The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley Page 10

  CHAPTER TEN.

  THE ACORDADA.

  One of the most noted "lions" in the City of Mexico is the prison calledLa Acordada. Few strangers visit the Mexican capital without alsopaying a visit to this celebrated penal establishment, and few who enterits gloomy portals issue forth from them without having seen somethingto sadden the heart, and be ever afterwards remembered with repugnanceand pain.

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

  Its cells, or cloisters--for the building was once a monastery--areusually 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 ofvillainy, 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. Itis carried on within their cells, and still more frequently in thecourtyards of the ancient convent, where they are permitted to meet incommon and spend a considerable portion of their time. Here they may beseen in groups, most of them ragged and greasy, squatted on the flags,card-playing--and cheating when they can--now and then quarrelling, butalways talking loud and cursing.

  Into the midst of this mass of degraded humanity were thrust two of theunfortunate prisoners, taken at the battle of Mier--the two with whomour tale has alone to do.

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

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

  It was some consolation to them that they were allowed to share the samecell, though they would have liked it better could they have had thisall to themselves. As it was, they had not; two individuals beingbestowed 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 enoughlife of it there, or, if not there, in the refectory outside, in thedays when the Acordada was a pleasant place of residence for himself andhis cowled companions. For his monastery, as "Bolton Abbey in the oldentime," saw many a scene of good cheer, its inmates being no anchorites.

  Beside the Texan prisoners, its other occupants now were men of Mexicanbirth. One of them, under more favourable circumstances, would havepresented a fine appearance. Even in his prison garb, somewhat raggedand squalid, he looked the gentleman and something more. For there wasthat 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 theAcordada. His face was of the rotund type, bold in its expression, yetwith something of gentle humanity, seen when searched for, in theprofound depths of a dark penetrating eye. His complexion was a clearolive, such as is common to Mexicans of pure Spanish descent, theprogeny of the Conquistadors; his beard and moustache coal-black, asalso the thick mass of hair that, bushing out and down over his ears,half concealed them.

  Cris Rock "cottoned" to this man on sight. Nor liked him much the lesswhen told he had been a robber! Cris supposed that in Mexico a robbermay sometimes be an honest man, or at all events, have taken to the roadthrough some supposed wrong--personal or political. Freebooting is lessa crime, or at all events, more easy of extenuation in a country whosechief magistrate himself is a freebooter; and such, at this moment,neither more nor less, was the chief magistrate of Mexico, Don AntonioLopez de Santa Anna.

  Beyond the fact, or it might be only suspicion, that Ruperto Rivas was arobber, little seemed to be known of him among the inmates of theAcordada. He had been there only a short while, and took no part intheir vulgar, commonplace ways of killing time; instead, staying withinhis cell. His name had, however, leaked out, and this brought up in theminds of some of his fellow-prisoners certain reminiscences pointing tohim as one of the road fraternity; no common one either, but the chiefof a band of "salteadores."

  Altogether different was the fourth personage entitled to a share in thecell appropriated to Kearney and Cris Rock; unlike the reputed robber asthe Satyr to Hyperion. In short, a contrast of the completest kind,both physically and mentally. No two beings claiming to be of humankind could have presented a greater dissimilarity--being very types ofthe extreme. Ruperto Rivas, despite the shabby habiliments in which thegaol authorities had arrayed him, looked all dignity and grandeur, whileEl Zorillo--the little fox, as his prison companions called him--was anepitomised impersonation of wickedness and meanness; not only crooked insoul, but in body--being in point of fact an _enano_ or dwarf-hunchback.

  Previous to the arrival of those who were henceforth to share theircell, this ill-assorted pair had been kept chained together, as much byway of punishment as to prevent escape. But now, the gaol-governor, asif struck by a comical idea, directed them to be separated, and thedwarf linked to the Texan Colossus--thus presenting a yet more ludicrouscontrast of couples--while the ex-captain of the filibusters and thereputed robber were consigned to the same chain.

  Of the new occupants of the cloister, Cris Rock was the more disgustedwith the situation. His heart was large enough to feel sympathy forhumanity in any shape, and he would have pitied his deformedfellow-prisoner, but for a deformity of the latter worse than anyphysical ugliness; for the Texan soon learnt that the hideous creature,whose couch as well as chain he was forced to share, had committedcrimes of the most atrocious nature, among the rest murder! It was, infact, for this last that he was now in the Acordada--a cowardly murder,too--a case of poisoning. That he still lived was due to the proofs notbeing legally satisfactory, though no one doubted of his havingperpetrated the crime. At first contact with this wretch the Texan hadrecoiled in horror, without knowing aught of his past. There was thatin his face which spoke a history of dark deeds. But when this becameknown to the new denizens of the cell, the proximity of such a monsterwas positively revolting to them.

  Vengeance itself could not have devised a more effective mode oftorture. Cris Rock groaned under it, now and then grinding his teethand stamping his feet, as if he could have trodden the mis-shapen thinginto a still more shapeless mass under the heels of his heavy boots.

  For the first two days of their imprisonment in the Acordada neither ofthe Texans could understand why they were being thus punished--as itwere to satisfy some personal spite. None of the other Mier prisoners,of whom several had been brought to the same gaol, were submitted to alike degradation. True, these were also chained two and two; but to oneanother, and not to Mexican criminals. Why, then, had they alone beenmade an exception? For their lives neither could tell or guess, thoughthey gave way to every kind of conjecture. It was true enough that CrisRock had been one of the ringleaders in the rising at El Salado, whilethe young Irishman had also taken a prominent part in that affair.Still, there were others now in the Acordada who had done the same,receiving treatment altogether different. The attack upon the Guards,therefore, could scarce be the cause of what they were called upon tosuffer now; for besides the humiliation of being chained to criminals,they were otherwise severely dealt with. The food set before them wasof the coarsest, with a scarcity of it; and more than once the gaoler,whose duty it was to look after them, made mockery of their irksomesituation, jesting on the grotesque companionship of the dwarf andgiant. As the gaol-governor had shown, on his first having themconveyed to their cells, signs of a special hostility, so did theirdaily attendant. But for what reason neither Florence Kearney nor hisfaithful comrade could divine.

  They learnt it at length--on the third day after their entrance withinthe prison. All was explained by the door of their cell being dr
awnopen, exposing to view the face and figure of a man well-known to them.And from both something like a cry escaped, as they saw standingwithout, by the side of the gaol-governor--Carlos Santander.