Part 24 (1/2)
”I am afraid I have made you sad, senors, when there is so much to make one happy. But I forgot that this is not for you, and that your heart is heavy, Senor Rand, over the fate of your poor mother. Let us hope you, too, may soon find your cup of joy full to overflowing.”
”Have you heard how Colonel Marchand is?” asked Harrie, seeing that Ronie did not feel like replying to their friend.
”He is likely to recover, but his campaigning is doubtless over until some time in the future. Come, senors, I shall insist that you stop with me to-night, and it is time you seek rest.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
”IT IS MANUEL MARLIN!”
It was a beautiful morning, that which followed, and our friends were astir early. Wandering out upon the streets, eager to learn if any new tidings had come of the spy, they soon found themselves walking under the refres.h.i.+ng shade of rows of ornamental trees. In following this course, they came somewhat abruptly upon a plaza floored for a wide s.p.a.ce with rare mosaics, and lit at night by swinging electric lights.
”This is the Plaza de Bolivar,” said Jack, ”a favorite place for the president's band to come and play. See, there is the statue of the republic's hero.”
Ronie and Harrie had already discovered an equestrian statue, mounted upon a heavy pedestal, while the rider held with one hand a straightened rein on his refractory steed, and with the other he pointed his sword high into the air, as if he would pierce some imaginary enemy stationed in s.p.a.ce. It was a bizarre affair, the weather-stained image of a horse rearing into the air after the fas.h.i.+on of some huge rocking-horse. From the bold figure of man and steed their gaze dropped to the base, where they saw in raised letters the name of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Venezuela. Instinctively, our Americans uncovered their heads out of respect to the memory of the man who was not only a great warrior, but a notable statesman, and a poet of considerable merit. His proclamations to the armies are examples of masterly eloquence, and as much to be admired as his military genius, which won for him the applause of the five republics that he liberated.
The statue of Bolivar is in bronze, and is considered one of the most notable examples of modern art.
When his young companions had tired of looking at the equestrian figure of the warrior, Jack said:
”Now come with me, lads, and I will show you a sight worth two of this to you and me.”
Without reply, Ronie and Harrie followed their friend until they came upon a delightfully retired retreat, which, without the bizarre attractions of the Plaza Bolivar, had a freshness and quiet beauty the other lacked. Antic.i.p.ating now what they were to meet, to our young Americans there was indeed an air of sanct.i.ty and hallowed peace that the more ornate spot did not possess. With reverential steps they moved silently but swiftly along the clean, graveled path bordered with deep, green gra.s.s and overhung with interlacing branches of the trees which formed a roof over their heads, until they reached the center of the plot, where the torrid sun of the tropics beat down upon the head of the statue they had come to see.
This was the Plaza Was.h.i.+ngton, and the man honored here was the American patriot, the Father of His Country, who had been given this honored recognition in the capital of the United States of Venezuela.
Uncovering their heads, the three stood for several minutes in a silence that seemed too sacred to be broken, while they looked upon the calm, benign features of Was.h.i.+ngton, honored thus by a race they had not expected would pay such homage. At that very moment, un.o.bserved by them, a couple of natives a little way off, at the uncovering of their heads, removed their wide-brimmed headgear, and looked on with respectful attention. Farther removed, a group of women, dark-eyed, dark-featured, but not unpleasant of countenance, also paused in their morning work to watch the newcomers with respectful admiration rather than curiosity. Evidently these people understood and shared with these strangers from a far-away land this spirit of national pride and patriotism, for true patriots always revere the memory of heroes.
”Isn't it strange Was.h.i.+ngton should be given a statue here?” asked Harrie.
”Not so very strange,” replied Jack, ”when you come to think that the histories of the two countries are so nearly alike, up to the day of these two heroes, they might be written by the same historian with slight modifications. Bolivar was the Was.h.i.+ngton of Venezuela. Then, too, you will remember that Miranda, the pioneer of patriots in this country, served his apprentices.h.i.+p under Was.h.i.+ngton, fighting for our country. When he had finished there he returned to his native land to take up her battles. What he learned with our army helped him here.
”Bolivar had no small task on his hand when he undertook to free five republics, and who conquered a territory nearly half as great as Europe.
”It is a common practice for the inhabitants here to strew their garlands of flowers about this place, and once I remember, upon a holiday, coming here, to find the statue of Was.h.i.+ngton, pedestal and base, literally decked with floral wreaths. Never, it seemed to me, not even in our own land, did the n.o.ble countenance of Was.h.i.+ngton look grander than here, surrounded by a race that did not speak his language, but whose hearts beat as patriotically, as if they understood every word.”
”It was a happy thought that they should have sculptured him as a man of peace rather than of war,” said Ronie. ”It is more happy in its effect, as I look upon him, than the warlike figure of Bolivar.”
”Very true; at least, from our standpoint. While they did well to select this phase of his character, no doubt it thrills their hot veins more to look on the defiant form of their beloved leader. What I have said of the two men was truth, but similarity stops there. Bolivar had very much of the savage wildness about him, and he was reckless, headstrong, and sometimes foolhardy. But his career was a grand one, as viewed by his countrymen. It was filled with bold, cunning, victorious marches. His Valley Forge was the torrid jungles and sun-swept plains of a tropical clime; his Delaware, filled with floating ice, to be crossed in mid-winter, the broken mountain pa.s.s, or the pathless swamp filled with deadly malaria. Like our Was.h.i.+ngton, he came of a distinguished family, and he was educated in Europe for the court and camp. But, if educated abroad, his love for his native land never failed, and Venezuela never had a truer son, or a more valiant fighter for her natural rights.
”Ay, lads, his campaigns were filled with such stupendous feats of activity and accomplishment as few have ever equaled. Starting on the seacoast near Pallao, with his foot soldiers and rude cavalry mounted on mule back, he crossed the continent. The perils of mountain-climbing and the hards.h.i.+ps of the jungle were met and overcome by his indomitable followers, inspired by his glowing example, living much of the time on berries and roots, sleeping at night upon the ground, to free in turn Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia; then, sweeping down the Pacific coast, to finally overthrow the empire of Peru. He was a young man filled with the love of freedom and the fire of ambition. So little was his heroism appreciated by those whom he thus met that time and again he was forced to meet the a.s.sa.s.sin, only to find himself deserted at last by those whom he had looked upon and rewarded as friends. So he died alone, of heartaches over the ingrat.i.tude of a people he had led out of bondage. But to-day tardy justice makes him, as he deserved to be, the hero of five republics.”
”Why should his countrymen, after all he had done for them, strip him of his honors and leave him forlorn and disappointed?” asked Ronie.
”It was owing largely to the inborn fickleness of people of a tropical clime. Two charges, one directly opposed to the other, were brought against him. One party claimed, after having rid them of kings, he tried to make a dictator of himself, with power more absolute than that of those he had deposed. The other said it was because, upon his followers asking him to accept such power, he declined and went into voluntary exile at Santa Marta. Be that as it may, it was nearly twenty years after his death before there was one bold enough to give him the place in public opinion that he deserved. He caused an artist to design a statue that should perpetuate his memory.
”Now we come to see how closely the history of this country is blended with our own. On the neck of the statue the artist placed a miniature in the form of a medallion which the family of Was.h.i.+ngton had given Bolivar. On the reverse of this was a lock of Was.h.i.+ngton's hair, with the inscription:
”'This portrait of the founder of liberty in North America is presented by his adopted son to him who has acquired equal glory in South America.'