 | THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY. The Alhambra |  |
THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY.
In former times there ruled, as governor of the
Alhambra, a doughty old cavalier, who, from
having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly
known by the name of El Gobernador Manco, or
the one armed governor. He in fact prided himself
upon being an old soldier, wore his mustachios
curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning
boots, and a toledo as long as a spit, with his
pocket handkerchief in the basket-hilt.
He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and
punctilious, and tenacious of all his privileges and
dignities. Under his sway, the immunities of the
Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were
rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to enter
the fortress with firearms, or even with a sword
or staff, unless he were of a certain rank, and
gate and lead his horse by the bridle. Now, as
the hill of the Alhambra rises from the very
midst of the city of Granada, being, as it were, an
excrescence of the capital, it must at all times be
somewhat irksome to the captain general who
commands the province, to have thus an imperium
in imperio, a petty independent post, in the
very core of his domains. It was rendered the
more galling in the present instance, from the irritable
jealousy of the old governor, that took fire
on the least question of authority and jurisdiction,
and from the loose vagrant character of the people
that had gradually nestled themselves within
the fortress as in a sanctuary, and from thence
carried on a system of roguery and depredation
at the expense of the honest inhabitants of the
city. Thus there was a perpetual feud and heart-burning
between the captain general and the
governor; the more virulent on the part of the
latter, inasmuch as the smallest of two neighbouring
potentates is always the most captious about
his dignity. The stately palace of the captain
general stood in the Plaza Nueva, immediately
at the foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and here
was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics,
of the fortress overlooked the palace and the
public square in front of it; and on this bastion
the old governor would occasionally strut backwards
and forwards, with his toledo girded by
his side, keeping a wary eye down upon his rival,
like a hawk reconnoitering his quarry from
his nest in a dry tree.
Whenever he descended into the city, it was
in grand parade, on horseback, surrounded by his
guards, or in his state coach, an ancient and unwieldy
Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt
leather, drawn by eight mules, with running foot-men,
outriders, and lacqueys, on which occasions
he flattered himself he impressed every beholder
with awe and admiration as vicegerent of the king,
though the wits of Granada, particularly those
who loitered about the palace of the captain general,
were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and,
in allusion to the vagrant character of his subjects,
to greet him with the appellation of “the
King of the beggars.”
One of the most fruitful sources of dispute between
these two doughty rivals, was the right
claimed by the governor to have all things passed
free of duty through the city, that were intended
degrees, this privilege had given rise to extensive
smuggling. A nest of contrabandistas took up
their abode in the hovels of the fortress and the
numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove a thriving
business under the connivance of the soldiers
of the garrison.
The vigilance of the captain general was aroused.
He consulted his legal adviser and factotum,
a shrewd, meddlesome, Escribano or notary, who
rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the
old potentate of the Alhambra, and involving him
in a maze of legal subtilities. He advised the captain
general to insist upon the right of examining
every convoy passing through the gates of his
city, and he penned a long letter for him, in vindication
of the right. Governor Manco was a
straight-forward, cut-and-thrust old soldier, who
hated an Escribano worse than the devil, and this
one in particular, worse than all other Escribanoes.
“What!” said he, curling up his mustachios
fiercely, “does the captain general set his man of
the pen to practise confusions upon me? I'll let
him see that an old soldier is not to be baffled by
schoolcraft.”
He seized his pen, and scrawled a short letter
in a crabbed hand, in which, without deigning to
enter into argument, he insisted on the right of
transit free of search, and denounced vengeance
on any custom-house officer who should lay his
unhallowed hand on any convoy protected by the
flag of the Alhambra.
While this question was agitated between the
two pragmatical potentates, it so happened that a
mule laden with supplies for the fortress arrived
one day at the gate of Xenil, by which it was to
traverse a suburb of the city on its way to the
Alhambra. The convoy was headed by a testy
old corporal, who had long served under the governor,
and was a man after his own heart; as
trusty and staunch as an old toledo blade. As
they approached the gate of the city, the corporal
placed the banner of the Alhambra on
the pack saddle of the mule, and, drawing himself
up to a perfect perpendicular, advanced
with his head dressed to the front, but with the
wary side glance of a cur passing through hostile
grounds, and ready for a snap and a snarl.
“Who goes there?” said the centinel at the
gate.
“Soldier of the Alhambra,” said the corporal
without turning his head.
“What have you in charge?”
“Provisions for the garrison.”
“Proceed.”
The corporal marched straight forward, followed
by the convoy, but had not advanced many
paces, before a possé of custom-house officers
rushed out of a small toll-house.
“Hallo, there!” cried the leader: “Muleteer,
halt and open those packages.”
The corporal wheeled round, and drew himself
up in battle array. “Respect the flag of the
Alhambra,” said he; “these things are for the
governor.”
“A fig for the governor, and a fig for his flag.
Muleteer halt, I say.”
“Stop the convoy at your peril!” cried the
corporal, cocking his musket. “Muleteer proceed.”
The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack;
the custom-house officer sprang forward, and seized
the halter; whereupon the corporal levelled his
piece and shot him dead.
The street was immediately in an uproar.
The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing
sundry kicks and cuffs, and cudgellings,
which are generally given impromptu, by the
mob in Spain, as a foretaste of the after penalties
to the city prison; while his comrades
were permitted to proceed with the convoy, after
it had been well rummaged, to the Alhambra.
The old governor was in a towering passion,
when he heard of this insult to his flag and capture
of his corporal. For a time he stormed
about the Moorish halls, and vapoured about the
bastions, and looked down fire and sword upon
the palace of the captain general. Having vented
the first ebullition of his wrath, he despatched
a message demanding the surrender of the corporal,
as to him alone belonged the right of sitting
in judgment on the offences of those under
his command. The captain general, aided by
the pen of the delighted Escribano, replied at
great length, arguing that as the offence had been
committed within the walls of his city, and
against one of his civil officers, it was clearly
within his proper jurisdiction. The governor
rejoined by a repetition of his demand; the captain
general gave a sur-rejoinder of still greater
length, and legal acumen; the governor became
hotter and more peremptory in his demands, and
the captain general cooler and more copious in his
replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely
in the meshes of legal controversy.
While the subtle Escribano was thus amusing
himself at the expense of the governor, he was
conducting the trial of the corporal; who, mewed
up in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had
merely a small grated window at which to show
his iron-bound visage, and receive the consolations
of his friends; a mountain of written testimony
was diligently heaped up, according to
Spanish form, by the indefatigable Escribano; the
corporal was completely overwhelmed by it.
He was convicted of murder, and sentenced to be
hanged.
It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance
and menace from the Alhambra. The fatal
day was at hand, and the corporal was put in
capilla, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison;
as is always done with culprits the day before
execution, that they may meditate on their approaching
end, and repent them of their sins.
Seeing things drawing to an extremity, the old
governor determined to attend to the affair in person.
For this purpose he ordered out his carriage
of state, and, surrounded by his guards,
rumbled down the avenue of the Alhambra into
he summoned him to the portal.
The eye of the old governor gleamed like a
coal at beholding the smirking man of the law
advancing with an air of exultation.
“What is this I hear,” cried he, “that you are
about to put to death one of my soldiers?”
“All according to law,—all in strict form of
justice,” said the self-sufficient Escribano, chuckling
and rubbing his hands. “I can show your
excellency the written testimony in the case.”
“Fetch it hither,” said the governor.
The Escribano bustled into his office, delighted
with having another opportunity of displaying
his ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed
veteran. He returned with a satchel full of papers,
and began to read a long deposition with
professional volubility. By this time, a crowd
had collected, listening with outstretched necks
and gaping mouths.
“Pry'thee man, get into the carriage out of this
pestilent throng, that I may the better hear thee,”
said the governor.
The Escribano entered the carriage, when, in
a twinkling, the door was closed, the coachman
smacked his whip, mules, carriage, guards and
all dashed off at a thundering rate, leaving the
pause until he had lodged his prey in one of
the strongest dungeons of the Alhambra.
He then sent down a flag of truce in military
style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners,
the corporal for the notary. The pride of the captain
general was piqued, he returned a contemptuous
refusal, and forthwith caused a gallows,
tall and strong, to be erected in the centre of the
Plaza Neuva, for the execution of the corporal.
“O ho! is that the game?” said governor Manco:
he gave orders, and immediately a gibbet
was reared on the verge of the great beetling bastion
that overlooked the Plaza. “Now,” said he,
in a message to the captain general, “hang my
soldier when you please; but at the same time
that he is swung off in the square, look up to see
your Escribano dangling against the sky.”
The captain general was inflexible; troops
were paraded in the square; the drums beat; the
bell tolled; an immense multitude of amateurs
had collected to behold the execution; on the
other hand, the governor paraded his garrison
on the bastion, and tolled the funeral dirge of the
notary from the Torre de la Campana, or tower
of the bell.
The notary's wife pressed through the crowd
at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet
of the captain general, implored him not to sacrifice
the life of her husband, and the welfare of
herself and her numerous little ones to a point of
pride; “for you know the old governor too
well,” said she, “to doubt that he will put his
threat in execution if you hang the soldier.”
The captain general was overpowered by her
tears and lamentations, and the clamours of her
callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the
Alhambra under a guard, in his gallows garb,
like a hooded friar; but with head erect and a
face of iron. The Escribano was demanded in
exchange, according to the cartel. The once bustling
and self-sufficient man of the law was drawn
forth from his dungeon, more dead than alive.
All his flippancy and conceit had evaporated; his
hair, it is said, had nearly turned gray with affright,
and he had a downcast, dogged look, as if
he still felt the halter round his neck.
The old governor stuck his one arm a-kimbo,
and for a moment surveyed him with an iron
smile. “Henceforth, my friend,” said he, “moderate
your zeal in hurrying others to the gallows;
be not too certain of your own safety,
side; and, above all, take care how you play off
your schoolcraft another time upon an old soldier.”
| THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY. The Alhambra | |