Chapter III: A Dip Into the Past

The family Mendoza had deserved well of the Spanish crown. Stanch supporters of the kingdom had they ever been. Their talents, their wealth, their lives they held only as in trust to be devoted, whenever came the call, to the higher, the nobler good.

Adventurous too were the citizens of that name. With Pizarro they overthrew the Incas of Peru. With Hernando Cortez they stormed the place of strength of the Montezumas. Their swords flashed north and south in the conquering of vast empires. Few of them returned from these scenes of glory, and of those few the greater part were maimed and broken men. The native arrow or the fever swamp claimed life or health of the valiant conquistador, not excepting the famous Mendozas.

Thus sifted in the sieve of centuries, the family Mendoza fell gradually in numbers from men sufficient to fill half a regiment, as in the old crusader times, to but two representatives, of whom the younger was Jesus Maria y José.

By law of entail the elder brother received the land and fortunes of that once powerful family. A lieutenantship in the army was the portion of the young Jesus Maria y José, a slender consolation, it might seem, but the bold-spirited youth accepted it with gracious willingness.

His eighteenth year found him embarking on a transport bound for the dangerous service of the Philippines, with a soldiery gathered from the Spanish prisons. To quell and govern such men was a pleasing experience to the Castilian boy; not that the task was an easy one, or that he would have it so.

In the becalmed waters of the tropics the sterling metal of the youthful officer first showed itself. Here the mutinous intent of the men, long smoldering under restraint of discipline, resolved into action.

Early one morning the alarm bell rang loud of danger. The officers hurried on deck to find nearly every soldier under arms and calling aloud for vengeance on the oppressors, as they called their superiors. The leader was a huge, bull-necked cutthroat who once had been a bandit in the Pyrenees.

"Each mincing ladies' man among you shall walk the plank, before the guns of my brave fellows here, and we'll cheer you pretty, scented gentlemen as you battle in the water with the sharks," shouted the jeering leader.

Shouts of applause came from the men, mingled with jibes and curses.

Mendoza asked of his captain that he be allowed to speak with the chief mutineer. He stated briefly his purpose. Permission was given, for the situation was desperate.

The officers, but a score, faced full five hundred men, all armed. Even the artillery of the regiment, shotted to the mouth, was gaping angrily at them from the ranks of the ruffians across deck.

The lieutenant walked to the front bearing his naked rapier in his hand, while the mutinous soldiers, half drunken with liquor looted from the stores of the ship, howled at him.

"Mamma's pet comes straight from the bath to drive about as cattle men that are men. Back to your crib, you reptile infant, or I'll grind you under my heel," threatened the leader.

In incoherent echo his followers stormed: "Throw him to the sharks, for cubs become wolves--cut him into pieces--cast him into the ovens!"

"Attention!" called the young man.

Something, perhaps innate animal respect for bravery, called for obedience. Silence and expectancy fell over them.

"You pretend to despise all your officers. I am the youngest and least among them, yet I dare the best among you to fight me here, I with this light rapier against your heavy cutlass."

The boastful leader pushed forward. Around the villain's head swung his cutlass flaming and glancing in the tropic sun.

"Aha! Aha! young sprig!" in half-drunken glee. "Hear the whistling air divide before my cutlass's edge. I'll strip you from your skin, inch by inch, and dry it on your cabin door. Come now, point to point, you young patrician fool!"

He struck a cleaving blow at the figure before him. The lieutenant's rapier caught the descending blade, wound itself in serpentine curves around it and drew away. The cutlass hurtled to the floor a half dozen paces distant. Numbness seized the mutineer's arm from wrist to shoulder. He examined the member in search of a wound, but found none.

The pack of insubordinates, impelled by their wolf-nature, would follow the leader if he conquered, or rend him if he fell.

Murmurs like the first swell of an angry sea rose among the mob, then burst into yells of derision.

"A schoolboy makes our mighty leader play the fool!"

"Yes, he swings his cutlass as a housewife the broom."

"Throw him overboard and elect a man, not some awkward cow!"

Young Mendoza stood with rapier poised, aimed at his opponent's heart.

"Curse the tricks of feinting and legerdemain your namby-pamby schools teach you in Madrid. Drop your steel fork there and I'll tear you to pieces with my hands."

Instantly the rapier was side by side with the cutlass.

The leader darted forward, his fists striking flaillike blows at the lithe form of the lieutenant.

Mendoza stepped lightly to one side. The opponent stumbled past him.

As the mutineer turned, the open palms of the clever boxer landed right and left with resounding smack on his nose and mouth. Raging and cursing, the ruffian again sprang at the officer. Once, twice, thrice, did the youth's palms beat tattoo on his adversary's bleeding features. Dazed by the blows the man at last fell to the deck.

Hoarse, derisive cries from the band of mutineers again greeted the prostrate man.

"He went forth to chastise a babe, but, behold! it is a wondrous infant," groaned some fellow. "Rise up, brave one, a chance this time may help thee land that useless fist of thine."

The leader writhed alike at the ignominy of defeat and at the irony of his followers. Drawing a knife, as he gained his feet, he flew at Mendoza, despite warning cries even from the ranks of his own men.

The weapon drove straight out with murderous intent. A hush fell over both officers and mutineers.

It seemed an age before the blow came.

It struck on empty air, for the youth, as before, had deftly stood aside. As the other was driven past by his own momentum the boy seized him by the waist and neckband, raised him from the deck, and whirling him over his head, flung him headlong from the taffrail to the sea below.

A man-eating shark which had been following the ship swam toward its prospective prey. Its back fins swirled through the water, as it came dashing up. The poor wretch shrieked in agony. He tried to climb the slippery wood of the ship's side. Time after time he struck deep into the planks the knife which he still held, in vain endeavor to raise himself out of the water by this leverage.

"Help! help, friends, in the Virgin's name!" he entreated.

The shark had nearly reached him and was already turning on its side in preparation for its stroke of death.

Helplessness seemed to possess all.

A figure fell from the taffrail to the side of the desperate man. It was none other than Lieutenant Mendoza. Balancing himself lightly in the water, he wrenched the knife from his enemy's hand, and, as the shark came up, he buried it to the handle in the monster's brain. Its jaws snapped sullenly not the inches of a span away from the head of the screaming bully. Floundering helplessly the creature rolled away. Other man-eating sharks came to the scene. Some of them seized on their helpless brother and tore at his flesh while he still lived. Others swam straight for the human beings at the side of the ship.

By this time the spectators had recovered power of action. A boat was quickly lowered. Muskets and pistols in numbers were fired at the onrushing school of sharks.

Soon the rescued and rescuer were safe on board. There was talk among the officers of court-martials and executions, with the outcome, that, after much persuasion on the part of the young lieutenant, the commander granted his request that the leader be pardoned pending his good behavior.

The troops were not again recalcitrant.

From the swamps and the heat of the Philippines Captain Mendoza--for he had been promoted--returned to Europe. Events which shook the world were stirring there. As an eagle flies to the rescue of its eyrie so hastened the descendant of the valiant Mendozas to the Spain of his fathers, to do battle for its safety.

The figure of Napoleon loomed ominously against Europe's peace. His ambitious hand was reaching for the crown of Spain, as, indeed, for all other crowns.

Into the awful carnage plunged Mendoza. A hundred blows he struck at the terrible Corsican, even though, often enough, the recoil threw him and his command reeling backward in defeat. Nevertheless, did he right nobly add honor and renown to the spotless banner of his house.

Only when Napoleon was exiled to Elba did he leave the field. Then, in command of his regiment, as colonel, he returned to Madrid.

His elder brother, rich in titles and wealth, influential at the Cortes, united his personal petition with the strong voice of the colonel's service in the field, to obtain for the younger man place and emolument.

The vast region of Alta California was then coming into great and favorable notice. Need there would surely be, in the Californias, of men of mettle and of wisdom to hold that province and its riches secure to Spanish rule.

Accordingly, large parcels of land in the valley of Santa Clara, fairest and most fertile in all that western Eden, California, were conferred by letters-patent on the soldier, Mendoza.

He loved a lady fair--Romalda. What man of his family had not? Every knight of La Mancha had his Dulcinea, and Jesus Maria y José was true to his descent, even to the very finger-tips. The old crusader Mendozas, whose faces were carved in marble or painted on canvas in the ancestral home in Castile, had not been more chivalrous and romantic than was this now famous colonel.

Beautiful daydreams he wove and told to the listening ears of the noble lady. He had seen California, and knew well that part of it where his estate lay. The fire of poetry touched his words, as he sketched for her the estate mightier in length and breadth than any in Castile, fairer than Elysian fields, more fertile than the Andalusian meadows.

No landscape painter could limn mountains more picturesque and stately than did the words of Don Jesus Maria y José describe the eastern boundary of their domain in the land of far-away California. No minstrel could tell, in song or verse, of lake or bay so fair, so blue, as the inland sea which laved the western limit of their home-to-be.

Lady Romalda hearkened, and she smiled approvingly as she gave him her hand to kiss at parting.

"Soon will I return and claim my bride. The days I spend in the Californias, in preparation for your coming, will be as months and years to me."

She smiled kindly yet again, and waved a kiss at him as he rode forth from her father's gate to prepare the home for her across the many seas.

The soldier reached his California estate in due season, and with industry set about his task of love.

A hacienda house reached high its walls on an eminence near the mountain side of the estate. Moorish in architecture, its towers proudly surveyed the leagues of miles comprising the Mendoza grant. Tree and plant and flower smiled around it in the genial warmth of semitropic atmosphere. Avenues of olive lined its approaches. The Mission grapevine draped many arbors which were arranged in labyrinthine plan, all centering, after infinite curious turns, at the front door of the mansion.

Many ships brought furnishings from the world over for this wonderful palace.

The herds fattened for the killing, and were of great increase on this domain, as needs be, for the expense of the hacienda house was in keeping with its size and beauty.

At last all was ready for the bride. But----

Mexico had declared for independence, and was making good this declaration by force of arms. California would be compelled either to stand with Mexico or to fall with mother Spain. Colonel Mendoza's natural gifts included statecraft. He did not oppose the inevitable. California became a province of the republic of Mexico.

Now hastened the Colonel to claim his bride. In Madrid he found his brother dead, leaving no direct heir. The soldier-cavalier claimed title and estates, but the royal court rebuffed him. He was a foreigner now. His acceptance of Mexican dominion had cost him his Spanish citizenship. The laws of entail debarred him from succession.

He urged the inevitableness of the separation of Mexico from Spain, also his years of service in the Spanish army; likewise the claims of his family to the good will of the kingdom. All was in vain.

Hastening to the castle of his betrothed, he made known his presence, and asked to see the Lady Romalda.

Her father met him in his stead.

"My daughter, the noble doña, desires to see you not, Sir Foreigner. For my part I request that you depart from this place and never return."

"Foreigner or not, I'll hear the rejection from the lady's own lips. I demand to see the Lady Romalda, my affianced wife."

After much parley the father brought his daughter to see the determined man.

Mendoza told her again of the home prepared for her near the shores of the sunny Pacific, of the beauty and luxuriance well-nigh Oriental, of the wealth of the land, of the promise of the future.

"Peons, slaves, señorita, numbering hundreds, await your pleasure there. A princess will you be, and I will be your lover-husband. Say you will come with me."

The Lady Romalda smiled coldly. "You may become a self-styled prince among a barbarous and rebellious people. Be assured I shall never be a princess of such dishonor."

She swept in disdain from the room.

Mendoza returned to Madrid. Calling on the commander-in-chief of the Spanish army, he held before him the written letters of his colonelcy.

"This paper means I am a colonel in the army of this kingdom. I am such no more." He tore in halves the commission.

"Are you a madman, Colonel Mendoza?" asked the general.

"Behold!"

Bending his sword over his knee he broke it into pieces and cast them on the floor. "By this act I forswear Spain forever."

The old general began to remonstrate with him, but Mendoza turned on his heel and was gone.

Great preparations were under way for the return to California of the lord of the rancho Mendoza with his lady bride. The whole valley was ready to make the occasion a gala time.

Alone, and by night, he came. Calling his major-domos and head peons together, he gave orders which were to be executed early on the morrow, by his thousand vassals.

They were frightened. "Our master is out of his head!" they exclaimed in awe-struck tones. Hastening they told some of the Spanish neighbors of the return of Señor Mendoza and of his startling commands.

The Spanish confreres were soon at the castlelike hacienda house.

"Señor, the Colonel Mendoza----" began one.

"Señor Mendoza I am. Never again colonel."

"But, señor, the peons tell us of your strange desires."

"My desires shall be executed, strange or not. At daybreak to-morrow not a stone stands on stone in this hacienda house. On these grounds not tree or plant or shrub stands unuprooted before the darkness of another day."

"But, señor, has your visit to Spain affected----"

"My visit to Spain has affected me greatly. Friends and neighbors, at another time I, and all I have, shall be at your disposal. Permit me now to bid you good-night."

Very early next morning the hills echoed to the titanic roar of the powder magazine under the hacienda house, which had been kept there for uses of the hunt, and for defense and offense. Señor Mendoza's own hand had lighted the train. Soon fire skirted toppling tower and parapet, searched ruined reception halls, licked up furniture and bric-à-brac, and charred rare valuables. Daylight saw not Moorish castle, but blocks of blackened building stones and smoking rubbish.

Countless peons, with spades, picks and axes, dug up the green and growing things, broke down terraces, tore away grape arbors, and everywhere did works of devastation.

Señor Mendoza, as if commanding in battle, directed his workmen. Trees and shrubs were piled high. Fire, made hotter by kegs of turpentine, soon brought all to ash-heaps. Great pits were dug into which the stones of the hacienda building were placed, also the ashes from the bonfires.

"Now," commanded Mendoza, "fill in these trenches."

It was done.

"Señors," he said at nightfall, when all was over, "thus I bury the past. Henceforth, remember, I pray you, that I am Señor Mendoza, the Californian, that, and that only."

The rains of the following winter made the site of the once-beautiful castle and grounds again a part of the rolling, grassy lands overlooking the valley.

Señor Mendoza devoted himself faithfully to the interests of his rancho and the welfare of California.

He built another home five miles from where the first had been, and altogether out of sight of it; a house of California style, the buildings forming three sides of a square, with a wall making the fourth side of the courtyard within.

In middle life the wish had come to found a family to succeed him in his possessions. He married the daughter of a neighbor, a maiden of Castilian blood, but of California birth. A child was born to them, a daughter, and in that hour his wife died. Never was parent kinder or gentler than Señor Mendoza to the Doña Carmelita, his pride and joy.

The authorities in Mexico City thought it right to deprive the Franciscan friars of a part of the lands they held in Alta California, this act of the secularization of the missions causing comment of both approval and disapproval.

The leaders in the capital city chose Señor Mendoza to administer the claims of church and state in the valley of Santa Clara. Thus he became administrator of the Mission of San José, where the opening of this story found him, a man of strength and of honesty, a statesman and a courtly gentleman.