The Insurgent Chief

"I know it, mother."

"It is an unquestionable consequence of this that a deed laid at the door of one member of a family must be for all, and that if this action is shameful or guilty, all must submit to the shame of it, and bear its responsibility."

"That is true; thank you, mother, I understand you; now there only remains one point on which I am not well informed."

"To what do you allude?"

"To this – that at Santiago de Chile, and afterwards at Salto, Señor Don Zeno Cabral – that is his name, I think?"

"Yes, that is his name; well?"

"When he came to our house, did you then know this hatred that he bears us?"

"I knew it, my girl," briefly answered the marchioness.

"You knew it, mother!" cried Doña Eva, with surprise.

"Yes, I knew it, I repeat."

"But then, mother, if that were the case, why receive him on the footing of intimacy, when it would have been so easy for you to have closed the door to him!"

"Do you think that would have been possible for me?"

"Forgive this persistence, mother; but I cannot explain to myself such conduct on your part. You, endowed as you are with such exquisite tact, and so deep a knowledge of the world!"

The marchioness slightly shrugged her shoulders, while a smile of an indefinable expression played round her mouth.

"You reason foolishly, my dear Eva," she answered lightly impressing her pale lips on the forehead of the young girl. "I did not personally know Don Zeno Cabral. He was ignorant then, and probably is ignorant still, that I was mistress of the secret of his hatred – a secret of which, in fact (with a disposition less candidly honourable than that of your father), I should not have had (on account of certain particulars hurtful to me as a woman) – I should not have had, I say, to share the heavy burden. My design, in entertaining our enemy, and even in introducing him into our private intimacy, was to put him on the wrong scene – to make him believe that I was in complete ignorance; and thus excite his confidence, and so succeed, if not in making him renounce his projects against us, at least in making him modify them, or obtain the avowal of them from him. The apparent weakness of Don Zeno – his effeminate manners, his pretended gentleness, his beardless face, which makes him appear much younger than he is – everything made me suppose that I should easily succeed in overreaching him. Unhappily it has not been so. This man is of granite; nothing moves him, nothing affects him. Availing himself of irony – so much the more dangerous, as it is difficult coolly to combat it – he always knew how to meet my stratagem and repulse my attacks. Tired of this, and galled one day by the tone of biting raillery which never left him in our private interviews, I allowed myself to be carried away by anger; I grievously offended him by a bitter word that I threw in his face, and which I wished immediately to retract. But it was too late; the imprudence was irreparable. In wishing to unmask my adversary, I had allowed him to read my heart. From that moment all was over between us – or rather all commenced. After having coldly bowed to me, he withdrew, ironically warning me to be more on my guard for the future. I saw him no more till the moment when he caused us to fall into the ambuscade which puts us in his power."

While the marchioness was speaking, the countenance of Doña Eva by turns expressed contrary feelings. The young girl, a prey to an emotion she vainly tried to conquer, pressed her panting bosom, and secretly wiped her eyes, which every moment filled with tears. At last this emotion was so apparent that the marchioness could not but perceive it. She abruptly stopped, and fixing on her daughter a hard and imperious look, whilst her eyebrows knitted, and her voice assumed a tone of menace:

"What is the matter with you, niña?" asked she; "Why these tears that I see you are shedding?"

The young girl blushed and lowered her head with embarrassment.

"Answer," severely resumed the marchioness; "answer, I desire."

"Mother," stammered she, in a feeble and trembling voice, "is not what you tell me sufficient to cause the grief which you see I am suffering? I do not at all deserve the unjust anger that you display to me."

The marchioness shook her head, continuing to fix her eye upon her daughter, who, blushing and paling by turns, more and more lost countenance.

"Well," said she, "I am willing to believe what you say, but take care that someday I do not discover that you have spoken falsely – that a feeling, if not of the existence, at least of the power of which you are ignorant, and which you vainly try to conceal from me, has taken possession of your heart."

"What do you mean, mother? In the name of Heaven, I do not understand you."

"Heaven grant that I may be deceived," she replied, mournfully; "but let us quit this subject – we are getting too melancholy about it; I have warned you, and I will watch – the future will decide."

"Mother, when we are so unhappy already, why increase my sorrow by unjust reproaches?"

The marchioness darted a look, in which there was a flash of anger, but immediately recovering herself —

"You have, then, understood me?" she cried, with a calculating coolness.

The young girl shivered, fell trembling on the bosom of her mother, murmuring an answer interrupted by grief, and fainted.

The marchioness lifted her gently and laid her on a hammock. For a long time she contemplated her with an expression of anger, love, and sadness impossible to express.

"Poor, poor child!" murmured she, and falling on her knees near the hammock, she clasped her hands and addressed a fervent prayer to Heaven.

She prayed a long time thus. Suddenly she felt a burning tear fall upon her forehead. She quickly raised her head.

Her daughter, half raised upon the hammock, and leaning over her, was looking at her as she prayed.

"Mother! mother!" she cried, drawing her gently towards her.

The marchioness rose without answering, approached her daughter, and the two women fell into each other's arms, mingling their tears in an impassioned embrace.

notes

1

See "The Guide of the Desert."

2

£850 sterling.

3

Sheepskins dyed and prepared.

4

A pot of tallow.

5

O love, love, when thou takest possession of us, we may well say, Prudence, adieu!

6

Double canvas pockets, which are carried behind the saddle.

7

In a preceding work, the "Grand Chief of the Aucas," I have explained what this drink is. In Southern America it replaces tea, and is very much liked by the white inhabitants and Indians.