Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/359

Rh us, both for our own sake and his, to leave his house; adding that, even if we were of those unfortunate men, our horses should be brought up and we should go away unharmed; more he could not promise. Now if we had really been the fugitives he supposed us, we should no doubt have been very thankful for his kindness; but to be turned out by mistake in a dark night, an unknown country, and without any guide, was almost as bad as coming at us with a blunderbuss. Fortunately, he was not a suspicious man; if he had been another Don Gregorio we should have "walked Spanish;" and, more fortunately still, my pertinacity had secured Figoroa's passport; it was the only thing that could have cleared our character. I showed it to him, pointing to the extra flourish which the secretary had made of plenipotentiario, and I believe he was not more astonished at finding who had honoured him by taking possession of his house, than pleased that we were not Morazan's officers. Though an intelligent man, he had passed a retired life on his hacienda. He had heard of such a thing as "a ministro plenipotentiario," but had never seen one. My accoutrements and the eagle on my hat sustained the character, and he called in the major-domo and two leading men on the hacienda, read to them the passport, and explained to them the character of a ministro plenipotentiario, while I sat upon the bed with my coat off and hat on to show the eagle, and the captain suppressed all partialities for Morazan, and talked of my intimacy with Carrera. The people are so suspicious that, having once formed an idea, they do not willingly abandon it, and it was uncertain whether all this would satisfy them; but our host was warm in his efforts, the major-domo was flattered by being made the medium of communicating with the men, and his influence was at stake in satisfying them. It was one of Talleyrand's maxims, never to do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow. On this occasion at least of my diplomatic career I felt the benefit of the old opposite rule. From the moment I saw Figoroa I had an eye only to getting his passport, and did not rest until I had it in my pocket. If we had waited to receive this with his letters, we should now have been in a bad position. If we escaped immediate violence, we should have been taken to the village, shut up in the cabildo, and exposed to all the dangers of an ignorant populace, at that moment excited by learning the success of Morazan and the defeat of Figoroa. In setting out, our idea was that, if taken by the Cachurecos, we should be carried up to Guatimala; but we found that there was no accountability to Guatimala; the people were in a state to act entirely from impulses, and nothing could induce any party of men to set out for Guatimala, or under any circumstances to go farther than from village to village.