The Habit of the Fraile by Charles Fletcher Lummis

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.