University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE RANCHO SALADO.

—Texan MSS.

It was a dreary rancho of dark stone, one
story in height, with a stunted and withered
tree before its low and narrow door. To the
east extended a wall of stone, of the same hue
as that which formed the rancho, only that a
few miserable shrubs struggled into light between
the solid blocks.

Around that rancho all was one monotonous
waste of sand, as far as the eye could
see, and far in the east and west rose a range
of barren hills, their rugged peaks rushing
into the sunset sky.

A view more desolate cannot be imagined.
The rancho, with its wall, encircling a space
some hundred feet square, was the only object
that met the eye in all that waste of dreary
sand and barren cliffs.

A single black cloud, with rugged edges,
spread over the tops of the western hills, and
veiled, as in a pall, the lust beams of the dying
sun.

The air was hot, stifling, like the atmosphere
of a furnace. It was the close of a
long and sultry day. A flock of vultures were
perched upon the flat roof of the rancho,
folding their sluggish wings, as they seemed
to scent the smell of human blood.

Before the door waited a half-robber form,
dressed in the tawdry green jacket and wide
trowsers of a Mexican ranchero. There were
pistols in his belt, as leaning on his rusty mus
ket, he cast his sleepy eyes to the setting
sun.

This lonely farm house, or military post,
call it what you will, was situated in the
heart of Mexico, some hundred and fifty miles
south of the city of Saltillo.

It was called the Rancho Salado.

Within the court yard, hidden by the impenetrable
wall, a scene of peculiar interest
was in progress.

One hundred and seventy men, chained in
couples, their faces worn by famine, and rendered
more hideous by the uncombed hair
and unshaven beard, were grouped in a circle.
Their shrunken forms, wasted by long days
and nights of thirst, hunger and cold, were
miserably clad in rags that fluttered to every
breeze.

In the centre of that circle was a massive
log, and on that log an earthen vessel resembling
an antique funeral urn.

Around these gaunt and famine-stricken
forms was grouped a solid mass of Mexican
steel. At least three hundred soldiers attired
in green, gazed on the chained men, and raised
thelr musquets in the light of the setting
sun.

Near yonder post, the colonel of the detachment,
a man of some thirty-five years, with a
dark olive face, rests his arms against the
wall and turns his face away from the group

of prisoners. This colonel has seen much
bloodshed, and washed his blade on many a
Texan field, but now the tears stream freely
down his battle-worn cheeks.

His officers, young men and aged, clad in
the gay Mexican array, gaze on the group
with wet eyes and quivering lips.

Only one man,—you see him slightly advanced
from the others—gazes upon the miserable
men, with an aspect cold, stony and
unpitying as Death. He is by no means an
unhandsome man, for his beard is dark and
silken, his hair glossy as a raven's pinion,
his eyes full and lustrous.

He gazes apon the prisoners and the urn
and smiles, until his teeth glare out from beneath
his moustache.

Have we seen this man before?

The colonel advances; as if choking down
his emotions, he surveys the group and speaks.
The Priest by his side, with dark brown and
rotund face, translates his words into English.

Texans! Taken prisoners in an attack
made by you, last Christmas day, on the
town of Mier, situated in the Republic of
Mexico, you were brought, some months since,
to this rancho, on your way to the city of
Mexico. You rose on the guard, shot and
stabbed our sentinels, and escaped. After
days and nights of starvation and misery,
worse than death, you were re-taken, and
again you stand upon the scene of your mad
adventures. Texans! By the order of Don
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anua, President of
the Republic, you are declared pirates and
robbers, out of the pale of all international
law, and stripped of all the rights of civilized
communities. You are worthy of death,
in the most sudden and ignominious form,
but, in mercy'—there was a convulsive movement
in the brave Colonel's throat, which
well-nigh choked his voice—`in mercy, I
say, the President decrees that only one out
of every ten men shall be put to death.'

He paused,and as though embarrassed by his
emotions, played for a moment with the hilt
of his sword. You see, his officers stand
weeping near yonder wall, and still, with his
uncovered brow, glowing in the light of the
setting sun, stands that solitary and unpitying
cavalier, with the dark hair and silken beard,

`Within that urn are deposited one hundred
and seventy beans; seventeen black
ones, among one hundred and fifty-three white
ones. You will advance two by two, and
draw each of you, from the urn a single
bean. If it is white, you live,—black and
you die before sunset.'

He turned away, and the Texans looked
silently in each other's faces. The unpitying
officer—did we ever see him before?—advanced,
passed through the prisoners, and
took his seat on the log. The priest handed
him a large blank book, with pen and ink.
This man was to enter the names of the living
and the dead,as one by one, they raised
the death-urn.

The air seemed to grow more sultry, and
a strange silence descended upon the scene.

While the Colonel and his officers were
moved to tears—while even the rough soldiers
wept, as they grasped their muskets—
while that solitary, unpitying man, seated by
the urn, looked coolly in the faces of the
Texans, they advanced two by two and chained
as they were, inserted every man his hand
in the urn of death.

The first couple—a man with sinewy form
and hair like snow, and a man whose robust
figure indicated the wreck of Herculean
strength.

At once they inserted their hands: there
was a pause. Sobs were heard from the
group of Mexican officers. The Register of
the Dead—so let us c ll the handsome officer,
who, seated on the log, holds the book
of life and death—coolly watched their movements,
as though he had wagered a few dollars
on the result.

The old man drew a black bean.

`Death!' cried the Register, as he entered
his name on the book.

The old man, whose features, covered with
a snow-white beard, belied not one trace of
emotion, whispered to his comrade—

`Should you ever return to Texas,—I have
a daughter,—you will bear to her my blessing?'

The Herculean Texan could not reply.

The manacles were loosened, and the aged
man calmly stepped aside, and stood erect on
the spot allotted to the doomed.

The horrible lottery went on in solemn silence,
only broken by the sobs of the Mexican
officers,—the sneering laugh of the gallant
Register, who cried, `Life,' or `Death,'
as though he was but marking the result of a
game of cards.

You may believe me, that it was a sad
scene. The sun never shone on a sight more
harrowing. Two by two they advanced, these
heroes of Mier, who had mothers, wives, sisters
in the sunny land which they had bought
with their blood—the beautiful land of Texas.

Not a groan from their lips—no! not even
a sigh. Half naked, unshaven, and miserable
to look upon, they came, two by two to
the urn, raised their faces in the sunset glare,
and calmly took their places in the ranks of
life and death.

At last, when the setting sun trembled on
the hill-top, his red disc seen between the
cliff and the black cloud above, there stood
sixteen men, side by side, on the spot assigned
to the condemned.

Two Texans only remained to fulfill the
conditions of the lottery; there was but one
black bean in the urn, and one of the twain
must die.

Every eye was fixed upon them as they advanced.

You see the tallest of the two, a man of
sinewy form, and aquiline face. His broad
chest quivers beneath its covering of rags—
ah! unmanly spectacle—there are tears in
his large dark eyes.

Why these tears?—for himself? Look at
the prisoner chained to his wrist, and answer!

A very boy; scarce sixteen, with a girlish
form, and smooth, beardless cheek, and
strangely lustrous blue eyes. His face, too,
is worn by famine; but there is a calm, almost
holy light upon his soft features; he looks
up into the face of the robust man, and a sad
smile wreathes his lips.

`Fear not for me, brother—I'll not play the
coward!' he says, in a distinct firm tone.

`Fear not for you,' and a hoarse groan
swelled the broad chest of the bearded Texan.
`By — I swear, I do not fear for you; you
shall not die. No—no! That would be a little
too hard for the devil himself to think.
Hark ye, Harry'—this in a hasty whisper—
`let me draw first: the black bean is smaller
than the white—I can tell one from the other
by the touch. I will—'

The younger brother replied by thrusting
his hand into the urn.

There was one groan thrilling from every
lip in the courtyard. The chivalric Register
alone regarded the scene with a pleasant
smile, and politely asked,—

`The color of the bean?'

`Black!' cried the heroic boy, turning
with a triumphant smile to his brother. That
brother wrung his manacled hands and bowed
his head upon his breast—it would have made
your blood run cold to see that strong man
weeping like a child.

`Name?' added the polite Register, smoothing
his silken moustache.

`Harry Grywin!' replied the boy, in a
firm tone.

The Register started, his face became pale,
almost livid for an instant, but recovering his
composure he coolly entered the name. Murmuring,
`Harry Grywin—Death!'

This scene did not pass unobserved. No!
The doomed sixteen men saw it, the Mexican
officers shuddered as they beheld the black
bean in the hands of the girlish boy, and ten

Texans stepped from the ranks of the living
exclaiming incoherently,—

`I will take his place.'—`By — you cannot
kill that boy!'—`Behold us! We will die
in his stead!'

But a voice deeper than all rung through
the court yard,—

`Who talks of dying for Harry Grywin,
when his brother, I, John Grywin, am here?
Look you, he is but a child—you cannot put
him to death. The foolish boy saw the bean
before he drew it—he denied himself the
shadow of a chance. Take me!'

His tall form swelled in every fibre as he
towered erect, the red glow of the setting sun
lighting up his aquiline features, framed in
masses of hair and beard as black as jet.

`Take! Look you, my Mexican friends,
I do not owe you much love. I have cut and
carved you in battle, as I would cut and carve
again, had I free field and a good knife. But
now I will stoop to you, kneel to you. Come,
priest, tell it to them in Spanish, only so that
you will let me die in place of Harry here,
for as there's a God, he looks the very image
of his mother.'

The tones of that strong man, his tears, his
gestures, had a language which went like a
fiery arrow to every heart.

`This must not go on,' shouted the veteran
Colonel, rushing forward,—`These men shall
not die! And the boy; Holy Trinity! it would
be sacrilege to kill him.'

The Register sprang upon the log, with his
fine form and handsome face revealed against
the sunset sky.

`Fall back, Colonel; I command here,' he
said, quietly waving his hand.

`But your Excellency,—Don Antonio Marin—'

At that name, John Grywin looked up and
surveyed the handsome form of the Register,
Don Antonio Marin. It was horrible to remark
the strange pallor of the Texan's face,
the iron impression of his bearded lips.

`Don Antonio Marin!' he exclaimed;`Oh
sir, I am glad to know you!'

`Separate these heretics,' shouted Don Antonio
with rapid utterance and violent gestures.
Quick, I say! The sun is setting and
it must be over before he is below the horizon.
Soldiers, advance by platoons; to your
duty—present—fire!'

It was done like a lightning flash. Harry
was separated from the brother's side, hurried
away into the ranks of the Doomed; there
was a report like separate claps of thunder,
mingling in one awful peal, and a mass of
blueish smoke rolled over the scene.

Groans, prayers, low-muttered curses mingling
in chorus! Do you see the smoke-shroud
roll aside for a moment? That old man on
his knees, lifting his hands in prayer? The
red blaze pours into his face and the smoke-cloud
rolls over them all. Peal on peal, volley
on volley, and now the whole courtyard is
veiled in smoke.

An awful silence.

The smoke slowly rolls aside. Ah, those
mangled forms, with here and there a limb
quivering with the last impulse of life, a hand
raised, but to fall stiff and frozen to the
ground, a face uplifted, with the blood pouring
over the hollow stomach, which but a moment
ago were eyes.

There, on the log, beside the fatal urn,
stands Don Antonio Marin, gazing coolly on
the bloody heap of dying and dead, while his
curling hair, and silked beard, and smooth
olive cheek glow richly in the sun, as he
lights a cigareto and emits volumes of perfumed
smoke from his vermillion lips.

Near him, John Grywin, frozen into a dead
stupor, his hands clasped, and his vacant gaze
rolling from the mangled forms to the soldiers
and last of all resting on that prominent
figure.

Don Antonio, standing on the log and puffing
his cigareto with infinite relish, his face
and beard encircled by clouds of fragrant
smoke—as the sun dips below the horizon
and night rushes on the scene.