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<h2> CHAPTER XXVIII </h2>
<p>I was soon back in Montevideo after that. When I bade Demetria good-bye
she appeared reluctant to part with me, retaining my hand in hers for an
unusual time. For the first time in her life, probably, she was about to
be left in the company of entire strangers, and for many days past we had
been much to each other, so that it was only natural she should cling to
me a little at parting. Once more I pressed her hand and exhorted her to
be of good courage, reminding her that in a very few days all trouble and
danger would be over; still, however, she did not release my hand. This
tender reluctance to lose me was affecting and also flattering, but
slightly inopportune, for I was anxious to be in the saddle and away.
Presently she said, glancing down at her rusty habiliments, “Richard, if I
am to remain concealed here till I go to join you on board, then I must
meet your wife in these poor garments.”</p>
<p>“Oh, <i>that</i> is what you are thinking about, Demetria!” I exclaimed.</p>
<p>At once I called in our kind hostess, and when this serious matter was
explained to her she immediately offered to go to Montevideo to procure
the necessary outfit, a thing I had thought nothing about, but which had
evidently been preying on Demetria's mind.</p>
<p>When I at length reached the little suburban retreat of my aunt (by
marriage), Paquíta and I acted for some time like two demented persons, so
overjoyed were we at meeting after our long separation. I had received no
letters from her, and only two or three of the score I had written had
reached their destination, so that we had ten thousand questions to ask
and answers to make. She could never gaze enough at me or finish admiring
my bronzed skin and the respectable moustache I had grown; while she, poor
darling! looked unusually pale, yet withal so beautiful that I marvelled
at myself for having, after possessing her, considered any other woman
even passably good-looking. I gave her a circumstantial account of my
adventures, omitting only a few matters I was in honour bound not to
disclose.</p>
<p>Thus, when I told her the story of my sojourn at the <i>estancia</i>
Peralta, I said nothing to betray Demetria's confidence; nor did I think
it necessary to mention the episode of that wicked little sprite, Cleta;
with the result that she was pleased at the chivalrous conduct I had
displayed throughout the whole of that affair, and was ready to take
Demetria to her heart.</p>
<p>I had not been back twenty-four hours in Montevideo before a letter from
the Lomas de Rocha storekeeper came to justify my caution in having left
Demetria at some distance from the town. The letter informed me that Don
Hilario had quickly guessed that I had carried off his unhappy master's
daughter, and that no doubt was left in his mind when he discovered that,
on the day I left the <i>estancia</i>, a person answering to my
description in every particular had purchased a horse and side-saddle and
had ridden off towards the <i>estancia</i> in the evening. My
correspondent warned me that Don Hilario would be in Montevideo even
before his letter, also that he had discovered something about my
connection with the late rebellion, and would be sure to place the matter
in the hands of the government, so as to have me arrested, after which he
would have little difficulty in compelling Demetria to return to the <i>estancia</i>.</p>
<p>For a moment this intelligence dismayed me. Luckily, Paquíta was out of
the house when it came, and fearing that she might return and surprise me
while I was in that troubled state, I rushed out; then, skulking through
back streets and narrow lanes, peering cautiously about in fear of
encountering the minions of the law, I made my escape out of the town. My
only desire just then was to get away into some place of safety where I
would be able to think over the position quietly, and if possible devise
some plan to defeat Don Hilario, who had been a little too quick for me.
Of many schemes that suggested themselves to my mind, while I sat in the
shade of a cactus hedge about a mile from town, I finally determined, in
accordance with my old and well-tried rule, to adopt the boldest one,
which was to go straight back to Montevideo and claim the protection of my
country. The only trouble was that on my way thither I might be caught,
and then Paquíta would be in terrible distress about me, and perhaps
Demetria's escape would be prevented. While I was occupied with these
thoughts I saw a closed carriage pass by, driven towards the town by a
tipsy-looking coachman. Coming out of my hiding-place, I managed to stop
him and offered him two dollars to drive me to the British Consulate. The
carriage was a private one, but the two dollars tempted the man, so after
securing the fare in advance, he allowed me to get in, and then I closed
the windows, leant back on the cushion, and was driven rapidly and
comfortably to the house of refuge. I introduced myself to the Consul, and
told him a story concocted for the occasion, a judicious mixture of truth
and lies, to the effect that I had been unlawfully and forcibly seized and
compelled to serve in the Blanco army, and that, having escaped from the
rebels and made my way to Montevideo, I was amazed to hear that the
government proposed arresting me. He asked me a few questions, looked at
the passport which he had sent me a few days before, then, laughing
good-humouredly, put on his hat and invited me to accompany him to the War
Office close by. The secretary, Colonel Arocena, he informed me, was a
personal friend of his, and if we could see him it would be all right.
Walking by his side I felt quite safe and bold again, for I was, in a
sense, walking with my hand resting on the superb mane of the British
Lion, whose roar was not to be provoked with impunity. At the War Office I
was introduced by the Consul to his friend, Colonel Arocena, a genial old
gentleman with a bald head and a cigarette between his lips. He listened
with some interest and a smile, slightly incredulous I thought, to the sad
story of the ill-treatment I had been subjected to at the hands of Santa
Coloma's rebellious rascals. When I had finished he pushed over a sheet of
paper on which he had scrawled a few words to me, with the remark, “Here,
my young friend, take this, and you will be safe in Montevideo. We have
heard about your doings in Florida, also in Rocha, but we do not propose
going to war with England on your account.”</p>
<p>At this speech we all laughed; then when I had pocketed the paper, which
bore the sacred seal of the War Office on the margin and requested all
persons to refrain from molesting the bearer in his lawful outgoings and
incomings, we thanked the pleasant old Colonel and retired. I spent half
an hour strolling about with the Consul, then we separated. I had noticed
two men in military uniform at some distance from us when we were
together, and now, returning homewards, I found that they were following
me. By and by they overtook me, and politely intimated their intention of
making me their prisoner. I smiled, and, drawing forth my protection from
the War Office, handed it to them. They looked surprised, and gave it
back, with an apology for having molested me, then left me to pursue my
way in peace.</p>
<p>I had, of course, been very lucky throughout all this adventure; still, I
did not wish to attribute my easy escape entirely to luck, for I had, I
thought, contributed a good deal towards it by my promptness in acting and
in inventing a plausible story on the spur of the moment.</p>
<p>Feeling very much elated, I strolled along the sunny streets, gaily
swinging my cane, when, turning a corner near Doña Isidora's house, I
suddenly came face to face with Don Hilario. This unexpected encounter
threw us both off our guard, he recoiling two or three paces backwardand
turning as pale as the nature of his complexion would allow. I recovered
first from the shock. So far I had been able to baffle him, and knew,
moreover, many things of which he was ignorant; still, he was there in the
town with me and had to be reckoned with, and I quickly resolved to meet
him as a friend, affecting entire ignorance of his object in coming to
Montevideo.</p>
<p>“Don Hilario—you here! Happy the eyes that behold you,” I exclaimed,
seizing and shaking his hand, pretending to be overjoyed at the meeting.</p>
<p>In a moment he recovered his usual self-possessed manner, and when I asked
after Doña Demetria he answered after a moments hesitation that she was in
very good health.</p>
<p>“Come, Don Hilario,” I said, “we are close to my aunt Isidora's house,
where I am staying, and it will give me great pleasure to present you to
my wife, who will be glad to thank you for your kindness to me at the <i>estancia</i>.”</p>
<p>“Your wife, Don Ricardo! Do you tell me that you are married?” he
exclaimed in amazement, thinking probably that I was already the husband
of Demetria.</p>
<p>“What, did I not tell you before!” I said. “Ah, I remember speaking to
Doña Demetria about it. Strange that she has not mentioned it to you. Yes,
I was married before coming to this country—my wife is an Argentine.
Come with me and you shall see a beautiful woman, if that is an
inducement.”</p>
<p>He was without doubt astonished and mystified, but he had recovered his
mask, and was now polite, collected, watchful.</p>
<p>When we entered the house I presented him to Doña Isidora, who happened to
be in the way, and left her to entertain him. I was very glad to do so,
knowing that he would seize the opportunity to try and discover something
from the garrulous old lady, and that he would discover nothing, since she
had not been let into our secrets.</p>
<p>I found Paquíta lying down in her room having a siesta; and while she
arrayed herself at my express desire in her best dress—a black
velvet which set off her matchless beauty better than anything else, I
told her how I wished her to treat Don Hilario. She knew all about him, of
course, and hated him with all her heart, looking on him as a kind of evil
genius from whose castle I had carried off the unhappy Demetria; but I
made her understand that our wisest plan was to treat him graciously. She
readily consented, for Argentine women can be more charmingly gracious
than any other women on the globe, and what people do well they like to be
called on to do.</p>
<p>The subtle caution of our snaky guest did not serve to hide from my
watchful eyes that he was very much surprised when he beheld her. She
placed herself near him and spoke in her sweetest, artless manner of the
pleasure my return had given her, and of the gratitude she had felt
towards him and all the people at the <i>estancia</i> Peralta for the
hospitable treatment I had received there. He was, as I had foreseen,
completely carried away by her exquisite beauty and the charm of her
manner towards him. He was flattered, and exerted himself to be agreeable,
but at the same time he was very much puzzled. The baffled expression was
more apparent on his face every moment, while his restless glances darted
here and there about the room, yet ever returned, like the doomed moth to
the candle, to those lustrous violet eyes overflowing with hypocritical
kindness. Paquíta's acting delighted me, and I only hoped that he would
long suffer from the effect of the subtle poison she was introducing into
his system. When he rose to go I was sure that Demetria's disappearance
was a greater mystery to him than ever; and as a parting shot I warmly
invited him to come and see us frequently while he remained in the
capital, even offering him a bed in the house; while Paquíta, not to be
behindhand, for she had thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing,
entrusted him with a prettily worded, affectionate message to Demetria, a
person whom she already loved and hoped some day to meet.</p>
<p>Two days after this adventure I heard that Don Hilario had left
Montevideo. That he had discovered nothing I was positive; it was
possible, however, that he had left some person to watch the house, and,
as Paquíta was now anxious to get back to her own country, I determined to
delay our departure no longer.</p>
<p>Going down to the harbour, I found the captain of a small schooner trading
between Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, and, learning that he intended
leaving for the last port in three days' time, I bargained with him to
take us, and got him also to consent to receive Demetria on board at once.
I then sent a message to Mr. Barker, asking him to bring his guest up to
town and put her on board the schooner without coming near me. Two days
later, early in the morning, I heard that she was safe on board; and,
having thus baffled the scoundrel Hilario, on whose ophidian skull I
should have been very pleased to set my heel, and having still an idle day
before me, I went once more to visit the mountain, to take from its summit
my last view of the Purple Land where I had spent so many eventful days.</p>
<p>When I approached the crest of the great, solitary hill I did not gaze
admiringly on the magnificent view that opened before me, nor did the
wind, blowing fresh from the beloved Atlantic, seem to exhilarate me. My
eyes were cast down and I dragged my feet like one that was weary. Yet I
was not weary, but now I began to remember that on a former occasion I had
on this mountain spoken many vain and foolish things concerning a people
about whose character and history I was then ignorant. I also remembered
with exceeding bitterness that my visit to this land had been the cause of
great and perhaps lasting sorrow to one noble heart.</p>
<p>How often, said I to myself, have I repented of those cruel, scornful
words I addressed to Dolores at our last interview; and now once more “I
come to pluck the berries harsh and crude” of repentance and of expiation,
to humble my insular pride in the dust and unsay all the unjust things I
formerly spoke in my haste.</p>
<p>It is not an exclusively British characteristic to regard the people of
other nationalities with a certain amount of contempt, but with us,
perhaps, the feeling is stronger than with others, or else expressed with
less reserve. Let me now at last rid myself of this error, which is
harmless and perhaps even commendable in those who stay at home, and also
very natural, since it is a part of our unreasonable nature to distrust
and dislike the things that are far removed and unfamiliar. Let me at last
divest myself of these old English spectacles, framed in oak and with
lenses of horn, to bury them for ever in this mountain, which for half a
century and upwards has looked down on the struggles of a young and feeble
people against foreign aggression and domestic foes, and where a few
months ago I sang the praises of British civilisation, lamenting that it
had been planted here and abundantly watered with blood, only to be
plucked up again and cast into the sea. After my rambles in the interior,
where I carried about in me only a fading remnant of that old
time-honoured superstition to prevent the most perfect sympathy between me
and the natives I mixed with, I cannot say that I am of that opinion now.
I cannot believe that if this country had been conquered and re-colonised
by England, and all that is crooked in it made straight according to our
notions, my intercourse with the people would have had the wild,
delightful flavour I have found in it. And if that distinctive flavour
cannot be had along with the material prosperity resulting from
Anglo-Saxon energy, I must breathe the wish that this land may never know
such prosperity. I do not wish to be murdered; no man does; yet rather
than see the ostrich and deer chased beyond the horizon, the flamingo and
black-necked swan slain on the blue lakes, and the herdsman sent to twang
his romantic guitar in Hades as a preliminary to security of person, I
would prefer to go about prepared at any moment to defend my life against
the sudden assaults of the assassin.</p>
<p>We do not live by bread alone, and British occupation does not give to the
heart all the things for which it craves. Blessings may even become curses
when the gigantic power that bestows them on us scares from our midst the
shy spirits of Beauty and of Poesy. Nor is it solely because it appeals to
the poetic feelings in us that this country endears itself to my heart. It
is the perfect republic: the sense of emancipation experienced in it by
the wanderer from the Old World is indescribably sweet and novel. Even in
our ultra-civilised condition at home we do periodically escape back to
nature; and, breathing the fresh mountain air and gazing over vast
expanses of ocean and land, we find that she is still very much to us. It
is something more than these bodily sensations we experience when first
mingling with our fellow-creatures, where all men are absolutely free and
equal as here. I fancy I hear some wise person exclaiming, “No, no, no! In
name only is your Purple Land a republic; its constitution is a piece of
waste paper, its government an oligarchy tempered by assassination and
revolution.” True; but the knot of ambitious rulers all striving to pluck
each other down have no power to make the people miserable. Theunwritten
constitution, mightier than the written one, is in the heart of every man
to make him still a republican and free with a freedom it would be hard to
match anywhere else on the globe. The Bedouin himself is not so free,
since he accords an almost superstitious reverence and implicit obedience
to his sheikh. Here the lord of many leagues of land and of herds
unnumbered sits down to talk with the hired shepherd, a poor, bare-footed
fellow in his smoky <i>rancho</i>, and no class or caste difference
divides them, no consciousness of their widely different positions chills
the warm current of sympathy between two human hearts. How refreshing it
is to meet with this perfect freedom of intercourse, tempered only by that
innate courtesy and native grace of manner peculiar to Spanish Americans!
What a change to a person coming from lands with higher and lower classes,
each with its innumerable hateful subdivisions—to one who aspires
not to mingle with the class above him, yet who shudders at the slouching
carriage and abject demeanour of the class beneath him! If this absolute
equality is inconsistent with perfect political order, I for one should
grieve to see such order established. Moreover, it is by no means true
that the communities which oftenest startle us with crimes of disorder and
violence are morally worse than others. A community in which there are not
many crimes cannot be morally healthy. There were practically <i>no</i>
crimes in Peru under the Inca dynasty; it was a marvellous thing for a
person to commit an offence in that empire. And the reason for this most
unnatural state of things was this—the Inca system of government was
founded on that most iniquitous and disastrous doctrine that the
individual bears the same relation to the State as a child to its parents,
that its life from the cradle to the grave must be regulated for it by a
power it is taught to regard as omniscient—a power practically
omnipresent and almighty. In such a state there could be no individual
will, no healthy play of passions, and consequently no crime. What wonder
that a system so unspeakably repugnant to a being who feels that his will
is a divinity working within him fell to pieces at the first touch of
foreign invasion, or that it left no vestige of its pernicious existence
on the continent it had ruled! For the whole state was, so to speak,
putrid even before dissolution, and when it fell it mingled with the dust
and was forgotten. Poland, before its conquest by Russia, a country
ill-governed and disorderly as the Banda Orientál, did not mingle with
dust like that when it fell—the implacable despotism of the Czar was
unable to crush its fierce spirit; its <i>Will</i> still survived to gild
dreary oppression with hallowed dreams, to make it clutch with a fearful
joy the dagger concealed in its bosom. But I had no need to go away from
this Green Continent to illustrate the truth of what I have said. People
who talk and write about the disorderly South American republics are fond
of pointing to Brazil, that great, peaceful, progressive empire, as
setting an example to be followed. An orderly country, yes, and the people
in it steeped to their lips in every abominable vice! Compared with these
emasculated children of the equator, the Orientals are Nature's noblemen.</p>
<p>I can very well imagine some over-righteous person saying, “Alas, poor
deluded soul, how little importance can we attach to your specious
apologies of a people's lawlessness, when your own personal narrative
shows that the moral atmosphere you have been breathing has quite
corrupted you! Go back over your own record, and you will find that you
have, according to <i>our</i> notions, offended in various ways and on
divers occasions, and that you are even without the grace to repent of all
the evil things you have thought, said, and done.”</p>
<p>I have not read many books of philosophy, because when I tried to be a
philosopher “happiness was always breaking in,” as someone says; also
because I have loved to study men rather than books; but in the little I
have read there occurs a passage I remember well, and this I shall quote
as my answer to anyone who may call me an immoral person because my
passions have not always remained in a quiescent state, like hounds—to
quote the simile of a South American poet—slumbering at the feet of
the huntsman resting against a rock at noon. “We should regard the
perturbations of the mind,” says Spinoza, “not in the light of vices of
human nature, but as properties just as pertinent to it as are heat,
storms, thunder, and the like, to the nature of the atmosphere, which
phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes
by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind
has just as much pleasure in seeing them aright as in knowing such things
as flatter the senses.” Let me have the phenomena which are inconvenient
as well as the things which flatter the senses, and the chances are that
my life will be a healthier and happier one than that of the person who
spends his time on a cloud blushing at Nature's naughtiness.</p>
<p>It is often said that an ideal state—a Utopia where there is no
folly, crime, or sorrow—has a singular fascination for the mind.
Now, when I meet with a falsehood, I care not who the great persons who
proclaim it may be, I do not try to like it or believe it or mimic the
fashionable prattle of the world about it. I hate all dreams of perpetual
peace, all wonderful cities of the sun, where people consume their joyful,
monotonous years in mystic contemplations, or find their delight, like
Buddhist monks, in gazing on the ashes of dead generations of devotees.
The state is one unnatural, unspeakably repugnant: the dreamless sleep of
the grave is more tolerable to the active, healthy mind than such an
existence. If Signor Gaudentio di Lucca, still keeping himself alive by
means of his marvellous knowledge of the secrets of Nature, were to appear
before me now on this mountain to inform me that the sacred community he
resided with in Central Africa was no mere dream, and should offer to
conduct me to it, I should decline to go with him. I should prefer to
remain in the Banda Orientál, even though by so doing I should grow at
last to be as bad as any person in it, and ready to “wade through
slaughter” to the Presidential Chair. For even in my own country of
England, which is not so perfect as old Peru or the Pophar's country in
Central Africa, I have been long divided from Nature, and now in this
Oriental country, whose political misdeeds are a scandal alike to pure
England and impure Brazil, I have been reunited to her. For this reason I
love her with all her faults. Here, like Santa Coloma, I will kneel down
and kiss this stone, as an infant might kiss the breast that feeds it;
here, fearless of dirt, like John Carrickfergus, I will thrust my hands
into the loose brown soil to clasp the hands, as it were, of dear mother
Nature after our long separation.</p>
<p>Farewell, beautiful land of sunshine and storm, of virtue and of crime;
may the invaders of the future fare on your soil like those of the past
and leave you in the end to your own devices; may the chivalrous instinct
of Santa Coloma, the passion of Dolores, the loving-kindness of Candelaria
still live in your children to brighten their lives with romance and
beauty; may the blight of our superior civilisation never fall on your
wild flowers, or the yoke of our progress be laid on your herdsman—careless,
graceful, music-loving as the birds—to make him like the sullen,
abject peasant of the Old World!</p>
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