The Spanish Military Nun  

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"The Spanish Military Nun" is a text by Thomas De Quincey based on the story of Antonio de Erauso.

de Erauso wrote or dictated the autobiography which remained in manuscript form until it was first published in Paris in 1829 at the request of Joaquín María Ferrer, a second time in Barcelona in 1838, and for the third time in 1894 in Paris, with illustrations by Spanish artist Daniel Vierge. Then his account was translated into several languages and versions of the theme, as idealized by Thomas De Quincey, entitled in English.

Full text

Many people think, that Spain went so heartily into the enterprises of Cortes and Pizarro. A sedentaiy body of Dons, without needing to uncross their thrice noble legs, would thus levy eternal tributes of gold and silver upon eternal mines, through eternal suc- cessions of nations that had been, and were to be, enslaved. Meantime, until these golden visions should be realized, aristocratic daughters^ who constituted the hereditary torment of the true Castilian Don, were 10 to be disposed of in the good old way ; viz., by quar- tering them for life upon nunneries : a plan which entailed no sacrifice whatever upon any of the parties concerned, except, indeed, the little insignificant sacri- fice of happiness and natural birthrights to the daugh- ters. But this little inevitable wreck, when placed in the counter-scale to the magnificent purchase of eternal idleness for an aristocracy so ancient, was surely en- titled to little attention amongst philosophers. Daugh- ters must perish by generations, and ought to be proud 20 of perishing, in order that their papas, being hidalgos, might luxuriate in laziness. Accordingly, on this system, our hidalgo of St. Sebastian wrapped the new little daughter, odious to his paternal eyes, in a pocket- handkerchief ; and then, wrapping up his own throat with a great deal more care, off he bolted to the neigh- bouring convent of St. Sebastian ; meaning by that term not merely a convent of that city, but also (amongst several convents) the one dedicated to that saint. It is well that in this quarrelsome world we 30 quarrel furiously about tastes ; since, agreeing too closely about the objects to be liked, we should agree too closely about the objects to be appropriated ; which would breed much more fighting than is bred by dis- agreeing. That little human tadpole, which the old toad of a father would not suffer to stay ten minutes in his house, proved as welcome at the nunnery of St. Sebastian as she was odious at home. The Lady Superior of the convent was aunt, by the mother’s side, to the new-born stranger. She therefore kissed 40 and blessed the little lady. The poor nuns, who were never to have any babies of their own, and were

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languishing for some amusement, perfectly doted on this prospect of a wee pet. The Superior thanked the hidalgo for his very splendid present. The nuns thanked him each and all ; until the old crocodile actually began to whimper sentimentally at what he now perceived to be excess of munificence in himself. Munificence, indeed, he remarked, was his foible, next after parental tenderness.

2. Wait a little, Hidalgo !

What a luxury it is, sometimes, to a cynic that lo there go two words to a bargain. In the convent of St. Sebastian all was gratitude ; gratitude (as afore- said) to the hidalgo from all the convent for his present, until at last the hidalgo began to express gratitude to them for their gratitude to him. Then came a rolling fire of thanks to St. Sebastian; from the Superior, for sending a future saint ; from the nuns, for sending such a love of a plaything ; and, finally, from Papa, for sending such substantial board and well-bolted lodgings ; ^ From which,’ said the 20 malicious old fellow, ^ my Pussy will never find her way out to a thorny and dangerous w^orld.’ Won’t she ? I suspect, ‘ son of somebody that the next time you see Pussy, which may happen to be also the last, will not be in a convent of any kind. At present, whilst this general rendering of thanks was going on, one person only took no part in them. That person was Pussy, whose little figure lay quietly stretched out in the arms of a smiling young nun, with eyes nearly shut, yet peering a little at the candles. Pussy 30 said nothing. It ’s of no great use to say much, when all the world is against you. But if St. Sebastian had enabled her to speak out the whole truth, Pussy would have said : ^ So, Mr. Hidalgo, you have been engaging lodgings for me ; lodgings for life. Wait a little. We’ll try that question, when my claws are grown a little longer.’

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3. Symptoms of Mutiny

Disappointment, therefore, was gathering ahead. But for the present there was nothing of the kind. That noble old crocodile, Papa, was not in the least disappointed as regarded his expectation of having no anxiety to waste, and no money to pay, on account of his youngest daughter. He insisted on his right to forget her ; and in a week had forgotten her, never to think of her again but once. The Lady Superior, 10 as regarded her demands, was equally content, and through a course of several years ; for, as often as she asked Pussy if she would be a saint, Pussy replied that she would, if saints were allowed plenty of sweet- meats. But least of all were the nuns disappointed. Everything that they had fancied possible in a human plaything fell short of what Pussy realized in racketing, racing, and eternal plots against the peace of the elder nuns. No fox ever kept a hen-roost in such alarm as Pussy kept the dormitory of the senior sisters ; whilst 20 the younger ladies were run off their legs by the eternal wiles, and had their gravity discomposed, even in chapel, by the eternal antics, of this privileged little kitten.

The kitten had long ago received a baptismal name, which was Kitty, or Kate ; and that in Spanish is Catalina. It was a good name, as it recalled her original name of Pussy. And, by tlie way, she had also an ancient and honourable surname, viz., De Erauso, which is to this day a name rooted in Biscay. Her father, the hidalgo, was a military officer in the 30 Spanish service, and had little care whether his kitten should turn out a wolf or a lamb, having made over the fee-simple of his own interest in the little Kate to St. Sebastian, ‘ to have and to hold,’ so long as Kate should keep her hold of this present life. Kate had no apparent intention to let slip that hold ; for she was blooming as a rose-bush in June, tall and strong as a young cedar. Yet, notwithstanding this robust health, which forbade one to think of separation from St. Sebastian by death, and notwithstanding the strength 40 of the convent walls, which forbade one to think of any

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other separation, the time was drawing near when St. Sebastian’s lease in Kate must, in legal phrase, ‘ deter- mine’ ; and any chateaux en Espagne that the saint might have built on the cloistral fidelity of his pet Catalina, must suddenly give way in one hour, like many other vanities in our own days of Spanish growth ; such as Spanish constitutions and charters, Spanish financial reforms, Spanish bonds, and other little varieties of Spanish ostentatious mendacity.

4. The Symptoms Thicken 10

After reaching her tenth year, Catalina became thoughtful, and not very docile. At times she was even headstrong and turbulent, so that the gentle sisterhood of St. Sebastian, who had no other pet or plaything in the world, began to weep in secret, fear- ing that they might have been rearing by mistake some future tigress ; for as to infancy, thaty you know, is playful and innocent even in the cubs of a tigress. But there the ladies were going too far. Catalina was impetuous and aspiring, violent sometimes, headstrong 20 and haughty towards those who presumed upon her youth, absolutely rebellious against all open harshness, but still generous and most forgiving, disdainful of petty arts, and emphatically a noble girl. She was gentle, if people would let her be so. But woe to those that took liberties with her I A female servant of the convent, in some authority, one day, in passing up the aisle to matins, wilfully gave Kate a push ; and, in return, Kate, who never left her debts in arrear, gave the servant for a keepsake such a look, as that 30 servant carried with her in fearful remembrance to her grave. It seemed as if Kate had tropic blood in her veins, that continually called her away to the tropics. It was all the fault of that ‘ blue rejoicing sky of those purple Biscayan mountains, of that glad tumultuous ocean, which she beheld daily from the nunnery gardens. Or, if only half of it was their fault, the other half lay in those golden tales, streaming upwards even into the sanctuaries of convents, like

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morning mists touched by earliest sunlight, of kingdoms overshadowing a new world, which had been founded by her kinsmen with the simple aid of a horse and a lance. The reader is to remember that this is no romance, or at least no fiction, that he is reading ; and it is proper to remind the reader of real romances in Ariosto or our own Spenser, that such martial ladies as the Marfisa or Bradamant of the first, and Britomart of the other, were really not the improbabilities that modern 10 society imagines. Many a stout man, as you will soon see, found that Kate, with a sabre in hand, and well mounted, was no romance at all, but far too serious a fact.

6. Good Night, St. Sebastian !

The day is come— the evening is come— when our poor Kate, that had for fifteen years been so tenderly rocked in the arms of St. Sebastian and his daughters, and that henceforth shall hardly find a breathing space between eternal storms, must see her peaceful cell, must see the holy chapel, for the last time. It was at 20 vespers, it was during the chanting of the vesper ser- vice, that she finally read the secret signal for her departure, which long she had been looking for. It happened that her aunt, the Lady Principal, had for- gotten her breviary. As this was in a private ’scrutoire, the prudent lady did not choose to send a servant for it, but gave the key to her niece. The niece, on opening the ’scrutoire, saw, with that rapidity of eye-glance for the one thing needed in great emergencies which ever attended her through life, that now was the moment, 30 now had the clock struck, for an opportunity which, if neglected, might never return. There lay the total keys, in one massive trousseau, of that monastic for- tress, impregnable even to armies from without. St. Sebastian ! do you see what your pet is going to do ? And do it she will, as sure as your name is St. Sebastian. Kato went back to her aunt with the breviary and the key ; but taking good care to leave that awful door, on whose hinge revolved her whole future life, unlocked. Delivering the two

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articles to the Superior, she complained of headache — (ah, Kate ! what did you know of headaches?) — upon which her aunt, kissing her forehead, dismissed her to bed. Now, then, through three-fouiihs of an hour Kate will have free elbow-room for unanchoring her boat, for unshipping her oars, and for pulling ahead right out of St. Sebastian’s cove into the main ocean of life.

Catalina, the reader is to understand, does not belong to the class of persons in whom pre-eminently I profess an interest. But everywhere one loves energy and 10 indomitable courage. And always what is best in its kind one admires, even where the kind may happen to be not specially attractive. Kate’s advantages for her role in this life lay in four things : viz., in a well-built person, and a particularly strong wrist ; 2nd, in a heart that nothing could appal ; 3rd, in a sagacious head, never drawn aside from the hoc age (from the instant question of the hour) by any weakness of imagination ; 4th, in a tolerably thick skin — not literally, for she was fair and blooming, and eminently handsome, 20 having such a skin, in fact, as became a young woman of family in northernmost Spain ; but her sensibilities were obtuse as regarded some modes of delicacy, some modes of equity, some modes of the world s opinion, and all modes whatever of personal hardship. Lay a stress on that word some — for, as to delicacy, she never lost sight of that kind which peculiarly concerns her sex. Long afterwards she told the Pope himself, when con- fessing without disguise to the paternal old man her sad and infinite wanderings (and I feel convinced of her 30 veracity), that in this respect — viz., all which con- cerned her sexual honour— even then she was as pure as a child. And, as to equity, it was only that she sub- stituted the rude natural equity of camps for the specious and conventional equity of courts and towns.

I must add, though at the cost of interrupting the story by two or three more sentences, that Catalina had also a fifth advantage, which sounds humbly, but is really of use in a world, where even to fold and seal a letter adroitly is not the lowest of accomplishments. 40 She was a handy girl. She could turn her hand to

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anything ; of which I will give you two memorable instances. Was there ever a girl in this world but her- self that cheated and snapped her fingers at that awful Inquisition, which brooded over the convents of Spain ? that did this without collusion from outside; trusting to nobody, but to herself, and what beside ? to one needle, two skeins of thread, and a bad pair of scissors ? For, that the scissors were bad, though Kate does not say so in her memoirs, I know by an a priori argu-

10 ment ; viz., because all scissors were bad in the year 1607. Now, say all decent logicians, from a universal to a particular valet consequential the right of inference is good. All scissors were bad, ergo^ some scissors were bad. The second instance of her handiness will sur- prise you even more She once stood upon a scaffold, under sentence of death (but, understand, on the evi- dence of false witnesses). Jack Ketch, or, as the

present generation calls him, ‘ Mr. Calcraft,’ or ‘

Calcraft, Esq.,’ was absolutely tying the knot under

20 her ear, and the shameful man of roj^es fumbled so deplorably, that Kate (who by much nautical experi- ence had learned from another sort of ^ Jack ’ how a knot should be tied in this world) lost all patience with the contemptible artist, told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a festal roll, long and loud, of vivas ; and this word viva being a word of good augury — but stop ; let me not anticipate.

30 From this sketch of Catalina’s character, the reader is prepared to understand the decision of her present proceeding. She had no time to lose : the twilight, it is true, favoured her ; but in any season twilight is as short-lived as a farthing rushlight ; and she must get under hiding before pursuit commenced. Consequently she lost not one of her forty-five minutes in picking and choosing. No ‘ shilly-shally’ in Kate. She saw with the eyeball of an eagle what was indispensable. Some little money perhaps, in the first place, to pay

40 the first toll-bar of life : so, out of four shillings in Aunty’s purse, or what amounted to that English sum

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in various Spanish coins, she took one. You can’t say that was exorbitant. Which of us wouldn’t subscribe a shilling for poor Kate, to put into the first trouser- pockets that ever she will wear ? I remember even yet, as a 2 )ersonal experience, that when first arrayed, at four years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, 10 of which I can render no account at this day. But what were my poor pretensions by the side of Kate’s ? Kate was a fine blooming girl of fifteen, with no touch of ague ; and, before the next sun rises, Kate shall draw on her first trousers, made by her own hand ; and, that she may do so, of all the valuables in aunty’s repositoiy she takes nothing beside, first (for I detest your ridiculous and most pedantic neologism oi firstly)

— first, the shilling for which I have already given a receipt ; secondly, two skeins of suitable thread ; 20 thirdly, one stout needle, and (as I told you before, if you would please to remember things) one bad pair of scissors. Now she was ready ; ready to cast off St. Sebastian’s towing-rope ; ready to cut and run for port anywhere, which port (according to a smart American adage) is to be looked for ‘ at the back of beyond ’. The finishing touch of her preparations was to pick out the proper keys : even there she showed the same discretion. She did no gratuitous mischief. She did not take the wine-cellar key, which would 30 liave irritated the good father confessor ; she did not take the key of the closet which held the peppermint water and other cordials, for that would have distressed the elderly nuns. >S7<c took those keys only that be- longed to her, if ever keys did ; for they were the keys that locked her out from her natural birthright of liberty. Very different views are taken by different parties of this particular act now meditated by Kate. The Court of Rome treats it as the immediate sugges- tion of Hell, and open to no forgiveness. Another 40 Court, far loftier, ampler, and of larger authority,

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viz., the* Court which holds its dreadful tribunal in the human heart and conscience, pronounces this act an inalienable privilege of man, and the mere reassertion of a birthright that can neither be bought nor sold.

6. Kate’s First Bivouac and First March

Eight or wrong, however, in Romish casuistiy, Kate was resolved to let herself out ; and did ; and, for fear any man should creep in whilst vespers lasted, and steal the kitchen grate, she locked her old friends in, 10 Then she sought a shelter. The air was moderately warm. She hurried into a chestnut wood, and upon withered leaves, which furnished to Kate her very first bivouac in a long succession of such experiences, she slept till earliest dawn. Spanish diet and youth leave the digestion undisordered, and the slumbers light. When the lark rose, up rose Catalina. No time to lose ; for she was still in the dress of a nun ; and therefore, by a law too flagrantly notorious, liable to the peremptory challenge and arrest of any man — 20 the very meanest or poorest— in all Spain. With her armed finger (aye, by the way, I forgot the thimble ; but Kate did not)^ she set to work upon her amply-em- broidered petticoat. She turned it wrong side out ; and with the magic that only female hands possess, she had soon sketched and finished a dashing pair of Wellington trousers. All other changes were made according to the materials she possessed, and quite sufficiently to disguise the two main perils— her sex, and her monastic dedication. What was she to do 30 next ? Speaking of Wellington trousers anywhere in the north of Spain would remind but could hardly remind her, of Vittoria, w^here she dimly had heard of some maternal relative. To Vittoria, therefore, she bent her course ; and, like the Duke of Wellington, but arriving more than two centuries earlier, she gained a great victory at that place. She had made a two days’ march, with no provisions but wild berries ; she depended, for anything better, as light-heartedly as the Duke, upon attacking, sword in hand, storming her

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dear friend’s entrenchments, and effecting a lodgement in his breakfast-room, should he happen to possess one. This amiable relative proved to be an elderly man, who had but one foible, or perhaps it was a virtue, which had by continual development over- shadowed his whole nature — it was pedantry. On that hint Catalina spoke : she knew by heart, from the services of the convent, a good number of Latin phrases. Latin ! — Oh, but that was charming ; and in one so young ! The grave Don owned the soft im- 10 peachment ; relented at once, and clasped the hopeful young gentleman in the Wellington trousers to his uncular and rather angular breast. In this house the yarn of life was of a mingled quality. The table was good, but that was exactly what Kate cared least about. On the other hand, the amusement was of the worst kind. In consisted chiefly in conjugating Latin verbs, especially such as were obstinately ir- regular. To show him a withered frost-bitten verb, that wanted its preterite, wanted its gerunds, wanted 20 its supines, wanted, in fact, everything in this world, fruits or blossoms, that make a verb desirable, wiis to earn the Don s gratitude for life. All day long he was, as you may say, marching and countermarching his favourite brigades of verbs -verbs Irequentative, verbs inceptive, verl)S desiderative — horse, foot, and artillery ; changing front, advancing from the rear, throwing out skirmishing parties, until Kate, not given to faint, must have thought of such a resource, as once in her life she had thought so seasonably of a vesper 30 headache. This was really worse than St. Sebastian’s.

It reminds one of a French gaiety in Thiebault, who describes a rustic party, under equal despair, as em- ploying themselves in conjugating the verb s'ennuyer , —

Je m'ennuky tu fennuies, il sknnuie ; nous nous ennuyons,

&c. ; thence to the imperfect — Je m'ennuyoiSj tu fennuyois^ &c. ; thence to the imperative — Qu'il skn- nuye, &c. ; and so on, through the whole dolorous con- jugation. Now, you know, when the time comes that nous nous ennuyons^ the best course is, to part. Kate 40 saw that ; and she walked off from the Don’s (of whose

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amorous passion for defective verbs one would have wished to know the catastrophe), taking from his mantelpiece rather more silver than she had levied on her aunt. But then, observe, the Don also was a relative ; and really he owed her a small cheque on his banker for turning out on his field-days. A man, if he is a kinsman, has no unlimited privilege of boring one : an uncle has a qualified right to bore his nephews, even when they happen to be nieces ; but he has no right to 10 bore either nephew or niece gratis.

7. Kate at Court, where she Prescribes Phlebotomy, and is Promoted

From Vittoria, Kate was guided by a carrier to Valladolid. Luckily, as it seemed at first, but, in fact, it made little difference in the end, here, at Valladolid, were assembled the King and his Court. Consequently, there was plenty of regiments and plenty of regimental bands. Attracted by one of these, Catalina was quietly listening to the music, when some street ruffians, in 20 derision of the gay colouis and the particular form of her forest-made costume (rascals ! what sort of trousers would they have made with no better scissors ?), began to pelt her with stones. Ah, my friends of the genus hlackguard, you little know who it is that you are selecting for experiments. This is the one creature of fifteen years old in all Spain, be the other male or female, whom nature, and temper, and provocation have qualified for taking the conceit out of you. This she very soon did, laying open with sharp stones more 30 heads than either one or two, and letting out rather too little than too much of bad Valladolid blood. But mark the constant villany of this world. Certain alguazils — very like some other algmzils that I know of nearer home-having stood by quietly to see the friendless stranger insulted and assaulted, now felt it their duty to apprehend the poor nun for her most natural retaliation : and had there been such a thing as a treadmill in Valladolid, Kate was booked for a place on it without further inquiry. Luckily, injustice does

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not always prosper. A gallant young cavalier, who had witnessed from his windows the whole affair, had seen the provocation, and admired Catalina’s beha- viour — equally patient at first, and bold at last — hastened into the street, pursued the officers, forced them to release their prisoner, upon stating the cir- cumstances of the case, and instantly offered to Catalina a situation amongst his retinue. He was a man of birth and fortune ; and the place offered, that of an honorary page, not being at all degrading even to 10 a ^ daughter of somebody ’, was cheerfully accepted.

8. Too Good to Last !

Here Catalina spent a happy quarter of a year ! She was now splendidly dressed in dark blue velvet, by a tailor that did not work within the gloom of a chestnut forest. She and the young cavalier, Don Francisco de Cardenas, were mutually pleased, and had mutual confidence. All went well — until one evening (but, luckily, not before the sun had been set so long as to make all things indistinct), who should 20 march into the antechamber of the cavalier but that sublime of crocodiles, Fapa, whom we lost sight of fifteen years ago, and shall never see again after this night, tie had his crocodile tears all ready for use, in working order, like a good industrious fire-engine. Whom will he speak to first in this lordly mansion ?

It was absolutely to Catalina herself that he advanced ; whom, for many reasons, he could not be supposed to recognize — lapse of years, male attire, twilight, were all against him. Still, she might have the family 30 countenance ; and Kate fancied (but it must have been a fancy) that he looked with a suspicious scrutiny into her face, as he inquired for the young Don. To avert her own face, to announce him to Don Francisco, to wish Papa on the shores of that ancient river, the Nile, furnished but one moment’s work to the active Catalina. She lingered, hoAvever, as her place entitled her to do, at the door of the audience chamber. She guessed already, but in a moment she heard from

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Papa’s lips, what was the nature of his errand. His daughter Catherine, he informed the Don, had eloped from the convent of St. Sebastian, a place rich in delight, radiant with festal pleasure, overflowing with luxury. Then he laid open the unparalleled ingrati- tude of such a step. Oh, the unseen treasure that had been spent upon that girl ! Oh, the untold sums of money, the unknown amounts of cash, that had been sunk in that unhappy speculation ! The nights of 10 sleeplessness suffered during her infancy ! The fifteen years of solicitude thrown away in schemes for her improvement ! It would have moved the heart of a stone. The hidalgo wept copiously at his own pathos. And to such a height of grandeur had he carried his Spanish sense of the sublime, that he dis- dained to mention — yes ! positively not even in a parenthesis would he condescend to notice — that pocket-handkerchief which he had left at St. Sebas- tian’s fifteen years ago, by way of envelope for Pussy, 20 and which, to the best of Pussy’s knowledge, was tfie one sole memorandum of Papa ever heard of at St. Sebastian’s. Pussy, however, saw no use in re- vising and correcting the text of Papa’s remembrances. She showed her usual prudence, and her usual incom- parable decision. It did not appear, as yet, that she would be reclaimed (or was at all suspected for the fugitive) by her father, or by Don Cardenas. For it is an instance of that singular fatality which pursued Catalina through life, that, to her own astonishment 30 (as she now collected from her father’s conference), nobody had traced her to Valladolid, nor had her father’s visit any connexion with any suspicious traveller in that direction. The case was quite dif- ferent. Strangely enough, her street row had thrown her, by the purest of accidents, into the one sole household in all Spain that had an official connexion with St. Sebastian’s. That convent had been founded by the young cavalier’s family ; and, according to the usage of Spain, the young man (as present repre- 40 sentative of his house) was the responsible protector and official visitor of the establishment. It was not

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to the Don, as harbourer of his daughter, but to the Don, as hereditary patron of the convent, that the hidalgo was appealing. This being so, Kate might have stayed safely some time longer. Yet, again, that would but have multiplied the clues for tracing her ; and, finally, she would too probably have been discovered ; after which, with all his youthful generosity, the poor Don could not have protected her. Too terrific was the vengeance that awaited an abettor of any fugitive nun ; but, above all, if such a crime were perpetrated lo by an official mandatory of the church. Yet, again, so far it was the more hazardous course to abscond, that it almost revealed her to the young Don as the missing daughter. Still, if it really had that effect, nothing at present obliged him to pursue her, as might have been the case a few weeks later. Kate argued (I dare say) rightly, as she always did. Her prudence whispered eternally, that safety there was none for her, until she had laid the Atlantic between herself and St. Sebastian's. Life was to be for her 20 a Bay of Biscay ; and it was odds but she had first embarked upon this billowy life from the literal Bay of Biscay. Chance ordered otherwise. Or, as a Frenchman says, with eloquent ingenuity, in con- nexion with this very story, ‘ Chance is but the pseu- donym of God for those particular cases which he does not choose to subscribe openly with his own sign manual.’ She crept upstairs to her bedroom. Simple are the travelling preparations of those that, possessing nothing, have no imperials to pack. She had Juvenal’s 30 qualification for carolling gaily through a forest full of robbers ; for she had nothing to lose but a change of linen, that rode easily enough under her left arm, leaving the right free for answering the questions of impertinent customers. As she crept downstairs, she heard the crocodile still weeping forth his sorrows to the pensive ear of twilight, and to the sympathetic Don Francisco. Ah, what a beautiful idea occurs to me at this point ! Once on the hustings at Liverpool I saw a mob orator, whose brawling mouth, open 40 to its widest expansion, suddenly some larking sailor,

DE QUINCET B

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by the most dexterous of shots, plugged up with a paving-stone. Here, now, at Valladolid, was another mouth that equally requited plugging. What a pity, then, that some gay brother page of Kate’s had not been there to turn aside into the room, armed with a roasted potato, and, taking a sportsman’s aim, to have lodged it in the crocodile’s abominable mouth ! Yet, what an anachronism ! There wm no roasted potatoes in Spain at that date (1608), which can be 10 apodeictically proved, because in Spain there were no potatoes at all ; and very few in England. But anger drives a man to say anything.

9. How TO Choose Lodgings

Catalina had seen her last of friends and enemies in Valladolid. Short was her time there ; but she had improved it so far as to make a few of both. There was an eye or two in Valladolid that would have glared with malice upon her, had she been seen by all eyes in that city, as she tripped through the streets in the 20 dusk ; and eyes there were that would have softened into tears, had they seen the desolate condition of the child, or in vision had seen the struggles that were before her. But what ’s the use of wasting tears upon our Kate? Wait till to-morrow morning at sunrise, and see if she is particularly in need of pity. What, now, should a young lady do — I propose it as a subject for a prize essay — that finds herself in Valladolid at nightfall, having no letters of introduction, and not aware of any reason, great or small, for preferring this 80 or that street in general, except so far as she knows of some reason for avoiding one street in particular? The great problem I have stated, Kate investigated as she went along ; and she solved it with the accuracy which she ever applied to practical exigencies. Her conclusion was — that the best door to knock at, in such a case, was the door where there was no need to knock at all, as being deliberately left open to all comers. For she argued, that within such a door there would be nothing to steal, so that, at least, you

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could not be mistaken in the dark for a thief. Then, as to stealing from her, they might do that if they could.

Upon these principles, which hostile critics will in vain endeavour to undermine, she laid her hand upon what seemed a rude stable-door. Such it proved ; and the stable was not absolutely empty : for there was a cart inside — a four-wheeled cart. True, there was so ; but you couldn't take that away in your pocket ; and there were also five loads of straw, but then of those 10 a lady could take no more than her reticule would carry, which perhaps was allowed by the courtesy of Spain. So Kate was right as to the difficulty of being challenged for a thief. Closing the door as gently as she had opened it, she dropped her person, handsomely dressed as she was, upon the nearest heap of straw. Some ten feet further were lying two muleteers, honest and happy enough, as compared with the Lords of the Bedchamber then in Valladolid : but still gross men, carnally deaf from eating garlic and onions, and other 20 horrible substances. Accordingly, they never heard her ; nor were aware, until dawn, that such a bloom- ing person existed. But she was aware of them, and of their conversation. In the intervals of their sleep, they talked much of an expedition to America, on the point of sailing under Don Ferdinand de Cordova. It was to sail from some Andalusian port. That was the thing for her. At daylight she woke, and jumped up, needing little more toilet than the birds that already were singing in the gardens, or than the two muleteers, 80 who, good, honest fellows, saluted the handsome boy kindly — thinking no ill at his making free with their straw, though no leave had been asked.

With these philogarlic men Kate took her departure. The morning was divine : and, leaving Valladolid with the transports that befitted such a golden dawn, feeling also already, in the very obscurity of her exit, the pledge of her final escape ; she cared no longer for the crocodile, nor for St. Sebastian, nor (in the way of fear) for the protector of St. Sebastian, though of him she 40 thought with some tenderness ; so deep is the remem-

b2

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brance of kindness mixed with justice. Andalusia she reached rather slowly ; many weeks the journey cost her ; but, after all, what are weeks ? She reached Seville many months before she was sixteen years old, and quite in time for the expedition,

10. An Ugly Dilemma, where Right and Wrong

IS REDUCED TO A QUESTION OF RiGHT OR LeFT

Ugly indeed is that dilemma where shipwreck and the sea are on one side of you, and famine on the other ;

10 or, if a chance of escape is offered, apparently it depends upon taking the right road where there is no guide-post.

St. Lucar being the port of rendezvous for the Peru- vian expedition, thither she went. All comers were welcome on board the fleet ; much more a fine young fellow like Kate. She was at once engaged as a mate; and her ship, in particular, after doubling Cape Horn without loss, made the coast of Peru. Paita was the port of her destination. Very near to this port they were, when a storm threw them upon a coral reef.

20 There was little hope of the ship from the first, for she was unmanageable, and was not expected to hold together for twenty-four hours. In this condition, with death before their faces, mark what Kate did ; and please to remember it for her benefit, when she does any other little thing that angers you. The crew lowered the long-boat. Vainly the Captain protested against this disloyal desertion of a King’s ship, which might yet, perhaps, be run on shore, so as to save the stores. All the crew, to a man, deserted the Captain.

80 You may say that literally; for the single exception was not a man, being our bold-hearted Kate. She was the only sailor that refused to leave her Captain, or the King of Spain’s ship. The rest pulled away for the shore, and with fair hopes of reaching it. But one half-hour told another tale : just about that time came a broad sheet of lightning, which, through the darkness of evening, revealed the boat in the very act of mount- ing like a horse upon an inner reef, instantly filling, and throwing out the crew, every man of whom dis-

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN 21

appeared amongst the breakers. The night which succeeded was gloomy for both the representatives of his Catholic Majesty. It cannot be denied by the underwriters at Lloyd’s, that the muleteer’s stable at Valladolid was worth twenty such ships, though the stable was not insured against fire, and the ship was insured against the sea and the wind by some fellow that thought very little of his engagements. But what’s the use of sitting down to cry? That was never any trick of Catalina’s. By daybreak, she was at work lo with an axe in her hand. I knew it, before ever I came to this place in her memoirs. I felt, as sure as if I had read it, that when day broke, we should find Kate at work. Thimble or axe, trousers or raft, all one to her. The Captain, though true to his duty, faithful to his King, and on his King’s account even hopeful, seems from the first to have desponded on his own. He gave no help towards the raft. Signs were speaking, how- ever, pretty loudly that he must do something ; for notice to quit was now served pretty liberally. Kate’s 20 raft was ready ; and she encouraged the Captain to think that it would give both of them something to hold by in swimming, if not even carry double. At this moment, when all was waiting for a start, and the ship herself was waiting only for a final lurch to say good-bye to tho King of Spain, Kate went and did a thing which some erring people will misconstrue. She knew of a box laden with gold coins, reputed to be the King of Spain’s, and meant for contingencies on the voyage out. This she smashed open with her axe, 30 and took out a sum in ducats and pistoles equal to one hundred guineas English ; which, having well secured in a pillow-case, she then lashed firmly to the raft. Now this, you know, though not ‘ flotsam ’, because it would not float, was certainly, by maritime law, ‘jetsam.’ It would be the idlest of scruples to fancy that the sea or a shark had a better right to it than a philosopher, or a splendid girl who showed herself capable of writing a very fair 8vo, to say nothing of her decapitating in battle, as you will find, more than one 40 of the King’s enemies, and recovering the King’s banner.

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No sane moralist would hesitate to do the same thing under the same circumstances, even on board an English vessel, and though the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary, that pokes his nose into everything nautical, should be looking on. The raft was now thrown into the sea. Kate jumped after it, and then entreated the Captain to follow her. He attempted it ; but, wanting her youthful agility, he struck his head against a spar, and sank like lead, 10 giving notice below that his ship was coming after him as fast as she could make ready. Kate’s luck was better : she mounted the raft, and by the rising tide was gradually washed ashore, but so exhausted, as to have lost all recollection. She lay for hours, until the warmth of the sun revived her. On sitting up, she saw a desolate shore stretching both ways — nothing to eat, nothing to drink, but fortunately the raft and the money had been thrown near her ; none of the lash- ings having given way — only what is the use of a golden 20 ducat, though worth nine shillings in silver, or even of a hundred, amongst tangle and sea-gulls ? The money she distributed amongst her pockets, and soon found strength to rise and march forward. But which was forward? and which backward? She knew by the conversation of the sailors that Paita must be in the neighbourhood ; and Paita, being a port, could not be in the inside of Peru, but, of course, somewhere on its outside — and the outside of a maritime land must be the shore ; so that, if she kept the shore, and went 80 far enough, she could not fail of hitting her foot against Paita at last, in the very darkest of nights, provided only she could first find out which was up and which was down ; else she might walk her shoes off, and find herself, after all, a thousand miles in the wrong. Here was an awkward case, and all for want of a guide- post. Still, when one thinks of Kate’s prosperous horo- scope ; that, after so long a voyage, she only, out of the total crew, was thrown on the American shore, with one hundred and five pounds in her purse of clear 40 gain on the voyage, a conviction arises that she could not guess wrongly. She might have tossed up, having

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN 23

coins in her pocket, ^ Heads or tails ! * but this kind of sortilege was then coming to be thought irreligious in Christendom, as a Jewish and a heathen mode of questioning the dark future. She simply guessed, therefore ; and very soon a thing happened which, though adding nothing to strengthen her guess as a true one, did much to sweeten it, if it should prove a false one. On turning a point of the shore, she came upon a barrel of biscuit washed ashore from the ship. Biscuit is one of the best things I know, even if not 10 made by Mrs. Bobo ; but it is the soonest spoiled ; and one would like to hear counsel on one puzzling point, why it is that a touch of water utterly ruins it, taking its life, and leaving behind a caput morhmm. Upon this caput, in default of anything better, Kate break- fasted. And, breakfast being over, she rang the bell

for the waiter to take away, and to Stop ! what

nonsense ! There could be no bell ; besides which, there could be no waiter. Well, then, without asking the waiter’s aid, she that was always prudent packed 20 up some of the Catholic King’s biscuit, as she had pre- viously packed up far too little of his gold. But in such cases a most delicate question occurs, pressing equally on dietetics and algebra. It is this: if you pack up too much, then, by this extra burden of salt provisions, you may retard for days your arrival at fresh provisions ; on the other hand, if you pack up too little, you may famish, and never arrive at all. Catalina hit the juste milieu ; and, about twilight on the third day, she found herself entering Paita, without 30 having had to swim any very broad river in her walk.

11. Fhom the Malice of the Sea, to the Malice OF Man and Woman

The first thing, in such a case of distress, which a young lady does, even if she happens to be a young gentleman, is to beautify her dress. Kate always attended to that The man she sent for was not properly a tailor, but one who employed tailors, he himself furnishing the materials. His name was

24

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Urquiza, a fact of very little importance to us in 1854, if it had stood only at the head and foot of Kate’s little account. But, unhappily for Kate’s debut on this vast American stage, the case was otherwise. Mr. Urquiza had the misfortune (equally common in the Old World and the New) of being a knave ; and also a showy, specious knave. Kate, who had pros- pered under sea allowances of biscuit and hardship, was now expanding in proportions. With very little 10 vanity or consciousness on that head, she now dis- played a really magnificent person ; and, when dressed anew in the way that became a young officer in the Spanish service, she looked the representative picture of a Spanish cahalgador. It is strange that such an appearance, and such a rank, should have suggested to Urquiza the presumptuous idea of wishing that Kate might become his clerk. He did, however, wish it ; for Kate wrote a beautiful hand ; and a stranger thing is, that Kate accepted his proposal. This might arise 20 from the difficulty of moving in those days to any distance in Peru. The ship which threw Kate ashore had been merely bringing stores to the station of Paita ; and no corps of the royal armies was readily to be reached, whilst something must be done at once for a livelihood. Urquiza had two mercantile estab- lishments — one at Trujillo, to which he repaired in person, on Kate’s agreeing to undertake the manage- ment of the other in Paita. Like the sensible girl that we have always found her, she demanded specific 30 instructions for her guidance in duties so new. Cer- tainly she was in a fair way for seeing life. Telling her beads at St. Sebastian’s, manoeuvring irregular verbs at Vittoria, acting as gentleman-usher at Valla- dolid, serving his Spanish Majesty round Cape Horn, fighting with storms and sharks off the coast of Peru, and now commencing as book-keeper or commis to a draper at Paita — does she not justify the character that I myself gave her, just before dismissing her from St. Sebastian’s, of being a ‘ handy ’ girl ? Mr. Urquiza’s 40 instructions were short, easy to be understood, but rather comic ; and (yet which is odd) they led to tragic

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

25

results. There were two debtors of the shop {many^ it is to be hoped, but two meriting his affectionate notice), with respect to whom he left the most opposite direc- tions. The one was a very handsome lady ; and the rule as to her was, that she was to have credit un- limited ; strictly unlimited. That seemed plain. The other customer, favoured by Mr. Urquiza’s valedictory thoughts, was a young man, cousin to the handsome lady, and bearing the name of Reyes. This youth occupied in Mr. Urquiza’s estimate the same hyper- 10 bolical rank as the handsome lady, but on the opposite side of the e([uation. The rule as to him was, that he was to have no credit ; strictly none. In this case, also, Kate saw no difficulty ; and when she came to know Mr. Reyes a little, she found the path of pleasure coinciding with the path of duty. Mr. Urquiza could not be more precise in laying down the rule, than Kate was in enforcing it. But in the other case a scruple arose. Unlimited might bo a word, not of Spanish law, but of Spanish rhetoric ; such as, ^ Live 20 a thousand years,’ which even annuity offices utter without a pang. Kate therefore wrote to Trujillo, expressing her honest fears, and desiring to have more definite instructions. These were positive. If the lady chose to send for the entire shop, her account was to be debited instantly with that. She had, how- ever, as yet, not sent for the shop, but she began to manifest strong signs of sending for the shopman. Upon the blooming young Biscayan had her roving eye settled ; and she was in the course of making up 30 her mind to take Kate for a sweetheart. Poor Kate saw this with a heavy heart. And, at tlie same time that she had a prospect of a tender friend more than she wanted, she had become certain of an extra enemy that she wanted quite as little. What she had done to offend Mr. Reyes, Kate could not guess, except as to the matter of the credit ; but then, in that she only followed her instructions. Still, Mr. Reyes was of opinion that there were two ways of executing orders : but the main offence was unintentional on Kate’s part. 40 Reyes (though as yet she did not know it) had himself

26 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

been a candidate for the situation of clerk ; and in- tended probably to keep the equation precisely as it was with respect to the allowance of credit, only to change places with the handsome lady — keeping her on the negative side, himself on the affirmative ; an arrangement, you know, that in the final result could have made no sort of pecuniary difference to Urquiza.

Thus stood matters, when a party of vagrant comedians strolled into Paita. Kate, being a native 10 Spaniard, ranked as one of the Paita aristocracy, and was expected to attend. She did so ; and there also was the malignant Reyes. He came and seated him- self purposely so as to shut out Kate from all view of the stage. She, who had nothing of the bully in her nature, and was a gentle creature, when her wild Biscayan blood had not been kindled by insult, courteously requested him to move a little ; upon which Reyes replied, that it was not in his power to oblige the clerk as to that, but that he could oblige 20 him by cutting his throat. The tiger that slept in Catalina wakened at once. She seized him, and would have executed vengeance on the spot, but that a party of young men interposed, for the present, to part them. The next day, when Kate (always ready to forget and forgive) was thinking no more of the row, Reyes passed ; by spitting at the window, and other gestures insulting to Kate, again he roused her Spanish blood. Out she rushed, sword in hand ; a duel began in the street ; and very soon Kate’s sword had passed into 30 the heart of Reyes. Now that the mischief was done, the police were, as usual, all alive for the pleasure of avenging it. Kate found herself suddenly in a strong prison, and with small hopes of leaving it, except for execution.

12, From the Steps leading up to the Scaffold, to THE Steps leading down to Assassination

The relatives of the dead man were potent in Paita, and clamorous for justice ; so that the Corregidor, in a case where he saw a very poor chance of being cor- 40 rupted by bribes, felt it his duty to be sublimely incor-

THE SPANISH MILITAEY NUN 27

ruptible. The reader knows, however, that amongst the connexions of the deceased bully was that hand- some lady, who differed as much from her cousin in her sentiments as to Kate, as she did in the extent of her credit with Mr. Urquiza. To her Kate wrote a note ; and, using one of the Spanish King’s gold coins for bribing the jailer, got it safely delivered. That, perhaps, was unnecessary ; for the lady had been already on the alert, and had summoned Urquiza from Trujillo. By some means, not very luminously 10 stated, and by paying proper fees in proper quarters, Kate was smuggled out of the prison at nightfall, and smuggled into a pretty house in the suburbs. Had she known exactly the footing she stood on as to the law, she would have been decided. As it was, she was uneasy, and jealous of mischief abroad ; and, before supper, she understood it all. Urquiza briefly informed his clerk that it would be requisite for him (the clerk) to marry the handsome lady. But why ? Because, said Urquiza, after talking for hours with the 20 Corregidor, who was infamous for obstinacy, he had found it impossible to make him ^hear reason’, and release the prisoner, until this compromise of marriage was suggested. But how could public justice be pacified for the clerk s unfortunate homicide of Reyes, by a female cousin of the deceased man engaging to love, honour, and obey the clerk for life ? Kate could not see her way through this logic. ‘ Nonsense, my friend,’ said Urquiza, ^you don't comprehend. As it stands, the affair is a murder, and hanging the penalty. 30 But, if you marry into the murdered man’s house, then it becomes a little family murder — all quiet and com- fortable amongst ourselves. What has the Corregidor to do with that? or the public either? Now, let me introduce the bride.’ Supper entered at that moment, and the bride immediately after. The thoughtfulness of Kate was narrowly observed, and even alluded to, but politely ascribed to the natural anxieties of a prisoner, and the very imperfect state of his liberation even yet from prison surveillance. Kate had, indeed, 40 never been in so trying a situation before. The

28 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

anxieties of the farewell night at St. Sebastian were nothing to this ; because, even if she had failed then^ a failure might not have been always irreparable. It was but to watch and wait. But now, at this supper table, she was not more alive to the nature of the peril than she was to the fact, that if, before the night closed, she did not by some means escape from it, she never would escape with life. The deception as to her sex, though resting on no motive that pointed to these 10 people, or at all concerned them, would be resented as if it had. The lady would regard the case as a mockery ; and Urquiza would lose his opportunity of delivering himself from an imperious mistress. According to the usages of the times and country, Kate knew that within twelve hours she would be assassinated.

People of infirmer resolution would have lingered at the supper table, for the sake of putting off the evil moment of final crisis. Not so Kate. She had revolved the case on all its sides in a few minutes, and had 20 formed her resolution. This done, she was as ready for the trial at one moment as another ; and, when the lady suggested that the hardships of a prison must have made repose desirable, Kate assented, and in- stantly rose, A sort of procession formed, for the purpose of doing honour to the interesting guest, and escorting him in pomp to his bedroom. Kate viewed it much in the same light as that procession to which for some days she had been expecting an invitation from the Corregidor. Far ahead ran the servant-woman, 30 as a sort of outrider ; then came Urquiza, like a pasha of two tails, who granted two sorts of credit — viz., unlimited and none at all — bearing two wax-lights, one in each hand, and wanting only cymbals and kettle-drums to express emphatically the pathos of his Castilian strut ; next came the bride, a little in advance of the clerk, but still turning obliquely towards him, and smiling graciously into his face ; lastly, bringing up the rear, came the prisoner— >our poor ensnared Kate — the nun, the page, the mate, the clerk, the 40 homicide, the convict; and for this night only, by particular desire, the bridegroom-elect.

THE SPANISH MILITAKY NUN

29

It was Kate s fixed opinion, that, if for a moment she entered any bedroom having obviously no outlet, her fate would be that of an ox once driven within the shambles. Outside, the bullock might make some defence with his horns ; but once in, with no space for turning, ho is muffled and gagged. She carried her eye, therefore, like a hawk's, steady, though rest- less, for vigilant examination of every angle she turned. Before she entered any bedroom, she W'as resolved to reconnoitre it from the doorway, and, in 10 case of necessity, show fight at once before entering, as the best chance in a crisis where all chances were bad. Everything ends; and at last the procession reached the bedroom door, the outrider having filed off to the rear. One glance sufficed to satisfy Kate that windows there wore none, and, therefore, no outlet for escape. Treachery appeared even in that ; and Kate, though unfortunately without arms, was now fixed for resistance. Mr. Urquiza entered first, with a strut more than usually grandiose, and inexpressibly sub- 20 lime — ^ Sound the trumpets! Beat the drums!’ There were, as we know already, no windows ; but a slight interruption to Mr. Urquiza’s pompous tread showed that there were steps downwards into the room. Those, thought Kate, will suit me even better. She had watched the unlocking of the bedroom door — she had lost nothing— she had marked that the key was left in the lock. At this moment, the beautiful lady, as one acquainted with the details of the house, turning with the air of a gracious monitress, held out 80 her fair hand to guide Kate in careful descent of the steps. This had the air of taking out Kate to dance ; and Kate, at that same moment, answering to it by the gesture of a modern waltzer, threw her arm behind the lady’s waist ; hurled her headlong down the steps right against Mr. Urquiza, draper and haberdasher ; and then, with the speed of lightning, throwing the door home within its architrave, doubly locked the creditor and unlimited debtor into the rat-trap which they had prepared for herself. 40

The affrighted outrider fled with horror ; she knew

30

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that the clerk had already committed one homicide ; a second would cost him still less thought ; and thus it happened that egress was left easy.

13. From Human Malice, back again to the Malice of Winds and Waves

But, when abroad, and free once more in the bright starry night, which way should Kato turn? The whole city would prove but one vast rat-trap for her, as bad as Mr. Urquiza’s, if she was not off before 10 morning. At a glance she comprehended that the sea was her only chance. To the port she fled. All was silent. Watchmen there were none ; and she jumped into a boat. To use the oars was dangerous, for she had no means of muffling them. But she contrived to hoist a sail, pushed off with a boat-hook, and was soon stretching across the water for the mouth of the harbour, before a breeze light but favour- able. Having cleared the difficulties of exit, she lay down, and unintentionally fell asleep. When she 20 awoke, the sun had been up three or four hours ; all was right otherwise ; but had she not served as a sailor, Kate would have trembled upon finding that, during her long sleep of perhaps seven or eight hours, she had lost sight of land ; by what distance she could only guess ; and in what direction, was to some degree doubtful. All this, however, seemed a great advantage to the bold girl, throwing her thoughts back on the enemies she had left behind. The dis- advantage was — having no breakfast, not even damaged 30 biscuit; and some anxiety naturally arose as to ulterior prospects a little beyond the horizon of breakfast. But who’s afraid ? As sailors whistle for a wind, Catalina really had but to whistle for anything with energy, and it was sure to come. Like Caesar to the pilot of Dyrrhachium, she might have said, for the comfort of her poor timorous boat (though a boat that in fact was destined soon to perish), * Catalinam vehis, et fortu- nas eius/ Meantime, being very doubtful as to the best course for sailing, and content if her course did 40 but lie off shore, she * carried on as sailors say, under

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31

easy sail, going, in fact, just whither and just how the Pacific breezes suggested in the gentlest of whispers.

‘ All right behind,’ was Kate’s opinion ; and, what was better, very soon she might say, ' All right ahead ’ ; for, some hour or two before sunset, when dinner was for once becoming, even to Kate, the most interesting of subjects for meditation, suddenly a large ship began to swell upon the brilliant atmospheie. In those latitudes, and in those years, any ship was pretty sure to be Spanish : sixty years later, the odds 10 were in favour of its being an English buccaneer ; which would have given a new direction to Kate’s energy. Kate continued to make signals with a hand- kerchief whiter than the crocodile's of Ann. Dom. 1592, else it would hardly have been noticed. Perhaps, after all, it would not, but that the ship’s course carried her very nearly across Kate’s. The stranger lay to for her. It was dark by the time Kate steered herself under the ship’s quarter ; and then was seen an instance of this girl's eternal wakefulness. Some- 20 thing was painted on the stern of her boat, she could not see ivhat ; but she judged that, whatever this might be, it would express some connexion with the port that she had just quitted. Now, it was her wish to break the chain of traces connecting her with such a scamp as Urquiza ; since else, through his commercial correspondence, he might disperse over Peru a portrait of herself by no means flattering. How should she accomplish this? It was dark ; and she stood, as you may see an Etonian do at times, 30 rocking her little boat from side to side, until it had taken in water as much as might be agreeable. Too much it proved for the boat’s constitution, and the boat perished of dropsy — Kate declining to tap it. She got a ducking herself ; but what cared she? Up the ship’s side she went, as gaily as ever, in those years when she was called Pussy, she had raced after the nuns of St. Sebastian ; jumped upon deck, and told the first lieutenant, when he questioned her about her adventures, quite as much truth as any man, 40 under the rank of admiral, had a right to expect.

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14. Bright Gleams of Sunshine

This ship was full of recruits for the Spanish army, and bound to Conception. Even in that destiny was an iteration, or repeating memorial of the significance that ran through Catalina’s most casual adventures. She had enlisted amongst the soldiers ; and, on reaching port, the very first person who came off from shore was a dashing young military officer, whom at once by his name and rank (though she had never con- 10 sciously seen him) she identified as her own brother. He was splendidly situated in the service, being the Governor-Generars secretary, besides his rank as a cavalry officer; and, his errand on board being to inspect the recruits, naturally, on reading in the roll one of them described as a Biscayan, the ardent young man came up with high-bred courtesy to Catalina, took the young recruit’s hand with kindness, feeling that to be a compatriot at so great a distance was to be a sort of relative, and asked with emotion after 20 old boyish remembrances. There was a scriptural pathos in what followed, as if it were some scene of domestic re-union, opening itself from patriarchal ages. The young officer was the eldest son of the house, and had left Spain when Catalina was only three years old. But, singularly enough, Catalina it was, the little wild cat that he yet remembered seeing at St. Sebastian’s, upon whom his earliest inquiries settled. ‘ Did the recruit know his family, the De Erausos ? ’ Oh yes, everybody knew them. ‘ Did the 30 recruit know little Catalina ? ’ Catalina smiled, as she replied that she did ; and gave such an animated description of the little fiery wretch, as made the officer’s eye flash with gratified tenderness, and with certainty that the recruit was no counterfeit Biscayan. Indeed, you know, if Kate couldn’t give a good de- scription of Pussy, who could? The issue of the interview was, that the officer insisted on Kate's making a home of his quarters. He did other services for his unknown sister. He placed her as a trooper 40 in his own regiment, and favoured her in many a

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33

way that is open to one having authority. But the person, after all, that did most to serve our Kate, was Kate. War was then raging with Indians, both from Chili and Peru. Kate had always done her duty in action ; but at length in the decisive battle of Puren, there was an opening for doing something more. Havoc had been made of her own squadron : most of the officers were killed, and the standard was carried off. Kate gathered around her a small party — galloped after the Indian column that was 10 carrying away the trophy — charged — saw all her own party killed — but, in spite of wounds on her face and shoulder, succeeded in bearing away the recovered standard. She rode up to the General and his Staff ; she dismounted ; she rendered up her prize ; and fainted away, much less from the blinding blood, than from the tears of joy which dimmed her eyes, as the General, waving his sword in admiration over her head, pronounced our Kate on the spot an Alferez or Standard-Bearer, with a commission from the King 20 of Spain and the Indies. Bonny Kate ! Noble Kate !

I would there were not two centuries laid between us, so that I might have the pleasure of kissing thy fair hand.

15. The Sunshine is Overcast

Kate had the good sense to see the danger of revealing her sex, or her relationship, even to her own brother. The grasp of the Church never relaxed, never ‘ prescribed unless freely and by choice. The nun, if discovered, would have been taken out of the 30 horse-barracks or the dragoon-saddle. She had the firm- ness, therefore, for many years, to resist the sisterly impulses that sometimes suggested such a confidence. For years, and those years the most important of her life — the years that developed her character — she lived undetected as a brilliant cavalry officer under her brother’s patronage. And the bitterest grief in poor Kate’s whole life, was the tragical (and, were it not fully attested, one might say the ultrascenical) event

c

DIE OUlNCEy

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that dissolved their long connexion. Let me spend a word of apology on poor Kate’s errors. We all commit many ; both you and I, reader. No, stop ; that’s not civil. You, reader, I know, are a saint; I am noty though very near it. I do err at long in- tervals ; and then I think with indulgence of the many circumstances that plead for this poor girl. The Spanish armies of that day inherited, from the days of Cortes and Pizarro, shining remembrances 10 of martial prowess, and the very worst of ethics. To think little of bloodshed, to quarrel, to fight, to gamble, to plunder, belonged to the very atmosphere of a camp, to its indolence, to its ancient traditions. In your own defence, you were obliged to do such things. Besides all these grounds of evil, the Spanish army had just then an extra demoralization from a war with savages — faithless and bloody. Do not think too much, reader, of killing a man -do not, I beseech you ! That word ‘ MU ’ is sprinkled over every page 20 of Kate’s own autobiography. It ought not to be read by the light of these days. Yet, how if a man

that she killed were ? Hush! It was sad; but

is better hurried over in a few words. Years after this period, a young officer, one day dining with Kate, entreated her to become his second in a duel. Such things were every-day affairs. How^ever, Kate had reasons for declining the service, and did so. But the officer, as he was sullenly departing, said, that if he were killed (as he thought he should be), his 30 death would lie at Kate’s door. I do not take his view of the case, and am not moved by his rhetoric or his logic. Kate tvas, and relented. The duel was fixed for eleven at night, under the walls of a monastery. Unhappily, the night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows, in order to descry each other. In the confusion they wounded each other mortally. Upon that, according to a usage not peculiar to Spaniards, but extending (as doubtless 40 the reader knows) for a century longer to our own countrymen, the two seconds were obliged in honour

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to do something towards avenging their principals. Kate had her usual fatal luck. Her sword passed sheer through the body of her opponent : this un- known opponent falling dead, had just breath left to cry out, 'Ah, villain, you have killed me!’ in a voice of horrific reproach ; and the voice was the voice of her brother!

The monks of the monastery under whose silent shadows this murderous duel had taken place, roused by the clashing of swords and the angry shouts of lo combatants, issued out with torches, to find one only of the four officers surviving. Every convent and altar had the right of asylum for a short period. According to the custom, the monks carried Kate, insensible with anguish of mind, to the sanctuary of their chapel. There for some days they detained her ; but then, having furnished her with a horse and some provisions, they turned her adrift. Which way should the unhappy fugitive turn? In blindness of heart, she turned towards the sea. It was the sea that had 20 brought her to Peru ; it was the sea that would per- haps carry her away. It was the sea that had first showed her this land and its golden hopes ; it was the sea that ought to hide from her its fearful remem- brances. The sea it was that had twice spared her life in extremities ; the sea it was that might now, if it chose, take back the bauble that it had spared in vain.

16 . Kate's Ascent of the Andes

Three days our poor heroine followed the coast. 30 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 chal- lenged, 'Who goes there?’ — Kate answered, ‘Spain.’

— ‘What people?’ — ‘A friend.’ It was two soldiers, deserters, and almost starving. Kate shared her pro- visions 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

c 2

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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, tliey found themselves in the regions of perpetual snow. Summer came even hither ; but came as vainly to this kingdom of frost as to the grave of her brother. No tire, but 10 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 lire l)y interfriction of dry sticks was a secret almost exclusively Indian, However, our Kate can do everything; and she’s the girl, if ever girl did 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 de 2 )osit your stakes by return of post (as they play at chess through the post office), that Kate does the trick ; that 20 she gets down to the other side ; that the soldiers do not ; and that the horse, if preserved at all, is pre- served 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 burden, fell cent, per cent. In fact, very soon he could not carry 30 himself, and it became easy to calculate when he would reach the bottom on the wrong side the cor- dilleras* 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 ; a difficult fraction to distribute amongst a triad of claimants. No salt- petre or sugar could be had : but the frost was anti- 40 septic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever ai)ricots were preserved or strawberries ;

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and that was the kind of preservation which one page ago I promised to the horse.

On a fire, painfully devised out of broom and withered leaves, a horse-steak was dressed ; for drink, snow was 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 10 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 accessiljle, 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. 20 Joyoirsly she shouted to her comrades, and ran down to communicate the good news. Here was a sports- man, 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 re- lief, and assisted by his friends, he also staggeringly arose. It could not be three minutes’ walk, Kate 30 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 ab- sorbed in some speculation, or in the object of his 40 watching, that he took no notice of them, not even

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moving his head. Coming close behind him, Kate touched his shoulder, and said, ‘My friend, are you sleeping?’ Yes, he ivas 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 10 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 simply 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. Yes, gone are the poor suffering deserters ; stretched out and bleaching upon the snow ; and insulted discipline is avenged. 20 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 to the King of Spain ; and they it was that dogged his deserters up to the summit of the cordilleras, more surely than any Spanish bloodhound, or any Spanish tirailleur s bullet.

17 . Kate stands alone on the Summit OF THE Andes

Now is our Kate standing alone on the summit 30 of the Andes ; and in solitude that is frightful, 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 lier 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 in some

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respects resembled 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 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 10 pulverizes, for that reader, into a baseless fairy tale. The second reader is wiser than iliat ; he knows that the imagery 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 de- lirium 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 20 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 crazi- ness 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 ho made rehearsal of his errors, even at the difficult cost of “holding children from their play, and old men from the 30 chimney corner ” ? ’ 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, 40 he had himself called destruction upon their heads.

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The Nemesis that followed punished him through them—him that wronged, through those that wrong- fully 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 loved the bird, that loved the man That shot him with his bow.

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

10 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 noonday darkness, and the vision of dying oceans, into delirium, and finally (when recovered from disease), into an unsettled mind.

Not altogether unlike, though free from the criminal intention of the mariner, had been the offence of Kate ; not unlike, also, was the punishment that now is dogging her steps. She, like the mariner, had slain 20 the one sole creature that loved her upon the wliole 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 tlie excuse of one dark- ness, physical darkness, for her ; there was the excuse of another darkness, the darkness of superstition, for the mariner. But, with all the excuses that earth, and the darkness of earth, can furnish, bitter it would 80 be for any of us, 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 touching the shores of America, almost the first word that met her ear had been from /nm, the

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brother whom she had killed, about the Pussy of times long past ; hovv^ 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 colour 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 restless- ness, that once had kindled his own delighted laughter ; how he would take no denial, but showed on the spot, 10 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 honour and distinction. And yet this brother, so loving and generous, who, without knowing, had cherished and protected her, and all from pure holy love for herself as the innocent plaything of St. Sebastian’s, him in 20 a moment she had dismissed from life. She paused ; she turned round, as if looking back fur 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 Saharas 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 Ancles, that she saw too well. And, as she gazed, 30 a sudden thought flaslied upon her, when her eyes settled upon the corpses of the poor deserters — Could she, like them, have been all this while unconsciously executing judgement 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 40 — that Kate prayed. But it was the first time that

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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, there- fore now first of all she prayed. I think not so. I love this Kate, blood-stained as she is ; and I could 10 not love a woman that never bent her knee in thank- fulness 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, French- man, 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 20 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 hommage (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 30 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 mutineers or deserters, for instance, were they necessarily without excuse ? They might have been oppressively used ; but, in critical 40 times of war, no matter for the individual palliations, the mutineer must be shot : there is no help for it ;

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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 10 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 (philo- sophically speaking) exaggerated ; and by daily use, the ethics of a police-office translate themselves, in- sensibly, into the ethics even of religious people. But 20 I tell that sycophantish fanatic — not this only, viz., that he al)usos unfairly, against Kate, the advantage which he has from the inevitablg distorted bias of society ; but also I tell him this second little thing, that, upon turning away the glass from that one obvious aspect of Kate's character, her too fiery dis- position 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, 30 without having many points of contact with true religion. If you deny thaty 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 40 fellow who traduces her. And, coming round again

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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

10 continually to peace and an unworldly happiness, if that were possible. The stormy clouds that enveloped her in camps, opened overhead at inteiwals, 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 essen- tial ally, some aid derived from that dove-like religion which, at St, Sebastian’s, from her infant days she had been taught so profoundly to adore.

20 18. Kate begins to Descend the Mighty Staircase

Now, let us rise from this discussion of Kate against libellers, as Kate herself is rising from prayer, and consider, in conjunction with Aer, 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 ques- tions. Yet, no : on consideration, if one had a wish allowed by that kind fairy, without whose assistance

30 it would bo 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 such an errand : I would order the good creature to bring no spirit-level, but a stiff glass of spirits for Kate ; also, next after which I would request 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

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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, even an engineer’s, in attempting to judge whether, upon the whole, the tendency were upwards or down- wards. Possibly it was yet neither way ; it is, indeed, probable, that Kate had been for some time travelling 10 along a series of terraces, that traversed the whole breadth of the topmost area at that point of crossing the cordilleras ; and this area, perhaps, but not cer- tainly, might compensate any casual tendencies down- wards by corresponding re-ascents. Then came the question, how long would these terraces yet continue ? and had the ascending parts rcalhj balanced the de- scending? Upon that seemed to rest the final chance for Kate. Because, unless she very soon reached a lower level, and a warmer atmosphere, mere weari- 20 ness 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, continued extremity of cold would, of itself, speedily absorb the little surplus energy for moving, which yet remained unexhausted by weariness ; that is, in short, the excessive weari- ness would give a murderous advantage to the cold, or the excessive cold would give a corresponding advan- tage to the weariness. 30

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 fervour 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 40 have been the very crisis of the whole. Despair was

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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 10 arrear of physical strength would collapse at once.

Oh ! verdure of human fields, cottages of men and women (that now suddenly, in the eyes of Kate, seemed all brothers and sisters), cottages with children around them at play, that are so far below — oh ! spring and summer, blossoms and flowers, 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 ? 20 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 lightning, as it were, or flashing inspiration of liope, shot far into her spirit, a reflux almost supernatural, from the earliest effects of her prayer. Dimmed and confused had been the accuracy of her sensations for hours ; but all at once a strong conviction came over her — that 30 more and more was the sense of descent becoming steady and continuous. Turning round to measure backwards with her eye the ground traversed through the last half-hour, she identified, by a remarkable point of rock, 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 40 burden of silence would be a human groan ! Here seemed a motive for still darker despair. And yet, at

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that very moment, a pulse of joy began to thaw the ice at her heart. It struck her, as she reviewed the ground, from that point where the corpses lay, that undoubtedly it had been for some time slowly descend- ing. Her senses were much dulled by suffering ; but this thought it was, suggested by a sudden apprehen- sion 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 10 tendency. Oh, yes, yes, to a certainty she teas descend- ing — 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 beleaguered 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, ceases (you suddenly think) to rise ; yes ! measured by a golden plummet, it is sinking beyond a doubt, and the darlings 20 of your household are saved. Kate faced round in agitation to her proper direction. She saw. what pre- viously, 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 certain that the road was lying. Hurrying forward, she passed within these 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 30 long, stretched a long narrow glen, everywhere de- scending, 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 sooA, 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 40 trees, such as we see in the lovely parks of England,

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but islanded by a screen of 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 10 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 dovecot from the swooping hawk ; as the Christian pinnace to the shelter of Christian batteries, from tlie bloody Mohammedan 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, 20 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 30 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, 40 through the fretwork of the foliage, another dome, far beyond, the dome of an evening sky, the dome of some

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heavenly cathedral, not built with hands. She saw upon this upper dome the vesper lights, all alive with pathetic grandeur of colouring 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 the confusion of her misery, 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 10 daily toil ; man, that labours, 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 20 chapel, with its silvery bells that carried the echoing Angelus far into mountain recesses. Perhaps, as her wanderings increased, she thought herself back into 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 is mentioned of the delusions which possessed her ; 30 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. Eestlessness 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 re- fused ; the fever, the delirium, and the exhaustion, swept in together with power like an army with bannei-s ; and the nun ceased through the gathering twilight any more to watch the cathedrals of earth, or the more 40 solemn cathedrals that rose in the heavens above.

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19. Kate’s Bedroom is Invaded by Horsemen

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 slum- ber that towered above lier brain was like that fluc- tuating silvery column which stands in scientific tubes, sinking, rising, deepening, lightening, contracting, ex- panding ; or like the mist that sits, through sultry afternoons, upon the river of the American St. Peter, 10 sometimes rarefying for minutes into sunny gauze, sometimes condensing for hours into palls of funereal 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 some- times the secret chamber in which death arranges his machinery, and stations his artillery. Sleep is some- times that deep mysterious atmosphere, in which the human spirit is slowly unsettling its wings for flight 20 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, then, alas ! 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 30 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 an opinion equal to Captain Bunsby’s, on this point, viz., whether the je welly star of life had descended too far down the arch towards setting, for any chance of reascending by spontaneous effort. The fire was still burning in secret, but needed, perhaps, to 40 be rekindled by potent artificial breath. It lingered,

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and might linger, but apparently would never culmi- nate again, without some stimulus from earthly vine- yards. 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. J ust 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 10 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 20 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 pursuit of some flying game, had wandered far 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, 30 great their pity, to see a young officer in uniform stretched within the bushes upon the ground, and apparently 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 the one thing needed, they 40 lifted the helpless stranger upon a horse, walking on

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each side with supporting arms. Once again our Kate is in the saddle, once again a Spanish cahallero. 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 many miles to go, and over difficult ground ; but at length it reached the forest- like park and the chateau of the wealthy proprietress.

10 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, either in herself or in those about her :

20 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 sehora, not loss 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.

20. A Second Lull in Kate’s Stormy Life

Let us suppose Kate placed in a warm bed. Let us SO suppose her in a few hours recovering steady conscious- ness; 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 able to render thanks, with that deep sincerity which ever character- ized 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 Metisse, the Spaniards a Mestuza—thsA is, the daughter

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of a genuine Spaniard, and an Indian mother. I will call her simply a Creole^ 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-two 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 10

daughter, Juana, was But stop — let her open the

door of the saloon in which the sehora and the Cornet are conversing, and speak for herself. She did so, after an hour had i^assed ; 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 fas 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 20 expect me to describe her, for which, however, there are materials extant, sleeping in archives, where they have slept for two hundred and twenty-eight 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 J uana's father was a gentle- man 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 30 with blood of Arabs — once through Moors, once through Jews ; 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 (ah, wherefore?) silently and slowly to fade away 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 un- affected pleasure of one who wishes to speak a fervent welcome, but knows not if she ought ; the astonish- 40 ment of a Miranda, bred in utter solitude, when first

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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 sehora 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 Visigothic, by her Vandal, by her Arab, by her Spanish fire.

10 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 fear-

20 ful death which, lying but a few miles off, had filled her nursGiy with traditionary tragedies — that was sufficient to create an interest in the stranger. Such things it had been that wooed the heavenly Desdemona. But his bold martial demeanour, his yet youthful style of beauty, his frank manners, his animated conversa- tion, 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

30 like herself, a splendid cavalier, 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 already guesses all that followed. The sisterly love, which Catalina did really feel for this young mountaineer, was inevitably misconstrued.

40 Embarrassed, but not able, from sincere affection, or almost in bare propriety, to refuse such expressions of

THE SPANISH

feeling as corresponded to kindnesses of the ingenuoi was surprised by Mamma daughter’s waist with his

ing was premature by at least two centuries in ± an. She taxed him instantly with dishonourably 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 10 original Spanish. The good sehora, though she could boast only of forty-two years’ experience, or say forty- four, 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 20 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 Jier^ 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 suflicient for you both.’ The Cornet protested that the honour was one never con- templated by A/m— that it was too great — that .

But, of course, reader, you know that ‘gammon’ flourishes in Peru, amongst the silver mines, as well 30 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 reckle.'^sness, grieving sincerely for the gulf that was opening before her, and yet shrinking effeminately from the momentary shock 40 that would be inflicted by a firm adherence to her

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duty, clinging to the anodyne of a short delay, allowed herself to be installed as the lover of Juana. Con- siderations 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 splendour. To Tucuman, there- fore, after some weeks’ interval, the whole party repaired. And at Tucuman it was that the tragical 10 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 re- jected or a deluded heart.

One reporter of Mr. De Ferrer’s narrative forgets his usual generosity, when he says, that the sen ora’s gift of her daughter to the Alferez was not quite so dis- interested 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, 20 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 — l)eing a Spartan amongst Helots— a Spanish Alferez would in those days, and in that region, have been a natural noble. His alliance created honour for his wife and for his descendants. Something, therefore, the Cornet would add to the family consideration. But, instead of selfish- ness, it argued just regard for her daughter’s interest to build upon this, as some sort of equipoise to the 30 wealth which her daughter would bring.

Spaniard, however, as she was, our Alferez, on reaching Tucuman, found no Spaniards to mix with, but instead, twelve Portuguese.

21. Kate once more in Storms

Catalina remembered the Spanish proverb, ^ Pump out of a Spaniard all his good qualities, and the re- mainder makes a pretty fair Portuguese ’ ; but, as there was nobody else to gamble with, she entered freely into their society. Soon she suspected that

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there was foul play: for 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, 10 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 a 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 up hastily, she tapped the Portuguese on the shoulder, saying,

‘ Senor, you are a robber ! ’ The Portuguese turned coolly round, and, seeing his gaming antagonist, replied, 20 ‘ 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 sj^eeches, 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 30 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 him- self opened it at the very moment when he received 40 the summons to turn round. She dragged the corpse

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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 sehora’s house, retired to bed, fell asleep, and early the next morning was awakened by the Corregidor, and four algimzils.

The lawlessness of all that followed strikingly ex- poses the frightful state of criminal justice at that 10 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 gaining table, and the departure of Catalina so closely on the heels of her opponent, would have suggested reasonable grounds for detaining 20 her until some further light should be obtained. As it was, her imprisonment rested ui)on no colourable 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 infor- mations — for trial — for execution ; and the only bad consequence was, that a second or a third week some- times exposed the disagreeable fact that everything 30 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 liouse, though, in going out, a door opened, and she saw the young 40 Juana looking out with her saddest Indian expression. In one day the trial was finished. Catalina said

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(which was true) that she hardly knew Acosta ; and that people of her rank were used to attack th(dr enemies face to face, not by murderous surprises. The Magistrates were impressed with Catalina’s answers (yet answers to what, or to whom, in a case where there was no distinct charge, and no avowed accuser?). 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 10 having concealed his knowledge) will know at once to be false witnesses, but whom the old Spanish buz- wigs doted on as models of all that could be looked for in the best. Both were 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 ])art of the Alferez (Catalina): that, doubtless, the injured husband had surprised the prisoner, which, of course, had led to 20 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 alguasils, said, ‘That since his friend had proved suiriciently the 80 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 that house; which he could do satisfactorily ; for there was a bal- cony 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. 40 The Alferez could deny neither the staircase nor the

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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 proved, or even ripened into a suspicion. But the Bench were satisfied ; chopping logic in defence Avas henceforward impertinence ; and sentence was 10 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 (unless 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, 20 she would have gone forward to meet it. But in this case she had a temptation for escaping it, which was certainly 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 80 be laughing at you.’ I must acknowledge my own weakness ; this last temptation I could not have with- stood ; flesh is weak, and fun is strong. But Catalina did. On consideration, she fancied, that although the particular motive for murdering Acosta would be dis- missed with laughter, still this might not clear her of the murder, which on some other motive she might be supposed to have committed. But, allowing that she were cleared altogether, what most of all she feared was, that the publication of her sex would throw a 40 reflex light upon many past transactions in her life ; would instantly find its way to Spain ; and would

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probably soon bring her within the tender attentions of the Inquisition. She kept firm, therefore, to the resolution of not saving her life by this discovery. And so far as her fate lay in her own hands, she would to a certainty have perished — which to me seems a most fantastic caprice ; it was to court a certain death and a present death, in order to evade a remote contingency of death. But even at this point, how strange a case ! A woman falsely accused (because accused by lying witnesses) of an act which ^0 she really did commit ! And falsely accused of a true offence upon a motive that was impossible !

As the sun was setting 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, ho\vever, 'svatching all things narrowly, remarked something earnest and sig- nificant in the eye of the leader, as of one who had some secret communication to make. She contrived, 20 therefore, 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 con- tained, for indeed it could contain, only these three words — ‘Do not confess. J.’ This one caution, so simple and so brief, proved 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 it referred, in the technical sense of the Church, to the act of devotional confession. 30 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 cir- cumstances, he issued his warrant for the execution. Accordingly, as the sun went down, the sad procession 40 formed within the prison. Into the great square of

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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 10 timid Magistrates, fearing a rescue from the fiery clamours of the im])etuous 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 sehora and her daughter. The elder lady, having gathered informations against the witnesses, 20 had pursued them to La Plata. There, by her influence with the Governor, they were arrested ; recognized as old malefactors ; and in their terror had partly con- fessed their perjury. Catalina was removed to La Plata ; solemnly accpiitted ; and, by the advice of the President, for the present the connexion with the seiiora’s family was indefinitely postponed,

22. Kate’s Penultimate Adventuke

Now was the last but one adventure at hand that ever Catalina should see in the New World. Some 30 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 (as very shortly it shall hear), 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, that Eminences, Excellencies, Highnesses — nay.

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even Eoyalties and Holinesses, 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? Cer- tirinly it cannot without some great pcripelteiaj 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. 10 The sehora- 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 travel- ling expenses. So far well. But Mr. M. chose to add a little codicil to this bequest of the sehora’s, never suggested by her or by her daughter. ‘ Pray,’ said this inquisitive President, who surely might have found business enough within his own neighbourhood —

‘ pray, Sehor Pietro Diaz, did you ever live at Concep- 20 tion ? And wore you ever acquainted there with Sehor Miguel do Erauso ? That man, sir, was my friend.’ What a })ity that on this occasion Catalina could not venture to be candid ! What a ca])ital speech it would have made to say, '‘ Friend were you? 1 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 30 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 connexion which never was avowed by either whilst living together, would not have brightened the reputa- tion of Catalina Still, from a kindness for poor Kate, 40 I feel uncharitably towards the President for advising

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Seuor 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. On that errand, in all lands, for some reason only half explained, you must be in luck if you do not fall in, and eventually fall out, with a knave. But on this particular day Kate teas in luck. For, 10 beside money and advice, she 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 for a serious history ; yet it proved no jest either, since it led to the tragedy that followed. Riding into Paz, our gallant Standard-Bearer and her 20 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 w^as 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 earnest 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, 30 whistling gaily, she was riding forward, when — who should cross her path but the Alcalde of Paz ! Ah ! Alcalde, you see a person now that has a mission against you and all that you inherit ; though a mission known to herself as little as to you. Good were it for you, had you never crossed the path of this Biscayan Alferez. The Alcalde looked so sternly, that Kate asked if his worship had any commands. ^ Yes. These men,’ said the Alcalde, ‘these two soldiers, say that this horse is stolen.’ To one who had so narrowly 40 and so lately escaped the balcony witness and his friend, it was really no laughing matter to hear of new

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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 botween the ears and the mouth, she replied, ‘ That she had l)ought 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 ; 10 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 20 either eye.’ And, in fact, it teas so. Upon that^ his worship ordered his ah/uazils 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.

23. Preparation for Kate’s Final Adventure IN Peru

This Alcalde’s acquaintance, however, was not des- tined to drop here. Something had appeared in the young cahdllei'o's bearing which made it painful to 30 have addressed him with harshness, or for a moment to have entertained such a charge against such a person. He dispatched 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 honour 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,

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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 Antonio ; ‘ and you from dear lovely Biscay ! 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 10 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, 20 and presented Kate to his wife — a most 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 com- bination 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 presqxie pas, ’ ‘ Poor 30 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, but still not a Cinderellula, considering that she had the inimitable walk and step of Andalusian women, which cannot be accomplished without something of a pro- portionate basis to stand upon.

40 The reason which there is (as I have said) for describing this lady, arises out of her relation to the

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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 likely to make : 1st, That he is invited to read some extract from a licentious amour, as if for its own interest ; 2nd, 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 lo 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 20 facts ; else, in the manner of telling these facts, they are systematically dry.

But let us resume. Don Antonio Calderon was a handsome, accomplished cavalier. And in the course of dinner, Catalina was led to judge, from the be- haviour 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 80 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 altogether from her thoughts, but for the dreadful events on the journey.

This went on but slowly, however steadily. Owing to the miserable roads, eight hours a day of travelling was found quite enough for man and beast ; the pro- duct of which eight hours was from ten to twelve 40 leagues, taking the league at two and a quarter miles.

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On the last day but one of the journey, the travelling party, whicli was precisely the original dinner party, reached a little town ten leagues short of Cuzco. The Corregidor of this place was a fri€ nd of the Alcalde ; and through his influence the party obtained better accommodations than those which they had usually commanded in a hovel calling itself a venta, or in a sheltered corner of a barn. The Alcalde was to sleep at the Corregidor’s house ; the two young cavaliers, 10 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 mere toy of a house ; but the season being summer, and the house surrounded with tropical flowers, the lady pre- ferred 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 20 possibly taking a ‘ rise ' out of his worship the Corregi- dor, as a repeating echo of Don Quixote (then growing popular in Spanish America), the young man Don Antonio, who was no young officer, and the young officer Catalina, 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 honour of meeting there his mustiness the Alcalde, and his fustiness the Corregidor ; whose 80 conversation ought surely to have been edifying, since it was anything but 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 rigour, but not the ‘ tea One thing, however, Catalina by mere accident had an opportunity of observing, and observed with pain. The two official gentlemen, on taking leave, had gone down the steps into the garden, 40 Catalina, having forgot her hat, went back into the little vestibule to look for it. There stood the lady

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and Don Antonio, exchanging a few final words (they tcere final) and a few final signs. Amongst the last Kate observed distinctly this, and distinctly she understood it. First of all, by raising her forefinger, the lady drew Calderon’s attention to the act which followed as one of significant pantomime ; which done, she snuifed out one of the candles. The young man answered it by a look of intelligence ; and then all three passed down the steps together. The lady was disposed to take the cool air, and accompanied them 10 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.’ But birds do not amuse themselves by staying up to midnight ; and birds do not wear rapiers.

Catalina, as usual, had read everything. Not a wrinkle or a rustle was lost upon her. And, therefore, when 20 she reached the locanday 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 im- mediately ; 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 sus- picions, and with the certainty that the Alcalde was 30 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 in- stantly into the darkness. Catalina was too well con- vinced, 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 watch- ing nothing but the burning candles, Catalina watching circumstances to direct her movements. The candles 40 burned brightly in the little pavilion. Presently one

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was extinguished. Upon this, Calderon pressed for- ward to the steps, hastily ascended them, and passed into the vestibule. Catalina followed on his traces. What succeeded was all one scene of continued, dread- ful dumb show ; different passions of panic, or deadly struggle, or hellish malice, absolutely suffocated all articulate utterances.

In the first moments a gurgling sound was heard, as of a wild beast attempting vainly to yell over some 10 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 ; 20 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 30 kill his wife on the spot. Kate’s generosity would not allow her to have any collusion with this murder- ous 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.

24. A Steeplechase

About five miles out of the town their road was crossed by a torrent, over which they could not hit 40 the bridge. ‘ Forward ! ’ cried the lady ; ‘ Oh, heavens !

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forward ! ’ 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 cot- tage window, Kate rode up ; obtaining a little refresh- ment, and the benefit of a fire, from a poor labouring man. From this man she also bought a warm mantle 10 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 shrewd- ness 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 ‘20 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 Avorship’s horsemanship ; but it Avas a prodigious disadvantage that her horse had to carry double ; while the horse ridden by her opponent AA^as one of those belonging to the murdered Don Antonio, and knoAvn to Kate as 30 a powerful animal. At length they had come Avithin three miles of 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 Avhole extent of a broad heath. It was useless to evade it. To have hesitated, Avas to be lost. Kate saw the necessity of clearing it ; but she doubted much whether her poor exhausted horse, after twenty-one miles of Avork so severe, had strength for the effort. However, the race Avas nearly 40 finished : a score of dreadful miles had been accom-

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plished ; and Kate’s maxim, 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 with more impetus, rode resolutely at it, cleared it, and gained the opposite bank. The hind feet of her horse were sinking back from the rottenness of the ground ; but 10 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 vengeful Alcalde, who had built great hopes on the trench, he unslung his carbine, pulled up, and fired after the bonny black horse and its two bonny riders. But this vicious manoeuvre would have lost his worship any bet that he might have had depending on this admirable steeple- chase. For the bullets, says Kate, in her memoirs, whistled round the poor clinging lady cn croupe — ‘20 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 dijfficult for Kate to guide him with any precision through narrow episcopal paths. Henceforwards the wounded horse required uninter- mitting attention ; and yet, in the mere luxury of strife, it was impossible for Kate to avoid turning a little in 30 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 for him to compromise the case by riding round, or dismounting. But all that was impossil)le. 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 mighty sweep, as if plough- 40 ing out the line of some vast encampment, or tracing the pomoerium for some future Rome ; then, like

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tliuiuler and lightning, with arms flying aloft in the air, down he came upon the trembling trench. But the horse refused the leap ; to take the leap was im- possible ; absolutely to refuse it, the horse felt, was immoral ; and therefore, 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 10 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 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 of Cuzco, the spectators that should have been, were fast asleep in bed.

The steeplechase into Cuzco had been a fine head- long thing, considering the torrent, the trench, tlie 20 wounded horse, the lovely Andalusian 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 ever can 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, and obtain admission to the con- vent, caused a long delay ; and on returning to the street through the broad gateway of the convent, 30 whom should she face but the Alcalde ! How he had 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. The morning light showed him how to use his sword, and whom he had before him, and he attacked Kate with fury. Both were exhausted ; and Kate, besides that she had no personal quarrel with the Alcalde, having now accom- 40 plished her sole object in saving the lady, would have

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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 Biscayan blood ; and she turned on him now with deadly 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 10 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 was again fighting for her life with persons not even known to her by sight. 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 ‘20 that Calderon’s servant had fled. The Bishop and his attendants hurried across. ‘ Senor Caballero,’ 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 another instant came the catastrophe : Kate’s dis- 80 covery could no longer be delayed ; the blood flowed too rapidly ; and the wound was in her bosom. She requested a private interview with the Bishop ; all was known in a moment ; 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 convent at Lima ; and, after many months had passed, his report of the whole extraordinary case in all its details to the Supreme Government at Madrid, drew 40 from the King, Philip IV, and from the Papal Legate, an order that the nun should be transferred to Spain.

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25. St. Sebastian is finally Checkmated

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, 10 that would not suffer his banner to see dishonour. 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. Sebastian s (consequently of St. Peter’s) keys ; the pardons were made out, were signed, were sealed ; and the chanceries of earth were satisfied. *20

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, as if on some mighty day of judge- ment, with human faces, with men, with women, with children, all bending the lights of their flashing eyes upon herself ! Forty myriads of people had gathered 30 in Cadiz alone. All Andalusia had turned out to receive her. Ah ! what joy for her, 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 the triumphant jubilations of her countrymen, to turn away from the Andes, and to fix her thoughts for the moment upon that glad tumultuous shore which she approached.

Upon this shore stood, ready to receive her, in front 40

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of all this mighty crowd, the Prime Minister of Spain, that 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 had been in Spain, seeking a Spanish bride, 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 10 English Duke, to her was ^ sweet as summer Through endless crowds of welcoming 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 un- precedented amount); 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 •20 Barcelona ; there and everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honour. 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 30 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 floating in mighty volumes above the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral ; he told her what the cathe- dral had told her amongst the gorgeous clouds of the Andes and the solemn 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 40 she would think of bloodshed ; but that, if again she should suffer wrongs, she would resign all vindictive

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retaliation for them into the hands of God, the final Avenger. I must also find time to mention, although the press and the compositors are in a fury at my delays, that the Pope, in his farewell audience to his dear daughter, whom he was to see no more, gave her a general licence to wear henceforth in all countries — even inpartibus infidelium — a cavalry officer’s dress — boots, spurs, sabre ; in fact, anything that she and the Horse Guards might agree upon. Consequently, reader, say not one word, nor suffer any tailor to say 10 one word, or the ninth part of a 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 sanctions equally those trousers in the forgotten rear, and all possible 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 20 was welcome — everywhere an honoured 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 doted upon her — as their daughter that was returning. The mili- tary men all doted upon her — as their sister that was retiring.

26. Farewell to the Daughter of St. Sebastian ! 30

Now, at this moment, it has become necessary for me to close, but I allow to the reader one question before laying down my pen. Come now, reader, be quick ; ‘ look sharp ’ ; and ask what you have to ask ; for in one minute and a half I am going to write in capitals the word Finis ; after which, you know, I am not at liberty to add a syllable. It would be shame- ful to do so ; since that word Finis enters into a secret covenant with the reader that he shall be

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molested no more with words small or great. Twenty to one, I guess what your question will be. You desire to 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. After ten 10 years of restlessness in Spain, with thoughts always turning back to the dreadful Andes, Kate heard of an expedition on the point of sailing to Spanish America. All soldiers knew //cr, so that she had information of everything which stirred in camps. Men of the highest military rank were going out with the expedition ; but Kate was a sister everywhere privileged ; she was as much cherished and as sacred, in the eyes of every brigade or tertia, as their own regimental colours ; and every member of the Staff, from the highest to 20 the lowest, rejoiced 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 the dinner could not be, unless Kate would consent to join it. 30 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 so many schoolboys let loose 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, beyond all doubt, taken 40 her seat in the boat : that was certain, though nobody, in the general confusion, was certain of having seen

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her actually step ashore. The sea was searched for her — the forests were ransacked. But the sea did not give up its dead, if there indeed she lay ; and the forests made no answer to the sorrowing hearts which sought her amongst them. Have I never formed a conjecture of my own upon the mysterious fate which thus sud- denly enveloped her, and hid her in darkness for ever? Yes, I have. But it is a conjecture too dim and un- steady to be worth repeating. Her brother soldiers, that should naturally have had more materials for 10 guessing than myself, were all lost in sorrowing per- plexity, and could never arrive even at a plausible conjecture.

That happened two hundred and twenty-one years ago ! And here is the brief upshot 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. 20 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 of all, that once whispered to Kate on the Andes ; but else it has been a secret for more than two centuries ; and to man it remains a secret for ever and ever !

POSTSCRIPT TO ‘THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN’

There are some narratives, which, though pure fictions from first to last, counterfeit so vividly the air of grave realities, that, if deliberately offered for such, they would for a time impose upon everybody. In the opposite scale there arc other narratives, which, whilst rigorously true, move amongst characters and scenes so remote from our ordinary experience, and through a state of society so favourable to an adventurous cast of incidents, that they would everywhere pass for romances, if severed from the documents which attest their fidelity to facts. In the lo former class stand the admirable novels of Defoe ; and, on a lower range within the same category, the inimitable Vicar of Wakefield ; upon which last novel, without at all designing it, I once became the author of the following instructive experiment. I had given a copy of this little novel to a beautiful girl of seventeen, the daughter of a statesman in Westmoreland, not designing any deception (nor so much as any concealment) with respect to the fictitious character of the incidents and of the actors in that famous tale. Mere accident it was that had intercepted 20 those explanations as to the extent of fiction in these points which in this case it would have been so natural to make. Indeed, considering the exquisite verisimilitude of the work meeting with such absolute inexperience in the reader, it was almost a duty to have made them. This duty, however, something had caused me to forget ; and when next I saw the young mountaineer, I forgot that I had forgotten it. Consequently, at first I was perplexed by the unfaltering gravity with which my fair young friend spoke of Dr. Prim- rose, of Sophia and her sister, of Squire Thornhill, &c., as 30 real and probably living personages, who could sue and be sued. It appeared that this artless young rustic, who had never heard of novels and romances as a bare possibility amongst all the shameless devices of London swindlers, had read with religious fidelity every word of this tale, so

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thoroughly life-like, surrendering her perfect faith and her loving sympathy to the different persons in the tale and the natural distresses in which they are involved, with- out suspecting for a moment that, by so much as a breathing of exaggeration or of embellishment, the pure gospel truth of the narrative could have been sullied. She listened in a kind of breathless stupor to my frank explanation— that not part only, but the whole, of this natural tale was a pure invention. Scorn and indignation flashed from her 10 eyes. She regarded hemelf as one who had been hoaxed and swindled ; begged me to take back the book ; and never again, to the end of her life, could endure to look into the book, or to be reminded of that criminal imposture which Dr. Oliver Goldsmith had practised upon her youthful credulity.

In that case, a book altogether fabulous, and not meaning to offer itself for anything else, had been read as genuine history. Here, on the other hand, the adventures of the Spanish Nun, which, in every detail of time and place have 20 since been sifted and authenticated, stood a good chance at one period of being classed as the most lawless of romances. It is, indeed, undeniable, and this arises as a natural result from the bold adventurous character of the heroine, and from the unsettled state of society at that period in Spanish America, that a reader, the most credulous, would at times be startled with doubts upon what seems so unvarying a tenor of danger and lawless violence. Hut, on the other hand, it is also undeniable that a reader, the most obsti- nately sceptical, would be equally startled in the very 30 opposite direction, on remarking that the incidents are far from being such as a romance-writer would have been likely to invent ; since, if striking, tragic, and even appalling, they are at times repulsive. And it seems evident, that, once putting himself to the cost of a wholesale fiction, the writer would have used his privilege more freely for his own ad- vantage. Whereas the author of these memoirs clearly writes under the coercion and restraint of a notorious reality, that would not suffer him to ignore or to modify the leading facts. Then, as to the objection that few 40 people or none have an experience presenting such uni- formity of perilous adventure, a little closer attention shows that the experience in this case is not uniform ; and so far otherwise, that a period of several years in Kate’s South American life is confessedly suppressed ; and on no other ground whatever, than that this long parenthesis is not adventurous, not essentially diftering from the monotonous character of ordinary Spanish life.

POSTSCRIPT

141

Suppose the case, therefore, that Kate’s memoirs had been thrown upon the world with no vouchers for their authenticity beyond such intemal presumptions as would have occurred to thoughtful readers, when reviewing the entire succession of incidents, 1 am of opinion that the person best qualified by legal experience to judge of evidence would finally have pronounced a favourable award; since it is easy to understand, that in a world so vast as the Peru, the Mexico, the Chili, of Spaniards during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and under the slender modi- 10 fication of Indian manners as yet effected by the Papal Christianization of these countries, and in the neighbour- hood of a river-system so awful - of a mountain-system so unheard-of in Europe, there would probably, by blind, unconscious sympathy, grow up a tendency to lawless and gigantesque ideals of adventurous life ; under which, united with the duelling code of Europe, many things would become trivial and commonplace experiences that to us home-bred English (‘ qui musas colimus severiores ’) seem monstrous and revolting. 20

Left, therefore, to itself, my belief is, that the story of the Military Nun would have prevailed finally against the demurs of the sceptics. However, in the meantime, all such demurs were suddenly and officially silenced for ever. Soon after the publication of Kate’s memoirs, in what you may call an early stage of her literary career, though two centuries after Yier personal career had closed, a regular controversy arose upon the degree of credit due to these extraordinary confessions (such they may be called) of the poor conscience- haunted nun. Whether these in Kate’s original MS. were 30 entitled ‘ Autobiographic Sketches ’, or ‘ Selections Grave and Gay ’, from the military experiences of a Nun, or possibly ‘The Confessions of a Biscayan Fire-Eater’, is more than I know. No matter : confessions they were ; and confes- sions that, when at length published, were absolutely mobbed and hustled by a gang of misbelieving (i. e. miS‘ creant) critics. And this fact is most remarkable, that the person who originally headed the incredulous party, viz., Sehor de Ferrer, a learned Castilian, was the very same who finally authenticated, by documentary evidence, 40 the extraordinary narrative in those parts which had most of all invited scepticism. The progress of the dispute threw the decision at length upon the archives of the Spanish Marine. Those for the southern ports of Spain had been transferred, I believe, from Cadiz and St. Lucar to Seville ; chiefly, perhaps, through the confusions inci- dent to the two French invasions of Spain in our own

142 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

day (first, that under Napoleon ; secondly, that under the Due d'Aiigouleme). Amongst these archives, subsequently amongst those of Cuzco in South America ; thirdly, amongst the records of some royal courts in Madrid ; fourthly, by collateral proof from the Papal Chancery ; fifthly, from Barcelona— have been drawn together ample attestations of all the incidents recorded by Kate. The elopement from St. Sebastian’s, the doubling of Cape Horn, the shipwreck on the coast of Peru, the rescue of the royal banner from

10 the Indians of Chili, the fatal duel in the dark, the astonish- ing passage of the Andes, the tragical scenes at Tucuman and Cuzco, the return to Spain in obedience to a royal and a papal summons, the visit to Rome and the interview with the Pope— finally, the return to South America, and the mysterious disappearance at Vera Cruz, upon which no light was ever thrown— all these capital heads of the narrative have been established beyond the reach of scepticism ; and, in consequence, the story was soon after adopted as histori- cally established, and was reported at length by journals

20 of the highest credit in Spain and Germany, and by a Parisian journal so cautious and so distinguished for its ability as the Revue des Deux Mondes,

I must not leave the impression upon my readers, that this complex body of documentary evidences has been searched and appraised by myself. Frankly I acknowledge that, on the sole occasion when any opportunity offered itself for such a labour, I shrank from it as too fatiguing- - and also as superfluous ; since, if the proofs had satisfied the compatriots of Catalina, who came to the investigation

30 with hostile feelings of partisanship, and not dissembling their incredulity, armed also (and in Mr. de Ferrer’s case conspicuously armed) with the appropriate learning for giving effect to this incredulity — it could not become a stranger to suppose himself qualified for disturbing a judge- ment that had been so deliberately delivered. Such a tribunal of native Spaniards being satisfied, there was no further opening for demur. The ratification of poor Kate’s memoirs is now therefore to be understood as absolute, and without reserve.

40 This being stated— viz., such an attestation from compe- tent authorities to the truth of Kate’s narrative, as may save all readers from my fair Westmoreland friend’s dis- aster — it remains to give such an answer, as without further research can be given, to a question pretty sure of arising in all reflective readers’ thoughts — viz.. Does there anywhere survive a portrait of Kate ? I answer — and it would be both mortifying and perplexing if I could not— Yes. One

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148

such portrait there is confessedly ; and seven years a^o this was to be found at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the collection of Herr Sempeller. The name of the artist I am not able to report ; neither can I say whether Herr Sempeller’s collec- tion still remains intact, and remains at Aix-la-Chapelle.

But inevitably to most readers who review the circum- stances of a case so extraordinary, it will occur, that beyond a doubt many portraits of the adventurous nun must have been executed. To have affronted the wrath of the Inquisi- tion, and to have survived such an audacity, would of itself 10 be enough to found a title for the martial nun to a national interest. It is true that Kate had not taken the veil ; she had stopped short of the deadliest crime known to the Inquisition; but still her transgressions were such as to require a special indulgence ; and this indulgence was granted by a pope to the intercession of a king — the greatest then reigning. It was a favour that could not have been asked by any greater man in this world, nor granted by any less. Had no other distinction settled upon Kate, this would have been enough to fix the gaze 20 of her own nation. But her whole life constituted Kate’s supreme distinction. There can be no doubt, therefore, that, from the year 1624 (i.e., the last year of our James I), she became the object of an admiration in her own country that was almost idolatrous. And this admiration was not of a kind that rested upon any partisan schism amongst her countrymen. So long as it was kept alive by her bodily presence amongst them, it was an admiration equally aristocratic and popular, shared alike by the rich and the poor— by the lofty and the humble. Great, therefore, 30 would be the demand for her portrait. There is a tradition that Velasquez, who had in 1623 executed a portrait of Charles I (then Prince of Wales), was amongst those who in the three or four following years ministered to this demand.

It is believed also, that, in travelling from Genoa and Florence to Rome, she sat to various artists, in order to meet the interest about herself already rising amongst the cardinals and other dignitaries of the Romish Church.

It is probable, therefore, that numerous pictures of Kate are yet lurking both in Spain and Italy, but not known 40 as such. For, as the public consideration granted to her had grown out of merits and qualities purely personal, and was kept alive by no local or family memorials rooted in the land, or surviving herself, it was inevitable that, as soon as she herself died, all identification of her portraits would perish : and the portraits would thenceforwards be confounded with the similar memorials, past all numbering,

144 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

which every year accumulates as the wrecks from household remembrances of generations that are passing or passed, that are fading or faded, that are dying or buried. It is well, therefore, amongst so many irrecoverable ruins, that, in the portrait at Aix-la-Chapelle, we still possess one un- doubted representation (and therefore in some degree a means for identifying other representations) of a female so memorably adorned by nature ; gifted with capacities so unparalleled both of doing and suffering ; who lived 10 a life so stormy, and perished by a fate so unsearchably mysterious.

DE QUINCE Y"S NOTES

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN Page 23.

11. Mrs, Bobo, Who is Mrs. Bobo V Th(3 reader will say,

‘ I know not Bobo.’ Possibly ; but for all that, Bobo is known to senates. From the American Senate Bobo received the amplest testimonials of merits that have not yet been matched. In the debate on William Nevins’s claim for the extension of his patent for a machine that rolls and cuts crackers and biscuits, thus spoke Mr. Adams, a most distinguished Senator, against Mr. Badger: — ^ It is said this is a discovery of the patentee for making the best biscuits. Now, if it be so, he must have got his invention from Mrs. Bobo of Alabama, for she certainly makes better biscuits than anybody in the world. I can prove by my friend from Alabama (Mr. Clay), who sits beside me, and by any man who ever stayed at Mrs. Bobo’s house, that she makes better biscuit than anybody' else in the world ; and if this man has the best plan for making biscuit, he must have got it from her' Henceforward I hope we know where to apply for biscuit.

Page 24.

13. she looked, &c. If ever the reader should visit Aix-la- Chapelle, he will probably feel interest enough in the poor, wild impassioned girl, to look out for a picture of her in that city, and the only one known certainly to be authentic. It is in the collection of Mr. Sempeller. For some time it was supposed that the best (if not the only) portrait of her lurked somewhere in Italy. Since the discovery of the picture at Aix-la-Chapelle, that notion has been abandoned But there is great reason to believe that, both in Madrid and Rome, many portraits of her must have been painted to meet the intense interest which arose in her history subse- quently amongst all men of rank, military or ecclesiastical, whether in Italy or Spain. The date of these would range between sixteen and twenty-two years from the period which we have now reached (1608 j.

COLLIKS DB K

146 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

Page 33*

19. Alferez. This rank in the Spanish army is, or was, on a level with the modern sous-lieutenant of France.

Page 39.

29. ‘ holdimj children from their playf &c. The beautiful words of Sir Philip Sidney in his Defense of Foesie.

Page 51.

2. earthly vineyards. Though not exactly in the same circumstances as Kate, or sleeping, a la helle tHoile, on a declivity of the Andes, I have known (or heard circum- stantially reported) the cases of many ladies, besides Kate, who were in precisely the same critical danger of perishing for the 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 rigour of temperance. Dr. Darwin, the famous author of Zoonomia, The Botanical Garden, &c., sacrificed his life to the very pedantry and superstition of temi)erance by refusing a glass of brandy in obedience to a system, at a moment when (according to the opinion of all around him) one single glass would have saved his life. 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 chief medical attendant. Sir R. C., 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 pei’sonally I have been acquainted with, thirty years ago, a man, illustrious for his intellectual accomplishments,^ mentioned to me that his own wife, during her first or second confinement, was suddenly re- ported to him, by one of her female attendants (who slipped

^ On second thoughts, I see no reason for scrupling to mention that this man was Robert Southey.

DE QUINCEY’S NOTES

147

away unobserved by the medical people), as undoubtedly sinking fast. He hurried to her chamber, and saw that it was so. On this he suggested earnestly some stimulant — laudanum or alcohol. 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 as if under the immediate afflatus of magic, so sudden was her recovery and so complete. 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 collax3sing patient. The x)atient herself, who might naturally know something of the matter, was of a different ox)inion. She sided with the factious body around her bed (comx)rehending all, beside the doctor) who felt sure that death was rax)idly ai)proaching, barring that brandy. The same result in the same ai)palling crisis, I have known repeatedly x^roduced by twenty-five drox^s of laudanum. Many will say ‘Oh, never listen to a non- medical man like this writer. Consult in such cases 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 x>rejudice of professional timidity.

Page 63.

2. Creole. At that time the infusion of negro or African blood was small. Consequently none of the negro hideous- ness was diffused. After those intercomplexities had risen between all complications and interweavings 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 keex3 you from blundering. As yet (i.e. in Kate’s time), the varie- ties were few. Meantime, the word Creole has always been misax^plied in our Englislx colonies to a person (though of strict Eurox^ean blood) simply if ho7'n in the West Indies. In this English use the word Creole expresses exactly the same difference as the Romans indicated by Hispanus and II is- panicus. 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 Italicusy Anglus and

K 2

148 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

AnglicuSj &c. ; an imjDortant distinction, on which see Isaac Casaubon apud Scriptores Hist. Augustan,

81. once through Jews, It is well known that the very reason why the Spanish, beyond all nations, became so gloomily jealous of a Jewish cross in the pedigree, was because until the vigilance of the cross 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 while they raved against it, the secret proofs of it might be detected amongst their own kindred ; even as in the Temple, whilst once an Hebrew king rose in mutiny against the priesthood (2 Chronicles xxvi. 16-20) suddenly the leprosy that de- throned him blazed out upon his forehead.

Page 72.

26. episcopal. The roads around Cuzco were made, and maintained, under the patronage and control of the bishop.

Page 76.

10. ^ sweet as summer.^ Griffith in Shakespeare, when vindicating, in that immortal scene with Queen Catharine, Cardinal Wolsey.

Page 106.

28. accomimniment of women. Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women accomi)anied the anabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were ^ many ’ women in the Greek army -xroXXai o^av iraipm ivr^ (TTparev/jiaTL ; and in a late stage of that trying expedition it is evident that women were amongst the survivors.

Page 111.

7. ‘ trashed,^ This is an expressive word used by Beaumont and Fletcher in their Bonduca^ &c., to describe the case of a person retarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, whether thing or person, too valuable to be left behind.

DE QUINCEY’S NOTES 149

Page 113.

38. the Feha-Zechorr, There is another ouloss equally strong with that of Feka-Zechorr, viz., that of Erkelunn, under the government of Assarcho and Machi, whom some obligations of treaty or other hidden motives drew into the general consx:)iracy of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains found means to assure the Governor of Astra- chan, on the first outbreak of the insurrection, that their real wishes were for maintaining the old connexion with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore, to whom the pursuit was intrusted, had instructions to act cautiously and according to circumstances on coming up with them. The result was, through the prudent management of Assarcho, that the clan, without compromising their pride or independence, made such moderate submissions as satisfied the Cossacks ; and eventually both chiefs and people received from the Czarina the rewards and honours of exemplary fidelity.

Page 126.

26. the very margin of the vast central deserts of Asia. All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper upon the subject of this Kalmuck migration, drawn up in the Chinese language by the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by the Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the whole motives of his conduct and the chief incidents at great length.

Page 127.

27. camels Hndorsed\ ‘And elephants indorsed with towers,’ Milton in Paradise 'Regained.

Page 136.

30. inscriptioyi. This inscription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, and particularly in adapting to the Christian era the Emperor’s expressions for the year of the original exodus from China and the retrogressive exodus from Russia. With respect to the designation adopted from the Russian Emperor, either it is built upon some confusion between him and the Byzantine Caesars, as though the former, being of the same religion with the latter (and occupying in part the same longitudes, though in different latitudes), might be considered as his modern successor ; or else it refers simply to the Greek form of Christianity professed by the Russian Emperor and Church.

EDITOR’S NOTES

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

[[[De Quincey]]’s account of the adventures of Catalina de Erauso appeared first in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine in 1847, under the title of The Nautico-Military Nun, and was reprinted in the third volume of the Edinburgh Edition of his collected works, with the title changed to its present form, and a few minor alterations. De Quincey’s version of the story was based on an article that appeared in 1847 in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by Alexis de Valon. Catalina’s autobiography has recently been translated, with introduction and notes, by Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly (The Nun-Ensign, Fisher Unwin), who considers that the History as we now have it represents a compilation by a later hand of the original memoirs written by Catalina herself.]

Page 3. 4. hidalgo. Nobleman. Jlijo de algo—^on of something.

24. ierrae films. Son of the soil, i.e., hero, of a peasant mother.

Page 4. 2. Cortes. Conqueror of Mexico, 1519-21.

Fizarro. Conqueror of Peru, 1532-3.

9. Don. Spanish title, formerly confined to noblemen, but now corresponding to Mr.

Page 6 . 4. crocodile. From the fable that the crocodile wept while devouring a man, crocodile’s tears have become proverbial for hypocritical sorrow.

10. cynic. The Cynics were a sect of philosophers in ancient Greece who despised wealth and pleasure. The word is now used to denote one who disbelieves in the sincerity of human actions. In the present passage it is used to mean one who distrusts human hopes. De Quincey is the cynic, who disbelieves that the plans for Catalina’s future will turn out as her father and the nuns imagine.

Page 6. 32. fee-simple. Absolute possession.

33. ‘ to have and to hold.' From the Man iage Service.

EDITOR’S NOTES

151

Page 7. 2. ‘ determine.^ Come to an end.

3. chdteanx en Espagne, The phrase referred to building castles in a foreign country where one has no standing ground, and so is used of any baseless hopes of the future.

7. Spanish constitutions. An allusion to the Carlist wars and to the revolutions and counter-revolutions in Spain during the middle of the nineteenth century. But De Quincey's disparaging remarks here and in the previous section about Sj)anish ‘ pride ‘ laziness and * ostentatious mendacity are a piece of side play to the gallery of sixty years ago, which has now happily gone out of fashion : they strike a solitary note in an article otherwise full of good humour and charity.

34, ^hlue rejoicing Coleridge, France, 17.

38. golden tales. Of the conquest of America.

Page 8. 8. Marjisa or Bradamant. Two warrior ladies in Orlando Furioso, by the Italian poet Ariosto, 1474-1533.

Bid tonia rt. A warrior lady in the Faerie Queene (Canto I II).

24. hreviarg. The Roman Catholic book of prayers and lessons for each day. \scrutoire. Writing-desk, ecritoire.

32. trousseau. Bunch.

Page 9. 17. hoc age. Do this.

Page 10. 9. a priori. Arguing from the cause to the effect.

17. Jack Ketch. Executioner in the reign of James II.

18. ‘ Mr, Calcraft.^ Public Executioner 1829-74.

21, vivas. Hurrahs. Literally, means ‘ May you live \

34. short-lived. In Spain.

37. ‘ shilly-shally,^ Indecision.

Page 11. 6. nankeen. Cotton cloth, first imported from Nankin.

26. at the hack of beyond. In an indefinite out-of-the-way place. The first instance of the use of this expression given by the New English Dictionatij is by Scott in The Antiquary.

33. cordials. Sweetened and scented spirits.

Page 12. 6. casuistry. Reasoning by which cases of conscience are decided. Generally applied to a quibbling way of dealing with difficult cases of duty.

26. Wellington trousers ; i. e., they were wide. The term was used for trousers under which were worn Wellington boots, named after the Duke of Wellington.

32. Vittoria. The scene of Wellington’s victory over the French in 1813.

38. as light-heartedly as the Duke. Who had a well-arranged commissariat at Vittoria.

162 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

Page 13. 10. owned the soft impeachment. Acknowledged the truth of the pleasing charge (Sheridan, TheBivals, v. lii). Here, however, there is no charge ; but a suggestion that the uncle is interested in Latin.

13. uncular, De Quincey’s humorous abbreviation for avuncular.

25. frequentative^ inceptive, desiderative. Grammatical terms for verbs expressing frequency, beginning, and desire of action.

32. ThUhault. A French writer, 1733-1807. The incident is referred to in Mes Sotivenirs de Vingt Ans de Sejour a Berlin^ vol. ii, p. 319.

36-8. ennuyois, enmiye. The modern forms are ennmjais and ennuie.

Page 14. 8. qualified right. In virtue of ‘ tips \

33. alguazils. Police.

Page 16. 41. visitor. In the sense of inspector.

Page 17. 23. a Frenchman . . . ‘ Chance . . .’ Valon, in the article in the Bevue des Denx Mo^ides, says ‘ Le hasard, a dit quelqii'un, c^est q)etit'etre le j^se^idonyme de Dieu, quand il ne veut pas signer\ ‘ Quelqidun' is Chamfort (1741-94), whose actual words were ^Le hasard est un sobriquet de la Providence \

30. imperials. Portmanteaus.

JuvenaVs qualification, ‘ Cantabit vacuus cornm latrone viator ’ {Satires, x. 22), which has been translated :

‘ The empty traveller may whistle Before the robber and his pistol.’

Page 18. 10. apodeictically. By proof that makes clear beyond doubt.

Page 19. 20. carnally deaf. Deaf to all that concerned their senses.

27. Andalusian. Andalusia was one of the old divisions of Spain, in the south-west.

34. philogarlic. Fond of garlic.

Page 21. 3. Catholic Majesty. His Most Catholic Majesty is a title of the kings of Spain, as His Most Christian Majesty was of the kings of Prance. Cf. the title of Fidei Defensor, borne by the kings of England.

4. Lloyd's. An association of persons that transact marine insurance, so-called because those engaged in this business (which is now carried on in the Royal Exchange) used to meet at Lloyd’s Coffee House.

EDITORS NOTES

153

.31. ducats and 2>istoles, Gold coins worth respectively about 95. and 17s.

34. ^flotsam,' Such part of the wreckage of a ship as was found floating on the water.

36. ^jetsam.' Goods thrown overboard to lighten a ship and afterwards washed ashore.

39. 8vo. Octavo is a term to denote a particular size of book or pa^e. Here it is used for the book itself— Cata- lina’s memoirs.

Page 22. 36. horoscope. An observation of the heavens at a person’s birth, to foretell his future. Here used of the good fortune that— as inferred from her escape - her horo- scope would have revealed.

Page 23. 2. sortilege. This can only be applied strictly to deciding one’s action or foretelling the future by drawing lots.

11. Mrs, Boho, A celebrated maker of biscuits, in Alabama.

14. caput mortuum. Worthless remains.

21. Catholic. See p. 21, 1. 3.

29. juste milieu. Happy mean.

Page 24. 14. cahalgador. Cavalier.

26. Trujillo, Tiuxillo.

Page 25. 11. on the opposite side of the equation. What was running in De Quincey’s mind was something like this : — ‘ It makes one think of a list of customers- the good payers in the left column, the bad in the right ; and reminds one of an equation, since taking a quantity over to the opposite side changes its sign.’

13. no credit. The mathematical critic may object that ^ no ’ credit is not on the opposite side of an equation to ‘unlimited’ credit, the latter being an infinite positive quantity, whereas the least possible amount of credit is zero.

21. ivhich even annuitg offices utter without a pang : i. e., which in Spain is a customary greeting even from the clerk in an insurance office that has to pay an annuity till one’s death.

Page 26. 7. no sort of pecuniary difference. Only on the assumption that they were equally ready or unready to pay their accounts.

38. Corregidor, Magistrate.

Page 28. 30. pasha. Turkish governor. His rank used to be shown by the number of horse tails on his standard.

154 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

Page 29. 21. ^ Sound the trumpets! Beat the drums!' Dryden, Alexander's Feast, 41.

38. architrave. The top beam of a doorway.

Page 30. 14. muffting. Oars are muffled by wrapping cloth or other material round them to deaden the sound of their rattling in the rowlocks.

37. ‘ Catalinam vehis, et fortunas eius.' ' You carry Cata- lina and her fortunes.’ The phrase was used by Caesar, who believed in his good genius, to encourage the captain of a boat anxious to turn back to port on account of a storm (Plutarch, Life of Caesar),

Page 31. 34. tap. Dropsy is relieved by drawing off with a syringe the water that collects in the body.

Page 33. 29. ‘ Became invalid by lapse of

time.

39. ultrascenical. Too theatrical to be credible. Cf. p. 83, 1. 1, and p. 107, 1. 14.

Page 35. 38. cordilleras. Chains of mountains.

Page 36. 1. Dorado, El Dorado was a district of fabulous wealth long believed to exist in the northern part of South America.

39. antiseptic. Preventing decay.

Page 37. 25. hectic. Feverish glow.

Page 38. 26. tirailleurs. Rifleman’s.

Page 39. 26. Cain, Genesis iv. 12-15.

Wandering Jew. A legendary character doomed to wander from land to land for having struck Christ when he was being led to Golgotha.

27. ^ pass like night froin land to land.' Coleridge, Ancient Mariner, 588.

29. 'holding children from their play, and old men from the chimney corner.' From Sir Philip Sidney’s description of the power of the poet, in his Apologie for Poetne.

37. loved him best. There is no mention of this in the Ancie7it Mariner,

Page 40. 1. Nemesis. The Spirit of Vengeance.

Page 42. 4. a Frenchman. Valon.

Page 44. 26. theodolite. An instrument for measuring angles.

EDITOR’S NOTES

165

spirit-level. An instrument for finding a level. It consists of a tube containing spirit, with a bubble that comes to the centre when the tube is level.

Page 46. 36. arrears of the road. Arrears mean litex'ally things behind ; thence an account not paid ; and so here parts of the road not yet covered*- in front, Cf. p. 7, 1. 29, and p. 46, 1. 10.

Page 46. 1. ratify itself. Be confirmed.

Page 47. 19. golden plummet, A plummet is a i^iece of lead attached to a string, to measure depth. Golden^ because the news learnt from the imaginary plummet is so precious.

Page 48. 3. winged patnarchal herald. An allusion to the dove sent out from the Ark that returned with an olive leaf, showing that the Flood had abated. Genesis viii. 11.

11. grazed. To graze in this sense is to touch lightly in passing. Catalina’s position was so critical that she was going along a line that, as it were, touched safety on one side and destruction on the other.

21. city of refuge. The Israelites had certain cities where criminals could take refuge and avoid arrest. Cf. ‘ right of asylum p. 35, 1. 18.

Page 49. 22. Angelns, Strictly, the Roman Catholic prayer that is said at dawn, noon, and sunset, at the sound of a bell. Often, as here, the bell itself.

Page 60. 2. St. Bernard's hospice, A monastery in the Alps, founded by St. Bernard of Meiithon in about 962, that ‘ gives hospitality ’ to travellers.

6. silvery column. The mercury in a barometer or thermo- meter.

9. the river of the American St, Peter. One would expect ‘ the American river of St. Peter ’ (the Minnesota, a tributary of the Mississippi).

24. golden Christian signal, ‘ Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.’ Eph. iv. 26.

31. The simple truth was, &c. The sentence is incomplete, as there is no complement to ‘ was This is not the only instance in Be Quincey’s writings of his becoming so interested in a subordinate idea that he forgets to close the principal clause.

35. Captain Bunshfs. ‘ If so be as he ’s dead, my opinion is he won’t come back no more. If so be as he ’s alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will ? No ! Why not ? Because the bearings of this observation lays in the appli- cation on it.’ Dickens, Domhey and Son, xxxix.

156

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

Page 51 . 16. scalpers. There is no evidence that the Peruvian Indians — who were a very gentle race — practised scalping.

17. legend of ancient days. De Quincey seems to have in mind the story of Jason (and one similar about Cadmus), who, having killed a dragon, sowed its teeth in the ground, whence sprang up armed men ready to fight him.

24. aiguilette. A tag suspended from the shoulder of military and naval uniforms.

Page 62 . 2. cdballero. Cavalier.

8. hridlediand. The hand that holds the reins — the left.

17. ^ ivritten strange defeatures in her face f Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, Y. i. 300.

Page 63 . 2. Creole. Generally used now of persons born in the West Indies of European parents.

26. voluptuousness. Love of i^leasure.

29. Goths. A German people who founded a kingdom in Spain which lasted from the fifth to the eighth century.

Vandals. A confederacy of German i^eoples who in- vaded Spain in the fifth century and founded the kingdom of Andalusia, but were afterwards defeated and scattered by the Goths.

81. Arabs. Arab seems to bo used loosely for Semitic.

Moors. Invaded Spain in the eighth century, defeated the Gothic king, and exercised dominion for nearly 800 years, until the fall of Granada in 1492.

32. Jews. Settled in Spain and frequently intermarried with Spaniards.

41. Miranda . . . Ferdinand. Shakespeare, The Tempest, I. ii and ill. i.

Page 64 . 8. Visi gothic. The Goths were divided into Ostrogoths in the east, and Visigoths in the west.

22. such things. Shakespeare, Othello, i' iii. 128, &c.

32. King of the Spains. A title current in De Quincey’s time, dating from the union of Castile and Aragon.

Page 66. 82. ^ Tm.’ Slang for money.

35. of two worlds. See p. 5e8, 11. 16-17.

Page 66. 7. circumstantial. Full of circumstance (pomp). Contrast p. 124, 1. 6, for the usual sense.

14. one reporter. Valon.

FerreVs narrative. The edition of Catalina’s memoirs issued by Ferrer in 1829.

23. Helots. Original inhabitants of Laconia, who were enslaved by the Spartans.

EDITOR’S NOTES

157

Page 67. 1. doctoring dice* Dice are doctored or ‘ loaded ’ by having lead inserted to make them fall with a particular face uppermost.

Page 59. 12. huzwigfi. Persons wearing buzz wigs — the judges and lawyers. Buzz is only found in this sense as an epithet of a large bush}’- wig. Cf. Serjeant Buzfuz in The Pickwick Papers.

27. Pythias . . . Damon. (Pythias should be Phintias.) Proverbial as an example of friendship. Phintias was con- demned to death for plotting against Dionysius I, King of Syracuse, lie obtained leave of absence to arrange his domestic affairs on condition that, if he did not return in time, his friend Damon should be killed instead. Dionysius was so struck by the devotion of the two friends that he pardoned Phintias and asked to be admitted to their friendship.

Page 60. 2. Jack Cadets chimney. See Shakespeare, Henry the Sixths Second Part, iv. ii. 160.

8. chopping logic. Advancing quibbling arguments.

Page 61. 30. devotional confession. So as to receive ab|g-^ lution. A priest is not permitted to divulge any sCefets told under the seal of confession.

Page 62. 20. La Plata. Now Sucre, capital of Bolivia.

39. Eminencies, Excellencies, Highnesses, Holhiesses. Titles applied respectively to Cardinals, Ambassadors, Princes, and the Pope.

Page 63. 4. peripet[t]eia . The sudden ehange of circum- stances on which the plot of a tragedy turns.

8. Claude Lorraine. Claude Gelee, known as Claude ol Lorraine, a French landscape painter, 1600-82.

Page 64. 12. prosperous, Paz means peace.

31. Alcalde. Mayor.

Page 66. 24. reversionary. To come to them later. Cf.

p. 112, 1. 26.

Page 66. 14. allegory. Used loosely for ‘ symbol ’.

36. Cinderellula. A too small Cinderella, -ula is a com- mon termination in Spanish for what are termed in grammar Diminutives.

Page 68. 7. venta. Inn.

10. locanda. Inn (Italian).

21. a repeating echo of Don Quixote, One who talked in the same stilted way as Don Quixote- The First Part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.

158 THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

Page 69. 6. pantomime. Dumb show.

21. an iota. The smallest particular. The name of the smallest letter (t) in the Greek alphabet.

Page 71. 11. besides her torrent hath. Besides the fact that she was cold from her torrent bath.

Page 72. 16. lost his worship any bet. He would have been disqualified as acting in an unsportsmanlike way.

19. en croupe. Riding behind.

26. episcopal. The roads round Cuzco were under the control of the bishop.

41. po^noerhim. The open space round a Roman camp.

Page 75. 18. St, Peter s. The Pope, as representative of St. Peter, is the custodian of the keys of heaven (Matt. xvi. 19).

80. forty myriads, 400,000. A myriad is strictly 10,000, but is generally used of a countless number.

Page 76. 2. Conde. Count.^ ....

4. Duke of Buckinyham, Visited Spain in 1623 with the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I) in the hope of ci^rranging a marriage between the latter and the Infanta.

^16. * sweet as summer,' Shakespeare, llemij the Eighth, IV. ii. 56.

12. the King. Philip IV.

16. a pension, 800 escudos, equivalent to about £80, of which the purchasing power at that time was very much greater than it is now.

18. year of jubilee, A year recurring at stated intervals, during which those who made a pilgrimage to Rome could obtain a remission of punishment for their sins.

31. chair of St. Peter, See p. 75, 1. 18.

Page 77. 1. final avenger, Romans xii. 19.

7. in paiiihus infideliuni. In heathen countries.

11. ninth part of a word. An allusion to the proverb ‘Nine tailors make a man ’.

36. Finis. End. Until quite recently it was the custom to print this word at the end of all books.

Page 78. 6. that .secret. In this account of Catalina’s end De Quincey has followed Valon, who says that probably she fell overboard, was drowned, and was eaten by a shark. However, Ferrer’s edition of the Ilistoria establishes the fact that in 1645 — fifteen years later - she was still at Vera Cruz, following the trade of a carrier. It is after this date that she disappears, according to J.-M. de Heredia {La Nonne Alferez, Lamerre, Paris, 1894), who recounts three supposi- tions of her end : that she died in her bed ; that she was

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159

killed by robbers ; that she was spirited away by the Devil. Finally Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kolly j^ives chapter and verse for the fact that she died in 1650, at Cuitlaxtla, and was buried with pomp.

PREFACE

De Quince^^s fame has crystallized so closely round the Confesnom of an Engluh Opium Eater that he is often regarded solely as a reflective and ana- lytical writer. The two pieces in the present volume exhibit his narrative and descriptive powers. Both are marked by a simplicity and a directness that make them a very happy introduction to his writings. Indeed; for sustained vivacity^ frolicsome humour; and fullness of incident. The Spanuh Military Nun stands unique among his works. It does not, how- ever, seem ever to have been reissued except in the collective editions of De Quincey’s works and in a two-volume edition of selections edited over twenty years ago by David Masson and now out of print.

The briefest of notes have been written on historical and literary allusions, an4 on a few other ])oints that appeared to need explanation.

INTllODUCTION

Thomas Dk Qlixcky was born at- Manchester in 1785. Ilis father was a merchant of good position and of literary tastes, who was com])elled on account of bad health to spend much of his time abroad. Thomas inherited from him a weakly constitution. Of a shy and sensitive disposition, he was from early childhood subject to dreams that pursued him vividly into his waking life. When he was but seven, his father was brought home to die ; only a short time before, his eldest sister, Elizabeth, to whom he was much attached, had died : her death impressed him deeply, and in his memoirs he relates a solemn vision that came on him while standing in the death-chamber. His mother was devoted to her children, but the sternness of her character prevented complete sympathy with a nature so different as that of her son.

His childhood was spent in the country, but he preferred burying himself in books to sharing the games of other boys and the pranks of a boisterous elder brother. Ilis education was entrasted to a tutor until he was twelve, when the family moved to Bath. He entered the Grammar School there.

VI

INTEODUCTION

and gained a reputation for his knowledge of Latin and Greek : ^ That boy/ said his master, ^ covdd harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one.’ After two years at Bath, and a short time at a private boarding school, he was sent to Manchester Grammar School, with the idea of obtaining a scholarship and proceeding to Oxford. He was not happy in his new surroundings. Life in a large industrial city weighed on his spirits ; he found his companions uncongenial and the lessons monotonous ; and his health was affected by lack of exercise — for, though not athletic, he already had that love of long walks, alone or with a companion, which lasted all his life. In vain the boy begged his mother to take him away from school, and one day, with a resolution that seems strangely in contrast with his timid disposition, he started off — a volume of Euripides in one pocket and of an English writer in another — and abandoning his first intention of pre- senting himself to the poet Wordsworth, for whom he had conceived an enthusiastic admiration, he trudged the forty miles to Chester where his family were now living.

The intercession of an uncle prevented his mother from insisting on his return, and he was allowed to carry out a projec't for a walking tour in Wales. But his leaving Manchester Grammar School meant that he could no longer obtain the scholarship on which his mother had been relying to assist her to send him to the University. The lad, however.

INTRODUCTION vii

had set his heart on Oxford. After some months of rambling in Wales, he broke off communication with his family, and made his way to London, to raise a loan on some money that he would inherit when 1)0 came of age. The negotiations dragged on, and his lesourees were soon exhausted. For several months he endured tlie severest privations, de])endent on charity for food, and often reduced to sleeping on doorsteps. On one occasion, when almost dead from starvation and exposure, he owed his life to a poor girl called Ann, whose a(*quaintance he had made in his wanderings through the London streets, and wlio succoured him with food ^ paid out of lier own humble purse, at a time when she had scarcely wherewithal to 2 )urchase the bare necessaries of life, and when she could have no reason to ex 2 )ect that he would ever be able to reimburse her\ In after years his thoughts and dreams constantly reverted to this incident, and he counted it the Hieaviest affliction^ of his life that when later he was in a j)Ositioii to help her, all his efforts to trace her through the ^mighty labyrinths^ of London were vain.

An encounter with a friend led to his leaving London and returning to his family. After much consultation it was arranged that he should be allowed to go to Oxford on a small allowance, and in 1803 he entered Worcester College. Here he lived a quiet, studious life, with a reputation among the few who knew him for his conversational powers and l)rodigious information. Unfortunately, about this

Vlll

INTEODUCTION

time, during an attack of neuralgia, he first learnt to take opium, and sowed the seeds of a habit that at one time seemed likely to ruin him in mind and body.

He left Oxford without obtaining his degree, through refusing for some unknown reason to pre- sent liimself for the oral part of the examination. His residence there had done little to alter his solitary habits, but henceforth liis life was to be brightened by friendship. He made the aecpiaintanee of Coleridge (to whom we find him a few years later sending an anonymous gift of £300) ; was by him introduced to Wordsworth and Southey ; and in 1809, at the age of twenty-four, took up his abode at Grasmere, in the Lake District, in order to be near his new friends. He settled down into the life of a student, secured by a small income from the necessity of making his living.

The years that followed were uneventful, until in 1816 he married Margaret Simpson, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. The marriage was a happy one, both in itself and for its indirect results. He had been growing accustoincd (o larger and larger doses of opium, and had reached a state in which he dreaded to go to sleep on account of the dreadful nightmares that beset him, while by day he was reduced to mental paralysis and ^ suicidal despondency ^ Shortly before his marriage he had succeeded in reducing the amount of his daily dose, but he soon be(*ame more than ever the slave of the drug. Now, however, the need of providing for

INTRODUCTION

ix

his family forced him to make another effort — this time with more lasting results, although there were still to be relapses before finally he ‘ unwound the accursed chain The same necessity drove him to work, and in 1821 the first instalment of the ConJ'essio7is of an Kiujlish Opium Eater appeared in the London Magazine.

Its success was immediate, and from that time De Quincey was a constant contributor to the magazines. His writings fill sixteen volumes, and maintain almost without exception a high level of workmanship — though the standard by which one compares them is an extraordinarily high one, for our literature shows no finer examples of ‘impassioned prose'’ than passages in some of his essays. He ranged at ease over the whole field of history and literature, ancient and modern ; the list of his essays includes such diverse subjects as Homer, Kant’s philosophy, J oan of Arc, Ureemasonry, Roman meals. His wide reading and immense memory, combined with an insatiable curiosity, show themselves also in his treatment of a subject. He revels in tracking a question into its backwaters, and will interrupt the main current of his argument for several pages in order to follow up a miniite issue that has accidentally emerged during the discussion. Connected with this quality there goes an almost fatal fluency, that even his scholarship sometimes barely redeems from the charge of verbiage. Indeed his reading, though wide, was desultory, and his mind, in spite of its

X

INTRODUCTION

analytical and logical faculty, was averse from pro- longed research and reflection. In his historical and philosophical essays he shines rather as a brilliant controversialist than as a contributor to original thought on fundamental questions, and his fame has with justice clustered round his more imaginative writings. The bent of his mind inclined his interest towards the vast, the extraordinary, and the dramatic. The two articles in this volume are instances in point : one, the story of a nun, masquerading as a man, and taking part in wild scenes of adventure and violence ; the other, the spectacle of a whole nation migrating across a continent to return to its allegiance under a former lord.

The publication of the Confessions of an English Opium Eater marked the turning-point in his career. He had discovered the work for which he was fitted ; his pen now assured him an adequate income ; and the story of the rest of his long life would be chiefly a chronicle of his various writings, and of the fortunes of his family who shared with literature his interest and his love. In 1830 he moved to Scotland, and took a house near Edinburgh, doing his writing, however, in rooms in the city itself. Many stories are told of his eccentricity. It was his custom to accumulate books in his rooms until no space was left ; he would then turn the key in the lock, and move to another house, sooner than be at the trouble of moving his belongings : at one time he was paying rent for four different houses. He was not a person (as one of his

INTRODUCTION

XI

(laughters puts it) ‘ for nervous people to live with ’ ; in the evenings, when he was in his family circle, it was ‘ the commonest incident for some one to look up from book or work, to say casually, “ Papa, your hair is on fire,^' of which a calm Is it, my love ? ” and a hand rubbing out the blaze was all the notice taken \

He had a small fragile body, and his friend Shadworth Hodgson quotes the description of the poet in Thomson's Gadle of Indolence as exactly fitting him : —

A little Druid wight.

Of withered aspect ; but his eye was keen.

With sweetness mixed. In russet brown bedight He crept along, unpromising of mien.

Gross he who judges so. Ilis soul was fair.

After the death of his wife in 1837, his eldest daughter Margaret assumed the management of his house and took the place of mother to the other five children. For nearly a quarter of a century more his energy in writing was unremitting, and his last years were devoted to the preparation of a collected edition of his works. The last volume was almost ready for press when he began to fail. He died on December 8, 1859, in his lodgings at 42 Lothian Street, Edinburgh, at the age of seventy-three. His mind had been wandering for some time, and his last words — ‘ Sister, Sister, Sister ' — seemed to show that he was back among the scenes of his childhood, and that his thoughts were occupied with his beloved Elizabeth who had died over sixty years before.

THE SPANISH MILITARY NUN

1. An Extra Nuisance is introduced into Spain

On a night in the year 1592 (but which night is a secret liable to 365 answers), a Spanish ‘ son of some- body ’ (i. e. hidalgo), in the fortified town of St. Sebas- tian, received the disagreeable intelligence from a nurse, that his wife had just presented him with a daughter.

No present that the poor misjudging lady could pos- sibly have made him was so entirely useless towards any purpose of his. lie had three daughters already ; which happened to be more by 2-f 1, according to his 10 reckoning, than any reasonable allowance of daughters.

A supernumerary son might have been stowed away ; but supernumerary daughters were the very nuisance of Spain. He did, therefore, what in such cases every proud and lazy Spanish gentleman endeavoured to do. And surely I need not interrupt myself by any parenthesis to inform the base British reader, who makes it his glory to work hard, that the peculiar point of honour for the Spanish gentleman lay precisely in these two qualities of pride and laziness ; for, if 20 he were not proud, or had anything to do, what could you look for but ruin to the old Spanish aristocracy ? some of whom boasted that no member of their house (unless illegitimate, and a mere terrae Jilhis) had done a day's work since the Flood. In the Ark, they ad- mitted that Noah kept them tightly to work ; because, in fact, there was work to do, that must be done by somebody. But once anchored upon Ararat, they insisted upon it most indignantly that no ancestor of the Spanish noblesse had ever worked, except through 30 his slaves. And with a view to new leases of idle- ness, through new generations of slaves, it was (as

THE SPANISH NUN. [a slightly different version?]

Why is it that Adventures are so generally repulsive to people of meditative minds? It is for the same reason that any other want of law, that any other anarchy is repulsive. Floating passively from action to action, as helplessly as a withered leaf surrendered to the breath of winds, the human spirit (out of which comes all grandeur of human motions) is exhibited in mere Adventures, as either entirely laid asleep, or as acting only by lower organs that regulate the means, whilst the ends are derived from alien sources, and are imperiously predetermined. It is a case of exception, however, when even amongst such adventures the agent reacts upon his own difficulties and necessities by a temper of extraordinary courage, and a mind of premature decision. Further strength arises to such an exception, if the very moulding accidents of the life, if the very external coercions are themselves unusually romantic. They may thus gain a separate interest of their own. And, lastly, the whole is locked into validity of interest, even for the psychological philosopher, by complete authentication of its truth. In the case now brought before him, the reader must not doubt; for no memoir exists, or personal biography, that is so trebly authenticated by proofs and attestations direct and collateral. From the archives of the Royal Marine at Seville, from the autobiography or the heroine, from contemporary chronicles, and from several official sources scattered in and out of Spain, some of them ecclesiastical, the amplest proofs have been drawn, and may yet be greatly extended, of the extraordinary events here recorded. M. de Ferrer, a Spaniard of much research, and originally incredulous as to the facts, published about seventeen years ago a selection from the leading documents, accompanied by his palinode as to their accuracy. His materials have been since used for the basis of more than one narrative, not inaccurate, in French, German and Spanish journals of high authority. It is seldom the case that French writers err by prolixity. They have done so in this case. The present narrative, which contains no sentence derived from any foreign one, has the great advantage of close compression; my own pages, after equating the size, being as 1 to 3 of the shortest continental form. In the mode of narration, I am vain enough to flatter myself that the reader will find little reason to hesitate between us. Mine at least, weary nobody; which is more than can be always said for the continental versions.

On a night in the year 1592, (but which night is a secret liable to 365 answers,) a Spanish 'son of somebody,' [Footnote: i.e. 'Hidalgo'] in the fortified town of St. Sebastian, received the disagreeable intelligence from a nurse, that his wife had just presented him with a daughter. No present that the poor misjudging lady could possibly have made him was so entirely useless for any purpose of his. He had three daughters already, which happened to be more by 2+1 than his reckoning assumed as a reasonable allowance of daughters. A supernumerary son might have been stowed away; but daughters in excess were the very nuisance of Spain. He did, therefore, what in such cases every proud and lazy Spanish gentleman was apt to do—he wrapped the new little daughter, odious to his paternal eyes, in a pocket handkerchief; and then, wrapping up his own throat with a good deal more care, off he bolted to the neighboring convent of St. Sebastian, not merely of that city, but also (amongst several convents) the one dedicated to that saint. It is well that in this quarrelsome world we quarrel furiously about tastes; since agreeing too closely about the objects to be liked and appropriated would breed much more fighting than is bred by disagreeing. That little human tadpole, which the old toad of a father would not suffer to stay ten minutes in his house, proved as welcome at the nunnery of St. Sebastian as she was odious elsewhere. The superior of the convent was aunt, by the mother's side, to the new-born stranger. She, therefore, kissed and blessed the little lady. The poor nuns, who were never to have any babies of their own, and were languishing for some amusement, perfectly doated on this prospect of a wee pet. The superior thanked the hidalgo for his very splendid present. The nuns thanked him each and all; until the old crocodile actually began to cry and whimper sentimentally at what he now perceived to be excess of munificence in himself. Munificence, indeed, he remarked, was his foible next after parental tenderness.

What a luxury it is sometimes to a cynic that there go two words to a bargain. In the convent of St. Sebastian all was gratitude; gratitude (as aforesaid) to the hidalgo from all the convent for his present, until at last the hidalgo began to express gratitude to them for their gratitude to him. Then came a rolling fire of thanks to St. Sebastian; from the superior, for sending a future saint; from the nuns, for sending such a love of a plaything; and, finally, from papa, for sending such substantial board and well-bolted lodgings, 'from which,' said the malicious old fellow, 'my pussy will never find her way out to a thorny and dangerous world.' Won't she? I suspect, son of somebody, that the next time you see 'pussy,' which may happen to be also the last, will not be in a convent of any kind. At present, whilst this general rendering of thanks was going on, one person only took no part in them. That person was 'pussy,' whose little figure lay quietly stretched out in the arms of a smiling young nun, with eyes nearly shut, yet peering a little at the candles. Pussy said nothing. It's of no great use to say much, when all the world is against you. But if St. Sebastian had enabled her to speak out the whole truth, pussy would have said: 'So, Mr. Hidalgo, you have been engaging lodgings for me; lodgings for life. Wait a little. We'll try that question, when my claws are grown a little longer.'

Disappointment, therefore, was gathering ahead. But for the present there was nothing of the kind. That noble old crocodile, papa, was not in the least disappointed as regarded his expectation of having no anxiety to waste, and no money to pay, on account of his youngest daughter. He insisted on his right to forget her; and in a week had forgotten her, never to think of her again but once. The lady superior, as regarded her demands, was equally content, and through a course of several years; for, as often as she asked pussy if she would be a saint, pussy replied that she would, if saints were allowed plenty of sweetmeats. But least of all were the nuns disappointed. Everything that they had fancied possible in a human plaything fell short of what pussy realized in racketing, racing, and eternal plots against the peace of the elder nuns. No fox ever kept a hen-roost in such alarm as pussy kept the dormitory of the senior sisters; whilst the younger ladies were run off their legs by the eternal wiles, and had their chapel gravity discomposed, even in chapel, by the eternal antics of this privileged little kitten.

The kitten had long ago received a baptismal name, which was Kitty; this is Catharine, or Kate, or Hispanice Catalina. It was a good name, as it recalled her original name of pussy. And, by the way, she had also an ancient and honorable surname, viz., De Erauso, which is to this day a name rooted in Biscay. Her father, the hidalgo, was a military officer in the Spanish service, and had little care whether his kitten should turn out a wolf or a lamb, having made over the fee simple of his own interest in the little Kate to St. Sebastian, 'to have and to hold,' so long as Kate should keep her hold of this present life. Kate had no apparent intention to let slip that hold, for she was blooming as a rose-bush in June, tall and strong as a young cedar. Yet, notwithstanding this robust health and the strength of the convent walls, the time was drawing near when St. Sebastian's lease in Kate must, in legal phrase, 'determine;' and any chateaux en Espagne, that the Saint might have built on the cloisteral fidelity of his pet Catalina, must suddenly give way in one hour, like many other vanities in our own days of Spanish bonds and promises. After reaching her tenth year, Catalina became thoughtful, and not very docile. At times she was even headstrong and turbulent, so that the gentle sisterhood of St. Sebastian, who had no other pet or plaything in the world, began to weep in secret—fearing that they might have been rearing by mistake some future tigress—for as to infancy, that, you know, is playful and innocent even in the cubs of a tigress. But there the ladies were going too far. Catalina was impetuous and aspiring, but not cruel. She was gentle, if people would let her be so. But woe to those that took liberties with her! A female servant of the convent, in some authority, one day, in passing up the aisle to matins, wilfully gave Kate a push; and in return, Kate, who never left her debts in arrear, gave the servant for a keepsake a look which that servant carried with her in fearful remembrance to her grave. It seemed as if Kate had tropic blood in her veins, that continually called her away to the tropics. It was all the fault of that 'blue rejoicing sky,' of those purple Biscayan mountains, of that tumultuous ocean, which she beheld daily from the nunnery gardens. Or, if only half of it was their fault, the other half lay in those golden tales, streaming upwards even into the sanctuaries of convents, like morning mists touched by earliest sunlight, of kingdoms overshadowing a new world which had been founded by her kinsmen with the simple aid of a horse and a lance. The reader is to remember that this is no romance, or at least no fiction, that he is reading; and it is proper to remind the reader of real romances in Ariosto or our own Spenser, that such martial ladies as the Marfisa, or Bradamant of the first, and Britomart of the other, were really not the improbabilities that modern society imagines. Many a stout man, as you will soon see, found that Kate, with a sabre in hand, and well mounted, was but too serious a fact.

The day is come—the evening is come—when our poor Kate, that had for fifteen years been so tenderly rocked in the arms of St. Sebastian and his daughters, and that henceforth shall hardly find a breathing space between eternal storms, must see her peaceful cell, must see the holy chapel, for the last time. It was at vespers, it was during the chanting of the vesper service, that she finally read the secret signal for her departure, which long she had been looking for. It happened that her aunt, the Lady Principal, had forgotten her breviary. As this was in a private 'scrutoire, she did not choose to send a servant for it, but gave the key to her niece. The niece, on opening the 'scrutoire, saw, with that rapidity of eye-glance for the one thing needed in any great emergency, which ever attended her through life, that now was the moment for an attempt which, if neglected, might never return. There lay the total keys, in one massive trousseau, of that fortress impregnable even to armies from without. Saint Sebastian! do you see what your pet is going to do? And do it she will, as sure as your name is St. Sebastian. Kate went back to her aunt with the breviary and the key; but taking good care to leave that awful door, on whose hinge revolved her whole life, unlocked. Delivering the two articles to the Superior, she complained of a headache—[Ah, Kate! what did you know of headaches, except now and then afterwards from a stray bullet, or so?]—upon which her aunt, kissing her forehead, dismissed her to bed. Now, then, through three-fourths of an hour Kate will have free elbow-room for unanchoring her boat, for unshipping her oars, and for pulling ahead right out of St. Sebastian's cove into the main ocean of life.

Catalina, the reader is to understand, does not belong to the class of persons in whom chiefly I pretend to an interest. But everywhere one loves energy and indomitable courage. I, for my part, admire not, by preference, anything that points to this world. It is the child of reverie and profounder sensibility who turns away from the world as hateful and insufficient, that engages my interest: whereas Catalina was the very model of the class fitted for facing this world, and who express their love to it by fighting with it and kicking it from year to year. But, always, what is best in its kind one admires, even though the kind be disagreeable. Kate's advantages for her role in this life lay in four things, viz., in a well-built person, and a particularly strong wrist; 2d, in a heart that nothing could appal; 3d, in a sagacious head, never drawn aside from the hoc age [from the instant question of life] by any weakness of imagination; 4th, in a tolerably thick skin—not literally, for she was fair and blooming, and decidedly handsome, having such a skin as became a young woman of family in northernmost Spain. But her sensibilities were obtuse as regarded some modes of delicacy, some modes of equity, some modes of the world's opinion, and all modes whatever of personal hardship. Lay a stress on that word some—for, as to delicacy, she never lost sight of the kind which peculiarly concerns her sex. Long afterwards she told the Pope himself, when confessing without disguise her sad and infinite wanderings to the paternal old man (and I feel convinced of her veracity), that in this respect, even then, at middle age, she was as pure as is a child. And, as to equity, it was only that she substituted the equity of camps for the polished (but often more iniquitous) equity of courts and towns. As to the third item—the world's opinion—I don't know that you need lay a stress on some; for, generally speaking, all that the world did, said, or thought, was alike contemptible in her eyes, in which, perhaps, she was not so very far wrong. I must add, though at the cost of interrupting the story by two or three more sentences, that Catalina had also a fifth advantage, which sounds humbly, but is really of use in a world, where even to fold and seal a letter adroitly is not the least of accomplishments. She was a handy girl. She could turn her hand to anything, of which I will give you two memorable instances. Was there ever a girl in this world but herself that cheated and snapped her fingers at that awful Inquisition, which brooded over the convents of Spain, that did this without collusion from outside, trusting to nobody, but to herself, and what? to one needle, two hanks of thread, and a very inferior pair of scissors? For, that the scissors were bad, though Kate does not say so in her memoirs, I knew by an a priori argument, viz., because all scissors were bad in the year 1607. Now, say all decent logicians, from a universal to a particular valet consequentia, all scissors were bad: ergo, some scissors were bad. The second instance of her handiness will surprise you even more:—She once stood upon a scaffold, under sentence of death—[but, understand, on the evidence of false witnesses]. Jack Ketch was absolutely tying the knot under her ear, and the shameful man of ropes fumbled so deplorably, that Kate (who by much nautical experience had learned from another sort of 'Jack' how a knot should be tied in this world,) lost all patience with the contemptible artist, told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a festal roll, long and loud, of vivas; and this word viva of good augury—but stop; let me not anticipate.

From this sketch of Catalina's character, the reader is prepared to understand the decision of her present proceeding. She had no time to lose: the twilight favored her; but she must get under hiding before pursuit commenced. Consequently she lost not one of her forty-five minutes in picking and choosing. No shilly-shally in Kate. She saw with the eyeball of an eagle what was indispensable. Some little money perhaps to pay the first toll-bar of life: so, out of four shillings in Aunty's purse, she took one. You can't say that was exorbitant. Which of us wouldn't subscribe a shilling for poor Katy to put into the first trouser pockets that ever she will wear? I remember even yet, as a personal experience, that when first arrayed, at four years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, of which I can render no account at this day. But what were my poor pretensions by the side of Kate's? Kate was a fine blooming girl of fifteen, with no touch of ague, and, before the next sun rises, Kate shall draw on her first trousers, and made by her own hand; and, that she may do so, of all the valuables in Aunty's repository she takes nothing beside the shilling, quantum sufficit of thread, one stout needle, and (as I told you before, if you would please to remember things) one bad pair of scissors. Now she was ready; ready to cast off St. Sebastian's towing-rope; ready to cut and run for port anywhere. The finishing touch of her preparations was to pick out the proper keys: even there she showed the same discretion. She did do no gratuitous mischief. She did not take the wine-cellar key, which would have irritated the good father confessor; she took those keys only that belonged to her, if ever keys did; for they were the keys that locked her out from her natural birthright of liberty. 'Show me,' says the Romish Casuist, 'her right in law to let herself out of that nunnery.' 'Show us,' we reply, 'your right to lock her in.'

Right or wrong, however, in strict casuistry, Kate was resolved to let herself out; and did so; and, for fear any man should creep in whilst vespers lasted, and steal the kitchen grate, she locked her old friends in. Then she sought a shelter. The air was not cold. She hurried into a chestnut wood, and upon withered leaves slept till dawn. Spanish diet and youth leaves the digestion undisordered, and the slumbers light. When the lark rose, up rose Catalina. No time to lose, for she was still in the dress of a nun, and liable to be arrested by any man in Spain. With her armed finger, [aye, by the way, I forgot the thimble; but Kate did not]—she set to work upon her amply-embroidered petticoat. She turned it wrong side out; and with the magic that only female hands possess, she had soon sketched and finished a dashing pair of Wellington trousers. All other changes were made according to the materials she possessed, and quite sufficiently to disguise the two main perils—her sex, and her monastic dedication. What was she to do next. Speaking of Wellington trousers would remind us, but could hardly remind her, of Vittoria, where she dimly had heard of some maternal relative. To Vittoria, therefore, she bent her course; and, like the Duke of Wellington, but arriving more than two centuries earlier, [though he too is an early riser,] she gained a great victory at that place. She had made a two days' march, baggage far in the rear, and no provisions but wild berries; she depended for anything better, as light-heartedly as the Duke, upon attacking, sword in hand, storming her dear friend's entrenchments, and effecting a lodgment in his breakfast-room, should he happen to have one. This amiable relative, an elderly man, had but one foible, or perhaps one virtue in this world; but that he had in perfection,—it was pedantry. On that hint Catalina spoke: she knew by heart, from the services of the convent, a few Latin phrases. Latin!—Oh, but that was charming; and in one so young! The grave Don owned the soft impeachment; relented at once, and clasped the hopeful young gentleman in the Wellington trousers to his uncular and rather angular breast. In this house the yarn of life was of a mingled quality. The table was good, but that was exactly what Kate cared little about. The amusement was of the worst kind. It consisted chiefly in conjugating Latin verbs, especially such as were obstinately irregular. To show him a withered frost-bitten verb, that wanted its preterite, wanted its supines, wanted, in fact, everything in this world, fruits or blossoms, that make a verb desirable, was to earn the Don's gratitude for life. All day long he was marching and countermarching his favorite brigades of verbs—verbs frequentative, verbs inceptive, verbs desiderative—horse, foot, and artillery; changing front, advancing from the rear, throwing out skirmishing parties, until Kate, not given to faint, must have thought of such a resource, as once in her life she had thought so seasonably of a vesper headache. This was really worse than St. Sebastian's. It reminds one of a French gayety in Thiebault or some such author, who describes a rustic party, under equal despair, as employing themselves in conjugating the verb s'ennuyer,—Je m'ennuie, tu t'ennuies, il s'ennuit; nous nous ennuyons, &c.; thence to the imperfect—Je m'ennuyois, tu t'ennuyois, &c.; thence to the imperative—Qu'il s'ennuye, &c.; and so on through the whole melancholy conjugation. Now, you know, when the time comes that, nous nous ennuyons, the best course is, to part. Kate saw that; and she walked off from the Don's [of whose amorous passion for defective verbs one would have wished to know the catastrophe], and took from his mantel-piece rather move silver than she had levied on her aunt. But the Don also was a relative; and really he owed her a small cheque on his banker for turning out on his field-days. A man, if he is a kinsman, has no right to bore one gratis.

From Vittoria, Kate was guided by a carrier to Valladolid. Luckily, as it seemed at first, but it made little difference in the end, here, at Valladolid, were the King and his Court. Consequently, there was plenty of regiments and plenty of regimental bands. Attracted by one of these, Catalina was quietly listening to the music, when some street ruffians, in derision of the gay colors and the form of her forest-made costume—[rascals! one would like to have seen what sort of trousers they would have made with no better scissors!]—began to pelt her with stones. Ah, my friends, of the genus blackguard, you little know who it is that you are selecting for experiments. This is the one creature of fifteen in all Spain, be the other male or female, whom nature, and temper, and provocation have qualified for taking the conceit out of you. This she very soon did, laying open a head or two with a sharp stone, and letting out rather too little than too much of bad Valladolid blood. But mark the constant villany of this world. Certain Alguazils—very like some other Alguazils that I know nearer home—having stood by quietly to see the friendless stranger insulted and assaulted, now felt it their duty to apprehend the poor nun for murderous violence: and had there been such a thing as a treadmill in Valladolid, Kate was booked for a place on it without further inquiry. Luckily, injustice does not always prosper. A gallant young cavalier, who had witnessed from his windows the whole affair, had seen the provocation, and admired Catalina's behavior—equally patient at first and bold at last—hastened into the street, pursued the officers, forced them to release their prisoner, upon stating the circumstances of the case, and instantly offered Catalina a situation amongst his retinue. He was a man of birth and fortune; and the place offered, that of an honorary page, not being at all degrading even to a 'daughter of somebody,' was cheerfully accepted. Here Catalina spent a happy month. She was now splendidly dressed in dark blue velvet, by a tailor that did not work within the gloom of a chestnut forest. She and the young cavalier, Don Francisco de Cardenas, were mutually pleased, and had mutual confidence. All went well—when one evening, but, luckily, not until the sun had been set so long as to make all things indistinct, who should march into the ante-chamber of the cavalier but that sublime of crocodiles, Papa, that we lost sight of fifteen years ago, and shall never see again after this night. He had his crocodile tears all ready for use, in working order, like a good industrious fire-engine. It was absolutely to Catalina herself that he advanced; whom, for many reasons, he could not be supposed to recognise—lapse of years, male attire, twilight, were all against him. Still, she might have the family countenance; and Kate thought he looked with a suspicious scrutiny into her face, as he inquired for the young Don. To avert her own face, to announce him to Don Francisco, to wish him on the shores of that ancient river for crocodiles, the Nile, furnished but one moment's work to the active Catalina. She lingered, however, as her place entitled her to do, at the door of the audience chamber. She guessed already, but in a moment she heard from papa's lips what was the nature of his errand. His daughter Catharine, he informed the Don, had eloped from the convent of St. Sebastian, a place rich in delight. Then he laid open the unparalleled ingratitude of such a step. Oh, the unseen treasure that had been spent upon that girl! Oh, the untold sums of money that he had sunk in that unhappy speculation! The nights of sleeplessness suffered during her infancy! The fifteen years of solicitude thrown away in schemes for her improvement! It would have moved the heart of a stone. The hidalgo wept copiously at his own pathos. And to such a height of grandeur had he carried his Spanish sense of the sublime, that he disdained to mention the pocket-handkerchief which he had left at St. Sebastian's fifteen years ago, by way of envelope for 'pussy,' and which, to the best of pussy's knowledge, was the one sole memorandum of papa ever heard of at St. Sebastian's. Pussy, however, saw no use in revising and correcting the text of papa's remembrances. She showed her usual prudence, and her usual incomparable decision. It did not appear, as yet, that she would be reclaimed, or was at all suspected for the fugitive by her father. For it is an instance of that singular fatality which pursued Catalina through life, that, to her own astonishment, (as she now collected from her father's conference,) nobody had traced her to Valladolid, nor had her father's visit any connection with suspicious travelling in that direction. The case was quite different. Strangely enough, her street row had thrown her into the one sole household in all Spain that had an official connection with St. Sebastian's. That convent had been founded by the young cavalier's family; and, according to the usage of Spain, the young man (as present representative of his house) was the responsible protector of the establishment. It was not to the Don, as harborer of his daughter, but to the Don, as ex officio visitor of the convent, that the hidalgo was appealing. Probably Kate might have staid safely some time longer. Yet, again, this would but have multiplied the clues for tracing her; and, finally, she would too probably have been discovered; after which, with all his youthful generosity, the poor Don could not have protected her. Too terrific was the vengeance that awaited an abettor of any fugitive nun; but, above all, if such a crime were perpetrated by an official mandatory of the church. Yet, again, so far it was the more hazardous course to abscond, that it almost revealed her to the young Don as the missing daughter. Still, if it really had that effect, nothing at present obliged him to pursue her, as might have been the case a few weeks later. Kate argued (I dare say) rightly, as she always did. Her prudence whispered eternally, that safety there was none for her, until she had laid the Atlantic between herself and St. Sebastian's. Life was to be for her a Bay of Biscay; and it was odds but she had first embarked upon this billowy life from the literal Bay of Biscay. Chance ordered otherwise. Or, as a Frenchman says with eloquent ingenuity, in connection with this story, 'Chance is but the pseudonyme of God for those particular cases which he does not subscribe openly with his own sign manual.' She crept up stairs to her bed-room. Simple are the travelling preparations of those that, possessing nothing, have no imperials to pack. She had Juvenal's qualification for carolling gaily through a forest full of robbers; for she had nothing to lose but a change of linen, that rode easily enough under her left arm, leaving the right free for answering any questions of impertinent customers. As she crept down stairs, she heard the Crocodile still weeping forth his sorrows to the pensive ear of twilight, and to the sympathetic Don Francisco. Now, it would not have been filial or lady-like for Kate to do what I am going to suggest; but what a pity that some gay brother page had not been there to turn aside into the room, armed with a roasted potato, and, taking a sportsman's aim, to have lodged it in the Crocodile's abominable mouth. Yet, what an anachronism! There were no roasted potatoes in Spain at that date, and very few in England. But anger drives a man to say anything.

Catalina had seen her last of friends and enemies in Valladolid. Short was her time there; but she had improved it so far as to make a few of both. There was an eye or two in Valladolid that would have glared with malice upon her, had she been seen by all eyes in that city, as she tripped through the streets in the dusk; and eyes there were that would have softened into tears, had they seen the desolate condition of the child, or in vision had seen the struggles that were before her. But what's the use of wasting tears upon our Kate? Wait till to-morrow morning at sunrise, and see if she is particularly in need of pity. What now should a young lady do—I propose it as a subject for a prize essay—that finds herself in Valladolid at nighfall, having no letters of introduction, not aware of any reason great or small for preferring any street in general, except so far as she knows of some reason for avoiding one or two streets in particular? The great problem I have stated, Kate investigated as she went along; and she solved it with the accuracy with which she ever applied to practical exigencies. Her conclusion was—that the best door to knock at in such a case was the door where there was no need to knock at all, as being unfastened, and open to all comers. For she argued that within such a door there would be nothing to steal, so that, at least, you could not be mistaken in the ark for a thief. Then, as to stealing from her, they might do that if they could.

Upon these principles, which hostile critics will in vain endeavor to undermine, she laid her hand upon what seemed a rude stable door. Such it proved. There was an empty cart inside, certainly there was, but you couldn't take that away in your pocket; and there were five loads of straw, but then of those a lady could take no more than her reticule would carry, which perhaps was allowed by the courtesy of Spain. So Kate was right as to the difficulty of being challenged for a thief. Closing the door as gently as she had opened it, she dropped her person, dressed as she was, upon the nearest heap of straw. Some ten feet further were lying two muleteers, honest and happy enough, as compared with the lords of the bed-chamber then in Valladolid: but still gross men, carnally deaf from eating garlic and onions, and other horrible substances. Accordingly, they never heard her, nor were aware, until dawn, that such a blooming person existed. But she was aware of them, and of their conversation. They were talking of an expedition for America, on the point of sailing under Don Ferdinand de Cordova. It was to sail from some Andalusian port. That was the very thing for her. At daylight she woke, and jumped up, needing no more toilet than the birds that already were singing in the gardens, or than the two muleteers, who, good, honest fellows, saluted the handsome boy kindly—thinking no ill at his making free with their straw, though no leave had been asked.

With these philo-garlic men Kate took her departure. The morning was divine: and leaving Valladolid with the transports that befitted such a golden dawn, feeling also already, in the very obscurity of her exit, the pledge of her escape; she cared no longer for the Crocodile, or for St. Sebastian, or (in the way of fear) for the protector of St. Sebastian, though of him she thought with some tenderness; so deep is the remembrance of kindness mixed with justice. Andalusia she reached rather slowly; but many months before she was sixteen years old, and quite in time for the expedition. St. Lucar being the port of rendezvous for the Peruvian expedition, thither she went. All comers were welcome on board the fleet; much more a fine young fellow like Kate. She was at once engaged as a mate; and her ship, in particular, after doubling Cape Horn without loss, made the coast of Peru. Paita was the port of her destination. Very near to this port they were, when a storm threw them upon a coral reef. There was little hope of the ship from the first, for she was unmanageable, and was not expected to hold together for twenty-four hours. In this condition, with death before their faces, mark what Kate did; and please to remember it for her benefit, when she does any other little thing that angers you. The crew lowered the long-boat. Vainly the captain protested against this disloyal desertion of a king's ship, which might yet perhaps be run on shore, so as to save the stores. All the crew, to a man, deserted the captain. You may say that literally; for the single exception was not a man, being our bold-hearted Kate. She was the only sailor that refused to leave her captain, or the king of Spain's ship. The rest pulled away for the shore, and with fair hopes of reaching it. But one half-hour told another tale: just about that time came a broad sheet of lightning, which, through the darkness of evening, revealed the boat in the very act of mounting like a horse upon an inner reef, instantly filling, and throwing out the crew, every man of whom disappeared amongst the breakers. The night which succeeded was gloomy for both the representatives of his Catholic Majesty. It cannot be denied by the greatest of philosophers, that the muleteer's stable at Valladolid was worth twenty such ships, though the stable was not insured against fire, and the ship was insured against the sea and the wind by some fellow that thought very little of his engagements. But what's the use of sitting down to cry? That was never any trick of Catalina's. By daybreak, she was at work with an axe in her hand. I knew it, before ever I came to this place, in her memoirs. I felt, as sure as if I had read it, that when day broke, we should find Kate hard at work. Thimble or axe, trousers or raft, all one to her.

The Captain, though true to his duty, seems to have desponded. He gave no help towards the raft. Signs were speaking, however, pretty loudly that he must do something; for notice to quit was now served pretty liberally. Kate's raft was ready; and she encouraged the captain to think that it would give both of them something to hold by in swimming, if not even carry double. At this moment, when all was waiting for a start, and the ship herself was waiting for a final lurch, to say Good-bye to the King of Spain, Kate went and did a thing which some misjudging people will object to. She knew of a box laden with gold coins, reputed to be the King of Spain's, and meant for contingencies in the voyage out. This she smashed open with her axe, and took a sum equal to one hundred guineas English; which, having well secured in a pillow-case, she then lashed firmly to the raft. Now this, you know, though not flotsam, because it would not float, was certainly, by maritime law, 'jetsom.' It would be the idlest of scruples to fancy that the sea or a shark had a better right to it than a philosopher, or a splendid girl who showed herself capable of writing a very fair 8vo, to say nothing of her decapitating in battle several of the king's enemies, and recovering the king's banner. No sane moralist would hesitate to do the same thing under the same circumstances, on board an English vessel, though the First Lord of the Admiralty should be looking on. The raft was now thrown into the sea. Kate jumped after it, and then entreated the captain to follow her. He attempted it; but, wanting her youthful agility, he struck his head against a spar, and sank like lead, giving notice below that his ship was coming. Kate mounted the raft, and was gradually washed ashore, but so exhausted, as to have lost all recollection. She lay for hours until the warmth of the sun revived her. On sitting up, she saw a desolate shore stretching both ways—nothing to eat, nothing to drink, but fortunately the raft and the money had been thrown near her; none of the lashings having given way—only what is the use of a guinea amongst tangle and sea-gulls? The money she distributed amongst her pockets, and soon found strength to rise and march forward. But which was forward? and which backward? She knew by the conversation of the sailors that Paita must be in the neighborhood; and Paita, being a port, could not be in the inside of Peru, but, of course, somewhere on its outside—and the outside of a maritime land must be the shore; so that, if she kept the shore, and went far enough, she could not fail of hitting her foot against Paita at last, in the very darkest night, provided only she could first find out which was up and which was down; else she might walk her shoes off, and find herself six thousand miles in the wrong. Here was an awkward case, all for want of a guide-post. Still, when one thinks of Kate's prosperous horoscope, that after so long a voyage, she only, out of the total crew, was thrown on the American shore, with one hundred and five pounds in her purse of clear gain on the voyage, a conviction arises that she could not guess wrongly. She might have tossed up, having coins in her pocket, heads or tails? but this kind of sortilege was then coming to be thought irreligious in Christendom, as a Jewish and a Heathen mode of questioning the dark future. She simply guessed, therefore; and very soon a thing happened which, though adding nothing to strengthen her guess as a true one, did much to sweeten it if it should prove a false one. On turning a point of the shore, she came upon a barrel of biscuit washed ashore from the ship. Biscuit is about the best thing I know, but it is the soonest spoiled; and one would like to hear counsel on one puzzling point, why it is that a touch of water utterly ruins it, taking its life, and leaving a caput mortuum corpse! Upon this caput Kate breakfasted, though her case was worse than mine; for any water that ever plagued me was always fresh; now hers was a present from the Pacific ocean. She, that was always prudent, packed up some of the Catholic king's biscuit, as she had previously packed up far too little of his gold. But in such cases a most delicate question occurs, pressing equally on medicine and algebra. It is this: if you pack up too much, then, by this extra burthen of salt provisions, you may retard for days your arrival at fresh provisions; on the other hand, if you pack up too little, you may never arrive at all. Catalina hit the juste milieu; and about twilight on the second day, she found herself entering Paita, without having had to swim any river in her walk.

The first thing, in such a case of distress, which a young lady does, even if she happens to be a young gentleman, is to beautify her dress. Kate always attended to that, as we know, having overlooked her in the chestnut wood. The man she sent for was not properly a tailor, but one who employed tailors, he himself furnishing the materials. His name was Urquiza, a fact of very little importance to us in 1847, if it had stood only at the head and foot of Kate's little account. But unhappily for Kate's début on this vast American stage, the case was otherwise. Mr. Urquiza had the misfortune (equally common in the old world and the new) of being a knave; and also a showy specious knave. Kate, who had prospered under sea allowances of biscuit and hardship, was now expanding in proportions. With very little vanity or consciousness on that head, she now displayed a really fine person; and, when drest anew in the way that became a young officer in the Spanish service, she looked [Footnote: 'She looked,' etc. If ever the reader should visit Aix-la-Chapelle, he will probably feel interest enough in the poor, wild impassioned girl, to look out for a picture of her in that city, and the only one known certainly to be authentic. It is in the collection of Mr. Sempeller. For some time it was supposed that the best (if not the only) portrait of her lurked somewhere in Italy. Since the discovery of the picture at Aix-la-Chapelle, that notion has been abandoned. But there is great reason to believe that, both in Madrid and Rome, many portraits of her must have been painted to meet the intense interest which arose in her history subsequently amongst all the men of rank, military or ecclesiastical, whether in Italy or Spain. The date of these would range between sixteen and twenty-two years from, the period which we have now reached (1608.)] the representative picture of a Spanish caballador. It is strange that such an appearance, and such a rank, should have suggested to Urquiza the presumptuous idea of wishing that Kate might become his clerk. He did, however wish it; for Kate wrote a beautiful hand; and a stranger thing is, that Kate accepted his proposal. This might arise from the difficulty of moving in those days to any distance in Peru. The ship had been merely bringing stores to the station of Paita; and no corps of the royal armies was readily to be reached, whilst something must be done at once for a livelihood. Urquiza had two mercantile establishments, one at Trujillo, to which he repaired in person, on Kate's agreeing to undertake the management of the other in Paita. Like the sensible girl, that we have always found her, she demanded specific instructions for her guidance in duties so new. Certainly she was in a fair way for seeing life. Telling her beads at St. Sebastian's, manoeuvreing irregular verbs at Vittoria, acting as gentleman-usher at Valladolid, serving his Spanish Majesty round Cape Horn, fighting with storms and sharks off the coast of Peru, and now commencing as book-keeper or commis to a draper at Paita, does she not justify the character that I myself gave her, just before dismissing her from St. Sebastian's, of being a 'handy' girl? Mr. Urquiza's instructions were short, easy to be understood, but rather comic; and yet, which is odd, they led to tragic results. There were two debtors of the shop, (many, it is to be hoped, but two meriting his affectionate notice,) with respect to whom he left the most opposite directions. The one was a very handsome lady; and the rule as to her was, that she was to have credit unlimited, strictly unlimited. That was plain. The other customer, favored by Mr. Urquiza's valedictory thoughts, was a young man, cousin to the handsome lady, and bearing the name of Reyes. This youth occupied in Mr. Urquiza's estimate the same hyperbolical rank as the handsome lady, but on the opposite side of the equation. The rule as to him was—that he was to have no credit; strictly none. In this case, also, Kate saw no difficulty; and when she came to know Mr. Reyes a little, she found the path of pleasure coinciding with the path of duty. Mr. Urquiza could not be more precise in laying down the rule than Kate was in enforcing it. But in the other case a scruple arose. Unlimited might be a word, not of Spanish law, but of Spanish rhetoric; such as 'Live a thousand years,' which even annuity offices hear, and perhaps utter, without a pang. Kate, therefore, wrote to Trujillo, expressing her honest fears, and desiring to have more definite instructions. These were positive. If the lady chose to send for the entire shop, her account was to be debited instantly with that. She had, however, as yet, not sent for the shop, but she began to manifest strong signs of sending for the shop man. Upon the blooming young Biscayan had her roving eye settled; and she was in a course of making up her mind to take Kate for a sweetheart. Poor Kate saw this with a heavy heart. And, at the same time that she had a prospect of a tender friend more than she wanted, she had become certain of an extra enemy that she wanted quite as little. What she had done to offend Mr. Reyes, Kate could not guess, except as to the matter of the credit; but then, in that, she only executed her instructions. Still Mr. Reyes was of opinion that there were two ways of executing orders: but the main offence was unintentional on Kate's part. Reyes, though as yet she did not know it, had himself been a candidate for the situation of clerk; and intended probably to keep the equation precisely as it was with respect to the allowance of credit, only to change places with the handsome lady—keeping her on the negative side, himself on the affirmative—an arrangement that you know could have made no sort of pecuniary difference to Urquiza.

Thus stood matters, when a party of strolling players strolled into Paita. Kate, as a Spaniard, being one held of the Paita aristocracy, was expected to attend. She did so; and there also was the malignant Reyes. He came and seated himself purposely so as to shut out Kate from all view of the stage. She, who had nothing of the bully in her nature, and was a gentle creature when her wild Biscayan blood had not been kindled by insult, courteously requested him to move a little; upon which Reyes remarked that it was not in his power to oblige the clerk as to that, but that he could oblige him by cutting his throat. The tiger that slept in Catalina wakened at once. She seized him, and would have executed vengeance on the spot, but that a party of young men interposed to part them. The next day, when Kate (always ready to forget and forgive) was thinking no more of the row, Reyes passed; by spitting at the window, and other gestures insulting to Kate, again he roused her Spanish blood. Out she rushed, sword in hand—a duel began in the street, and very soon Kate's sword had passed into the heart of Reyes. Now that the mischief was done, the police were, as usual, all alive for the pleasure of avenging it. Kate found herself suddenly in a strong prison, and with small hopes of leaving it, except for execution. The relations of the dead man were potent in Paita, and clamorous for justice, so that the corregidor, in a case where he saw a very poor chance of being corrupted by bribes, felt it his duty to be sublimely incorruptible. The reader knows, however, that, amongst the relatives of the deceased bully, was that handsome lady, who differed as much from her cousin in her sentiments as to Kate, as she did in the extent of her credit with Mr. Urquiza. To her Kate wrote a note; and, using one of the Spanish King's gold coins for bribing the jailor, got it safely delivered. That, perhaps, was unnecessary; for the lady had been already on the alert, and had summoned Urquiza from Trujillo. By some means, not very luminously stated, and by paying proper fees in proper quarters, Kate was smuggled out of the prison at nightfall, and smuggled into a pretty house in the suburbs. Had she known exactly the footing she stood on as to the law, she would have been decided. As it was, she was uneasy, and jealous of mischief abroad; and, before supper, she understood it all. Urquiza briefly informed his clerk, that it would be requisite for him to marry the handsome lady. But why? Because, said Urquiza, after talking for hours with the corregidor, who was infamous for obstinacy, he had found it impossible to make him 'hear reason,' and release the prisoner, until this compromise of marriage was suggested. But how could public justice be pacified for the clerk's unfortunate homicide of Reyes, by a female cousin of the deceased man engaging to love, honor, and obey the clerk for life? Kate could not see her way through this logic. 'Nonsense, my friend,' said Urquiza, 'you don't comprehend. As it stands, the affair is a murder, and hanging the penalty. But, if you marry into the murdered man's house, then it becomes a little family murder, all quiet and comfortable amongst ourselves. What has the corregidor to do with that? or the public either? Now, let me introduce the bride.' Supper entered at that moment, and the bride immediately after. The thoughtfulness of Kate was narrowly observed, and even alluded to, but politely ascribed to the natural anxieties of a prisoner, and the very imperfect state of liberation even yet from prison surveillance. Kate had, indeed, never been in so trying a situation before. The anxieties of the farewell night at St. Sebastian were nothing to this; because, even if she had failed then, a failure might not have been always irreparable. It was but to watch and wait. But now, at this supper table, she was not more alive to the nature of the peril than she was to the fact, that if, before the night closed, she did not by some means escape from it, she never would escape with life. The deception as to her sex, though resting on no motive that pointed to these people, or at all concerned them, would be resented as if it had. The lady would resent the case as a mockery; and Urquiza would lose his opportunity of delivering himself from an imperious mistress. According to the usages of the times and country, Kate knew that in twelve hours she would be assassinated.

People of infirmer resolution would have lingered at the supper table, for the sake of putting off the evil moment of final crisis. Not so Kate. She had revolved the case on all its sides in a few minutes, and had formed her resolution. This done, she was as ready for the trial at one moment as another; and, when the lady suggested that the hardships of a prison must have made repose desirable, Kate assented, and instantly rose. A sort of procession formed, for the purpose of doing honor to the interesting guest, and escorting him in pomp to his bedroom. Kate viewed it much in the same light as the procession to which for some days she had been expecting an invitation from the corregidor. Far ahead ran the servant-woman as a sort of outrider. Then came Urquiza, like a Pasha of two tails, who granted two sorts of credit, viz. unlimited and none at all, bearing two wax-lights, one in each hand, and wanting only cymbals and kettle-drums to express emphatically the pathos of his Castilian strut. Next came the bride, a little in advance of the clerk, but still turning obliquely towards him, and smiling graciously into his face. Lastly, bringing up the rear, came the prisoner—our Kate—the nun, the page, the mate, the clerk, the homicide, the convict; and, for this day only, by particular desire, the bridegroom elect.

It was Kate's fixed opinion, that, if for a moment she entered any bedroom having obviously no outlet, her fate would be that of an ox once driven within the shambles. Outside, the bullock might make some defence with his horns; but once in, with no space for turning, he is muffled and gagged. She carried her eye, therefore, like a hawk's, steady, though restless, for vigilant examination of every angle she turned. Before she entered any bedroom, she was resolved to reconnoiter it from the doorway, and, in case of necessity, show fight at once, before entering—as the best chance, after all, where all chances were bad. Everything ends; and at last the procession reached the bedroom door, the outrider having filed off to the rear. One glance sufficed to satisfy Kate that windows there were none, and, therefore, no outlet for escape. Treachery appeared even in that; and Kate, though unfortunately without arms, was now fixed for resistance. Mr. Urquiza entered first—'Sound the trumpets! Beat the drums!' There were, as we know already, no windows; but a slight interruption to Mr. Urquiza's pompous tread showed that there were steps downwards into the room. Those, thought Kate, will suit me even better. She had watched the unlocking of the bedroom door—she had lost nothing—she had marked that the key was left in the lock. At this moment, the beautiful lady, as one acquainted with the details of the house, turning with the air of a gracious monitress, held out her fair hand to guide Kate in careful descent of the steps. This had the air of taking out Kate to dance; and Kate, at that same moment, answering to it by the gesture of a modern waltzer, threw her arm behind the lady's waist, hurled her headlong down the steps right against Mr. Urquiza, draper and haberdasher; and then, with the speed of lightning, throwing the door home within its architrave, doubly locked the creditor and debtor into the rat-trap which they had prepared for herself.

The affrighted out-rider fled with horror: she already knew that the clerk had committed one homicide; a second would cost him still less thought; and thus it happened that egress was left easy. But, when out and free once more in the bright starry night, which way should Kate turn? The whole city would prove but a rat-trap for her, as bad as Mr. Urquiza's, if she was not off before morning. At a glance she comprehended that the sea was her only chance. To the port she fled. All was silent. Watchmen there were none. She jumped into a boat. To use the oars was dangerous, for she had no means of muffling them. But she contrived to hoist a sail, pushed off with a boat-hook, and was soon stretching across the water for the mouth of the harbor before a breeze light but favorable. Having cleared the difficulties of exit she lay down, and unintentionally fell asleep. When she awoke the sun had been up three or four hours; all was right otherwise; but had she not served as a sailor, Kate would have trembled upon finding that, during her long sleep of perhaps seven or eight hours, she had lost sight of land; by what distance she could only guess; and in what direction, was to some degree doubtful. All this, however, seemed a great advantage to the bold girl, throwing her thoughts back on the enemies she had left behind. The disadvantage was—having no breakfast, not even damaged biscuit; and some anxiety naturally arose as to ulterior prospects a little beyond the horizon of breakfast. But who's afraid? As sailors whistle for a wind, Catalina really had but to whistle for anything with energy, and it was sure to come. Like Caesar to the pilot of Dyrrhachium, she might have said, for the comfort of her poor timorous boat, (though destined soon to perish,) 'Catalinam vehis, et fortunas ejus.' Meantime, being very doubtful as to the best course for sailing, and content if her course did but lie offshore, she 'carried on,' as sailors say, under easy sail, going, in fact, just whither and just how the Pacific breezes suggested in the gentlest of whispers. All right behind, was Kate's opinion; and, what was better, very soon she might say, all right ahead: for some hour or two before sunset, when dinner was for once becoming, even to Kate, the most interesting of subjects for meditation, suddenly a large ship began to swell upon the brilliant atmosphere. In those latitudes, and in those years, any ship was pretty sure to be Spanish: sixty years later the odds were in favor of its being an English buccaneer; which would have given a new direction to Kate's energy. Kate continued to make signals with a handkerchief whiter than the crocodile's of Ann. Dom. 1592, else it would hardly have been noticed. Perhaps, after all, it would not, but that the ship's course carried her very nearly across Kate's. The stranger lay-to for her. It was dark by the time Kate steered herself under the ship's quarter; and then was seen an instance of this girl's eternal wakefulness. Something was painted on the stern of her boat, she could not see what; but she judged that it would express some connection with the port that she had just quitted. Now it was her wish to break the chain of traces connecting her with such a scamp as Urquiza; since else, through his commercial correspondence, he might disperse over Peru a portrait of herself by no means flattering. How should she accomplish this? It was dark; and she stood, as you may see an Etonian do at times, rocking her little boat from side to side, until it had taken in water as much as might be agreeable. Too much it proved for the boat's constitution, and the boat perished of dropsy—Kate declining to tap it. She got a ducking herself; but what cared she? Up the ship's side she went, as gaily as ever, in those years when she was called pussy, she had raced after the nuns of St. Sebastian; jumped upon deck, and told the first lieutenant, when he questioned her about her adventures, quite as much truth as any man, under the rank of admiral, had a right to expect.

This ship was full of recruits for the Spanish army, and bound to Concepcion. Even in that destiny was an iteration, or repeating memorial of the significance that ran through Catalina's most casual adventures. She had enlisted amongst the soldiers; and, on reaching port, the very first person who came off from shore was a dashing young military officer, whom at once by his name and rank, (though she had never consciously seen him,) she identified as her own brother. He was splendidly situated in the service, being the Governor-General's secretary, besides his rank as a cavalry officer; and, his errand on board being to inspect the recruits, naturally, on reading in the roll one of them described as a Biscayan, the ardent young man came up with high-bred courtesy to Catalina, took the young recruit's hand with kindness, feeling that to be a compatriot at so great a distance was to be a sort of relative, and asked with emotion after old boyish remembrances. There was a scriptural pathos in what followed, as if it were some scene of domestic re-union, opening itself from patriarchal ages. The young officer was the eldest son of the house, and had left Spain when Catalina was only three years old. But, singularly enough, Catalina it was, the little wild cat that he yet remembered seeing at St. Sebastian's, upon whom his earliest inquiries settled. 'Did the recruit know his family, the De Erausos?' O yes, every body knew them. 'Did the recruit know little Catalina?' Catalina smiled, as she replied that she did; and gave such an animated description of the little fiery wretch, as made the officer's eye flash with gratified tenderness, and with certainty that the recruit was no counterfeit Biscayan. Indeed, you know, if Kate couldn't give a good description of 'Pussy,' who could? The issue of the interview was—that the officer insisted on Kate's making a home of his quarters. He did other services for his unknown sister. He placed her as a trooper in his own regiment, and favored her in many a way that is open to one having authority. But the person, after all, that did most to serve our Kate, was Kate. War was then raging with Indians, both from Chili and Peru. Kate had always done her duty in action; but at length, in the decisive battle of Puren, there was an opening for doing something more. Havoc had been made of her own squadron: most of the officers were killed, and the standard was carried off. Kate gathered around her a small party—galloped after the Indian column that was carrying away the trophy—charged—saw all her own party killed—but (in spite of wounds on her face and shoulder) succeeded in bearing away the recovered standard. She rode up to the general and his staff; she dismounted; she rendered up her prize; and fainted away, much less from the blinding blood, than from the tears of joy which dimmed her eyes, as the general, waving his sword in admiration over her head, pronounced our Kate on the spot an Alferez, [Footnote: Alferez. This rank in the Spanish army is, or was, on a level with the modern sous-lieutenant of France.] or standard-bearer, with a commission from the King of Spain and the Indies. Bonny Kate! Noble Kate! I would there were not two centuries laid between us, so that I might have the pleasure of kissing thy fair hand.

Kate had the good sense to see the danger of revealing her sex, or her relationship, even to her own brother. The grasp of the Church never relaxed, never 'prescribed,' unless freely and by choice. The nun, if discovered, would have been taken out of the horse-barracks, or the dragoon-saddle. She had the firmness, therefore, for many years, to resist the sisterly impulses that sometimes suggested such a confidence. For years, and those years the most important of her life—the years that developed her character—she lived undetected as a brilliant cavalry officer under her brother's patronage. And the bitterest grief in poor Kate's whole life, was the tragical (and, were it not fully attested, one might say the ultra-scenical,) event that dissolved their long connection. Let me spend a word of apology on poor Kate's errors. We all commit many; both you and I, reader. No, stop; that's not civil. You, reader, I know, are a saint; I am not, though very near it. I do err at long intervals; and then I think with indulgence of the many circumstances that plead for this poor girl. The Spanish armies of that day inherited, from the days of Cortez and Pizarro, shining remembrances of martial prowess, and the very worst of ethics. To think little of bloodshed, to quarrel, to fight, to gamble, to plunder, belonged to the very atmosphere of a camp, to its indolence, to its ancient traditions. In your own defence, you were obliged to do such things. Besides all these grounds of evil, the Spanish army had just there an extra demoralization from a war with savages—faithless and bloody. Do not think, I beseech you, too much, reader, of killing a man. That word 'kill' is sprinkled over every page of Kate's own autobiography. It ought not to be read by the light of these days. Yet, how if a man that she killed were——? Hush! It was sad; but is better hurried over in a few words. Years after this period, a young officer one day dining with Kate, entreated her to become his second in a duel. Such things were every-day affairs. However, Kate had reasons for declining the service, and did so. But the officer, as he was sullenly departing, said—that, if he were killed, (as he thought he should be,) his death would lie at Kate's door. I do not take his view of the case, and am not moved by his rhetoric or his logic. Kate was, and relented. The duel was fixed for eleven at night, under the walls of a monastery. Unhappily the night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows, in order to descry each other. In the confusion they wounded each other mortally. Upon that, according to a usage not peculiar to Spaniards, but extending (as doubtless the reader knows) for a century longer to our own countrymen, the two seconds were obliged in honor to do something towards avenging their principals. Kate had her usual fatal luck. Her sword passed sheer through the body of her opponent: this unknown opponent falling dead, had just breath left to cry out, 'Ah, villain, you have killed me,' in a voice of horrific reproach; and the voice was the voice of her brother!

The monks of the monastery, under whose silent shadows this murderous duel had taken place, roused by the clashing of swords and the angry shouts of combatants, issued out with torches to find one only of the four officers surviving. Every convent and altar had a right of asylum for a short period. According to the custom, the monks carried Kate, insensible with anguish of mind, to the sanctuary of their chapel. There for some days they detained her; but then, having furnished her with a horse and some provisions, they turned her adrift. Which way should the unhappy fugitive turn? In blindness of heart she turned towards the sea. It was the sea that had brought her to Peru; it was the sea that would perhaps carry her away. It was the sea that had first showed her this land and its golden hopes; it was the sea that ought to hide from her its fearful remembrances. The sea it was that had twice spared her life in extremities; the sea it was that might now if it chose, take back the bauble that it had spared in vain.

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!

See also

• Crossdressing
• Nun