Part 13 (1/2)
”Senorita,” I said, ”it is not necessary for you to remain longer here.
Only tell me before going that you forgive me, for it makes me very unhappy to think that I have offended you.”
She turned to me with a very bright smile and gave me her hand.
”Ah, it is for you to forgive me for hastily taking offence at a light word,” she said. ”I must not allow anything you say in future to spoil my grat.i.tude. Do you know I think you are one of those who like to laugh at most things, senor--no, let me call you Richard, and you shall call me Dolores, for we must remain friends always. Let us make a compact, then it will be impossible for us to quarrel. You shall be free to doubt, question, laugh at everything, except one thing only--my faith in Santa Coloma.”
”Yes, I will gladly make that agreement,” I replied. ”It will be a new kind of paradise, and of the fruit of every tree I may eat except of this tree only.”
She laughed gaily.
”I will now leave you,” she said. ”You are suffering pain, and are very tired. Perhaps you will be able to sleep.” While speaking she brought a second cus.h.i.+on for my head, then left me, and before long I fell into a refres.h.i.+ng doze.
I spent three days of enforced idleness at the Casa Blanca, as the house was called, before Santa Coloma returned, and after the rough experience I had undergone, during which I had subsisted on a flesh diet untempered by bread or vegetables, they were indeed like days spent in paradise to me. Then the General came back. I was sitting alone in the garden when he arrived, and, coming out to me, he greeted me warmly.
”I greatly feared from my previous experience of your impatience under restraint that you might have left us,” he said kindly.
”I could not do that very well yet, without a horse to ride on,” I returned.
”Well, I came here just now to say I wish to present you with a horse and saddle. The horse is standing at the gate now, I believe; but, if you are only waiting for a horse to leave us I shall have to regret making you this present. Do not be in a hurry; you have yet many years to live in which to accomplish all you wish to do, and let us have the pleasure of your company a few days longer. Dona Mercedes and her daughter desire nothing better than to keep you with them.”
I promised him not to run away immediately, a promise which was not hard to make; then we went to inspect my horse, which proved to be a very fine bay, saddled with a das.h.i.+ng native _recado_.
”Come with me and try him,” he said. ”I am going to ride out to the Cerro Solo.”
The ride proved an extremely pleasant one, as I had not mounted a horse for some days, and had been longing to spice my idle hours with a little exhilarating motion. We went at a swinging gallop over the gra.s.sy plain, the General all the time discoursing freely of his plans and of the brilliant prospects awaiting all those timely-wise individuals who should elect to link their fortunes with his at this early stage of the campaign.
The Cerro, three leagues distant from the village of El Molino, was a high, conical hill standing quite alone and overlooking the country for a vast distance around. A few well-mounted men were stationed on the summit, keeping watch; and, after talking with them for a while, the General led me to a spot a hundred yards away, where there was a large mound of sand and stone, up which we made our horses climb with some difficulty. While we stood here he pointed out the conspicuous objects on the surface of the surrounding country, telling me the names of the _estancias_, rivers, distant hills, and other things. The whole country about us seemed very familiar to him. He ceased speaking at length, but continued gazing over the wide, sunlit prospect with a strange, far-off look on his face. Suddenly dropping the reins on the neck of his horse, he stretched out his arms towards the south and began to murmur words which I could not catch, while an expression of mingled fury and exultation transformed his face. It pa.s.sed away as suddenly as it came.
Then he dismounted, and, stooping till his knee touched the ground, he kissed the rock before him, after which he sat down and quietly invited me to do the same. Returning to the subject he had talked about during our ride, he began openly pressing me to join him in his march to Montevideo, which, he said, would begin almost immediately, and would infallibly result in a victory, after which he would reward me for the incalculable service I had rendered him in a.s.sisting him to escape from the Juez of Las Cuevas. These tempting offers, which would have fired my brain in other circ.u.mstances--the single state, I mean--I felt compelled to decline, though I did not state my real reasons for doing so. He shrugged his shoulders in the eloquent Oriental fas.h.i.+on, remarking that it would not surprise him if I altered my resolution in a few days.
”Never!” I mentally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
Then he recalled our first meeting again, spoke of Margarita, that marvellously beautiful child, asking if I had not thought it strange so fair a flower as that should have sprung from the homely stalk of a sweet potato? I answered that I had been surprised at first, but had ceased to believe that she was a child of Batata's, or of any of his kin. He then offered to tell me Margarita's history; and I was not surprised to hear that he knew it.
”I owe you this,” he said, ”in expiation of the somewhat offensive remarks I addressed to you that day in reference to the girl. But you must remember that I was then only Marcos Marco, a peasant, and, having some slight knowledge of acting, it was only natural that my speech should be, as you find it in our common people, somewhat dry and ironical.
”Many years ago there lived in this country one Basilio de la Barca, a person of so n.o.ble a figure and countenance that to all those who beheld him he became the type of perfect beauty, so that a 'Basilio de la Barca' came to be a proverbial expression in Montevidean society when anyone surpa.s.singly handsome was spoken of. Though he had a gay, light-hearted disposition and loved social pleasures, he was not spoilt by the admiration his beauty excited. Simple-minded and modest he remained always; though perhaps not capable of any very strong pa.s.sion, for though he won, without seeking it, the hearts of many fair women, he did not marry. He might have married some rich woman to improve his position had he been so minded, but in this, as in everything else in his life, Basilio appeared to be incapable of doing anything to advance his own fortunes. The de la Barcas had once possessed great wealth in land in the country, and, I have heard, descended from an ancient n.o.ble family of Spain. During the long, disastrous wars this country has suffered, when it was conquered in turn by England, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and the Argentines, the family became impoverished, and at last appeared to be dying out. The last of the de la Barcas was Basilio, and the evil destiny which had pursued all of that name for so many generations did not spare him. His whole life was a series of calamities. When young he entered the army, but in his first engagement he received a terrible wound which disabled him for life and compelled him to abandon the military career. After that he embarked all his little fortune in commerce, and was ruined by a dishonest partner. At length when he had been reduced to great poverty, being then about forty years old, he married an old woman out of grat.i.tude for the kindness she had shown to him; and with her he went to live on the sea-coast, several leagues east of Cabo Santa Maria. Here in a small _rancho_ in a lonely spot called Barranca del Peregrine, and with only a few sheep and cows to subsist on, he spent the remainder of his life. His wife, though old, bore him one child, a daughter, named Transita. They taught her nothing; for in all respects they lived like peasants and had forgotten the use of books. The situation was also wild and solitary, and they very seldom saw a strange face. Transita spent her childhood in rambling over the dunes on that lonely coast, with only wild flowers, birds, and the ocean waves for playmates. One day, her age being then about eleven, she was at her usual pastimes, her golden hair blowing in the wind, her short dress and bare legs wet with the spray, chasing the waves as they retired, or flying with merry shouts from them as they hurried back towards the sh.o.r.e, flinging a cloud of foam over her retreating form, when a youth, a boy of fifteen, rode up and saw her there. He was hunting ostriches, when, losing sight of his companions, and finding himself near the ocean, he rode down to the sh.o.r.e to watch the tide coming in.
”Yes, I was that boy, Richard--you are quick in making conclusions.”
This he said not in reply to any remark I had made, but to my thoughts, which he frequently guessed very aptly.
”The impression this exquisite child made on me it would be impossible to convey in words. I had lived much in the capital, had been educated in our best college, and was accustomed to a.s.sociate with pretty women.
I had also crossed the water and had seen all that was most worthy of admiration in the Argentine cities. And remember that with us a youth of fifteen already knows something of life. This child, playing with the waves, was like nothing I had seen before. I regarded her not as a mere human creature; she seemed more like some being from I know not what far-off celestial region who had strayed to earth, just as a bird of white and azure plumage, and unknown to our woods, sometimes appears, blown hither from a distant tropical country or island, filling those who see it with wonder and delight. Imagine, if you can, Margarita with her s.h.i.+ning hair loose to the winds, swift and graceful in her motions as the waves she plays with, her sapphire eyes sparkling like sunlight on the waters, the tender tints of the sea-sh.e.l.l in her ever-changing countenance, with a laughter that seems to echo the wild melody of the sandpiper's note. Margarita has inherited the form, not the spirit, of the child Transita. She is an exquisite statue endowed with life.
Transita, with lines equally graceful and colours just as perfect, had caught the spirit of the wind and suns.h.i.+ne and was all freedom, motion, fire--a being half human, half angelic. I saw her only to love her; nor was it a common pa.s.sion she inspired in me. I wors.h.i.+pped her, and longed to wear her on my bosom; but I shrank then and for a long time after from breathing the hot breath of love on so tender and heavenly a blossom. I went to her parents and opened my heart to them. My family being well known to Basilio, I obtained his consent to visit their lonely _rancho_ whenever I could; and I, on my part, promised not to speak of love to Transita till her sixteenth year. Three years after I had found Transita, I was ordered to a distant part of the country, for I was already in the army then, and, fearing that it would not be possible for me to visit them for a long time, I persuaded Basilio to let me speak to his daughter, who was now fourteen. She had by this time grown extremely fond of me, and she always looked forward with delight to my visits, when we would spend days together rambling along the sh.o.r.e, or seated on some cliff overlooking the sea, talking of the simple things she knew, and of that wonderful, far-away city life of which she was never tired of hearing. When I opened my heart to her she was at first frightened at these new strange emotions I spoke of. Soon, however, I was made happy by seeing her fear grow less. In one day she ceased to be a child; the rich blood mantled her cheeks, to leave her the next moment pale and tremulous; her tender lips were toying with the rim of the honeyed cup. Before I left her she had promised me her hand, and at parting even clung to me, with her beautiful eyes wet with tears.
”Three years pa.s.sed before I returned to seek her. During that time I sent scores of letters to Basilio, but received no reply. Twice I was wounded in fight, once very seriously. I was also a prisoner for several months. I made my escape at last, and, returning to Montevideo, obtained leave of absence. Then, with heart afire with sweet antic.i.p.ations, I sought that lonely sea-coast once more, only to find the weeds growing on the spot where Basilio's _rancho_ had stood. In the neighbourhood I learnt that he had died two years before, and that after his death the widow had returned to Montevideo with Transita. After long inquiry in that city I discovered that she had not long survived her husband, and that a foreign senora, had taken Transita away, no one knew whither. Her loss cast a great shadow on my life. Poignant grief cannot endure for ever, nor for very long; only the memory of grief endures. To this memory, which cannot fade, it is perhaps due that in one respect at least I am not like other men. I feel that I am incapable of pa.s.sion for any woman. No, not if a new Lucrezia Borgia were to come my way, scattering the fiery seeds of adoration upon all men, could they blossom to love in this arid heart. Since I lost Transita I have had one thought, one love, one religion, and it is all told in one word--_Patria_.
”Years pa.s.sed. I was captain in General Oribe's army at the siege of my own city. One day a lad was captured in our lines, and came very near being put to death as a spy. He had come out from Montevideo, and was looking for me. He had been sent, he said, by Transita de la Barca, who was lying ill in the town, and desired to speak to me before she died.
I asked and obtained permission from our General, who had a strong personal friends.h.i.+p for me, to penetrate into the town. This was, of course, dangerous, and more so for me, perhaps, than it would have been for many of my brother officers, for I was very well known to the besieged. I succeeded, however, by persuading the officers of a French sloop of war, stationed in the harbour, to a.s.sist me. These foreigners at that time had friendly relations with the officers of both armies, and three of them had at one time visited our General to ask him to let them hunt ostriches in the interior. He pa.s.sed them on to me, and, taking them to my own _estancia_, I entertained them and hunted with them for several days. For this hospitality they had expressed themselves very grateful, inviting me repeatedly to visit them on board, and also saying that they would gladly do me any personal service in the town, which they visited constantly. I love not the French, believing them to be the most vain and egotistical, consequently the least chivalrous, of mankind; but these officers were in my debt, and I resolved to ask them to help me. Under cover of night I went on board their s.h.i.+p; I told them my story, and asked them to take me on sh.o.r.e with them disguised as one of themselves. With some difficulty they consented, and I was thus enabled next day to be in Montevideo and with my long-lost Transita. I found her lying on her bed, emaciated and white as death, in the last stage of some fatal pulmonary complaint. On the bed with her was a child between two and three years old, exceedingly beautiful like her mother, for one glance was sufficient to tell me it was Transita's child. Overcome with grief at finding her in this pitiful condition, I could only kneel at her side, pouring out the last tender tears that have fallen from these eyes. We Orientals are not tearless men, and I have wept since then, but only with rage and hatred. My last tears of tenderness were shed over unhappy, dying Transita.