The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi by Altsheler (popular books of all time txt) 📗

They brought "The Galleon" to a stop, and the other boat came alongside. The officer in the bow was a Catalan, richly dressed, and small, but with a thin, alert face. He looked at the five with as much curiosity as they looked at him. Secretly he admired their splendid shoulders and chests, and their obvious strength. He was acute enough, too, to guess whence they came. Lieutenant Diégo Bernal had not been two years in New Orleans for nothing.

"You come from Kaintock?" he said in fair and not unfriendly English.

"Yes," replied Henry, "we are all the way from Kentucky, and we have an important message for the Governor General, Bernardo Galvez. Can you tell us how to reach him?"

Lieutenant Diégo Bernal glanced at "The Galleon," which was obviously of Spanish build, but he was a shrewd officer who would make his way in the world and he knew that many strange things passed inspection in this great Franco-Spanish metropolis of New Orleans.

"His Excellency, the Governor General," he replied, "is now at his house at the corner of Toulouse street and Rue de la Levee, but it is too late for you to see him to-day. To-morrow morning you may secure audience with him if you have the important message that you say."

The five disregarded the ironical tone in his voice. They were good enough judges of character to surmise that Lieutenant Diégo Bernal, whose name and career were unknown to them, did not care a particle how they had come into possession of the boat which was so obviously of Spanish build. There was no advantage to him in asking too many questions, and he calmly waved them to a landing.

They pulled in and tied their boat to the levee, while men and women, white, yellow, brown, and black, and all the colors between, stood about and looked at the giants from Kaintock, where people were reported to be of such extraordinary size and ferocity, and where they certainly were, as their own eyes could tell them, of uncommon height and strength, even boys such as they saw Henry and Paul to be.

While the five were engaged in this task, rabbais, or peddling merchants, some Provençals and some Catalans came to sell them goods, which they carried in coffin-shaped vehicles pushed before them. They had wares, mostly small articles from Spain and France and the West Indies. Colored women carrying immense cans of milk or coffee on their heads passed by or lingered in hope of a sale. Others were calling for sale callas and cakes tous chauds in monotonous, drawling voices. Negresses, also, were trying to sell belles chandelles, which were dirty candles made from green myrtle wax, the chief light then sold in the city.

The five understood the gestures of this rabble, although not their words, and waved them away, not caring to buy anything.

"Keep cool, Jim! keep cool!" said Shif'less Sol. "Don't shoot. They don't want to kill you; they jest want to rob you."

"Depends on what they want to rob me uv," replied Long Jim with a grin. "I never had more'n ten shillin's at one time in my life, an' I've got a purty strong grip on my rifle an' the clothes that I hev on."

"I think we'd better go ashore an' do a little scoutin'," said Tom Ross. "It's always well to know the groun' on which you're goin' to act."

"No doubt of it, Tom," said Henry, "and we'll all go together."

They had a little money of English coinage which was taken readily in cosmopolitan New Orleans, and with two shillings they hired a levee watchman, whom they judged they could trust, to look after "The Galleon." Then, rifle on shoulder, they entered the fortified city by the gate called Chemin des Tchoupitoulas. Spain, officially at least, was the friend of the colonies and the enemy of England, and the sentinels at the gate readily passed them after a few questions.

Here they asked again for the Governor General, Bernardo Galvez, and the statement of Lieutenant Diégo Bernal that he could not be seen was confirmed. He had arrived only a few hours before from a two days' expedition down the river, and was now immersed in important papers that had awaited his coming.

They saw the Governor General's house, a one-story building fronting the river with a gallery on one side, gardens on the other, and kitchen and outbuildings behind. They looked longingly at it, as they desired very much to see Bernardo Galvez at once. But presently they passed on into the Place d'Armes, a wide open space used as a review ground. At the very moment they entered it a company of Spanish soldiers were going through their evolutions, and, after the fashion of to-day, children and their dark-faced nurses were watching them. The five did not think much of the soldiers, who seemed to them to be dwarfed and without zeal.

"Ef ever Kentucky comes down the long river," said Shif'less Sol, "it will take bigger men than these to hold her back."

Paul's gaze wandered from the soldiers, and he saw in a corner of the Place d'Armes a great wooden gallows that made him shudder. It was a gallows very often used, too, and any one could have pointed out to Paul the spot in the middle of the Place d'Armes where five gallant French gentlemen, among the best citizens of New Orleans, had been shot not long before for planning to throw off the rule of Spain and make Louisiana a free republic.

They strolled on, still filled with curiosity and gratifying it. They saw many buildings that surpassed anything hitherto in their experience, the brick parish church, on the site of which the Cathedral of St. Louis was afterwards built, the arsenal, the jail, and the house of the Capuchins, who had lately triumphed over the Jesuits. The largest building of all that they saw was the convent of the Ursuline Nuns, standing in the city square on the river front, and this was, in fact, the largest building in New Orleans.

While there were many houses of brick, the cheaper were of cypress wood, and the sidewalks were only four or five feet wide, with a wooden drain for a gutter. There was no paving of the streets, which, now deep in dust, would turn to quagmires when the rain came. At long intervals were wooden posts with projecting arms from which hung oil lamps, to be lighted when nightfall came.

Long Jim uttered an exclamation of disgust, and gripped his nose firmly between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

"I never smelt sech smells afore in all my life," he said, pointing to the heaps of garbage scattered about. "A big town like this here is pow'ful interestin', but it ain't clean. Paul, remember them great forests up thar in Kentucky an' across the Ohio! Remember how clean an' nice the ground is! Remember all them big, fine, friendly trees, millions an' millions uv 'em! Remember all them nice little springs uv clean, cold water, clear enough to be lookin' glasses, one, an' sometimes more, every three or four hundred yards! Remember all them nice smells uv the wild flowers, an' the trees, an' the grass, an' me settin' at the foot uv the biggest tree uv 'em all, cookin' on a roarin' fire, fat, juicy buffaler an' deer steaks fur you fellers!"

"I remember," replied Paul smiling. "I remember it all, and I do believe, Jim, that you are homesick for the woods."

"Not homesick eggzackly, but I jest want to say that a big town like this kin be mighty interestin', but after I've seed it, give me back our own clean woods."

"I believe I agree with you, Jim," said Paul thoughtfully.

They strolled back into the Place d'Armes, where the review was still in progress, and where more people were gathering. The women were bare-headed, and generally wore a short round skirt, and long basque like overgarments, the two invariably of different, but bright, colors. All of them wore much ribbon and jewelry, but, as a rule, they were too dark of countenance to suit the ideas of the five concerning feminine beauty. At rare intervals, however, they saw a girl with light hair and light eyes and light complexion, and all these were really handsome.

"Those, I imagine, are French," said Paul. "We've got into the habit of thinking of the French as always dark, but many of them are fair. I've heard our school teacher, Mr. Pennypacker, say so often, and he ought to know. For the matter of that, some of the Spaniards are light, too."

"Yes, thar's Alvarez," said Shif'less Sol. "He's light, an' that's one reason why I mistrusted him the first time I saw him. It looks more nateral fur a Spaniard to be dark."

As they stood in the Place d'Armes looking at the sights, the five themselves began to attract much attention. Their height and strength, their long, sender barreled rifles, and their deerskin attire made them highly picturesque figures. The motley population of New Orleans was used to all kinds of people, armed or unarmed, but generally armed. These, however, were different. They bore themselves with dignity, there was about them an air of absolute simplicity and honesty, and they kept close together in a manner that indicated a faithful brotherhood, closer even than the brotherhood of blood. They seemed to come from another world than that which furnished so many desperate adventurers and former galley slaves to New Orleans.

Henry noticed the attention that they were attracting, and he did not like it.

"Perhaps, boys, we'd better go back to our boat," he said.

But before any one could answer he was tapped lightly on the arm and, turning about, he saw the small, trim figure of Lieutenant Diégo Bernal, who had been the first man to greet them as they entered New Orleans.

"We met on the water, as you know," said the little lieutenant, smiling in a friendly manner. "My name is Bernal, Diégo Bernal, and I am a lieutenant in the service of our most excellent Governor General, Bernardo Galvez."

His manner was polite, and Henry met him half way. He had nothing to conceal, and he gave him the names of his comrades and himself. Lieutenant Bernal all the time was regarding them shrewdly.

"It is evident that you are mighty men despite the youth of some of you," he said, "and I begin to suspect it from other facts also."

"What other facts?" asked Henry.

"Now, there is the matter of your boat," replied the lieutenant jauntily. "I had a belief, wrong no doubt, that she was of Spanish build. I also seemed to have a recollection, wrong, too, no doubt, that I had once seen Francisco Alvarez, the chief of our captains, aboard that boat and bearing himself in a manner that indicated ownership. I am wrong, no doubt. My impressions are often false and my memory always weak. Gladly would I stand correction. Gladly would I be convinced that I am misled by some fancied resemblance."

"Them's pow'ful big words," said Long Jim.

Henry, who was always the leader of the five when they were together, looked into the eyes of Diégo Bernal, and he seemed to see there the curious contraction that is called a wink. He gave judgment at once concerning Diégo Bernal.

"I take it," he said by way of reply, "that you are no great friend of the captain, Francisco Alvarez?"

"If a higher officer rebukes you unjustly and sneers at a commander whom you respect and like, is it calculated to promote friendship?"

The gaze of the two met again, and Henry understood.

"I see what your choice would be if you were compelled to choose between Bernardo Galvez and Francisco Alvarez," he said. "It may be that you will have to make such a choice, and I will tell you, too, that the boat did belong to the Captain Alvarez. We took it from him because, first, he made an outrageous attack upon us; secondly, he is plotting to set all the Indian tribes upon us in Kentucky, aided with Spanish soldiers and Spanish guns, and, thirdly, he hopes to become Governor General of Louisiana, and commit Spain to an alliance with England in the war upon the Americans."

Henry spoke boldly and earnestly, and the others nodded assent.

Lieutenant Diégo Bernal, a trim, dandified little man, drew forth from the pocket of his waistcoat a small gold snuff box and delicately took a pinch of snuff, a habit to which the five were unaccustomed.

"Speak it low, my friend," he said deliberately. "All this, if it be true, is great news, and you do right in coming to New Orleans to see Bernardo Galvez. Can you prove it when you see the Governor General?"

"We can give proofs," replied Henry guardedly.

"It is well, and I