: The Ship in the Desert by Miller Joaquin - American poetry

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Book I--THE PINCHEYRAS

Book II--THE MONTONERO

THE CALLEJ?N DE LAS CRUCES.

Although the town of San Miguel de Tucuman is not very ancient, and its construction dates scarcely two centuries back, nevertheless--thanks, perhaps, to the calm and studious population which inhabit it--it has a certain middle age odour which is profusely exhaled from the old cloisters of its convents, and from the thick and gloomy walls of its churches. The grass in the low quarters of the town freely grows in the nearly always deserted streets; and here and there some wretched old house crumbling with age, leaning over the river which washes its foundations, incomprehensible miracle of equilibrium--presents to the curious look of the artistic traveller the most picturesque effects.

The Callej?n de las Cruces, especially--a narrow and tortuous street, lined with low and sombre houses--which at one end abuts on the river, and at the other on the street de las Mercaderes, is, without doubt, one of the most singularly picturesque in the town.

At the period of our history, and perhaps at the present time, the greater part of the right side of the Callej?n de las Cruces was occupied by a high and large house, of a cold and sombre aspect, whose thick walls, and the iron bars with which its windows wore furnished, made it resemble a prison.

However, it was nothing of the sort. This house was a kind of nunnery, such as are often met with even, now in Belgian and Dutch Flanders, so long possessed by the Spaniards, and which served for a retreat for women of all classes of society, who, without having positively taken vows, wished to live sheltered from the storms of the world, and to devote the remainder of their lives to exercises of piety, and works of benevolence.

As the reader has seen, by the description which we gave of the place when it came under notice, this house was thoroughly appropriated to its uses, and there continually reigned around it a peacefulness and a calm which made it rather resemble a vast necropolis than a partially religious community of women.

However, one evening--the very night when the governor of San Miguel had given, at the Cabildo, a ball to celebrate the victory gained by Zeno Cabral over the Spaniards--towards midnight, a troop of armed men, whose measured tread sounded heavily in the darkness, had left the street de las Mercaderes, turned into the Callej?n de las Cruces, and, having reached the massive and solidly bolted door of the house of which we have spoken, they stopped.

He who appeared to be the chief of these men had knocked three times with the pommel of his sword on the door, which was immediately opened.

This man had, in a low voice, exchanged a few words with an invisible person; then, on a sign from himself, the ranks of his troop opened, and four women--four spectres, perhaps--draped in long veils, which did not allow any part of their person to be perceived, entered the house silently, and in a line. Some few words further had been exchanged between the chief of the troop and the invisible doorkeeper of this mysterious house; then the door had been again noiselessly closed, as it had been opened; the soldiers returned by the way they had come, and all was over.

So that, on the morrow, the inhabitants of the Callej?n de las Cruces would have been quite unable to give the slightest account of what had passed at midnight in their street, at the gate of the Black House as among themselves they called this gloomy habitation, for which they had a strong dislike, and which was far from enjoying a good reputation among them.

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