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!