Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/575

16, 1863.] landlord might very possibly suspect me of being the bearer of treasure, rather than of dry official papers; but Mendez had great command over his face, and it smoothed out again, fat, broad, and placid as a pond that a slight ripple had disturbed.

The supper was a good one. I am not going to bore you with a full list of its dishes; there was puchero, there were frijoles, of course, there were game birds from the mountain, there were stews, ollas, and many fruits and vegetables quite unknown to me. Barring a slight excess of garlic and bean oil, it was a plentiful and savoury, though somewhat greasy, repast, and I ate like a famished creature. As for liquids, there was coarse fiery pulque, more fiery corn brandy, as well as plenty of Albuquerque sherry and Paso champagne, the two best wines grown in Mexico. I have often wondered, since then, if my liquor were really drugged, or if it were only fatigue and long abstinence, followed by rather too much food and wine, which made me feel so sleepy and languid as I became. At any rate, I experienced a sense of lassitude so profound, that when the moon rose clear in the pure blue sky, without a cloud to intercept her light, I could hardly muster the moral courage to call for the bill and demand my horse and guide, saying aloud that I must set off at once.

And when Diego, after a long conference with the host, came in with a cock and-bull story about the lameness of one of the horses that had been kicked by an equine companion, and the consequent necessity (as the others were needed for the diligence) of postponing my journey until early morning, when a steed could be fetched from the corral of a farm two leagues off, I readily accepted the excuse. Indeed I felt rather glad of so good a reason for not making an exertion painful to me in the relaxed state of my nervous system. Had I been drugged? That is what I never knew, and probably it will never now be known.

“Excellency, you will sleep here? We can give you a capital bed, a bed for a prince, and early in the morning we will seek you a horse that shall carry you like a bird. You will not repent stopping with us. So—this way, noble sir—take care of that beam to your right.”

With these words the civil landlord lighted me up-stairs, carrying my valise in one hand and a lamp in the other. The room into which he ushered me was reached by passing through another, wholly unfurnished. It was an oblong, low-ceiled chamber, with bare floor and white-washed walls, and contained very little furniture beyond a bed and a single chair. One end of the room was occupied by a quantity of fresh husks of the Indian corn, from which the large grain had been lately separated by the usual process of picking, and for the presence of these husks the landlord apologised, and I listened to his apologies with drowsy impatience. Then, after a thousand speeches and proffers of service, Mendez left me, with a “buenos noches, nobile Señor,” and I remained in possession of the lamp and room.

Having satisfied myself that the sheets were clean,—no common matter in Mexico,—I proceeded lazily to undress. I opened the window, or, more correctly speaking, I left it open, an almost indispensable precaution against being stifled, for the roof was low and the night sultry. I ought to have told you, Tom, that the room I slept in was not the one generally assigned to guests of quality. That state room was pronounced uninhabitable for the moment, the ceiling having given way the day before: indeed the house was a rotten old barrack, tumbling to ruins as everything does in that country.

I went to bed, then, putting the bags, as well as my own purse and pocket-book, under the bolster, but rather in a mechanical way than from any prudential motives. Such had been my custom, and I adhered to it. As for the door, I certainly felt a languid surprise when I found it had no fastenings, no lock, no bolt, nothing but a simple latch; but I was too stupid at the moment to care much, and I sat for a little while dreamily puffing a cigar in the open window, and then extinguished the lamp and got into bed. The lamp was hardly needed, for there was no curtain or shutter, and the silvery moonlight poured in and seemed to veneer the dirty boards of the floor with mother of pearl. The light teased me, and I did not get off to sleep quite as easily as I wished. When I did fall asleep, after tossing and tumbling, I was awakened by a sensation which I should imagine was identical with that caused by the torture of being flayed alive. Fleas were the disturbers of my repose, but they were Mexican fleas, large and lively, and I suppose my Anglo-Saxon cuticle was a treat to them. At any rate they fell on their exotic banquet with a fury that banished every idea of sleep. I jumped up, and would have relighted the lamp, but could not find my lucifer matches, and as the moon had gone down, there was a very dim twilight in the chamber. Despairing of getting rid of my tiny tormentors, and unwilling to be devoured piecemeal, I groped for my clothes, and partly dressed myself, intending to spend the rest of the night on the one chair in the room, when I remembered the fresh, clean maize-husks at the other end of the apartment, and, feeling my way towards them, lay down upon them and found they made a tolerable couch.

“A great deal better than a Mexican bed,” I muttered, as I drew my poncho over me, and applied myself to the task of falling asleep. But sleep won’t come at command; and, in the course of an hour’s time, I gave up all hopes of a good night. I was restless, feverish, sensitively and distressingly awake. Perhaps I had really been drugged, and the narcotic had acted as a stimulant rather than a soporific, or the fleas may have done it all; but, at any rate, I was broad awake when I heard voices murmuring under my window. The sounds were smothered and indistinct, and were soon followed by a scuffling noise; and, to my surprise and, I own, dismay, the head and shoulders of a man were thrust in at the open casement.

All I had ever heard or read of lonely inns and treacherous innkeepers, of Mexican perfidy, of murders done for gold, flashed on my memory at once. The Yankee’s warning, too—I remembered it now, too late. I was quite unarmed. For aught I knew, there might be half-a-dozen ruffians