Chapter I: How the Last Tie Was Broken

Spain has fallen! These words echoed through the city from end to end, but to the majority of men they were simply the proclamation of an acknowledged fact, an outburst of that jealousy of Spain, that fretfulness of Spanish domination, which had for years been growing up in Buenos Aires. But there was a minority in Buenos Aires, a minority ever increasing, a minority of men of cultivated minds, of men of far-seeing intelligence; to these men these words taught a lesson, in them they inspired a hope.

At the head of this minority were Don Carlos Evaña, Don Marcelino Ponce de Leon, and the other members of the secret committee. They consulted among themselves, asking one another, "Has not the day come?" "What shall we do?"

Then, true to their principle of keeping themselves as much as possible in the background, they decided upon requesting Don Gregorio Lopez to call again together a meeting of the chiefs of the militia and of the leading citizens, and to propound to them these questions, to which they themselves purposed to find an answer.

Yet March passed over and nothing was done, and all this time Don Alfonso Miranda lay in prison, and his daughter, who was not allowed to visit him, found shelter under the roof of Don Fausto Velasquez. Many efforts were made by Don Fausto and by Don Gregorio Lopez to procure his release, but in vain, and their enquiries as to the cause of his detention were met by evasive answers. Then as they insisted that they should at least have liberty to speak with him, the Viceroy referred them to Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon.

Don Roderigo answered his father-in-law and Don Fausto with great brevity, saying that he had long suspected Don Alfonso of treasonable designs, and had only acted upon receipt of positive information.

"Have you discovered anything in his papers to criminate him?" asked Don Fausto.

"Nothing. He either keeps his correspondence well concealed or has destroyed it."

"Then upon what pretext do you keep him in prison?"

"His examination is not yet concluded," replied Don Roderigo.

"And you still refuse us permission to visit him?" said Don Fausto.

"I can allow him to have no communication with any one. In the present excited state of the city it would be unsafe to permit him any chance of communicating with his accomplices."

"I compliment you upon your policy," replied Don Fausto. "It may cause the death of a harmless old man, and can only tend to increase the popular excitement, of which you seem somewhat apprehensive."

"His daughter spoke to me of a black coffer which was discovered in his room, and by which Don Alfonso seemed to set great store," said Don Gregorio; "do you know what has become of it?"

"All his effects are in the hands of Major Asneiros, who had charge of the examination of his papers," replied Don Roderigo.

"Asneiros has behaved like a brute," said Don Fausto.

"The Señor Asneiros has small sympathy for traitors," replied Don Roderigo.

Don Gregorio and Don Fausto returned to the house of the latter gentleman but little pleased with the result of their interview. In the ante-sala they found Doña Josefina with Magdalen and Elisa Puyrredon; to whom they recounted the ill-success of their errand.

"It is a barbarity," said Elisa Puyrredon. "Where are we going to stop? Wait till my brother comes back. I cannot understand it at all."

"Nor I," said Doña Josefina. "This Asneiros has not come to see me for a month, why do you not go to see him, Fausto? He will tell you more than Don Roderigo. Magdalen says it is all owing to him that her father was arrested, and he was so great a friend of Don Alfonso."

As Doña Josefina said this she looked sharply at Magdalen, who flushed scarlet, and said:

"I do not think the Señor Asneiros was ever a friend to papa, he was a spy."

"I know he did not go to the quinta so often to see Don Alfonso," said Doña Josefina.

At this moment Marcelino Ponce de Leon walked in at the open door. His entrance caused no surprise for he had been a frequent visitor at his aunt's house for a month past, but Magdalen rose from her seat immediately and left the room.

"She is always so," said Doña Josefina, shrugging her plump, white shoulders. "If any gentleman pays her any attention, from that moment she abhors him. I can remember when Marcelino and she were the best of friends, now see how she treats him, she will not remain a minute in the room if he comes in. Without doubt it has been the same with this Asneiros, you heard how she spoke of him just now. He has resented her treatment of him, we have the old man in prison, and the daughter----" here came another shrug of the plump, white shoulders, then turning to Marcelino she asked:

"Are all English girls like that, Marcelino? The Señor Gordon at any rate knew how to behave himself."

"The Señor Gordon was as polished as a Porteño," said Elisa Puyrredon. "You thought he was drowned, Marcelino, and never said a word of it for so many months. But I saw you were triste about something."

"Where is he now?" asked Don Gregorio.

"He was on Marshal Beresford's staff," replied Marcelino; "but, as he can talk Spanish, he says they have set him to drill the Portuguese, from the idea that he can make them understand him."

"Well, Fausto, if you intend to see Don Ciriaco I think the sooner you see him the better," said Doña Josefina.

"We will go at once," said Don Gregorio.

When the two elder gentleman had gone, Doña Josefina rose from her seat and went through the folding-doors into the sala.

"You are triste yet," said Elisa Puyrredon, drawing her chair nearer to Marcelino. "Have you some other sorrow than the supposed loss of your friend? You might tell me."

"Think you it is no sorrow to me to see that when my father has the power he is a tyrant, the same as any other Spaniard? In this imprisonment of Don Alfonso he has committed a great injustice. I have been told that years ago this Don Alfonso did him some injury; now that he can he revenges himself, like a Spaniard. I thought him both too good-hearted and too politic to have taken such a false step in times so critical as the present."

"You take great interest in all that concerns Don Alfonso?"

"I think of my father and do not like to hear him accused of tyranny, and to be able to say no word in his defence."

"Magdalen is very unhappy. Have you no sorrow for her. As Doña Josefina said just now, once you were the best of friends together."

"Naturally I am sorry for her, I have done all I can for Don Alfonso for her sake."

"What have you done?"

"I have used all my influence with Asneiros, who has the charge of examining Don Alfonso's papers, to prevail upon him to declare at once what he has found. But he refuses to examine them and says he has simply sealed them up until further orders."

"Have you not spoken to Don Roderigo?"

"How can I go to my father and accuse him to his face of injustice?"

"I thought that when men loved they would dare anything, even the anger of their father, for the sake of the one they loved."

"But if that love is slighted, and thrown aside as a thing of no value, why should I risk what is next in value to me for the sake of what is lost?"

"Are you sure it is lost? I have heard say that when a girl once loves she loves for ever. You once thought that you were loved."

"I more than thought so, I was sure of it. I have been told that girls easily love and easily forget. It is their nature to love some things, but it is very little matter to them what they love."

"You heretic! You never deserve that any one should love you, never."

"I do not care now if no one ever does love me. I am content with such love as I have. I love my mother and Lola, and I would give my life to preserve to its end my love and respect for my father."

"Don't tell me that, I know better. The love of father and mother and sister is never enough for any man. A man is not a man until he have some other love."

"And if he win another love, such a love as he dreamed about, such a love as would make his life complete, only to lose it, what then?"

"The grave," said Elisa, in a very solemn voice, then bursting into a merry laugh she clapped her hands. "Mi Dios!" she exclaimed, "you have the face of a hero of tragedy."

"You have never loved or you would not laugh at me," said Marcelino.

"I never loved! I have been in love fifty times. Why the first time I ever met that Asneiros I fell in love with him at once. He was dressed in a gorgeous coat of crimson velvet, and had diamond buckles in his shoes; it was those buckles that captured me, the first glance at them."

Again she laughed, and this time Marcelino laughed with her.

"But I can tell you one thing I should not like," she said, after a pause; "if I were very much in love with anyone I should not like to see him _very_ friendly with some one very much prettier than I am."

"You need never fear that. Most men say that there is no one in Buenos Aires prettier than you are."

"Traitor! Is not the girl you love fairer to you than any one else in the world?"

"Dearer, yes. But beauty is to be admired, not loved. It is not essential to love that the loved one be beautiful."

"Yet the loved one is always fair?"

"Always."

"Even when she turns her back upon you and leaves you and smiles on some one else?"

"Even then."

"Then I retract my statement that I have been in love fifty times. I suppose I have never been in love, not even with the Señor Don Ciriaco Asneiros. I could never forgive a lover who was rude to me and had smiles for some one else--never."

"The love of women differs from that of men, it is more exacting," said Marcelino.

"I suppose it is," said Elisa, with something of weariness in her tone. "You and I have been always very good friends, do you know that there are people who say that there is more than friendship between us?"

"What matters it what people say?"

"Nothing to us, but if any one has said so to Magdalen it may matter much to her." Then Elisa looked down confusedly, twining her fingers together, and with a flush on her fair face.

Marcelino rose from his chair and went into the sala where Doña Josefina was sitting out of sight, but within hearing of them.

"Aunt," said he, sitting down beside her, "was there any truth in what you told me, that Magdalen was going to marry Don Ciriaco?"

"I thought there was," replied Doña Josefina quietly. "I know Don Alfonso wished it, but Magdalen tells me it is quite false, and now I suppose it is impossible."

Marcelino remained talking with his aunt and Elisa Puyrredon for nearly an hour, when Don Fausto returned alone, saying that Don Ciriaco Asneiros could give them no help or information whatever, alleging that he was merely acting under orders and knew nothing of the cause of the arrest of Don Alfonso.

"You will speak to your father now, will you not?" said Elisa Puyrredon to Marcelino, as he took up his hat to go.

"I am going at once," asked Marcelino.

"At last I shall believe that there are some men who know how to love," said she to him in a whisper.

* * * * *

It was late in the afternoon when Marcelino reached his father's house. Don Roderigo had left half an hour before for the quinta, where the family were then staying. He ordered his horse to be saddled and sent after him to the house of Don Carlos Evaña, whither he proceeded on foot. He found Don Carlos in his study, his table covered with sheets of manuscript which he was revising. Marcelino took up some of these sheets and glanced over them.

"If Don Ciriaco Asneiros still wants proofs of treason, you had better send him a few of these, Carlos," said he.

"Treason, you say," replied Evaña, "wait a month or two and you will call them patriotic."

"So soon?"

"For what are we to wait? Everything is now ready, it wants but a spark and the mine explodes."

"Is this the spark?"

"Scarcely so. This is the wind to keep the spark from going out."

"You seem to have done enough for to-day, a gallop would do you good. I want you to help me with my father as I helped you with Asneiros."

"You want him to set Don Alfonso at liberty. I tell you he will refuse."

"I hope not, it is a gross injustice."

"Then Don Roderigo is at the quinta?"

"Yes, and I had rather see him there than in the city. He will not like my interference, and may say things which I should be sorry if any but ourselves were to hear."

* * * * *

Two hours afterwards Don Roderigo was seated in his sala at the quinta, his face was flushed, as though something had angered him. Near him sat Don Carlos Evaña with a quiet smile playing upon his lips. Marcelino stood leaning against the window frame, evidently suffering bitterly from some disappointment. Doña Constancia entered the room, and seeing the sorrow in her son's face walked up to him.

"Do you know, Constancia, what has brought these two young men out here this evening?" said Don Roderigo.

"They have come to see us, I suppose," answered the lady. "Don Carlos has been quite a stranger lately."

"Not at all; they have come to ask me to set that traitor Miranda at liberty."

"I can excuse Marcelino for that," said Doña Constancia. "Don Alfonso was very good to him when he was wounded."

"Don Alfonso is a physician, and found good practice in his broken ribs. He was well paid for his trouble."

"I did not know that you paid him," said Marcelino; "he refused any acknowledgment from me."

"You cannot think that I would accept a favour from a man like him. I can assure you he was ready enough to take my gold."

"I have no doubt he deserves his imprisonment or the Viceroy would not have put him in prison, so do not trouble yourself any more about him, Marcelino," said Doña Constancia.

"It is not about him that I trouble myself," replied Marcelino. "If he were justly imprisoned I would not say a word for him, but we have made enquiries and can hear of no accusation having been brought against him, merely suspicions. And men say----!"

"Who are _we_ that have made those enquiries?" asked Don Roderigo.

"My grandfather and Don Fausto as well as myself."

"They were with me to-day. In future you had better leave such enquiries to them."

"But, father, have not you heard how people talk about it all over the city? It has brought discredit upon the Viceroy, and upon all those who act with him. We all thought that the days of arbitrary imprisonments were gone by."

"What matters it what the mob says? You may be sure that the Viceroy has good reasons for what he does."

"Then why does he not bring him to trial? Why does he say that he does not know anything of the charges against him, and refer those who ask him to you?"

"I have given you my answer, and I request that you never mention the man's name to me again." So saying Don Roderigo rose from his chair and left the room.

As Don Roderigo left the room by one door Dolores entered it by another.

"What is to do?" said she. "Papa looked quite angry."

"There is this to do, my sister," said Marcelino; "that the cause of Spain is lost in America. There are many of us Creoles who would have gladly joined the Spaniards in raising up in America a new kingdom for King Ferdinand now that the French have taken his old one, but we demand equal rights and equal laws for all, and the best of the Spaniards will not yield that. There is one law for Spaniards and another law for Americans."

"What nonsense you talk, Marcelino. King Ferdinand will soon win back his own kingdom again."

"By the help of the English?" said Don Carlos.

"Yes, the English will help him. But what is it all about?" said Dolores. "Papa was angry."

"Marcelino wanted him to ask the Viceroy to pardon Don Alfonso Miranda, and to let him go," said Doña Constancia.

"No wonder then, that papa was angry. How could you think of making such a request, Marcelino?"

"I did not ask for pardon, my sister, I asked only for justice."

"Justice! of course he will have justice, he will be well punished."

"For what, fair lady?" said Don Carlos.

"They would not put him in prison unless he deserved it. I am not a bit sorry for him, but I am for Magdalen. Is she stopping yet with Aunt Josefina?"

"Yes," said Don Carlos, "the poor girl has nowhere else to go to."

"And I suppose the Señor Asneiros goes there every day to see her?"

"He has not been near the house since she has been there."

"Then do you think it is all over between him and Magdalen?"

"There never was anything between them. Magdalen merely looked upon him as a friend of her father's, but now she says that he only went to the quinta to spy upon him."

"That is strange; but Aunt Josefina is always trying to get people married who care nothing about each other. I thought it very strange that Magdalen should care anything for a man like Major Asneiros."

"Then we shall have another laugh at Aunt Josefina, she is always making mistakes of that sort, but she never tires of her amusement," said Doña Constancia.

"I fear it will be no laughing matter for Don Alfonso," said Don Carlos.

"I will tell you what I will do," said Dolores, going up to Marcelino and leaning upon his arm. "In a few days, I will ask papa to speak to the Viceroy for Don Alfonso; but not yet, he is angry now, and no wonder, when you talk to him about injustice."

* * * * *

Marcelino and Don Carlos remained that night at the quinta, the next morning, as they rode together to the city, Marcelino said to his friend:

"You think, then, that our errand has been successful?"

"I think it has," said Evaña. "Don Roderigo will yield to the prayer of his daughter what he refused when you asked for justice."

"From my father I hoped better things than that."

"Do not blame Don Roderigo, it is the Spanish system which makes such things possible. Unlimited power debases not only those who are subject to it, but quite as much, or even more so, those who exercise it. A few years of such power as he has at present, would change your father from a most liberal-minded man to a despot."

"We can only put an end to this system by establishing a government of our own," said Marcelino.

"Then let us do it at once. For what are we waiting? The people and the troops all anticipate a change, they wait only for the leaders to give the signal."