第19章

One of the figures dressed in green jackets, who seemed to be in authority, now advanced, and, after a moment's parley with Senor Perkins while the Excelsior's passengers were being collected from the different boats, courteously led the way along the wall of the fortification.Presently a low opening or gateway appeared, followed by the challenge of a green-jacketed sentry, and the sentence, "Dios y Libertad" It was repeated in the interior of a dusky courtyard, surrounded by a low corridor, where a dozen green-jacketed men of aboriginal type and complexion, carrying antique flintlocks, were drawn up as a guard of honor.

"The Comandante," said Senor Perkins, "directs me to extend his apologies to the Senor Capitano Bunker for withholding the salute which is due alike to his country, himself, and his fair company;but fifty years of uninterrupted peace and fog have left his cannon inadequate to polite emergencies, and firmly fixed the tampion of his saluting gun.But he places the Presidio at your disposition;you will be pleased to make its acquaintance while it is still light; and he will await you in the guard-room."Left to themselves, the party dispersed like dismissed school-children through the courtyard and corridors, and in the enjoyment of their release from a month's confinement on shipboard stretched their cramped limbs over the ditches, walls, and parapets, to the edge of the glacis.

Everywhere a ruin that was picturesque, a decay that was refined and gentle, a neglect that was graceful, met the eye; the sharp exterior and reentering angles were softly rounded and obliterated by overgrowths of semitropical creepers; the abatis was filled by a natural brake of scrub-oak and manzanita; the clematis flung its long scaling ladders over the escarpment, until Nature, slowly but securely investing the doomed fortress, had lifted a victorious banner of palm from the conquered summit of the citadel! Some strange convulsions of the earth had completed the victory; the barbette guns of carved and antique bronze commemorating fruitless and long-forgotten triumphs were dismounted; one turned in the cheeks of its carriage had a trunnion raised piteously in the air like an amputated stump; another, sinking through its rotting chassis, had buried itself to its chase in the crumbling adobe wall.But above and beyond this gentle chaos of defense stretched the real ramparts and escarpments of Todos Santos--the impenetrable and unassailable fog! Corroding its brass and iron with saline breath, rotting its wood with unending shadow, sapping its adobe walls with perpetual moisture, and nourishing the obliterating vegetation with its quickening blood, as if laughing to scorn the puny embattlements of men--it still bent around the crumbling ruins the tender grace of an invisible but all-encompassing arm.

Senor Perkins, who had acted as cicerone to the party, pointed out these various mutations with no change from his usual optimism.

"Protected by their peculiar isolation during the late war, there was no necessity for any real fortification of the place.

Nevertheless, it affords some occupation and position for our kind friend, Don Miguel, and so serves a beneficial purpose.This little gun," he continued, stopping to attentively examine a small but beautifully carved bronze six-pounder, which showed indications of better care than the others, "seems to be the saluting-gun Don Miguel spoke of.For the last fifty years it has spoken only the language of politeness and courtesy, and yet through want of care the tampion, as you see, has become swollen and choked in its mouth.""How true in a larger sense," murmured Mrs.Markham, "the habit of courtesy alone preserves the fluency of the heart.""I know you two are saying something very clever," said Mrs.

Brimmer, whose small French slippers and silk stockings were beginning to show their inadequacy to a twilight ramble in the fog;"but I am so slow, and I never catch the point.Do repeat it slowly.""The Senor was only showing us how they managed to shut up a smooth bore in this country," said Crosby gravely."I wonder when we're going to have dinner.I suppose old Don Quixote will trot out some of his Senoritas.I want to see those choir girls that sang so stunningly a while ago.""I suppose you mean the boys--for they're all boys in the Catholic choirs--but then, perhaps you are joking again.Do tell me if you are, for this is really amusing.I may laugh--mayn't I?" As the discomfited humorist fell again to the rear amidst the laughter of the others, Mrs.Brimmer continued naively to Senor Perkins,--"Of course, as Don Miguel is a widower, there must be daughters or sisters-in-law who will meet us.Why, the priest, you know--even he--must have nieces.Really, it's a serious question--if we are to accept his hospitality in a social way.Why don't you ask HIM?"she said, pointing to the green-jacketed subaltern who was accompanying them.

Senor Perkins looked half embarrassed.

"Repeat your question, my dear lady, and I will translate it.""Ask him if there are any women at the Presidio."Senor Perkins drew the subaltern aside.Presently he turned to Mrs.Brimmer.

"He says there are four: the wife of the baker, the wife of the saddler, the daughter of the trumpeter, and the niece of the cook.""Good heavens! we can't meet THEM," said Mrs.Brimmer.

Senor Perkins hesitated.