The Red Track: A Story of Social Life in Mexico

The President arrived, and the circus was, in a second, invaded by the mob. Since an early hour the Jamaica had begun, that is to say, the framework of verdure raised in the centre of the arena, forming refreshment rooms, had, since daybreak, been filled with a countless number of leperos, who ate and drank with cries of ferocious delight.

Suddenly, at a given signal, the gate of the torril was opened, and a bull, embolado, rushed into the arena. Then began an extraordinary indescribable scene, resembling one of those diabolical meetings so admirably designed by Callot.

The leperos, surprised by the arrival of the bull, darted, shouting, pushing, and upsetting each other, over the framework, which they threw down and trampled underfoot in their terror, while seeking to escape the pursuit of the embolado, who, also excited by the tumult, hunted them vigorously. In a second the arena was deserted, the refreshment rooms swept clean, and the performers in the Jamaica sought any shelter they could find on the edge of the palcos or upon the columns, from which they hung in hideous yelling and grimacing clusters.

A few leperos, however, bolder than the rest, had darted to the Monte Parnasso, not only to find a shelter there, but also to tear away all the coloured handkerchiefs fastened to the branches. In a twinkling the thick foliage was hidden by the crowd of leperos who invaded it.

The bull, after amusing itself for some minutes in tossing about the remains of the framework, stopped and looked cunningly around, and soon noticed the tree, the only obstacle left to remove, in order to completely empty the arena.

It remained motionless for an instant, as if hesitating ere it formed a resolution; then it bowed its head, made the sand fly with its fore-feet, lashed its tail violently, and, rushing at the tree, dealt it repeated and powerful blows.

The leperos uttered a cry of despair. The tree, which was overladen, and incessantly sapped at its base by the bull, swayed, and at last fell sideways, carrying down in its fall the leperos clinging to the branches. The audience clapped their hands and broke into frenzied bravos, which changed into perfect yells of delight when a poor fellow, who was limping away, was suddenly caught up by the bull, and tossed ten feet high in the air.

All at once, and at the moment when the joy was attaining its paroxysm, several rounds of artillery were heard, followed by a well-sustained musketry fire. As if by magic the bull was driven back to the torril; the soldiers scattered about the circus leapt into the ring, and becoming actors instead of spectators, drew up in good order, and levelled their muskets at the occupiers of the galleries and boxes, who remained motionless with terror, for they did not understand what was going on.

A door opened, and twenty bandsmen, followed by eight officers, and escorted by a dozen soldiers, entered the ring, and began beating the drums. It was a governmental bando. So soon as silence was restored martial law was proclaimed, and sentence of outlawry passed on General Don Sebastian Guerrero and his adherents, who had just raised the standard of revolt, and pronounced against the established government.

The crowd listened to the bando in a stupor which was heightened by the fact that with each moment the firing became sharper, and the artillery discharges shook the air at more rapid intervals.

Mexico was once again the prey of one of those scenes of murder and carnage which, since the Proclamation of Independence, has too often stained her streets and squares with blood.

The President was on horseback in the centre of the arena, sending off orders, listening to messages, or detaching reinforcements wherever they were wanted. The circus was converted into the headquarters of the army of order, and the spectators, although allowed to depart after some arrests had been effected among them, remained trembling in their seats, preferring not to venture into the streets, which had been converted into real battlefields.

Still the pronunciamiento was assuming formidable proportions. General Guerrero had not played for so heavy a stake without trying to secure to his side all probable chances of success; and that success would most ably have crowned his efforts, had he not been betrayed. For, in spite of all the precautions taken by the government, the affair had been begun so warmly and resolutely that, after the contest had continued for three hours, it was impossible to say on which side the advantage would remain.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PRONUNCIAMIENTO

In any revolution, the insurgents have always an immense advantage over the government they are attacking, from the fact that, as they hold together, know their numbers, and act in accordance with a long worked out plan, they are not only cognizant of what they want, but also, whither they are proceeding. The government, on the other hand, however well informed it may be, and however well on its guard, is obliged to remain for a considerable length of time in an attitude of armed expectation, without knowing whence the danger that menaces it will come, or the strength of the rebellion it will have to combat.

On the other hand, again, as the secret of the discovery of the plot remains with a small band of confidential agents of the authorities, the latter do not know at first whom to trust, or whom to reckon on. They suspect everybody, even the very troops defending them, whom they fear to see turning against them at any moment, and overthrowing them. This is more especially the case in Mexico and all the old Spanish colonies, where the governmental system is essentially military, and is consequently only based on naturally unintelligent and venal troops, who are utterly deficient of patriotic feelings, and whom interest alone, that is to say, pay or promotion, can keep to their duty.

The history of all the revolutions which, during the last fifty years, have caused torrents of blood to flow in the New World, is entirely contained in the last passage we have written.

The President of the Republic had been informed of the designs of the general, as far as that was possible; he had known for more than a month that a vast plot was being formed; he even was aware of the probable day fixed for the pronunciamiento, but he did not know a syllable about the plans arranged by Don Sebastian and his adherents. As the plot was to burst out in Mexico, the President had filled the capital with troops; and called in those on whose fidelity he thought he could reckon with the greatest certainty.

But his preparations were necessarily restricted to this, and he had been constrained to wait till the revolution commenced.

It burst forth with the suddenness of a peal of thunder at twenty places simultaneously, at about the second hour of the tarde. The President, who was at once informed, and who had only come to the circus in order not to be invested in the government palace, instantly took the measures he thought most efficacious.

The news, however, rapidly arrived, and became worse and worse, and the insurrection was assuming frightful proportions. The revolters at first tried to install themselves on the Plaza Major in order to seize the government palace, but being repulsed with loss, after a very serious contest, they ambuscaded themselves in Tacuba, Secunda Monterilla, and San Agustin streets, erected barricades, and exchanged a sharp fire with the faithful troops.

The cannon roared in the square, and the balls made large gaps in the ranks of the insurgents, who replied with yells of rage and increased firing.

Colonel Lupo had taken possession of two city gates, which he burned down, and through which fresh reinforcements reached the insurgents, who now proclaimed themselves masters of one-third of the city. The foreign merchants, established in Mexico, had hoisted their national flags over their houses, in which they remained shut up, and suffering great anxiety.

The President was still standing motionless in the centre of the circus, frowning at each new message, or angrily striking the pommel of his saddle with his clenched fist.

All at once a man glided secretly between the horses' legs, and gently touched the general's boot, who turned round quickly.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, on recognizing him. "At last! Well, Curumilla?"

But the Indian, without answering, thrust a folded paper into his hand, and disappeared as rapidly as he had come. The general eagerly scanned the letter, which only contained these words, written in French – "All is going on well. Charge vigorously."

The general's face grew brighter, he drew himself up haughtily, and brandishing his sword with a martial air, shouted in a voice heard by all, "Forward, Muchachos!"

Then, digging his spurs into his horse's sides, he galloped out of the circus, followed by the greater part of the troops, the remainder receiving orders to hold their present position until further warning.

"Now," said the President to the officers who pressed round him, "the game is won; within an hour the insurrection will be conquered."

In fact matters had greatly altered. This is what had occurred:

Valentine, as we said, had taken a house in Tacuba Street, and another in the vicinity of the San Lázaro gate. During the night that preceded the pronunciamiento, four hundred resolute soldiers, commanded by faithful officers, were introduced into the house in Tacuba Street, where they remained so well hidden that no one suspected their presence. A similar number of troops were stowed away in the house at the San Lázaro gate.

Don Martial, at the head of a large body of men, slipped into the small house belonging to the capataz, and, being warned by the latter so soon as the general had gone off to attend the review, he passed into his mansion through the masked door we know, and occupied it without striking a blow.

The Tigrero straightway set a trap, in which several of the principal chiefs of the insurgents were caught, believing that they would find General Guerrero at home, and were at once made prisoners.

These three points occupied, they waited. Colonel Lupo had attacked the San Lázaro gate so vigorously and unexpectedly, that it was impossible to prevent him burning it. A very obstinate fight at once began, and the colonel, after a brave resistance, had been at length compelled to retreat and fall back on the main body of the insurgents, who were still masters, or nearly so, of the centre of the city.

We have mentioned that in Mexico all the houses are flat roofed; hence, in any revolution, the scenes in the street are repeated on the terraces of the houses; for the tactics adopted in such cases are to line these terraces with soldiers. Through a strange fatality the insurgents, while seizing the principal streets, had forgotten, or rather neglected, to occupy the houses, as they believed themselves masters of the situation.

All at once the terraces in Tacuba Street, looking on the Plaza Mayor, were covered with sharpshooters, who began a tremendous fire on the insurgents collected beneath them. The same manoeuvre was simultaneously executed in Monterilla and San Augustín Streets, and the terraces of the palace were covered with troops also.

The artillerymen, who had hitherto fired at long range, now brought up their guns almost within pistol shot of the streets, and, in spite of the musketry fire of the insurgents, bravely posted their batteries and began hurtling showers of canister among the defenders of the barricades.

Almost simultaneously, the troops faithful to the government appeared in the rear of the rebels, and being supported by the sharpshooters on the terraces, charged vigorously to the incessantly repeated cry of "Méjico, Méjico, Independencia!"

The insurgents felt they were lost, for they were caught between three fires; still they offered a courageous resistance, for, knowing that if they fell alive into the hands of the conqueror, they would be mercilessly shot, they allowed themselves to be killed with Indian stoicism, and did not yield an inch of ground.

The general was in a terrible rage; without a hat, his face blackened with gunpowder, and his uniform torn in several places, he leapt his horse over the corpses, and dashed blindly into the thick of the government troops, followed by a small band of friends, who bravely let themselves be killed at his side.

The fight was positively degenerating into a massacre; the two parties, as unhappily always happens in civil wars, fought with the greater fury and obstinacy because brothers were contending against brothers, and many of them, for whom politics were only a pretext, took advantage of the medley to satiate personal hatred and avenge old insults.

However, this could not go on for long thus, and it was necessary to get out of the situation at all risks. General Guerrero, unaware of the occupation of his house, resolved to fight his way thither, barricade himself, and obtain an honourable capitulation for himself and his comrades.

No sooner was the plan conceived than the execution was attempted. Don Sebastian collected round him all the fighting men left, and formed them into a small band – for the canister and bullets had made frightful ravages in the ranks of the insurgents – and placed himself at their head.

"Forward, forward!" he shouted as he rushed at the enemy.

His men followed him with yells of fury. The collision was terrible, the fight fearful; for four or five minutes a funereal silence brooded over this confused mass of combatants, who attacked each so savagely. They stabbed each other mercilessly, disdaining to use their firearms, and preferring, as a speedier resource, the sharp points of their sabres and bayonets.

At length the President's troops fell back slightly, the insurgents took advantage of it to redouble their efforts, which were already superhuman, and reached the general's house. The doors were broken open in an instant, and all rushed pell-mell into the courtyard. They were saved! since they had at last reached the shelter where they hoped to defend themselves.

At this moment a frightful thing happened; the gallery commanding the courtyard and the stairs was entirely occupied by soldiers, and so soon as the insurgents appeared, the muskets were pointed down at them, a tornado of fire passed over them like the blast of death, and in a second a mass of corpses covered the ground.

The insurgents, terrified by this sudden attack, which they were so far from anticipating, hurriedly fell back, instinctively seeking an outlet by which to escape. The tumult then became terrible, and the massacre assumed the proportions of an organized butchery. Driven back into the courtyard by the troops who pursued them, and met there by those who had attacked them and now charged at the bayonet point, these wretched men, rendered senseless by terror, did not dream any longer of employing their weapons, but falling on their knees before their executioners, and clasping their trembling hands, they implored the mercy of the troops, who, intoxicated by the smell of blood, and affected by that horrible murder fever which seizes upon even the coolest man on the battle field, felled them, like oxen in the shambles, and plunged their sabres and bayonets into their bodies with grins of delight and ferocious laughter, and felt a horrible pleasure in seeing their victims writhe with heartbreaking cries in the last convulsions of death.

General Don Sebastian, though wounded, and who seemed to have been protected by a charm throughout this scene of carnage, defended himself like a lion against several soldiers, who tried in vain to transfix him with their bayonets. Leaning against a column he whirled his sabre round his head, evidently seeking death, but wishful to sell his life as dearly as possible.

Suddenly Valentine cleft his way through the combatants, followed by Belhumeur, Black Elk, and Curumilla, who were engaged in warding off the blows the soldiers incessantly made at him, and reached the general.

"Ah!" the latter said on perceiving him, "here you are at last, then."

And he dealt him a terrible blow, but Belhumeur parried it, and Valentine continued to advance.

"Withdraw," he said to the soldiers who surrounded the general, "this man belongs to me."

The soldiers, though they did not know the hunter, intimidated by the accent with which he uttered these words, and recognizing in him one of those rare men who can always impose on common natures, respectfully fell back without making the slightest objection.

The hunter threw his purse to them.

"You dare to defy the lion at bay," the general shouted, gnashing his teeth; "although attacked by dogs, he can still avenge his death."

"You will not die," the hunter said coldly; "throw away that sabre, which is now useless."

"Ah, ah!" Don Sebastian said with a grin of rage; "I am not to die; and why not, pray?"

"Because," he answered, in a cutting voice, "death would be a mercy to you, and you must be punished."

"Oh!" he shrieked, and, blinded by rage, he rushed madly at the hunter.

The latter, without falling back a step, contented himself with giving a signal. At the same moment a slipknot fell on the general's shoulders, and he rolled on the ground with a yell of rage. Curumilla had lassoed him.

In vain did Don Sebastian attempt further resistance; after useless efforts he was reduced to utter impotence, and forced, not only to confess he had been vanquished, but to yield himself to the mercy of his conquerors. The latter, at a sign from Valentine, disarmed him first, and then bound him, so that he could not make the slightest movement.

The massacre was ended, the insurrection had been drowned in blood. The few rebels who survived the carnage were prisoners; the victors, in the first moment of enthusiasm, had shot several, and it required the most energetic interference on the part of the officers to check this rather too summary justice.

At this moment joyous shouts burst forth, and the President of the Republic entered the courtyard at the head of a large staff, glistening with embroidery.

"Ah, ah!" he said, as he took a contemptuous glance at the general, who had been thrown on the stones, "so this is the man who wished to change the institutions of his country?"

Don Sebastian did not deign to reply; but he looked at the speaker with such an expression of implacable hatred, that the President could not endure it, and was forced to turn his head away.

"Did this man surrender?" he asked one of his officers.

"No, coward," the general answered, with clenched teeth, "I will not surrender to hangmen."

"Take this man to prison with the others," the President continued, "an example must be made; but take care that they are not insulted by the people."

"Yes," the general muttered, "ever the same system."

"A fall and entire pardon," the President continued, "will be granted to the unhappy men who were led astray, and have recognized their crime. The lesson they have received was rather rough, and I am convinced that it will do them good."

"Clemency after the massacre, that is the usual way," the general said again.

The President passed without answering him, and left the courtyard. A few minutes later the prisoners were led away to prison, in spite of the efforts of the exasperated populace to massacre them on the road.

General Don Sebastian Guerrero was one of the first to appear before the tribunal. He disdained any defence, and during the whole trial preserved a gloomy silence; he was unceremoniously condemned to be shot, his estates confiscated, and his name was declared infamous.

So soon as the sentence was recorded, the general was placed in the chapel, where he was to remain three days before execution.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE CAPILLA

The Spanish custom – a custom which has been kept up in all the old colonies of that power – of placing persons condemned to death in a chapel, requires explanation, in order that it may be thoroughly understood and appreciated, as it deserves to be.

Frenchmen, over whom the great revolution of '93 passed like a hurricane, and carried off most of their belief in its sanguinary cloak, may smile with pity and regard as a fanatic remainder from another age, this custom of placing the condemned in chapel. Among us, it is true, matters are managed much more simply: a man, when condemned by the law, eats, drinks, and remains alone in his cell. If he desire it, he is visited by the chaplain, whom he is at liberty to converse with, if he likes; if not, he remains perfectly quiet, and nobody pays any attention to him, during a period more or less long, and determined by the rejection of his appeal. Then, one fine morning, when he is least thinking of it, the governor of the prison announces to him, when he wakes, as the most simple thing in the world, that he is to be executed that same day, and only an hour is granted him to recommend his soul to the divine clemency. The fatal toilet is made by the executioner and his assistant, the condemned man is placed in a close carriage, conveyed to the place of execution, and in a twinkling launched into eternity, before he has had a moment to look round him.

Is it right or wrong to act in this way? We dare not answer, yes or no. This question is too difficult to decide, and would lead us the further, because we should begin with asking society by what right it arrogates to itself the power of killing one of its members, and thus committing a cold-blooded assassination, under the pretext of doing justice; for we confess that we have ever been among the most determined adversaries of punishment by death, as we are persuaded that, in trying to deal a heavy blow, human justice deceives itself, and goes beyond the object, because it avenges when it ought merely to punish.

We will, therefore, repeat here what we said in a previous work, in explanation of what the Spaniards mean by the phrase "placing in chapel."

When a man is condemned to death, from that moment he is, de facto, cut off from that society to which he no longer belongs, through the sentence passed on him; he is consequently separated from his fellow men.

He is shut up in a room, at one end of which is an altar; the walls are hung with black drapery, studded with silver tears, and here and there mourning inscriptions, drawn from Holy Writ. Near his bed is placed the coffin in which his body is to be deposited after execution, while two priests, who relieve each other, but of whom one constantly remains in the room, say mass in turn, and exhort the criminal to repent Of his crimes, and implore divine clemency. This custom, which, if carried to an extreme, would appear in our country before all, barbarous and cruel, perfectly agrees with Spanish manners, and the thoroughly believing spirit of this impressionable nation; it is intended to draw the culprit back to pious thought, and rarely fails to produce the desired effect upon him.

The general was, therefore, placed in capilla, and two monks belonging to the order of St. Francis, the most respected, and, in fact, respectable in Mexico, entered it with him.

The first hours he passed there were terrible; this proud mind, this powerful organization, revolted against adversity, and would not accept defeat. Gloomy and silent, with frowning brows, and fists clenched on his bosom, the general sought shelter like a wild beast in a corner of the room, recalling his whole life, and seeing with starts of terror the bloody victims scattered along his path, and sacrificed in turn to his devouring ambition, sadly defile before him.

Then he reverted to his early years. When residing at the Palmar, his magnificent family hacienda, his life passed away calm, pure, gentle, and tranquil, without regrets, and without desires, among his faithful servants. Then, he was so glad to be nothing, and to wish to be nothing.

By degrees his thoughts followed the bias of his recollections: the present was effaced; his contracted features grew softer, and two burning tears, the first, perhaps, this man of iron had ever shed, slowly coursed down his cheeks, which grief had hollowed.

The monks, calm and contemplative, had eagerly followed the successive changes on this eminently expressive face. They comprehended that their mission of consolation was beginning, and approached the general softly, and wept with him; then this man, whom nothing had been able to subdue, felt his soul torn asunder; the cloud that covered his eyes melted away like the winter snow before the first sunbeam, and he fell into the arms open to receive him, exclaiming, with an expression of desperate grief impossible to render —