip-top novel rather than a reality. He had admired Hernando Cortes, asa hero of fiction, but here he was, now, actually talking with one ofthe hero's great-great-grandchildren, who was also, after a fashion,one of the Montezumas. It was like a short chapter out of some othernovel, with the night race of the _Goshhawk_ thrown in by way ofvariation. He was thinking about it, however, rather than askingquestions, and the senor went on:
"It's a rich, beautiful country, all that eastern part of Oaxaca. Thereare splendid mountains and great forests of mahogany, rosewood, andpine. Through it runs the Coatzacoalcos River, northerly, to the gulf.Along the rivers and through the mountain passes, there is an old roadthat Cortes himself made to lead his little army across to the Pacific."
"I'd like to go over on it!" exclaimed Ned. "I guess I will, some day. Iwant to know all about Mexico."
He made up his mind, from what his companion went on to tell him, thatthere would be a great deal worth seeing, but at that time nobody wasdreaming how many Americans, older and younger, were soon to travel overthe old Cortes road. California was to be annexed, as well as Texas, andbefore Ned Crawford would be old enough to cast his first vote, therewas to be a great tide of eager gold hunters pouring along what wascalled the Tehuantepec route to the placers and diggings.
The days of California gold mining had not yet come, and while Ned andthe senor talked on about the terrible history of Mexico, with itsfactions, its bloody revenges, its pronunciamentos, and its fruitlessrevolutions, the _Goshhawk_ sailed swiftly along toward Vera Cruz and thepowder-needing garrison of the castle of San Juan de Ulua.
Whether or not the war had actually begun was still a puzzling questionin the mind of Captain Kemp, but he would have had no doubt whatever ifhe had been with General Taylor and his remarkable gathering of youngstudents of the art of war. They all obtained several important lessonsthat day. One of these was that it is both difficult and dangerous foran advancing army to push on through dense bushes and high grass in hotweather, with Mexican lancers ready to pounce upon them among the lanesof the chaparral. It was found, not only before but after the short,sharp collision with the Mexican forces at Resaca de la Palma that anumber of valuable lives had been lost in the bushy wilderness.
The American army moved slowly forward, and before nightfall the longlines of its blue uniforms went over the prairie rolls in full sight ofthe fort. The Stars and Stripes were still flying above the badlydamaged ramparts, and cheer after cheer went up from thousands ofthroats, including those of the rescued garrison. They had not reallylost many men, killed or wounded, but among the killed was theircommander, Major Brown, after whom the fort was now named. In lateryears, a town grew up around the site of the frontier fortress, and itis called Brownsville. General Taylor's men had triumphantly cut theirway through the difficult twenty miles from the sea to the siege, butperhaps any individual hero among them might have safely quoted the wiseremark of Lieutenant Grant, as he looked at the fort and recalled hisexploits of the day.
"Well, after all," he said to himself, "I don't know but what the battleo
f Resaca de la Palma would have been won just as well if I had not beenthere."
Long years afterward, it was to be said of a number of other battlesthat they would not have been won just as well if he had not been thereto win them, and the same would be equally true of several of his youngcompanions, as inexperienced as himself, and as ignorant of the greatthings before them in the far future.
Their army went into camp near the fort; and the Mexican forces, for thegreater part, were believed to have retreated across the Rio Grande.
It is said that after every storm there comes a calm, but it was not apleasant calm in the neighborhood of the American camp. There were allthe while strong parties of Mexican lancers hovering around in alldirections, on the lookout for imprudent stragglers, and a sharp watchhad to be kept to guard against sudden dashes at the outposts, for the"rancheros," as the Mexican horsemen were called, were both well-mountedand enterprising. There was yet another kind of calm of a curiouscharacter. General Taylor absolutely did not know what to do next, andhe could not know until after he should hear from the President what thestatesmen in Congress had decided. Beyond a doubt, war was going onright here, but there was a dispute as to the nature of it and as towhat was to be done with it. The Mexican geographers claimed that thesouthern boundary of Texas, even if it had been legally annexed to theUnited States, was at the Nueces River, and that all their countrysouth of that line was still their own. According to them, therefore,General Taylor's army was not in Texas at all, but in Mexico. On theother hand, the American geographers placed the boundary at the RioGrande, many miles south of the Nueces, and claimed that the forcesdefeated by General Taylor had invaded the United States. If bothparties were right, then it might have been said that all that landbetween the rivers did not belong to anybody until the title to itshould be settled by a military court and gunpowder arguments. That wasreally the way in which it was finally settled, and there is now no moredispute about it. History tells us that so have all the great nationalland titles of the world been argued and determined.
There was what some people call a waiting spell, and all things on seaor land might be spoken of as feverishly quiet for a day or two. In theafternoon of the third day, however, there was a sort of change in theweather at one spot away out on the gulf. There was not a cloud in thesky, indeed, and the _Goshhawk_ was skimming along under full sail sosteadily that part of her crew had nothing better to do than to liearound on the deck, and feel satisfied that the breeze was so very good.In the same manner, the American soldiers in the neighborhood of FortBrown were lying around in and out of their tents, and wishing that theyhad more shade to protect them from the hot sun of Texas or Mexico,whichever it might be. At that hour, however, there arrived upon the_Goshhawk_ a bit of unexpected news which awakened everybody, for the manat the lookout announced, excitedly:
"Schooner under Mexican flag, sir! Well away to loo'ard. Looks as if shemight come pretty nigh us."
"Just the thing I wanted!" shouted Captain Kemp, springing to his feet."We'll bear away for her. Up with the British flag, too. She'd shy theStars and Stripes. They wouldn't tell us what the news is, either."
Once more, therefore, the _Goshhawk_ became an Englishman, and her chaseafter the latest news did not have to be a long one. Not many minuteslater, the two vessels were within hailing distance, and the strangerspoke first, in a tone of evident anxiety:
"What ship is that?"
"_Goshhawk_, from Liverpool to Vera Cruz, with supplies for the Castle ofSan Juan de Ulua. What ship is that?"
"Schooner _Tampico_, from Havana to Matamoras, with supplies for GeneralAmpudia," came much more cheerfully back. "We had to run away fromMatamoras in ballast to escape the gringos. Their cruisers are aroundlike hawks. You won't get to Vera Cruz if they can help it."
Captain Kemp already knew something about the reckless ways ofmen-of-war, but he did not say so. He merely responded:
"Is that so? How about the war? We've no news at all."
"War?" shouted the Mexican skipper, triumphantly. "Why, there have beenthree great battles already. We have whipped the Americans! GeneralTaylor is surrounded, and will have to surrender. So will the fort onthe Rio Grande. We shall drive the gringos out of Texas. I did not knowuntil now that you British were going to help us."
There could be no further conversation, for the _Goshhawk_ was sweepingon out of hearing, but Ned Crawford exclaimed, indignantly:
"Our army defeated? How can that be? I don't believe it!"
Everybody on deck could hear the captain when he laughingly responded:
"The victories were won in that fellow's head, most likely. He was onboard his schooner at Matamoras, and he didn't see it done. All he knowsis that the war is really begun. It takes a long time, men, to makeeither an American or a British army think of surrendering. We shallhear a good deal more about those battles one of these days. I'd like toread the newspaper reports, though, on both sides."
"They would be good fun," dryly remarked Senor Zuroaga. "There is nobodyon earth that can win victories like a newspaper editor."
"Hullo!" suddenly exclaimed Ned. "Something's the matter with thecaptain! Did you hear that?"
There was quite enough to hear. A long, loud hail that came down fromthe rigging was followed by almost a yell from Captain Kemp.
"We're chased again!" he said. "Thank God, she's astern! Men, we're infor it! Now for Vera Cruz or a prison! I'm ready!"
Rapid orders went out, but hardly anything more could be done toincrease the speed of the ship. In fact, the lookout must almost havetaken it for granted that the strange sail away off yonder belonged to aUnited States cruiser. Very likely it did, but it would have to draw agood deal nearer before there could be any absolute certainty. In themeantime, all on board the _Goshhawk_ might attend to whatever dutiesthey had, and discuss the remarkable tidings brought by the Mexicanschooner. While doing so, they could hardly have guessed correctly whatwas doing and saying on board the other vessel which had caused theiranxiety. She was, indeed, a man-of-war, and she had received from areturning army transport ship a whole lot of fresh news from GeneralTaylor's army, by way of Point Isabel on the coast, where he had beenencamped. Something like this had been shouted across the water by anenthusiastic officer of the transport:
"Awful fightin'! Half a dozen battles! Taylor's whipped the Greasersinto smithereens! He's goin' to march right on into Mexico. I don't keerif Uncle Sam annexes the hull half-Spanish outfit. I'm goin' in for oneo' them there big silver mines, if we do. Hurrah for Gineral Taylor!"
A chorus of ringing cheers had answered that, but here, also, there weremen of experience ready to question the entire accuracy of suchtremendous war news. The one thing, however, which was brought outclearly to the mind of a naval commander was his greatly increased dutyof watchfulness to prevent any kind of munitions of war from reachingthe Mexican ports. That was the reason why he was now following at hisbest speed what might after all prove to be an entirely innocent trader.He even went below to consider the matter, and it was a full hour laterwhen the officer in charge of the deck came hastily down to tell him:
"Same fellow we chased before, sir. I've made him out. He's underBritish colors again. Are we to chase?"
"Chase, sir?" roared the captain. "Of course we must chase! We know whatit means now. The old _Portsmouth_ must catch that rascal this time.I'll come on deck."
Just as good glasses as those on board of her had been watching herduring that hour of swift sailing, and Captain Kemp was even nowlowering his telescope with what sounded like a sigh of relief.
"Mate," he said, "it's the same sloop that followed us before. It makesme feel better. We know what's about the best she can do. If this windholds, I think we can fetch Vera Cruz at nightfall. No one Yankee'ddare to follow us under the guns of San Juan de Ulua."
"I reckon not," slowly responded the mate of the _Goshhawk_, "but wedon't need to get under that chap's bow-chasers, either."
"No," said Captain Kemp, "but I'l
l risk a shot or two."
Ned Crawford heard him, for he had been following him pretty closely, toknow what was coming.
"I don't know," he was thinking, "how far one o' those cannon of hers'llcarry. I don't believe, either, that they can hit a mark that isplunging along as we are. It'd be worse than shooting at a bird on thewing. Still, it's kind of awful to be shot at by our own people."
The sailors of the _Goshhawk_ were also thinking, and they were beginningto look at one another very doubtfully. Not only were they Americans,most of them, but they had not shipped for any such business as this,and they did not fancy the idea of being killed for nothing. Moreover,Ned himself heard one of them muttering:
"There's an ugly look to this thing. If a shot from that cruiser were tostrike us amidships, we'd all be blown into the air."
Decidedly that was not a pleasant thing to think of. Neither was thereany great amount of comfort in a suggestion made by another of the men:
"Well, we'd never know what hurt us. We must keep out o' range."
Not long afterward there was a flash at one of the bow-ports of thecruiser. The report which followed was a peremptory order to heave to,under penalty of consequences. The gun was shotted, and a great manyeyes watched anxiously for the dipping of that well-aimed ball of iron.It skipped from crest to crest of several waves before it sank, and thenCaptain Kemp shouted:
"All right, men! Half a mile short! We shall get there. The coast's infull sight now, and we've less than five miles to run."
"Ay, ay, sir!" came back from them, half cheerfully, but one voice washeard to grumble:
"It's all right, is it? Well, if it wasn't for that half-mile o'shortage, there'd be a mutinee-e on board o' this ship. I'd start it. Iain't a-goin' to get myself knocked on the head by Uncle Sam's own men."
There would very likely have been a mutiny, even as it was, if there hadnow been time for it to take shape. Thus far, the excitement of thechase had been in the captain's favor, but the seamen would have beenlegally justified in resisting him and bringing the ship to. Hisauthority would have ceased, for he had no right to compel them to breakthe law or to run the risk of a broadside from a man-of-war.
Nearer, nearer, nearer, came both the dim outline of the Mexican coastand the white sails of the pursuing _Portsmouth_. Louder and moreominous grew the but half-suppressed murmurs of the sailors, but CaptainKemp's face was now wearing a hard, set look, and he was known to be adangerous man to deal with. Something, which looked like the handle of apistol, stuck out of one of his side pockets, and his fingers wanderedto it now and then, as if he might be turning over in his mind thepossibility of soon having to shoot a mutineer. Ned was staringanxiously back at the Yankee cruiser at the moment when his shoulder wasgripped hard, and Senor Zuroaga almost whirled him around, exclaiming:
"Look! Look yonder! That's the Castle of San Juan de Ulua! Oh, but don'tI wish it were a half-mile nearer! Hear that firing?"
The guns of the _Portsmouth_ were indeed sounding at regular intervals,and she was evidently almost within range. She was also, however, wellwithin the prescribed distance line which a hostile cruiser may not passwithout being regarded as making the attack herself. Beyond a doubt,too, there must have been observers at the fort, who were alreadywatching the operations of the two approaching vessels. Minutes passed,which were counted by Ned with a heart that beat so he almost thought hecould hear it.
"I think we are safe now," began the senor, but he had been looking atthe fort, and there was one important fact of which he was not aware.
Only a couple of minutes earlier, the captain of the _Portsmouth_ hadshouted angrily to his first lieutenant:
"No, sir! I will not let her get away. I will take her or sink her! Outwith that starboard battery, and let them have it!"
Around swung the sloop, like the perfect naval machine that she was, andthere quickly followed the reports of several guns at once. It was not afull broadside, but there was enough of it to have sunk the _Goshhawk_,if the iron thrown had struck her at or near the water-line. None of itdid so, but the next exclamation of Senor Zuroaga was one of utterdismay, for the foremast of the bark had been cut off at the cap andthere was a vast rent in her mainsail. Down tumbled a mass of spars andrigging, forward, and the ship could no longer obey her helm.
"All hands cut away wreckage!" shouted Captain Kemp. "We're all right.She won't dare come any nearer. Hurrah!"
It was a deep, thunderous roar from the castle which had called out thatapparently untimely hurrah. It was the voice of a 64-pounder gun fromthe nearest rampart, and the shot it sent fell within ten feet of the_Portsmouth's_ bows.
"Hullo!" exclaimed her captain, more angrily than ever. "We've run inalmost to pointblank range of those heavy guns. About! About!Lieutenant, we must get out of this."
"All right, sir," was anxiously responded. "It isn't worth while to riskany more shot of that size--not for all there's likely to be under thehatches of that wretched bark. I think we barked her, anyhow."
He may have meant that for a kind of small joke, but she had been worsehurt than he could know, for one 32-pounder shot had shattered herstern, barely missing her sternpost and rudder gearing, and she was nolonger the trim and seaworthy vessel that she had been. One more heavygun had sounded from the seaward battery of the castle, but her garrisonhad been in a genuinely Mexican condition of unreadiness, and it wasseveral minutes before they could bring up more ammunition and makefurther use of their really excellent artillery. During those minutes,the _Portsmouth_ had ample opportunity given her to swing around andsweep swiftly out of danger. She had barely escaped paying dearly forher pursuit of the _Goshawk._ Her satisfaction, however, consisted onlyin part of the damage she had done to the bark, for, in getting around,she had let drive her entire larboard broadside. It was a waste ofammunition, certainly, but no Yankee man-of-war commander would everhave forgiven himself if he had failed to make a good reply to a shotfrom the Castle of San Juan de Ulua. Moreover, the sloop's gunners wereready to swear solemnly that every ball they had sent had hit the fort.
The excitement on board the _Goshhawk_ had been at fever heat, but it wasnow diminishing rapidly, for she did not contain a man who was not wellpleased to see the _Portsmouth_ give the matter up. All signs of mutinydisappeared, of course, for there was no more duty of a militarycharacter to be required of the men. The bark was soon set free of herwreckage, and prepared to make her way in still further, under theprotection of the fort batteries. Captain Kemp was too busy for any kindof conversation, and Senor Zuroaga came aft, to where Ned was curiouslystudying the work of the 32-pound shot at the stern. The senor leanedover the side and did the same for a long moment before he remarked:
"We have had a narrow escape. A few feet lower, and that shot would havelet the water in. Fifty feet forward, and it would have touched off thegunpowder. As it is, our voyage is ended, and I shall know, in an houror two, whether or not I am to be shot in the morning."