After leaving John and Candelaria's home of liberty and love, nothing
further worth recording happened till I had nearly reached the desired
haven of the Lomas de Rocha, a place which I was, after all, never
destined to see except from a great distance. A day unusually brilliant
even for this bright climate was drawing to a close, it being within
about two hours of sunset, when I turned out of my way to ascend a hill
with a very long, ridge-like summit, falling away at one end, appearing
like the last sierra of a range just where it dies down into the
level plain; only in this instance the range itself did not exist. The
solitary hill was covered with short tussocks of yellow, wiry grass,
with occasional bushes, while near the summit large slabs of sandstone
appeared just above the surface, looking like gravestones in some old
village churchyard, with all their inscriptions obliterated by time and
weather. From this elevation, which was about a hundred feet above the
plain, I wished to survey the country before me, for I was tired and
hungry, so was my horse, and I was anxious to find a resting-place
before night. Before me the country stretched away in vast undulations
towards the ocean, which was not, however, in sight. Not the faintest
stain of vapour appeared on the immense crystalline dome of heaven,
while the stillness and transparency of the atmosphere seemed almost
preternatural. A blue gleam of water, south-east of where I stood and
many leagues distant, I took to be the lake of Rocha; on the western
horizon were faint blue cloud-like masses with pearly peaks. They
were not clouds, however, but the sierras of the range weirdly named
_Cuchilla de las Animas_--Ghost-haunted Mountains. At length, like a
person who puts his binocular into his pocket and begins to look about
him, I recalled my vision from its wanderings over illimitable space to
examine the objects close at hand. On the slope of the hill, sixty
yards from my standpoint, were some deep green, dwarf bushes, each bush
looking in that still brilliant sunshine as if it had been hewn out of a
block of malachite; and on the pale purple solanaceous flowers covering
them some humble-bees were feeding. It was the humming of the bees
coming distinctly to my ears that first attracted my attention to
the bushes; for so still was the atmosphere that at that distance
apart--sixty yards--two persons might have conversed easily without
raising their voices. Much farther down, about two hundred yards from
the bushes, a harrier hawk stood on the ground, tearing at something
it had captured, feeding in that savage, suspicious manner usual with
hawks, with long pauses between the bites. Over the harrier hovered a
brown milvago hawk, a vulture-like bird in its habits, that lives by
picking up unconsidered trifles. Envious at the other's good fortune, or
fearing, perhaps, that not even the crumbs or feathers of the feast
were going to be left, it was persecuting the harrier by darting down at
intervals with an angry cry and aiming a blow with its wing. The harrier
methodically ducked its head each time its tormentor rushed down at it,
after which it would tear its prey again in its uncomfortable manner.
Farther away, in the depression running along at the foot of the hill,
meandered a small stream so filled with aquatic grasses and plants that
the water was quite concealed, its course appearing like a vivid green
snake, miles long, lying there basking in the sunshine. At the point of
the stream nearest to me an old man was seated on the ground, apparently
washing himself, for he was stooping over a little pool of water, while
behind him stood his horse with patient, drooping head, occasionally
switching off the flies with its tail. A mile farther on stood a
dwelling, which looked to me like an old _estancia_ house, surrounded by
large shade trees growing singly or in irregular clumps. It was the only
house near, but after gazing at it for some time I concluded that it was
uninhabited. For even at that distance I could see plainly that there
were no human beings moving about it, no horse or other domestic
animal near, and there were certainly no hedges or enclosures of any
description.
Slowly I went down the hill, and to the old man sitting beside the
stream. I found him engaged in the seemingly difficult operation
of disentangling a luxuriant crop of very long hair, which had
somehow--possibly from long neglect--got itself into great confusion. He
had dipped his head into the water, and with an old comb, boasting about
seven or eight teeth, was laboriously and with infinite patience drawing
out the long hairs, a very few at a time. After saluting him, I lit a
cigarette, and, leaning on the neck of my horse, watched his efforts for
some time with profound interest. He toiled away in silence for five
or six minutes, then dipped his head in the water again, and, while
carefully wringing the wet out, he remarked that my horse looked tired.
“Yes,” I replied; “so is his rider. Can you tell me who lives in that
_estancia_?”
“My master,” he returned laconically.
“Is he a good-hearted man--one who will give shelter to a stranger?” I
asked.
He took a very long time to answer me, then said:
“He has nothing to say about such matters.”
“An invalid?” I remarked.
Another long pause; then he shook his head and tapped his forehead
significantly; after which he resumed his mermaid task.
“Demented?” said I.
He elevated an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.
After a long silence, for I was anxious not to irritate him with too
much questioning, I ventured to remark:
“Well, they will not set the dogs on me, will they?”
He grinned, and said that it was an establishment without dogs.
I paid him for his information with a cigarette, which he took very
readily, and seemed to think smoking a pleasant relief after his
disentangling labours.
“An _estancia_ without dogs, and where the master has nothing to
say--that sounds strange,” I remarked tentatively, but he puffed on in
silence.
“What is the name of the house?” I said, after remounting my horse.
“It is a house without a name,” he replied; and after this rather
unsatisfactory interview I left him and slowly went on to the
_estancia_.
On approaching the house I saw that there had formerly been a large
plantation behind it, of which only a few dead stumps now remained, the
ditches that had enclosed them being now nearly obliterated. The place
was ruinous and overgrown with weeds. Dismounting, I led my horse
along a narrow path through a perfect wilderness of wild sunflowers,
horehound, red-weed, and thorn-apple, up to some poplar trees where
there had once been a gate, of which only two or three broken posts
remained standing in the ground. From the old gate the path ran on,
still through weeds, to the door of the house, which was partly of stone
and partly of red brick, with a very steep, sloping, tiled roof. Beside
the ruined gate, leaning against a post, with the hot afternoon sun
shining on her uncovered head, stood a woman in a rusty-black dress. She
was about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and had an unutterably
weary, desponding expression on her face, which was colourless as
marble, except for the purple stains under her large, dark eyes. She
did not move when I approached her, but raised her sorrowful eyes to my
face, apparently feeling little interest in my arrival.
I took off my hat to salute her, and said:
“Señora, my horse is tired, and I am seeking for a resting-place; can I
have shelter under your roof?”
“Yes, _caballero_; why not?” she returned in a voice even more
significant of sorrow than her countenance.
I thanked her, and waited for her to lead the way; but she still
remained standing before me with eyes cast down, and a hesitating,
troubled look on her face.
“Señora,” I began, “if a stranger's presence in the house would be
inconvenient--”
“No, no, señor, it is not that,” she interrupted quickly. Then, sinking
her voice almost to a whisper, she said: “Tell me, señor, have you come
from the department of Florida? Have you--have you been at San Paulo?”
I hesitated a little, then answered that I had.
“On which side?” she asked quickly, with a strange eagerness in her
voice.
“Ah, señora,” I returned, “why do you ask me, only a poor traveller who
comes for a night's shelter, such a question--”
“Why? Perhaps for your good, señor. Remember, women are not like
men--implacable. A shelter you shall have, señor; but it is best that I
should know.”
“You are right,” I returned, “forgive me for not answering you at once.
I was with Santa Coloma--the rebel.”
She held out her hand to me, but, before I could take it, withdrew it
and, covering her face, began to cry. Presently recovering herself and
turning towards the house, she asked me to follow.
Her gestures and tears had told me eloquently enough that she too
belonged to the unhappy Blanco party.
“Have you, then, lost some relation in this fight, señora?” I asked.
“No, señor,” she replied; “but if our party had triumphed, perhaps
deliverance would have come to me. Ah, no; I lost my relations long
ago--all except my father. You shall know presently, when you see him,
why our cruel enemies refrained from shedding _his_ blood.”
By that time we had reached the house. There had once been a verandah to
it, but this had long fallen away, leaving the walls, doors, and windows
exposed to sun and rain. Lichen covered the stone walls, while, in the
crevices and over the tiled roof, weeds and grass had flourished; but
this vegetation had died with the summer heats and was now parched and
yellow. She led me into a spacious room, so dimly lighted from the low
door and one small window that it seemed quite dark to me coming from
the bright sunlight. I stood for a few moments trying to accustom my
eyes to the gloom, while she, advancing to the middle of the apartment,
bent down and spoke to an aged man seated in a leather-bound easy-chair.
“Papa,” she said, “I have brought in a young man--a stranger who has
asked for shelter under our roof. Welcome him, papa.”
Then she straightened herself, and, passing behind the chair, stood
leaning on it, facing me.
“I wish you good day, señor,” I said, advancing with a little
hesitation.
There before me sat a tall, bent old man, wasted almost to a skeleton,
with a grey, desolate face and long hair and beard of a silver
whiteness. He was wrapped in a light-coloured _poncho_, and wore a black
skull-cap on his head. When I spoke he leant back in his seatand
began scanning my face with strangely fierce, eager eyes, all the time
twisting his long, thin fingers together in a nervous, excited manner.
“What, Calixto,” he exclaimed at length, “is this the way you come into
my presence? Ha, you thought I would not recognise you! Down--down, boy,
on your knees!”
I glanced at his daughter standing behind him; she was watching my face
anxiously, and made a slight inclination with her head.
Taking this as an intimation to obey the old man's commands, I went down
on my knees, and touched my lips to the hand he extended.
“May God give you grace, my son,” he said, with tremulous voice. Then he
continued: “What, did you expect to find your old father blind then? I
would know you amongst a thousand, Calixto. Ah, my son, my son, why have
you kept away so long? Stand, my son, and let me embrace you.”
He rose up tottering from his chair and threw his arm about me; then,
after gazing into my face for some moments, deliberately kissed me on
both cheeks.
“Ha, Calixto,” he continued, putting his trembling hands upon my
shoulders and gazing into my face out of his wild, sunken eyes, “do I
need ask where you have been? Where should a Peralta be but in the smoke
of the battle, in the midst of carnage, fighting for the Banda Orientál?
I did not complain of your absence, Calixto--Demetria will tell you that
I was patient through all these years, for I knew you would come back
to me at last wearing the laurel wreath of victory. And I, Calixto, what
have I worn, sitting here? A crown of nettles! Yes, for a hundred years
I have worn it--you are my witness, Demetria, my daughter, that I have
worn this crown of stinging-nettles for a hundred years.”
He sank back, apparently exhausted, in his chair, and I uttered a sigh
of relief, thinking the interview was now over. But I was mistaken. His
daughter placed a chair for me at his side. “Sit here, señor, and talk
to my father, while I have your horse taken care of,” she whispered,
and then quickly glided from the room. This was rather hard on me,
I thought; but while whispering those few words she touched my hand
lightly and turned her wistful eyes with a grateful look on mine, and I
was glad for her sake that I had not blundered.
Presently the old man roused himself again and began talking eagerly,
asking me a hundred wild questions, to which I was compelled to reply,
still trying to keep up the character of the long-lost son just returned
victorious from the wars.
“Tell me where you have fought and overcome the enemy,” he exclaimed,
raising his voice almost to a scream. “Where have they flown from you
like chaff before the wind?--where have you trodden them down under your
horses' hoofs?--name--name the places and the battles to me, Calixto?”
I felt strongly inclined just then to jump up and rush out of the room,
so trying was this mad conversation to my nerves; but I thought of his
daughter Demetria's white, pathetic face, and restrained the impulse.
Then in sheer desperation I began to talk madly as himself. I thought
I would make him sick of warlike subjects. Everywhere, I cried, we
had defeated, slaughtered, scattered to the four winds of heaven, the
infamous Colorados. From the sea to the Brazilian frontier we have been
victorious. With sword, lance, and bayonet we have stormed and taken
every town from Tacuarembó to Montevideo. Every river from the Yaguaron
to the Uruguay had run red with Colorado blood. In forests and sierras
we had hunted them, flying like wild beasts from us; we had captured
them in thousands, only to cut their throats, crucify them, blow them
from guns, and tear them limb by limb to pieces with wild horses.
I was only pouring oil on the blazing fire of his insanity.
“Aha!” he shouted, his eyes sparkling, while he wildly clutched my arm
with his skinny, claw-like hands, “did I not know--have I not said it?
Did I not fight for a hundred years, wading through blood every day,
and then at last send you forth to finish the battle? And every day our
enemies came and shouted in my ears, 'Victory--victory!' They told me
you were dead, Calixto--that their weapons had pierced you, that they
had given your flesh to be devoured of wild dogs. And I shouted with
laughter to hear them. I laughed in their faces, and clapped my hands
and cried out, 'Prepare your throats for the sword, traitors, slaves,
assassins, for a Peralta--even Calixto, devoured of wild dogs--is coming
to execute vengeance! What, will God not leave one strong arm to strike
at the tyrant's breast--one Peralta in all this land! Fly, miscreants!
Die, wretches! He has risen from the grave--he has come back from hell,
armed with hell-fire to burn your towns to ashes--to extirpate you
utterly from the earth!'”
His thin, tremulous voice had risen towards the close of this mad speech
to a reedy shriek that rang through the quiet, darkening house like
the long, shrill cry of some water-fowl heard at night in the desolate
marshes.
Then he loosened his hold on my arm and dropped back moaning and
shivering into his seat. His eyes closed, his whole frame trembled, and
he looked like a person just recovering from an epileptic fit; then he
seemed to sink to sleep. It was now getting quite dark, for the sun had
been down some time, and it was with the greatest relief that I saw Doña
Demetria gliding like a ghost into the room. She touched me on the arm
and whispered, “Come, señor, he is asleep now.”
I followed her out into the fresh air, which had never seemed so fresh
before; then, turning to me, she hurriedly whispered, “Remember, señor,
that what you have told me is a secret. Say not one word of it to any
other person here.”