The Purple Land: Chapter 29

Chapter 29

The meeting of my fellow-travellers took place next day on board the
ship, where we three were the only cabin passengers. On going down
into the little saloon I found Demetria waiting for us, considerably
improved in appearance by her new dress, but looking pale and anxious,
for she probably found this meeting a trying one. The two women looked
earnestly at each other, but Demetria, to hide her nervousness, I
suppose, had framed her face in the old, impassive, almost cold
expression it had worn when I first knew her, and Paqu�ta was repelled
by it; so after a somewhat lukewarm greeting they sat down and made
commonplace remarks. Two women more unlike each other in appearance,
character, education, and disposition it would have been difficult to
find; still, I had hoped they might be friends, and felt keenly
disappointed at the result of their first meeting. After an
uncomfortable interval we all rose. I was about to proceed to the deck,
they to their respective cabins, when Paqu�ta, without any warning of
what was coming, suddenly burst into tears and threw her arms about
Demetria's neck.

"Oh, dear Demetria, what a sad life yours has been!" she exclaimed.

That was like her, so impulsive, and with such a true instinct to make
her do the right thing always! The other gladly responded to the
embrace, and I hastily retreated, leaving them kissing and mingling
their tears.

When I got out on deck I found that we were already on our way, sails
up, and a fresh wind sending us swiftly through the dull green water.
There were five steerage passengers, disreputable-looking fellows in
_ponchos_ and slouch hats, lounging about the deck smoking; but
when we got outside the harbour and the ship began to toss a little,
they very soon dropped their cigars and began ignominiously creeping
away out of sight of the grinning sailors. Only one remained, a
grizzly-bearded, rough-looking old gaucho, who firmly kept his seat
at the stern, as if determined to see the last of "The Mount," as the
pretty city near the foot of Magellan's Hill is called by the English
people in this region.

To satisfy myself that none of these fellows were sent in pursuit of
Demetria, I asked our Italian captain who they were and how long they
had been on board, and was much relieved to hear that they were
fugitives--rebels probably--and had all been concealed for the past
three or four days in the ship, waiting to get away from Montevideo.

Towards evening it came on very rough, the wind veering to the south
and blowing half a gale, a very favourable wind, as it happened, to
take us across this unlovely "Silver Sea," as the poets of the Plata
insist on calling it, with its villainous, brick-red, chopping waves,
so disagreeable to bad sailors. Paqu�ta and Demetria suffered agonies,
so that I was obliged to keep with them a good deal. I very imprudently
told them not to be alarmed, that it was nothing--_only
sea-sickness_--and I verily believe they both hated me with all
their hearts for a little while in consequence. Fortunately I had
anticipated these harrowing scenes, and had provided a bottle of
champagne for the occasion; and after I had consumed two or three
glassfuls to encourage them, showing how easy this kind of medicine
is to take, I prevailed on them to drink the remainder. At length,
about ten o'clock in the evening, they began to suspect that their
malady was not going to prove fatal, and, seeing them so much better,
I went up to get some fresh air. There at the stern still sat the
stoical old gaucho, looking extremely miserable.

"Good evening, old comrade," said I; "will you smoke a cigar?"

"Young master, you seem to have a good heart," he returned, shaking
his head at the proffered cigar, "do, for God's sake, get me a little
rum. I am dying for something to warm my inside and stop my head from
going round like a top, but nothing can I get from these jabbering
foreign brutes on board."

"Yes, why not, my old friend," said I, and, going to the master of the
boat, I succeeded in getting a pint of rum in a bottle.

The old fellow clutched it with eager delight and took a long draught.
"Ah!" he said, patting first the bottle, then his stomach, "this puts
new life into a man! Will this voyage never end, master? When I am on
horseback I can forget that I am old, but these cursed waves remind
me that I have lived many years."

I lit my cigar and sat down to have a talk with him.

"Ah, with you foreigners it is just the same--land or water," he
continued. "You can even smoke--what a calm head and quiet stomach you
must have! But what puzzles me is this, se�or; how you, a foreigner,
come to be travelling with native women. Now, there is that beautiful
young se�ora with the violet eyes, who can she be?"

"She is my wife, old man," said I, laughing, a little amused at his
curiosity.

"Ah, you are married then--so young? She is beautiful, graceful, well
educated, the daughter of wealthy parents, no doubt, but frail, frail,
se�or; and some day, not a very distant day--but why should I predict
sorrow to a gay heart? Only her face, se�or, is strange to me; it does
not recall the features of any Oriental family I know."

"That is easily explained," I said, surprised at his shrewdness, "she
is an Argentine, not an Oriental."

"Ah, that explains it," he said, taking another long pull at the bottle.
"As for the other se�ora with you, I need not ask you who _she_
is."

"Why, who is she?" I returned.

"A Peralta, if there ever was one," he returned confidently.

His reply disturbed me not a little, for, after all my precautions,
this old man had perhaps been sent to follow Demetria.

"Yes," he continued, with an evident pride in his knowledge of families
and faces which tended to allay my suspicions; "a Peralta and not a
Madariaga, nor a Sanchez, nor a Zelaya, nor an Ibarra. Do I not know
a Peralta when I see one?" And here he laughed scornfully at the
absurdity of such an idea.

"Tell me," I said, "how do you know a Peralta?"

"The question!" he exclaimed. "You are a Frenchman or a German from
over the sea, and do not understand these things. Have I borne arms
forty years in my country's service not to know a Peralta! On earth
they are with me; if I go to Heaven I meet them there, and in Hell I
see them; for when have I charged into the hottest of the fight and
have not found a Peralta there before me? But I am speaking of the
past, se�or; for now I am also like one that has been left on the field
forgotten--left for the vultures and foxes. You will no longer find
them walking on the earth; only where men have rushed together sword
in hand you will find their bones. Ah, friend!" And here, overcome
with sad memories, the ancient warrior took another drink from his
bottle.

"They cannot all be dead," said I, "if, as you imagine, the se�ora
travelling with me is a Peralta."

"As I imagine!" he repeated scornfully. "Do I not know what I am talking
about, young sir? They are dead, I tell you--dead as the past, dead
as Oriental independence and honour. Did I not ride into the fight at
Gil de los Medanos with the last of the Peraltas, Calixto, when he
received his baptism of blood? Fifteen years old, se�or, only fifteen,
when he galloped into the fight, for he had the light heart, the brave
spirit, and the hand swift to strike of a Peralta. And after the fight
our colonel, Santa Coloma, who was killed the other day at San Paulo,
embraced the boy before all the troops. He is dead, se�or, and with
Calixto died the house of Peralta."

"You knew Santa Coloma, then?" I said. "But you are mistaken, he was
not killed at San Paulo, he made his escape."

"So they say--the ignorant ones," he returned. "But he is dead, for
he loved his country, and all who are of that mind are slain. How
should he escape?"

"I tell you he is not dead," I repeated, vexed at his stubborn
persistence. "I also knew him, old man, and was with him at San Paulo."

He looked at me for a long time, and then took another swig from his
bottle.

"Se�or, this is not a thing I love joking about," said he. "Let us
talk of other things. What I want to know is, what is Calixto's sister
doing here? Why has she left her country?"

Receiving no reply to this question, he went on: "Has she not got
property? Yes, a large _estancia_, impoverished, ruined, if you
like, but still a very large tract of land. When your enemies do not
fear you, then they cease to persecute. A broken old man, bereft of
reason--surely they would not trouble him! No, no, she is leaving her
country for other reasons. Yes, there is some private plot against
her; some design, perhaps, to carry her off, or even to destroy her
and get possession of her property. Naturally, in such a case, she
would fly for protection to Buenos Ayres, where there is one with some
of her blood in his veins able to protect her person and her property."

I was astonished to hear him, but his last words were a mystery to me.

"There is no one in Buenos Ayres to protect her," I said; "I only will
be there as I am here to shield her, and if, as you think, she has an
enemy, he must reckon with me--one who, like that Calixto you speak
of, has a hand quick to strike."

"There spoke the heart of a Blanco!" he exclaimed, clutching my arm,
and then, the boat giving a lurch at that moment, almost dragging me
down in his efforts to steady himself. After another sip of rum he
went on: "But who are you, young sir, if that is not an impertinent
question? Do you possess money, influence, powerful friends, that you
take upon yourself the care of this woman? Is it in your power to
baffle and crush her enemy or enemies, to protect not only her person,
but her property, which, in her absence, will become the prey of
robbers?"

"And who are you, old man?" I returned, unable to give a satisfactory
answer to one of his searching questions, "and why do you ask me these
things? And who is this powerful person you speak of in Buenos Ayres
with some of her blood in his veins, but of whose existence she is
ignorant?"

He shook his head silently, then deliberately proceeded to take out
and light a cigarette. He smoked with a placid enjoyment which made
me think that his refusal of my cigar and his bitter complaints about
the effects of the ship's tossing on him had merely been to get the
bottle of rum out of me. He was evidently a veteran in more senses
than one, and now, finding that I would tell him no more secrets, he
refused to answer any questions. Fearing that I had imprudently told
him too much already, I finally left him and retired to my bunk.

Next morning we arrived at Buenos Ayres, and cast anchor about two
miles from shore, for that was as near the land as we could get.
Presently we were boarded by a Custom House officer, and for some time
longer I was engaged in getting out our luggage and in bargaining with
the captain to put us on shore. When I had completed these arrangements
I was very much surprised to see the cunning old soldier I had talked
with the evening before sitting in the Custom House boat, which was
just putting off from the side. Demetria had been looking on when the
old fellow had left the ship, and she now came to me looking very
excited.

"Richard," she said, "did you notice that man who was a passenger with
us and who has just gone off in the boat? It is Santa Coloma."

"Oh, absurd!" I exclaimed. "I talked with that old man last night for
an hour--an old grey-bearded gaucho, and no more like Santa Coloma
than that sailor."

"I know I am right," she returned. "The General has visited my father
at the _estancia_ and I know him well. He is disguised now and
has made himself look like a peasant, but when he went over the side
into the boat he looked full into my face; I knew him and started,
then he smiled, for he saw that I had recognised him."

The very fact that this common-looking old man had gone on shore in
the Custom House boat proved that he was a person of consequence in
disguise, and I could not doubt that Demetria was right. I felt
excessively annoyed at myself for having failed to penetrate his
disguise; for something of the old Marcos Marc� style of speaking might
very well have revealed his identity if I had only had my wits about
me. I was also very much concerned on Demetria's account, for it seemed
that I had missed finding out something for her which would have been
to her advantage to know. I was ashamed to tell her of that conversation
about a relation in Buenos Ayres, but secretly determined to try and
find Santa Coloma to get him to tell me what he knew.

After landing we put our small luggage into a fly and were driven to
an hotel in Calle Lima, an out-of-the-way place kept by a German; but
I knew the house to be a quiet, respectable one and very moderate in
its charges.

About five o'clock in the afternoon we were together in the sitting-room
on the first floor, looking down on the street from the window, when
a well-appointed carriage with a gentleman and two young ladies in it
drew up before the door.

"Oh, Richard," exclaimed Paqu�ta in the greatest excitement, "it is
Don Pantaleon Villaverde with his daughters, and they are getting out!"

"Who is Villaverde?" I asked.

"What, do you not know? He is a Judge of First Instance, and his
daughters are my dearest friends. Is it not strange to meet them like
this? Oh, I must see them to ask for _papa_ and _mamita!_" and here she
began to cry.

The waiter came up with a card from the Se�or Villaverde requesting
an interview with the Se�orita Peralta.

Demetria, who had been trying to soothe Paqu�ta's intense excitement
and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak;
and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paqu�ta started
up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring
at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and
rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time
in a triangular embrace.

When the excitement of this tempestuous meeting had spent itself, Se�or
Villaverde, who stood looking on with grave, impressive face, spoke
to Demetria, telling her that his old friend, General Santa Coloma,
had just informed him of her arrival in Buenos Ayres and of the hotel
where she was staying. Probably she did not even know who he was, he
said; he was her relation; his mother was a Peralta, a first cousin
of her unhappy father, Colonel Peralta. He had come to see her with
his daughters to invite her to make his house her home during her stay
in Buenos Ayres. He also wished to help her with her affairs, which,
his friend the General had informed him, were in some confusion. He
had, he concluded, many influential friends in the sister city, who
would be ready to assist him in arranging matters for her.

Demetria, recovering from the nervousness she had experienced on finding
that Paqu�ta's great friends were her visitors, thanked him warmly and
accepted his offer of a home and assistance; then, with a quiet dignity
and self-possession one would hardly expect from a girl coming amongst
fashionable people for the first time in her life, she greeted her
new-found relations and thanked them for their visit.

As they insisted on taking Demetria away with them at once, she left
us to make her preparations, while Paqu�ta remained conversing with
her friends, having many questions to ask them. She was consumed with
anxiety to know how her family, and especially her father, who made
the domestic laws, now, after so many months, regarded her elopement
and marriage with me. Her friends, however, either knew nothing or
would not tell her what they knew.

Poor Demetria! she had, with no time given her for reflection, taken
the wise course of at once accepting the offer of her influential and
extremely dignified kinsman; but it was hard for her to leave her
friends at such short notice, and when she came back prepared for her
departure the separation tried her severely. With tears in her eyes
she bade Paqu�ta farewell, but when she took my hand in hers, for some
time her trembling lips refused to speak. Overcoming her emotions by
a great effort, she at length said, addressing her visitors, "For my
escape from a sad and perilous position and for the pleasure of finding
myself here amongst relations, I am indebted to this young friend who
has been a brother to me."

Se�or Villaverde listened and bowed towards me, but with no softening
in his stern, calm face, while his cold grey eyes seemed to look
straight through me at something beyond. His manner towards me made
me feel a kind of despair, for how strong must have been his disapproval
of my conduct in running off with his friend's daughter--how great his
indignation against me, when it prevented him from bestowing one smile
or one kind word on me to thank me for all I had done for his kinswoman!
Yet this was only the reflected indignation of my father-in-law.

We went down to the carriage to see them off, and then, finding myself
for a moment by the side of one of the young ladies, I tried to find
out something for myself. "Pray tell me, se�orita," I said, "what you
know about my father-in-law. If it is very bad, I promise you my wife
shall not hear a word of it; but it is best that I should know the
truth before meeting him."

A cloud came over her bright, expressive face, while she glanced
anxiously at Paqu�ta; then, bending towards me, she whispered, "Ah,
my friend, he is implacable! I am so sorry, for Paqu�ta's sake." And
then, with a smile of irrepressible coquetry, she added, "And for
yours."

The carriage drove away, and Demetria's eyes, looking back at me, were
filled with tears, but in Se�or Villaverde's eyes, also glancing back,
there was an expression that boded ill for my future. His feeling was
natural, perhaps, for he was the father of two very pretty girls.

Implacable, and I was now divided from him by no silver or
brick-coloured sea! By returning I had made myself amenable to the
laws I had broken by marrying a girl under age without her father's
consent. The person in England who runs away with a ward in Chancery
is not a greater offender against the law than I was. It was now in
his power to have me punished, to cast me into prison for an indefinite
time, and if not to crush my spirit, he would at least be able to break
the heart of his unhappy daughter. Those wild, troubled days in the
Purple Land now seemed to my mind peaceful, happy days, and the bitter
days with no pleasure in them were only now about to begin. Implacable!

Suddenly looking up, I found Paqu�ta's violet eyes, full of sad
questioning, fixed on my face.

"Tell me truly, Richard, what have you heard?" she asked.

I forced a smile, and, taking her hand, assured her that I had heard
nothing to cause her any uneasiness. "Come," I said, "let us go in and
prepare to leave town to-morrow. We will go back to the point we started
from--your father's _estancia_, for the sooner this meeting you
are thinking about so anxiously is over the better will it be for all
of us."

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