The Insurgent Chief

"With you, ladies, until the last gasp!" cried he, carried away by emotion.

The truth is, that the beauty of Doña Eva, joined to the romance of the situation, had completely subjugated the artist. He had forgotten everything, and only experienced one desire – that of sacrificing himself for the safety of these women, so beautiful and so unfortunate.

"I knew well that I could not be deceived!" cried the abbess, holding out to him her hand, which the painter respectfully raised to his lips.

"Yes, ladies," pursued he, "God is my witness, that all that is humanly possible to do to assure your flight, I will attempt; but, doubtless you have not addressed yourselves to me without concerting a plan. This plan it is indispensable that you make me acquainted with."

"Mon dieu, Sir!" answered the marchioness, "This plan is very simple, one such as women alone are capable of concocting."

"I am all attention, Madame."

"We have no acquaintance in this town, where we are strangers, and where, without our knowing why, it appears we have many enemies, without reckoning one single friend."

"That is pretty well my position also," said the young man, shaking his head.

"Yours, Sir!" said she, with surprise.

"Yes, yes, mine, Madame; but continue, I beg."

"Our good superior can do but one single thing for us, but that is immense – it is to open for us the gates of the convent."

"That is much, indeed!"

"Unhappily, on the other side of this gate her power ceases completely, and she is constrained to leave us to ourselves."

"Alas! Yes," said the superior.

"Hum!" murmured the painter, like an echo.

"You understand how critical would be our position, wandering alone at hazard in a town which is completely unknown to us."

"Then you thought of me!"

"Yes, Sir," she simply answered.

"And you have done well, Madame," answered the painter, with animation. "I am, perhaps, the only man incapable of betraying you in the whole town."

"Thank you for my mother and myself, Sir," gently said the young girl, who, up to that moment, had kept silence.

The painter was half dazed; the sweet and plaintive accents of that harmonious voice had made his heart beat rapidly.

"Unhappily, I am very weak myself to protect you, ladies," he resumed; "I am alone, a foreigner, suspected – more than suspected even, since I am threatened with being shortly placed on my trial."

"Oh!" said they, joining their hands in their grief, "We are lost then."

"Mon dieu!" cried the abbess, "We have placed all our hope in you."

"Wait," pursued he; "all is perhaps not so desperate as we suppose. As for me, I am preparing a plan of escape; I can only offer you one thing."

"What?" cried they, eagerly.

"To share my flight."

"Oh, willingly!" cried the young girl, clapping her hands with joy.

Then, ashamed at having allowed herself to give way to a thoughtless movement, she lowered her eyes, and concealed in the bosom of her mother her charming face, suffused with tears.

"My daughter has answered you for herself and for me, Sir," said the marchioness, proudly.

"I thank you for this confidence, of which I shall try to prove myself worthy, Madame; only I want a few days to prepare everything. I have only with me one man on whom I can rely, and I must act with the greatest prudence."

"That is right, Sir; but what do you mean by a few days?"

"Three at the least – four at the most."

"Well, we will wait. Now, can you explain to us what is the plan you have adopted?"

"I do not know it myself, Madame. I find myself in a country which is totally unknown to me, and in which I naturally want the commonest experience. I must trust to the direction of the servant of whom I have had the honour to speak to you."

"Are you quite sure of this man, Sir? Pardon me for saying this, but you know one word might ruin us."

"I am as sure of the person in question as one man can be of another. It is he who has furnished me with the means of appearing before you without awakening suspicion. I rely not only on his devotion, but also on his skill, on his courage, and especially on his experience."

"Is he a Spaniard, a foreigner, or a half-caste?"

"He does not come in any of the categories you have mentioned, Madame; he is simply an Indian Guaraní, to whom I have been fortunate enough to render some slight services, and who has vowed an eternal gratitude."

"You are right, Sir; you can no doubt reckon on this man. The Indians are brave and faithful; when they are devoted, it is to the death. Pardon me all these questions, which, without doubt, must appear very extraordinary on my part; but you know this affair does not only concern myself – it concerns also my daughter, my poor dear child."

"I think it is very natural, Madame, that you should desire to be completely informed as to my plans for our common safety. Be thoroughly persuaded that when I shall positively know what must be done, I will hasten to inform you of it, in order that if the plan formed by my servant and myself should appear to you to be defective, I may modify it according to your advice."

"Thank you, Sir; will you permit me to ask you one question more?"

"Speak, Madame. In coming here, I place myself entirely at your orders."

"Are you rich?"

The painter blushed; his eyebrows knitted.

The marchioness perceived it.

"Oh, you do not understand me, Sir," she eagerly cried; "far from me be the thought of offering you a reward. The service that you consent to render us is one of those that no treasure could pay for, and the heart alone can requite."

"Madame – " he murmured.

"Permit me to finish. We are associates now," said she, with a charming smile. "Now, in an association each one ought to take a share of the common expenses. A project like ours must be conducted with skill and celerity; a miserable question of money might mar its success or retard its execution. It is in that sense that I have spoken to you, and in which I repeat my words – are you rich?"

"In any other position but that in which fate has temporarily placed me, I should answer you – yes, Madame, for I am an artist – my tastes are simple, and I live almost on nothing, only finding joys and happiness in the ever-fresh surprises that the art which I cultivate procures me, and which I madly love. But at this moment, in the perilous position in which you and I find ourselves – when it is necessary to undertake a desperate struggle against a whole population – I must be frank with you, and admit that money, the sinews of war, almost wholly fails me. I must assure you, in a word, that I am poor."