Читать книгу Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate - Charles M. Skinner - Страница 14

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The castle of San Geronimo, San Juan de Porto Rico, was founded a century ago. It occupies a rocky point at the east end of San Juan Island, and year by year had been strengthened until, when the American ships appeared in the offing, it was thought important enough to garrison. Six guns were emplaced, two other gun mounts were found by our troops when they entered, and a hole was discovered extending from a dungeon fifteen feet toward the breastworks. This had been freshly dug, and, it is believed, was devised for the storage of explosives, that the citadel might be blown up when the boys in blue entered to take possession. That the fort was abandoned without resorting to this revengeful and unmilitary act may be due to the ghost. He would naturally be in evidence at such a time, and would do what he could to thwart the schemes of his enemies. For he gave his body to the worms fifty years or more ago. In the flesh he was a revolutionist, and had been dreaming vain things about liberty for his beloved island. It is not recorded that he ever harmed any one, or that his little insurrection attained the dignity of anything more than a rumor and an official chill, but the Spaniards caught him, threw him into the dark prison of this castle, and after he had undergone hunger, thirst, and illness, they went through their usual forms of trial and condemned him to death. This among the civilized would have meant that he would be sent to the gallows or the garrote; but this victim was alleged to have accomplices, and quite likely he was suspected of having a small fund; for the first thing to do when you overthrow a government, or want to, is to pass the hat. To secure the names of his fellow-conspirators, but more especially their money, the revolutionist was therefore consigned to the torture chamber, where the rack, the thumb-screw, the hot irons, the whip, and other survivals of the Inquisition were applied. When the officers had extorted what they wanted, or had made sure there was nothing to extort, the poor, white wreck of a human being was delivered by the judges to an executioner, and a merciful death was inflicted.

Shortly after this occurrence the officers of the San Geronimo garrison began to request transfers, and the social set that had been formed in and near the castle was broken up. Gradually the troops thinned away, and although the works were kept in moderate repair and occasionally enlarged, the regular force was finally withdrawn, and even the solitary keepers who were left in charge died unaccountably. This was because the ghost of the tortured one pervaded its damp rooms and breathed blights and curses on the occupants. Its appearance was always heralded by a clatter of hoofs on the stone bridge leading into the court. The on-rush of spectre horses is variously explained, some believing that the dead man is leading an assault on the fort, others wondering if it may not be a conscience-smitten governor hurrying to rescue or reprieve his victim, and arriving too late—a theory quite generally rejected on the ground that there never was that kind of a Spanish governor.

An American officer, who took up his home in San Geronimo after the occupation, was disturbed for three successive nights by the ghost, and on learning the tradition of the place he investigated the palace and brought to light the torture chamber with its rows of hooks and rings and chains about the walls. The piercing of its roof, so that the sun came in and the ghosts and malaria went out, the removal of the grim relics of mediævalism, the cleaning and whitewashing of the apartments, have probably induced the spectre to take up his quarters elsewhere, for his old haunts are hardly recognizable, and he can have no grudge against the soldiers of a republic who carried out his plans with a perfection and promptness of which he could not have dreamed.

The climate of the West Indies has ever been favorable to the preservation of spirits, and this haunted castle of San Juan has counterparts in the island, and in other islands, and the ghosts are not always victims of the Spaniards, either. The appearance of spectres in the New World was almost contemporary with Columbus. Indeed, one of the most startling of supernatural appearances occurred in the town he founded—the town of Isabella, Hayti, the first white man’s city in America. It was created by the great navigator on his second voyage, but it remained for only a few years on the map. The dons whom he brought with him refused to work, even when the colony was starving, and reported him in Spain as a tyrant for asking them to put up their own shelters, cook their own food, and grind their own flour. They would not even work in the mines where gold could be seen in the river sands, because they had expected to pick up the metal in lumps, or force it from the natives in such quantities that each adventurer might return with a bushel. Hardship, illness, short commons, the need of occasional labor, the heart-breaks over the gold failure, the retaliations of the natives for the cruelties and injustices of the invaders, led to the rapid decline of the city of Isabella. Its foundations may still be visible; at least they were a few years ago; but it is peopled only by ghosts. Some years after it had been deserted, two Spaniards, who had been hunting in that part of the island, entered its ruined streets. They had heard from the Indians of strange, booming voices that echoed among its dead houses, but had dismissed this tale as invention or fancy. The sun was low and mists were gathering. As the hunters turned a corner they were astonished to see a company of cavaliers drawn up in double rank, as if for parade, sword on hip, plumed hats aslant, big booted, leather jacketed, grim, and silent. The two men asked whence they had come. The cavaliers spoke no word, but all together lifting their hats in salute, lifted their heads off with them, then melted into air. They were the dead of the fated town. The two spectators fainted with horror, and did not recover their peace of mind in many days.