I was soon back in Montevideo after that. When I bade Demetria good-bye she appeared reluctant to part with me, retaining my hand in hers for an unusual time. For the first time in her life, probably, she was about to be left in the company of entire strangers, and for many days past we had been much to each other, so that it was only natural she should cling to me a little at parting. Once more I pressed her hand and exhorted her to be of good courage, reminding her that in a very few days all trouble and danger would be over; still, however, she did not release my hand. This tender reluctance to lose me was affecting and also flattering, but slightly inopportune, for I was anxious to be in the saddle and away. Presently she said, glancing down at her rusty habiliments, “Richard, if I am to remain concealed here till I go to join you on board, then I must meet your wife in these poor garments.”
“Oh,thatis what you are thinking about, Demetria!” I exclaimed.
At once I called in our kind hostess, and when this serious matter was explained to her she immediately offered to go to Montevideo to procure the necessary outfit, a thing I had thought nothing about, but which had evidently been preying on Demetria's mind.
When I at length reached the little suburban retreat of my aunt (by marriage), Paquíta and I acted for some time like two demented persons, so overjoyed were we at meeting after our long separation. I had received no letters from her, and only two or three of the score I had written had reached their destination, so that we had ten thousand questions to ask and answers to make. She could never gaze enough at me or finish admiring my bronzed skin and the respectable moustache I had grown; while she, poor darling! looked unusually pale, yet withal so beautiful that I marvelled at myself for having, after possessing her, considered any other woman even passably good-looking. I gave her a circumstantial account of my adventures, omitting only a few matters I was in honour bound not to disclose.
Thus, when I told her the story of my sojourn at theestanciaPeralta, I said nothing to betray Demetria's confidence; nor did I think it necessary to mention the episode of that wicked little sprite, Cleta; with the result that she was pleased at the chivalrous conduct I had displayed throughout the whole of that affair, and was ready to take Demetria to her heart.
I had not been back twenty-four hours in Montevideo before a letter from the Lomas de Rocha storekeeper came to justify my caution in having left Demetria at some distance from the town. The letter informed me that Don Hilario had quickly guessed that I had carried off his unhappy master's daughter, and that no doubt was left in his mind when he discovered that, on the day I left theestancia, a person answering to my description in every particular had purchased a horse and side-saddle and had ridden off towards theestanciain the evening. My correspondent warned me that Don Hilario would be in Montevideo even before his letter, also that he had discovered something about my connection with the late rebellion, and would be sure to place the matter in the hands of the government, so as to have me arrested, after which he would have little difficulty in compelling Demetria to return to theestancia.
For a moment this intelligence dismayed me. Luckily, Paquíta was out of the house when it came, and fearing that she might return and surprise me while I was in that troubled state, I rushed out; then, skulking through back streets and narrow lanes, peering cautiously about in fear of encountering the minions of the law, I made my escape out of the town. My only desire just then was to get away into some place of safety where I would be able to think over the position quietly, and if possible devise some plan to defeat Don Hilario, who had been a little too quick for me. Of many schemes that suggested themselves to my mind, while I sat in the shade of a cactus hedge about a mile from town, I finally determined, in accordance with my old and well-tried rule, to adopt the boldest one, which was to go straight back to Montevideo and claim the protection of my country. The only trouble was that on my way thither I might be caught, and then Paquíta would be in terrible distress about me, and perhaps Demetria's escape would be prevented. While I was occupied with these thoughts I saw a closed carriage pass by, driven towards the town by a tipsy-looking coachman. Coming out of my hiding-place, I managed to stop him and offered him two dollars to drive me to the British Consulate. The carriage was a private one, but the two dollars tempted the man, so after securing the fare in advance, he allowed me to get in, and then I closed the windows, leant back on the cushion, and was driven rapidly and comfortably to the house of refuge. I introduced myself to the Consul, and told him a story concocted for the occasion, a judicious mixture of truth and lies, to the effect that I had been unlawfully and forcibly seized and compelled to serve in the Blanco army, and that, having escaped from the rebels and made my way to Montevideo, I was amazed to hear that the government proposed arresting me. He asked me a few questions, looked at the passport which he had sent me a few days before, then, laughing good-humouredly, put on his hat and invited me to accompany him to the War Office close by. The secretary, Colonel Arocena, he informed me, was a personal friend of his, and if we could see him it would be all right. Walking by his side I felt quite safe and bold again, for I was, in a sense, walking with my hand resting on the superb mane of the British Lion, whose roar was not to be provoked with impunity. At the War Office I was introduced by the Consul to his friend, Colonel Arocena, a genial old gentleman with a bald head and a cigarette between his lips. He listened with some interest and a smile, slightly incredulous I thought, to the sad story of the ill-treatment I had been subjected to at the hands of Santa Coloma's rebellious rascals. When I had finished he pushed over a sheet of paper on which he had scrawled a few words to me, with the remark, “Here, my young friend, take this, and you will be safe in Montevideo. We have heard about your doings in Florida, also in Rocha, but we do not propose going to war with England on your account.”
At this speech we all laughed; then when I had pocketed the paper, which bore the sacred seal of the War Office on the margin and requested all persons to refrain from molesting the bearer in his lawful outgoings and incomings, we thanked the pleasant old Colonel and retired. I spent half an hour strolling about with the Consul, then we separated. I had noticed two men in military uniform at some distance from us when we were together, and now, returning homewards, I found that they were following me. By and by they overtook me, and politely intimated their intention of making me their prisoner. I smiled, and, drawing forth my protection from the War Office, handed it to them. They looked surprised, and gave it back, with an apology for having molested me, then left me to pursue my way in peace.
I had, of course, been very lucky throughout all this adventure; still, I did not wish to attribute my easy escape entirely to luck, for I had, I thought, contributed a good deal towards it by my promptness in acting and in inventing a plausible story on the spur of the moment.
Feeling very much elated, I strolled along the sunny streets, gaily swinging my cane, when, turning a corner near Doña Isidora's house, I suddenly came face to face with Don Hilario. This unexpected encounter threw us both off our guard, he recoiling two or three paces backwardand turning as pale as the nature of his complexion would allow. I recovered first from the shock. So far I had been able to baffle him, and knew, moreover, many things of which he was ignorant; still, he was there in the town with me and had to be reckoned with, and I quickly resolved to meet him as a friend, affecting entire ignorance of his object in coming to Montevideo.
“Don Hilario—you here! Happy the eyes that behold you,” I exclaimed, seizing and shaking his hand, pretending to be overjoyed at the meeting.
In a moment he recovered his usual self-possessed manner, and when I asked after Doña Demetria he answered after a moments hesitation that she was in very good health.
“Come, Don Hilario,” I said, “we are close to my aunt Isidora's house, where I am staying, and it will give me great pleasure to present you to my wife, who will be glad to thank you for your kindness to me at theestancia.”
“Your wife, Don Ricardo! Do you tell me that you are married?” he exclaimed in amazement, thinking probably that I was already the husband of Demetria.
“What, did I not tell you before!” I said. “Ah, I remember speaking to Doña Demetria about it. Strange that she has not mentioned it to you. Yes, I was married before coming to this country—my wife is an Argentine. Come with me and you shall see a beautiful woman, if that is an inducement.”
He was without doubt astonished and mystified, but he had recovered his mask, and was now polite, collected, watchful.
When we entered the house I presented him to Doña Isidora, who happened to be in the way, and left her to entertain him. I was very glad to do so, knowing that he would seize the opportunity to try and discover something from the garrulous old lady, and that he would discover nothing, since she had not been let into our secrets.
I found Paquíta lying down in her room having a siesta; and while she arrayed herself at my express desire in her best dress—a black velvet which set off her matchless beauty better than anything else, I told her how I wished her to treat Don Hilario. She knew all about him, of course, and hated him with all her heart, looking on him as a kind of evil genius from whose castle I had carried off the unhappy Demetria; but I made her understand that our wisest plan was to treat him graciously. She readily consented, for Argentine women can be more charmingly gracious than any other women on the globe, and what people do well they like to be called on to do.
The subtle caution of our snaky guest did not serve to hide from my watchful eyes that he was very much surprised when he beheld her. She placed herself near him and spoke in her sweetest, artless manner of the pleasure my return had given her, and of the gratitude she had felt towards him and all the people at theestanciaPeralta for the hospitable treatment I had received there. He was, as I had foreseen, completely carried away by her exquisite beauty and the charm of her manner towards him. He was flattered, and exerted himself to be agreeable, but at the same time he was very much puzzled. The baffled expression was more apparent on his face every moment, while his restless glances darted here and there about the room, yet ever returned, like the doomed moth to the candle, to those lustrous violet eyes overflowing with hypocritical kindness. Paquíta's acting delighted me, and I only hoped that he would long suffer from the effect of the subtle poison she was introducing into his system. When he rose to go I was sure that Demetria's disappearance was a greater mystery to him than ever; and as a parting shot I warmly invited him to come and see us frequently while he remained in the capital, even offering him a bed in the house; while Paquíta, not to be behindhand, for she had thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing, entrusted him with a prettily worded, affectionate message to Demetria, a person whom she already loved and hoped some day to meet.
Two days after this adventure I heard that Don Hilario had left Montevideo. That he had discovered nothing I was positive; it was possible, however, that he had left some person to watch the house, and, as Paquíta was now anxious to get back to her own country, I determined to delay our departure no longer.
Going down to the harbour, I found the captain of a small schooner trading between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, and, learning that he intended leaving for the last port in three days' time, I bargained with him to take us, and got him also to consent to receive Demetria on board at once. I then sent a message to Mr. Barker, asking him to bring his guest up to town and put her on board the schooner without coming near me. Two days later, early in the morning, I heard that she was safe on board; and, having thus baffled the scoundrel Hilario, on whose ophidian skull I should have been very pleased to set my heel, and having still an idle day before me, I went once more to visit the mountain, to take from its summit my last view of the Purple Land where I had spent so many eventful days.
When I approached the crest of the great, solitary hill I did not gaze admiringly on the magnificent view that opened before me, nor did the wind, blowing fresh from the beloved Atlantic, seem to exhilarate me. My eyes were cast down and I dragged my feet like one that was weary. Yet I was not weary, but now I began to remember that on a former occasion I had on this mountain spoken many vain and foolish things concerning a people about whose character and history I was then ignorant. I also remembered with exceeding bitterness that my visit to this land had been the cause of great and perhaps lasting sorrow to one noble heart.
How often, said I to myself, have I repented of those cruel, scornful words I addressed to Dolores at our last interview; and now once more “I come to pluck the berries harsh and crude” of repentance and of expiation, to humble my insular pride in the dust and unsay all the unjust things I formerly spoke in my haste.
It is not an exclusively British characteristic to regard the people of other nationalities with a certain amount of contempt, but with us, perhaps, the feeling is stronger than with others, or else expressed with less reserve. Let me now at last rid myself of this error, which is harmless and perhaps even commendable in those who stay at home, and also very natural, since it is a part of our unreasonable nature to distrust and dislike the things that are far removed and unfamiliar. Let me at last divest myself of these old English spectacles, framed in oak and with lenses of horn, to bury them for ever in this mountain, which for half a century and upwards has looked down on the struggles of a young and feeble people against foreign aggression and domestic foes, and where a few months ago I sang the praises of British civilisation, lamenting that it had been planted here and abundantly watered with blood, only to be plucked up again and cast into the sea. After my rambles in the interior, where I carried about in me only a fading remnant of that old time-honoured superstition to prevent the most perfect sympathy between me and the natives I mixed with, I cannot say that I am of that opinion now. I cannot believe that if this country had been conquered and re-colonised by England, and all that is crooked in it made straight according to our notions, my intercourse with the people would have had the wild, delightful flavour I have found in it. And if that distinctive flavour cannot be had along with the material prosperity resulting from Anglo-Saxon energy, I must breathe the wish that this land may never know such prosperity. I do not wish to be murdered; no man does; yet rather than see the ostrich and deer chased beyond the horizon, the flamingo and black-necked swan slain on the blue lakes, and the herdsman sent to twang his romantic guitar in Hades as a preliminary to security of person, I would prefer to go about prepared at any moment to defend my life against the sudden assaults of the assassin.
We do not live by bread alone, and British occupation does not give to the heart all the things for which it craves. Blessings may even become curses when the gigantic power that bestows them on us scares from our midst the shy spirits of Beauty and of Poesy. Nor is it solely because it appeals to the poetic feelings in us that this country endears itself to my heart. It is the perfect republic: the sense of emancipation experienced in it by the wanderer from the Old World is indescribably sweet and novel. Even in our ultra-civilised condition at home we do periodically escape back to nature; and, breathing the fresh mountain air and gazing over vast expanses of ocean and land, we find that she is still very much to us. It is something more than these bodily sensations we experience when first mingling with our fellow-creatures, where all men are absolutely free and equal as here. I fancy I hear some wise person exclaiming, “No, no, no! In name only is your Purple Land a republic; its constitution is a piece of waste paper, its government an oligarchy tempered by assassination and revolution.” True; but the knot of ambitious rulers all striving to pluck each other down have no power to make the people miserable. Theunwritten constitution, mightier than the written one, is in the heart of every man to make him still a republican and free with a freedom it would be hard to match anywhere else on the globe. The Bedouin himself is not so free, since he accords an almost superstitious reverence and implicit obedience to his sheikh. Here the lord of many leagues of land and of herds unnumbered sits down to talk with the hired shepherd, a poor, bare-footed fellow in his smokyrancho, and no class or caste difference divides them, no consciousness of their widely different positions chills the warm current of sympathy between two human hearts. How refreshing it is to meet with this perfect freedom of intercourse, tempered only by that innate courtesy and native grace of manner peculiar to Spanish Americans! What a change to a person coming from lands with higher and lower classes, each with its innumerable hateful subdivisions—to one who aspires not to mingle with the class above him, yet who shudders at the slouching carriage and abject demeanour of the class beneath him! If this absolute equality is inconsistent with perfect political order, I for one should grieve to see such order established. Moreover, it is by no means true that the communities which oftenest startle us with crimes of disorder and violence are morally worse than others. A community in which there are not many crimes cannot be morally healthy. There were practicallynocrimes in Peru under the Inca dynasty; it was a marvellous thing for a person to commit an offence in that empire. And the reason for this most unnatural state of things was this—the Inca system of government was founded on that most iniquitous and disastrous doctrine that the individual bears the same relation to the State as a child to its parents, that its life from the cradle to the grave must be regulated for it by a power it is taught to regard as omniscient—a power practically omnipresent and almighty. In such a state there could be no individual will, no healthy play of passions, and consequently no crime. What wonder that a system so unspeakably repugnant to a being who feels that his will is a divinity working within him fell to pieces at the first touch of foreign invasion, or that it left no vestige of its pernicious existence on the continent it had ruled! For the whole state was, so to speak, putrid even before dissolution, and when it fell it mingled with the dust and was forgotten. Poland, before its conquest by Russia, a country ill-governed and disorderly as the Banda Orientál, did not mingle with dust like that when it fell—the implacable despotism of the Czar was unable to crush its fierce spirit; itsWillstill survived to gild dreary oppression with hallowed dreams, to make it clutch with a fearful joy the dagger concealed in its bosom. But I had no need to go away from this Green Continent to illustrate the truth of what I have said. People who talk and write about the disorderly South American republics are fond of pointing to Brazil, that great, peaceful, progressive empire, as setting an example to be followed. An orderly country, yes, and the people in it steeped to their lips in every abominable vice! Compared with these emasculated children of the equator, the Orientals are Nature's noblemen.
I can very well imagine some over-righteous person saying, “Alas, poor deluded soul, how little importance can we attach to your specious apologies of a people's lawlessness, when your own personal narrative shows that the moral atmosphere you have been breathing has quite corrupted you! Go back over your own record, and you will find that you have, according toournotions, offended in various ways and on divers occasions, and that you are even without the grace to repent of all the evil things you have thought, said, and done.”
I have not read many books of philosophy, because when I tried to be a philosopher “happiness was always breaking in,” as someone says; also because I have loved to study men rather than books; but in the little I have read there occurs a passage I remember well, and this I shall quote as my answer to anyone who may call me an immoral person because my passions have not always remained in a quiescent state, like hounds—to quote the simile of a South American poet—slumbering at the feet of the huntsman resting against a rock at noon. “We should regard the perturbations of the mind,” says Spinoza, “not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties just as pertinent to it as are heat, storms, thunder, and the like, to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in seeing them aright as in knowing such things as flatter the senses.” Let me have the phenomena which are inconvenient as well as the things which flatter the senses, and the chances are that my life will be a healthier and happier one than that of the person who spends his time on a cloud blushing at Nature's naughtiness.
It is often said that an ideal state—a Utopia where there is no folly, crime, or sorrow—has a singular fascination for the mind. Now, when I meet with a falsehood, I care not who the great persons who proclaim it may be, I do not try to like it or believe it or mimic the fashionable prattle of the world about it. I hate all dreams of perpetual peace, all wonderful cities of the sun, where people consume their joyful, monotonous years in mystic contemplations, or find their delight, like Buddhist monks, in gazing on the ashes of dead generations of devotees. The state is one unnatural, unspeakably repugnant: the dreamless sleep of the grave is more tolerable to the active, healthy mind than such an existence. If Signor Gaudentio di Lucca, still keeping himself alive by means of his marvellous knowledge of the secrets of Nature, were to appear before me now on this mountain to inform me that the sacred community he resided with in Central Africa was no mere dream, and should offer to conduct me to it, I should decline to go with him. I should prefer to remain in the Banda Orientál, even though by so doing I should grow at last to be as bad as any person in it, and ready to “wade through slaughter” to the Presidential Chair. For even in my own country of England, which is not so perfect as old Peru or the Pophar's country in Central Africa, I have been long divided from Nature, and now in this Oriental country, whose political misdeeds are a scandal alike to pure England and impure Brazil, I have been reunited to her. For this reason I love her with all her faults. Here, like Santa Coloma, I will kneel down and kiss this stone, as an infant might kiss the breast that feeds it; here, fearless of dirt, like John Carrickfergus, I will thrust my hands into the loose brown soil to clasp the hands, as it were, of dear mother Nature after our long separation.
Farewell, beautiful land of sunshine and storm, of virtue and of crime; may the invaders of the future fare on your soil like those of the past and leave you in the end to your own devices; may the chivalrous instinct of Santa Coloma, the passion of Dolores, the loving-kindness of Candelaria still live in your children to brighten their lives with romance and beauty; may the blight of our superior civilisation never fall on your wild flowers, or the yoke of our progress be laid on your herdsman—careless, graceful, music-loving as the birds—to make him like the sullen, abject peasant of the Old World!
The meeting of my fellow-travellers took place next day on board the ship, where we three were the only cabin passengers. On going down into the little saloon I found Demetria waiting for us, considerably improved in appearance by her new dress, but looking pale and anxious, for she probably found this meeting a trying one. The two women looked earnestly at each other, but Demetria, to hide her nervousness, I suppose, had framed her face in the old, impassive, almost cold expression it had worn when I first knew her, and Paquíta was repelled by it; so after a somewhat lukewarm greeting they sat down and made commonplace remarks. Two women more unlike each other in appearance, character, education, and disposition it would have been difficult to find; still, I had hoped they might be friends, and felt keenly disappointed at the result of their first meeting. After an uncomfortable interval we all rose. I was about to proceed to the deck, they to their respective cabins, when Paquíta, without any warning of what was coming, suddenly burst into tears and threw her arms about Demetria's neck.
“Oh, dear Demetria, what a sad life yours has been!” she exclaimed.
That was like her, so impulsive, and with such a true instinct to make her do the right thing always! The other gladly responded to the embrace, and I hastily retreated, leaving them kissing and mingling their tears.
When I got out on deck I found that we were already on our way, sails up, and a fresh wind sending us swiftly through the dull green water. There were five steerage passengers, disreputable-looking fellows inponchosand slouch hats, lounging about the deck smoking; but when we got outside the harbour and the ship began to toss a little, they very soon dropped their cigars and began ignominiously creeping away out of sight of the grinning sailors. Only one remained, a grizzly-bearded, rough-looking old gaucho, who firmly kept his seat at the stern, as if determined to see the last of “The Mount,” as the pretty city near the foot of Magellan's Hill is called by the English people in this region.
To satisfy myself that none of these fellows were sent in pursuit of Demetria, I asked our Italian captain who they were and how long they had been on board, and was much relieved to hear that they were fugitives—rebels probably—and had all been concealed for the past three or four days in the ship, waiting to get away from Montevideo.
Towards evening it came on very rough, the wind veering to the south and blowing half a gale, a very favourable wind, as it happened, to take us across this unlovely “Silver Sea,” as the poets of the Plata insist on calling it, with its villainous, brick-red, chopping waves, so disagreeable to bad sailors. Paquíta and Demetria suffered agonies, so that I was obliged to keep with them a good deal. I very imprudently told them not to be alarmed, that it was nothing—only sea-sickness—and I verily believe they both hated me with all their hearts for a little while in consequence. Fortunately I had anticipated these harrowing scenes, and had provided a bottle of champagne for the occasion; and after I had consumed two or three glassfuls to encourage them, showing how easy this kind of medicine is to take, I prevailed on them to drink the remainder. At length, about ten o'clock in the evening, they began to suspect that their malady was not going to prove fatal, and, seeing them so much better, I went up to get some fresh air. There at the stern still sat the stoical old gaucho, looking extremely miserable.
“Good evening, old comrade,” said I; “will you smoke a cigar?”
“Young master, you seem to have a good heart,” he returned, shaking his head at the proffered cigar, “do, for God's sake, get me a little rum. I am dying for something to warm my inside and stop my head from going round like a top, but nothing can I get from these jabbering foreign brutes on board.”
“Yes, why not, my old friend,” said I, and, going to the master of the boat, I succeeded in getting a pint of rum in a bottle.
The old fellow clutched it with eager delight and took a long draught. “Ah!” he said, patting first the bottle, then his stomach, “this puts new life into a man! Will this voyage never end, master? When I am on horseback I can forget that I am old, but these cursed waves remind me that I have lived many years.”
I lit my cigar and sat down to have a talk with him.
“Ah, with you foreigners it is just the same—land or water,” he continued. “You can even smoke—what a calm head and quiet stomach you must have! But what puzzles me is this, señor; how you, a foreigner, come to be travelling with native women. Now, there is that beautiful young señora with the violet eyes, who can she be?”
“She is my wife, old man,” said I, laughing, a little amused at his curiosity.
“Ah, you are married then—so young? She is beautiful, graceful, well educated, the daughter of wealthy parents, no doubt, but frail, frail, señor; and some day, not a very distant day—but why should I predict sorrow to a gay heart? Only her face, señor, is strange to me; it does not recall the features of any Oriental family I know.”
“That is easily explained,” I said, surprised at his shrewdness, “she is an Argentine, not an Oriental.”
“Ah, that explains it,” he said, taking another long pull at the bottle. “As for the other señora with you, I need not ask you whosheis.”
“Why, who is she?” I returned.
“A Peralta, if there ever was one,” he returned confidently.
His reply disturbed me not a little, for, after all my precautions, this old man had perhaps been sent to follow Demetria.
“Yes,” he continued, with an evident pride in his knowledge of families and faces which tended to allay my suspicions; “a Peralta and not a Madariaga, nor a Sanchez, nor a Zelaya, nor an Ibarra. Do I not know a Peralta when I see one?” And here he laughed scornfully at the absurdity of such an idea.
“Tell me,” I said, “how do you know a Peralta?”
“The question!” he exclaimed. “You are a Frenchman or a German from over the sea, and do not understand these things. Have I borne arms forty years in my country's service not to know a Peralta! On earth they are with me; if I go to Heaven I meet them there, and in Hell I see them; for when have I charged into the hottest of the fight and have not found a Peralta there before me? But I am speaking of the past, señor; for now I am also like one that has been left on the field forgotten—left for the vultures and foxes. You will no longer find them walking on the earth; only where men have rushed together sword in hand you will find their bones. Ah, friend!” And here, overcome with sad memories, the ancient warrior took another drink from his bottle.
“They cannot all be dead,” said I, “if, as you imagine, the señora travelling with me is a Peralta.”
“As I imagine!” he repeated scornfully. “Do I not know what I am talking about, young sir? They are dead, I tell you—dead as the past, dead as Oriental independence and honour. Did I not ride into the fight at Gil de los Medanos with the last of the Peraltas, Calixto, when he received his baptism of blood? Fifteen years old, señor, only fifteen, when he galloped into the fight, for he had the light heart, the brave spirit, and the hand swift to strike of a Peralta. And after the fight our colonel, Santa Coloma, who was killed the other day at San Paulo, embraced the boy before all the troops. He is dead, señor, and with Calixto died the house of Peralta.”
“You knew Santa Coloma, then?” I said. “But you are mistaken, he was not killed at San Paulo, he made his escape.”
“So they say—the ignorant ones,” he returned. “But he is dead, for he loved his country, and all who are of that mind are slain. How should he escape?”
“I tell you he is not dead,” I repeated, vexed at his stubborn persistence. “I also knew him, old man, and was with him at San Paulo.”
He looked at me for a long time, and then took another swig from his bottle.
“Señor, this is not a thing I love joking about,” said he. “Let us talk of other things. What I want to know is, what is Calixto's sister doing here? Why has she left her country?”
Receiving no reply to this question, he went on: “Has she not got property? Yes, a largeestancia, impoverished, ruined, if you like, but still a very large tract of land. When your enemies do not fear you, then they cease to persecute. A broken old man, bereft of reason—surely they would not trouble him! No, no, she is leaving her country for other reasons. Yes, there is some private plot against her; some design, perhaps, to carry her off, or even to destroy her and get possession of her property. Naturally, in such a case, she would fly for protection to Buenos Ayres, where there is one with some of her blood in his veins able to protect her person and her property.”
I was astonished to hear him, but his last words were a mystery to me.
“There is no one in Buenos Ayres to protect her,” I said; “I only will be there as I am here to shield her, and if, as you think, she has an enemy, he must reckon with me—one who, like that Calixto you speak of, has a hand quick to strike.”
“There spoke the heart of a Blanco!” he exclaimed, clutching my arm, and then, the boat giving a lurch at that moment, almost dragging me down in his efforts to steady himself. After another sip of rum he went on: “But who are you, young sir, if that is not an impertinent question? Do you possess money, influence, powerful friends, that you take upon yourself the care of this woman? Is it in your power to baffle and crush her enemy or enemies, to protect not only her person, but her property, which, in her absence, will become the prey of robbers?”
“And who are you, old man?” I returned, unable to give a satisfactory answer to one of his searching questions, “and why do you ask me these things? And who is this powerful person you speak of in Buenos Ayres with some of her blood in his veins, but of whose existence she is ignorant?”
He shook his head silently, then deliberately proceeded to take out and light a cigarette. He smoked with a placid enjoyment which made me think that his refusal of my cigar and his bitter complaints about the effects of the ship's tossing on him had merely been to get the bottle of rum out of me. He was evidently a veteran in more senses than one, and now, finding that I would tell him no more secrets, he refused to answer any questions. Fearing that I had imprudently told him too much already, I finally left him and retired to my bunk.
Next morning we arrived at Buenos Ayres, and cast anchor about two miles from shore, for that was as near the land as we could get. Presently we were boarded by a Custom House officer, and for some time longer I was engaged in getting out our luggage and in bargaining with the captain to put us on shore. When I had completed these arrangements I was very much surprised to see the cunning old soldier I had talked with the evening before sitting in the Custom House boat, which was just putting off from the side. Demetria had been looking on when the old fellow had left the ship, and she now came to me looking very excited.
“Richard,” she said, “did you notice that man who was a passenger with us and who has just gone off in the boat? It is Santa Coloma.”
“Oh, absurd!” I exclaimed. “I talked with that old man last night for an hour—an old grey-bearded gaucho, and no more like Santa Coloma than that sailor.”
“I know I am right,” she returned. “The General has visited my father at theestanciaand I know him well. He is disguised now and has made himself look like a peasant, but when he went over the side into the boat he looked full into my face; I knew him and started, then he smiled, for he saw that I had recognised him.”
The very fact that this common-looking old man had gone on shore in the Custom House boat proved that he was a person of consequence in disguise, and I could not doubt that Demetria was right. I felt excessively annoyed at myself for having failed to penetrate his disguise; for something of the old Marcos Marcó style of speaking might very well have revealed his identity if I had only had my wits about me. I was also very much concerned on Demetria's account, for it seemed that I had missed finding out something for her which would have been to her advantage to know. I was ashamed to tell her of that conversation about a relation in Buenos Ayres, but secretly determined to try and find Santa Coloma to get him to tell me what he knew.
After landing we put our small luggage into a fly and were driven to an hotel in Calle Lima, an out-of-the-way place kept by a German; but I knew the house to be a quiet, respectable one and very moderate in its charges.
About five o'clock in the afternoon we were together in the sitting-room on the first floor, looking down on the street from the window, when a well-appointed carriage with a gentleman and two young ladies in it drew up before the door.
“Oh, Richard,” exclaimed Paquíta in the greatest excitement, “it is Don Pantaleon Villaverde with his daughters, and they are getting out!”
“Who is Villaverde?” I asked.
“What, do you not know? He is a Judge of First Instance, and his daughters are my dearest friends. Is it not strange to meet them like this? Oh, I must see them to ask forpapaandmamita!” and here she began to cry.
The waiter came up with a card from the Señor Villaverde requesting an interview with the Señorita Peralta.
Demetria, who had been trying to soothe Paquíta's intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquíta started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time in a triangular embrace.
When the excitement of this tempestuous meeting had spent itself, Señor Villaverde, who stood looking on with grave, impressive face, spoke to Demetria, telling her that his old friend, General Santa Coloma, had just informed him of her arrival in Buenos Ayres and of the hotel where she was staying. Probably she did not even know who he was, he said; he was her relation; his mother was a Peralta, a first cousin of her unhappy father, Colonel Peralta. He had come to see her with his daughters to invite her to make his house her home during her stay in Buenos Ayres. He also wished to help her with her affairs, which, his friend the General had informed him, were in some confusion. He had, he concluded, many influential friends in the sister city, who would be ready to assist him in arranging matters for her.
Demetria, recovering from the nervousness she had experienced on finding that Paquíta's great friends were her visitors, thanked him warmly and accepted his offer of a home and assistance; then, with a quiet dignity and self-possession one would hardly expect from a girl coming amongst fashionable people for the first time in her life, she greeted her new-found relations and thanked them for their visit.
As they insisted on taking Demetria away with them at once, she left us to make her preparations, while Paquíta remained conversing with her friends, having many questions to ask them. She was consumed with anxiety to know how her family, and especially her father, who made the domestic laws, now, after so many months, regarded her elopement and marriage with me. Her friends, however, either knew nothing or would not tell her what they knew.
Poor Demetria! she had, with no time given her for reflection, taken the wise course of at once accepting the offer of her influential and extremely dignified kinsman; but it was hard for her to leave her friends at such short notice, and when she came back prepared for her departure the separation tried her severely. With tears in her eyes she bade Paquíta farewell, but when she took my hand in hers, for some time her trembling lips refused to speak. Overcoming her emotions by a great effort, she at length said, addressing her visitors, “For my escape from a sad and perilous position and for the pleasure of finding myself here amongst relations, I am indebted to this young friend who has been a brother to me.”
Señor Villaverde listened and bowed towards me, but with no softening in his stern, calm face, while his cold grey eyes seemed to look straight through me at something beyond. His manner towards me made me feel a kind of despair, for how strong must have been his disapproval of my conduct in running off with his friend's daughter—how great his indignation against me, when it prevented him from bestowing one smile or one kind word on me to thank me for all I had done for his kinswoman! Yet this was only the reflected indignation of my father-in-law.
We went down to the carriage to see them off, and then, finding myself for a moment by the side of one of the young ladies, I tried to find out something for myself. “Pray tell me, señorita,” I said, “what you know about my father-in-law. If it is very bad, I promise you my wife shall not hear a word of it; but it is best that I should know the truth before meeting him.”
A cloud came over her bright, expressive face, while she glanced anxiously at Paquíta; then, bending towards me, she whispered, “Ah, my friend, he is implacable! I am so sorry, for Paquíta's sake.” And then, with a smile of irrepressible coquetry, she added, “And for yours.”
The carriage drove away, and Demetria's eyes, looking back at me, were filled with tears, but in Señor Villaverde's eyes, also glancing back, there was an expression that boded ill for my future. His feeling was natural, perhaps, for he was the father of two very pretty girls.
Implacable, and I was now divided from him by no silver or brick-coloured sea! By returning I had made myself amenable to the laws I had broken by marrying a girl under age without her father's consent. The person in England who runs away with a ward in Chancery is not a greater offender against the law than I was. It was now in his power to have me punished, to cast me into prison for an indefinite time, and if not to crush my spirit, he would at least be able to break the heart of his unhappy daughter. Those wild, troubled days in the Purple Land now seemed to my mind peaceful, happy days, and the bitter days with no pleasure in them were only now about to begin. Implacable!
Suddenly looking up, I found Paquíta's violet eyes, full of sad questioning, fixed on my face.
“Tell me truly, Richard, what have you heard?” she asked.
I forced a smile, and, taking her hand, assured her that I had heard nothing to cause her any uneasiness. “Come,” I said, “let us go in and prepare to leave town to-morrow. We will go back to the point we started from—your father'sestancia, for the sooner this meeting you are thinking about so anxiously is over the better will it be for all of us.”