His opinion of himself and the opinion that other people have of him are at times quite diametrically opposed. While he insists that in his veins runs the blood of remote dynasties and legendary princes, other people insist that he is a common adventurer who comes from low colonial stock of pariahs and God knows what. But I say that he may be an adventurer, but not at all common. I really don’t know what his race or races may be, but I know that he is a Spanish citizen and travels under such a passport. I am under the impression that he has as many enemies as he has friends and he can make friends easily. I believe that many envy him his innate ability to make a success of his life, that he can show pictures in which he appears with the royalty and high lights of Europe, that he speaks almost every language in existence fluently, that he lives like a prince and spends a tremendous amount of money. He is much of a showman and slightly cynical, but on the whole he is a jolly good fellow.
The origin of his life is obscure. Neither he nor anybody else has been able to enlighten me as to who his father and mother were. There are vague memories of one day when as an infant he arrived at a house in front of which people were gathered. When he entered he saw a dead woman lying on the floor. Then someone came in and took him away.
After that there is the memory of riding for a day and a night and then another day upon marshy land and seeing rice fields and men and women toiling in them, and snowy mountains in the distance. All this accompanied by the proximity of a gentleman with a thick beard and smelling strongly of tobacco. Then comes a recollection of waking up in a bed and the man with the beard coming into the room and leading him into another larger chamber, where there were more men with thick beards, also smelling strongly of tobacco. After that he ate rice with milk and remembers the taste of chocolate for the first time in his life. He was led into a garden and saw other children playing.
All his recollections of that time are confused. He does not remember whether it was that afternoon, or some days after, when he was in a large hall with colored glass windows, at the end of which there was a large stand covered with white material. There stood figures of men and women dressed mainly in red and blue robes with gilded rings about their heads and many candles which a bearded man was lighting.
Then he found himself held over a marble basin while water was poured over his head. There was speaking in a monotonous voice, and soft music coming from above. From that day he was called Juan Chinelato.
He remained some time among these people and found himself speaking Spanish. They taught him the catechism and mathematics and geography, and thus he found out that this place belonged to a larger place known as the Chinese Empire. These people taught him also to help with the Mass and he was able to say several sentences in Latin. He learned to swing the incensory and steal now and then a drink or two from the holy wine decanter.
Twice every month he was taken into a dark booth, where he met the same thick beard and strong smell of tobacco, and he was asked the same questions, which he always answered as best he could. He was told to recite such and such prayers. Invariably the next day before breakfast he was led in a row with other children to the end of the hall, where the many candles were, and another thick beard smelling of tobacco gave them a tasteless wafer to swallow.
Then one night, when he must have been about ten years old, there was great confusion all over the place. Voices were heard and also the noise made by gunshots. He and other children got out of bed half asleep and wandered into the corridors. There they beheld much disorder. The monks were going to and fro with guns in their hands. They leaned against the windows and shot into the darkness. Juan Chinelato was not afraid, he was just curious. While the other children cringed in a corner, he walked boldly down the stairs and found the main hall barricaded and more monks with guns at the windows.
Then he heard outside voices, strange voices in the night that brought back memories of another night and a huge house whose front was illuminated red by the glow of a bonfire, and then a white man fighting Chinamen in that red light and a woman screaming inside the house. These memories swept him with irresistible force, awaking in him an unknown self of wild and heroic deeds, which he had often imagined in his sleepless nights. Something stirred within him that drew him to a window and he looked outside and heard the voices more clearly and detonations in the darkness. Something crashed against the window and everything went black.
When he woke up he was riding at breakneck speed upon a horse, held tightly between two strong arms. He felt dizzy and as he lifted his head his cheek came in contact with a thick beard and his nostrils perceived the well-known odor of tobacco. Then a voice said:
“How does your head feel?”
He looked up and saw the same monk who had taken him on his first ride some years ago. He went on to explain that there had been an uprising of Chinese bandits who had attacked the mission, killed almost everyone and set the building on fire. Juan had been wounded and the monk had succeeded in taking a horse and escaping with him through the Chinese lines.
Juan put a hand to his head and felt a bandage. The night was now clear, almost dazzling, and there was an enormous moon like those painted on Chinese screens. Again Juan saw the marshy land and rice fields, vast silver plains, and in the distance he also saw the snowy mountains against the sky. And he remembers riding like wind in the night and then going back to sleep.
That dazzling night of adventure formed the background of his life.
Adventure
Around the age of sixteen or eighteen the strength of Juan Chinelato must have been already quite worthy of notice.
He is known to have been rowing on some kind of convict ship where the convicts were chained to the benches.
Juan Chinelato was talking to the man rowing in front of him when the guard approached.
“You horrible monkey,” he yelled. “I will teach you to keep your mouth shut and attend to your job.” And he gave him a terrible blow with his whip upon the naked back.
This was the first time that Juan Chinelato had been so brutally insulted in public and he flattered himself that no man had done so with impunity in his life. His cold eyes flashed like two burning coals. He let go the oar and with a single pull both the chain and bench were torn and broken. Then he turned upon the frightened guard, who had no time to call for help, and with one blow of the thick chain he brought him down dead, his head split open like a melon.
All the men about him were silent with awe at the sudden tragedy. Juan Chinelato was lost. Other watchmen were coming armed with guns and knives. There was only one thing to do and Juan Chinelato did it. With a phenomenal leap he went overboard and disappeared under the water, in a sea alive with sharks.
The watchmen shot once or twice just as a matter of formality and then turned around to reestablish order, knowing that soon justice would be done anyway.
But this was one of the many times that justice was not accomplished in the life of Chinelato. An unfailing good luck, combined with his herculean constitution and an infinite reserve of energy, carried him successfully through a life that would have done away with ten ordinary men. He drifted during two consecutive days until he was picked up by a merchant ship that crossed between China and the Philippine Islands and whose skipper, a Spaniard of ill repute, had underhanded dealings in opium and other smuggled goods.