Gaspar Ruiz
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Joseph Conrad >> Gaspar Ruiz
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GASPAR RUIZ
By Joseph Conrad
I
A REVOLUTIONARY war raises many strange characters out of the
obscurity which is the common lot of humble lives in an undisturbed
state of society.
Certain individualities grow into fame through their vices and their
virtues, or simply by their actions, which may have a temporary
importance; and then they become forgotten. The names of a few leaders
alone survive the end of armed strife and are further preserved in
history; so that, vanishing from men's active memories, they still
exist in books.
The name of General Santierra attained that cold, paper-and-ink
immortality. He was a South American of good family, and the books
published in his lifetime numbered him amongst the liberators of that
continent from the oppressive rule of Spain.
That long contest, waged for independence on one side and for dominion
on the other, developed, in the course of years and the vicissitudes
of changing fortune, the fierceness and inhumanity of a struggle for
life. All feelings of pity and compassion disappeared in the growth of
political hatred. And, as is usual in war, the mass of the people, who
had the least to gain by the issue, suffered most in their obscure
persons and their humble fortunes.
General Santierra began his service as lieutenant in the patriot army
raised and commanded by the famous San Martin, afterwards conqueror of
Lima and liberator of Peru. A great battle had just been fought on the
banks of the river Bio-Bio. Amongst the prisoners made upon the routed
Royalist troops there was a soldier called Gaspar Ruiz. His powerful
build and his big head rendered him remarkable amongst his fellow-
captives. The personality of the man was unmistakable. Some months
before, he had been missed from the ranks of Republican troops after
one of the many skirmishes which preceded the great battle. And now,
having been captured arms in hand amongst Royalists, he could expect
no other fate but to be shot as a deserter.
Gaspar Ruiz, however, was not a deserter; his mind was hardly active
enough to take a discriminating view of the advantages or perils of
treachery. Why should he change sides? He had really been made a
prisoner, had suffered ill-usage and many privations. Neither side
showed tenderness to its adversaries. There came a day when he was
ordered, together with some other captured rebels, to march in the
front rank of the Royal troops. A musket, had been thrust into his
hands. He had taken it. He had marched. He did not want to be killed
with circumstances of peculiar atrocity for refusing to march. He did
not understand heroism, but it was his intention to throw his musket
away at the first opportunity. Meantime he had gone on loading and
firing, from fear of having his brains blown out, at the first sign of
unwillingness, by some non-commissioned officer of the King of Spain.
He tried to set forth these elementary considerations before the
sergeant of the guard set over him and some twenty other such
deserters, who had been condemned summarily to be shot.
It was in the quadrangle of the fort at the back of the batteries
which command the road-stead of Valparaiso. The officer who had
identified him had gone on without listening to his protestations. His
doom was sealed; his hands were tied very tightly together behind his
back; his body was sore all over from the many blows with sticks and
butts of muskets which had hurried him along on the painful road from
the place of his capture to the gate of the fort. This was the only
kind of systematic attention the prisoners had received from their
escort during a four days' journey across a scantily watered tract of
country. At the crossings of rare streams they were permitted to
quench their thirst by lapping hurriedly like dogs. In the evening a
few scraps of meat were thrown amongst them as they dropped down dead-
beat upon the stony ground of the halting-place.
As he stood in the courtyard of the castle in the early morning, after
having been driven hard all night, Gaspar Ruiz's throat was parched,
and his tongue felt very large and dry in his mouth.
And Gaspar Ruiz, besides being very thirsty, was stirred by a feeling
of sluggish anger, which he could not very well express, as though the
vigour of his spirit were by no means equal to the strength of his
body.
The other prisoners in the batch of the condemned hung their heads,
looking obstinately on the ground. But Gaspar Ruiz kept on repeating:
"What should I desert for to the Royalists? Why should I desert? Tell
me, Estaban!"
He addressed himself to the sergeant, who happened to belong to the
same part of the country as himself. But the sergeant, after shrugging
his meagre shoulders once, paid no further attention to the deep
murmuring voice at his back. It was indeed strange that Gaspar Ruiz
should desert. His people were in too humble a station to feel much
the disadvantages of any form of government. There was no reason why
Gaspar Ruiz should wish to uphold in his own person the rule of the
King of Spain. Neither had he been anxious to exert himself for its
subversion. He had joined the side of Independence in an extremely
reasonable and natural manner. A band of patriots appeared one morning
early, surrounding his father's ranche, spearing the watch-dogs and
hamstringing a fat cow all in the twinkling of an eye, to the cries of
"Viva La Libertad!" Their officer discoursed of Liberty with
enthusiasm and eloquence after a long and refreshing sleep. When they
left in the evening, taking with them some of Ruiz, the father's, best
horses to replace their own lamed animals, Gaspar Ruiz went away with
them, having been invited pressingly to do so by the eloquent officer.
Shortly afterwards a detachment of Royalist troops, coming to pacify
the district, burnt the ranche, carried off the remaining horses and
cattle, and having thus deprived the old people of all their worldly
possessions, left them sitting under a bush in the enjoyment of the
inestimable boon of life.
II
GASPAR Ruiz, condemned to death as a deserter, was not thinking either
of his native place or of his parents, to whom he had been a good son
on account of the mildness of his character and the great strength of
his limbs. The practical advantage of this last was made still more
valuable to his father by his obedient disposition. Gaspar Ruiz had an
acquiescent soul.
But it was stirred now to a sort of dim revolt by his dislike to die
the death of a traitor. He was not a traitor. He said again to the
sergeant: "You know I did not desert, Estaban. You know I remained
behind amongst the trees with three others to keep the enemy back
while the detachment was running away!"
Lieutenant Santierra, little more than a boy at the time, and unused
as yet to the sanguinary imbecilities of a state of war, had lingered
near by, as if fascinated by the sight of these men who were to be
shot presently--"for an example"--as the Commandante had said.
The sergeant, without deigning to look at the prisoner, addressed
himself to the young officer with a superior smile.
"Ten men would not have been enough to make him a prisoner, mi
teniente. Moreover, the other three rejoined the detachment after
dark. Why should he, unwounded and the strongest of them all, have
failed to do so?"
"My strength is as nothing against a mounted man with a lasso," Gaspar
Ruiz protested eagerly. "He dragged me behind his horse for half a
mile."
At this excellent reason the sergeant only laughed contemptuously. The
young officer hurried away after the Commandante.
Presently the adjutant of the castle came by. He was a truculent, raw-
boned man in a ragged uniform. His spluttering voice issued out of a
flat, yellow face. The sergeant learned from him that the condemned
men would not be shot till sunset. He begged then to know what he was
to do with them meantime.
The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard, and, pointing to the
door of a small dungeon-like guard-room, receiving light and air
through one heavily-barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in
there."
The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue
of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal. He hit Gaspar
Ruiz, whose movements were slow, over his head and shoulders. Gaspar
Ruiz stood still for a moment under the shower of blows, biting his
lip thoughtfully as if absorbed by a perplexing mental process--then
followed the others without haste. The door was locked, and the
adjutant carried off the key.
By noon the heat of that low vaulted place crammed to suffocation had
become unbearable. The prisoners crowded towards the window, begging
their guards for a drop of water; but the soldiers remained lying in
indolent attitudes wherever there was a little shade under a wall,
while the sentry sat with his back against the door smoking a
cigarette, and raising his eyebrows philosophically from time to time.
Gaspar Ruiz had pushed his way to the window with irresistible force.
His capacious chest needed more air than the others; his big face,
resting with its chin on the ledge, pressed close to the bars, seemed
to support the other faces crowding up for breath. From moaned
entreaties they had passed to desperate cries, and the tumultuous
howling of those thirsty men obliged a young officer who was just then
crossing the courtyard to shout in order to make himself heard.
"Why don't you give some water to these prisoners!"
The sergeant, with an air of surprised innocence, excused himself by
the remark that all those men were condemned to die in a very few
hours.
Lieutenant Santierra stamped his foot. "They are condemned to death,
not to torture," he shouted. "Give them some water at once."
Impressed by this appearance of anger, the soldiers bestirred
themselves, and the sentry, snatching up his musket, stood to
attention.
But when a couple of buckets were found and filled from the well, it
was discovered that they could not be passed through the bars, which
were set too close. At the prospect of quenching their thirst, the
shrieks of those trampled down in the struggle to get near the opening
became very heartrending. But when the soldiers who had lifted the
buckets towards the window put them to the ground again helplessly,
the yell of disappointment was still more terrible.
The soldiers of the army of Independence were not equipped with
canteens. A small tin cup was found, but its approach to the opening
caused such a commotion, such yells of rage and' pain in the vague
mass of limbs behind the straining faces at the window, that
Lieutenant Santierra cried out hurriedly, "No, no--you must open the
door, sergeant."
The sergeant, shrugging his shoulders, explained that he had no right
to open the door even if he had had the key. But he had not the key.
The adjutant of the garrison kept the key. Those men were giving much
unnecessary trouble, since they had to die at sunset in any case. Why
they had not been shot at once early in the morning he could not
understand.
Lieutenant Santierra kept his back studiously to the window. It was at
his earnest solicitations that the Commandante had delayed the
execution. This favour had been granted to him in consideration of his
distinguished family and of his father's high position amongst the
chiefs of the Republican party. Lieutenant Santierra believed that the
General commanding would visit the fort some time in the afternoon,
and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce that
severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals. In the
revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty
and futile meddling. It appeared to him obvious that the general would
never even consent to listen to his petition. He could never save
those men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings
added to the cruelty of their fate.
"Then go at once and get the key from the adjutant," said Lieutenant
Santierra.
The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his
eyes glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz's face, motionless and silent,
staring through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard,
distorted, yelling faces.
His worship the adjutant de Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having
his siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed
access to him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul
flogged out of his body for presuming to disturb his worship's repose.
He made a deprecatory movement with his hands, and stood stock-still,
looking down modestly upon his brown toes.
Lieutenant Santierra glared with indignation, but hesitated. His
handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of
his perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper
lip trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of
rage or into tears of dismay.
Fifty years later, General Santierra, the venerable relic of
revolutionary times, was well able to remember the feelings of the
young lieutenant. Since he had given up riding altogether, and found
it difficult to walk beyond the limits of his garden, the general's
greatest delight, was to entertain in his house the officers of the
foreign men-of-war visiting the harbour. For Englishmen he had a
preference, as for old companions in arms. English naval men of all
ranks accepted his hospitality with curiosity, because he had known
Lord Cochrane and had taken part, on board the patriot squadron
commanded by that marvellous seaman, in the cutting-out and blockading
operations before Callao--an episode of unalloyed glory in the wars
of Independence and of endless honour in the fighting tradition of
Englishmen. He was a fair linguist, this ancient survivor of the
Liberating armies. A trick of smoothing his long white beard whenever
he was short of a word in French or English imparted an air of
leisurely dignity to the tone of his reminiscences.
III
"YES, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have?
A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owing my
rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his
soul, I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the
disobedience of That subordinate, who, alter all, was responsible for
those prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself
dreaded going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his
rough and cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit
except his savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike
from the first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It
was only a fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in
hand, but I shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.
"I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since.
The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant
to fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to
turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had
procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them
without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out
of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window
who heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation; one of
these fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order
the soldiers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my
heart turn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher
officer to whom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit
to simply go away.
"Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You must
not suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it have
been? A minute? If you measured by mental suffering it was like a
hundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No,
certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of
those miserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then
suddenly a voice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon
me to turn round.
"That voice, senores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of his
body I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered
upon his back. He was holding them up. His eyes blinked without
looking at me. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able
to manage in his overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head,
that seemed more than human size resting on its chin under a multitude
of other heads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst
of the captives.
"I said, 'Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. I
was like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious to
be comforted in my helplessness and remorse.
"'Have you the authority, senor teniente, to release my wrists from
their bonds?' Gaspar Ruiz's head asked me.
"His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked
upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard.
"As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean? And
how can I reach the bonds on your wrists?'
"'I will try what I can do,' he said; and then that large staring
head moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that window
disappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with one
movement, so strong he was.
"And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush and
vanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be
seen at the window. He had swung about, butting and shouldering,
clearing a space for himself in the only way he could do it with his
hands tied behind his back.
"Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the bars
his wrists, lashed with many turns of rope. His hands, very swollen,
with knotted veins, looked enormous and unwieldy. I saw his bent back.
It was very broad. His voice was like the muttering of a bull.
"Cut, senor teniente! Cut!'
"I drew my sword, my new unblunted sword that had seen no service as
yet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this without
knowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were
compelled by my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out,
but astonishment deprived him of his voice, and he remained standing
with his mouth open as if overtaken by sudden imbecility.
"I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruck
expectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the
voice of Gaspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the words I could not make
out plainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented
the influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence
that with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily
vigour. In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account
of the numbness of his arms and hands, which lasted for some time.
"The sergeant had recovered his power of speech. 'By all the saints!'
he cried, 'we shall have to get a cavalry man with a lasso to secure
him again, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less
than a good enlazador on a good horse can subdue him. Your worship was
pleased to perform a very mad thing.'
"I had nothing to say. I was surprised myself, and I felt a childish
curiosity to see what would happen. But the sergeant was thinking of
the difficulty of controlling Gaspar Ruiz when the time for making an
example would come.
"'Or perhaps,' the sergeant pursued vexedly, 'we shall be obliged to
shoot him down as he dashes out when the door is opened.' He was going
to give further vent to his anxieties as to the proper carrying out of
the sentence; but he interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation,
snatched a musket from a soldier, and stood watchful with his eyes
fixed on the window.'"
IV
"GASPAR RUIZ had clambered up on the sill, and sat down there with his
feet against the thickness of the wall and his knees slightly bent.
The window was not quite broad enough for the length of his legs. It
appeared to my crestfallen perception that he meant to keep the window
all to himself. He seemed to be taking up a comfortable position.
Nobody inside dared to approach him now he could strike with his
hands.
"'Por Dios!' I heard the sergeant muttering at my elbow, 'I shall
shoot him through the head now, and get rid of that trouble. He is a
condemned man.'
"At that I looked at him angrily. 'The general has not confirmed the
sentence,' I said--though I knew well in my heart that these were but
vain words. The sentence required no confirmation. 'You have no right
to shoot him unless he tries to escape,' I added firmly.
"'But sangre de Dios!' the sergeant yelled out, bringing his musket
up to the shoulder, 'he is escaping now. Look!'
"But I, as if that Gaspar Ruiz had cast a spell upon me, struck the
musket upward, and the bullet flew over the roofs somewhere. The
sergeant dashed his arm to the ground and stared. He might have
commanded the soldiers to fire, but he did not. And if he had he would
not have been obeyed, I think, just then.
"With his feet against the thickness of the wall, and his hairy hands
grasping the iron bar, Gaspar sat still. It was an attitude. Nothing
happened for a time. And suddenly it dawned upon us that he was
straightening his bowed back and contracting his arms. His lips were
twisted into a snarl. Next thing we perceived was that the bar of
forged iron was being bent slowly by the mightiness of his pull. The
sun was beating full upon his cramped, unquivering figure. A shower of
sweat-drops burst out of his forehead. Watching the bar grow crooked,
I saw a little blood ooze from under his finger-nails. Then he let go.
For a moment he remained all huddled up, with a hanging head, looking
drowsily into the upturned palms of his mighty hands. Indeed he seemed
to have dozed off. Suddenly he flung himself backwards on the sill,
and setting the soles of his bare feet against the other middle bar,
he bent that one too, but in the opposite direction from the first.
"Such was his strength, which in this case relieved my painful
feelings. And the man seemed to have done nothing. Except for the
change of position in order to use his feet, which made us all start
by its swiftness, my recollection is that of immobility. But he had
bent the bars wide apart. And now he could get out if he liked; but he
dropped his legs inwards; and looking over his shoulder beckoned to
the soldiers. 'Hand up the water,' he said. 'I will give them all a
drink.'
"He was obeyed. For a moment I expected man and bucket to disappear,
overwhelmed by the rush of eagerness; I thought they would pull him
down with their teeth. There was a rush, but holding the bucket on his
lap he repulsed the assault of those wretches by the mere swinging of
his feet. They flew backwards at every kick, yelling with pain; and
the soldiers laughed, gazing at the window.
"They all laughed, holding their sides, except the sergeant, who was
gloomy and morose. He was afraid the prisoners would rise and break
out--which would have been a bad example. But there was no fear of
that, and I stood myself before the window with my drawn sword. When
sufficiently tamed by the strength of Gaspar Ruiz, they came up one by
one, stretching their necks and presenting their lips to the edge of
the bucket which the strong man tilted towards them from his knees
with an extraordinary air of charity, gentleness and compassion. That
benevolent appearance was of course the effect of his care in not
spilling the water and of his attitude as he sat on the sill; for, if
a man lingered with his lips glued to the rim of the bucket after
Gaspar Ruiz had said 'You have had enough,' there would be no
tenderness or mercy in the shove of the foot which would send him
groaning and doubled up far into the interior of the prison, where he
would knock down two or three others before he fell himself. They came
up to him again and again; it looked as if they meant to drink the
well dry before going to their death; but the soldiers were so amused
by Gaspar Ruiz's systematic proceedings that they carried the water up
to the window cheerfully.
"When the adjutant came out after his siesta there was some trouble
over this affair, I can assure you. And the worst of it, that the
general whom we expected never came to the castle that day."
The guests of General Santierra unanimously expressed their regret
that the man of such strength and patience had not been saved.
"He was not saved by my interference," said the General. "The
prisoners were led to execution half an hour before sunset. Gaspar
Ruiz, contrary to the sergeant's apprehensions, gave no trouble. There
was no necessity to get a cavalry man with a lasso in order to subdue
him, as if he were a wild bull of the campo. I believe he marched out
with his arms free amongst the others who were bound. I did not see. I
was not there. I had been put under arrest for interfering with the
prisoner's guard. About dusk, sitting dismally in my quarters, I heard
three volleys fired, and thought that I should never hear of Gaspar
Ruiz again. He fell with the others. But we were to hear of him
nevertheless, though the sergeant boasted that, as he lay on his face
expiring or dead in the heap of the slain, he had slashed his neck
with a sword. He had done this, he said, to make sure of ridding the
world of a dangerous traitor.