I.

The end drew near of the longest siege that was ever in any of the three Americas. More than a year ago the red field of Ayacucho had crowned the triumph of the rebel colonies. The mother-nation that found the New World, and tamed it and gave it to her sons, no longer had sons there, for the very last had disowned her. Mexico, the first great Spanish kingdom in America, had turned republic; and so had the neighbor provinces. South America had followed suit; for the cry of “Independence,” premature as it was among these peoples, then and still so unripe for self-government, carried contagion, and Peru itself, the gem of the conquest, the land of riches and romance, had thrown off the merciful “yoke” of home to stagger for generations under the ten-fold worse yoke of her own corrupt sons. Of all the Americas that had been Spain’s by discovery, by conquest and by settlement, there now remained to her on the continent only the space boxed by the four walls of Callao[38]—a space a mile and a half square. There the red-yellow-and-red flag still flaunted defiance to the victorious insurgents; for there Rodil,[39] “the second Leonidas,” was making the last heroic stand for Spain.

It was hopeless odds—this fiery loyalist against all rebel South America. There was no possibility of reinforcements from anywhere; no chance of retreat. Cooped up in what was then the largest fort in the New World, he saw the land fenced with the flushed armies of BolÍvar,[40] the bay blocked by the allied fleets. For twenty-one months he had repulsed their almost daily attacks and outwitted their ceaseless stratagems; and for twenty-one months, too, had baffled the still more dangerous foes within his walls. Of the two thousand eight hundred men at his hand when the siege began, March 1, 1824, over seven hundred had been killed and more than twice as many had died of the pestilence. Of the eight thousand citizens first within the fort—for all Callao was included by those huge ramparts—two thousand four hundred had been sent out to avoid famine, and over five thousand had fallen by the plague. The survivors had no heart left. Almost daily some new plot to betray the fort was discovered, and almost daily the “iron general” gave a row of conspirators to the musketeers. To war, disease and treachery, famine added its terrors. Horse meat and rats were already delicacies; and only yesterday, a noble invalid had given a plate heaped up with gold for three lemons.

It was New Year’s eve. That, down here, twelve degrees below the equator, meant high summer. All day long the tropic heat had beaten mercilessly upon Callao, and now the wan defenders lay sprawled along the ramparts beside their guns, drinking the grateful dusk. Here and there sounded the uneven tramp of the patrol down the cobble-paved streets, and their sharp challenge, “Alto! Quien vive?” to every one they met. It rang out now, and the soldiers crossed their muskets before a tall, gray-robed figure.

“It is I, my children,” was the quiet answer. “Delay me not, for I go to the sick.”

“Pass, father,” said the sargento, and all lifted their caps, stepping from the narrow sidewalk to make room for the priest.

“But what is this?” cried the officer, suddenly thrusting out his long arm and clutching something which was about to fly right between them. It was a thin, pale girl of ten, hooded in the black manta of her people.

“Que es esto?” repeated the sargento more gently. “Dost thou not know the orders that none shall move upon the street after dark, since so many drop letters over the walls to the rebels? Get thee in, for even children are not exempt,” and he pushed her back into the doorway from which she had just burst.

But the child made no motion to obey. “The padre!” she panted. “The padre! For my brother is very sick.”

“Si, pues? Well, go thou and catch the fraile, then. But much eye that thou come not near the walls.” And the kindly old Spaniard led his men off down the street.

By this time the priest had turned the corner; and when the child came flying to that street, lo! he was far ahead. But she kept running breathlessly and at last, where the dark bulk of the castle of San Felipe overhung them, she plucked the gray robe from behind. Her bare feet had drawn no noise from the stones, and the priest started violently, choking back what sounded like the beginning of a cry.

He wheeled sharply about with a stern “What is this?”—but his voice was pinched.

“My brother—very sick—padre! Please, your grace, come!” she panted.

“To the devils with your brother!” he growled, flinging her off. “VÁyate!” and he was gone before the dumbfounded child could speak again. She stood a moment looking stupidly after him, and then, sobbing, limped wearily homeward.

II.

The house, like most of Callao in those ill days, was little better than a wreck after twenty-one months of the rebel cannonading. The dark stairway teetered and groaned dismally as she scrambled up, and overhead the Southern Cross blinked hazily at her through a tattered frame—the insurgent shells had left little of the flimsy roofs of the city where it never rains. Long, ragged strips of bamboo lathing dangled here and there, and at her childish tread dribbles of the gravel covering came pattering about her like uncanny footfalls. She was trembling all over when she pushed open a broken door and entered the room, the rude Moorish balcony of which overhung the street. There was a hole in the roof here, too, and the doors of the balcony had been splintered by a cannon ball. A twisted rag flared smokily in an iron plate of grease on a broken chair, and where the vagrant shadows began to stand their ground against its feeble rays, some one was bending over a tattered mattress upon the floor.

“No hay cuidado,” said a strange voice as she stopped short, in alarm. “The sargento bade me bring a cup of caldo for thy brother, seeing thee so much a woman. For now that there is nothing to eat, he said, perhaps that would be the best medicine.”

“God pay you!” cried the child nervously. “And my brother?”

“He drank the broth as one greedy, and in a moment fell asleep. How many days makes it that he is sick?”

“Two, seÑor. Since four days there was nothing to eat but two crusts of bread, and those he made me eat.”

“Pobrecito! He has no more than hunger. To-morrow I will bring another caldo—for even broth of horse gives strength—that ye may not starve. But have ye no fathers?”

“Papa fell in San Felipe; and our mother was sent from the city with many. But us she hid in the house, saying that the enemy had no mercy even to the weak. And so it was; for the women that tried to pass to Lima the insurjentes fired upon. And she never came back.”

“Dogs of rebels! But now I go, little one. Have heart, for I will look to you. HÁsta luego.”

When he was gone the child crouched down by her brother and slipped her trembling hand into his. The shadows were so crawly! They seemed to draw back and then come stealing at her. And it was so still—only the hail of the sentries, breaking across such a silence as if they stood guard over a city of the dead.

“Que hay, little sister?” said the boy, starting up wide awake with the suddenness of those that are fevered. “The father? Couldst not find one? But it is all the same, for God sent us a friend with food.”

“And he comes to-morrow also,” she added eagerly. Then she told how she had followed the priest, but he had shaken her off with rough words.

“Ea? How is that? For the fathers do not so. And how is it thou followedst him even to the castillo?”

“Pues, for that he went very fast and I could not catch him. He was at the corner even when the sargento let me pass; but when I came running there he was almost at the next cuadra, as if he too had run.”

Vicente suddenly sat up on the squalid mattress. The smoky wick flung deep shadows in his hollow cheeks, and he looked so pale and wild that Lina almost cried out at him.

“I tell thee, ’manita,” he whispered earnestly, “I believe not in that priest! Running so, and so rough to thee! And thou sayest that at touch of thy hand to his robe he started and was to call out? There is a danger, I tell thee!” he repeated vehemently, striking his thin fist upon the floor till the impish shadows danced again. “All is crooked now, when they say the very captains wait to sell our general. And if the priests be traitors too——”

“But what to do?” asked the girl, in awe of this fierce young brother.

“Ay! What to do? For we know nothing. But something there is, my heart tells me. Oyez! Wouldst thou know the padre again, seeing him?”

“Como no? For it was near the farol, and I saw under the hood his eyes, how shining they were.”

“And his voice, too—no? Come, then, and we will see who is this father that curses his children!” And the boy rose eagerly, though his legs shook under him.

“But how canst thou go out, hermano, being so sick?”

“No hay cuidado. For now it is for our king against the rebels, and strength I shall have for that. The caldo also gives me new life. Vamos!”

III.

Weak as he was, he drew her down the tottering stairs and into the dark street; and there they stood a moment, not knowing whither to turn. “Claro!” exclaimed Vicente, “we will follow as he went—perchance we may meet him returning.”

But at the very corner some one turning in hastily from the next street stumbled fairly over them; and Vicente and Lina and the stranger went down in a heap.

“Little animals!” snarled an angry voice. “Are you blind? For a so-little I would break your bones. Eh? He is who?” he hissed, catching them by the arms—for he had heard Lina’s excited whisper, “Es Él.”

“She says you are the priest that would not go to her sick brother,” answered Vicente in a steady voice, “and I believe it, for you are rough to the weak. But we will find a padre who is not so.”

“MÁrchanse, brats!” said the stranger in a tone of relief. “But,” he added, turning and shaking his finger at them, “no more running after me, or I throw you over the wall.”

“Have no care, seÑor padre,” said Vicente, with sarcastic politeness; and taking Lina by the hand he hurried around the corner. In a moment he turned his head and caught a glimpse of some dark object peering past the wall. “Es!” he whispered, squeezing the slender fingers, and a few rods farther on drew Lina into a recess of the wall. He was trembling all over.

“Es!” he repeated. “Canst thou not see that he is no fraile, though he wears the habit? It is the voice of a soldier and not of the church. And here! This fell to my very hand when we all went to the ground together”—and he held up a crumpled paper. “But first it is to see whither goes this father of rebels. Come so far as the house and there wait me, for it is better that I go alone.”

“But, Vicente—I—I’m afraid of the duÉndes!”

“Epa! Fear not, sisterling, for the goblins touch not those that are true. Remember, it is for Spain!” And pushing her gently inside their own doorway, and stooping to kiss her, he hurried down the street.

Lina dared not climb the noisy stairs to the deserted rooms. She crouched in the hall, shivering, drawing the manta about her shoulders as if with cold, but shutting her teeth bravely. The shuffle of Vicente’s broken shoes had already died away; and it seemed as if the whole world had slipped past with him. Ages and ages she waited, till she was ready to scream with fear; and then she sprang nervously to the door at a sound in the street. It was only a patrol shambling over the crazy cobblestones, but as it drew nigh she was seized with a sudden access of fear. Between them stumbled Vicente, a heavy hand on either shoulder.

“Let him go!” she cried, rushing upon the soldiers as if to strike them down. “He is my little brother, and has done nothing. Only we found the——”

“CÁllete, Lina!” spoke up Vicente sharply. “If only the seÑor official will be so good as to take her with me to the general—for she is quite alone, seÑor.”

“It is well—come on, little Amazon!” said the officer, from whom war and starvation had not dried up all Andalusian humor. “Snails! But I thought she was to capture us! March!”

IV.

General Rodil pushed back his chair from the table, and his grave face took on a puzzled look as the officer and his odd prisoners were ushered into the room. “The general who never sleeps,” they called him—for at whatever hour of day or night, he was always appearing suddenly here, there, everywhere. Well masked was the faint heart into whose depths those gray eyes did not bore; tiny indeed the slackness that escaped them. Well might the ignorant invest him with a superstitious terror—this man who was really the garrison of Callao.

“Que cosa?” he demanded in a low, clear voice.

“Pues, seÑor generÁl,” said the officer, still standing at “salute.” “This boy we found in the Street of the Pelicans, as if waiting for some one. And when we searched him this was in his shirt.”

Rodil uncrumpled the paper and bent to read it by the flickering candle. Suddenly his haggard face turned even paler, and then a dark flush rose as he sprang to his feet and took two steps forward. As suddenly he stopped, and threw at the children a glance that seemed fairly to burn them.

“Are there none but traitors?” he cried, with a choke. “Even to the babies! And now, my Ponce de Leon!” for the smuggled note read:

“Todo listo. No mas se espera al comandante rÚbio. Arregla todo de San Rafael.”

[All ready. Only waiting the blonde commander. Fix everything in the castle of San Rafael.]

The “blonde commander” could be none other than Rodil’s dear friend and trusted officer, in charge of one of the twin castles—a man whom he had “made” in rank and fortune. The general’s face seemed of stone as he demanded:

“Boy! From where is this letter?”

“VuesÉncia, I picked it up from a fraile who fell over us in the street; and because he had been rough to my little sister, I followed to see where he would go.”

“Carefully! For when it is between the king’s honor and traitors, even youth counts not! What should a fraile be doing with letters of the insurgents?”

“For that, I think he was no fraile,” answered Vicente sturdily, holding his head erect, though his knees wavered; and he told all the happenings of the evening, while Lina nodded an earnest corroboration. Before he was done, something of the hardness had faded from Rodil’s face.

“Your cuenta runs well,” he said at last. “Give me proof and I will fill your hat with gold. But if not—if you are old enough to be a traitor, you are old enough to die one!”

Vicente’s ragged shoulders squared still straighter. “When I ask you for money, seÑor generÁl!” he replied proudly. “We are of Spain, and for that I do it. He that made as priest went not to the convento, but into the house 74, Street of the Viceroy.”

“Hola! SeÑor teniente, take twenty men in the instant and round-up that house, bringing hither all that are in it; and that everything be searched. And send the teniente Ochoa with another file to bring hither prisoner the Comandante Ponce de Leon. Corriendo!”

For twenty minutes “the sleepless general” walked the room—sometimes apparently unconscious of the children, and suddenly flinging at them some question, sharp and searching as a javelin. Then there were reluctant feet upon the stairs.

“It has to report, your Excellency,” said Lieutenant Ochoa, “that the SeÑor Comandante Ponce de Leon is not to be found. Since the first dusk no one has seen him.”

Rodil struck his forehead; but before he seemed able to command his voice, there was another commotion outside, and a group of officers bustled into the room.

“What is this, mi generÁl?” cried one of them angrily. “Here we are dragged from the house like criminals! What means this rat-catcher of a lieutenant?”

“Little by little, gentlemen mine!” answered Rodil in a suspiciously quiet tone. “You will excuse the molestation for my sake, since I ordered it. And now, I beg you, have the goodness to tell me of a fraile who entered your house half an hour ago.”

“Fraile, seÑor generÁl? No priest has entered the house,” answered the first speaker, sharply. He was a tall, handsome officer, upon whom even the shabbiness of a uniform that had seen twenty-one months’ fighting sat becomingly. “I think your Excellency might have asked the question with less violence to us.”

“Ill it fits me to show discourtesy to such loyal gentlemen,” Rodil replied, with an added dryness. “And I am glad to learn that no priest has been among you—for I fancied, my SeÑor Captain Baca, that he might be converting you to the brotherhood. You would half pass for a fraile yourself, now that I see”—and in spite of himself the general’s voice rose ever so little—“the moustache which was the pride of the company is shorn off since midday.”

“Pues—your Excellency,” stammered the tall captain. “For the heat—and—and—since time hangs heavily on our hands, I shaved for a joke.”

“Well edged is thy humor, captain mine!” The ironic respect had given place to the contemptuous tu. “Ójala we had earlier guessed thy wit, to ease the weariness of the siege. Tell me, boy—is this thy fraile?” The question came like a bullet.

“I know not, Excellency,” said Vicente, hesitatingly. “Of that size he was, but his face I saw not well.”

“But it is his voice!” cried Lina impetuously. “And had he the hood, I would know if it is his face—for the capucho covered him well.”

“Little animals!” growled the captain, starting as if to spring at them. But then, commanding himself, he said sullenly: “Until what will your Excellency carry this farce? Am I to be burlado by lying brats of the street? With these gentlemen I have passed the time since I came off duty.”

“It is true, seÑor generÁl,” declared the others, who had nervously watched their spokesman, the ranking officer among them. “We have all been together since——”

“Alto!” interrupted Rodil sternly. “You must bring me better witnesses than your tongues. For by my faith, I would see this joke of the moustache played through. Sargento, search this captain of the wits.”

“For pity, mi generÁl! Shame me not thus!” And the officer fell on his knees.

For answer, Rodil only stretched his lean finger grimly. The sergeant, awkward at disrespectful approach to his superior, laid his hand upon the arm of the risen captain, and in another moment lay sprawling upon the floor. Baca was a young and muscular man; and almost in the same motion with the blow he sprang at the window.

The dumbfounded privates had no time to reach him; but Vicente, in a flash of rage, flung himself at his legs, and the tall officer crashed upon the floor. Before he could rise a dozen soldiers were upon him, and Rodil, his slender sword quivering at half-arm, faced the four other officers.

“There is nothing in his pockets, Excellency,” announced the sergeant.

“Claro! For he who changes his face so soon can as well change his clothing. In his shoes, then.”

There was a renewed scuffle; but in a moment a cry of exultation—and the sergeant dragged a thin, soiled paper from Baca’s stocking.

“Still given to jests, capitan mio—that you walk on the mines which are to blow the rebels up at the next assault. It is a clever diagram, and Salom would have paid thee well for it, I warrant. Hola!”

For the door let in four soldiers and their petty officer; and over the arm of the latter hung the long gray-brown habit of a Franciscan friar.

“It was between the mattresses of the seÑor capitan Baca,” announced the sergeant. “And as for these little ones, I am their witness—for to my patrol passed first a tall fraile, and soon came running this womanling after him for her brother, who was very sick.”

“And the boy is he to whom I carried a cup of broth—and I found him well fevered,” spoke up one of the soldiers, scared at his own thick voice before the grim general.

“It is enough,” interrupted Rodil. “I give thanks to God that there are patriots yet—and eyes in them, too. These children stay with me. For the SeÑor Captain Baca, and for these gentlemen who ‘were with him all the time,’” he continued with grim terseness, “sunrise against the wall of San Felipe. Until then, your heads answer for theirs!”

That is all there is to tell of the habit of the fraile—except that it served for a shroud to the traitor who had masqueraded in it.

But already was the beginning of the end. The desertion of the Comandante Ponce de Leon, who had dropped over the wall and fled to the enemy, gave to the insurgents plans and information of fatal importance. Then Riera, the other comandante, turned traitor too, and delivered to the foe the castle of San Rafael.

Resistance was no longer possible, even to “the Spartan of Peru.” On the 11th of January he entered into correspondence which ended with the honorable and advantageous capitulation of Callao, January 23, 1826. Of the original 2,800 soldiers only three hundred and seventy-six remained, and a scant seven hundred citizens of all the former thousands. There was little left save glory—but of that so proud a share as was earned by no other man of either side in the war of the colonial rebellion. For that matter, history has few pages like the resistance of Spain’s last fort in America.

When Rodil, in full uniform, boarded the English frigate “Briton” to sail away to the long years and high honors that awaited him in Spain, he carried with the banners of his favorite regiments a boy and girl who seemed less embarrassed by their fine new dress than by the attention which everywhere greeted “the little orphans of Callao.”