The Alhambra 45

The Alhambra 45

THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY

 

 

In former times there ruled, as governor of the Alhambra, a doughty old

cavalier, who, from having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly known

by the name of el Gobernador Manco, or “the one-armed governor.” He in

fact prided himself upon being an old soldier, wore his moustaches

curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning boots, and a toledo as long

as a spit, with his pocket-handkerchief in the basket-hilt.

 

He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of

all his privileges and dignities. Under his sway the immunities of the

Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one

was permitted to enter the fortress with fire-arms, or even with a sword

or staff, unless he were of a certain rank; and every horseman was

obliged to dismount at the gate, and lead his horse by the bridle. Now

as the hill of the Alhambra rises from the very midst of the city of

Granada, being, as it were, an excrescence of the capital, it must at

all times be somewhat irksome to the captain-general, who commands the

province, to have thus an _imperium in imperio_, a petty independent

post in the very centre of his domains. It was rendered the more

galling, in the present instance, from the irritable jealousy of the old

governor, that took fire on the least question of authority and

jurisdiction; and from the loose vagrant character of the people who had

gradually nestled themselves within the fortress, as in a sanctuary, and

thence carried on a system of roguery and depredation at the expense of

the honest inhabitants of the city.

 

Thus there was a perpetual feud and heart-burning between the

captain-general and the governor, the more virulent on the part of the

latter, inasmuch as the smallest of two neighboring potentates is always

the most captious about his dignity. The stately palace of the

captain-general stood in the Plaza Nueva, immediately at the foot of the

hill of the Alhambra; and here was always a bustle and parade of guards,

and domestics, and city functionaries. A beetling bastion of the

fortress overlooked the palace and public square in front of it; and on

this bastion the old governor would occasionally strut backwards and

forwards, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down

upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitring his quarry from his nest in a

dry tree.

 

Whenever he descended into the city, it was in grand parade; on

horseback, surrounded by his guards; or in his state coach, an ancient

and unwieldy Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt leather, drawn by

eight mules, with running footmen, outriders, and lackeys; on which

occasions he flattered himself he impressed every beholder with awe and

admiration as vicegerent of the king; though the wits of Granada,

particularly those who loitered about the palace of the captain-general,

were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and, in allusion to the vagrant

character of his subjects, to greet him with the appellation of “the

king of the beggars.” One of the most fruitful sources of dispute

between these two doughty rivals was the right claimed by the governor

to have all things passed free of duty through the city that were

intended for the use of himself or his garrison. By degrees this

privilege had given rise to extensive smuggling. A nest of

contrabandistas took up their abode in the hovels of the fortress and

the numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove a thriving business under

the connivance of the soldiers of the garrison.

 

The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal

adviser and factotum, a shrewd meddlesome escribano, or notary, who

rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the

Alhambra, and involving him in a maze of legal subtilties. He advised

the captain-general to insist upon the right of examining every convoy

passing through the gates of his city, and penned a long letter for him

in vindication of the right. Governor Manco was a straight-forward

cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an escribano worse than the devil,

and this one in particular worse than all other escribanos.

 

“What!” said he, curling up his moustaches fiercely, “does the

captain-general set his man of the pen to practise confusions upon me?

I’ll let him see an old soldier is not to be baffled by schoolcraft.”

 

He seized his pen and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand, in

which, without deigning to enter into argument, he insisted on the right

of transit free of search, and denounced vengeance on any custom-house

officer who should lay his unhallowed hand on any convoy protected by

the flag of the Alhambra. While this question was agitated between the

two pragmatical potentates, it so happened that a mule laden with

supplies for the fortress arrived one day at the gate of Xenil, by which

it was to traverse a suburb of the city on its way to the Alhambra. The

convoy was headed by a testy old corporal, who had long served under the

governor, and was a man after his own heart; as rusty and stanch as an

old Toledo blade.

 

As they approached the gate of the city, the corporal placed the banner

of the Alhambra on the pack-saddle of the mule, and drawing himself up

to a perfect perpendicular, advanced with his head dressed to the front,

but with the wary side-glance of a cur passing through hostile ground

and ready for a snap and a snarl.

 

“Who goes there?” said the sentinel at the gate.

 

“Soldier of the Alhambra!” said the corporal, without turning his head.

 

“What have you in charge?”

 

“Provisions for the garrison.”

 

“Proceed.”

 

The corporal marched straight forward, followed by the convoy, but had

not advanced many paces before a posse of custom-house officers rushed

out of a small toll-house.

 

“Hallo there!” cried the leader. “Muleteer, halt, and open those

packages.”

 

The corporal wheeled round and drew himself up in battle-array. “Respect

the flag of the Alhambra,” said he; “these things are for the governor.”

 

“A figo for the governor and a figo for his flag. Muleteer, halt, I

say.”

 

“Stop the convoy at your peril!” cried the corporal, cocking his musket.

“Muleteer, proceed.”

 

The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack; the custom-house officer

sprang forward and seized the halter; whereupon the corporal levelled

his piece and shot him dead.

 

The street was immediately in an uproar.

 

The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing sundry kicks, and

cuffs, and cudgellings, which are generally given impromptu by the mob

in Spain as a foretaste of the after penalties of the law, he was loaded

with irons and conducted to the city prison, while his comrades were

permitted to proceed with the convoy, after it had been well rummaged,

to the Alhambra.

 

The old governor was in a towering passion when he heard of this insult

to his flag and capture of his corporal. For a time he stormed about the

Moorish halls, and vapored about the bastions, and looked down fire and

sword upon the palace of the captain-general. Having vented the first

ebullition of his wrath, he dispatched a message demanding the surrender

of the corporal, as to him alone belonged the right of sitting in

judgment on the offences of those under his command. The

captain-general, aided by the pen of the delighted escribano, replied at

great length, arguing, that, as the offence had been committed within

the walls of his city, and against one of his civil officers, it was

clearly within his proper jurisdiction. The governor rejoined by a

repetition of his demand; the captain-general gave a sur-rejoinder of

still greater length and legal acumen; the governor became hotter and

more peremptory in his demands, and the captain-general cooler and more

copious in his replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely

roared with fury at being thus entangled in the meshes of legal

controversy.

 

While the subtle escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of

the governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal, who, mewed up

in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated window at

which to show his iron-bound visage and receive the consolations of his

friends.

 

A mountain of written testimony was diligently heaped up, according to

Spanish form, by the indefatigable escribano; the corporal was

completely overwhelmed by it. He was convicted of murder and sentenced

to be hanged.

 

It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from the

Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put _in

capilla_, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison, as is always done

with culprits the day before execution, that they may meditate on their

approaching end and repent them of their sins.

 

Seeing things drawing to extremity, the old governor determined to

attend to the affair in person. For this purpose he ordered out his

carriage of state, and, surrounded by his guards, rumbled down the

avenue of the Alhambra into the city. Driving to the house of the

escribano, he summoned him to the portal.

 

The eye of the old governor gleamed like a coal at beholding the

smirking man of the law advancing with an air of exultation.

 

“What is this I hear,” cried he, “that you are about to put to death one

of my soldiers?”

 

“All according to law--all in strict form of justice,” said the

self-sufficient escribano, chuckling and rubbing his hands; “I can show

your Excellency the written testimony in the case.”

 

“Fetch it hither,” said the governor. The escribano bustled into his

office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his

ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran.

 

He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long

deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had

collected, listening with out-stretched necks and gaping mouths.

 

“Prithee, man, get into the carriage, out of this pestilent throng, that

I may the better hear thee,” said the governor.

 

The escribano entered the carriage, when, in a twinkling, the door was

closed, the coachman smacked his whip,--mules, carriage, guards, and all