Part 2 (2/2)
”Kissing him tenderly, she declared he was a Rozarro in spirit, if not in name. It was decided to leave the villa in charge of Labella, and in a short time a sale of the estate was consummated for the sum of fifty thousand doubloons, or seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold--the mansion and park being reserved.
”Senora Labella was dowered by Ivarene with a gift of several thousand doubloons on her wedding Von Brunn, after which event we set to work earnestly preparing for our overland journey northward. A long train of wagons were loaded with dry-goods for the markets of Northern Mexico.
The price of such articles there had been enhanced enormously by the war, and Von Brunn shrewdly advised us to pursue this course. When Ivarene kindly offered to loan me money to invest in this manner, I gladly accepted fifty thousand dollars, with which I bought linen and cotton goods at the port of Vera Cruz, which was then crowded by the s.h.i.+ps of all nations.
”I might be pardoned for digressing a moment while speaking of the strange belief in a future state which Bruce entertained. There was a vein of seriousness and grave, quiet religion running through the nature of my friend, and often, while we were stretched on our blanket with no canopy but the dewless Mexican sky, studded by the Southern Cross, and bespangled by constellations that were new and strange to our eyes--often, I say, he would talk of that weird belief, which then was very enigmatical to me, but which in my maturer life has recurred with a sweet solace to my declining years.
”Bruce believed that the soul was an individual, invisible as air and imperishable as time itself, and that the spirit was a progressive, rational being, which could never leave this earth until the great Judgment-day, at which time our planet would be as unfit for a human abode as the moon is at present.
”After death, which, he said, was only a wearing out of the outer garment of the soul or spirit, the animating principle, or life, would still inhabit the earth, invisible to human eyes, but yet an intelligent, observing being; subtile as air, yet powerful as electricity. Whenever the newly released soul chose to do so, it could take on a new form by being re-born. He thought that before birth we were possessed of a life akin to that of the vegetable kingdom, but at birth a spirit that had lived before took possession of our bodies, and used us as a habitation until our bodies became either worn through age, or distasteful to the occupant--death ensuing in either case.
”His highest idea of heaven, he said, would be to have the power to live again, and again meet those friends whom he had loved best in the prior life, guided to them unerringly by the mystic ties of love and affinity.
Memory of the past life, he thought, was that sense which we call instinct, conscience, or intuition, being only a feeble glimmer, as it were, of the previous state in which we had lived.
”I remember well, the night before the battle of Churubusco, how Bruce and I talked of these things; for he said, as we sat beneath a palm-tree, while the tropic moon flooded the earth with a dreamy splendor, that we were to fight the last great battle of the war on the morrow--a conflict in which one or both of us might perish--and all that reconciled him to such a fate was the belief that we should live again, and meet each other in this world, which was the only heaven we were yet fitted for.
”I would not have you entertain the thought for one instant that Bruce was skeptical or irreligious. On the contrary, his fearless piety was often commented upon; for I have seen him kneel on the b.l.o.o.d.y fields of Cerro Gordo and Contreras, and thank G.o.d in a trembling voice for his gracious preservation of my life and his own, while the rude soldiery stood by with mute respect, remembering his reckless daring and lion-like bravery in the hours of deadliest peril to which human life can be exposed.
”No; his creed was a very strange one, though one that is old as history itself; he appeared to differ from the general belief only in his definition of heaven and its location. He often said that if a man retrograded and became brutal he would meet his punishment in the next life, for his brutal instincts would seek their affinity after death and he could only be re-born as a brute, in which state he would remain until his new life exhausted the brutal element from his soul.
”I fancy he imbibed his doctrines from his father, who had been an officer in India. It might have been that the elder Walraven had there caught glimpses of a belief somewhat akin to Buddhism. When I pressed Bruce for his proof of this strange theory he referred me to the Bible--Matthew xvi; 13, 14: 'When Jesus came to Cesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?
And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.' All of which goes to prove how ancient the belief really is; for it is apparent that people believed Christ to be the reincarnation of a spirit of one of those people who had been dead many years.
”Ivarene soon became converted to Bruce's creed, while I often find myself, even yet, taking solace in this strange belief.
”Early in the spring of 1848, the long caravan started northward, and when we arrived at Chihuahua, a ready market was found for the goods, after disposing of which I found that I had more than doubled the sum invested; so when the debt was repaid to my kind benefactors, with the addition of a liberal interest for the use of the money, there was still left me, as clear profit, fifty thousand dollars in gold.
”We spent the winter in Santa Fe, but early the next spring resumed our journey, I having in the meantime bought a few wagon-loads of wool to take through to Independence, Missouri, which was then the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail; but the money which I had saved from my speculation remained intact, and was deposited with fifty sacks of doubloons (which were the property of Bruce and Ivarene) in a large iron-bound cask of cypress-wood, each sack plainly marked with the name of its owner, and the whole tightly packed in wool within the cask.
”This vast treasure, more than half a million of dollars in gold coin, only represented a portion of my friend's wealth; for there were chests of costly silks, brocades, velvets, and priceless laces, all the acc.u.mulation of centuries of luxury and boundless riches; paintings by Murillo and Velasquez, that for ages had adorned the long gallery at Monteluma; books of vellum, and richly bound volumes from its marble-paved library, together with a dozen wagon-loads of carved ebony, mahogany, and rosewood furniture from the same stately home.
”I shall never forget that glorious scene, the last evening in Chihuahua, when the sinking sun lit up the low room where we three sat, with an open casket before us and the stone table ablaze with glimmering gems.
”There were scores of great, pure diamonds, flas.h.i.+ng back a quivering glare of rainbow hues; rubies glowing like fire with rose and crimson light; white, frosty pearls, glinting beside the baleful emeralds, that emitted fitful gleams of green and gold. Over all flickered the wavering s.h.i.+mmer of opal and blood-stones, mingling with the violet, lilac, and purple rays of sapphires and amethysts.
”A great many of these gems had been purchased by my friends through the advice and a.s.sistance of Von Brunn; but the most precious of the lot were heir-looms, of which Ivarene was justly proud, and for an hour she recounted their histories:--
”The great blood-stone had once shone in the war-club of an Aztec prince, who was slain in battle by the first Baron of Monteluma, one of those adventurous spirits that came over and shared the glory of the conquest with Cortez.
”The carcanet of pearls was a gift from Queen Isabella to the bride of the same brave knight.
”A diamond cross that had been bestowed by Leo X. upon a cardinal of the house of Rozarro.
”A ruby dragon that carried in its mouth the Order of the Golden Fleece.
This was a mark of the highest honor that a Spanish king could confer upon his subject, a viceroy of Mexico, also a member of the same ill.u.s.trious family at Monteluma.
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