KATE'S PASSAGE OVER THE ANDES.

Three days our poor heroine followed the coast. Her horse was then

almost unable to move; and on _his_ account, she turned inland to

a thicket for grass and shelter. As she drew near to it, a voice

challenged--'_Who goes there_?' Kate answered, '_Spain_.' '_What

people_?' '_A friend_.' It was two soldiers, deserters, and almost

starving. Kate shared her provisions with these men: and, on hearing

their plan, which was to go over the Cordilleras, she agreed to join the

party. _Their_ object was the wild one of seeking the river _Dorado_,

whose waters rolled along golden sands, and whose pebbles were emeralds.

_Hers_ was to throw herself upon a line the least liable to pursuit, and

the readiest for a new chapter of life in which oblivion might be found

for the past. After a few days of incessant climbing and fatigue, they

found themselves in the regions of perpetual snow. Summer would come as

vainly to this kingdom of frost as to the grave of her brother. No

fire, but the fire of human blood in youthful veins, could ever be kept

burning in these aerial solitudes. Fuel was rarely to be found, and

kindling a secret hardly known except to Indians. However, our Kate can

do everything, and she's the girl, if ever girl _did_ such a thing, or

ever girl did _not_ such a thing, that I back at any odds for crossing

the Cordilleras. I would bet you something now, reader, if I thought

you would deposit your stakes by return of post, (as they play at chess

through the post-office,) that Kate does the trick, that she gets down

to the other side; that the soldiers do _not_: and that the horse, if

preserved at all, is preserved in a way that will leave him very little

to boast of.

The party had gathered wild berries and esculent roots at the foot of

the mountains, and the horse was of very great use in carrying them. But

this larder was soon emptied. There was nothing then to carry; so that

the horse's value, as a beast of burthen, fell cent per cent. In fact,

very soon he could not carry himself, and it became easy to calculate

when he would reach the bottom on the wrong side the Cordilleras. He

took three steps back for one upwards. A council of war being held, the

small army resolved to slaughter their horse. He, though a member of the

expedition, had no vote, and if he had the votes would have stood three

to one--majority, two against him. He was cut into quarters; which

surprises me; for, unless _one_ quarter was considered his own share,

it reminds one too much of this amongst the many _facetiæ_ of English

midshipmen, who ask (on any one of their number looking sulky) 'if it is

his intention to marry and retire from the service upon a superannuation

of £4 4s. 4 1/2d. a year, paid quarterly by way of bothering the

purser.' The purser can't do it with the help of farthings. And

as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as

incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change

in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse

found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic.

And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever apricots were

preserved or strawberries.

On a fire, painfully devised out of broom and withered leaves, a

horse-steak was dressed, for drink, snow as allowed _a discretion_. This

ought to have revived the party, and Kate, perhaps, it _did_. But the

poor deserters were thinly clad, and they had not the boiling heart of

Catalina. More and more they drooped. Kate did her best to cheer them.

But the march was nearly at an end for _them_, and they were going

in one half hour to receive their last billet. Yet, before this

consummation, they have a strange spectacle to see; such as few places

could show, but the upper chambers of the Cordilleras. They had reached

a billowy scene of rocky masses, large and small, looking shockingly

black on their perpendicular sides as they rose out of the vast snowy

expanse. Upon the highest of these, that was accessible, Kate mounted

to look around her, and she saw--oh, rapture at such an hour!--a man

sitting on a shelf of rock with a gun by his side. She shouted with joy

to her comrades, and ran down to communicate the joyful news. Here was

a sportsman, watching, perhaps, for an eagle; and now they would have

relief. One man's cheek kindled with the hectic of sudden joy, and he

rose eagerly to march. The other was fast sinking under the fatal sleep

that frost sends before herself as her merciful minister of death; but

hearing in his dream the tidings of relief, and assisted by his friends,

he also staggeringly arose. It could not be three minutes' walk, Kate

thought, to the station of the sportsman. That thought supported them

all. Under Kate's guidance, who had taken a sailor's glance at the

bearings, they soon unthreaded the labyrinth of rocks so far as to bring

the man within view. He had not left his resting-place; their steps on

the soundless snow, naturally, he could not hear; and, as their road

brought them upon him from the rear, still less could he see them. Kate

hailed him; but so keenly was he absorbed in some speculation, or in the

object of his watching, that he took no notice of them, not even moving

his head. Kate began to think there would be another man to rouse from

sleep. Coming close behind him, she touched his shoulder, and said, 'My

friend, are you sleeping?' Yes, he _was_ sleeping; sleeping the sleep

from which there is no awaking; and the slight touch of Kate having

disturbed the equilibrium of the corpse, down it rolled on the snow:

the frozen body rang like a hollow iron cylinder; the face uppermost and

blue with mould, mouth open, teeth ghastly and bleaching in the frost,

and a frightful grin upon the lips. This dreadful spectacle finished the

struggles of the weaker man, who sank and died at once. The other made

an effort with so much spirit, that, in Kate's opinion, horror had acted

upon him beneficially as a stimulant. But it was not really so. It was

a spasm of morbid strength; a collapse succeeded; his blood began to

freeze; he sat down in spite of Kate, and _he_ also died without further

struggle. Gone are the poor suffering deserters; stretched and bleaching

upon the snow; and insulted discipline is avenged. Great kings have long

arms; and sycophants are ever at hand for the errand of the potent. What

had frost and snow to do with the quarrel? Yet _they_ made themselves

sycophantic servants of the King of Spain; and _they_ dogged his

deserters up to the summit of the Cordilleras, more surely than any

Spanish bloodhound, or any Spanish tirailleur's bullet.

Now is our Kate standing alone on the summits of the Andes, in solitude

that is shocking, for she is alone with her own afflicted conscience.

Twice before she had stood in solitude as deep upon the wild--wild

waters of the Pacific; but her conscience had been then untroubled. Now,

is there nobody left that can help; her horse is dead--the soldiers are

dead. There is nobody that she can speak to except God; and very soon

you will find that she _does_ speak to him; for already on these vast

aerial deserts He has been whispering to _her_. The condition of Kate is

exactly that of Coleridge's '_Ancient Mariner_.' But possibly, reader,

you may be amongst the many careless readers that have never fully

understood what that condition was. Suffer me to enlighten you, else you

ruin the story of the mariner; and by losing all its pathos, lose half

the jewels of its beauty.

There are three readers of the 'Ancient Mariner.' The first is gross

enough to fancy all the imagery of the mariner's visions delivered by

the poet for actual facts of experience; which being impossible, the

whole pulverizes, for that reader, into a baseless fairy tale. The

second reader is wiser than _that_; he knows that the imagery is _not_

baseless; it is the imagery of febrile delirium; really seen, but not

seen as an external reality. The mariner had caught the pestilential

fever, which carried off all his mates; he only had survived--the

delirium had vanished; but the visions that had haunted the delirium

remained. 'Yes,' says the third reader, 'they remained; naturally they

did, being scorched by fever into his brain; but how did they happen to

remain on his belief as gospel truths? The delirium had vanished:

why had not the painted scenery of the delirium vanished, except as

visionary memorials of a sorrow that was cancelled? Why was it that

craziness settled upon this mariner's brain, driving him, as if he were

a Cain, or another Wandering Jew, to 'pass like night--from land

to land;' and, at uncertain intervals, wrenching him until he made

rehearsal of his errors, even at the hard price of 'holding children

from their play, and old men from the chimney corner?' [Footnote: The

beautiful words of Sir Philip Sidney, in his '_Defense of Poesie_.']

That craziness, as the _third reader_ deciphers, rose out of a deeper

soil than any bodily affection. It had its root in penitential sorrow.

Oh, bitter is the sorrow to a conscientious heart, when, too late, it

discovers the depth of a love that has been trampled under foot! This

mariner had slain the creature that, on all the earth, loved him best.

In the darkness of his cruel superstition he had done it, to save his

human brothers from a fancied inconvenience; and yet, by that very act

of cruelty, he had himself called destruction upon their heads. The

Nemesis that followed punished _him_ through _them_--him, that wronged,

through those that wrongfully he sought to benefit. That spirit who

watches over the sanctities of love is a strong angel--is a jealous

angel; and this angel it was

'That lov'd the bird, that lov'd the man,

That shot him with his bow.'

He it was that followed the cruel archer into silent and slumbering

seas;

'Nine fathom deep he had follow'd him

Through the realms of mist and snow.'

This jealous angel it was that pursued the man into noon-day darkness,

and the vision of dying oceans, into delirium, and finally, (when

recovered from disease) into an unsettled mind.

Such, also, had been the offence of Kate; such, also was the punishment

that now is dogging her steps. She, like the mariner, had slain the one

sole creature that loved her upon the whole wide earth; she, like the

mariner, for this offence, had been hunted into frost and snow--very

soon will be hunted into delirium; and from _that_ (if she escapes with

life) will be hunted into the trouble of a heart that cannot rest.

There was the excuse of one darkness for _her_; there was the excuse of

another darkness for the mariner. But, with all the excuses that earth,

and the darkness of earth, can furnish, bitter it would be for you or

me, reader, through every hour of life, waking or dreaming, to look back

upon one fatal moment when we had pierced the heart that would have died

for us. In this only the darkness had been merciful to Kate--that it had

hidden for ever from her victim the hand that slew him. But now in such

utter solitude, her thoughts ran back to their earliest interview. She

remembered with anguish, how, on first touching the shores of America,

almost the very first word that met her ear had been from _him_, the

brother whom she had killed, about the 'Pussy' of times long past; how

the gallant young man had hung upon her words, as in her native Basque

she described her own mischievous little self, of twelve years back; how

his color went and came, whilst his loving memory of the little sister

was revived by her own descriptive traits, giving back, as in a mirror,

the fawn-like grace, the squirrel-like restlessness, that once had

kindled his own delighted laughter; how he would take no denial, but

showed on the spot, that, simply to have touched--to have kissed--to

have played with the little wild thing, that glorified, by her

innocence, the gloom of St. Sebastian's cloisters, gave a _right_ to his

hospitality; how, through _him_ only, she had found a welcome in camps;

how, through _him_, she had found the avenue to honor and distinction.

And yet this brother, so loving and generous, it was that she had

dismissed from life. She paused; she turned round, as if looking back

for his grave; she saw the dreadful wildernesses of snow which already

she had traversed.

Silent they were at this season, even as in the panting heats of noon,

the Zaarrahs of the torrid zone are oftentimes silent. Dreadful was the

silence; it was the nearest thing to the silence of the grave. Graves

were at the foot of the Andes, _that_ she knew too well; graves were at

the summit of the Andes, _that_ she saw too well. And, as she gazed, a

sudden thought flashed upon her, when her eyes settled upon the corpses

of the poor deserters--could she, like _them_, have been all this while

unconsciously executing judgment upon herself? Running from a wrath that

was doubtful, into the very jaws of a wrath that was inexorable? Flying

in panic--and behold! there was no man that pursued? For the first time

in her life, Kate trembled. _Not_ for the first time, Kate wept. Far

less for the first time was it, that Kate bent her knee--that Kate

clasped her hands--that Kate prayed. But it _was_ the first time that

she prayed as _they_ pray, for whom no more hope is left but in prayer.

Here let me pause a moment for the sake of making somebody angry. A

Frenchman, who sadly misjudges Kate, looking at her through a Parisian

opera-glass, gives it as _his_ opinion--that, because Kate first

_records_ her prayer on this occasion, therefore, now first of all she

prayed. _I_ think not so. _I_ love this Kate, blood-stained as she is;

and I could not love a woman that never bent her knee in thankfulness or

in supplication. However, we have all a right to our own little opinion;

and it is not you, '_mon cher_,' you Frenchman, that I am angry with,

but somebody else that stands behind you. You, Frenchman, and your

compatriots, I love oftentimes for your festal gaiety of heart; and I

quarrel only with your levity and that eternal worldliness that freezes

too fiercely--that absolutely blisters with its frost--like the upper

air of the Andes. _You_ speak of Kate only as too readily you speak of

all women; the instinct of a natural scepticism being to scoff at all

hidden depths of truth. Else you are civil enough to Kate; and your

'_homage_' (such as it may happen to be) is always at the service of a

woman on the shortest notice. But behind _you_, I see a worse fellow;

a gloomy fanatic; a religious sycophant that seeks to propitiate his

circle by bitterness against the offences that are most unlike his own.

And against him, I must say one word for Kate to the too hasty reader.

This villain, whom I mark for a shot if he does not get out of the

way, opens his fire on our Kate under shelter of a lie. For there is a

standing lie in the very constitution of civil society, a _necessity_

of error, misleading us as to the proportions of crime. Mere necessity

obliges man to create many acts into felonies, and to punish them as the

heaviest offences, which his better sense teaches him secretly to regard

as perhaps among the lightest. Those poor deserters, for instance, were

they necessarily without excuse? They might have been oppressively used;

but in critical times of war, no matter for the individual palliations,

the deserter from his colors _must_ be shot: there is no help for it:

as in extremities of general famine, we shoot the man (alas! we are

_obliged_ to shoot him) that is found robbing the common stores in order

to feed his own perishing children, though the offence is hardly visible

in the sight of God. Only blockheads adjust their scale of guilt to

the scale of human punishments. Now, our wicked friend the fanatic, who

calumniates Kate, abuses the advantage which, for such a purpose, he

derives from the exaggerated social estimate of all violence. Personal

security being so main an object of social union, we are obliged to

frown upon all modes of violence as hostile to the central principle

of that union. We are _obliged_ to rate it, according to the universal

results towards which it tends, and scarcely at all, according to the

special condition of circumstances, in which it may originate. Hence

a horror arises for that class of offences, which is (philosophically

speaking) exaggerated; and by daily use, the ethics of a police-office

translate themselves, insensibly, into the ethics even of religious

people. But I tell that sycophantish fanatic--not this only, viz., that

he abuses unfairly, against Kate, the advantage which he has from the

_inevitably_ distorted bias of society; but also, I tell him this second

little thing, viz., that upon turning away the glass from that one

obvious aspect of Kate's character, her too fiery disposition to

vindicate all rights by violence, and viewing her in relation

to _general_ religious capacities, she was a thousand times more

promisingly endowed than himself. It is impossible to be noble in many

things, without having many points of contact with true religion. If you

deny _that_ you it is that calumniate religion. Kate _was_ noble in many

things. Her worst errors never took a shape of self-interest or deceit.

She was brave, she was generous, she was forgiving, she bore no malice,

she was full of truth--qualities that God loves either in man or woman.

She hated sycophants and dissemblers. _I_ hate them; and more than ever

at this moment on her behalf. I wish she were but here--to give a punch

on the head to that fellow who traduces her. And, coming round again

to the occasion from which this short digression has started, viz., the

question raised by the Frenchman--whether Kate were a person likely to

_pray_ under other circumstances than those of extreme danger? I offer

it as _my_ opinion that she was. Violent people are not always such from

choice, but perhaps from situation. And, though the circumstances of

Kate's position allowed her little means for realizing her own wishes,

it is certain that those wishes pointed continually to peace and an

unworldly happiness, if _that_ were possible. The stormy clouds that

enveloped her in camps, opened overhead at intervals--showing her a far

distant blue serene. She yearned, at many times, for the rest which is

not in camps or armies; and it is certain, that she ever combined with

any plans or day-dreams of tranquillity, as their most essential ally,

some aid derived from that dovelike religion which, at St. Sebastian's,

as an infant and through girlhood, she had been taught so profoundly to

adore.

Now, let us rise from this discussion of Kate against libellers, as Kate

herself is rising from prayer, and consider, in conjunction with _her_,

the character and promise of that dreadful ground which lies immediately

before her. What is to be thought of it? I could wish we had a

theodolite here, and a spirit-level, and other instruments, for settling

some important questions. Yet no: on consideration, if one _had_ a wish

allowed by that kind fairy, without whose assistance it would be quite

impossible to send, even for the spirit-level, nobody would throw away

the wish upon things so paltry. I would not put the fairy upon any such

errand: I would order the good creature to bring no spirit-level, but a

stiff glass of spirits for Kate--a palanquin, and relays of fifty stout

bearers--all drunk, in order that they might not feel the cold. The

main interest at this moment, and the main difficulty--indeed, the 'open

question' of the case--was, to ascertain whether the ascent were yet

accomplished or not; and when would the descent commence? or had it,

perhaps, long commenced? The character of the ground, in those immediate

successions that could be connected by the eye, decided nothing; for the

undulations of the level had been so continual for miles, as to perplex

any eye but an engineer's, in attempting to judge whether, upon the

whole, the tendency were upwards or downwards. Possibly it was yet

neither way; it is, indeed, probable, that Kate had been for some time

travelling along a series of terraces, that traversed the whole breadth

of the topmost area at that point of crossing the Cordilleras, and which

perhaps, but not certainly, compensated any casual tendencies downwards

by corresponding reascents. Then came the question--how long would these

terraces yet continue? and had the ascending parts _really_ balanced

the descending?--upon _that_ seemed to rest the final chance for Kate.

Because, unless she very soon reached a lower level, and a warmer

atmosphere, mere weariness would oblige her to lie down, under a

fierceness of cold, that would not suffer her to rise after once losing

the warmth of motion; or, inversely, if she even continued in motion,

mere extremity of cold would, of itself, speedily absorb the little

surplus energy for moving, which yet remained unexhausted by weariness.

At this stage of her progress, and whilst the agonizing question seemed

yet as indeterminate as ever, Kate's struggle with despair, which had

been greatly soothed by the fervor of her prayer, revolved upon her in

deadlier blackness. All turned, she saw, upon a race against time, and

the arrears of the road; and she, poor thing! how little qualified could

_she_ be, in such a condition, for a race of any kind; and against two

such obstinate brutes as time and space! This hour of the progress,

this noontide of Kate's struggle, must have been the very crisis of

the whole. Despair was rapidly tending to ratify itself. Hope, in any

degree, would be a cordial for sustaining her efforts. But to flounder

along a dreadful chaos of snow-drifts, or snow-chasms, towards a point

of rock, which, being turned, should expose only another interminable

succession of the same character--might _that_ be endured by ebbing

spirits, by stiffening limbs, by the ghastly darkness that was now

beginning to gather upon the inner eye? And, if once despair became

triumphant, all the little arrear of physical strength would collapse at

once.

Oh! verdure of human fields, cottages of men and women, (that now

suddenly seemed all brothers and sisters,) cottages with children around

them at play, that are so far below--oh! summer and spring, flowers

and blossoms, to which, as to _his_ symbols, God has given the gorgeous

privilege of rehearsing for ever upon earth his most mysterious

perfection--Life, and the resurrections of Life--is it indeed true, that

poor Kate must never see you more? Mutteringly she put that question

to herself. But strange are the caprices of ebb and flow in the deep

fountains of human sensibilities. At this very moment, when the utter

incapacitation of despair was gathering fast at Kate's heart, a sudden

lightening shot far into her spirit, a reflux almost supernatural, from

the earliest effects of her prayer. A thought had struck her all at

once, and this thought prompted her immediately to turn round. Perhaps

it was in some blind yearning after the only memorials of life in this

frightful region, that she fixed her eye upon a point of hilly ground by

which she identified the spot near which the three corpses were lying.

The silence seemed deeper than ever. Neither was there any phantom

memorial of life for the eye or for the ear, nor wing of bird, nor echo,

nor green leaf, nor creeping thing, that moved or stirred, upon the

soundless waste. Oh, what a relief to this burthen of silence would be a

human groan! Here seemed a motive for still darker despair. And yet, at

that very moment, a pulse of joy began to thaw the ice at her heart. It

struck her, as she reviewed the ground, that undoubtedly it had been for

some time slowly descending. Her senses were much dulled by suffering;

but this thought it was, suggested by a sudden apprehension of a

continued descending movement, which had caused her to turn round.

Sight had confirmed the suggestion first derived from her own steps. The

distance attained was now sufficient to establish the tendency. Oh, yes,

yes, to a certainty she had been descending for some time. Frightful was

the spasm of joy which whispered that the worst was over. It was as when

the shadow of midnight, that murderers had relied on, is passing away

from your beleagured shelter, and dawn will soon be manifest. It was

as when a flood, that all day long has raved against the walls of your

house, has ceased (you suddenly think) to rise; yes! measured by a

golden plummet, it _is_ sinking beyond a doubt, and the darlings of

your household are saved. Kate faced round in agitation to her proper

direction. She saw, what previously, in her stunning confusion, she had

_not_ seen, that, hardly two stones' throw in advance, lay a mass

of rock, split as into a gateway. Through that opening it now became

probable that the road was lying. Hurrying forward, she passed within

the natural gates. Gates of paradise they were. Ah, what a vista

did that gateway expose before her dazzled eye? what a revelation of

heavenly promise? Full two miles long, stretched a long narrow glen,

everywhere descending, and in many parts rapidly. All was now placed

beyond a doubt. She _was_ descending--for hours, perhaps, _had_ been

descending insensibly, the mighty staircase. Yes, Kate is leaving behind

her the kingdom of frost and the victories of death. Two miles farther

there may be rest, if there is not shelter. And very soon, as the crest

of her new-born happiness, she distinguished at the other end of that

rocky vista, a pavilion-shaped mass of dark green foliage--a belt of

trees, such as we see in the lovely parks of England, but islanded by

a screen (though not everywhere occupied by the usurpations) of a thick

bushy undergrowth. Oh, verdure of dark olive foliage, offered suddenly

to fainting eyes, as if by some winged patriarchal herald of wrath

relenting--solitary Arab's tent, rising with saintly signals of peace,

in the dreadful desert, must Kate indeed die even yet, whilst she

sees but cannot reach you? Outpost on the frontier of man's dominions,

standing within life, but looking out upon everlasting death, wilt thou

hold up the anguish of thy mocking invitation, only to betray? Never,

perhaps, in this world was the line so exquisitely grazed, that parts

salvation and ruin. As the dove to her dove-cot from the swooping

hawk--as the Christian pinnace to Christian batteries, from the bloody

Mahometan corsair, so flew--so tried to fly towards the anchoring

thickets, that, alas! could not weigh their anchors and make sail to

meet her--the poor exhausted Kate from the vengeance of pursuing frost.

And she reached them; staggering, fainting, reeling, she entered beneath

the canopy of umbrageous trees. But, as oftentimes, the Hebrew fugitive

to a city of refuge, flying for his life before the avenger of blood,

was pressed so hotly that, on entering the archway of what seemed to

_him_ the heavenly city-gate, as he kneeled in deep thankfulness to kiss

its holy merciful shadow, he could not rise again, but sank instantly

with infant weakness into sleep--sometimes to wake no more; so sank, so

collapsed upon the ground, without power to choose her couch, and with

little prospect of ever rising again to her feet, the martial nun. She

lay as luck had ordered it, with her head screened by the undergrowth

of bushes, from any gales that might arise; she lay exactly as she sank,

with her eyes up to heaven; and thus it was that the nun saw, before

falling asleep, the two sights that upon earth are fittest for the

closing eyes of a nun, whether destined to open again, or to close for

ever. She saw the interlacing of boughs overhead forming a dome, that

seemed like the dome of a cathedral. She saw through the fretwork of the

foliage, another dome, far beyond, the dome of an evening sky, the dome

of some heavenly cathedral, not built with hands. She saw upon this

upper dome the vesper lights, all alive with pathetic grandeur of

coloring from a sunset that had just been rolling down like a chorus.

She had not, till now, consciously observed the time of day; whether it

were morning, or whether it were afternoon, in her confusion she had not

distinctly known. But now she whispered to herself--'_It is evening_:'

and what lurked half unconsciously in these words might be--'The sun,

that rejoices, has finished his daily toil; man, that labors, has

finished _his_; I, that suffer, have finished mine.' That might be what

she thought, but what she _said_ was--'It is evening; and the hour is

come when the _Angelus_ is sounding through St. Sebastian.' What made

her think of St. Sebastian, so far away in depths of space and time? Her

brain was wandering, now that her feet were _not_; and, because her eyes

had descended from the heavenly to the earthly dome, _that_ made

her think of earthly cathedrals, and of cathedral choirs, and of St.

Sebastian's chapel, with its silvery bells that carried the _Angelus_

far into mountain recesses. Perhaps, as her wanderings increased, she

thought herself back in childhood; became 'pussy' once again; fancied

that all since then was a frightful dream; that she was not upon the

dreadful Andes, but still kneeling in the holy chapel at vespers; still

innocent as then; loved as then she had been loved; and that all men

were liars, who said her hand was ever stained with blood. Little enough

is mentioned of the delusions which possessed her; but that little gives

a key to the impulse which her palpitating heart obeyed, and which her

rambling brain for ever reproduced in multiplying mirrors. Restlessness

kept her in waking dreams for a brief half hour. But then, fever and

delirium would wait no longer; the killing exhaustion would no longer be

refused; the fever, the delirium, and the exhaustion, swept in together

with power like an army with banners; and the nun ceased through the

gathering twilight any more to watch the cathedrals of earth, or the

more solemn cathedrals that rose in the heavens above.

All night long she slept in her verdurous St. Bernard's hospice without

awaking, and whether she would _ever_ awake seemed to depend upon

an accident. The slumber that towered above her brain was like that

fluctuating silvery column which stands in scientific tubes sinking,

rising, deepening, lightening, contracting, expanding; or like the mist

that sits, through sultry afternoons, upon the river of the American

St. Peter, sometimes rarefying for minutes into sunny gauze, sometimes

condensing for hours into palls of funeral darkness. You fancy that,

after twelve hours of _any_ sleep, she must have been refreshed; better

at least than she was last night. Ah! but sleep is not always sent upon

missions of refreshment. Sleep is sometimes the secret chamber in which

death arranges his machinery. Sleep is sometimes that deep mysterious

atmosphere, in which the human spirit is slowly unsettling its wings for

flight from earthly tenements. It is now eight o'clock in the morning;

and, to all appearance, if Kate should receive no aid before noon, when

next the sun is departing to his rest, Kate will be departing to hers;

when next the sun is holding out his golden Christian signal to man,

that the hour is come for letting his anger go down, Kate will be

sleeping away for ever into the arms of brotherly forgiveness.

What is wanted just now for Kate, supposing Kate herself to be wanted

by this world, is, that this world would be kind enough to send her a

little brandy before it is too late. The simple truth was, and a truth

which I have known to take place in more ladies than Kate, who died

or did _not_ die, accordingly, as they had or had not an adviser like

myself, capable of giving so sound an opinion, that the jewelly star of

life had descended too far down the arch towards setting, for any chance

of re-ascending by _spontaneous_ effort. The fire was still burning

in secret, but needed to be rekindled by potent artificial breath. It

lingered, and _might_ linger, but would never culminate again without

some stimulus from earthly vineyards. [Footnote: Though not exactly in

the same circumstances as Kate, or sleeping, _à la belle étoile_, on

a declivity of the Andes, I have known (or heard circumstantially

reported) the cases of many ladies besides Kate, who were in precisely

the same critical danger of perishing for want of a little brandy.

A dessert spoonful or two would have saved them. Avaunt! you wicked

'Temperance' medallist! repent as fast as ever you can, or, perhaps the

next time we hear of you, _anasarca_ and _hydro-thorax_ will be running

after you to punish your shocking excesses in water. Seriously, the

case is one of constant recurrence, and constantly ending fatally from

_unseasonable_ and pedantic rigor of temperance. The fact is, that the

medical profession composes the most generous and liberal body of

men amongst us; taken generally, by much the most enlightened; but

professionally, the most timid. Want of boldness in the administration

of opium, &c., though they can be bold enough with mercury, is their

besetting infirmity. And from this infirmity females suffer most.

One instance I need hardly mention, the fatal case of an august lady,

mourned by nations, with respect to whom it was, and is, the belief of

multitudes to this hour (well able to judge), that she would have been

saved by a glass of brandy; and her attendant, who shot himself, came to

think so too late--too late for _her_, and too late for himself. Amongst

many cases of the same nature, which personally I have been acquainted

with, twenty years ago, a man, illustrious for his intellectual

accomplishments, mentioned to me that his own wife, during her first or

second confinement, was suddenly reported to him, by one of her female

attendants, (who slipped away unobserved by the medical people,) as

undoubtedly sinking fast. He hurried to her chamber, and _saw_ that it

was so. The presiding medical authority, however, was inexorable. 'Oh,

by no means,' shaking his ambrosial wig, 'any stimulant at this

crisis would be fatal.' But no authority could overrule the concurrent

testimony of all symptoms, and of all unprofessional opinions. By some

pious falsehood my friend smuggled the doctor out of the room, and

immediately smuggled a glass of brandy into the poor lady's lips. She

recovered with magical power. The doctor is now dead, and went to his

grave under the delusive persuasion--that not any vile glass of brandy,

but the stern refusal of all brandy, was the thing that saved his

collapsing patient. The patient herself, who might naturally know

something of the matter, was of a different opinion. She sided with the

factious body around her bed, (comprehending all beside the doctor,) who

felt sure that death was rapidly approaching, _barring_ that brandy.

The same result in the same appalling crisis, I have known repeatedly

produced by twenty-five drops of laudanum. An obstinate man will

say--'Oh, never listen to a non-medical man like this writer. Consult in

such a case your medical adviser.' You will, will you? Then let me tell

you, that you are missing the very logic of all I have been saying for

the improvement of blockheads, which is--that you should consult any man

_but_ a medical man, since no other man has any obstinate prejudice of

professional timidity. N. B.--I prescribe for Kate _gratis_, because

she, poor thing! has so little to give. But from other ladies, who may

have the happiness to benefit by my advice, I expect a fee--not so large

a one considering the service--a flowering plant, suppose the _second_

best in their collection. I know it would be of no use to ask for the

_very_ best, (which else I could wish to do,) because that would only be

leading them into little fibs. I don't insist on a _Yucca gloriosa_, or

a _Magnolia speciosissima_, (I hope there _is_ such a plant)--a rose or

a violet will do. I am sure there is such a plant as that. And if they

settle their debts justly, I shall very soon be master of the prettiest

little conservatory in England. For, treat it not as a jest, reader;

no case of timid practice is so fatally frequent.] Kate was ever lucky,

though ever unfortunate; and the world, being of my opinion that Kate

was worth saving, made up its mind about half-past eight o'clock in the

morning to save her. Just at that time, when the night was over, and its

sufferings were hidden--in one of those intermitting gleams that for

a moment or two lightened the clouds of her slumber, Kate's dull ear

caught a sound that for years had spoken a familiar language to _her_.

What was it? It was the sound, though muffled and deadened, like the

ear that heard it, of horsemen advancing. Interpreted by the tumultuous

dreams of Kate, was it the cavalry of Spain, at whose head so often she

had charged the bloody Indian scalpers? Was it, according to the legend

of ancient days, cavalry that had been sown by her brother's blood,

cavalry that rose from the ground on an inquest of retribution, and were

racing up the Andes to seize her? Her dreams that had opened sullenly to

the sound waited for no answer, but closed again into pompous darkness.

Happily, the horsemen had caught the glimpse of some bright ornament,

clasp, or aiguillette, on Kate's dress. They were hunters and foresters

from below; servants in the household of a beneficent lady; and in some

pursuit of flying game had wandered beyond their ordinary limits. Struck

by the sudden scintillation from Kate's dress played upon by the morning

sun, they rode up to the thicket. Great was their surprise, great their

pity, to see a young officer in uniform stretched within the bushes upon

the ground, and perhaps dying. Borderers from childhood on this dreadful

frontier, sacred to winter and death, they understood the case at once.

They dismounted: and with the tenderness of women, raising the poor

frozen cornet in their arms, washed her temples with brandy, whilst one,

at intervals, suffered a few drops to trickle within her lips. As the

restoration of a warm bed was now most likely to be successful, they

lifted the helpless stranger upon a horse, walking on each side with

supporting arms. Once again our Kate is in the saddle; once again a

Spanish Caballador. But Kate's bridle-hand is deadly cold. And her

spurs, that she had never unfastened since leaving the monastic asylum,

hung as idle as the flapping sail that fills unsteadily with the breeze

upon a stranded ship.

This procession had some miles to go, and over difficult ground; but at

length it reached the forest-like park and the chateau of the wealthy

proprietress. Kate was still half-frozen and speechless, except at

intervals. Heavens! can this corpse-like, languishing young woman, be

the Kate that once, in her radiant girlhood, rode with a handful of

comrades into a column of two thousand enemies, that saw her comrades

die, that persisted when all were dead, that tore from the heart of

all resistance the banner of her native Spain? Chance and change have

'written strange defeatures in her face.' Much is changed; but some

things are not changed: there is still kindness that overflows with

pity: there is still helplessness that asks for this pity without a

voice: she is now received by a Senora, not less kind than that maternal

aunt, who, on the night of her birth, first welcomed her to a loving

home; and she, the heroine of Spain, is herself as helpless now as that

little lady who, then at ten minutes of age, was kissed and blessed by

all the household of St. Sebastian.

Let us suppose Kate placed in a warm bed. Let us suppose her in a few

hours recovering steady consciousness; in a few days recovering some

power of self-support; in a fortnight able to seek the gay saloon,

where the Senora was sitting alone, and rendering thanks, with that

deep sincerity which ever characterized our wild-hearted Kate, for the

critical services received from that lady and her establishment.

This lady, a widow, was what the French call a _métisse_, the Spaniards

a _mestizza_; that is, the daughter of a genuine Spaniard, and an Indian

mother. I shall call her simply a _creole_, [Footnote: 'Creole.'--At

that time the infusion of negro or African blood was small.

Consequently none of the negro hideousness was diffused. After these

intercomplexities had arisen between all complications of descent from

three original strands, European, American, African, the distinctions

of social consideration founded on them bred names so many, that a

court calendar was necessary to keep you from blundering. As yet,

the varieties were few. Meantime, the word _creole_ has always been

misapplied in our English colonies to a person (though of strictly

European blood,) simply because _born_ in the West Indies. In this

English use, it expresses the same difference as the Romans indicated by

_Hispanus_ and _Hispanicus_. The first meant a person of Spanish blood,

a native of Spain; the second, a Roman born in Spain. So of _Germanus_

and _Germanicus_, _Italus_ and _Italicus_, _Anglus_ and _Anglicus_, &c.;

an important distinction, on which see Casaubon _apud Scriptores.

Hist. Augustan._] which will indicate her want of pure Spanish blood

sufficiently to explain her deference for those who had it. She was a

kind, liberal woman; rich rather more than needed where there were no

opera boxes to rent--a widow about fifty years old in the wicked world's

account, some forty-four in her own; and happy, above all, in the

possession of a most lovely daughter, whom even the wicked world did

not accuse of more than sixteen years. This daughter, Juana, was--But

stop--let her open the door of the saloon in which the Senora and the

cornet are conversing, and speak for herself. She did so, after an hour

had passed; which length of time, to _her_ that never had any business

whatever in her innocent life, seemed sufficient to settle the business

of the old world and the new. Had Pietro Diaz (as Catalina now called

herself) been really a Peter, and not a sham Peter, what a vision of

loveliness would have rushed upon his sensibilities as the door

opened! Do not expect me to describe her, for which, however, there are

materials extant, sleeping in archives, where they have slept for two

hundred and twenty years. It is enough that she is reported to

have united the stately tread of Andalusian women with the innocent

voluptuousness of Peruvian eyes. As to her complexion and figure, be it

known that Juana's father was a gentleman from Grenada, having in his

veins the grandest blood of all this earth, blood of Goths and Vandals,

tainted (for which Heaven be thanked!) twice over with blood of

Arabs--once through Moors, once through Jews; [Footnote: It is well

known, that the very reason why the Spanish of all nations became the

most gloomily jealous of a Jewish cross in the pedigree, was because,

until the vigilance of the Church rose into ferocity, in no nation was

such a cross so common. The hatred of fear is ever the deepest. And men

hated the Jewish taint, as once in Jerusalem they hated the leprosy,

because even whilst they raved against it, the secret proofs of it might

be detected amongst their own kindred, even as in the Temple, whilst

once a king rose in mutiny against the priesthood, (2 Chron. xxvi

16-20,) suddenly the leprosy that dethroned him, blazed out upon his

forehead.] whilst from her grandmother, Juana drew the deep subtle

melancholy and the beautiful contours of limb which belong to the Indian

race--a race destined silently and slowly to fade from the earth. No

awkwardness was or could be in this antelope, when gliding with forest

grace into the room--no town-bred shame--nothing but the unaffected

pleasure of one who wishes to speak a fervent welcome, but knows not if

she ought--the astonishment of a Miranda, bred in utter solitude, when

first beholding a princely Ferdinand--and just so much reserve as to

remind you, that if Catalina thought fit to dissemble her sex, she

did _not_. And consider, reader, if you look back and are a great

arithmetician, that whilst the Senora had only fifty per cent of Spanish

blood, Juana had seventy-five; so that her Indian melancholy after all

was swallowed up for the present by her Vandal, by her Arab, by her

Spanish fire.

Catalina, seared as she was by the world, has left it evident in her

memoirs that she was touched more than she wished to be by this

innocent child. Juana formed a brief lull for Catalina in her too stormy

existence. And if for _her_ in this life the sweet reality of a sister

had been possible, here was the sister she would have chosen. On the

other hand, what might Juana think of the cornet? To have been thrown

upon the kind hospitalities of her native home, to have been rescued

by her mother's servants from that fearful death which, lying but a few

miles off, had filled her nursery with traditionary tragedies,--_that_

was sufficient to create an interest in the stranger. But his bold

martial demeanor, his yet youthful style of beauty, his frank manners,

his animated conversation that reported a hundred contests with

suffering and peril, wakened for the first time her admiration. Men she

had never seen before, except menial servants, or a casual priest. But

here was a gentleman, young like herself, that rode in the cavalry of

Spain--that carried the banner of the only potentate whom Peruvians knew

of--the King of the Spains and the Indies--that had doubled Cape Horn,

that had crossed the Andes, that had suffered shipwreck, that had rocked

upon fifty storms, and had wrestled for life through fifty battles.

The reader knows all that followed. The sisterly love which Catalina

did really feel for this young mountaineer was inevitably misconstrued.

Embarrassed, but not able, from sincere affection, or almost in bare

propriety, to refuse such expressions of feeling as corresponded to the

artless and involuntary kindnesses of the ingenuous Juana, one day the

cornet was surprised by mamma in the act of encircling her daughter's

waist with his martial arm, although waltzing was premature by at least

two centuries in Peru. She taxed him instantly with dishonorably abusing

her confidence. The cornet made but a bad defence. He muttered something

about '_fraternal affection_,' about 'esteem,' and a great deal of

metaphysical words that are destined to remain untranslated in their

original Spanish. The good Senora, though she could boast only of

forty-four years' experience, was not altogether to be '_had_' in that

fashion--she was as learned as if she had been fifty, and she brought

matters to a speedy crisis. 'You are a Spaniard,' she said, 'a

gentleman, therefore; _remember_ that you are a gentleman. This very

night, if your intentions are not serious, quit my house. Go to Tucuman;

you shall command my horses and servants; but stay no longer to increase

the sorrow that already you will have left behind you. My daughter loves

you. That is sorrow enough, if you are trifling with us. But, if not,

and you also love _her_, and can be happy in our solitary mode of life,

stay with us--stay for ever. Marry Juana with my free consent. I ask not

for wealth. Mine is sufficient for you both.' The cornet protested

that the honor was one never contemplated by _him_--that it was too

great--that--. But, of course, reader, you know that 'gammon' flourishes

in Peru, amongst the silver mines, as well as in some more boreal lands

that produce little better than copper and tin. 'Tin,' however, has its

uses. The delighted Senora overruled all objections, great and small;

and she confirmed Juana's notion that the business of two worlds could

be transacted in an hour, by settling her daughter's future happiness in

exactly twenty minutes. The poor, weak Catalina, not acting now in any

spirit of recklessness, grieving sincerely for the gulf that was opening

before her, and yet shrinking effeminately from the momentary shock

that would be inflicted by a firm adherence to her duty, clinging to the

anodyne of a short delay, allowed herself to be installed as the

lover of Juana. Considerations of convenience, however, postponed the

marriage. It was requisite to make various purchases; and for this, it

was requisite to visit Tucuman, where, also, the marriage ceremony could

be performed with more circumstantial splendor. To Tucuman, therefore,

after some weeks' interval, the whole party repaired. And at Tucuman it

was that the tragical events arose, which, whilst interrupting such a

mockery for ever, left the poor Juana still happily deceived, and never

believing for a moment that hers was a rejected or a deluded heart.

One reporter of Mr. De Ferrer's narrative forgets his usual generosity,

when he says that the Senora's gift of her daughter to the Alferez was

not quite so disinterested as it seemed to be. Certainly it was not so

disinterested as European ignorance might fancy it: but it was quite as

much so as it ought to have been, in balancing the interests of a child.

Very true it is--that, being a genuine Spaniard, who was still a rare

creature in so vast a world as Peru, being a Spartan amongst Helots, an

Englishman amongst Savages, an Alferez would in those days have been

a natural noble. His alliance created honor for his wife and for his

descendants. Something, therefore, the cornet would add to the family

consideration. But, instead of selfishness, it argued just regard for

her daughter's interest to build upon this, as some sort of equipoise to

the wealth which her daughter would bring.

Spaniard, however, as he was, our Alferez on reaching Tucuman found no

Spaniards to mix with, but instead twelve Portuguese.

Catalina remembered the Spanish proverb--'Subtract from a Spaniard all

his good qualities, and the remainder makes a pretty fair Portuguese;'

but, as there was nobody else to gamble with, she entered freely into

their society. Very soon she suspected that there was foul play:

all modes of doctoring dice had been made familiar to _her_ by the

experience of camps. She watched; and, by the time she had lost her

final coin, she was satisfied that she had been plundered. In her first

anger she would have been glad to switch the whole dozen across the

eyes; but, as twelve to one were too great odds, she determined on

limiting her vengeance to the immediate culprit. Him she followed into

the street; and coming near enough to distinguish his profile reflected

on a wall, she continued to keep him in view from a short distance. The

light-hearted young cavalier whistled, as he went, an old Portuguese

ballad of romance; and in a quarter of an hour came up to an house, the

front door of which he began to open with a pass-key. This operation

was the signal for Catalina that the hour of vengeance had struck;

and, stepping hastily up, she tapped the Portuguese on the shoulder,

saying--'Senor, you are a robber!' The Portuguese turned coolly round,

and, seeing his gaming antagonist, replied--'Possibly, Sir; but I have

no particular fancy for being told so,' at the same time drawing his

sword. Catalina had not designed to take any advantage; and the touching

him on the shoulder, with the interchange of speeches, and the known

character of Kate, sufficiently imply it. But it is too probable in such

cases, that the party whose intention has been regularly settled from

the first, will, and must have an advantage unconsciously over a man

so abruptly thrown on his defence. However this might be, they had not

fought a minute before Catalina passed her sword through her opponent's

body; and without a groan or a sigh, the Portuguese cavalier fell dead

at his own door. Kate searched the street with her ears, and (as far as

the indistinctness of night allowed) with her eyes. All was profoundly

silent; and she was satisfied that no human figure was in motion. What

should be done with the body? A glance at the door of the house settled

_that_: Fernando had himself opened it at the very moment when

he received the summons to turn round. She dragged the corpse in,

therefore, to the foot of the staircase, put the key by the dead man's

side, and then issuing softly into the street, drew the door close with

as little noise as possible. Catalina again paused to listen and to

watch, went home to the hospitable Senora's house, retired to bed, fell

asleep, and early the next morning was awakened by the Corregidor and

four alguazils.

The lawlessness of all that followed strikingly exposes the frightful

state of criminal justice at that time, wherever Spanish law prevailed.

No evidence appeared to connect Catalina in any way with the death of

Fernando Acosta. The Portuguese gamblers, besides that perhaps they

thought lightly of such an accident, might have reasons of their own for

drawing off public attention from their pursuits in Tucuman: not one

of these men came forward openly; else the circumstances at the gaming

table, and the departure of Catalina so closely on the heels of her

opponent, would have suggested reasonable grounds for detaining her

until some further light should be obtained. As it was, her imprisonment

rested upon no colorable ground whatever, unless the magistrate had

received some anonymous information, which, however, he never alleged.

One comfort there was, meantime, in Spanish injustice: it did not

loiter. Full gallop it went over the ground: one week often sufficed

for informations--for trial--for execution; and the only bad consequence

was, that a second or a third week sometimes exposed the disagreeable

fact that everything had been 'premature;' a solemn sacrifice had

been made to offended justice, in which all was right except as to the

victim; it was the wrong man; and _that_ gave extra trouble; for then

all was to do over again, another man to be executed, and, possibly,

still to be caught.

Justice moved at her usual Spanish rate in the present case. Kate was

obliged to rise instantly; not suffered to speak to anybody in the

house, though, in going out, a door opened, and she saw the young Juana

looking out with saddest Indian expression. In one day the trial was all

finished. Catalina said (which was true) that she hardly knew Acosta;

and that people of her rank were used to attack their enemies face to

face, not by murderous surprises. The magistrates were impressed with

Catalina's answers (yet answered to _what_?) Things were beginning to

look well, when all was suddenly upset by two witnesses, whom the reader

(who is a sort of accomplice after the fact, having been privately let

into the truths of the case, and having concealed his knowledge), will

know at once to be false witnesses, but whom the old Spanish buzwigs

doated on as models of all that could be looked for in the best. Both

were very ill-looking fellows, as it was their duty to be. And the first

deposed as follows:--That through his quarter of Tucuman, the fact was

notorious of Acosta's wife being the object of a criminal pursuit on the

part of the Alferez (Catalina): that, _doubtless_, the injured husband

had surprised the prisoner, which, of course, had led to the murder,

to the staircase, to the key--to everything, in short, that could be

wished; no--stop! what am I saying?--to everything that ought to be

abominated. Finally--for he had now settled the main question--that

he had a friend who would take up the case where he himself, from

short-sightedness, was obliged to lay it down.' This friend, the Pythias

of this short-sighted Damon started up in a frenzy of virtue at this

summons, and, rushing to the front of the alguazils, said, 'That since

his friend had proved sufficiently the fact of the Alferez having been

lurking in the house, and having murdered a man, all that rested upon

_him_ to show was, how that murderer got out of the house; which he

could do satisfactorily; for there was a balcony running along the

windows on the second floor, one of which windows he himself, lurking

in a corner of the street, saw the Alferez throw up, and from the said

balcony take a flying leap into the said street.' Evidence like this was

conclusive; no defence was listened to, nor indeed had the prisoner

any to produce. The Alferez could deny neither the staircase nor the

balcony: the street is there to this day, like the bricks in Jack Cade's

Chimney, testifying all that may be required; and, as to our friend who

saw the leap, there he was; nobody could deny _him_. The prisoner might

indeed have suggested that she never heard of Acosta's wife, nor had

the existence of such a wife been ripened even into a suspicion. But

the bench were satisfied; chopping logic was of no use; and sentence was

pronounced--that on the eighth day from the day of arrest, the Alferez

should be executed in the public square.

It was not amongst the weaknesses of Catalina--who had so often

inflicted death, and, by her own journal, thought so lightly of

inflicting it (if not under cowardly advantages)--to shrink from facing

death in her own person. Many incidents in her career show the coolness

and even gaiety with which, in any case where death was apparently

inevitable, she would have gone to meet it. But in this case she _had_

a temptation for escaping it, which was probably in her power. She had

only to reveal the secret of her sex, and the ridiculous witnesses,

beyond whose testimony there was nothing at all against her, must at

once be covered with derision. Catalina had some liking for fun; and a

main inducement to this course was, that it would enable her to say to

the judges, 'Now you see what old fools you've made of yourselves;

every woman and child in Peru will soon be laughing at you.' I must

acknowledge my own weakness; this last temptation I could _not_ have

withstood; flesh is weak, and fun is strong. But Catalina _did_. On

consideration she fancied, that although the particular motive for

murdering Acosta would be dismissed with laughter, still this might not

clear her of the murder, which on some _other_ motive she might have

committed. But supposing that she were cleared altogether, what most of

all she feared was, that the publication of her sex would throw a reflex

light upon many past transactions in her life--would instantly find

its way to Spain--and would probably soon bring her within the tender

attentions of the Inquisition. She kept firm to the resolution of not

saving her life by this discovery. And so far as her fate lay in her own

hands, she would (as the reader will perceive from a little incident at

the scaffold) have perished to a certainty. But even at this point, how

strange a case! A woman _falsely_ accused of an act which she really

_did_ commit! And falsely accused of a true offence upon a motive that

was impossible!

As the sun set upon the seventh day, when the hours were numbered

for the prisoner, there filed into her cell four persons in religious

habits. They came on the charitable mission of preparing the poor

convict for death. Catalina, however, watching all things narrowly,

remarked something earnest and significant in the eye of the leader, as

of one who had some secret communication to make. She contrived to clasp

this man's hands, as if in the energy of internal struggles, and _he_

contrived to slip into hers the very smallest of billets from poor

Juana. It contained, for indeed it _could_ contain, only these three

words--'Do not confess. J.' This one caution, so simple and so brief,

was a talisman. It did not refer to any confession of the crime; _that_

would have been assuming what Juana was neither entitled nor disposed

to assume, but, in the technical sense of the Church, to the act of

devotional confession. Catalina found a single moment for a glance at

it--understood the whole--resolutely refused to confess, as a person

unsettled in her religious opinions, that needed spiritual instructions,

and the four monks withdrew to make their report. The principal judge,

upon hearing of the prisoner's impenitence, granted another day. At the

end of _that_, no change having occurred either in the prisoner's

mind, or in the circumstances, he issued his warrant for the execution.

Accordingly, as the sun went down, the sad procession formed within the

prison. Into the great square of Tucuman it moved, where the scaffold

had been built, and the whole city had assembled for the spectacle.

Catalina steadily ascended the ladder of the scaffold; even then she

resolved not to benefit by revealing her sex; even then it was that she

expressed her scorn for the lubberly executioner's mode of tying a knot;

did it herself in a 'ship-shape,' orthodox manner; received in return

the enthusiastic plaudits of the crowd, and so far ran the risk of

precipitating her fate; for the timid magistrates, fearing a rescue from

the impetuous mob, angrily ordered the executioner to finish the scene.

The clatter of a galloping horse, however, at this instant forced them

to pause. The crowd opened a road for the agitated horseman, who was

the bearer of an order from the President of La Plata to suspend the

execution until two prisoners could be examined. The whole was the

work of the Senora and her daughter. The elder lady, having gathered

informations against the witnesses, had pursued them to La Plata. There,

by her influence with the Governor, they were arrested; recognised as

old malefactors; and in their terror had partly confessed their perjury.

Catalina was removed to La Plata; solemnly acquitted; and, by the advice

of the President, for the present the connection with the Senora's

family was postponed indefinitely.

Now was the last adventure approaching that ever Catalina should see in

the new world. Some fine sights she may yet see in Europe, but nothing

after this (_which she has recorded_) in America. Europe, if it had

ever heard of her name (which very shortly it _shall_), Kings, Pope,

Cardinals, if they were but aware of her existence (which in six months

they _shall_ be), would thirst for an introduction to our Catalina.

You hardly thought now, reader, that she was such a great person, or

anybody's pet but yours and mine. Bless you, Sir, she would scorn to

look at _us_. I tell you, royalties are languishing to see her, or soon

_will_ be. But how can this come to pass, if she is to continue in her

present obscurity? Certainly it cannot without some great _peripetteia_

or vertiginous whirl of fortune; which, therefore, you shall now behold

taking place in one turn of her next adventure. _That_ shall let in

a light, _that_ shall throw back a Claude Lorraine gleam over all

the past, able to make Kings, that would have cared not for her under

Peruvian daylight, come to glorify her setting beams.

The Senora--and, observe, whatever kindness she does to Catalina speaks

secretly from two hearts, her own and Juana's--had, by the advice of

Mr. President Mendonia, given sufficient money for Catalina's travelling

expenses. So far well. But Mr. M. chose to add a little codicil to this

bequest of the Senora's, never suggested by her or by her daughter.

'Pray,' said this inquisitive President, who surely might have found

business enough in La Plata, 'Pray, Senor Pietro Diaz, did you ever live

at Concepcion? And were you ever acquainted there with Senor Miguel de

Erauso? That man, Sir, was my friend.' What a pity that on this occasion

Catalina could not venture to be candid! What a capital speech it

would have made to say--'_Friend_ were you? I think you could hardly

be _that_, with seven hundred miles between you. But that man was _my_

friend also; and, secondly, my brother. True it is I killed him. But if

you happen to know that this was by pure mistake in the dark, what

an old rogue you must be to throw _that_ in my teeth, which is the

affliction of my life!' Again, however, as so often in the same

circumstances, Catalina thought that it would cause more ruin than it

could heal to be candid; and, indeed, if she were really _P. Diaz, Esq.

_, how came she to be brother to the late Mr. Erauso? On consideration,

also, if she could not tell _all_, merely to have professed a fraternal

connection which never was avowed by either whilst living together,

would not have brightened the reputation of Catalina, which too surely

required a scouring. Still, from my kindness for poor Kate, I feel

uncharitably towards the president for advising Senor Pietro 'to travel

for his health.' What had _he_ to do with people's health? However, Mr.

Peter, as he had pocketed the Senora's money, thought it right to pocket

also the advice that accompanied its payment. That he might be in a

condition to do so, he went off to buy a horse. He was in luck to-day.

For beside money and advice, he obtained, at a low rate, a horse both

beautiful and serviceable for a journey. To Paz it was, a city of

prosperous name, that the cornet first moved. But Paz did not fulfil the

promise of its name. For it laid the grounds of a feud that drove our

Kate out of America.

Her first adventure was a bagatelle, and fitter for a jest-book than a

history; yet it proved no jest either, since it led to the tragedy that

followed. Riding into Paz, our gallant standard-bearer and her bonny

black horse drew all eyes, _comme de raison_, upon their separate

charms. This was inevitable amongst the indolent population of a Spanish

town; and Kate was used to it. But, having recently had a little too

much of the public attention, she felt nervous on remarking two soldiers

eyeing the handsome horse and the handsome rider, with an attention that

seemed too solemn for mere _aesthetics_. However, Kate was not the kind

of person to let anything dwell on her spirits, especially if it

took the shape of impudence; and, whistling gaily, she was riding

forward--when, who should cross her path but the Alcalde! Ah! Alcalde,

you see a person now that has a mission against you, though quite

unknown to herself. He looked so sternly, that Kate asked if his worship

had any commands. 'These men,' said the Alcalde, 'these two soldiers,

say that this horse is stolen.' To one who had so narrowly and so lately

escaped the balcony witness and his friend, it was really no laughing

matter to hear of new affidavits in preparation. Kate was nervous, but

never disconcerted. In a moment she had twitched off a saddle-cloth on

which she sat; and throwing it over the horse's head, so as to cover up

all between the ears and the mouth, she replied, 'that she had bought

and paid for the horse at La Plata. But now, your worship, if this horse

has really been stolen from these men, they must know well of which eye

it is blind; for it _can_ be only in the right eye or the left.' One

of the soldiers cried out instantly, that it was the left eye; but

the other said, 'No, no, you forget, it's the right.' Kate maliciously

called attention to this little schism. But the men said, 'Ah, _that_

was nothing--they were hurried; but now, on recollecting themselves,

they were agreed that it was the left eye.' Did they stand to that? 'Oh

yes, positive they were, left eye, left.'

Upon which our Kate, twitching off the horse-cloth, said gaily to the

magistrate, 'Now, Sir, please to observe that this horse has nothing

the matter with either eye.' And in fact it _was_ so. Then his worship

ordered his alguazils to apprehend the two witnesses, who posted off to

bread and water, with other reversionary advantages, whilst Kate rode in

quest of the best dinner that Paz could furnish.

This Alcalde's acquaintance, however, was not destined to drop here.

Something had appeared in the young _caballero's_ bearing, which made

it painful to have addressed him with harshness, or for a moment to

have entertained such a charge against such a person. He despatched his

cousin, therefore, Don Antonio Calderon, to offer his apologies, and at

the same time to request that the stranger, whose rank and quality he

regretted not to have known, would do him the honor to come and dine

with him. This explanation, and the fact that Don Antonio had already

proclaimed his own position as cousin to the magistrate and nephew

to the Bishop of Cuzco, obliged Catalina to say, after thanking the

gentlemen for their obliging attentions, 'I myself hold the rank of

Alferez in the service of his Catholic Majesty. I am a native of Biscay,

and I am now repairing to Cuzco on private business.' 'To Cuzco!'

exclaimed Don Antonio, 'how very fortunate! My cousin is a Basque like

you; and, like you, he starts for Cuzco to-morrow morning; so that, if

it is agreeable to you, Senor Alferez, we will travel together.' It was

settled that they should. To travel--amongst 'balcony witnesses,' and

anglers for 'blind horses'--not merely with a just man, but with the

very abstract idea and riding allegory of justice, was too delightful to

the storm-wearied cornet; and he cheerfully accompanied Don Antonio

to the house of the magistrate, called Don Pedro de Chavarria.

Distinguished was his reception; the Alcalde personally renewed his

regrets for the ridiculous scene of the two scampish oculists, and

presented him to his wife, a splendid Andalusian beauty, to whom he had

been married about a year.

This lady there is a reason for describing; and the French reporter

of Catalina's memoirs dwells upon the theme. She united, he says,

the sweetness of the German lady with the energy of the Arabian, a

combination hard to judge of. As to her feet, he adds, I say nothing;

for she had scarcely any at all. '_Je ne parle point de ses pieds, elle

n'en avait presque pas_.' 'Poor lady!' says a compassionate rustic: 'no

feet! What a shocking thing that so fine a woman should have been so

sadly mutilated!' Oh, my dear rustic, you're quite in the wrong box. The

Frenchman means this as the very highest compliment. Beautiful, however,

she must have been; and a Cinderella, I hope, not a Cinderellula,

considering that she had the inimitable walk and step of the

Andalusians, which cannot be accomplished without something of a

proportionate basis to stand upon.

The reason which there is (as I have said) for describing this lady,

arises out of her relation to the tragic events which followed. She,

by her criminal levity, was the cause of all. And I must here warn the

moralizing blunderer of two errors that he is too likely to make: 1st,

That he is invited to read some extract from a licentious amour, as if

for its own interest; 2d, Or on account of Donna Catalina's memoirs,

with a view to relieve their too martial character. I have the pleasure

to assure him of his being so utterly in the darkness of error, that any

possible change he can make in his opinions, right or left, must be

for the better: he cannot stir, but he will mend, which is a delightful

thought for the moral and blundering mind. As to the first point,

what little glimpse he obtains of a licentious amour is, as a court

of justice will sometimes show him such a glimpse, simply to make

intelligible the subsequent facts which depend upon it. Secondly, As to

the conceit, that Catalina wished to embellish her memoirs, understand

that no such practice then existed; certainly not in Spanish literature.

Her memoirs are electrifying by their facts; else, in the manner of

telling these facts, they are systematically dry.

Don Antonio Calderon was a handsome, accomplished cavalier. And in the

course of dinner, Catalina was led to judge, from the behavior to each

other of this gentleman and the lady, the Alcalde's beautiful wife,

that they had an improper understanding. This also she inferred from the

furtive language of their eyes. Her wonder was, that the Alcalde should

be so blind; though upon that point she saw reason in a day or two

to change her opinion. Some people see everything by affecting to see

nothing. The whole affair, however, was nothing at all to _her_, and

she would have dismissed it from her thoughts altogether, but for what

happened on the journey.

From the miserable roads, eight hours a day of travelling was found

quite enough for man and beast; the product of which eight hours was

from ten to twelve leagues. On the last day but one of the journey, the

travelling party, which was precisely the original dinner party, reached

a little town ten leagues short of Cuzco. The Corregidor of this place

was a friend of the Alcalde; and through _his_ influence the party

obtained better accommodations than those which they had usually had in

a hovel calling itself a _venta_, or in the sheltered corner of a

barn. The Alcalde was to sleep at the Corregidor's house; the two young

cavaliers, Calderon and our Kate, had sleeping rooms at the public

_locanda_; but for the lady was reserved a little pleasure-house in an

enclosed garden. This was a plaything of a house; but the season

being summer, and the house surrounded with tropical flowers, the lady

preferred it (in spite of its loneliness) to the damp mansion of the

official grandee, who, in her humble opinion, was quite as fusty as his

mansion, and his mansion not much less so than himself.

After dining gaily together at the _locanda_, and possibly taking a

'rise' out of his worship the Corregidor, as a repeating echo of Don

Quixote, (then growing popular in Spanish America,) the young man

who was no young officer, and the young officer who was no young man,

lounged down together to the little pavilion in the flower-garden, with

the purpose of paying their respects to the presiding belle. They were

graciously received, and had the honor of meeting there his Mustiness

the Alcalde, and his Fustiness the Corregidor; whose conversation was

surely improving, but not equally brilliant. How they got on under the

weight of two such muffs, has been a mystery for two centuries. But they

_did_ to a certainty, for the party did not break up till eleven. _Tea

and turn out_ you could not call it; for there was the _turn out_ in

rigor, but not the _tea_. One thing, however, Catalina by mere accident

had an opportunity of observing, and observed with pain. The two

official gentlemen had gone down the steps into the garden. Catalina,

having forgot her hat, went back into the little vestibule to look for

it. There stood the lady and Don Antonio, exchanging a few final

words (they _were_ final) and a few final signs. Amongst the last

Kate observed distinctly this, and distinctly she understood it. First

drawing Calderon's attention to the gesture, as one of significant

pantomime, by raising her forefinger, the lady snuffed out one of the

candles. The young man answered it by a look of intelligence, and all

three passed down the steps together. The lady was disposed to take the

cool air, and accompanied them to the garden-gate; but, in passing down

the walk, Catalina noticed a second ill-omened sign that all was not

right. Two glaring eyes she distinguished amongst the shrubs for a

moment, and a rustling immediately after. 'What's that?' said the lady,

and Don Antonio answered carelessly, 'A bird flying out of the bushes.'

Catalina, as usual, had read everything. Not a wrinkle or a rustle was

lost upon _her_. And, therefore, when she reached the _locanda_, knowing

to an iota all that was coming, she did not retire to bed, but paced

before the house. She had not long to wait: in fifteen minutes the door

opened softly, and out stepped Calderon. Kate walked forward, and faced

him immediately; telling him laughingly that it was not good for his

health to go abroad on this night. The young man showed some impatience;

upon which, very seriously, Kate acquainted him with her suspicions, and

with the certainty that the Alcalde was not so blind as he had seemed.

Calderon thanked her for the information; would be upon his guard; but,

to prevent further expostulation, he wheeled round instantly into the

darkness. Catalina was too well convinced, however, of the mischief on

foot, to leave him thus. She followed rapidly, and passed silently

into the garden, almost at the same time with Calderon. Both took

their stations behind trees; Calderon watching nothing but the burning

candles, Catalina watching circumstances to direct her movements.

The candles burned brightly in the little pavilion. Presently one was

extinguished. Upon this, Calderon pressed forward to the steps, hastily

ascended them, and passed into the vestibule. Catalina followed on his

traces. What succeeded was all one scene of continued, dreadful dumb

show; different passions of panic, or deadly struggle, or hellish malice

absolutely suffocated all articulate words.

In a moment a gurgling sound was heard, as of a wild beast attempting

vainly to yell over some creature that it was strangling. Next came a

tumbling out at the door of one black mass, which heaved and parted at

intervals into two figures, which closed, which parted again, which at

last fell down the steps together. Then appeared a figure in white. It

was the unhappy Andalusian; and she seeing the outline of Catalina's

person, ran up to her, unable to utter one syllable. Pitying the agony

of her horror, Catalina took her within her own cloak, and carried her

out at the garden gate. Calderon had by this time died; and the maniacal

Alcalde had risen up to pursue his wife. But Kate, foreseeing what he

would do, had stepped silently within the shadow of the garden wall.

Looking down the road to the town, and seeing nobody moving, the maniac,

for some purpose, went back to the house. This moment Kate used to

recover the _locanda_ with the lady still panting in horror. What was

to be done? To think of concealment in this little place was out of the

question. The Alcalde was a man of local power, and it was certain that

he would kill his wife on the spot. Kate's generosity would not allow

her to have any collusion with this murderous purpose. At Cuzco, the

principal convent was ruled by a near relative of the Andalusian;

and there she would find shelter. Kate, therefore, saddled her horse

rapidly, placed the lady behind, and rode off in the darkness. About

five miles out of the town their road was crossed by a torrent, over

which they could not hit the bridge. 'Forward!' cried the lady; and Kate

repeating the word to the horse, the docile creature leaped down into

the water. They were all sinking at first; but having its head free,

the horse swam clear of all obstacles through the midnight darkness, and

scrambled out on the opposite bank. The two riders were dripping from

the shoulders downward. But, seeing a light twinkling from a cottage

window, Kate rode up; obtained a little refreshment, and the benefit of

a fire, from a poor laboring man. From this man she also bought a warm

mantle for the lady, who, besides her torrent bath, was dressed in a

light evening robe, so that but for the horseman's cloak of Kate she

would have perished. But there was no time to lose. They had already

lost two hours from the consequences of their cold bath. Cuzco was

still eighteen miles distant; and the Alcalde's shrewdness would at once

divine this to be his wife's mark. They remounted: very soon the silent

night echoed the hoofs of a pursuing rider; and now commenced the most

frantic race, in which each party rode as if the whole game of life were

staked upon the issue. The pace was killing: and Kate has delivered it

as her opinion, in the memoirs which she wrote, that the Alcalde was the

better mounted. This may be doubted. And certainly Kate had ridden too

many years in the Spanish cavalry to have any fear of his worship's

horsemanship; but it was a prodigious disadvantage that _her_ horse had

to carry double; while the horse ridden by her opponent was one of those

belonging to the murdered Don Antonio, and known to Kate as a powerful

animal. At length they had come within three miles at Cuzco. The road

after this descended the whole way to the city, and in some places

rapidly, so as to require a cool rider. Suddenly a deep trench appeared

traversing the whole extent of a broad heath. It was useless to evade

it. To have hesitated was to be lost. Kate saw the necessity of clearing

it, but doubted much whether her poor exhausted horse, after twenty-one

miles of work so severe, had strength for the effort. Kate's maxim,

however, which never yet had failed, both figuratively for life, and

literally for the saddle, was--to ride at everything that showed a front

of resistance. She did so now. Having come upon the trench rather too

suddenly, she wheeled round for the advantage of coming down upon it

more determinately, rode resolutely at it, and gained the opposite bank.

The hind feet of her horse were sinking back from the rottenness of

the ground; but the strong supporting bridle-hand of Kate carried him

forward; and in ten minutes more they would be in Cuzco. This being

seen by the vicious Alcalde, who had built great hopes on the trench,

he unslung his carbine, pulled up, and fired after the bonny black

horse and its bonny fair riders. But this manoeuvre would have lost

his worship any bet that he might have had depending on this admirable

steeple-chase. Had I been stakeholder, what a pleasure it would have

been, in fifteen minutes from this very vicious shot, to pay into

Kate's hands every shilling of the deposits. I would have listened to

no nonsense about referees or protests. The bullets, says Kate, whistled

round the poor clinging lady _en croupe_--luckily none struck her;

but one wounded the horse. And that settled the odds. Kate now planted

herself well in her stirrups to enter Cuzco, almost dangerously a

winner; for the horse was so maddened by the wound, and the road so

steep, that he went like blazes; and it really became difficult for

Kate to guide him with any precision through narrow episcopal paths.

Henceforwards the wounded horse required Kate's continued attention; and

yet, in the mere luxury of strife, it was impossible for Kate to avoid

turning a little in her saddle to see the Alcalde's performance on

this tight rope of the trench. His worship's horsemanship being perhaps

rather rusty, and he not perfectly acquainted with his horse, it

would have been agreeable to compromise the case by riding round, or

dismounting. But all _that_ was impossible. The job must be done. And I

am happy to report, for the reader's satisfaction, the sequel--so far

as Kate could attend the performance. Gathering himself up for mischief,

the Alcalde took a sweep, as if ploughing out the line of some vast

encampment, or tracing the _pomærium_ for some future Rome; then, like

thunder and lightning, with arms flying aloft in the air, down he came

upon the trembling trench.

But the horse refused the leap; and, as the only compromise that _his_

unlearned brain could suggest, he threw his worship right over his ears,

lodging him safely in a sand-heap that rose with clouds of dust and

screams of birds into the morning air. Kate had now no time to send back

her compliments in a musical halloo. The Alcalde missed breaking his

neck on this occasion very narrowly; but his neck was of no use to him

in twenty minutes more, as the reader will soon find. Kate rode right

onwards; and, coming in with a lady behind her, horse bloody, and pace

such as no hounds could have lived with, she ought to have made a great

sensation in Cuzco. But, unhappily, the people were all in bed.

The steeple-chase into Cuzco had been a fine headlong thing, considering

the torrent, the trench, the wounded horse, the lovely lady, with her

agonizing fears, mounted behind Kate, together with the meek dove-like

dawn: but the finale crowded together the quickest succession of changes

that out of a melodrama can ever have been witnessed. Kate reached the

convent in safety; carried into the cloisters, and delivered like a

parcel the fair Andalusian. But to rouse the servants caused delay; and

on returning to the street through the broad gateway of the convent,

whom should she face but the Alcalde! How he escaped the trench, who can

tell? He had no time to write memoirs; his horse was too illiterate. But

he _had_ escaped; temper not at all improved by that adventure, and now

raised to a hell of malignity by seeing that he had lost his prey. In

the morning light he now saw how to use his sword. He attacked Kate with

fury. Both were exhausted; and Kate, besides that she had no personal

quarrel with the Alcalde, having now accomplished her sole object

in saving the lady, would have been glad of a truce. She could with

difficulty wield her sword: and the Alcalde had so far the advantage,

that he wounded Kate severely. That roused her ancient blood. She turned

on him now with determination. At that moment in rode two servants of

the Alcalde, who took part with their master. These odds strengthened

Kate's resolution, but weakened her chances. Just then, however, rode

in, and ranged himself on Kate's side, the servant of the murdered Don

Calderon. In an instant, Kate had pushed her sword through the Alcalde,

who died upon the spot. In an instant the servant of Calderon had fled.

In an instant the Alguazils had come up. They and the servants of the

Alcalde pressed furiously on Kate, who now again was fighting for life.

Against such odds, she was rapidly losing ground; when, in an instant,

on the opposite side of the street, the great gates of the Episcopal

palace rolled open. Thither it was that Calderon's servant had fled. The

bishop and his attendants hurried across. 'Senor Caballador,' said

the bishop, 'in the name of the Virgin, I enjoin you to surrender your

sword.' 'My lord,' said Kate, 'I dare not do it with so many enemies

about me.' 'But I,' replied the bishop, 'become answerable to the law

for your safe keeping.' Upon which, with filial reverence, all parties

dropped their swords. Kate being severely wounded, the bishop led her

into his palace. In an instant came the catastrophe; Kate's discovery

could no longer be delayed; the blood flowed too rapidly; the wound was

in her bosom. She requested a private interview with the bishop; all was

known in a moment; for surgeons and attendants were summoned hastily,

and Kate had fainted. The good bishop pitied her, and had her attended

in his palace; then removed to a convent; then to a second at Lima; and,

after many months had passed, his report to the Spanish Government at

home of all the particulars, drew from the King of Spain and from the

Pope an order that the Nun should be transferred to Spain.

Yes, at length the warrior lady, the blooming cornet, this nun that is

so martial, this dragoon that is so lovely, must visit again the home

of her childhood, which now for seventeen years she has not seen. All

Spain, Portugal, Italy, rang with her adventures. Spain, from north to

south, was frantic with desire to behold her fiery child, whose girlish

romance, whose patriotic heroism electrified the national imagination.

The King of Spain must kiss his _faithful_ daughter, that would not

suffer his banner to see dishonor. The Pope must kiss his _wandering_

daughter, that henceforwards will be a lamb travelling back into the

Christian fold. Potentates so great as these, when _they_ speak words

of love, do not speak in vain. All was forgiven; the sacrilege, the

bloodshed, the flight and the scorn of St. Peter's keys; the pardons

were made out, were signed, were sealed, and the chanceries of earth

were satisfied.

Ah! what a day of sorrow and of joy was _that_ one day, in the first

week of November, 1624, when the returning Kate drew near to the shore

of Andalusia--when, descending into the ship's barge, she was rowed to

the piers of Cadiz by bargemen in the royal liveries--when she saw every

ship, street, house, convent, church, crowded, like a day of judgment,

with human faces, with men, with women, with children, all bending

the lights of their flashing and their loving eyes upon herself. Forty

myriads of people had gathered in Cadiz alone. All Andalusia had turned

out to receive her. Ah! what joy, if she had not looked back to the

Andes, to their dreadful summits, and their more dreadful feet. Ah! what

sorrow, if she had not been forced by music, and endless banners, and

triumphant clamors, to turn away from the Andes to the joyous shore

which she approached!

Upon this shore stood, ready to receive her, in front of all this mighty

crowd, the Prime Minister of Spain, the same Conde Olivarez, who but

one year before had been so haughty and so defying to our haughty and

defying Duke of Buckingham. But a year ago the Prince of Wales was in

Spain, and he also was welcomed with triumph and great joy, but not with

the hundredth part of that enthusiasm which now met the returning nun.

And Olivarez, that had spoken so roughly to the English Duke, to

_her_ 'was sweet as summer.' [Footnote: Griffith in Shakspeare, when

vindicating, in that immortal scene with Queen Catherine, Cardinal

Wolsey.] Through endless crowds of festive compatriots he conducted

her to the King. The King folded her in his arms, and could never be

satisfied with listening to her. He sent for her continually to his

presence--he delighted in her conversation, so new, so natural, so

spirited--he settled a pension upon her at that time, of unprecedented

amount, in the case of a subaltern officer; and by _his_ desire, because

the year 1625 was a year of jubilee, she departed in a few months

from Madrid to Rome. She went through Barcelona; there and everywhere

welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honor. She travelled to

Rome, and all doors flew open to receive her. She was presented to his

Holiness, with letters from his most Catholic majesty. But letters there

needed none. The Pope admired her as much as all before had done. He

caused her to recite all her adventures; and what he loved most in her

account, was the sincere and sorrowing spirit in which she described

herself as neither better nor worse than she had been. Neither proud

was Kate, nor sycophantishly and falsely humble. Urban VIII. it was

that then filled the chair of St. Peter. He did not neglect to raise

his daughter's thoughts from earthly things--he pointed her eyes to the

clouds that were above the dome of St. Peter's cathedral--he told her

what the cathedral had told her in the gorgeous clouds of the Andes

and the vesper lights, how sweet a thing, how divine a thing it was for

Christ's sake to forgive all injuries, and how he trusted that no more

she would think of bloodshed. He also said two words to her in Latin,

which, if I had time to repeat a Spanish bishop's remark to Kate some

time afterwards upon those two mysterious words, with Kate's most

natural and ingenuous answer to the Bishop upon what she supposed to

be their meaning, would make the reader smile not less than they made

myself. You know that Kate _did_ understand a little Latin, which,

probably, had not been much improved by riding in the Light Dragoons. I

must find time, however, whether the press and the compositors are in a

fury or not, to mention that the Pope, in his farewell audience to his

dear daughter, whom he was to see no more, gave her a general license

to wear henceforth in all countries--even _in partibus Infidelium_--a

cavalry officer's dress--boots, spurs, sabre, and sabretache; in fact,

anything that she and the Horse Guards might agree upon. Consequently,

reader, remember for your life never to say one word, nor suffer any

tailor to say one word, against those Wellington trousers made in the

chestnut forest; for, understand that the Papal indulgence, as to this

point, runs backwards as well as forwards; it is equally shocking and

heretical to murmur against trousers in the forgotten rear or against

trousers yet to come.

From Rome, Kate returned to Spain. She even went to St. Sebastian's--to

the city, but--whether it was that her heart failed her or not--never

to the convent. She roamed up and down; everywhere she was

welcome--everywhere an honored guest; but everywhere restless. The poor

and humble never ceased from their admiration of her; and amongst the

rich and aristocratic of Spain, with the King at their head, Kate found

especial love from two classes of men. The Cardinals and Bishops all

doated upon her--as their daughter that was returning. The military men

all doated upon her--as their sister that was retiring.

Some time or other, when I am allowed more elbow-room, I will tell you

why it is that I myself love this Kate. Now, at this moment, when it

is necessary for me to close, if I allow you one question before laying

down my pen--if I say, 'Come now, be quick, ask anything you _have_

to ask, for, in one minute, I am going to write _Finis_, after which

(unless the Queen wished it) I could not add a syllable'--twenty to

one, I guess what your question will be. You will ask me, What became of

Kate? What was her end?

Ah, reader! but, if I answer that question, you will say I have _not_

answered it. If I tell you that secret, you will say that the secret

is still hidden. Yet, because I have promised, and because you will be

angry if I do not, let me do my best; and bad is the best. After ten

years of restlessness in Spain, with thoughts always turning back to the

Andes, Kate heard of an expedition on the point of sailing to Spanish

America. All soldiers knew _her_, so that she had information of

everything that stirred in camps. Men of the highest military rank were

going out with the expedition; but they all loved Kate as a sister, and

were delighted to hear that she would join their mess on board ship.

This ship, with others, sailed, whither finally bound, I really forget.

But, on reaching America, all the expedition touched at _Vera Cruz_.

Thither a great crowd of the military went on shore. The leading

officers made a separate party for the same purpose. Their intention

was, to have a gay happy dinner, after their long confinement to a ship,

at the chief hotel; and happy in perfection it could not be, unless Kate

would consent to join it. She, that was ever kind to brother soldiers,

agreed to do so. She descended into the boat along with them, and in

twenty minutes the boat touched the shore. All the bevy of gay laughing

officers, junior and senior, like schoolboys escaping from school,

jumped on shore, and walked hastily, as their time was limited, up to

the hotel. Arriving there, all turned round in eagerness, saying, 'Where

is our dear Kate?' Ah, yes, my dear Kate, at that solemn moment, where,

indeed, were _you_? She had _certainly_ taken her seat in the boat: that

was sure. Nobody, in the general confusion, was certain of having seen

her on coming ashore. The sea was searched for her--the forests were

ransacked. The sea made no answer--the forests gave up no sign. I have

a conjecture of my own; but her brother soldiers were lost in sorrow and

confusion, and could never arrive even at a conjecture.

That happened two hundred and fourteen years ago! Here is the brief sum

of all:--This nun sailed from Spain to Peru, and she found no rest for

the sole of her foot. This nun sailed back from Peru to Spain, and she

found no rest for the agitations of her heart. This nun sailed again

from Spain to America, and she found--the rest which all of us find. But

where it was, could never be made known to the father of Spanish camps,

that sat in Madrid; nor to Kate's spiritual father, that sat in Rome.

Known it is to the great Father that once whispered to Kate on the

Andes; but else it has been a secret for two centuries; and to man it

remains a secret for ever and ever!