The Right Eye of the Commander
The year of grace 1797 passed away on the coast of California in a
southwesterly gale. The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered
by the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough and turbulent;
its foam clung quivering to the seaward wall of the Mission garden;
the air was filled with flying sand and spume, and as the Senor
Commandante, Hermenegildo Salvatierra, looked from the deep
embrasured window of the Presidio guardroom, he felt the salt
breath of the distant sea buffet a color into his smoke-dried
cheeks.
The Commander, I have said, was gazing thoughtfully from the window
of the guardroom. He may have been reviewing the events of the
year now about to pass away. But, like the garrison at the
Presidio, there was little to review; the year, like its
predecessors, had been uneventful--the days had slipped by in a
delicious monotony of simple duties, unbroken by incident or
interruption. The regularly recurring feasts and saints' days, the
half-yearly courier from San Diego, the rare transport ship and
rarer foreign vessel, were the mere details of his patriarchal
life. If there was no achievement, there was certainly no failure.
Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the wants of
Presidio and Mission. Isolated from the family of nations, the
wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last
earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on
the other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In
short, it was that glorious Indian summer of California history
around which so much poetical haze still lingers--that bland,
indolent autumn of Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the
wintry storms of Mexican independence and the reviving spring of
American conquest.
The Commander turned from the window and walked toward the fire
that burned brightly on the deep ovenlike hearth. A pile of
copybooks, the work of the Presidio school, lay on the table. As
he turned over the leaves with a paternal interest, and surveyed
the fair round Scripture text--the first pious pothooks of the
pupils of San Carlos--an audible commentary fell from his lips:
"'Abimelech took her from Abraham'--ah, little one, excellent!--
'Jacob sent to see his brother'--body of Christ! that upstroke of
thine, Paquita, is marvelous; the Governor shall see it!" A film
of honest pride dimmed the Commander's left eye--the right, alas!
twenty years before had been sealed by an Indian arrow. He rubbed
it softly with the sleeve of his leather jacket, and continued:
"'The Ishmaelites having arrived--'"
He stopped, for there was a step in the courtyard, a foot upon the
threshold, and a stranger entered. With the instinct of an old
soldier, the Commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned
quickly toward the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should
have been hanging. But it was not there, and as he recalled that
the last time he had seen that weapon it was being ridden up and
down the gallery by Pepito, the infant son of Bautista, the
tortilla-maker, he blushed and then contented himself with frowning
upon the intruder.
But the stranger's air, though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful.
He was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea
boots of a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there
was little about him that was peculiar.
His name, as he informed the Commander, in Spanish that was more
fluent than elegant or precise--his name was Peleg Scudder. He was
master of the schooner GENERAL COURT, of the port of Salem in
Massachusetts, on a trading voyage to the South Seas, but now
driven by stress of weather into the bay of San Carlos. He begged
permission to ride out the gale under the headlands of the blessed
Trinity, and no more. Water he did not need, having taken in a
supply at Bodega. He knew the strict surveillance of the Spanish
port regulations in regard to foreign vessels, and would do nothing
against the severe discipline and good order of the settlement.
There was a slight tinge of sarcasm in his tone as he glanced
toward the desolate parade ground of the Presidio and the open
unguarded gate. The fact was that the sentry, Felipe Gomez, had
discreetly retired to shelter at the beginning of the storm, and
was then sound asleep in the corridor.
The Commander hesitated. The port regulations were severe, but he
was accustomed to exercise individual authority, and beyond an old
order issued ten years before, regarding the American ship
COLUMBIA, there was no precedent to guide him. The storm was
severe, and a sentiment of humanity urged him to grant the
stranger's request. It is but just to the Commander to say that
his inability to enforce a refusal did not weigh with his decision.
He would have denied with equal disregard of consequences that
right to a seventy-four-gun ship which he now yielded so gracefully
to this Yankee trading schooner. He stipulated only that there
should be no communication between the ship and shore. "For
yourself, Senor Captain," he continued, "accept my hospitality.
The fort is yours as long as you shall grace it with your
distinguished presence"; and with old-fashioned courtesy, he made
the semblance of withdrawing from the guardroom.
Master Peleg Scudder smiled as he thought of the half-dismantled
fort, the two moldy brass cannon, cast in Manila a century
previous. and the shiftless garrison. A wild thought of accepting
the Commander's offer literally, conceived in the reckless spirit
of a man who never let slip an offer for trade, for a moment filled
his brain, but a timely reflection of the commercial unimportance
of the transaction checked him. He only took a capacious quid of
tobacco as the Commander gravely drew a settle before the fire, and
in honor of his guest untied the black-silk handkerchief that bound
his grizzled brows.
What passed between Salvatierra and his guest that night it becomes
me not, as a grave chronicler of the salient points of history, to
relate. I have said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker,
and under the influence of divers strong waters, furnished by his
host, he became still more loquacious. And think of a man with a
twenty years' budget of gossip! The Commander learned, for the
first time, how Great Britain lost her colonies; of the French
Revolution; of the great Napoleon, whose achievements, perhaps,
Peleg colored more highly than the Commander's superiors would have
liked. And when Peleg turned questioner, the Commander was at his
mercy. He gradually made himself master of the gossip of the
Mission and Presidio, the "small-beer" chronicles of that pastoral
age, the conversion of the heathen, the Presidio schools, and even
asked the Commander how he had lost his eye! It is said that at
this point of the conversation Master Peleg produced from about his
person divers small trinkets, kickshaws, and newfangled trifles,
and even forced some of them upon his host. It is further alleged
that under the malign influence of Peleg and several glasses of
aguardiente, the Commander lost somewhat of his decorum, and
behaved in a manner unseemly for one in his position, reciting
high-flown Spanish poetry, and even piping in a thin, high voice
divers madrigals and heathen canzonets of an amorous complexion;
chiefly in regard to a "little one" who was his, the Commander's,
"soul"! These allegations, perhaps unworthy the notice of a
serious chronicler, should be received with great caution, and are
introduced here as simple hearsay. That the Commander, however,
took a handkerchief and attempted to show his guest the mysteries
of the SEMICUACUA, capering in an agile but indecorous manner about
the apartment, has been denied. Enough for the purposes of this
narrative that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to bed with many
protestations of undying friendship, and then, as the gale had
abated, took his leave of the Presidio and hurried aboard the
GENERAL COURT. When the day broke the ship was gone.
I know not if Peleg kept his word with his host. It is said that
the holy fathers at the Mission that night heard a loud chanting in
the plaza, as of the heathens singing psalms through their noses;
that for many days after an odor of salt codfish prevailed in the
settlement; that a dozen hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice
or seed, were found in the possession of the wife of the baker, and
that several bushels of shoe pegs, which bore a pleasing
resemblance to oats, but were quite inadequate to the purposes of
provender, were discovered in the stable of the blacksmith. But
when the reader reflects upon the sacredness of a Yankee trader's
word, the stringent discipline of the Spanish port regulations, and
the proverbial indisposition of my countrymen to impose upon the
confidence of a simple people, he will at once reject this part of
the story.
A roll of drums, ushering in the year 1798, awoke the Commander.
The sun was shining brightly, and the storm had ceased. He sat up
in bed, and through the force of habit rubbed his left eye. As the
remembrance of the previous night came back to him, he jumped from
his couch and ran to the window. There was no ship in the bay. A
sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he rubbed both of his
eyes. Not content with this, he consulted the metallic mirror
which hung beside his crucifix. There was no mistake; the
Commander had a visible second eye--a right one--as good, save for
the purposes of vision, as the left.
Whatever might have been the true secret of this transformation,
but one opinion prevailed at San Carlos. It was one of those rare
miracles vouchsafed a pious Catholic community as an evidence to
the heathen, through the intercession of the blessed San Carlos
himself. That their beloved Commander, the temporal defender of
the Faith, should be the recipient of this miraculous manifestation
was most fit and seemly. The Commander himself was reticent; he
could not tell a falsehood--he dared not tell the truth. After
all, if the good folk of San Carlos believed that the powers of his
right eye were actually restored, was it wise and discreet for him
to undeceive them? For the first time in his life the Commander
thought of policy--for the first time he quoted that text which has
been the lure of so many well-meaning but easy Christians, of being
"all things to all men." Infeliz Hermenegildo Salvatierra!
For by degrees an ominous whisper crept though the little
settlement. The Right Eye of the Commander, although miraculous,
seemed to exercise a baleful effect upon the beholder. No one
could look at it without winking. It was cold, hard, relentless,
and unflinching. More than that, it seemed to be endowed with a
dreadful prescience--a faculty of seeing through and into the
inarticulate thoughts of those it looked upon. The soldiers of the
garrison obeyed the eye rather than the voice of their commander,
and answered his glance rather than his lips in questioning. The
servants could not evade the ever watchful but cold attention that
seemed to pursue them. The children of the Presidio school
smirched their copybooks under the awful supervision, and poor
Paquita, the prize pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous upstroke
when her patron stood beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion,
self-accusation, and timidity took the place of trust, confidence,
and security throughout San Carlos. Whenever the Right Eye of the
Commander fell, a shadow fell with it.
Nor was Salvatierra entirely free from the baleful influence of his
miraculous acquisition. Unconscious of its effect upon others, he
only saw in their actions evidence of certain things that the
crafty Peleg had hinted on that eventful New Year's eve. His most
trusty retainers stammered, blushed, and faltered before him.
Self-accusations, confessions of minor faults and delinquencies, or
extravagant excuses and apologies met his mildest inquiries. The
very children that he loved--his pet pupil, Paquita--seemed to be
conscious of some hidden sin. The result of this constant
irritation showed itself more plainly. For the first half-year the
Commander's voice and eye were at variance. He was still kind,
tender, and thoughtful in speech. Gradually, however, his voice
took upon itself the hardness of his glance and its skeptical,
impassive quality, and as the year again neared its close it was
plain that the Commander had fitted himself to the eye, and not the
eye to the Commander.
It may be surmised that these changes did not escape the watchful
solicitude of the Fathers. Indeed, the few who were first to
ascribe the right eye of Salvatierra to miraculous origin and the
special grace of the blessed San Carlos, now talked openly of
witchcraft and the agency of Luzbel, the evil one. It would have
fared ill with Hermenegildo Salvatierra had he been aught but
Commander or amenable to local authority. But the reverend father,
Friar Manuel de Cortes, had no power over the political executive,
and all attempts at spiritual advice failed signally. He retired
baffled and confused from his first interview with the Commander,
who seemed now to take a grim satisfaction in the fateful power of
his glance. The holy Father contradicted himself, exposed the
fallacies of his own arguments, and even, it is asserted, committed
himself to several undoubted heresies. When the Commander stood up
at mass, if the officiating priest caught that skeptical and
searching eye, the service was inevitably ruined. Even the power
of the Holy Church seemed to be lost, and the last hold upon the
affections of the people and the good order of the settlement
departed from San Carlos.
As the long dry summer passed, the low hills that surrounded the
white walls of the Presidio grew more and more to resemble in hue
the leathern jacket of the Commander, and Nature herself seemed to
have borrowed his dry, hard glare. The earth was cracked and
seamed with drought; a blight had fallen upon the orchards and
vineyards, and the rain, long-delayed and ardently prayed for, came
not. The sky was as tearless as the right eye of the Commander.
Murmurs of discontent, insubordination, and plotting among the
Indians reached his ears; he only set his teeth the more firmly,
tightened the knot of his black-silk handkerchief, and looked up
his Toledo.
The last day of the year 1798 found the Commander sitting, at the
hour of evening prayers, alone in the guardroom. He no longer
attended the services of the Holy Church, but crept away at such
times to some solitary spot, where he spent the interval in silent
meditation. The firelight played upon the low beams and rafters,
but left the bowed figure of Salvatierra in darkness. Sitting
thus, he felt a small hand touch his arm, and looking down, saw the
figure of Paquita, his little Indian pupil, at his knee. "Ah,
littlest of all," said the Commander, with something of his old
tenderness, lingering over the endearing diminutives of his native
speech--"sweet one, what doest thou here? Art thou not afraid of
him whom everyone shuns and fears?"
"No," said the little Indian, readily, "not in the dark. I hear
your voice--the old voice; I feel your touch--the old touch; but I
see not your eye, Senor Commandante. That only I fear--and that, O
senor, O my father," said the child, lifting her little arms
towards his--"that I know is not thine own!"
The Commander shuddered and turned away. Then, recovering himself,
he kissed Paquita gravely on the forehead and bade her retire. A
few hours later, when silence had fallen upon the Presidio, he
sought his own couch and slept peacefully.
At about the middle watch of the night a dusky figure crept through
the low embrasure of the Commander's apartment. Other figures were
flitting through the parade ground, which the Commander might have
seen had he not slept so quietly. The intruder stepped noiselessly
to the couch and listened to the sleeper's deep-drawn inspiration.
Something glittered in the firelight as the savage lifted his arm;
another moment and the sore perplexities of Hermenegildo
Salvatierra would have been over, when suddenly the savage started
and fell back in a paroxysm of terror. The Commander slept
peacefully, but his right eye, widely opened, fixed and unaltered,
glared coldly on the would-be assassin. The man fell to the earth
in a fit, and the noise awoke the sleeper.
To rise to his feet, grasp his sword, and deal blows thick and fast
upon the mutinous savages who now thronged the room was the work of
a moment. Help opportunely arrived, and the undisciplined Indians
were speedily driven beyond the walls, but in the scuffle the
Commander received a blow upon his right eye, and, lifting his hand
to that mysterious organ, it was gone. Never again was it found,
and never again, for bale or bliss, did it adorn the right orbit of
the Commander.
With it passed away the spell that had fallen upon San Carlos. The
rain returned to invigorate the languid soil, harmony was restored
between priest and soldier, the green grass presently waved over
the sere hillsides, the children flocked again to the side of their
martial preceptor, a TE DEUM was sung in the Mission Church, and
pastoral content once more smiled upon the gentle valleys of San
Carlos. And far southward crept the GENERAL COURT with its master,
Peleg Scudder, trafficking in beads and peltries with the Indians,
and offering glass eyes, wooden legs, and other Boston notions to
the chiefs.
-THE END-
Bret Harte's short story: The Right Eye of the Commander
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