While I reclined luxuriously, sucking my grapes, the two ladies sat on each side of me, ostensibly fanning themselves, but only, I think, trying to make the air cooler for me. Very cool and pleasant they made it, certainly, but the gentle attentions of Dolores were at the same time such as might well create a subtler kind of fever in a man’s veins—a malady not to be cured by fruit, fans, or phlebotomy.
“Who would not suffer blows for such compensation as this!” I said.
“Do not say such a thing!” exclaimed the señorita, with wonderful animation. “Have you not rendered a great service to our dear General—to our beloved country! If we had it in our power to give you everything your heart might desire it would be nothing, nothing. We must be your debtors forever.”
I smiled at her extravagant words, but they were very sweet to hear, none the less.
“Your ardent love of your country is a beautiful sentiment,” I remarked somewhat indiscreetly, “but is General Santa Coloma so necessary to its welfare?”
She looked offended and did not reply. “You are a stranger in our country, señor, and do not quite understand these things,” said the mother gently. “Dolores must not forget that. You know nothing of the cruel wars we have seen and how our enemies have conquered only by bringing in the foreigner to their aid. Ah, señor, the bloodshed, the proscriptions, the infamies which they have brought on this land! But there is one man they have never yet succeeded in crushing: always from boyhood he has been foremost in the fight, defying their bullets, and not to be corrupted by their Brazilian gold. Is it strange that he is so much to us, who have lost all our relations, and have suffered many persecutions, being deprived almost of the means of subsistence that hirelings and traitors might be enriched with our property? To us in this house he is even more than to others. He was my husband’s friend and companion in arms. He has done us a thousand favours, and if he ever succeeds in overthrowing this infamous government he will restore to us all the property we have lost. But ai de mi, I cannot see deliverance yet.”
“Mamita, do not say such a thing!” exclaimed her daughter. “Do you begin to despair now when there is most reason to hope?”
“Child, what can he do with this handful of ill-armed men?” returned the mother sadly. “He has bravely raised the standard, but the people do not flock to it. Ah, when this revolt is crushed, like so many others, we poor women will only have to lament for more friends slain and fresh persecutions.” And here she covered her eyes with her handkerchief.
Dolores tossed her head back and made a sudden gesture of impatience.
“Do you, then, expect to see a great army formed before the ink is dry on the General’s proclamation? When Santa Coloma was a fugitive without a follower you hoped; now when he is with us, and actually preparing for a march on the capital, you begin to lose heart—I cannot understand it!”
Doña Mercedes rose without replying, and left the room. The lovely enthusiast dropped her head on her hand, and remained silent, taking no notice of me, a cloud of sorrow on her countenance.
“Señorita,” 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 gratitude. Do you know I think you are one of those who like to laugh at most things, señor—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 cushion for my head, then left me, and before long I fell into a refreshing 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
