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Updated: June 20, 2025
I was captured when Vera Cruz surrendered. I was with General Morales. I got in to-night, and I have a great deal to say to the general and Señora Paez and the Tassaras." "Zuroaga is here now," said a low, cautiously speaking voice behind him. "Put up your sword, Carfora, and come along with me. I want to see you more than you do me. I must know the latest news from General Scott's army.
They were sitting near one of the drawing-room windows, when Señora Paez came quietly behind him and touched him on the shoulder. "Come with me," she said. "There is a man up in Señora Tassara's room who wishes to see you." "O Señor Carfora!" whispered Felicia. "Don't say a word! I know who it is. Go right along. He is an old friend of yours."
"Señor Carfora!" called out a clear, ringing voice. He turned in the saddle, from seeming to gaze at the distant forest, and there, in the piazza which ran all along the front of the house, stood Señorita Felicia, her usually pale face flushed with excitement. "We have a letter from father!" she shouted. "He has completed his regiment, and he is to command it.
Excited shouts were carrying the errand of Colonel Guerra swiftly over the city, and everywhere it was discovering hearers as ready for it as had been the officers at the gate. He may have been looking a little pale when he entered the parlor of the Paez mansion, for Señora Paez at once arose and came to meet him, inquiring, anxiously: "Señor Carfora, what is the matter? Has anything happened?"
"My dear Mercedes," said Señora Tassara to her cousin, "this is all as my husband and General Zuroaga predicted. But the tiger is not here yet, and by the time he arrives they will be beyond his reach. It takes some days to travel from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. Señor Carfora, you are in no danger. Neither are we." "No!" angrily exclaimed Señora Paez.
"Señor Carfora!" exclaimed Felicia, her black eyes flashing curiously at him. "Where did you get them? I never before saw such big newspapers. They won't tell us about our army, though." "Yes, they will," he said, and, while she was searching the broad-faced prints for army information, he repeated for her benefit all that he had previously told her mother. Poor Señorita Felicia!
He was thinking: "I guess they were right about the excitement of the people. This isn't any place for fellows like me. I must get out of Vera Cruz as soon as I can. It's a good thing that I'm disguised. I must play Mexican." At that moment a good-natured smile spread across the gloomy face of his unexpected companion, and he said, in a low tone of voice: "Say nothing, Señor Carfora.
He's a gringo, and he would fight us if he had a chance. I want them all to be killed!" "No, my dear," said the señora, with a pleasant laugh. "Señor Carfora will not fight us. He and his ship brought powder for Colonel Guerra and the army. I am sorry he must leave us. You must shake hands with him." "Oh, no!" said the wilful Felicia, spitefully. "I don't want to shake hands with him.
"Carfora," he exclaimed, "you are too young to have been sent on such an errand as this. General Bravo! Colonel Tassara! Señora Paez! General Zuroaga! Ah, Santa Maria! And our brave army was shattered at Angostura, after all. This is dreadful news! You shall die before I will allow you to spread it among my men!"
Not all of them were panic-stricken in this way, however, for when the house of old Anita was reached, she was standing in the doorway, and she greeted them loudly with: "O Señor Carfora! I knew all the while that you were a gringo. I am so glad that we have surrendered! Santa Maria Gloriosa! Praise all the saints! We shall have no more cannonading! We shall have plenty to eat!"
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