“What other one, daughter?”
“The other is that he study hard, so as to come back soon—isn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered my father, kissing her forehead, “and also so as to deserve you. Other conditions you can settle. Well, do they please you?” he added, rising and turning to me.
I could not find words to reply. I closely pressed the hand he held out to me, as he said: “Goodbye till Monday, then. Remember my instructions, and read over the list many times.”
My mother came up to us and embraced us, then she went out and left us alone. A long time must have passed after my hand had taken María’s, and our eyes had met, before she said: “How good papa is! Don’t you think so?”
I nodded; my lips could not utter a syllable.
“Why do you not speak? Do you like the conditions he imposes upon you?”
“Yes, María. And what are yours?”
“Only one.”
“Tell me.”
“You know it.”
“Yes, yes; but today you ought to tell me.”
“That you always love me as you do now,” she replied, and her hand pressed mine.
XXXVIII
When I reached the farms the next morning, I found there the doctor who had taken Mayn’s place in treating Feliciana. He told me that he had lost all hope of curing her, and said that a priest ought to be sent for.
I went into Feliciana’s room. Juan Ángel was already there, astonished that his mother did not respond to his greeting. I could not fail to be affected by finding my old nurse in so desperate a condition. I gave orders that more of the slaves should be in attendance upon her, and had her carried into a more comfortable room, though she humbly opposed the change.
The priest came and administered the sacraments to the sick woman. Leaving the doctor at her side, I rode to the village to make arrangements for the burial, and to post that fateful letter to Señor A⸺.
Feliciana had a very bad night. The next day, Saturday, at three in the afternoon, the doctor came into my room, and said, “She will not live through the day.”
He spoke the truth, for an hour after twilight she expired. As soon as the slaves had dressed her and put her in a coffin, covered from her throat down with white linen, she was placed upon a table draped with crape, and with tapers burning at the four corners. Juan Ángel stood at the head of the table, shedding tears upon his mother’s forehead.
I ordered the overseer of the gang of slaves to bring them there for the evening prayer that night. They came in silently. The men and boys filled up the whole eastern corridor. The women kneeled in a circle about the coffin. As the windows of the death-chamber opened upon the corridor, both groups prayed at the same time.
After they had gone through the rosary, a female slave intoned the first stanza of one of those chants filled with grieving melancholy and irrepressible laments so familiar to the hearts of slaves. The whole company then repeated the stanza in chorus, the deep voices of the men harmonizing with the clear and sweet tones of the women and boys. These are all the verses of that hymn which I can remember:
“In a dungeon dark,
Upon whose grating falls
No faintest gleam of sun
O’er black and lofty walls;
Where silence reigns profound
Save for my clanking chain;
No sound of whispering wind,
Nor beat of welcome rain—
I die far from thy hills,
O land beyond the wave!
Cradled beneath thy palms,
They will not shield my grave.”
While they were singing, the candles around the coffin revealed the sparkling tears on the half-veiled faces of the women; and I in vain strove to keep back my own. The company withdrew, except a few women who remained to pray, in turns, all through the night, and two men to make ready the bier on which the corpse was to be carried to the village.
It was late at night before I could get Juan Ángel to try to sleep. Then I went to my room, but the murmur of the women’s voices in prayer, and the sound of the machetes of the slaves who were making the bier, woke me every time I fell asleep. At four, Juan Ángel was not awake. With the eight slaves bearing the corpse, I set out. I had ordered Higinio to have the boy wait for me in the house, as I wished to keep him from the hard trial of taking leave of his mother.
None of those who went spoke a single word all the way. The country-people who overtook us, as they were going to market with their produce, were astonished at our silence, as it is customary among the peasants of the country to give themselves up to disgusting orgies during what they call the watch-nights.
As soon as the prayers and mass for the dead were over, we went to the cemetery. The grave was ready. As we were going through the graveyard gate, Juan Ángel came up to us. He had escaped Higinio’s vigilance, to run in search of his mother. When the coffin was placed at the edge of the grave, he threw himself upon it to prevent its being buried. I went up to him, wiped his tears, and said to him, gently: “It is not your mother that you see here. She is in heaven. God will not be pleased with your despair.”
“She has left me alone! She has left me alone!” repeated the unhappy boy.
“No, no,” I replied; “I am here; I love you and I always will. María, my mother, Emma, are left to you, and they will take your mother’s place.”
The coffin was lowered to the bottom of the grave. A slave threw in the first spadeful of earth. Juan Ángel rushed at him and seized the spade—an action that filled us all with distress.
We left a cross
