Gabriel Ferry

The Convent of St. Francis.

In the present state of society in Europe, in which the principles and traditions of the Middle Ages have been so completely broken up, one can hardly form any idea of the influence which the monk exercises in Mexico, and of the strong tie which connects him with the world. If, however, this bond had no existence, the singular picture which Mexican society presents would lose one of its greatest charms—the perpetual contrast, namely, of the customs and characteristics of the nineteenth century with those of the time of Philip II. Beside men armed to the teeth, women dressed as in the days of Cortez and Pizarro, and barelegged Indians, with feet encased in ancient sandals, the gown of the monk appears, not as an anomaly, but as a highly poetic souvenir. This figure is not out of keeping with the picture, but in perfect harmony with it. Whether in public or in private, the monk takes a share in Mexican life, not only every day, but almost every moment. Not to speak of the many religious ceremonies performed by the monks, the rules of the cloister are generally so lax as to allow them free liberty of egress at almost any hour; and thus they can mix, without difficulty, in all the gayeties of the world. You can easily understand what a picturesque element is introduced into society by this immense crowd, who issue every day from the numerous convents, each order bringing its own type upon the scene, from the black frock of the Dominican to the white robe of the Mercedario.

If the upper classes of Mexican society have escaped from the trammels of monkish influence, the middle classes regard them with as much superstitious reverence as they did a century ago. The fantastic eloquence of the Middle Ages still keeps its ground here. The Mexican preacher, carried away by his enthusiasm, seizes upon the most startling metaphors: sometimes he represents God as making the sun his charger, and the moon his stirrup;[13] sometimes it is an obscene story, to which, with the most imperturbable gravity, he attaches a religious moral. When out of pulpit or confessional, the same man who inculcated the severest ascetism, utters the raciest jokes, and sings the best songs in some tertulia on the ground floor. He even pushes his anxiety so far as to furnish the laity with hints about dress. He gives excellent directions about the cut of a new suit of clothes; nay, more, he charges himself sometimes with their purchase, frequenting assiduously the saloons of fashion—and there is no appeal from his criticism. Very often his complaisance is not of the most disinterested kind; too often his purchase is only a kind of tribute paid to a family whom the reverend father supports at his own expense, on condition of tasting clandestinely in its pleasures. The monk is every where except at his convent. Every thing is an attraction to him—bull-fights, cock-fights, gambling-tables, and theatres; every place gives him an opportunity of displaying his whims and oddities. Let no one fancy that his compliant manners operate against him as a priest and spiritual director. The Mexicans understand to a nicety the bond which unites devotion to worldly pleasures. When the monk, late at night, wends his way to his convent after a day spent in dissipation, the passers-by, when they see him, bow the knee with as much respect as if his pious discourses and conduct were not in startling contrast with each other.

After this account of the character and habits of the Mexican monk, no one will be astonished at the occurrence which made me acquainted with one of the jolliest members of the great monastic family, the Reverend Fray Serapio. Curiosity had led me to a popular fÊte in the environs of Mexico, that of San Augustin de las Crevas, a small town about twelve miles from the capital. This fÊte, which makes Mexico a deserted city for three days, is frequented by the Élite of Mexican gamblers. Whoever does not play is looked upon with suspicion. I followed the example of the numerous card-players who had been attracted to San Augustin, and seated myself at a table. My opposite neighbor was a Franciscan of athletic mould, and I shall never forget his sunburned, swarthy countenance, his piercing look, and his shaven face fringed with clusters of long crisp hair, shaggy as a bison's mane. He was a true soldier in a monkish dress. After a run of bad luck, I left the tables just as my last stake disappeared in the pocket of the monk. I wandered for some time in the streets of the village, hearing around me every where the clink of quadruples and piastres. I then mounted my horse, and, cursing my ill luck, took the road to Mexico. I had scarcely gone more than half way when I was brought to a stand-still by a very disagreeable circumstance. A turnpike gate stood half way between Mexico and San Augustin. Just as I came within sight of it, I made the disagreeable discovery that I had not the real necessary for passing me through the gate. Wishing to give myself time for reflection, I walked my horse slowly along, but the fatal turnpike came always nearer and nearer. I was just going to turn my horse's head round and gallop back, when by chance the Franciscan who had cleaned me out came up. The lucky winner addressed me most politely, and I replied in the most courteous manner. He offered to accompany me to Mexico; and the secret hope of being able to pass the gate at the Franciscan's expense doubtless made me accept his offer with so much alacrity. I fancied that I was doing no more than an act of politeness in congratulating my companion on his run of good luck. But what was my surprise when he exclaimed, with a sigh, "Confound it! I was quite cleaned out down there; I have nothing—nothing but my debts. I must say that I counted upon you to pass me through."

I confessed that I was just about to beg the same favor of him. Upon this the Franciscan fell into such convulsions of laughter that, in spite of myself, I could not help joining him heartily. We then deliberated what course to pursue. We hit upon several ludicrous expedients, but they were rejected one after the other. After some discussion, we decided that it would be best to clear the turnpike at a gallop without paying. "We will pay double the next time we pass," said the monk. Having thus disposed of this case of conscience, he spurred his steed; I followed. We soon left the pikemen behind us; and our horses flying at full speed, a thick cloud of dust soon hid us from their sight. Once at Mexico, it may be easily understood that we did not part without agreeing to meet again. A card-table, it must be owned, is rather an extraordinary place for one to strike up a friendship with a monk.

The acquaintance thus commenced promised to be agreeable, and a few days after our first meeting I repaired to the convent of St. Francisco, the abode of my friend. After this visit I went often, at first for the Franciscan's sake, and afterward to see the convent, the most beautiful building of the kind in Mexico. To tell the truth, Fray Serapio was seldom in his cell; but his friendship insured me a constant welcome at the monastery, the library of which possessed inexhaustible treasures.

None of the religious communities scattered over Mexico is so rich or powerful as that of St. Francis. The vast extent of ground covered by the Franciscan convents in all the large towns, and the massive walls, crowned with numerous turrets, which surround them, are sufficient indications of the power and wealth of the order. The monastery to which chance had introduced me is at once worthy of the community that owns it, and of the capital of which it is one of the chief ornaments. The street of San Francisco, which leads to the cloister of this name, is a continuation of that crowded commercial street, the Plateros. The cloister, happily situated in the most stirring part of the town, rises at the extremity of the street Francisco, and extends as far as the entrance to the Alameda. The thick walls, flanked with massive buttresses, give to the convent the appearance of a fortress. At the same time, the spires, which shoot up into the air, and the fine cupolas, covered with burnished tiles, gave clear indications of the character of the building. You arrive at the principal chapel by a vast flagged court, which is always crowded with sight-seers, visitors, the faithful, and the poor. Opposite the first court is an inclosure reserved for the monks. The immense cloisters, ornamented with basins inlaid with white jasper, gardens, a rich library, new dormitories, three hundred cells, a refectory, in which three hundred persons can sit down to dinner, combine to form a spectacle at once imposing and magnificent, which surpasses even the expectation of the visitor who enters the convent after having admired its exterior.

All my leisure hours, on Sundays especially, I loved to bury myself in the huge dusty library, and to ransack archives of which even the monks themselves were quite ignorant. Two books, above all, captivated me completely; one was a volume of legendary stories, the other a collection of autos de fÉ, executed by the Mexican Inquisition. I forgot even the lapse of time while reading them. These atrocious recitals, which the cold-blooded chronicler always sums up with Laus Deo, exercised upon me, especially when the day was waning, a singular fascination. The distant droning of the organ, and the doleful chanting of the monks, sometimes deepened the impression; and, in the mysterious gloom which had already enveloped the hall, I fancied I saw rise before me the heroes of the legendary stories, or the victims of the Inquisition. When I came out of the library, and walked in the cloisters, the monks whom I met in the dark corridors seemed to me to bear no resemblance whatever to those I had seen upholding the dignity of the cowl in the streets of Mexico. There are two sorts of monks in the convent: monks still young enough to delight in a monte table and in a tertulia, and who are never in their cells; others whose age and infirmities prevent them from mixing with the world: these last form the settled population, which is not a very numerous one. Among the monks whom I met in the corridors of San Francisco, there was one, above all, who seemed to me to personify the convent life, with all its attendants of gloomy observance and secret penance. He was an old man, with a shining bald head; a kind of awe, mingled with curiosity, seized me whenever I saw him. I could have sworn that one of those sombre pictures upon the walls of the convent, from the pencil of Rodriguez, Cabrera, or Villalpando, had left its frame and come to life again.

Sometimes I mused away an idle hour in the garden; for, all the time I was in Mexico, solitude was peculiarly pleasing to me. Since my arrival in Mexico, years had been added to years, and I began to experience attacks of home-sickness. The unvarying deep blue sky, so unlike that of France, rather increased my sadness. The appearance of the convent garden, surrounded on all sides by lofty walls, was in perfect harmony with the melancholy thoughts which had taken possession of my mind. The sun had calcined the brick walls, upon which opened the windows of the tenantless cells. Weeds were growing here and there on a terrace shaded with the wide-spreading branches of the sycamore, the palma christi, and the mango. An arbor, ornamented with climbing plants, was the place to which I most frequently directed my steps. There, under a flowery arch, where the passion-flower, that favorite plant of the cloisters, the jasmine, and the clematis, with its beautiful flowers, grew in charming confusion, I passed many long hours, dreaming of my native country and absent friends. A mysterious charm drew me to this fresh and rustic retreat. A quaint device, cut on the trunk of a sycamore, which threw its branches across my bower, often attracted my attention: In silentio et in spe erit fortitudo tua. My soul felt strengthened and soothed in this solitude. In this wild and uncultivated garden I was charmed into a forgetfulness of the world, where the only sounds that reminded me of life were the buzzing of the humming-birds among the rose-bushes, the tinkling of bells, and the distant droning of the organ.

I scarcely ever saw any one in the garden. One monk only seemed to share with me a predilection for this peaceful inclosure, and, above all, for the arbor, from which I almost always saw him escaping at my approach. He was the same man whom I had so often watched in the cloisters with such a fearful curiosity. Sometimes I surprised him watering the garden borders, or giving his care to those flowers which grew near the grass-grown walks. My imagination soon found some romantic link between this melancholy old man and the forsaken bower. I resolved to enter into conversation with him. A conscience so troubled as his seemed to be might surely be able to make some curious revelations; but, after repeated attempts to rouse him from his habitual taciturnity, I was forced to give it up as hopeless. With hands crossed, and face turned to the ground, the monk, every time he met me, quickened his pace and vanished from my sight. I looked at him always with intense interest, as the intellectual though stern expression of his features contrasted strikingly with the vacant faces of the other monks. His face, which sometimes betrayed painful dejection, sometimes a fanatical joy, reminded me at times of the wonderful legends and dismal stories which I had been reading in the convent library. Was I right in my conjectures about this singular personage? Despairing of success in my endeavors to induce the monk to break silence, I resolved to question Fray Serapio about him; and, with the hope of meeting the jolly Franciscan, I directed my steps to one of the most charming spots in the environs of Mexico, the canal of Viga.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Cabalgando el sol, y estribando la luna.

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CHAPTER II.

The Viga Canal.

Nowhere in Mexico could there be found a spot which presents an appearance more different, according to the seasons of the year, than the Viga Canal. No place is by turns more solitary or more crowded, more noisy or more silent. This canal, about twenty-four miles long, mixes its waters with the lake on which Chalco stands, and forms a means of transport and communication between that town and Mexico. A broad open road, planted with aspens and poplars, runs along its sleeping waters. If the pedestrian did not observe, at some distance from the highway, the buildings which inclose the bull-ring, and, farther off, the towers of the Cathedral, above which shoot up the two mighty volcanoes of Mexico, he might fancy himself three hundred miles from the city. Some country houses, whose inhabitants are always invisible; the deserted paths of the Candelaria, a rival road to the Viga; lakelets scattered here and there in the midst of teeming vegetation, on whose surface float chinampas[14] looking like large baskets; a solitary vaquero hut here and there in the plain; then a range of hills overtopped by the sierra, form the principal features in the landscape. A placid stillness reigns over every part of the picture. Sometimes a pirogue is seen gliding noiselessly on the canal, sometimes a group of Indians kneeling in some grove before a Christ that they are decking with flowers, at whose feet they are piously depositing oranges and grenadilles, offerings which savor strongly of paganism. The flapping of the wings of an aigret hovering over the water, or that is losing itself in the blue sky, and the baying of some dogs prowling about, are the only sounds which break the stillness on this shady road. But at the approach of the Easter fÊtes the road assumes quite a different appearance. Every Sunday in Lent, the entire population of Mexico assembles here, and a noisy crowd streams along the way. The day on which I went to the canal was the last Sunday in Lent. On reaching the road, I found the habitual promenaders of the Paseo and Alameda crowding every spot of the ground in the Viga; but it was not the crowd which chiefly attracted me, it was the canal itself. On that day, the reeds on the bank, ordinarily so still, waved and jostled to and fro under the continual motion of the water, produced by the passing and repassing of numberless fleets of boats. Launches, canoes, pirogues, were constantly coming and going; some conveying to Mexico, for the Holy Week, immense quantities of flowers, which diffused a most delightful odor around. Other boats followed, crowded with light-hearted, merry passengers, wearing wreaths of wild poppy and sweet pea, and dancing on the deck to the inspiring strains of harps, flutes, and mandolins. Light-hearted Cyprians, in gamesome mood, scattered upon the breeze the purple buds of their wreaths, and trolled out choruses of lascivious songs. The clear sky, the dazzling brilliancy of the different costumes, and the soft, sweet melody of the language, brought to my mind the national festivals of ancient Greece; while the canal, which seemed at times suddenly transformed into a carpet of flowers, generally had the appearance of a moving mass of canoes, which shot past one another in all directions; groups of people, lying lazily on the bank, bantered the boatmen as they passed. Farther off, under the green arcades formed by the aspens upon the road, which shook under the roll of carriages and gallop of horses, paraded the gay fashionables of Mexico. Parties of high-spirited, wild-looking cavaliers, dressed in the national costume, sauntered up and down amid this gay throng as if protesting by their rough manners against the whimsical appearance of the dandies habited in French style.

A striking contrast was observable to the spectator. Upon the canal one saw America in the sixteenth century, which, under the beaming sun of the tropics, had abandoned herself without constraint to pleasure. Upon the road was America in the nineteenth century, seeking to model its native appearance on the worn-out type of Europe. By way of compensation, a few Europeans, habited in the ancient Mexican costume, at times appeared on the Viga; but beneath their dress you could distinguish at a glance the Englishman, the Frenchman, or the German. I must say, however, that our compatriots of the South were distinguished above all the other foreigners for the ease and grace with which they wore the national costume.

Evening was drawing on, darkness was coming down over the surrounding country, and the moving picture before me was rapidly dissolving, when I perceived four horsemen seemingly making their way toward me. I could not at first distinguish their features, their faces being partly concealed by the wide-spreading sombreros, trimmed with broad ribbons, which they wore; but their appearance caused me to suspect them. These men, dressed in mangas and sarapes, seemed to be hemming me in with the intention of opposing my passage. They immediately spurred their horses and galloped up to me. "Stand!" cried a threatening voice; and, at the same moment, the four horsemen surrounded me. They were neither robbers nor alguazils, but men whose amiable character and joyous temperament I often had occasion to appreciate. In one I recognized Don Diego Mercado, student of theology in the college of St. John de Lateran; in another, the officer Don Blas; the third was the hidalgo, Don Romulo D—— F——, a political marplot, who could never be satisfied with the government of the day, but was always looking about for an opportunity to overturn it, who was admitted, notwithstanding this weakness, into the highest society in Mexico; the fourth was one whom I would have least expected to find in a company like the present, and in such a disguise: it was no other, in truth, than my worthy friend, Fray Serapio.

"Do I really see the Reverend Fray Serapio?" I exclaimed. "Do I really see my friend under this bandit costume?"

"Tut!" said the Franciscan; "I am traveling incog.; I shall tell you why some other time."

"Good," said I to the monk; "I have something to ask you which interests me as much."

"You are one of ourselves," cried the officer, "and we are going to conduct you to a place out of Mexico, where we intend to finish the Holy Week."

"Where is it?" I inquired.

"You will know when you get there," replied the hidalgo. "I know you are a lover of adventures: well, I promise you some, and of a strange enough kind."

This was taking me on my weak side, and I accepted the offer without troubling myself any farther as to its whereabouts. I was, besides, in full traveling costume; and an excursion by night was, above all, highly agreeable to me. We alighted, and threaded our way through the crowd; then leaving it, we struck along the Candelaria road, and, remounting, pursued a northerly direction. I fell behind the rest and joined Fray Serapio, and again renewed my inquiries about his disguise. On our first acquaintance the monk seemed to my taste too shy and distrustful, but I soon hit upon a sure way of stripping him of these unsocial qualities. I feigned to make the Christian virtues of my venerable friend the theme of my warm admiration; and Serapio, who had the high ambition, a singular one in a monk, of passing for a rake, replied to my eulogiums by some revelations about the old monk which did not redound greatly to his credit. At this time, too, the expedient succeeded as it ordinarily did. The Franciscan assured me, with a contrite air, that he had put on this disguise by the will of God!

"As you always do," I rejoined, gravely; "you obey him implicitly, like a humble servant."

The monk bowed and quickened his horse's pace.

"It has pleased God," replied he, "to deprive his servant of his robes for the purpose of saving the soul of a Christian who is about to quit this world."

"St. Martin gave to the poor only a half of his cloak. What was his charity in comparison with yours?"

The Franciscan shrugged his shoulders.

"Alas!" he muttered, "it is a rich man who has my gown, and I don't deserve to be compared to St. Martin."

"I am well aware that the most noble virtues are often modestly hidden from the world."

Wearied with my bantering, the monk dropped the mask entirely.

"Faith!" he replied, in a frank, open tone, "pietistic people prefer being interred in a monkish habit; and, the more threadbare the garment, the higher they value it. My gown, on this account, is of an inestimable value. I sold it a short time ago for double its original cost; and, besides the profit from the sale of it, I got a present of this costume which I am now wearing."

The sun had now set; and the moon, which was rising, diffused its beams over the solitary country. Arrived at the crest of a small eminence, I looked back upon the canals and the plains of the Viga, which, under the brilliant night of the tropics, appeared to me under quite a new aspect. The moon had lighted up the lagoons, the canal, and the road. They were all now silent. The most profound stillness had taken the place of the stir and hum of the busy crowd; the silence was broken only by the distant bellowing of the bulls in the savannas. The fire-flies sparkled in the high grass, and the watch-fires of the shepherds shone here and there in the fields.

[14] Floating islands.

CHAPTER III.

An Indian Village.

We had now been for some time on the road, and the night was getting darker and darker. The moon, which up to this time had lighted our way, was now becoming gradually encircled with a halo—a bad omen. At last it finally disappeared in a dense bank of clouds on the verge of the horizon. From time to time a yellowish sheet of lightning shot through the dark mass, and brought out, in strong relief, the dense blackness which enveloped the country around. The instinct of our horses alone kept us right in the thick darkness. The barking of dogs announced our approach to some solitary cabin by the wayside; sometimes we charged unwillingly among a herd of pigs which were lying wallowing in the ruts of the road, and which trotted off grunting in the darkness. In the midst of this savage scene, surrounded with the lurid light produced by the flashes, which were following each other in quick succession, we looked more like some country smugglers out on an expedition than peaceful travelers on an excursion of pleasure.

We had already passed through the village of Tacubaya, and were struggling onward in the mountain road which leads to Toluca. I knew nothing of the road they were leading me. That was of little importance, provided we reached our place of destination before the bursting of the storm, which announced its approach by distant peals of thunder. We soon arrived at a rising ground, round the foot of which ran a pine wood. There a halt was called to breathe our horses. The clouds of dust we had swallowed rendered some refreshment necessary. A skin of ValdepeÑas wine, which the officer Don Blas carried at his saddle-bow, was passed round, and served for a moment to quench the burning thirst which had begun to torment us. I profited by this opportunity to renew my inquiries about our place of destination. The theological student undertook to satisfy my curiosity.

"I have been invited," said he, "to spend the Easter holidays at the hacienda of a friend of mine, about a dozen leagues from here; I thought it no bad thing to give my friend the honor of receiving a few more guests, and I am sure you will all be very welcome."

The hidalgo Don Romulo, on his part, was not unwilling to allow, during his absence, the agitation caused by a very violent pamphlet which he had written against the government of the republic to subside, while he was anxious, at the same time, to visit the ruins of a celebrated convent, the Desierto, which was on our way. The officer hoped to escape in the Desierto and the hacienda the importunities of his numerous creditors, and was disposed to make himself happy in every place but where they were. As for Fray Serapio, he confessed that, having been forced, as he might call it, to purchase a habit ill suited to a monk, he had embraced with delight the invitation of his friend, Don Diego Mercado.

"And yet I got a hundred piastres for my old habit," added the Franciscan, gloomily, taking another pull at the skin of ValdepeÑas.

"That's where your soft-heartedness leads you," said I. "You have doubtless flung it away in charity."

"Mon cher (these were the only French words that Fray Serapio knew, and he made use of them on all occasions), know then, once for all, that I don't deserve your praises. Nature cut me out for a soldier, but conventionality made me a monk."

The Franciscan confessed, readily enough, that when he was on the point of buying a new frock, an inconceivable distraction made him spend the money on other things quite useless for a man, and, above all, for a monk; things which—(Fray Serapio whispered the remainder in my ear). The skin of ValdepeÑas being now half empty, we resumed our journey. Large drops of rain began to fall; the storm was going to burst over us in all its fury. To push on was our only resource. Stimulated by a secret instinct, our horses increased their pace. Sometimes they shyed or stopped suddenly, terrified at the fantastic forms of some projecting root, or the sudden growl of the thunder; but these annoyances were only temporary, and we flew over the ground with inconceivable swiftness. We descried at last, in a plain, a little Indian village, still more than a league in advance. We covered this league in a few minutes, and entered the village, saluted by a legion of hungry dogs, who snarled and bit at our horses' heels. Our arrival set every one in motion. Copper-colored faces appeared and disappeared at the doors of the huts. We were asking ourselves, in no small consternation, if we must give up all hopes of finding a shelter in a place where every door seemed to be shut against us, when Fray Serapio, catching an Indian by his long hair, forced him to lead us to a house that did duty for an inn.

Scarcely had we stopped before the door of the pretended hostelry than a great hulking fellow, one of the half-breeds so numerous in Mexico, very easily known by his complexion, opened one of the leaves of the door, which was secured by the invariable iron chain. This was the master of the inn, who had come to parley with us.

"I have neither stables, nor maize, nor straw to offer your lordships," said the half-breed, in a gruff tone; "be so good, then, as to continue your journey."

"Go to the devil," said the officer, "with your straw, your maize, and your stables; all we want is a room fit for Christians and officers. Open, or I will smash the door to pieces."

To give full force to his threat, Captain Don Blas struck the door such a furious blow with his sabre, that the huesped, in a fright, dropped the chain, and, excusing himself for his obstinacy by the plea that there were a great number of suspicious characters abroad, ushered us into an apartment little better than a stable.

"I hope," cried Don Romulo, putting his pocket handkerchief to his nose, "that we sha'n't be obliged to pass the night in this cursed hole!"

"You are very squeamish, mon cher," said Fray Serapio; "the room seems tolerable enough."

In spite of this assertion, we determined to push on after the storm had passed. We remained, then, standing till we could take the road again, as we wished to reach the hacienda as quickly as possible, where a hospitable reception had been promised us. I thought this halt presented a favorable opportunity for making some inquiries about the mysterious monk I had met in the garden of San Francisco. To my first question: "I can guess whom you are inquiring about," said Fray Serapio, shaking his head; "it is Fray Epigmenio whom you saw in the arbor in the garden of the convent, of which you and he are the only visitants. A trial, to which he was subjected by the Inquisition, turned the head of the poor soul, and for fifty years his life has been only one long penance."

"Well, I'll tell you frankly," I rejoined, "I had a suspicion that some painful mystery was wrapped up in the life of this man. I counted upon you for its solution, and it was you I was in search of when chance brought us together on the Viga."

The monk was about to reply, when an extraordinary noise arose in the court-yard of the posada, which was suddenly lit up by the red glow of torches. Almost at the same moment a man, whom from his copper-colored visage and strange costume we easily knew to be an Indian, entered, followed by several inhabitants of the village, some carrying torches, others brandishing knotty clubs, some even with bows, and arrows in reed quivers. The Indian who seemed to be the chief of the party advanced, and told us that, as our noisy arrival had disturbed the peace of the village, the alcalde wished to see us without delay.

"And what if we don't want to see the alcalde?" said the officer.

"You will then be taken by force," said the Indian, pointing to his armed escort. This gesture was sufficient. It was impossible for us to resist, for the ministers of Indian justice had very prudently seized our horses and arms. We looked at one another in no small dismay. The Indian mansos, who rule their villages according to the laws of the republic, and even choose from their brothers of the same race their municipal magistracy, behave in the most merciless manner to all the Mexicans who may have committed any crimes in the district intrusted to their care. The worst of all cruelties, the cruelty of weakness, is resorted to on such occasions. It was quite useless to struggle against those sturdy rough alguazils with the bare legs and long hair. We went quietly enough to the house of the alcalde.

"Have patience," said Fray Serapio to me, in a low voice, while going along: "instead of the history of Fray Epigmenio, which I will tell you at some other time, you will behold a sight which few foreigners have an opportunity of seeing in Mexico. If I am not mistaken, we have fallen upon this cursed village at the very time when the Indians celebrate, in their way, the fÊtes of the Holy Week. The house of the alcalde is one of the ordinary resting-places of their nocturnal processions."

I had often heard of these singular ceremonies, in which the remains of Indian idolatry are mixed up with the rites of Catholicism. Just when I was going to reply to Fray Serapio, some melancholy monotonous sounds met our ears. The plaintive wail of the reed flute, called by the Indians chirimia, was sadly intermingled with the tapping of several drums struck at regular intervals.

"Three hundred years ago," said Don Diego Mercado to me in a whisper, "it was to the sound of these chirimias that the ancestors of these Indians butchered their human victims at the feet of their idols."

Round a lane, which ran at right angles to the road, came the procession whose approach was announced by this funereal music. Engaged during the day in cultivating their grounds, the Indians devote the night to certain religious solemnities. The time thus adds to the lugubrious effect of their ceremonies. At the head of the procession, borne by four men, was an image of Christ, of a hideously gigantic form, bedabbled with blood. At the two arms of the cross hung two Christs of a smaller size; behind came a disorderly throng of Indians from the village and its environs, carrying crosses of all shapes and dimensions. I remarked that the size of several of the crosses was by no means in harmony with the height of the person who carried them; their dimensions were, in fact, only regulated by the higher or lower sum paid by the person who wished to figure in these processions. The most splendid images were carried in the van by the head men of the village; the poorer inhabitants followed, and nothing could be imagined more grotesque, more sadly ludicrous than this motley crowd of tatterdemalions; some, too poor to purchase Christs, were carrying little images of the saints; others, less lucky still, were forced to hoist on long poles, for want of better, faded pieces of colored cloth and tawdry tinsel, while some had even been forced to carry hen-coops. We bent the knee respectfully as this singular procession slowly wended its way through the streets, while the odd collection of hideous and incongruous objects, and the grotesque faces of the men, lighted up by the dim, ruddy glare of the pine torches, and seen through the smoke, struck us as being more like some infernal procession revisiting this earth than a body of Christians engaged in the celebration of a religious festival.

We arrived at the alcalde's house. The sinister appearance of this Indian magistrate did not tend to soothe our apprehensions. Long gray hair, encircling a face deeply furrowed with wrinkles, flowed down behind to the middle of his back; his muscular arms were hardly covered by the sleeves of his sayal (a tunic with short sleeves); his shrunken, sinewy legs were only half covered by his flapping trowsers of calzoneras skin. On his feet were leather sandals. In such a dress this singular personage seated himself, with an air of comic grandeur, under a sort of canopy formed by the branches of xocopan (a kind of sweet-smelling laurel). The red-skin alguazils ranged themselves behind like a group of stage supernumeraries. We were now asked, "Who and what are you?" This question, delivered in bad Spanish, was put to Fray Serapio, whom his long beard, jaunty costume, and free manners had undoubtedly caused the alcalde to regard as the most suspicious of the party. The monk hesitated. The alcalde continued:

"When people come with arms to a village, it is to be presumed they have a right to carry arms. Can you prove your right?"

It was, then, to examine us as to our right of carrying arms that we had been arrested. The alcalde thought he had us in a trap, and would have an opportunity of inflicting upon us, without going beyond the strict letter of the law, some of those petty insults, for which opportunities are eagerly seized on, to satisfy the traditionary hatred of the Indians against the whites. We understood this perfectly, but we could not counterplot him. We were all obliged to make the same reply. We were traveling incognito, and had no right to carry arms. With the exception of the monk, who seemed ill at ease in his disguise, we were eager to tell our names and quality. As it was a point of the very highest importance to let the Indians know the powerful protectors we had in Mexico, the student fancied he was acting prudently when he said that he was the nephew of the most celebrated apothecary in the city. The clerk wrote down the answer, stopping every now and then to break in pieces little branches of xocopan. As for the alcalde, he seemed to triumph at having in his power five of the enemies of his race. When the student avowed his relationship to the Mexican apothecary, the wily Indian did not consider himself foiled. He seemed lost in thought; but suddenly an expression of malignant joy shot across his features as he hastily put this question to Don Diego:

"If you are the nephew of an apothecary, you must know something of botany?"

Don Diego replied in the affirmative, with an air of perfect satisfaction.

"You must, then, be acquainted with the virtues of matlalquahuitl?"

The alcalde had intentionally chosen a strange Mexican plant very little known, with an Indian name of the most uncouth sound. When he saw the blank look that immediately appeared on the countenance of the student, he guessed that his ruse was successful, and he rubbed his hands with an air of satisfaction. You know nothing of botany; you were trying to cheat me; you are not the nephew of an apothecary; you have all a suspicious air about you. I have a right to detain you, and I'll do it, too. Such was the reasoning which we saw written on the face of the alcalde, who looked with a cool air of disdain both on Don Diego Mercado and on us. At this moment the religious fÊte, in which the alcalde had to play an important part, luckily created a diversion in our favor by putting a stop to this examination. A band of Indians hurriedly entered the room. They dragged along, or rather pushed before them, a man crowned with a wreath of rushes, and draped in a tattered red cloak which had very probably been used as a muleta[15] in a bull-fight. His face and body were quite bespattered with mud. I looked at this man with astonishment as a living enigma, when the student, who was better acquainted with the manners of the Indians than with the virtues of the matlalquahuitl, said, in a low tone,

"There is nothing in this but a religious joke. They are going to get up here a dramatic representation of the Passion. We are no longer in an Indian village, but in Jerusalem. This fellow with the bespattered face personates Christ, and the alcalde, confound him! is Pilate."

In fact, we were about to have produced before us all the scenes of a genuine mystery of the Middle Ages. The alcalde, seated under his canopy of laurel, having gravely listened to the calumnious accusations of the Jews, rose and pronounced in the Indian tongue the historical sentence of condemnation. Such a storm of cries and yells greeted the sentence, that the unfortunate lÉpero (for it was one of that class, who, for a few reals, was personating Christ) seemed to think that the drama was becoming rather too serious. He cried out in Spanish,

"Caramba! I think it would have been better had I taken the part of the good thief. SeÑor Alcalde, don't forget to pay me three reals more for personating the Divine Redeemer!"

"You are a fine fellow!" said the alcalde, pushing the lÉpero back, who, in violation of all historical truth, took refuge in the tribunal itself. At the same time, one of the soldiers who surrounded the Christ, more faithful to his part than the bespattered lÉpero, struck him a smart blow on the cheek. The lÉpero could contain himself no longer; he rapped out a fearful oath, and struck out right and left at his astonished persecutors. There was a general melÉe; a fierce struggle arose between the actor, who had completely forgotten the spirit of his part, and the Indians, who attacked him with a vigor worthy of the agents of Herod. The contest was brought to an end by a heroic sacrifice on the part of the alcalde, who, to overcome the obstinacy of the lÉpero, promised him six reals more than he was originally entitled to. On this condition the fellow agreed to walk to Calvary in the midst of the Indians. They dragged him along to the place of execution, dealing him a more than ordinary allowance of blows.

This business finished, the alcalde returned to us. He had pronounced the sentence upon the pretended Christ with an ill-disguised anxiety. When we saw him conversing with the clerk, I looked somewhat dejectedly at the monk. To my amazement, a smile appeared on his lips which set me completely at my ease. The cause of this sudden change in Fray Serapio was soon explained. To avoid the imprisonment which he saw impending over us, he resolved to appeal to the religious feelings of the alcalde and his followers, of which they had just given such striking proofs. Fray Serapio had reasoned justly. Just when the alcalde was rising to pronounce our sentence, the monk gravely approached the tribunal, snatched off the neckerchief which encircled his head, and showed the Indian magistrate his tonsure. This was truly a theatrical stroke. The man who, scarcely a second before, was affecting to look upon us with such stubborn pride, threw himself trembling and confused at the feet of the Franciscan.

"Ah! holy father," cried the Indian, "why did you not discover yourself sooner? Taking every thing into consideration, one can be an honest man without knowing the virtues of matlalquahuitl."

Fray Serapio need not have answered the terrified Indian. He condescended to confess that, under this disguise and with this escort, he was traveling to execute a mission of religious interest; and the alcalde, who crossed himself devoutly at every word of the monk, took good care not to press him with imprudent questions. An instant after, we marched majestically out of the cabin into which our entrance had been so humble and crestfallen. The Indians returned us our arms and horses. They pressed us in vain to return to the hostelry where we had been so scurvily welcomed. We were very ill pleased at the reception they had given us; and, in spite of the thunder, which had again begun to growl, we galloped out of the village without lending an ear to their entreaties.

CHAPTER IV.

Fray Epigmenio.

Already the Indian village lay a league behind us. The route we were pursuing was through a ravine, the road through which could with difficulty be believed to have been made by the hand of man. We soon entered a pine forest which ran along a chain of precipitous hills. The darkness, which was rendered thicker by the interlaced branches of the trees overhead, was so profound that our horses could literally advance only by the gleam of the vivid flashes of lightning. Soon the storm increased; the trunks of the pines cracked and swayed to and fro in the wind, and the hollows in the mountains resounded with the multiplied echoes of terrific thunder-claps. The flashes now became less and less frequent, and at last, the intermittent gleams, which had hitherto lightened our advance, failed us entirely. A deafening thunder-clap was followed by a torrent of rain. It had now become impossible for us either to advance or to regain the road. Forced to remain immovable like equestrian statues, we were obliged to shout to one another to find out our respective positions. I then discovered that I was very near Fray Serapio. The voices of our three companions reached us like a distant echo borne along amid the whistling of the squall. We at last found ourselves separated from one another, without any probable hope of joining each other during the whole night, each of us being forced to stay where the darkness had overtaken him, exposed to all the dangers of the forest.

"Since we are condemned to remain here, as motionless as the statue of Charles IV. in Mexico," said I to the Franciscan, "don't you think this is a very good opportunity for telling me the history of your friend, Fray Epigmenio?"

"Fray Epigmenio!" cried the monk. "This is not a story suited either to the time or place. When I hear the trees groaning like spirits in Purgatory, and the torrents raging like wild beasts, I have not the courage to go over a history that is frightful enough in itself."

A long pause followed. "Where are we?" I at last asked.

"We ought to be only a mile and a half from the Desierto. We have kept on the right road; but I have strong fears that we have got entangled in a ravine, from which escape is almost impossible amid this darkness. In a few hours, should the rain continue, this ravine will be no longer a road, but a torrent, that will carry us along on its rushing waters like dead leaves. God succor our poor souls!" He crossed himself devoutly.

I had seen too often in America torrents suddenly swollen by thunder-showers to such a degree as to uproot trees a hundred years old, and carry down rocks, to doubt for a moment the imminent danger of which I had been apprised by Fray Serapio. To this disheartening reply I had but one answer to make—we must have a fire, at any price. Unluckily, the monk had left his flint and steel with the student. I was not discouraged, however; and, unwilling to throw away any chance of extricating ourselves from our disagreeable position, I alighted from my horse, took in one of my hands the reata attached to the neck of the animal, and with the other tried to guide myself while holding on to the rocks. I was not long in finding my progress stopped by a precipitous bluff. I tried the other side; always a perpendicular wall of rock. Forced at last to stop after having unrolled the reata to its utmost length, I came back step by step to my horse, and, gathering it up again in my hand, remounted.

"This ravine is in truth a prison," said I.

"It is not the torrent alone that I fear," replied the monk. "Even if we escape drowning, we may be burned to death if the trees are set on fire by the lightning."

"Could we not leave our horses here, and try to gain on foot a place less exposed to danger?"

"We run a risk of tumbling into some quagmire. By the way the wind hits my face, I know that this ravine is of great extent. Let us remain where we are, and trust to Divine Providence."

I had exhausted all my expedients, and could find nothing to reply to those last words of Fray Serapio's, which were uttered in a truly mournful tone. Some moments passed. The storm was still at its height, and I could not shut my ears to its wild music. In the depths of the forests, a wail as of a thousand spirits came booming on the wind; torrents raged and dashed from rock to rock, the pines creaked like the masts of a vessel caught in a hard gale, and above our heads the wind whistled strangely among the leaves. During the temporary lulls of the tempest, we heard our companions, who, whether from ignorance or a wish to drown their sense of danger, were shouting and singing with all their might.

"Don't you think," said I to the monk, "that this gayety is somewhat out of place? I have a good mind to make them sensible of the danger they are running, to cause them to change their song for the 'De Profundis.'"

"What good would that do?" said the monk, gloomily. "Would it not be better for them to remain ignorant of their danger, and let death surprise them in their joyous thoughtlessness? At this moment, when the spirits of darkness are hovering about us, the human voice seems to bring with it an undefinable charm. I have not yet told you the story of Fray Epigmenio. I'll do it now. I would rather hear the sound of my own voice than the whistling of the wind among the firs. And now, when I think of it, it was in the convent of the Desierto, in the vicinity of this forest, and exactly at this time of the year, that the most interesting occurrence in the life of Fray Epigmenio took place."

"This circumstance," said I, "must add particular interest to your recital; but, at such a moment as this, I hardly feel disposed to listen to you. However, if you like to tell the story, I—"

"Fray Epigmenio," began the Franciscan, interrupting me, "was, even in his youth, but a melancholy companion. That is to say, he was not at all like me. Far from having wished, as I did, to be a soldier before donning the monk's habit, he was, when a mere boy, admitted as a novice into the Carmelite convent of the Desierto. At the time I refer to, that is, fifty years ago, the Desierto was not abandoned as it is now. It was then a retreat inhabited by several monks, who wished, by thus withdrawing themselves from the cities, to push austerity to its utmost limits. You may guess what influence a wild solitude like that would exercise upon a weak brain. For my part, I don't think I should be long in my right mind were I to live in such a place. The superiors of the young novice were soon alarmed at the ferocious exultation that soon took the place of his former solid piety. They represented to Epigmenio that the devil, jealous of his merits, was setting a trap for him, into which he would fall. It was a wise advice; but Epigmenio paid no heed to it. Worse than all, he isolated himself almost entirely from his brethren, and shut himself up more closely than ever in his cell—a sort of dark dungeon, whose windows opened upon the wood which surrounded the convent. This was the gloomiest cell in this gloomy cloister. Fray Epigmenio had chosen it in preference to those whose windows looked out upon the garden. The sight of the flowers seemed to this rigid cenobite too much of a worldly pleasure. The heavy masses of the dark woods, constantly agitated by the wind, and surrounded by an amphitheatre of rocks in fantastic forms, was the kind of landscape which had the greatest charm for Epigmenio. I told you before that the soundest head in the world could not long resist the combined influences of solitude and prayer. The monk confessed, when too late, that strange visions passed before his eyes in those long days of contemplation and silence. Mysterious voices assailed his ears, and it was not always the concerts of angels that he heard: the murmurs of the forest were often changed into voluptuous sighs and—"

At this moment the Franciscan suddenly paused, and, turning to me, said, "Are you listening?"

"I confess," I rejoined, "that I am paying more attention to the noise of the water which is now rising about our feet."

"Fray Epigmenio," said Serapio, without attending to my remark, "fancied himself a saint, since temptations like these assailed him, and that he was struggling against the devil, like the monks in the old legends. One day, about sunset, not content to wait for the tempter in his cell, he resolved to beard him in the forest itself, which was peopled with such phantoms. He had not wandered far among the pines when he heard the sound of stifled sobbing not far from him. He stopped and listened, and then advanced in the direction from which the moaning seemed to proceed. For a long time his search was fruitless. At last, after many turnings and windings, he arrived at a glade in the wood, in the centre of which lay, on the turf, a man, who invited him by signs to approach. Fray Epigmenio hesitated a moment. At last, having crossed himself devoutly, he falteringly approached the wounded man. 'In God's name,' cried he, 'of what unfortunate accident are you the victim?' The holy name of God appeared to rouse in the stranger a painful emotion, and his voice was hardly perceptible when he told Epigmenio that, as he was traveling with his daughter, he had been set upon by robbers, stripped of all he had, and left bleeding on the ground. He added that it was not for himself that he was asking assistance, but for the feeble creature by his side; and, at the same time, parting the branches of a bush near which he lay, he showed the monk a young lady lying in a swoon upon the grass. The rays of the moon fell full upon her marble countenance and white dress. You may imagine the confusion Epigmenio was in when he saw this beautiful female, who seemed to realize to him the most beautiful visions of his dreams. After a short silence, he represented to the stranger that the convent of the Desierto was not far off; but, were it nearer, a female could not be received within its walls. The unknown was grieved that he could not continue his journey, as his horse had escaped when the robbers attacked him. Plucking up his spirits, he declared, as his wound now gave him less pain, he would like to rise and seek for his lost steed. They set out together, but soon after agreed to separate, and—"

A blinding flash of lightning interrupted the monk's story. The storm was increasing. The muddy water had now risen as far as our stirrups. Our horses, that had stood without motion a long time, now turned and presented their chests to the current, which was surging up higher and higher every minute. Around us, in the depth of the woods, the noise of the torrents was mingled with the wild harmony of the brawling winds, that seemed to blow from every point of the compass.

"The water is rising," cried Fray Serapio, "and our horses will soon be utterly powerless against its force."

Almost at the same moment the poor animals turned quickly round, and, whether guided by instinct, or carried away by the force of the current, they moved toward the bottom of the ravine. A cry of distress, wafted to us by the wind, apprised us that the torrent was also bearing away our companions in misfortune. A second flash lighted up the forest, and was followed by a clap of thunder which shook the air. A sulphurous odor filled the atmosphere, and immediately, to our inexpressible satisfaction, a pine, which had been struck by lightning a few paces from us, blazed up, and soon illuminated the surrounding objects.

"We are saved!" cried Fray Serapio: "I see near us a rock low enough for our horses to mount."

Our companions had already escaped from the torrent; they encouraged us by voice and gestures to do the same. My horse, by a desperate effort, reached the top of the bank. I had kept close by Fray Serapio, whose horse had twice attempted the ascent, and had twice fallen back; but the third time, like a true Mexican, he accomplished it. We were still not out of all danger. A shelter must be found, as it was now out of the question to push on to the hacienda.

By the pale light in the sky, which was now comparatively clear, we could discern a narrow bridle-path running along the edge of the ravine. This road doubtless led to the Desierto, the very convent in which Fray Epigmenio had first taken his vows. We hurried along this path, certain this time of not missing our way; and a few minutes after, having escaped the most imminent peril, our little troop stopped, with heartfelt satisfaction, before the ruined walls of the ancient monastery.

CHAPTER V.

The Desierto.

After fastening our horses in the outer court of the convent, we chose, near the entrance of the building, the cell which seemed to be most convenient for shelter. The first moments of our halt were devoted to an interchange of reflections, half merry, half serious, upon the danger we had run. Don Romulo confessed that he had taken part in seventeen conspiracies; that he had been banished, under circumstances of great aggravation, from three republics—from Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, but that the danger he had just escaped was the most imminent he had ever experienced in his life. As for the monk, the student, and the officer, they owned frankly enough that, when the danger appeared most imminent, and they had seemed callous to it, they were far from feeling so in their minds. After some more talk of a like kind, our eyes roamed around the old monastery to which chance had directed us for shelter.

Situated in the midst of a tract of country which reminds one of the Grande Chartreuse of Grenoble, the convent of the Desierto is, to all outward appearance, far from being in a ruinous condition. Its cupolas and spires still shoot as high as ever above the pines which surround it; and although half a century has rolled away since the monks quitted it, ivy has not yet entirely covered the embrasures of its deserted cells. The green moss which grows upon its walls shows only the want of repair and the ravages of time. You must pass through the first quadrangle, which is still in good preservation, so as to reach the interior of the convent, before seeing the spectacle of melancholy and desolation which there meets your eye. The dilapidated cupolas admit the daylight through large chinks, the pilasters in the cloisters are crumbling away, large stones have been forced from their sockets, heaps of ruins block up the choir and the nave of the chapel, and a thick mantle of pellitories covers the rubbish. The vapors which hang in a dense curtain round the summit of the mountain, at the foot of which the convent is built, fall in fine rain on the bare stones, and cover every thing with an icy moisture. Above the high altar, through one of the numerous fissures in the dome, the condensed vapor escapes, and falls drop by drop with the regularity of a water-clock, as if to mark the flight of time, and to relieve, by the light noise it makes on the marble, the melancholy silence which reigns in this dreary solitude. Such is the convent of the Desierto, seen by the light of day and under a clear sky. Let any one fancy its appearance at the time we sought refuge within its walls, when the storm, which had lasted since twilight, was scarcely over. Imagine the beams of the moon, fitfully streaming through its deserted arches, and the wind whistling in the empty nave, in its organ loft, in its solitary cells, and he will have some idea of the shelter in which we spent the remainder of the night.

We stood shivering in our wet clothes, and our first business was to seek materials for a fire. We took each a different part of the convent. The quarter in which I was engaged happened to be the most ruinous in the whole building. The remembrance of the old monk of St. Francis often came into my mind; and, in passing along the deserted galleries, I could not help fancying I saw him flitting through the gloomy arches. Around me the pillars stretched their great shadows upon the ground, whitened by the moonbeams. A stillness, as of the grave, rested every where. The ivy curtains alone shook in the wind.

From the cloister I entered a vast corridor. Through the large chinks in the vaulted roof above the moonbeams stealthily penetrated. In the distance I thought I observed a red glow on the flagstones playing amid the surrounding whiteness, and imagined I heard the snort of a horse which did not seem to proceed from the court where we had fastened our steeds. At the same instant my companions called me; I eagerly joined them. They had collected some brushwood, as they could find nothing better. The officer, Don Blas, affirmed that he had seen, by the light of the moon, in a distant court, a horse which was not one of ours. The student pretended he had met the ghost of one of the monks who had been buried in the convent. A short silence succeeded. Don Romulo was the first to break it.

"Here is a charming variety of horrors; the horse of a bandit; the ghost of a monk; spectres and malefactors!"

We tried to induce Fray Serapio to pronounce the classical formula of exorcism in his formidable Latin, but the monk replied tartly,

"My Latin won't drive away the spectre you talk of; it will rather attract it. God grant it may not appear! Be assured this is no freak of the imagination. The phantom seen by SeÑor Don Blas is a reality. It is my superior, the Reverend Father Epigmenio, who comes here every year, at the return of the Holy Week, to fulfill a penitential vow imposed on him for some sins of his youth. If he recognize me, how can I justify my present disguise and foolish excursion?"

The Franciscan's reply set us completely at our ease, and we sympathized very little in his anxiety. Wishing, however, to have no meeting between the two, we resolved to light our fire in a cell in a retired part of the convent, and to stretch ourselves on our wet cloaks round it. The student, the officer, and the hidalgo were soon sound asleep; the monk and I remained awake. Fray Serapio, on the watch to catch the slightest noise, trembled all over at the thought of being surprised by his superior, while my mind was filled with the story of Fray Epigmenio, so unfortunately interrupted. Seeing the Franciscan was not inclined to sleep, I pressed him to finish it. My companion, who could not shut an eye, was overjoyed at finding this means of whiling away the time. He consented with a very good grace, and crept more closely to the fire.

"I left," said he, "Fray Epigmenio at the moment when chance had delivered to his care a female in a swoon. His first impulse was to run away; his second was to remain, and he remained. He ceased even to shout for the wounded horseman, whose return he did not now particularly desire; and when the young lady, coming out of her faint, opened her languid eyes, the reverend father lost his senses entirely. If at this moment the stranger had appeared, the monk would have strangled him, for you have doubtless guessed by this time that the stranger in black was no other than the devil!"

To this unexpected assertion my only reply was a shake of the head. Fray Serapio, believing I agreed with him, continued:

"Fray Epigmenio yielded to temptation. He fell deeply, madly in love. For a time his vows were forgotten, but the prickings of conscience at last aroused him, and he resolved to confess his fault. He was taken before the tribunal of the Inquisition.[16] Till the final judgment was pronounced, they were both kept in confinement, the monk in his cell, the female in a dungeon. Some weeks passed in miserable anticipation. One evening, the cell of Fray Epigmenio was the theatre of a scene, in which the intervention of the devil was as clearly seen as in the meeting in the forest. Kneeling before his crucifix, the monk was asking from God that peace which his soul had lost. All at once he was startled by a footfall in his cell. A man stood before him, who regarded him with a stern, watchful eye. This man was no other than the stranger who had appeared to the recluse a month before in the wood; his dress was the same, and he appeared still paler than on the night in which the monk had found him bathed in blood. Fray Epigmenio stepped back, but the stranger did not stir. The formula of exorcism, hastily stammered out, had no effect upon him. The monk then called for help, but it was too late. When they entered the cell the stranger had disappeared. Epigmenio, bleeding from a dagger thrust, lay in a swoon before his folding-stool, and you could see the impress of the villain's bloody fingers. Time has not effaced these marks; they are still there."

"I can guess the conclusion of your story," said I to Fray Serapio; "the female was condemned as a sorceress, and the monk was acquitted."

"The female," said Serapio, "confessed on the rack that she had been in league with the devil, and was condemned to expiate the crime by a public act; but she did not undergo that punishment. Her keepers found her one morning lying dead on the floor of her dungeon, strangled with the beautiful black tresses which had proved so fatal to Fray Epigmenio. As for the monk, his wound was slight; it soon healed. Condemned to five years menial servitude in the convent of St. Francis, he was made the convent gardener. Almost at the same period the Inquisition ceased to exist, and the convent of the Desierto was abandoned as unhealthy. The visit which Fray Epigmenio makes at the same time every year to this ruined building is the only memorial of this event."

Fray Serapio paused. I was weary for want of sleep; he seemed also ready to drop with fatigue, and I forbore troubling him with any remarks on the story I had just heard. I had already lain down by the side of my companions, who were all fast asleep. Suddenly the Franciscan shook me by the arm, and invited me precipitately to follow him. I rose and accompanied him to a window which commanded a view of the inner courts of the convent, which were still bathed in the silvery light of the moon. The monk, whose stern and forbidding countenance had awakened my attention in the garden of St. Francis, was at this moment traversing one of the courts. We remarked that his steps were more tottering, and his body more bent than usual. When he disappeared, "Follow me," said Fray Serapio, "to the cell which was his, which he has just quitted." We soon arrived at the cell, but nothing distinguished it from the others. The walls were quite bare; the wind whistled through the parasitical plants which clung to the disjointed stones. A pine torch, stuck into an interstice of the wall, was just expiring. Fray Serapio fanned the dying flame, and, with all the obstinacy of a conscientious cicerone, he pretended to point out upon the wall the traces of the five fingers of the unknown who had stabbed the monk in his prison. I did not tell Serapio that the black stains on the wall had been produced by damp, and not by the hand of Satan. I seized, however, this opportunity of informing the worthy monk that the story of his unfortunate superior could be perfectly well explained without the intervention of the devil. The superiors of Fray Epigmenio, jealous of his rigid virtue, had probably set the trap into which he had fallen. They had found an adroit monk and a female willing to work through their plans, and the brutal fanaticism of the monk had unhappily spoiled every thing. The Inquisition had got wind of the matter. The farce was then turned into a tragedy. The vengeance of the father, who repented the selling of his child, her unhappy end, and the blighted, melancholy life which Fray Epigmenio had been afterward doomed to lead, were the unhappy consequences of the shameful intrigue hatched in the very convent in which we now were. Such was my commentary on Fray Serapio's story; but he, with an obstinacy only equaled by his credulity, held fast by his own interpretation.

Next morning we arrived at the hacienda of the friend of Don Diego Mercado, where the cordial reception we experienced soon made us forget the dangers and sufferings of the previous night.

On my return to Mexico I resumed my visits to the convent of St. Francis, and I read with more interest than ever the narratives preserved in these valuable archives, for I had now a thorough conviction that the old Spanish fanaticism, of which there were many instances in these documents, had still firm root in the minds of the people of Mexico. There is a close connection between the past and present race of the inhabitants of the cloisters, which the frivolous manners of the monks, as seen by me in the streets of Mexico, had not led me to suspect. The Inquisition has passed away, but it has left in the clergy a well-defined outline, a singularly deep-rooted tradition of demoralization, superstitious ignorance, and fanaticism.

Every time I went to the convent of St. Francis I met Fray Epigmenio, sometimes in the cloisters, sometimes sunk in reverie in the arbor. One day, however, I traversed the whole convent in search of him, but in vain. Just as I was quitting it I met Fray Serapio. The presence of the Franciscan in his convent was so very rare an occurrence that I could not help inquiring why he had condescended so far as to break through his usual habits.

"It is a pity," cried Fray Serapio, "but don't ask me why. Fray Epigmenio has just breathed his last. A lingering fever hung about him a long time; he died this morning, and the duty of watching the corpse of the reverend father has been assigned to me. Could any one have played me a more scurvy trick?"

"I don't understand you," I replied. "You surely don't mean poor Fray Epigmenio?"

"Who then, if it isn't he? Do you know what this duty makes me lose? A charming assignation, mon cher." And, as a commentary on these words, there darted from his eyes an expressive glance which, told more than he said. I had not the heart to reproach the monk for his heartless talk, uttered, too, in such a cavalier tone. At this moment the first strokes of the passing-bell interrupted our conversation. "Good-by!" said Fray Serapio; "the bell calls me to my post." I shook him by the hand, and, on retiring, could not help reflecting on the singular contrast which these two men presented, inhabitants of the same convent, both under the same rules, both regardless of the sanctity of their mission; the one uniting libertinism with credulity, the other pushing piety to fanaticism, till it degenerated into cruelty. This contrast, I said sadly to myself, is a faithful picture of Mexican life. Who can tell how many unhappy wretches there are, in the numerous convents in Mexico, who have commenced with the first and ended with the second?

Among the persons who have figured in this narrative, one only succeeded in securing a peaceful life after a youth of stirring adventure: this was the student Don Diego Mercado, who, belonging to a rich family in Mexico, had always looked to the future without uneasiness. As for Don Blas, he met his death in a petty encounter with some robbers on the high road. Don Romulo's lot was at once more brilliant and more varied. After having, as I said before, taken part in seventeen conspiracies, and been banished from three republics, Don Romulo, after engaging in another political intrigue, was forced to quit Mexico in the same way as he had left Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. On returning to the last-mentioned state, in which he had been born, he was raised to the presidency; and this time, being at the head of affairs in his own country, one would think he ought to have renounced his revolutionary principles. We do not know, however, if his conversion was sincere. There are some political agitators whom the attainment of supreme power can not correct, and who still prefer the precarious advantages gained by intrigue to the pleasures of unlimited authority.

[16] Suppressed in Mexico in 1810. The old palace of the Inquisition, situated on the street St. Domingo, is now used as a custom-house.