Mayne Reid - The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley

In fine, a more merciful course was determined upon; only decimation of the prisoners – every tenth man to suffer death.

There was no word about degrees in their guiltiness – all were alike in this respect – and the fate of each was to be dependent on pure blind chance.

When the retaken escapadoes had been brought back to El Salado, they were drawn up in line of single file, and carefully counted. A helmet, snatched from the head of one of the Dragoons guarding them, was made use of as a ballot-box. Into this were thrown a number of what we call French or kidney beans – the pijoles of Mexico – in count corresponding to that of the devoted victims. Of these pijoles there are several varieties, distinguishable chiefly by their colour. Two sorts are common, the black and white; and these were chosen to serve as tickets in that dread lottery of life and death. For every nine white beans there was a black one; he who drew black would be shot within the hour!

Into the hard soldier’s head-piece, appropriate for such purpose, the beans were dropped, and the drawing done as designed. I, who now write of it long after, can truthfully affirm that never in the history of human kind has there been a grander exhibition of man’s courage than was that day given at El Salado. The men who exemplified it were of no particular nation. As a matter of course, the main body of the Texans were of American birth, but among them were also Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, French, and Germans – even some who spoke Spanish, the language of their captors, now their judges, and about to become their executioners. But when that helmet of horrible contents was carried round, and held before each, not one showed the slightest fear or hesitancy to plunge his hand into it, though knowing that what they should bring up between their fingers might be the sealing of their fate. Many laughed and made laughter among their comrades, by some quaint jeu d’esprit . One reckless fellow – no other than Cris Rock – as he fearlessly rattled the beans about, cried aloud —

“Wal, boys, I guess it’s the tallest gamblin’ I’ve ever took a hand at. But this child ain’t afeerd. I was born to good luck, an’ am not likely to go under – jest yet.”

The event justified his confidence, as he drew blank – not black , the fatal colour.

It was now Kearney’s turn to undergo the dread ordeal; and, without flinching, he was about to insert his hand into the helmet, when the Texan, seizing hold of it, stayed him.

“No, Cap!” he exclaimed; “I’m wownded, putty bad, as ye see,” – (he had received a lance thrust in their struggle with the Guards) – “an’ mayent git over it. Thurfor, your life’s worth more’n mine. Besides, my luck’s good jest now. So let me take your chance. That’s allowed, as these skunks hev sayed themselves.”

So it was – a declaration having been made by the officer who presided over the drawing – from humane motives as pretended – that any one who could find a substitute might himself stand clear. A grim mockery it seemed; and yet it was not so; since, besides Cris Rock, more than one courageous fellow proposed the same to comrade and friend – in the case of two brothers the elder one insisting upon it.

Though fully, fervently appreciating the generous offer, Florence Kearney was not the man to avail himself of it.

“Thanks, brave comrade!” he said, with warmth, detaching his hand from the Texan’s grasp, and thrusting it into the helmet. “What’s left of your life yet is worth more than all mine; and my luck may be good as yours – we’ll see.”

It proved so, a murmur of satisfaction running along the line as they saw his hand drawn out with a white bear between the fingers.

“Thanks to the Almighty!” joyously shouted the Texan, as he made out the colour. “Both o’ us clar o’ that scrape, by Job! An’ as there ain’t no need for me dyin’ yet, I mean to live it out, an’ git well agin.”

And get well he did, despite the long after march, with all its exposures and fatigues; his health and strength being completely restored as he stepped over the threshold, entering within his prison-cell in the city of Mexico.

One of the most noted “lions” in the City of Mexico is the prison called La Acordada. Few strangers visit the Mexican capital without also paying a visit to this celebrated penal establishment, and few who enter its gloomy portals issue forth from them without having seen something to sadden the heart, and be ever afterwards remembered with repugnance and pain.

There is, perhaps, no prison in the universal world where one may witness so many, and such a variety of criminals; since there is no crime known to the calendar that has not been committed by some one of the gaol-birds of the Acordada.

Its cells, or cloisters – for the building was once a monastery – are usually well filled with thieves, forgers, ravishers, highway robbers, and a fair admixture of murderers; none appearing cowed or repentant, but boldly brazening it out, and even boasting of their deeds of villainy, fierce and strong as when doing them, save the disabled ones, who suffer from wounds or some loathsome disease.

Nor is all their criminal action suspended inside the prison walls. It is carried on within their cells, and still more frequently in the courtyards of the ancient convent, where they are permitted to meet in common and spend a considerable portion of their time. Here they may be seen in groups, most of them ragged and greasy, squatted on the flags, card-playing – and cheating when they can – now and then quarrelling, but always talking loud and cursing.

Into the midst of this mass of degraded humanity were thrust two of the unfortunate prisoners, taken at the battle of Mier – the two with whom our tale has alone to do.

For reasons that need not be told, most of the captives were excepted from this degradation; the main body of them being carried on through the city to the pleasant suburban village of Tacubaya.

But Florence Kearney and Cris Rock were not among the exceptions; both having been consigned to the horrid pandemonium we have painted.

It was some consolation to them that they were allowed to share the same cell, though they would have liked it better could they have had this all to themselves. As it was, they had not; two individuals being bestowed in it along with them.

It was an apartment of but limited dimensions – about eight feet by ten – the cloister of some ancient monk, who, no doubt, led a jolly enough life of it there, or, if not there, in the refectory outside, in the days when the Acordada was a pleasant place of residence for himself and his cowled companions. For his monastery, as “Bolton Abbey in the olden time,” saw many a scene of good cheer, its inmates being no anchorites.

Beside the Texan prisoners, its other occupants now were men of Mexican birth. One of them, under more favourable circumstances, would have presented a fine appearance. Even in his prison garb, somewhat ragged and squalid, he looked the gentleman and something more. For there was that in his air and physiognomy, which proclaimed him no common man. Captivity may hold and make more fierce, but cannot degrade, the lion. And just as a lion in its cage seemed this man in a cell of the Acordada. His face was of the rotund type, bold in its expression, yet with something of gentle humanity, seen when searched for, in the profound depths of a dark penetrating eye. His complexion was a clear olive, such as is common to Mexicans of pure Spanish descent, the progeny of the Conquistadors; his beard and moustache coal-black, as also the thick mass of hair that, bushing out and down over his ears, half concealed them.