We had a safe return to St. Antonio. Extreme fatigue,
want of sleep, and encountering the jests of my
companions, who had contrived to make out how things
stood between me and Dona Martha, were the only
unpleasant circumstances of our journey. Every lover
has felt, how harassing, under such circumstances, is the
repetition of such jests, until they are stale. As soon
as we entered the town, we had plenty of matter for
discussion, of a more serious cast. We had had the most
incontestible evidence, that the chiefs of our party could
practise the basest treachery, and the most cold-blooded
assassination. It is true, we acquitted Morelos of any
participation in this abominable plan. But it was not to
be disguised, that he was carried along by the current of
opinion, and compelled to give the sanction of his name to
acts, which ought to have been equally revolting to his
understanding and his heart. We had discovered, even in
him, a recent leaning towards counsels, to retaliate on the
Royalist chiefs, the cruelties which they had practised

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

in the case of Hidalgo, and the other Patriot chiefs, that had
fallen into their hands. We regretted bitterly to remember,
that all revolutions, in the nature of things, mingle
much of this horrible spirit of revenge, blood, and murder,
with them. We vindicated our own self-respect, on finding
ourselves associated in the same cause with men capable
of such fiend-like projects, by charging them upon
the character of human nature, and the natural reaction of
things, when men, who have been reared in ignorance,
oppression, and cruelty, gain the ascendancy, and become
treacherous and bloody tyrants in their turn. We had
occasion to take other, than abstract views upon the subject.
We were not only associated with men, capable of
weaving such plans into their cause, but we had counter-acted
a most important part of their plan. We had
rescued from their bloody hands the chief of the Royalists
and his family, and had slain an officer of their
party, in effecting the rescue. It is true, we were disguised
as savages. But we had little reason to suppose,
that these adroit and practised villains would not understand
the true state of the case. Inquiry would be made,
and we should be found to have been absent. Then
again, we concluded, that if they had succeeded in the
assassination of the other chiefs, as we had no doubt they
had, they would be sufficiently occupied in defending
themselves against the sensation and inquiry it must
naturally create, to guaranty us from suffering a very
severe scrutiny for what we had done. It was my opinion,
that such a wanton and unnecessary outrage, would not
have been perpetrated, against the known feelings, and
most pointed remonstrances of the Americans, until they
had settled the principle, to set us at defiance. It was
my judgment, on our return to the camp, instead of

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

allowing them to inquire into our conduct, the Americans ought
to unite, to a man, and with arms in their hands, insist
upon instituting an inquiry into the conduct of our chiefs
in this affair. They had practised upon us the grossest
deception, and we had a right to inquire, why they had
not fulfilled their engagement of honor with us, to escort
the chiefs of the Royalists safely to Matagorda, as they
promised us they would. I insisted, that if we allowed
this most detestable act to pass without remonstrance or
investigation, history would justly represent us as having
aided and abetted the act. With myself, I determined
that if this outrage was generally approved by the Spaniards,
and even winked at by the Americans, I would wash
my hands of any farther participation of the cause.

When we arrived in camp, we found every thing in
greater uproar than ever. Our worst suspicions were confirmed.
The infamous villains, who had volunteered as
the agents of the Patriot chiefs, on purpose to massacre
the Royal commandes, had perpetrated their purpose with
every trait of cold-blooded cruelty. They shot governor
Salcedo, who resisted them. The six other chiefs they
bound, and cut their throats, and threw their bodies into a
ravine. They had the unblushing effrontery to return to
the camp, clothed in the dress, and wearing the watches,
ornaments, and insignia of these unfortunate, but naturally
excellent men, whose only crime was, that they had been
born and bred the adherents of the Spanish despotism.
Our conjectures, that we should be recognised as the
authors of the escape of the Conde, were changed to
conviction. The Spaniards, with lowering countenances,
pronounced the name of the lieutenant whom we had
killed, and pointed us out as we passed through their
camp, applying to us, in connexion with that name, the

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

epithets, Americanos diablos. The Americans, in their
quarters, were conversing together in groups, with the
deepest apprehension and alarm on their countenances;
and the most rancorous mutual suspicions existed between
the partisans of the two nations.

Many of the Americans, in the utmost disgust and horror,
left the camp, and returned to their own country,
quite relieved in their minds, as to their sympathy with
the oppressed Spaniards. The ease with which we had
beaten the Royalists in every fair encounter, fostered the
hopes of others, that they should yet come at their reversion
in the mines. Others flattered themselves, that better
counsels would ultimately prevail, and that these horrid
deeds were only the natural effervescence of slavery, in
passing into a state of anarchy and licentiousness. Morelos
and Bernardo were each struggling for the ascendancy.
De Benvelt, shocked beyond measure by the late
transaction, resigned his command as soon as the news
arrived in the camp, and shut himself up with his daughters.
No words could paint their disgust and terror, when
I returned to them. Bryan seized me by one arm, and
they by the other, begging me for the love of God, to fly
this herrid country forever, and follow the footsteps of
those whose faces were already set towards the United
States. But for one circumstance, I should have consented
at once. One of the strongest impulses of our
nature still detained me here, and gave me patience to
watch the signs of the times, and wait the issue of events.
With this cherished family, and one or two like-minded
friends, among whom was my classmate, I spent the
evenings and the days, almost confined to the house. We
made a mutual compact, that if our affairs continued to
have the same unpromising aspect, after ten days we

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

would withdraw, and make our way as fast as possible to
the United States, and De Benvelt consented to wait
patiently till the end of those days.

Eight of them had elapsed with us in the most
profound retirement, when a crisis occurred, which once
more united us all by a feeling of common danger. The
late massacre had not only disgusted and disheartened
the Americans, and palsied every noble patriot arm among
the Mexicans, but it operated in rousing the slumbering
spirit of the Royalists to the utmost pitch, not only of
exasperation and fury, but of daring and courage. They
were determined that neutral and half-way measures should
be renounced. The Patriots had set the example of extermination,
to which a very considerable party of the
Royalists had always been inclined. At the head of that
party was Colonel Arredondo, a warrior of great experience,
trained in European contests, and uniting strong
sense, great cunning, and calm and calculating selfishness,
to the discipline, intrepidity, and unshrinking character of
a soldier, inured to scenes of violence and blood. Age,
circumstances, and perhaps natural character, had rendered
the Conde timid and vacillating in his plans. Sometimes
he inclined to strong, and sometimes to moderate
measures. Sometimes he was inclined to be merciful,
and sometimes cruel; and these feelings rose or fell with
the elevation or depression of his spirits, or with the preponderancy
or inefficacy of the counsels of Don Pedro, or
the father confessor. He sometimes wilfully acted out his
own conceptions, and at other times gave himself up entirely
to the leading of these counsellors. Under the excitement
created by the late deed of horror, the party of Colonel
Arredondo came into complete ascendancy. The Conde's
name was still affixed to acts, but the real and efficient

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

command was in him. Strong measures were immediately
taken. The interior of Mexico was in the same kind of
calm with a volcano, after a terrible and recent eruption.
Royal troops were drawn from all the cities in the internal
provinces. The regiment of Cadiz was united with that
of Vera Cruz. No officers were commissioned for the king
among the provincials, but such as had given a pledge to
their future course by acts of violence and outrage against
the Patriots.

In ten days from the late massacre, we heard that a
large body of Royal troops, no longer commanded by the
Conde, but by Colonel Arredondo, was rapidly advancing
upon St. Antonio, and had already passed the Rio del
Norte. The Patriot chiefs were panic-struck with the
intelligence. So long as the Conde was in command,
they felt that they could play a double game between us
and the Royalists. They felt a confidence, that if a
treacherous policy called upon them to sacrifice us, they
could at any time make their peace with him, by going
over to his standard. Not so with Colonel Arredondo.
With him they could hope but one of two alternatives,—
the spear, or the rope. They came to us, one after the
other, exculpating themselves from participation in the
late massacre. They proposed a court of investigation,
and professed themselves willing to subject to military
execution the persons who should be found to have originated
tha project. They implored us to resume our
several commands, offering even to give that one of our
number, whom we should elect, the supreme command.
We again held a conclave consultation, and we disagreed
among ourselves. But our young men possessed an
eagerness to make themselves known in exploit and action,
and an adventurous spirit of enterprise, that courted

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

such an occasion for display, and nerved them to perseverance.
I was undecided what course to pursue.
The good nature of De Benvelt, won by the seeming
repentance of the Patriot chiefs, and by seeing the manifestation
of this spirit of reconciliation, inclined him to
resume his command. I followed his example. De Benvelt,
my classmate, who was appointed aid of Bernardo,
myself, and the Americans generally, were received by
the Spaniards with loud acclamations. Bernardo had
manœuvred to obtain the supreme command; and Morelos
had left the army in disgust, retiring to the city of Mexico
in disguise.

Our measures were soon taken. We moved out of town,
where there were such temptations to riot, and relaxation
of all discipline, as rendered it a place utterly unfit for a
camp, in such an emergency as ours. We took post at a
considerable distance from town, in the large stone buildings
belonging to the Mission establishment. They afforded
us an admirable military position. They would yield only
to a regular siege, and were sufficiently massive, to resist
any thing but heavy battering cannon, which the foe had not.
Wood and water in abundance were near, and it was a
fine position to command forage and provisions. I gave
my opinion, when it was called for, and it was, decidedly,
to intrench our camp here, and wait for the enemy. But
other counsels prevailed. We had express upon express,
that Arredondo was coming upon us. The Americans
exulted in this intelligence, for they flattered themselves
that they should now see real fighting. All former victories
had been won, as they said, with too much ease.
We had come to despise our enemy, and the confidence
consequent upon this contempt, proved our ruin.

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

Eight miles in advance of the Mission establishment,
there is a considerable stream, which in winter runs with a
full current up to the banks, and in summer becomes almost
a Rio Seco, or dry branch. It was now midsummer, and
the weather excessively hot. We crossed this branch,
which, contrary to the ordinary course of things in the
summer, afforded an abundance of pure water. The
banks were, as is common to such streams in the summer,
high, rugged, and utterly impassable for cavalry, except
directly by the ford. Immediately beyond this river, the
road forks, one branch leading to Labahia and the coast,
and the other to the Parso and Mexico. There was a fine
green alluvion on the opposite bank, and it was completely
sheltered from inspection by a precipitous and wooded
hill. Here we took post, and were determined to await
the foe, whom we knew to be near. We were sure that
we had intercepted all communication of intelligence, and
that the Royal troops would begin to descend the hill, in
full reach of our muskets, before they would discover
us. We calculated to attack them encumbered, as their
troops always are, by a vast quantity of baggage, and
a multitude of useless camp-followers, and in the confusion
of such an unexpected attack, put them to rout
and flight. But their experienced commander was not
so to be caught. He had his policy too, and, to our
ruin, it proved to be the better of the two. Our scouts
reported his troops to be at two miles distance, and
then at one, and in fact we could now clearly hear the
blowing of their bugles, and the rolling of their drums.
Soon after we saw an officer on horseback, in a splendid
uniform, come dashing up to the summit of the hill, not
fifty yards from us. He rose upon his stirrups, and took
a glance of our camp, in the twinkling of an eye. Fifty

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

rifles were discharged upon him, but he turned his horse,
and fled so swiftly, that he escaped, and carried intelligence
of our proximity. Our impetuosity was the cause
of our first mistake, in inducing us to leave our fine position
by shade and water, on such a burning summer's
morning. But an impulse of consentaneous movement
operated upon us. Horse and foot mounted the hill. We
met a considerable force, chiefly provincials, attacked
them, and in less than fifteen minutes routed them, so that
they fled, and left a few dead behind them. We commenced
a hot pursuit, in which we were fatigued, inflamed
with the heat, and suffering from thirst at the same
time.

In about two miles from the first attack, we met a second
and larger detachment, which the inexperienced Spaniards
felt assured was the main army. The Americans
comprehended in a moment, that both these attacks were
feints, intended only to draw us from wood and water, to
fatigue and harass us down, and render us an easy conquest
to their fresh and untired troops. Nevertheless, we
rushed upon the second detachment, and they resisted us
for nearly half an hour. Considerable blood was shed,
and the resistance seemed to be obstinate. They in their
turn retreated. Mere fatigne, and exposure to the heat,
compelled a short halt, and arrested our pursuit. We
were ready to expire for want of shade and water, and
the Americans wished to wait for the enemy here. My
classmate, aid of general Bernardo, was sent to the provincial
troops on the left, intimating the command of Bernardo,
that we should fall back to our morning position,
and there await the main body of the enemy, which had
just been ascertained to be entrenched four miles in advance
of us. This command was perfectly in accordance

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

with the wishes of the Americans. But the provincial
commander of the horse, equally ignorant, obstinate, and
impetuous, sent word back to Bernardo, who had but recently
arrived from the United States, and whom he affected
to consider as an American, that the Americans might
retreat, if they chose, but that his Spaniards were not used
to leaving their business half done, and that they would
advance upon the Royalists, either to beat them, or join
their standard, just as the Americans chose. We saw in
a moment, the nature of our condition. If we undertook
to retreat to our camp, the great body of provincials,
would immediately desert to the Royalists, and in all
probability, we should be attacked by their united force.
We were well informed, that the road between us and
Arredondo, was a burning sand, in which, even the men,
in marching, would sink up to their ancles. We had a
small, but a fine park of brass artillery. We were aware,
that the carriages would plough and sink into the sand. We
were perishing with thirst, and it was burning noon. Under
all these disadvantages, we might possibly beat the
enemy, and on the whole, it seemed the lesser danger, to
attempt to do it. We made another unavailing effort, to
bring the provincial commander to listen to reason, and
then marched to the attack. Words would be wanting to
describe the fatigue of this march. One horse after
another gave out, and one cannon after another was left,
bedded in the sand. Even the horses we rode, could
hardly wade along. A little past the middle of the day,
we descended a small eminence, and saw fifty paces in
advance of us, a wide barricade of green felled trees.
We had time to observe nothing more, and had scarcely
caught a glimpse of this, before we were saluted by a
park of artillery, concealed behind the trees, and a

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

regular, and murderous discharge of musquetry by platoous.
Our ranks were literally mowed down, and I was for a
moment left alone. The Spaniards recoiled from the
first fire; but the Americans rushed upon the foe, and
clambered over the trees, and formed upon their right.
We brought up the only two field pieces that had not been
left in the sand, and sustained the fight on somewhat
more nearly equal terms, than at the commencment. But
we were unable to make any impression upon the Royal
troops, behind their breast-works. They continued to
pour their fire upon us in platoons, with so much precision,
that it seemed a single discharge, and they
swept away the advance of our force with their artillery.
With such terrible odds against us, we kept up the fight,
for more than two hours, and had once succeeded in completely
silencing the fire of their battery. In fact, they
commenced a retreat, and a company of the Royal provincials
actually did retreat, as fast as possible, quite to the
Rio del Norte, and there reported, that the Royalists were
completely routed. At the same moment, that the Royalists
were retreating from us, we, worn down with fatigue,
sinking with heat and thirst, and more than the half of us
slain, we commenced a retreat too, and this was the second
time, that I had seen two armies retreating from
each other. At this critical moment, when a single
firm charge upon them would have gained us the victory,
our provincial commander, wheeled with his horse and
joined the standard of the enemy. The affair was decided
in a moment. The Royalists faced about. Their
horse wheeled upon our wings, and we were in danger of
being completely surrounded. At once, every thing was
rout and confusion. The weary and spent, the wounded
and the foot soldiers, were speared on the field, or trampled

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

under foot by the horse. De Benvelt and myself saved
ourselves by the fleetness of our horses. My classmate
was afflicted with fever and ague, when he came into the
field. His horse had been tired down; he had fastened
him to a tree, and had fought on foot. On his retreat, he
found his horse had broken away. The enemy was advancing,
and he was too much exhausted to fly, except on
horseback. He would have been speared, but for the
assistance of a compassionate Spaniard. He spoke Spanish
with great fluency, and he begged the Spaniard, por
el amor de Dios, to catch his horse for him. The Spaniard
advanced, coiled the rope, always hung about his
horse's neck, cast the noose, caught his horse, and assisted
him to mount. I saw him mounted, and fleeing,
and I made the best of my way, with De Benvelt and
Bryan by my side, after him. We should have been glad
of the wings of the wind, for we still had the Royal horse
in view, advancing upon us. It was a sickening sight, to
see many of our poor fellows fall from their horses, literally
unable any longer to keep their seat in the saddle,
and resign themselves up to their fate. De Benvelt was
corpulent, and somewhat unwieldy from age. He was
obliged to stop from fatigue. The brave and honest man
requested me with tears in his eyes to fly. “Be you a
father,” said he, “and brother, and all, to my tear girls,
and tell them, where I saw the end of the tamned liberties.”
He had scarcely given me this charge, before we
were assailed by three or four provincials on horseback.
This occurrence called back his courage. The faithful
Bryan, who had fled in advance, wheeled and came back
to our aid. Bryan fought like a giant, and we drove
them back upon the main body, killing one of their number;
but not until De Benvelt had been severely wounded

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

by a pistol shot. The wound and the bleeding seemed
to furnish him with new vigor. We fled again, and met
with no more annoyance, until we reached San Antonio.

Exaggerated reports of our defeat and ruin had preceded
us, with the natural addition, that De Benvelt was
mortally wounded, and that I was slain. I leave you
to imagine the scene of our reception by his daughters.
The reality, sad as it was, was so much more tolerable
than their expectations, that they were well prepared to
receive their wounded father; and when I assured them
there was no doubt but he would do well, and that all
that they had to do, was to prepare to fly, the idea of escaping
from the country was so pleasant to them, that
they instantly set themselves to preparing for flight. A
counter revolution commenced in San Antonio, with
the first news of our reverse of fortune, and there was
almost as much danger in delay, from the inhabitants,
as from the enemy. We were not more than an hour in
advance even of them. All my American compatriots,
that were neither wounded, sick, nor exhausted, escaped,
and among them, as I afterwards ascertained with high
satisfaction, my classmate, who arrived safe in Louisiana,
sick of fever and ague, and destitute of every thing, and in
a most wretched plight, but content, and happy to have
escaped the spear. I obtained by dint of money, friendship,
and entreaties, for we were obliged to put every engine
in operation, horses and a waggon. They were harnessed,
and a mattress thrown into it, and my wounded
associate thrown on the mattress in half an hour. The
daughters fled with me on horseback. The travelling
and the jolting inflamed De Benvelt's wound, and pained
him to agony. He was earnest and eloquent again with
me and his daughters, to fly and leave him to his fate.

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

They felt with me on this point, and I assured him, that
to leave him, was a thing not to be thought of, and that
we should all share his fate, be it what it might. That fate
was, that we should be all arrested and taken. Twenty
horsemen pursued and overtook us, within a few miles
from the town. Resistance being out of the question, we
surrendered ourselves, and were carried back to the town.
We were thrown into the same calabozo, where all the
prisoners, that had not been speared, were secured together.
It was a kind of Calcutta Black Hole, and we were
tortured with heat, thirst, and vermin. It was, indeed, a
rude receptacle for ladies like the Misses Benvelt. But
in this terrible community of misery, where groans, exclamations,
and calls for the deliverance of death, rung
around us on every side, the very excess of our wretchedness,
inspired these sufferers with the tranquil and tearless
indifference of despair. I made an effort to influence
the keepers, to allow another place for these young ladies.
But I either spoke to the deaf, or incurred only contempt
and ridicule. They entreated me to make no further
exertions of this sort, assuring me, that nothing should
separate them from their father.

In the blindness of their exasperation, the Royalists
found no place for the exercise of mercy or discrimination.
Old or young, guilty or innocent, male or female, the
beggar swarming with vermin, or these young ladies
clad in the richest dresses, so that they were known to
have adhered to the Royal cause, or even to be connected
with those who had, were all placed in one predicament.
The blood even now chills in my veins, as I remember,
how the women fell on their knees before me, as I was
retreating on St. Antonio, entreating me with clasped
hands, and with the usual por el amor de Dios, not to

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

leave them to the vengeance of the Royalists. In the
calabozo, we learned the fate of the remnant of the retreating
Patriots, that escaped the fatal field of Palos
Blancos, and the first fury of pursuit. A party of the
Royal horse took a nearer route to the town, anticipated
the fugitives, and placing themselves on the banks of the
river, where three different roads from the battle field met
they here spread a net, which caught in its meshes every
individual. Most of them were spread on the spot.
Fifty of them were reserved for more enduring sufferings,
and were now in prison with us. I was aware, that if the
Conde had been here, with his usual ascendency in the
councils, De Benvelt's family and myself should have
been spared. As it was, there was scarcely a hope, that
our fate would be delayed, until the Conde could intimate
his will in respect to our case. It was even doubtful, if
he now retained influence enough to arrest our fate, if he
wished to do it. We only knew, that the Royal chiefs
were deliberating upon our fate, during this first dreadful
night in this place. The fate itself was in the awful suspense
of conjecture. We could think of but a single
friend, who would be disposed to make an effort for us,
and that was Bryan; who took a different street in entering
the town, and had not been heard from since. The
groans, the ejaculations, the agonizing prayers to the Virgin
and to the saints, the ridiculous vows of silver shrines,
and images to their patron saints, if they would interpose
for their escape, the curses of despair, in this stifling place
of utter darkness, during this dreadful night, can never be
erased from my memory. I considered it a kind of representation
of the case of the spirits in the final prison of
darkness. I am not now able to analyze my own reflections.
I certainly was not above the instinctive love of

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

life, and fear of death. But the cause, it seemed, was irretrievably
ruined. Doña Martha could not henceforward
come within the scope of the wildest hopes. Here were
beautiful girls, reared like the lily of the valley, who
awaited their destiny in tranquillity. All about me was
the frantic agony of cowardly despair. I am afraid I
shall never be again so resigned to die, as I was then.

Nothing struck me more, this sad night, than the deportment
of the daughters of De Benvelt. At first, I mistook
their sedateness for the tranquillity of despair. It
was the exertion of the noblest fortitude. It was the
high-principled sensibility of strong minds, called into
exercise by the most tender and sacred motives that can
swell the human breast. It was filial love, manifesting itself
in a holy effort, to smooth the passage of their father
to death. There was to me, in the same predicament with
the rest, a thrill of sublime feeling, as I witnessed these
beautiful girls, whose faces, in the day of their prosperity,
“the winds of heaven had not been permitted to visit too
roughly,” in the midst of darkness, shrieks, and despair,
with the prospect of military execution in the morning, for
their father, for me, and probably, for themselves,—still
preserving an unalterable tranquillity. They must feel it a
privilege, if we might be permitted to die without torture.
They seemed to regard it all as nothing. It appeared, as
if they had shaken hands with life, and had relinquished all
its prospects without a tear or a regret for themselves.
All the sympathies of their hearts, were for their father
and me. Theirs was not the prosing exhortations to patience
and courage, in heavy and set phrase which most
would have uttered, on a like occasion. They evinced
an elastic tranquillity, which is naturally infectious, and
which seemed to say in every word and action, “The

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

bitterness of death is past” for us, and all that we think and
say, is for others. While occasional and uncontrollable
bursts of sorrow, stifled the voice of the father, they tenderly
begged him to be calm, and expressed themselves
happy, that they were not torn one from another in
succession, imposing the penalty of a lingering death upon
the survivors, but that they were likely, now, all to depart
together.

The earliest impressions of religion, are those that
come to our aid in such emergencies. The daughters remembered
the prayers and the rites of their infancy, in
Fader land. They recited those prayers, and separating
ourselves, as much as we could, from the groaning and
frantic rabble about us, they knelt beside their father, and
went through the simple and affecting service of the Saxon
Lutheran church, for persons in the last extremity; and
they sung a hymn, so much the more impressive for its
quaint and ancient rhymes, and for their touching and
sweet voices, which I had never heard in song before.
These prayers and this hymn infused something of their
enthusiasm and fortitude into the heart of their father.
“Indeed, my sweet girls,” said he, “I am right glad,
since it must be so, that we are like to make this journey
all together. My old heart could not stand a moment the
thought of leaving you alone, among this tamned peoples.”

From their father, they turned to me. There was always
something touching in their strong German accent,
and peculiarly at this time, when the condensed emotions
of their hearts, gave it a peculiar and thrilling intonation
of tenderness. “You have been to us,” said Wilhelmine,
“father, and brother, and friend, all in one.” The full expression
of our feelings to you at another time, might be

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

mistaken. But, surely, at this time, we may be allowed
to say all that is in our hearts. We die, and we wish to
die, with our father. But it seems hard, almost mysterious,
that so young and so good a man, who has been everything
to our father and to us, and who might have escaped,
should be brought here to die. It must be a hard
case to you, for you love, and are beloved, and yet you
alone, of all this frantic multitude, seem to be calm.”
“Can I,” I asked, “who am a man, and who wear the garb
of a soldier, and who knew when I embraced this desperate
cause, that it did not promise to be a holiday business,
can I shrink from death, when I see women so young, and
so beautiful, manifest so much fortitude and resignation to
their fate?” Sophy mournfully added, “But we love none,
but our father and you. We leave not a being to mourn
for us. We are strangers in a strange land, and the name
will perish with us. Tell me, Is it selfish or not? There
is a kind of dreadful satisfaction to me, that we are all
alike involved, and that there will be no wretched survivor,
after we are laid in our last bed. I would die
rather than give pain to my dear father, to my sisters, or
to you. Can it be, that I am selfish in finding satisfaction
in the thought, that we are all going together?”

“My tear Wilhelmine,” said the father, “it makes me
almost feel in heaven, to hear you sing. Pray sing me
now that sweet song, that you sung one evening when I
was low-spirited on the mountain. She immediately complied,
and just murmured to a wild and plaintive air in
Spanish the words, of which the following is a very exact
translation.

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

While these excellent daughters were thus arming themselves,
and evincing that noble passive fortitude, which
seems the appropriate gift of the best women in such
circumstances, the wretched father passed from prayer
and tears, to gloomy silence. Sometimes all the father
would rise within him, and burst forth in irrepressible
grief. “My sweet girls,” said he, “forgive your silly
father for undoing you. Oh! dat pad tay, when I took
up for this wicked people, and the tamned liberties. Let
the tay perish, when I left my good stone house, and
brought my daughters among this tamned peoples. They
are no more fit for de liberties than wolves. Mein Gott!
forgive me, for these follies. I have brought ruin on you
all, my tear girls, this good young man, and myself.” In
this style of self-reproach he continued until he wrought
himself into paroxysms. But why go through with the
horrors of that dreadful night! The unabating heroism and
tenderness of these daughters did not remit, and the father
finally became settled in his tranquillity, and laid himself
down on his straw, and soon fell into a profound slumber.
The girls retired into a corner by themselves, undoubtedly
to hold communion with death and with God, before whom
they expected so soon to appear.

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

If I had been disposed to look on my fate with dismay,
I could not but have caught something of their tenderness
and elevation of heart. I retired too, and the prayers
that came spontaneously to my lips, were those which my
good mother used to say to me, when she put me in my
bed, in my infant days. “Our Father, who art in Heaven,”
said I, “thy will be done!” These sublime words were
repeated again and again, and I hoped that I should not
disgrace my manhood, when I should be be brought to the
last dread trial.

When the gleams of the morning began to pour light
enough through the fissures of our calabozo, to render
“darkness visible,” what ghastly faces, what agonized
countenances did this pale and unearthly light exhibit?
Here were nearly a hundred people, expecting this morning
to exchange time for eternity. Few of them had
principle, rational pride, true courage, religion, or the
hope of immortality. They clung to life from instinct
and appetite, and had no hope beyond life, and no motives
to fortify them against the fears of death. The morning
light, by bringing the prospect of death immediately before
them, redoubled the shrieks, ejaculations, and groans,
until the very confusion and excess of the misery, took
away its distinctness and horror. A supply of the coarsest
food, and some water, were put into our dungeon, and we
were notified, that immediately after taking our food, we
should be ordered out to receive our sentence.

In half an hour the drums rolled at our door. The
keys rattled. The heavy door grated on its hinges, and
we were called out, one by one, by an officer, who recited
our names from a scroll. A regiment guarded us. De
Benvolt, enfeebled by fever, his wound, and the agony of
a broken heart, required the support of his daughters; and

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

it was a sight to go to any heart, to see these fair and
innocent looking daughters supporting their father amidst
the fierce and pitiless array of a regiment of soldiers, to
the place of execution. While the two elder daughters
each held an arm of their father, the trembling Annette
leaned upon mine. The one half of this group were women
and children, or persons too old or too young, to have been
committed by any overt act, and were here on account
of their affinity with those who had. The groans and the
sobbing were drowned by the rolling of the drum, the
shrill notes of the fife, and a dead march played by the
full band.

Half a mile from the town, in a hollow which descended
gently in the manner of an amphitheatre, was the place of
sentence and execution. In fact, in this case they were
the same thing. A priest, in his pontifical robes, stood by
with a crucifix in one hand, and a burning candle in the
other. The name of every person, save two or three,
was recited and the persons pronounced guilty of treason,
rebellion, and heresy, and they were sentenced to
immediate execution. They were then called out in the
order of their names on the paper. They were allowed
but two minutes for confession. A file of soldiers stood
ready, and a tall officer, whose swarthy face was almost
covered with his whiskers and mustachios, held up his
sword as the signal of discharge. A handkerchief was
loosely folded over the face of the prisoner. He was led
to a central point, ordered to kneel down, the sword was
raised. The victim was removed, and another took his
place.

I am as little disposed to relate, as you would be to
hear, the horrors of this execution in detail. It was protracted
with the most tedious minuteness, apparently that

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

we might have a long and full taste of the misery of it.
The parties stood directly by me. I know not how it
happened, but although I expected in a few minutes to
take my turn, I felt a strange curiosity, to observe both
the feelings of the victims, the moment before they were
led away, and their spasms after they had received the
discharge. And never, since the days of the guillotine,
was there a more thrilling spectacle of the manner in which
different persons are affected with the immediate prospect
of death. Some uttered a cry and fell down, and were
lifted up and carried away to receive the shot. Others
with more physical and moral self-control, had made a
violent effort, and marched to the place in sullen submission.
Some were affected by a strong spasm, which appeared
to commence in some part of the frame, and to diffuse
itself over the whole body. The countenances of some
wore the paleness of death. Of others the whole circulation
seemed to have mounted to the head. The effect of
the discharges upon us who witnessed it, and who waited
for our turn, was equally various. Some gave a shriek.
Others a long, deep drawn, and quivering sigh. Wilhelmine
gave a faint groan, grasped her father's arm more
closely, held in her breath until the discharge, and then
cried, “Thank God! One more is delivered from his
burden.” Upon De Benvelt every discharge operated
with a stimulant effect, and drew out an execration upon
the treachery and cowardice that had brought them there.
We observed that the females, and those too old and too
young to have borne arms, were excepted and reserved.
Remarking this, the daughters uttered an exclamation
of terror, lest their father should be called out, and they
left behind. Most of the Spanish prisoners had passed to
the priest, and had joined with him in some brief rites,

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

appertaining to confession. Our names were among the
last on the scroll, and we were reserved to witness the
manner in which all the rest received the consummation
of their fate, before we could know ours. I believe we
began to have a presentiment, from the very manner in
which the officers looked upon us, that we should be remanded
to the prison.

Towards the close of the execution, they called out a
fine young man, the handsomest provincial I had seen.
I had noticed him frequently before. He had been pointed
out to me at the fandangoes, as the finest young man
in New Spain. He had been an ensign in the Royal
army; but being in heart a republican, he had deserted,
and joined the Patriot standard. He was pointed out in
all circles, as gay, amiable, modest, and gallant, devoted
to his friends, and an universal favourite among the ladies.
His faults were free-thinking and gallantry. He was just
the kind of character to call forth the deepest sympathy in
his favour. They called on him to confess and prepare
for execution. “Away,” said he, “with these miserable
mummeries! Reserve them for the wretched cowards
that in battle leave their standard, and go over to the
enemy. Thank God! my mind needs not that kind of
support. I am a young man; but I have known how to
enjoy myself, and I know how to die.” He had a most
delightful voice, and he sung a stanza of a patriotic ode,
in fashion at the time, with thrilling and prodigious effect.
When they came for him, a general feeling of horror passed
over the countenances of the survivors. Even the stern
faces of the soldiers, who performed the execution, relaxed
to pity, and many a tear rolled down to their mustachios.
He took up a little favourite dog, that clung to his steps,
and passed it to a friend, who was looking on, and as he

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

gave away the dog, we witnessed a slight faltering, as of
overpowering feeling. But he recovered in a moment,
and walked to his place with a countenance not only undaunted,
but gay, and with a firm and elastic step. They
were preparing the handkerchief as usual. But he calmly
waved them off. “I wish,” said he, “to gain converts
to the Patriot cause, by showing these people how a
Patriot looks when he dies. Look you all at the face of
a Patriot soldier.” At the same time he cast a calm and
imposing look round the multitude. He put his right
hand over his left breast, requesting them to aim at his
hand. He waved the other gracefully over his head,
shouting, Viva la republica! Two more were executed.
De Benvelt, his daughters, myself and five other Americans,
and the women, two or three old men, and the
children, were remanded to prison, to wait, as we were
told, further orders in our case. The bodies of those
that had been executed, were thrown into a gully, promiscuously,
and so slightly covered with earth, that the wolves
and the vultures, as I was afterwards informed, removed
the earth, and made them their prey.

When we returned to the calabozo, we were not indeed
so crowded, and the parties were delivered from the
fears of immediate death. But even the absence of the
crowd of the preceding night had its horrors. What had
become of so many people, but a few hours before so
clamorous in their griefs, and sharing with us the sorrows
of existence? Mothers had lost their sons, wives their
husbands, and there was more than one young Spanish
mother, with her long and swarthy visage, and her intensely
black eyes suffused with tears, nursing the babe at
her breast, whose father had just been shot down. Words
convey but a feeble idea of such a scene. Memory has

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

preserved it in my mind with a painful fidelity. The
daughters and the father were still more earnest in their
thanksgivings for deliverance, than they had been in their
prayers of preparation.

A number of weary days elapsed in this dreary place,
without bringing any change or any intelligence of what
was going on aboard. My fair companions continued the
same noble and affectionate deportment to their father
and to me, as before. They lay down on their mouldy
straw, and endured their evils, and swallowed their miserable
fare with cheerfulness. When I felt it necessary
to recur to the uncertainty of our case, as yet unsettled,
they assured me that they were prepared for any form
either of joy or sorrow. A trial now presented itself to
them, which appeared to be too heavy for even their fortitude
to sustain. The gay and honest-hearted Saxon had
been free, and rather epicurean in his habits, and had
been so long accustomed to the luxuries of the table, and
the cleanliness and comfort of an opulent mansion, that
his wound, confinement, miserable food, filth, and vermin,
together with the gloom of his prospects, and the agonizing
feelings of a father at beholding his daughters in such a
condition, strongly affected his general health. His countenance
grew pale and bloated. His habit was feverish,
and he pined in remembrance of what had been, over the
coarse and unsavory provisions that they brought us. “I
was prepared,” said Wilhelmine, “to see him fall by a
soldier's death, when I expected to share it with him. It
is too much to see him linger and die in this way, with
the sad prospect of surviving him in this horrible place.”
The other daughters had their forebodings too, but neither
of them ever spoke on the subject in the presence of the
other. It was only when the father and the other

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

daughters were beyond hearing in the dungeon, that the remaining
one relieved the oppression of her heart in consulting
with me on this gloomy subject. My own anticipations,
it is true, were of the same kind. I saw that he could
not long survive this state of things, in this place. But I
spoke as cheerfully as I could, and bade them hope,
assuring them I was persuaded something would soon
happen to brighten our prospects.

My prediction was soon accomplished. I had all along
indulged the hope, that the affectionate Bryan would not
be idle, if he lived. I entertained a confident hope, that
he did live. He was well mounted, adroit, shrewd, and
one of those men, who have the character, and maintain
the standing, that render them acceptable to all parties. I
had, also, a faint impression, that I had seen him, on the
day of the execution, mixed with the spectators and the
Royal troops, and wearing the badge by which the Royalists
distinguished themselves from the Patriots. I
had not a doubt of his fidelity, and was satisfied that
if, indeed, it was he, the badge was only assumed the
more effectually to serve me. When my hopes of aid
from that quarter, were almost extinct, and I had begun
to think, that he was dead, or had forgotten me, as I was
standing one evening by the small grated aperture, by
which the little air and light we had, was let in upon us,
and while I was attempting to catch the last glimpses of
the sun, sinking behind the hills, I heard a slight noise, as
the scratching of something on the logs, outside of the grate.
Bringing my face in contact with the grate, I saw a paper
on the end of one of those immensely long reeds, that
grow by the streams in this region. I put my fingers
through the grates and took it. To my surprize and joy,
it was from Bryan, and ran thus. “God bless your

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

Honor! I am here all the time, and would stay more, but I am
afraid they will guess, what I would be at, bother them!
I hope, your Honor don't think, I am an Orange man, for
all I wear the king's ribband. They'll always find Bryan
as true as steel. I thought, may be I could do something
for you at the Conde's So I turns king's man, and goes
there. The Conde is a gentleman after all, for he has
tried to get you and your friend's family off. But the
young Don, and the father, and the colonel, and all the
rest, the devil burn them, were for shooting you down,
like the rest. They are a little afraid of the Americans.
I can see that. The most the Conde could do, was to
have you brought to Durango, and tried over before him
and the rest, but the young Don swears that he will see
to the hanging of you there. `Two words,' says I, `my lad,
to that bargain.' So they mean to bring you and the Dutchman
to Durango, and hang you there, Devil roast them, and
then put you up on the tower, like dead crows in a cornfield,
to scare the rest. Never you fear. There are
some in the Conde's palace, that love you better than
I. We will have you off yet, in spite of devil or dobbie.”

And in truth, in the evening, we were directed to prepare
ourselves the next morning, to be marched to Durango,
and be tried on the charge of rebellion. Accordingly,
at an early hour in the morning, the drums again rolled
at the door, and we were taken out, and put in a six-horse
waggon, and under the guard of a full company of Royal
regulars, we were started for Durango. Nothing marked
the monotonous sadness of this journey, but the accustomed
sweetness, patience, and sadness, of the young ladies, and
the declining health and spirits, and the low mournings of
the father, as the jostling tortured his wound. He and I
were pinioned fast, which rendered the journey more

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

intolerable. We had a couple of sub-officers in the waggon
with us, another circumstance, not at all to have been desired.
At night, we were removed from the waggon with
the most guarded caution, and were placed on straw in
the wretched mesons, to find what sleep we could, devoured
by vermin, and surrounded by rabble of all sorts,
and guarded by soldiers, drunk with agua ardiente, or
vino mezcal. After a number of weary days and nights,
so spent, I saw the young ladies reaching their heads from
under the canvass, and their eyes were filled with tears.
`Yonder,” said Wilhelmine, clasping her hands, “yonder
are the mountains of Durango. How often have I looked
at their blue heads, when I was free and happy.” I, too,
aroused myself at this intelligence, and looked abroad. The
evening was drawing on. I observed a cloud of dust at
a distance, nearing us with great rapidity. Our escort
comprehended, that there was trouble in the wind, for
they immediately prepared themselves for an attack.

In five minutes from the first view of the dust, we discovered
a body of horse, completely armed, and with the
Patriot badge. They shouted, “a rescue,” in a voice of
thunder, and in the next instant, the two parties were at
blows. Whatever amount of interest we felt in this contest,
we had nothing to do, but to be spectators, as patient
as we might, and await the issue. Among the hundred
contests of this sort, that took place unrecorded, during
the bloody struggles of the revolution in Mexico, this was
one of the fiercest and most hotly contested. The matter
was decided by the sabre, and each party appeared to
be entirely in earnest. Wounds were mutually given, and
heads cloven without mercy. At one moment the ladies
shrieked, and the Royalists seemed to prevail. At the
next, a fortunate blow from a Patriot sabre, inclined the

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

scale of victory towards them. It was the first time I had
seen brightness return to De Benvelt's eye, since the fatal
field of Palos Blancos. Even his phlegm and despondency
were thoroughly aroused, to see the issue of this
combat. “Mein Gott,” said he, as he saw a successful
Patriot cut with the sabre, “dat was well done! Dunder
and blixum! give them another my poy of the same sort.”
The Patriots were the more numerous party, and, as was
generally the case, fought the fiercest. But the Royalists
sustained the fight, until the small area of the battle-ground
was slippery with blood, and the greater number, on both
sides, were either killed or placed by wounds hors de combat.
The Royalists, completely surrounded, at length threw
down their arms, and called for quarter. The captain of
the Patriots, accompanied by Bryan, whom I saw from the
first, playing his part manfully in this business, came up to
us, all covered with blood, as they were, and shook us by
the hand, informing us that we were free. The captain
of the Royalists was slain. The Patriot chief informed
the next surviving officer, that his only object in this affair
was our rescue, that having achieved that purpose, he had
nothing further to do with him or with us. He ordered
the prisoners to clear themselves, and to let him see them
so far away, as to leave no fear of their annoying us, and
that he should then shift for himself. He, however, very
kindly offered us his services, and advised us, to fly in the
direction which should seem to promise us the fairest
chance of escape from the Royalists.

While the Patriot captain was attending to his own
wounded, and the Royalists gathering up theirs, Bryan
gave me the particulars of this plan for our rescue. The
Conde had so far evinced himself an honest man, that,
against every effort of his intended son-in-law, and the

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

father confessor, he had exerted himself to the utmost, to
obtain our acquittal, and permission for us to depart unmolested
to the United States. He urged my character,
and my interposition for his rescue from the assassins, as
good ground for extending this favor to me and my friends.
He was overruled in both requests, and had the further
mortification to hear himself charged in the court, with a
guilty dereliction of principle, and a leaning towards the
Patriot cause. It was so obvious to himself, and every
one else, that he had no longer any officient influence in
the council, that he resigned his command in disgust. A
coolness existed between him and colonel Pedro and the
father confessor on the subject. He took Bryan home
with him, and they planned together the means of our rescue,
as we were coming to Durango, according to the
order of the council. It was no difficult thing, on an estate
like his, containing many thousands of tenants, all personally
known to him, and generally devoted to him, to find
enough brave and trusty men, and Patriots in principle, to
form the company, that effected our release. “But,”
said Bryan, “your Honor will see, that he never showed
a finger in the business. The business was all managed on
the back stairs. As soon as your Honor and your friends
here are off, he will seem as sorry for your escape, as the
rest. They will send out for you, and may be, put a
price on your heads, as they have done for others. He
will agree to it, all one as the rest, ay, and will join in the
hue and cry against you, just as though he were at a buffalo
hunt.”

Here then we were, on an open plain, forty miles from
Durango, free indeed, but one of the party wounded, and
weak, three ladies to encumber us, and surrounded with
pursuit, danger, and death, on every side. The Patriot

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

captain proposed our taking any number of the horses,
and any provisions, arms, and amunition, that we wished
for in our flight, assuring us, it would be but right, to levy
these articles from the Royalists. We consulted with
him, as an experienced and trusty adviser, respecting our
best course for flight. Between us and the United States,
on the only practicable rout, were three hundred leagues,
and the Royal army, with scouts and patrols, by whom we
could not fail to be intercepted. Besides, the sinking
strength of De Benvelt, was entirely unequal to any distant
flight. In front of us was a city, strongly garrisoned
by Royal troops, and our only efficient friend obliged to
assume the appearance of enmity. The Patriot commander
only waited, until we should elect the direction of our
flight, and was impatient to be gone. The sun was sinking
behind the blue summits of the mountains, and their shadows
already covered us and the scene of battle with a cooling
shade. “Let us fly,” said Wilhelmine, “to these mountains.
Any direction is better, than to remain by this
scene of carnage. I have always loved mountains. They
lift their sheltering heads, in their unchangeable repose,
and remind me of the unfailing shelter over the friendless,
the unchangeable protection of that Omnipotent Being,
who formed them. Let us call on the rocks and the
mountains to shelter us. Let us dwell in dens and caves
of the earth, and escape forever from man, and these
sickening scenes of battle and blood. You shall be our
shepherd. We will be shepherdesses. We will find a
soft and mossy couch for my poor father. We will nurse
him, and cheer him, and sing to him; and we will live on
fruits and game, and water from the spring.” All this
pastoral counsel was uttered in a tone, that partook partly
of dismay, and the terrors of the recent combat, and the

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

groans of the dying, that still rung in our ears, and partly
of a wild, half frantic, and assumed gaiety. But on
second thought, it struck the captain, and it struck us all,
as the most prudent plan, which, in present circumstances,
could be devised. We hailed Wilhemine's rhapsody, as
the result of inspiration. The younger sisters and the
father fell in with the proposal. Bryan declared, that he
was with us for life and for death, and that where we
went, if we would allow him, there he would go too. “To
the caves of the mountains,” was the general voice. The
captain gave us counsel and aid. The waggon that had
brought us, was unloaded of all unnecessary articles.
From the slain we were furnished with an ample supply
of every kind of arms and amunition. From the baggage
waggon of the Royalist troops, which they had left on the
field of battle, provisions, axes, implements, and whatever
articles a hasty consideration of our probable wants dictated,
as requisite, we took. We had six horses to our waggon,
and we selected two of the best, that were left on the
field, and fastened them by the bridle to our waggon.
We were most scrupulous on the score of provisions, exhausting
the Patriots, as well as securing all that had
been left by the Royalists. Bryan mounted as driver of
our waggon. We disposed of our party, amidst sacks of
bread, and pikes, and muskets, somewhat more comfortably,
than we had come thus far. The Patriot captain
walked apart with me, and we held a private communication
for a moment. The Royalists were already gone
with their wounded beyond sight. We tendered solemn
and grateful thanks to our intrepid deliverer. He wheeled
with his company in one direction. We waited until the
measured gallop of their horses, was no longer heard
over the plain. Then we took a direction at right

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

angles to the road, and in the nearest direction to the mountains.

We arrived at their bases, just as the last twilight was
fading from the sky. As is usual, where the smooth prairie
is continued to the foot of mountains, we were arrested
by a high perpendicular wall. We groped along upon its
side some little distance, until a narrow opening admitted
us under an immense projection, rising like an arehed roof,
and its summit reaching an hundred feet in advance of its
base, over the plain. Such shelters are common in such
situations, and the wild buffaloes, we saw, had found an
asylum here before us. It offered us a most welcome shelter
for the weary De Benvelt and his daughters, from a
tempest that seemed to be approaching. It was barricaded
on three sides by impassible heights of rock. At
the entrance, we placed our waggon, as a defence. We
unharnessed our horses, and took the usual precaution to
prevent their escape, and turned them out to their repast
on the prairie. Bryan and myself put ourselves cheerfully
to the operation of wood-cutting. Our hoary cavern
was soon illumined with a blazing fire. We prepared a
couch for the weary and wounded Saxon, of the cushions
and buffalo robes of the waggon, and we placed him, as
he said, more at his ease, than he had been, since the battle.
We made a table of the planks of the waggon. Barrels
of bread and provisions, furnished us with chairs.
We brought forth cold provisions, and excellent Parso,
which we had plundered from Ferdinand the VII. Bryan
would even add chocolate to our preparations. With
blankets and cloaks we formed cushions for the ladies.
The gathering tempest of thunder and rain, would shield
us from pursuit, until another day should enable us to
hunt a deeper and securer retreat. We were at once

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

most comfortably sheltered from the storm and from danger,
and the open front of our shelter gave us a full and
sublime view of the objects below us, as they became distinctly
visible for the moment by the gleams of lightning.
The whole surface of the boundless prairie below us, in
the intervals of the lightning, was lurid with the feebler
and darting radiance of millions of glow-worms. Cheered
by the domestic blaze of our fire, we sat down to our repast.
Nothing would persuade Bryan to lay aside his observance,
as a servant, and take his place at table with us,
as we requested him. But all his Irish vivacity was visible
in his good nature and fresh countenance, as he
waited upon our table. The contrast of the tempest and
thunder abroad, compared with our late loathsome abode
in the calabozo, and our pinioned imprisonment in our
waggon, as we journeyed to Durango, thoughts of our destiny
after we should arrive there, the bloody contest
which had effected our deliverance from these dangers,
the shelter, the comforts, the smoking chocolate, and the
fragrant Parso, received, under these circumstances, a
zest, which nothing else could have given. De Benvelt ate
with an appetite, which he had not known for a long time,
remarking, that he should be content to live here, during
the rest of his days, and never give the Royalists any
more trouble about the “tamned liberties,” if they would only
let him alone, and leave him to the care of his son, and
his dear daughters. If we could only find him some safe
retreat like this, in the mountains, and never let him see a
“tamned Creole” more, he was sure, that he should recover
of his wound, and gain his flesh and his appetite again.
To hear their father talk in this way, brightened the faces
of the daughters. They began to chat with their wonted
reckless gaiety, and to find themes for conversation and

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

amusement, in their late adventures, and to descant upon
the new character of shepherdesses, that they proposed to
assume. We began to compare our situation here, with
our condition upon mount Mixtpal, and the ladies, whom
recent events had inspired with new dislike of the Creole
character, considered it a circumstance in favor of our
present condition, that we had none of them here. We
even took it as a good omen for the future, that Providence,
on our first approach to the mountains, just as a
storm was impending, had furnished such a desirable shelter,
as we might, at other times, have sought whole days
without finding. The only circumstance to be regretted,
was that in the morning, we should be obliged, in regard
to our future safety, to renounce it, and seek in the mountains
for one more remote from inspection, and more easily
defended. To our present retreat we could be traced
even by the marks of the wheels, and the feet of the horses.
There was no danger at least for this night. Every thing
that could, would be sheltered, while such a storm raged
abroad. We jointly agreed, that in gratitude for such a
great and happy deliverance, we ought to wave all apprehensions,
cast our fears, as far as we could, to the winds,
and place a simple trust in Him, who had, thus far, so graciously
and wonderfully delivered us, and who thus called
upon us, to trust Him for the future. To this strain of
conversation, De Benvelt said, “Dat is right, my tear
girls. This chocolate tasted right good, and I feel the
wine warm at my stomach. Hear how the storm rages.
Mein Gott! what would have become of me, if we had
found no shelter? Mein Gott is good. Tear girls, say me
de prayers, in de pure old Tuch, and sing me that sweet
hymn, which talks about fader land.” Without a second
request, the daughters began to chant together, the Saxon

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

Lutheran service, and having finished it, their sweet voices
chimed in concert, as they sung their father's favorite
hymn. As they sunk on their bended knees on the stone
pavement, the thunder roaring abroad, the light of our
fire casting its flickering shadows upon the grey vault of
stone above us, tears of thankfulness and sensibility streaming
down their cheeks, and their flowing locks of auburn
shading their fair faces, as with a veil, our devotions
might have vied in interest with those of the Vatican.
Bryan, deeply affected, retired to a little distance, and began
to chant the evening service to the Virgin. Taken
all together, it was an occasion to inspire the proper feelings
of prayer and thanksgiving in any heart, that was not
incurably hardened against those feelings. I am sure,
that the best feelings of my heart went up in thankfulness
to the Divine throne. Our devotions finished, Bryan and
myself, with a little direction from the ladies, prepared
rustic, but entirely comfortable couches for the family.
As for him and myself, we scraped together an abundance
of fresh leaves, spread cloaks over them, and lay down
on a couch, sufficiently soft for wearied soldiers.

With the first gleams of morning light, Bryan and I
arose, and took a long ramble on the mountains. The
sun was bright in the sky, and the morning glittering with
the renovation, in the sultry days, derived from a copious
shower, when we returned to the family. They had
slept profoundly, and were refreshed, but had become
painfully anxious on account of our absence. We took
a breakfast as cheerful as our supper. The clouds were
all dispersed, and the mountains reeked with rolling
wreaths of mists, that look so beautiful upon their summits,
after a great rain. The perfect clearness of the day,
admonished us, that it was now we ought to be

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

apprehensive of pursuit. I had found a practicable defile for our
horses, far into the mountains. However reluctantly, we
were compelled to leave our waggon here. De Benvelt
felt himself so much refreshed and better, that he thought
he was able to ride. We packed part of our baggage on
the three spare horses. We secured the provisions and
articles, that were reserved to be carried up at another
ascent, and, Bryan and myself occasionally on foot, we began
slowly to wind round the spiral line of the defile.
De Benvelt soon complained of pain and fatigue, and
shortly after declared himself unable to endure his situation
any longer. The daughters dismounted, and we
placed their father at his ease, under the shade of a tree,
and left them to fan him, and bestow upon him their filial
attentions, while Bryan and I went in search of a place,
which should afford the three requisites, that our case called
for, shelter, secrecy, and defence.

At an elevation of perhaps twelve hundred feet, and at
the distance of a league and a half from the base of the
mountains, we found a limestone cavern, of narrow entrance,
which two persons might be able to defend against
a hundred and yet the opening admitted light and air,
sufficient for habitance and comfort. At the foot was a
small table plain, beautifully variegated with herbs and
flowers, sheltered by precipitous cliffs, and shaded with
fine sycamores, and still further accommodated with
a rivulet of pure and cool water, which gushed out in different
springs at the foot of the rocks. A full mile of the
defile below us, in all its windings, was completely under
the eye, from the foot of the cavern, so that we could
discern the approach of assailants, a considerable time before
they could reach us. Paroquets, red-birds, mocking
birds, nightingale sparrows, and a variety of unknown

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

birds of beautiful song and plumage, flitted and carolled
among the branches of the sycamores. Alpine flowers
were associated on the margin of the stream, with the
splendid cups of the tropical flowering plants. A thousand
butterflies of great size, and of all the hues of the rainbow,
fluttered from flower to flower. On the marjoram and
thyme, hummed the mountain bee. Multitudes of humming
birds, of plumage indescribably splendid, and quick
as lightning in their motions, darted from flower to flower.
The capability of the place to supply our wants, for a long
concealment, was still increased by the circumstance, that
herds of wild cattle, deer, and buffaloes, must pass near
this cavern in winding their way up and down the mountains.

Bryan held up his hands in astonishment. “Now,”
said he, “in the name of St. Patrick, this thing is a sure
sign that your Honor is under the care of the saints.
Where could we find another such a place upon the
earth? It seems just made to our hands.” In truth,
taken all in all, it was a little paradise, hid in the mountains
exactly for our case. The only difficulty was, to
get our family moved up to it. I left Bryan to cut down
the bushes at the entrance, and take the rude, but necessary
preliminary steps, towards fitting the cave for habitance,
while I descended to assist the family to ascend to
it. We had left them at the midway distance between
this place and the plain. De Benvelt had been refreshed
by rest, and the cool of the shade. The family mounted
their horses again. We drove the baggage horses before
us, and we were tediously employed four hours in mounting
up to the cavern. The family were as much delighted
with the place as we had been. In front of it was range
for our horses, and with the little fitting up, for which we
had ample means, we should have a commodious mansion,

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

in perfect keeping with the sweet little plain in front of it.
Bryan had seen enough of the new countries, as he called
them, to have learned all the little fetches and contrivances
of a backwoodsman. And to a person who has been
bred in cities, where all the labors of the mechanic arts
are so divided, and carried to so high a finish, it is incredible
how comfortable a backwoodsman will render his
cabin with only skins of the chase, and a few of the simplest
tools and implements. We furnished our beds with
frames fixed on crotches. We had our permanent table.
The Spanish beard, or long moss, furnished soft and
elastic mattresses. The young ladies, with the cheerfulness
and even gaiety of rustic brides, fitting up the cabins
of their bridegrooms, put their hands to the furnishing and
arranging the comforts of our new abode. We made
their father and them a comfortable place for sleeping,
before night, we projected a hundred improvements for
the morrow, and our thoughts were already expatiating
in the natural range from utility to ornament; for the
young ladies observed, that they intended to be shepherdesses
of taste, and genuine Arcadians, and would have
matters within to correspond with so sweet a place without.
We had our prayers at the close of the day, and our
hymn of thankfulness from our fair chaplains. As his
daughters assisted De Benvelt to his clean and fresh moss
couch, “Now, mein Gott,” said he, “be thanked. This
is the first place where I have stretched myself at ease,
since I have been hunting the tamned liberties.”

CHAPTER III.

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

I have seen and survived the horrors of the different
Mexican revolutions, changes almost as fruitful in treachery
and unnatural crime, as the revolution in France.
I have acted my own part in these revolutions, the true
character of which has been so little known abroad.
My heart has sickened at the sight of guilt and crime,
and I had my share in the general suffering. A sadly
pleasing remembrance remains of the days and months
that I spent with this amiable family in this shelter of
mountains. The storm of nature sometimes raged below
us, and the more terrible storm of the human passions
was passing in its wrath over this devoted land. In travelling
over this immense country, I have seen the ravages
of war, fields, districts, wide tracts of country desolated,
and swept with the horrid besom of war. I have seen
sacked towns, half-burnt houses, every fire extinct, the
streets filled with ruins, and the bones of men, children, and
domestic animals scattered in the court-yards. But this
mass of tragedy was too vast and indistinct for me to feel
and comprehend. I bitterly and minutely remember the
joys, sufferings, and sorrows of this narrow, secluded, and
amiable circle. But even these sorrows, while they have
left a mournful recollection, soothe me in the remembrance.
Our communion had a kind of holy serenity.
Even our gaiety was marked with an air of pensiveness.

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

Our solemn conversations sometimes turned upon the
grand and beautiful nature spread below us. But the
natural vivacity of the young ladies, changed by the late
fearful events, had undergone a complete revolution.
Even in the midst of their laughter, something marked
that the heart was sad. Most of these conversations,
which more often turned upon the vanity of earth, the
nothingness of all that which gives scope to the hopes and
fears of men on the earth, have passed away unrecorded,
and are remembered only by Him, who writeth down these
thoughts in a book, from which they cannot be erased.
If you are a lover, as you appear to be, of the simplicity
of nature, you will allow me a little more detail, while I
dwell upon the short and simple annals of a residence,
which includes, for that time, the history of people wholly
disconnected from the world. They record the sorrows
of people, who endured them in silence and without repining.
Three of them have passed away from the ills of
life. On my memory is pictured the sweet spot, where
they lingered and died. I see the parallel graves at the
foot of their favorite sycamore. I can fancy that I hear
the wind mustering in the hills above where they sleep,
and that I can see the shadows of the passing clouds flitting
over their solitary graves.

We had provisions sufficient for our subsistence for a
month, and we had plenty of powder and lead. It pained
me, that we were obliged sometimes to select one from
the droves of buffaloes and deer that we saw almost daily
winding their way up and down the mountains. Bryan
had removed to our cave all the remainder of our baggage
from the foot of the mountains. We had every article of
the first necessity. And we had made more arrangements
in the way of comfort, than you can imagine, with such a

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

limited stock of materials, could be brought about. Still
there were some luxuries, that use had rendered to them
as to others, indispensable. How the want of these things
affects our comfort, is seldom imagined, until that want is
actually felt. Bryan feared nothing, and was obnoxious
to no party. He proposed himself to undertake an expedition
to Durango, to procure these articles, and that
he might bring us back a history of what was transacting
in that world, from which we had fled. He was not only
fearless, but he was faithful; and he saw with instinctive
quickness the views of others, and would always be on his
guard. Of course we could have entire confidence in
his management of that part of his commission, which
must be left to his discretion, and full persuasion that he
would commit neither himself nor us. He felt himself
honored by this entire confidence, and undertook his commission
with alacrity.

There must be many Robinson Crusoe arrangements,
for we had all been so sick of murder and crime, and had
been so nearly on the verge of destruction, that we determined
to remain concealed here, until the revolution took
a more decided character, or until we could return to the
world with safety, or at least as long as this place would
serve us as a retreat. I had acquired some skill and
experience in buckwoods management. I was chief
hunter. Bryan was envoy extraordinary; and, when not
on a mission, was servant, cook, cabinet-maker, upholsterer,
and blacksmith. The young ladies each took their day
in superintending the kitchen establishment. Indeed, until
our interior arrangements were completed, which was a
work of some weeks, our provinces were in danger of interfering,
and our duties were confounded. An important
part of this arrangement was the adding to our natural

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

defences squared timbers, so connected and adjusted, as
to render our habitation in front one of those rude block-houses,
so well known by the first settlers of our country,
as a strong defence against the Indians, and in which a
couple of resolute men have often sustained a siege against
hundreds of the savages, and finally driven them off. Our
horses, when not employed, fed quietly in the little plain
in front of our dwelling, and we found them indispensable
in removing these timbers to their destined place. In
raising them to their ultimate situation, the ladies put their
fair hands to the work, and even the Saxon, cheered at
the sight of these rustic labors, hobbled to give us a lift.

We had plenty of carabines, and we taught the young
ladies the use of them. I had the pleasure, as a military
man, of drilling them to their exercise. They shrunk at
first from their lessons, and shut their eyes, and turned
pale at the discharge of their pieces. But when I explained
to them, that the use of these carabines, added to
mine and Bryan's, might be the means of defending us
against any common force that might be sent to apprehend
us, and that it might save us all, as well as their father,
from another captivity, they no longer blenched, and were
soon trained to their proper place and duties, in case of
attack. I complimented them liberally on their progress,
and they answered, that the motive was sufficient to render
them Amazons. These were our rougher duties.
But we had our assigned hours for pursuits, more proper
to their character. We wanted books, but we had drawing
paper, and materials for drawing, from the baggage
wagon of the Royalists. We had the most beautiful specimens
of flowers, and shrubs, and evergreens, the palmetto,
the jessamine, the meadow-pink, the magnolia-cup, and
the nymphea-nelumbo, the most splendid of the tribe, and

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

the American aloe, and the agave, and these decked our
parlor with more than oriental magnificence and perfumes,
beyond “Araby the blest.” The ladies put themselves
to the task of learning to transfer their rich hues and
graceful forms to the paper. Another part of their time
was devoted to religious exercises, and I soon learned to
unite my voice with theirs in their beautiful Saxon hymns.
Another part of the time was devoted to conversations, in
which the Saxon gave us his adventures and wanderings,
up to the day when, to use his invariable phrase, “he
started to hunt after the tamned liberties.”

Our table was luxurious. We had meat of course in
the greatest abundance and variety. The mountain potatoe
grew plentifully in the terraces of the mountains,
and was an excellent vegetable. There were many wild
fruits and roots, whose properties Bryan knew, that added
variety to our repast. With sugar we could well dispense.
In almost every hollow tree was a swarm of bees, and our
residence flowed with honey, if not with milk. Bread,
tea, and coffee, were the only articles of the first necessity
that we could not supply, and we reserved our small stock
of Parso for the wounded and feeble father, and for
emergencies.

Our several departments and functions were soon settled
with great exactness. Our more servile duties we
so arranged, as to become a part of our pleasures. We
passed much time in the quiet and delightful conversations
suggested by the time and the place, in dwelling upon
the past, in talking over the characters with whom we
had been conversant, and the dangers from which we
had escaped, which seemed the more appalling, when
viewed from this secure and quiet retreat. Even the
Saxon seemed almost to forget that he had seen better

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

days, to participate something of our increasing cheerfulness,
and to thrive in the bland feeling of this serene
and mountain atmosphere. Now and then the dark outline
of the future, and the remembrance of the past, came
over his mind “like a cloud,” and the prodigious force of
other and long established habits, was felt, and then he
relapsed into silent and gloomy meditation.

I felt, I believe, more than the rest, one great and bitter
privation, the want of books. And the want of this luxury,
to one who has been used to it, until it has become a
necessary, is soon felt to be one of the most tormenting
privations. To converse with friends is delightful, and
will stand in stead longer than almost any thing else. To
converse with nature is delightful, but the eye tires in this
converse, if the mind does not. To converse with God
must be the highest, as it is the holiest enjoyment; but in
this employment our weak physical elements soon inform
us, that we are not yet emancipated minds. Books are
the only calm, quiet, unsating, untiring companions, that
we always meet again with the same pleasure as at first.
The enjoyment of reading is to the mind, just what the
colour of green is to the eye, such a happy blending of all
the elements of enjoyment, as is capable of being tasted
forever without satiety.

To supply the want of these, as well as of the other little
articles, we proposed to start Bryan on the projected expedition
to Durango. He was to procure bread, the staff of
life, and wine, which, as he prepared it, was life itself,
and tea and coffee for the physical nature, and books,
the food of the mind. We formed a variety of schemes
for obtaining these articles in safety, and the result was,
that he should go to Durango, and find a retired residence,
making himself as little known as possible; that he should

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

purchase the requisite supply, and transport them on his
horse to a convenient distance from the city, and secrete
them in a place, whence he could convey them all at one
load, in our wagon, to our residence. We laid down
abundance of precautions, which, after all, might be of
little use, as it was impossible to foresee and guard against
emergencies, and we were, after all, obliged to repose the
main trust in his own native sagacity. We started him on
the best and fleetest of our horses, and it was, after all, a
solemn day, when we took leave of this faithful and cheerful
creature.

We could again say, that time passed both swiftly and
pleasantly in this rural and isolated place. Banished
from earth, its passions and cares, we only felt so much
excitement, as gave us the pleasurable consciousness of
existence. The summer, which in that climate possesses a
sky so bright and cloudless, had the fervors of its sun so
cooled by the mountain breeze, as never to render the
heat uncomfortable in the shade. Its perfect elasticity
and purity inspired the delicious sensations of high health,
and invigorated exercise of all the powers of life. We
had most delightful morning and evening walks, under the
shade across our little table plain. We climbed the wild
cliffs, and found out the dells of the mountains. The ladies
often amused themselves with trials of agility and daring,
which could easiest scale a precipice, or stand with the
firmest head upon the dizzy eminence, that looked down
upon the dark caverns below. We hunted out those green
slopes on the mountnins, where the yellow trumpet-flower
exposes its broad cup with a lustre, surpassing the richest
gilding. We paused for rest and refreshment in some one
of those sweet spots of shade, verdure, springs, prospect,
sublimity, and loneliness, which nature seems to have

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

formed in these recesses, for her own peculiar enjoyment.
What conversations, alternately gay, tender, and solemn,
we had! How often for these amiable and unsophisticated
girls, who felt and loved nature to a passion, have I
culled the wild flowers, and brought forth all my little
stock of botanieal knowledge, and quoted all my best remembrances
of poetry in my own language, where according
to my judgement, the most consecrated stores are
in preservation, a language which they now well understood,
and which their enunciation and German accent
rendered delightful. Not unfrequently, our thoughts, taking
their flight from the summits of the mountains before us,
soared to the Eternal throne. For though our religious
conversations might not have been deemed exactly orthodox,
when measured by any of those graduated sliders,
which doctors in theology have invented for dividing the
necessary measure of faith into inches, and hundredths,
we often discussed religion, often dwelt in solemn earnestness
upon the wisdom, benevolence, and immensity of
that Omnipotent Being, who reared the immense piles in
our view, and our talk was often of the life to come.

They were beautiful and fascinating girls, and as such
they always impressed beholders. But with them constantly,
as I was, and uniformly treated with the confiding
tenderness of sisters, I was conscious of feeling for them,
only the interest and the attachment of a brother. I thought
of them, when absent, with none of the feverish and tumultuous
sensations with which I recalled the memory of
another. All my thoughts of them, were in keeping with
the scene of our residence; as tranquil, as the repose of
the mountains, as bland as the mountain breeze. The
sad recollection incessantly returns to me, that three of this
family are taking their last sleep in that sweet and lonely

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

spot, and all that we talked, and all that we enjoyed together
there, is now only “the memory of joys that are
past, pleasant and mournful to the soul.”

In due process of time, Bryan returned, and his return
was a day of jubilee. We had a tea party, to which we
were all invited, and our parlor was decked with an extraordinary
profusion of flowers; for Bryan had returned safe
and sound, had attained all the objects of his mission, and
managed them with the wisdom of the serpent, and the
innocence of the dove. We had a good store of books, an
ample supply of wine, and plenty of tea and coffee; and all
that he was unable to bring with him, was deposited in a
place, whence they could be easily and safely transported
here in a wagon. One consideration, had, unaccountably,
escaped all our recollections. We had thought nothing of
the essential article of dress. To me, it was an unimportant
omission. To the Saxon, who was dainty in these
points, it was more important. But to the young ladies,
who had never been called to stint the farthest and
most expensive range of fancy, in the variety and elegance
of this article, to be confined, week after week, to the
casual dress which they wore when they went to prison, I
knew enough of female nature to understand how painfully
this privation must be felt. They affected, indeed,
to consider it as a trifle, and we talked of fig-leaves and
dresses of skins, and of the innocence which felt no
shame in the want of these things. But I was perfectly
aware, that as daughters of our common mother, they
would have felt some of those splendid dresses, which
they used to wear in Durango, no unimportant accession
to their comforts.

We observed that Bryan seemed rather reluctant to undo
all his budget, and that his countenance bore the marks

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

of painful concealment. Such was his interest for us, that
little by little, it all came out. And such were the terrors
excited by this full disclosure, that, so far from thinking of
their oversight in the article of dress, the young ladies
were hardly willing that Bryan should incur the exposure
of taking the wagon to the place, where our articles were
hidden, to bring them home. The amount of his intelligence
was this. The Conde had not only resigned, but
was under the suspicion of having abetted the attack on
the Royal corps, that escorted us. In order to vindicate
himself from this suspicion, he had joined in all the measures
against us. “What do you think,” said Bryan,
was the first thing which I saw stuck on the posts and pillars,
and at the corners of the streets, when I entered the
city? Why, God bless your Honor, just this thing; a reward
of five thousand pesos for your Honor's head, and
the same for that of your friend, and five hundred for
mine. By Saint Patrick! my hair rose on end. But,
devil burn them, if I let out a word that I was Bryan himself.”
But he ascertained, that the country was in such a
state of internal discord, and there were so many commencing
rebellions, so many partizan skirmishes, and so
many guerilla parties, so many battles and massacres,
so much mutual distrust, and so little preponderanceof
any one party over the other, that he thought us perfectly
safe, while we kept ourselves concealed among the mountains.
Every individual was too anxious about the safety
of his own head, to think of earning five thousand pesos,
by taking ours. We inferred, on the whole, that we were
in little danger, except from needy and guilty assassins;
and unless many of them leagued together, we felt as
though we should be able to give a good account of them
Our apprehensions were somewhat quieted by another

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

consideration. The general impression in the city was
that in our flight, we had made for the United States, and
as they had not heard of our arrest, it was supposed we
had succeeded in our escape. In this conversation before
the De Benvelts, all that he pretended to know of the
Conde's affairs, was, that he and his family lived in profound
retirement, and were seldom seen in the city.

When we were in private, Bryan admitted, that contrary
to my orders, he had been at the palace. “I could
not keep,” said he, “from going to see the old place
again, and indeed, your Honor, I swore to Martha, by my
mother, the last time I saw her, that I would give her a
little bit of information about your Honor, whenever I
could. So I made myself known to the servants, and the
Conde, and his lady, and Martha, and all came to see me
in a private way, and they made much of me too, that did
they. Devil burn them, how they came at the thing, is
more than I can guess; but Dorothy, that you used to
learn grammar, and all the Conde's people beside, knew
well where your Honor was, and how we have spent our
time, and all about us here. Martha said but a little before
the rest of them; ay, but I saw the jewel alone; and
then she asked me such a heap of questions, and shed so
many tears, and inquired, how we all lived together here?
And so I told her, `As thick as three in a bed.' `Ay,' says
she, `Bryan, I expect so. But it's not the decent thing, for
young ladies to live together in a cave, and run about the
mountains with a young man. You may tell your master,
that I think so, too.' Says I, `God bless your Ladyship!
They are as sweet, sober, demure, so, so kind little
bodies, as you can find on the earth, as modest as nuns,
and as pretty as angels.' `Why really,' says she, `Bryan,
you have the gift of the gab, and one would think you was

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

smitten too. The prettier they are, the less ought they
to behave in this way.' So I sees which way the wind
sets, and so I says, `God love your Ladyship, they pray
and sing like nuns, and I dare say, never think a bad
thought. And for my master, the girls call him brother,
and I am sure he loves them only as dear good sisters.
But God love your Ladyship, he loves you after another
sort of a fashion, and better, I'll swear, than he loves his
own eyes.' Upon this, she makes up her mouth, this way,
and smiles, and says, `Do you think so, Bryan?' `Indeed
do I,' says I. `For he sometimes stops short, and
he looks towards your quarter, and he looks big and
solemn, this way; and out comes the hard sigh. Ay,
your Ladyship, I know what all that means.' And she
says, `Bryan, you have learned to flatter. Your master
and the young ladies have had too much of that talk about
brother and sisters. You can tell them, that they are in
no danger at all. Persuade them to come away, and live
with me, and I will answer for them. That will be better
and safer, and more decent too, than to live in that cave,
and wander about with a young man, that, after all, is no
brother of theirs.' `But,' says I, `your Ladyship, would
you have them leave their poor old lame father?' `Ay,
that indeed,' says she, `Bryan, is a thing I don't know
how to manage.' Then, God forgive me, I runs on again,
to tell her Ladyship, that I could swear you never thought
of any body, except in a brotherly way, but her Ladyship,
and that I was sure you loved her better than the light of
heaven. And that pleased her, your Honor, to the life,
and she says a thousand and one kind things about you,
and asked all how your Honor looked and talked, and all
that. Still the kindest thing about you was said last, and
the big round pearls stood in her glistening eyes, when I

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

was about to come away; and then she says, `Bryan,
swear to me, that you won't tell him that I have said a
word to you about him. Say nothing about it to any
body. For,' she says, `in the old proverb, Secreto entre
dos es secreto de Dios. Secreto entre tres es secreto de
todo el mundo.' `Ay,' says I, `I am as close as a dead
man.' And then she almost showed a heart to kiss me,
when I came away.”

The articles that had been overlooked in Bryan's
mission to Durango, were soon supplied, and in a way
which convinced us at once that we had friends in the
the city, and that by them, at least, the place and circumstances
of our retreat were well known. As we went out
of our dwelling, a few mornings after Bryan's return,
we found a large package, labelled in Spanish for the
Misses Benvelt. It happened to be precisely on the day
in which Bryan returned with his wagon load of goods
from the place where he had concealed them, near Durango.
Thus all our wants were supplied at one time,
for, on opening the package, it was found to contain every
requisite article of a lady's wardrobe for the three young
ladies. In the same package were changes of dress for
De Benvelt and me. This ample and expensive package
was the gift of the father of my former pupil, Dorothea, at
her request. It evinced, on her part, a considerate generosity,
a noble use of opulence, and a kindness of heart,
which struck us all with a deep feeling of gratitude. De
Benvelt was delighted with feeling himself once more
clad as formerly, and to see his daughters looking as they
had in Durango. He rubbed his hands, and exclaimed,
“Now, mein Gott, if this is not what I have read in the
Pibles, how the prophet was fed by de rafens!” There
was a letter in Spanish, along with the package. It

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

informed us, that to a few friends the place and circumstances
of our retreat were well known; but that we need
have no apprehensions from that knowledge, for that those
friends would only avail themselves of it to put all
others on the wrong track; that it was understood that
the things sent must be indispensable to our comfort,
and that it was hoped we should use them, as the giver
would have done, had situations been reversed. It was
remarked, that it was wholly unnecessary to inform us
how the giver came by this knowledge of our retreat, and
that all it concerned us to know, was, that our secret was
perfectly safe with them. It was hoped, that the times
would soon become tranquil and safe; that we should get
effectually cured of our patriotic fever, return under a
general amnesty, and every thing go on as formerly. A
few remarks at the close, excited in me the deepest sorrow
and regret. The young ladies read the letter first,
and I saw, by the change in their countenances, that they
read something which inflicted the keenest anguish. They
handed it to me. In a kind of postscript to the letter,
were these words:—“The friends of the Misses Benvelt
have but one opinion about the intercourse between them
and their former teacher. They can return with perfect
safety to Durango at any time. As well for his reputation
as theirs, they are earnestly requested to return.”

As much as I rejoiced in this addition to the comforts
of these young ladies, so much was I grieved with this
cruel intimation at the close of the letter, otherwise so
considerate and kind. I tasked all my powers to explain
at away, and account for their impressions, on the ground,
that some gossiping spy had invisibly pryed into our
privacies, and misrepresented the character of our sentiments
and our intercourse. The blow, I saw, had taken

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

effect and they were struck to the heart. It was past all
my skill, in the slightest degree, to heal the wound.
That they could fly from danger to their father and to me,
and in avoiding exposure of one kind, subject themselves
to pain and exposure, so keenly felt by all modest women,
of a different and more appalling kind, seemed to them a
thought not to be endured. The more deeply they felt
the perfect innocence and simplicity of our intercourse,
the more bitterly they felt the cruelty of these suspicions.
“There is no getting away from evil,” they said. “The very
attempt to fly from one danger, only plunges us into a worse.
Whatever there may be for you, there is no refuge for us,
but in the grave. Of all evils that we have yet encountered,
calumny is the worst.” I urged upon them the
necessity of relying upon the inward consciousness of integrity.
I clearly discovered their unabated regard for
me, and their fondness for the unrestrained frankness and
gaiety of our conversations, walks, and amusements. Their
eyes were opened, and seeing the light in which others,
especially ladies of their own age and condition, viewed
this intercourse, they began to contemplate it with shame
and fear themselves. The charm of their walks and conversations,
the confiding naïveté of sisters in their whole
relations with me, were laid aside. There was now restraint,
and distance, and painful blushes, where there
had formerly been nothing but the unsuspicious confidence
of man before the fall.

Bryan had unknowingly inflicted another wound, for
he had carelessly given them to understand, that in his
late excursion to Durango, he had been at the Conde's
palace, and they had finally drawn from him all the secret
of his conversation with Martha. They saw that she was
impressed upon this subject in the same manner with

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

Dorothea. They had always regarded her as a model,
her opinions upon all subjects as oracular, and her decisions
as merciful and just. “So then,” they said, “if
we survive danger, we can never hope to survive shame.”
“Why not then,” I cheerfully asked, “why not remain
here, as long as we live? We feel that we are innocent.
We can here appeal to God and our consciences, and so
long as we are all satisfied with one another, why need
we regard what the world says?” To all this they replied,
by asking, if it were not better to follow the advice
given, and return to Durango? “Mein Gott!” cried the
father in an agony. “Yes, go, if you wish to part from
your old lame father for ever. But I hope you will have
the goodness to get this young man to strike off my head
with his sabre first. He is a good young man, I grant
you, and harmless of all the tamned lies that these gossiping
girls talk about you. But he will not be hurt with me
for saying, that he can never be to me in place of my
tear girls.” This statement was conclusive and final, and
they never again resumed the subject of leaving their
father.

The bard said, “Sorrows come not single spies.” The
father's wound, with the coming on of autumn, and with
the visible chagrin and increasing silence and dejection of
the daughters, grew worse. Hitherto he had regularly
hobbled his two or three turns, morning and evening,
across the little plain. When fatigued, he sat down on a
bench, with its moss cushion, purposely prepared for his
repose, under the sycamore, and appeared to enjoy our
promenade, as we gaily tripped back and forward. All
at once he complained of the excessive fatigue of this
exertion, and was only lifted to the door to see us walk,
and to contemplate the rising and the setting sun. Bryan

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

would take him in his brawny arms, and carry him about,
handling him as tenderly as a child. We all redoubled
our exertions. The daughters, at my suggestion, not
only suppressed every appearance of dejection but assumed
a painful and constrained gaiety.

It was but too evident, that these deep evils of the
heart, coming so together, involved, with the decline of
their father, their own sorrow and decline. Wilhelmine
had always seemed to me the most sensitive and delicate
of the three. The lily in her cheek most preponderated
over the rose. It is impossible to measure the effect of
sorrow on different natures by any other scale, than actual
experiment. The buoyant natures of the two younger
sunk first. The roses on their cheeks faded daily away.
Our charming walks among the mountains, where we
talked the flowing heart, contemplated the glorious and
spirit-stirring scenery, and courted the mountain breeze,
the reckless laugh, the exuberant gaiety, that was delighted
with the passing trifles, all these were gone. When the
father took his daily sleep, we sometimes repeated the
walks, and mounted the same heights, and contemplated
the same scenes as before. But they walked slowly and
by themselves, and were restrained and distant, in permitting
the common courtesies, that they used rather to court.
A slight fermentation changes the nature of the purest wine.
A little change in the mind and circumstances, changes
what was delightful, to a source of pain. When I saw
that I was actually a restraint upon them, I told them that
they had enough to encounter, beside the pain of my
presence, and that if they were afraid of me, or doubted
me, or deemed that my presence was doubtful in its influence
upon their reputation, I would leave them, and seek
for myself a more solitary retreat. “Ah no!” they said,

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

with one voice, “that would kill us all at one blow.
What could we do without you? What need we care
what they say of us? All our world is here.”

The autumns of this region, especially in the mountains,
are inexpressibly delightful. The azure of the sky is
charming. The coolness and dryness of the atmosphere
remove the languors of summer. We had in the summer
often anticipated the coming of autumn, with delight.
At last the sober autumn, so desired, came. The thousand
wild fruits, with which our table was to be decked,
were matured. The mellow and impressive operation of
autumn upon the mountain scenery was produced. We
experienced the invigorating influence of a keen and frosty
air by night, which, we had hoped, would have given such
a delightful aspect to the blaze of the domestic fire, that
would illumine our cave. Bryan produced the fruits, the
smoking coffee, the venison, the Parso, and he took the
feeble Saxon in his arms, like a child, and placed him on
a kind of rude, but comfortable sofa, made soft with moss,
and spread with buffalo-robes. But the expected joy
would not come. We tried the sweet hymn, but the
voices of the daughters sunk away, and instead of hearing
the prayers and the hymn, we had only silent tears.
“Mein Gott,” said the father, sobbing himself, “why will
ye cry, and break my heart? Bryan, give me that bottle,
and that cup. Here is to `fader land,' and let us be
comfortable.” The very effort to take his customary cup
of wine, showed his weakness, and after a few vain efforts
to parry, or to hide the thrusts of nature, and pass them
off for drowsiness, he requested to be carried from the
fire to the bed. The paleness of his daughters seemed to
say, `Our father will never share this fire with us again.'
Two of them, though not so helpless, appeared as deep

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

in their decline, as himself. He never, after that, arose,
except to be dressed, and managed as an infant, while the
indefatigable Bryan, beat up, and prepared his couch.

As the frame of De Benvelt was thus imperceptibly
wasting away, nothing on our part was spared, to rekindle
his hopes, or soothe his decline, which friendship, or filial
tenderness, could invent or offer. I had been lately more
assiduous in my habit of wandering in the mountains,
partly with a view of seeking something new, in the way
of aliment, to suit the ever varying fancies of a sick man's
appetite, partly to throw off the debilitating gloom,
resulting from breaking off my former active habits, and
spending the greater portion of my time with the invalid,
and partly to indulge in the contemplation of nature, in
her most imposing features. My excursions, since the
sickness of the family, had been short, and confined to the
immediate vicinity of our retreat. One morning, after I
had seen De Benvelt sink into a refreshing sleep, and his
daughters apparently more cheerful than I had seen
them for some time, I determined to extend my ramble
beyond its accustomed range. I took my gun, and having
lighted a trunk of fat pine with fire, whose ruddy flame
and smouldering smoke might serve as a distant beacon,
to guide my returning steps, I sallied out alone, and
climbed from crag to crag, along this rugged spur of the
Cordilleras, until I had extended my walk to a great distance
from the cave, and saw from my elevation far beneath
me, the smoke of my beacon-fire lifting its cylindrical
pillars aloft, amidst the blue and still atmosphere of
the mountains. What a spectacle arrayed itself below
me! How pure and elastic the air, which, perhaps, never
mortal had breathed before! Far away below me, the
boundless plain of the prairies slept, like the ocean in a

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

calm. Above me, towered, pile above pile, those mighty
masses, which seemed the ancient battlements of heaven.
I stood wrapt in profound meditation. My thoughts expanded,
my imagination soared, even beyond the immense
prospect before me. There is an inspiration in mountain
scenery, at once soothing and elevating, the happiest mixture
of poesy and devotion. Amidst this tranquil entrancement
of meditation and reverie, I was suddenly
startled by the report, apparently of a musquet, at a considerable
distance still above me. The reverberations
from a thousand caverns, became fainter and fainter, until
Echo herself seemed exhausted with her own magic mimicry.
“Can this,” thought I, “have proceeded from the
hand of man? Are these sublime and remote solitudes,
peopled by other exiles, who have, like us, toiled in benevolence
for our fellow men, and been by them driven,
for a refuge, to the caverns of the mountains? Or is it
the precursor of a volcano, laboring to give vent to those
central fires, which these ancient mountains have smothered
for ages?” I was suspended in doubt, wonder, and
astonishment. I determined, however, to make my way
in the direction of the report, and attempt to unravel the
mystery. With great difficulty, and not without danger
of being precipitated into some of those deep ravines,
which had been washed out by mountain torrents, I reached
the summit of a high peak, which commanded an extensive
view. At its base, and not more than fifty paces
from where I stood, I discovered the mouth of a cavern,
and a Spanish musket standing by the side of it. While
I was surveying this new object of wonder, a man slowly
stepped from the cave. He was, apparently, about forty,
brown and swarthy, with untrimmed mustachios, and a
long black beard; and he was clad in a dress of leather.

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

But there was the dignity of self-estimation, and of manly
firmness in his port, and a searching glance in his keen
black eye, which struck me with awe. Reflection taught
me in a moment, that this was no ordinary anchorite. He
had not yet espied me. He stood for a moment, seemingly
wrapped in profound and melancholy thought. As
he turned his eye toward the spot where I stood, he instantly
grasped his musket, and cried out in a tone of authority,
Qui en vive? “A friend,” I answered in the same
language. He fixed his eye, sternly, and steadily upon
me, holding his piece in a position for instant use, if inspection
should afford the occasion for it. “Hold!”
I cried. “Whoever you are, or whatever may be your
motive for seeking this wild asylum, I come not to spy
you out, or disturb the solitude of your retreat. My approach
to this place, was the result of pure accident. As I
come with no hostile intent, no disposition to break in
upon the sanctity of your refuge, or pry into the mystery,
with which you have seen fit to shroud yourself, there can
be no ground of hostility between us.” “I took you,”
said he, “for one of those miserable, hireling tools of despotism,
who, lured by the reward offered for my head,
had scented out the haunt of a Patriot exile.” “I am,”
I returned, “like you, an exile myself, and like you a
price is set on my head. I am an Anglo-American, and
lately an adherent of Morelos, and in the thickest of the
fight against the satellites of despotism. You may have
heard of the unfortunate fight of Palos Blancos. Defeated
in that fatal field, with a sick friend, I am an outlaw,
and a tenant of nature, in these wild mountains.” The
musket dropt from his hands, as if he had been palsystruck.
“A companion of Morelos,” cried he, “and an
Anglo-American! And now I discover from your accent,

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

that you are of English origin. I love even the language
in which Washington and his great compatriots spoke.
That dialect is the consecrated idiom of freedom, and of
independent and noble thinking. The day will come,
when over the globe, he, who shall speak that language,
will claim the same exemptions and immunities, in consequence,
which he demanded in the ancient days, who said,
`I am a Roman citizen.' There is an air of candor in
your countenance, which inspires confidence. Approach!”
I descended the peak, and approached the mouth of the
cavern. “Before you enter this sanctuary of an exile,”
said he, holding out his hand, “pledge me a soldier's
honor, and a Patriot's faith, that you will never reveal the
secret of this interview, at least until Mexico is free.
My name among men was once of too much import, to
become even now the theme of a passing tale.” I grasped
his hand, and gave him the most sacred watch-word of
the Patriots. “Ah,” said he, embracing me, “dear is
that word. Come in, and see the retirement of a Patriot
soldier.” The cavern was deep and gloomy, a perfect
contrast to that, where dwelt my declining associates, and
without even the requisite accommodations for the most
hardy soldier. But the tenant had a mind, that had converted
the stone floor to a couch of down. “You see
before you, said he, “a person, who was once one of the
most distinguished natives of this country, so delightful,
and so favored of nature. I might have shared in the
guilty honors and distinctions of its oppressors. But my
heart told me, even from a child, that God and nature
intended, that this great country should one day be free.
I was among the first, who disdainfully shook our chains
in the face of our oppressors. I was among the first to
join in the effort to cast them from us. While there was

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

a blow to be struck, I was not inactive. After the fall of
Hidalgo, the struggle was kept up by successive chiefs,
who rallied round the standard of independence, a motley
multitude, dependent for subsistence upon their swords.
We carried on a wild, guerilla warfare. But the superior
discipline of the Royal troops, and the corruption and
unprincipled ignorance of men who had been brutalized
in long and effeminate bondage, and who, having broken
their chains, became wild and unfeeling tyrants in their
turn, and practised indiscriminate slaughter upon defenceless
and unoffending families, and spread horror and dismay
in their path, caused our army to dissolve like snow
in the sun-beams. Our hopes revived for a moment,
when Mina came, like a flaming meteor, from the north,
and with a handful of brave and devoted heroes, checked
for a moment the successful march of oppression. But
his brilliant career was cut short, and he was borne down,
the victim at once of treachery and of his own valor.
After the fall of this great man a few daring spirits still
clung to the cause, desperate as it was. We retreated
to a fortress apparently impregnable; but were followed,
and attacked by an overwhelming superiority of numbers.
My tongue falters even now, in making the humiliating
confession. But a very few, beside myself, escaped the
carnage of that day. Proscribed, outlawed in the land of
my fathers, banished from kindred and every charity and
endearment of life, we had no other resource than to forswear
our kind. A price being set upon our heads, we passed
from place to place in various disguises, more than once
escaping, as it seemed, only by a miracle. I retreated
from mountain to mountain, until I buried myself in this
cavern. I have been offered any of the guilty honors or
places in the gift of Ferdinand the VII, if I would abandon

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

the cause of my country. But in the free air of these
mountains, and in the hearing of the Divine ear, I have
sworn an oath upon my soul, never to make any compromise
with oppression. No, I will give this to flesh to the
vultures, or the wolves, and these bones to bleach unburied
upon these crags, ere I ever return to man, until there is
some prospect that my country may yet be free.” He
paused, as it seemed, from irrepressible agitation. I attempted
to raise his hopes, and to present brighter
views of the cause, than he seemed to entertain. I assured
him, that in every land, virtuous and free minds
not only sympathized with his country, but anticipated,
with the confidence of prophecy, her ultimate emancipation,
and the period, when the sun which now never sets
upon the slaves of Spain in the new world, shall illumine
in his glorious path, none but freemen.

`When Chimborazo over earth, air, wave,
Shall glare with Titan eye, and see no slave.'

I then gave him a brief detail of the melancholy circumstances,
which detained me in the sick family of De
Benvelt, and recommended to him, in awaiting the time
to strike for independence again, to seek a temporary
asylum in the United States. “No,” said he, “I love,
I venerate that country; but will never fly from my own.
The stranger knoweth not, and cannot know, what charities
I have been obliged to fly, in coming here. My
heart bleeds at the recollection, but no sympathy can
avail me. But if you have mistaken the despondence of
a father, torn from his children, of a husband, torn from
the bosom of the wife of his youth, for despair of the
cause of freedom, you have misinterpreted my feelings.
Seven millions of men that inhale such an air, and see
such mountains, can never be held in final bondage. The

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

spirit of freeedom may be at this moment, like the fabled
Enceladus, pressed down as under the incumbent weight
of mountains. But the subterranean fires will ultimately
burst forth. Let our oppressors beware of the explosion.
From what quarter we are to expect redress, it is impossible
to foresee. But the day must, and will come. Great
God! Shall a despotism, as icy, and as eternal as the
snows upon these mountains, forever blast this lovliest
portion of creation? No. The generation that is now
rising, is tearing off the veil with which despotism and
priestcraft have hoodwinked them, and are beginning to
feel that they are men. While such men still breathe in
Mexico, as Guerrero, and Bravo, and Santanna, the
cause cannot utterly perish.” For my part, my heart
kindled again at the tone with which he spoke, and in
which he gave me the details of various scenes, where he
had been engaged. Humanity and friendship called back
my thoughts to the place from which I came. I described
the condition and circumstances of the amiable and suffering
family in which I dwelt. The simple narrative of their
sufferings, proved that this man, apparently of steel and
rock, this man who seemed to have no sympathies but
with his country, had a heart of the quickest and tenderest
sensibility. He lamented bitterly that he could do nothing
for them, but pity them. “It may be,” said he, “that
they and you will hear from me again. I am well informed
of what is passing in that world below us. I am waiting
for the moment, to rally the friends of independence
round her standard once more. If we should ever conquer
our freedom, they will then see, if I am not the friend
of the friendless, the deliverer of the oppressed, and the
hope of such people, as those with whom you sojourn.” I
viewed the singular man who stood before me; awe-struck

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

at his manner, and the tones of his voice. “Such are the
extraordinary men,” thought, I “whom Providence raises
up and qualifies for such emergencies.” I ventured, indirectly,
to ask him his name. “Your curiosity on this
point,” said he, “does not dishonor me. I doubt not, that
you are a man of honor, and that I may safely trust you.
If this great land should bequeath a heritage of bondage to
the generation to come, I should not desire that my name
should reach posterity, and I should choose to live here
alone, with God and my conscience, and that this cavern
should be my tomb. But if, as I trust, a more happy
destiny awaits it, if hereafter the corrupt and blinding
despotism of this period should be succeeded by a young
and virtuous republic, true to its own glory and the sacred
principles of liberty, and flourishing in all the arts of
peace and humanity, I trust, that my name will not be utterly
forgotten. You will then remember this interview.
You will welcome your proscribed friends to all the succour
and protection, that Guadeloupe Victoria can bestow.
Remember, that he predicted the future happiness and
glory of his country.” “Victoria!” cried I, “am I then
in the presence of that man—” He modestly checked
me, reminding me, that we had both forfeited our names
among the stars. He turned the conversation again to
the sick and suffering family, to which, I told him, I felt
it was time for me return. When invited to honor that
family with his presence, he remarked, that he could
bring them nothing but unavailing sympathy, and that it
seemed necessary for him to see no more scenes to soften
the heart. “Patriots,” said he, “in these times, must renounce
humanity, and act as simple intelligences, alike
above fear, interest, or feeling. If the time should ever
arrive, when I can wipe away a single tear from the eyes

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

of your distressed friends, then will I come to visit them
and you.” I turned and left him with profound regret
and admiration.

As De Benvelt's strength declined, as his body wasted, until
the skin of his once round figure could almost be wrapped
about him, his sensibility and the powers of his mind made
themselves more conspicuous. Before his girls, he always
spoke cheerfully, prophesying the return of good times,
and the chances of their shortly being allowed an unmolested
departure to England, or the United States. But his
innate sincerity always manifested itself, through his unwonted
shifts at disguise. And the third day of his confinement
to his couch, while his girls had retired, as was
their custom, probably to private prayers, I went to his
bed at his request, and I saw the tears streaming down his
emaciated cheeks. “Mein Gott forpit,” said he, “that you
should wrong me, and think that I am afraid to die, or that
I should have de fears of you. But it is such a tamned
pad world! My girls are as harmless as lambs, and that
you well know. But the world will speak against them
now. What will they say about them when their poor old
fader is gone? Mein Gott, it goes to my heart, to see them
droop and look so pale. That would kill me if there were
nothing else. The peoples are not fit for the tamned liberties,
and they will call my poor girls bad names, when my
bones moulder. When I am tead, you tell them, that I
bid them not cry. You send them off to your country, as
fast as you can, and the first scoundrel that speaks against
them, you kill! Mein Saviour forgive me! But my bones
would not rest in their shroud, if people should speak
against my tear girls. Swear that you will do this, and De
Benvelt will die in peace.” It will readily be supposed, I
promised all that he desired.

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

It was only four days, after the father was confined
to his couch, before Annette, naturally the gayest of the
three, was confined to hers also. We moved her's so near
her father's that even with their faint voices, they could
commune with each other. And often in the intervals of
our nursing, and our efforts to cheer them, we heard, interchanged
between them, the low and faint tones, which
trembled with all the tenderness of the father and daughter,
as they noted to each other the progress of decline, and the
color of their thoughts and feelings in view of it. Sophy
still made efforts to keep from the couch, but the languid
eye, though it shed no tears, was the sure index, that she,
also, was drooping. Wilhelmine, by incredible efforts kept
up her exertions, if not her courage and spirits, and was
continually walking from couch to couch, like a ministering
angel, begging us all to keep up our spirits, and trust in
the power and mercy of God. Amidst this scene of trial,
even Bryan's gay face became overcast. I often saw the
poor fellow struggle, to the utmost, to restrain the expression
of his feelings, and when it was no longer in his power,
go abroad, and give free scope to his tears. My own
heart was inexpressibly heavy. I spent hours and days, in
intense thought upon the nature of their disease, and the
possibility of some remedy. I scrambled the mountains
anew, for mountain herbs, and every sort that Bryan had
heard to be salutary, was given in decoction. As a last
resource, I proposed to go in disguise to Durango. We
had no want of money, and I felt sure, that I could bring in
safety my friend the American surgeon. Neither the father
nor his daughters would listen a moment to the proposition.
The father, and both the sick daughters insisted, that they
were doing quite well, that they felt their disorder to be of
such a character, that medicine and physicians could do

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

nothing for it, and that time alone could remove their ills.
They assured me, that if I started away, the loneliness
alone would kill them, and that they should never see me
more; that even if I went, the temptation of the price on
my head would be sure to bring death to me, without any
other effect on them, than involving us all, sick and well,
in the same common ruin.

I will not tire you with these details of the decline of the
father and his daughters, if I may avoid it. I am aware,
that passing, as it did, under my eye, with my feelings so
interested by the family, and in our peculiar circumstances,
it may not engross the feelings of others, as it did mine, to
witness their almost imperceptible decay, their silent, and
uncomplaining approach towards the last hour. On the middle
of December, there happened a strong white frost, and
one of those glorious mornings of a tropical climate in the
mountains, ensued. The first gleams of the morning sun
melted away the hoary envelope, where they fell. The
lengthened shadows of the trees were beautifully marked
in white, on the grass and the shrubs, where the sunbeams
were intercepted by shade. The birds feel the changes of
the atmosphere with the delicacy of a thermometer. They
are never so gay, as in the elasticity of the air, during the
rising of the sun in the sultry climates, after a frosty night.
They seem to be multiplied in number among the branches.
Their song is lengthened, and the movement is more
brisk and gay. It was so this morning. To the mingled
notes of a thousand birds, was added the distant baying
of our dogs, ringing, and echoing in the distant forests and
hills. The deer, the cabri, the buffalo, every thing, that
had life in the mountains, uttered its peculiar note of joy.
The brilliance of the morning sun illumined the entrance
of the cave. The carol of the birds, and the mingled hum

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of the spirit-stirring morning, was heard, even by the feeble
tenants of the couches. What a beautiful morning, each
one exclaimed! To my surprise, both the father and Annette
requested that they might be dressed, and helped
to the seat under the sycamore. Wilhelmine dressed her
sister, and Bryan the father, and Sophy was just able to
drag her weary frame to the spot, unaided. The father
when dressed, aroused himself. “My tear Frank,” said
he, “Gott knows, how soon I shail feel so strong again.
This is too sweet a morning, to spend entirely on this weary
couch. Help me up to look at the sun once more.
Bryan and I, with great caution and tenderness, lifted him
out and placed him on his seat. Annette was loosely dressed
in a white muslin mantle. The unusual effort of rising,
had marked a small and bright circle of vermilion in the
centre of her cheek. But the rest of her face was blanched
to the whiteness of her robe. We aided her sister, to
place her beside her father. Sophy leaned against the
tree. “Here, set me down,” said Annettee, “and let me
breathe.” As I carefully helped her to her seat, and adjusted
her cushion, she smiled and said, “My dear brother,
you forget how liable such gallantry is to suspicion, if any
one should be here in concealment to see it.” Their position
was only ten paces from the door of the cave, and
a position between sun and shade. The daughter sustained
herself and her father, by passing her arm about his
neck, and their faces had that exaltation of feeling and
tenderness, mingled with the traces of sinking nature, which
clearly indicated, that the mortal was soon to unite itself
with the dust, and that the spirits were preparing for their
flight. Both were silent for some moments, as if lost in
the intenseness of thought or feeling.

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Annette spoke first, and with a stronger tone of voice than
usual. “My dear father,” said she, laying her hand on her bosom,
there is that passing here, that no words can describe,
What a glorious morning, and how sweetly those birds sing!
They are chanting the praises of Him to whom we are
going. Oh! we shall be together there forever; and
there is no slander, no wounds, no shedding of blood, no
bitterness of heart. Look at the clouds on yonder plain;
see how they flit over the green grass. And such is life!
How grand and awful are those blue summits yonder, that
soar away towards Heaven. Dear father! whenever I
have lately mentioned, in our hymns and our prayers, the
sweet words, `fader land,' it was not of the country beyond
the seas, where I was born, that I thought, but the
good and happy country above those blue summits. There
is `fader land.' There alone is peace.” The father was
dissolved in tears. The sisters with difficulty restrained
the audible burst of their grief. Bryan turned and walked
away, unable longer to witness the scene. I remarked,
that she was faint, and that her bosom heaved with a short
and laborious respiration. I watched the entranced inspiration
of her eye, which was kindled with an enthusiasm
and filial tenderness, that struck me with awe. At my request,
she took a little wine, and as she manifested a purpose
to speak again, the father looked upon her with entreaty
in his eyes. “Mein Gott! It is too much. Tear
Annette, say no more. You kill me twice to see your eye
sparkle so, and hear your voice sound so strange. Let us
die, and go to Heaven together, and say not another word
about it.” “Dear father,” she continued, “but this once, and
then I will be still. Come here, my good Wilhelmine.
My poor, pale Sophy, come here. They both trembled
excessively, for they understood from her voice and

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countenance, that a change was taking place in her. They
came to her, however, and each took a hand. “Be good
girls,” said she, “and neither mourn nor cry. It is not the
terrible thing, I thought it, to die. I am in no pain nor
fear, and I am quite happy, and feel like sinking to a sweet
sleep.” She slowly raised her finger and pointed to the sky.
“Look at that mild, blue firmament. Beyond are God, the
Redeemer, and my final home. Lay me beside the spring
there, a little below the foot of this tree, where our brother
sits to read. Each of you kiss me.” They each approached
nearer, kneeled, and gave her the long, quivering,
and final kiss of agonizing and parting affection. “And
you, too, my dear brother, there can be no harm now.”
They inclined their heads, and I kneeled, and received
the pressure of her cold lips. She then said in a faint,
and almost inaudible voice, “Dear, dear, father! the last,
and the sweetest is for you, for we shall sleep together.”
But it was too late. The affectionate heart of the father,
broken with what he had seen, suffered, and expected, had
ceased to beat. The daughter, with her arm still thrown
round his neck, drew one long and deep sigh, and they
were both for ever free from the burdens of mortality.

Never shone there a brighter morning sun, than that,
which threw its radiance on these pale faces. Bryan and
I reclined them on the grass, without removing the arm of
the daughter from its place, and I aided Sophy to her couch,
and the other sister seated herself by her bed. It was a
scene of such peculiar sorrow, and I was so confused and
troubled in my thoughts, that I have but an indistinct remembrance
of what followed. I remember distinctly, that
Sophy appeared to be no weaker in consequence of the shock
of this blow. According to the dying request of the sister,
no tears were shed, except by Bryan, and he wept only

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when abroad. Wilhelmine walked thoughtfully backwards
and forwards, occasionally looking at the tranquil countenance
of her sister, on which the last smile of affection and
hope was sealed up, and then on her father, whom we
robed for his last sleep in his full uniform. Bryan dug one
grave, and I the other, in the spot which Annette had designated
with her dying breath. We sought diligently, and
we found blue slate of the mountains, and we wrought
slabs, which we placed in their narrow beds in the form
of coffins, reserving one for a covering, when their bodies
should have been let down. All this was not accomplished,
until the sun had already sunk below the tops of the
mountains. I then said to Wilhelmine, “All is now ready,
my dear sister, for laying the bodies of these our friends
decently in their last bed. Say you, if there are to be
other solemnities, before we render dust to dust.” She
wished to read the Saxon Lutheran burial service over
the bodies. I brought her the book, that contained it.
Bryan and Sophy kneeled on one side of the bodies, and
the priestess in this sad solemnity, and myself, kneeled on
the other. In a voice to which great intellectual energy
and exertion had seemed to impart calmness and touching
sweetness, and which was rendered by the scene, and by
suppressed emotion, sublimely impressive, and with an eye,
that often turned from the book to the sky, she read that
solemn service, every word of which, though I but imperfectly
comprehended the meaning, carried a chill to my
heart. She then sung the hymn, that had been dear to the
departed, in the same language. As it has been since
translated to me, the purport of it was, that the living congregation
below, that still toil in sin and tears on the earth,
and the emancipated congregation of the just above, are
but different members of the same unbroken body, united

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in the Living Head; that it is the plan of his gracious discipline,
that the one portion shall walk awhile below the stars,
while the other portion is taken above; that the death of the
just is only the following him who hath triumphed over death,
through the dark valley, from the union below to the union
above. The mansions above are denominated “fader
land,” and these words formed a kind of ehorus, and whenever
it recurred, the faint voice of Sophy, also made itself
heard. This service finished, they both kneeled a moment
in silence, and only uttering thoughts for the divine ear.
Bryan and I then took the body of the father first, and afterwards
of the daughter, and deposited them both in the lonely
bed, prepared for them. The daughters cast one intense
look at the loved countenances. We each took a slab, and
gently laid them both at the same moment on the slabs
within which the bodies rested, and they were hidden from
view by the veil of eternity. They each, according to the pious
custom of their country, threw a little earth into each grave,
and we heaped up their narrow bed, and smoothed down
their lonely pillow, and left them to their final repose.

The shades of evening had closed round us, when the
solemn duties were finished. Bryan kindled a bright fire,
and prepared our coffee, and Sophy exerted herself to
take her customary seat at the table. You can easily
imagine, that it was but a melancholy repast. When it
was over, and before they retired for the night, Sophy
grasped my hand, and thanked me, with solemn earnestness,
for all that I had done for their departed friends, both while
living and when dead. She added, with a melancholy smile,
“We wish not to bow you to the earth, with witnessing unavailing
sorrow. To you it is owing that they had all the
solace and comfort that their case admitted, to the last,
and that they have been so decently interred. We see

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

hat you look ill and distressed. Your labors to-day
have been not only pious, but exhausting. We mean not
to tire you with repining and tears. They are now emancipated,
and we owe them no duties, but those of memory,
and those we shall pay but too faithfully. And yet why?
How much happier are they than we, who still toil on behind?”
Wilhelmine had a strong natural taste for drawing.
Sophy reclined on her couch, and the other sat by
it, and by the bright light of the fire, was calmly occupied
in sketching the outlines of the recent funerals, including
the mourners, the tree, the cave, and in the back ground
the grouping of the mountains. “It will never be fresher
in my memory,” she observed, “than now.” The design
was of great boldness, and there was a fidelity in the loneliness
and grandeur of the scenery, that was in strong
keeping with the events, that the funeral piece was intended
to commemorate.

The conversation turned on the only subjects that belonged
to the remembrance of the day, the happiness of
the just, the certainty of brighter and better worlds, and
the little reason there is for mourning and regret for those,
of whom there is hope that they have been washed in
those perennial fountains for cleansing, that are for ever
open in Zion. The conversation was soothing and full of
hope, and befitting the duties and reflections of the past
day. I only felt, as I left them for the night, the fear that
this glow of faith and hope, these strong restraints, imposed
upon natural feeling, would be gone in the morning, and
that they would awaken to the condition and feelings of
ordinary mortals, and to double desolation of heart.

It was not altogether so. The inspiration of the evening
had, in some sense, passed away in the morning.
There was still a strong struggle for self-control. Their

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countenances showed how unavailing was that struggle,
and that nature will have her way. Sophy was evidently
soon to find rest beside her sister. She thought, and she
said so herself; and added, that she felt but a single regret
in the thought, and that was, that she should leave
her sister still more alone. They saw too, that I was ill,
and their apprehensions on this score operated as a powerful
motive to restrain the expression of their feelings.
Indeed the sympathy which I had felt with their sorrows,
and the unremitting attention I had paid to the sick, and
the loneliness of heart which I now experienced, had
borne heavily upon my health. But I spoke cheerfully,
and assured them, that they need have no apprehensions
of me. I made it a point to take Bryan with me to the
chase, that I might leave them to the first expression of
their sorrows without a witness.

To a mind of tenderness and sensibility, that enters
keenly into the sorrows of another, nothing is more painful,
or wears faster, than to perceive that all efforts to
comfort, arouse, interest, or amuse, are entirely unavailing.
To witness, day after day, the silent pressure of a grief,
that strikes deeper from being profoundly silent, operating
a steady and invariable progress towards the destruction
of its subject, is indeed terrible. The sisters made it a
point, never to speak of those that were gone. They
never again made the slightest allusion to the unfavorable
impressions and reports about our mode of living together.
On the contrary, Wilhelmine manifested a recklessness, an
utter indifference upon the subject, that impressed me
more strongly than any thing else could have done, that
she had set the world wholly at defiance, and that she
had utterly renounced its hopes, fears, and opinions.
Sophy became paler every day; but she made it a point

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to arise occasionally, and be dressed. She became more
earnest and assiduous in her prayers and religious exercises.
When they were finished in the morning, she generally
requested her sister and me to take each an arm,
and thus aided, she was able to take two or three turns
across the plain, in front of our cave. Of course every
turn led us by the grave of her father and sister.

The second time we walked, as we led this pale, but
interesting shadow, with her muslin robes floating so loosely
about her, as to seem but the drapery of the tomb, by
the sycamore where were the two graves, she saw that
we had carved an inscription on the smooth and white
rind of the tree. She begged us to assist her to the seat,
on which her father and sister had died, where she could
read the inscription. The words which I carved, gave
the names and ages of the deceased, at the foot of the
tree with this line, which has ever struck me as the most
beautiful and affecting monumental inscription for the case
to which it is adapted, in the English language: “They
were lovely in their lives, and in their death they were not
divided.” She read the inscription again and again. She
then turned, and pressed my hand, and her eyes filled with
tears. “I think,” said she, “it is from the Bible, and I
know enough of your language, to feel the beauty and
force of it. There is room on this side for another grave.
We were both equally dear to him, though the heart of
Annette broke first. I wish to be laid on this side, and
then he will be between us.” As she said this, we led her
back to the house.

I took an immediate opportunity to speak with Wilhelmine
about the wishes of her father, that as soon as
he was gone, I should assist his surviving children to
escape to the United States. The strength of Sophy was

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

not sufficient for us to think of making such an experiment
with her. But I suggested the propriety of putting
a couch into the waggon, and sending Bryan with them
both to Durango, where Sophy would have the advantage
of a comfortable house, society, medical aid, and better
nursing than could be had here, and, more than all, where
the chain of gloomy associations, connected with this place,
would be broken off. It was proposed to the invalid by
us both. She answered promptly, “My dear brother, I
am perfectly aware, that to have no society, but a couple
of moping, and melancholy, and uninformed girls, and,
moreover, one of them sick, must be a painful and tiresome
business to a young man like you. I neither wonder
at, nor think hard of you, for wishing to get rid of us. But
for me, and I think you may add, for my sister, the matter
about which you think so much, in this proposition, is
wholly out of the question. If there are spies upon us,
we care so little what the world may choose to say of us,
that I dare say, my sister does not bestow a second thought
upon the subject. I would not regard it, even if I expected
to return to life, which I surely do not. For the rest,
I would not lose the pleasure of walking, as long as I am
able, beside their graves, and looking upon those mountains
and that sky, which were the last objects of their
contemplation, for all the pageants and pleasures, which
the earth could have afforded me in perfect health.
Mysterious and delightful tie! How poor is language to
describe what I feel, when I look upon their narrow bed.
This is to me a consecrated spot, and nothing shall separate
me from the place where their ashes moulder. But
a little while, and mine shall be there also. Above these
graves, there seems a point of milder blue in the sky; and
there, I fancy to myself, the very place where their gentle

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spirits made their way to their home. Do not name the
thing again, my brother, of removing me from this place.
Here is my last home.”

I have a satisfaction in reflecting, that there was nothing
that could be procured in these mountains, that we did not
obtain for her. Again I climbed the precipices, to procure
mountain herbs, of which, however, we had already experienced
the inefficacy. Nothing which the chase could furnish,
that was deemed delicate or restorative, was wanting. We
descended to the plains, and Bryan displayed his acquirement
in the arts of the country, by noosing a cow and a
goat, which we confined, and fed for their milk. Wilhelmine
seemed still to have new and untried powers
of exertion, and an unexhausted fund of self-command.
She assumed cheerfulness in the presence of the interesting
invalid, and she was more than repaid, by the faint smile
which showed how much she felt the kindness. There
could happen but few events to diversify the sad monotony
of this existence. We still aided the invalid to drag her
feeble steps along her accustomed promenade. But no
cheerful conversations ever enlivened these walks, and
though she declined slowly, and gave no intimations that
she considered her death at hand, we saw that our cares for
her would soon have an end. The bloom of Wilhemine
too was all gone, but she insisted so firmly that her health
was good, and her capacity for the endurance of fatigue
and watching seemed so great and entire, that we were
obliged to credit her. Sometimes by an effort, apparently
to reward our unwearied exertions for them, a momentary
gleam of cheerfulness would come over their
countenances, but the effort was too painful to be long
sustained. Their conversations together and with us, were
calm and grave, and turned chiefly upon the life to come,

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and things with which this world has no concern. In this
state of their minds, the soothing elevation of melancholy,
“the joy of grief,” no longer seemed to me a poetic fiction.
How many holy thoughts, how many pensive meditations
upon the emptiness of this transitory existence, fell from
the lips of these sisters, during her long sickness. The
remembrance of these solemn conversations, and the tone
and manner in which they were uttered, make this period
seem, in review, like a long sabbath. I deem these remembrances
salutary. They check the folly of the excesses
of hope; and when I find myself giving the rein to
my thoughts or my feelings, I recall the sober sadness of
their countenances, and their saint-like manner and deportment,
and I instantly awaken from my dreams, to the consciousness
of things as they are.

During this slow and heavy winter, Bryan went on a
second trip to Durango, to procure not only a supply of
refreshments, but some little opiates and cordials, that
we thought would at least palliate the watchfulness and
weakness of our dear invalid. He returned with the
articles, and in safety. Royalism had, for the present, in
the internal provinces, a quiet ascendancy. But the stillness
was that ominous and terrible one, that precedes a
tornado. A number of obnoxious Patriots, upon whose
heads a price had been fixed, had been brought in and
executed. Bloody and extreme counsels were the only
ones that prevailed. I was in no danger, only because
I was supposed to have reached the United States. Of
the two families that knew our secret, and interested themselves
for us, he only heard that things with them were as
usual.

At home I read as formerly, and the sisters seemed to
give diligent attention; but it was obvious that they were

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no longer interested in what they heard. I made efforts
to persuade Wilhelmine, leaving Bryan to sit beside her
sister, to take now and then one of those rambles that she
had formerly loved so much, with me among the mountains,
that we might again scale the precipices, and catch
new views of the glorious scenery above and around us.
We hoped it would, for a little time, break the gloomy
chain of her associations. Sophy added her intreaties to
mine. She besought her sister to listen, and to go with
me, only that she might keep up her strength and spirits,
and be able to sustain the requisite nursing and watching.
She adeed, “I feel as if this weary existence clung to me
against my will, and I have fears that I shall live to
wear you all out, and be the last to die myself.”

This is probably carrying out with tedious minuteness the
details of our manner of passing the winter, the spring, and
the summer. I felt my mind acquiring a kind of indolent
melancholy, a stagnation of existence, constantly contrasted
with the bustle and adventures of the camp life that preceded
it. Months passed, and left upon the memory no
traces but a general and gloomy recollection of the same
sad way of getting along. Nature had not changed. For
the birds sung as gaily as before. The mountains lifted
their blue heads, and were as brightly illumined by the sun.
But the mind of the beholders had changed. And the
brightest light of heaven can in this way become gloom.
Sophy herself seemed sometimes verging to fretfulness
and impatience. She said it was hard to endure the
thought of this slow decay; to be longing for the repose
of her father and sister; to be incapable of any comfort
herself, and to be a heavy clog on the strength and enjoyments
of those who might otherwise be happy; and that
she was impatient to be gone. As the autumn advanced,

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she began to discern the term wished for, for she showed
marks of more rapid decline. She had regular and
daily paroxyms of hectic fever, in which, as is customary
in that flattering and terrible disease; the eyes glistened
with the strange fire and brilliance of an excitement of a
very peculiar cast, but which I have often noted, as belonging
only to that disease. One general symptom is an
increase of excitement and sensibility. I will not phrase
it by the technical term, “morbid,” for in her case it was
delightful. It was the enthusiasm, the poesy of disease
and the tomb, sanctified by the most elevating hopes of
religion, and associated with the cheering expectation of
soon rejoining her departed friends. I remember many a
conversation, which produced in me the deepest thrill of
feeling. Now, that it is too late, I regret that I did not
heed them more, and even write them down. They are
all passed away, unrecorded, with her pure spirit. Apparently,
the hope of speedy dissolution would have been
rapture to her, but for the thought of leaving her sister in
loneliness and sorrow behind. When she expressed these
desires to be gone, her sister would sometimes grasp her
hand, and intreat her to live for her sake. “Look you
here,” she would reply, holding up her skeleton arm,
“and see, dearest Wilhelmine, if I could live, even if I
wished it.”

The last walk which we aided her to take, she was impressed
with a presentiment that it would be her last, and
it was the most cheerful promenade which we had taken
for a long time. To us she seemed better. She stooped
to admire the freshness of the flowers that we had planted
over the graves of her father and sister, and which were
now unfolded in full bloom. She remarked upon the delightfulness
of the morning, the freshness of the inspiring

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air, and what has so often struck me as a beautiful accompaniment
of morning scenery, the distant and mellow baying
of our dogs, which, now that we had ceased to follow
them to the chase, took their accustomed range by themselves.
She remarked what a glorious and happy world
this would be, if we could always see such scenery, breathe
such an air, have the exercise of perfect health, have our
friends always with us, and have perpetually the exaltation
of feeling that she then felt. She read the inscription on the
tree repeatedly, her lips moved, and she looked upwards.
She then complained of fatigue, and requested us to aid
her to her couch. As soon as she had gained it, she remarked,
that of all these pleasant walks, this had been the
most delightful; and “I perceive,” said she, “that you
have not been aware, that it has been my last.” I then
remarked for the first time, that she was dressed with
more than her usual care and elegance. There was
something of fancy and poesy in the arrangement of the
drapery of her dress, and her head was decked with flowers.
There was, as usual, a slight tinge of the rose, in
the midst of the whiteness of alabaster in her cheek, and
her eye sparkled with the unearthly brilliance of hectic inspiration.

After we had laid her down, and fanned her for a moment,
she begged her sister to leave her, and go to a
distant part of the cave, and execute some little commission,
which they had previously arranged—adding, that
she felt quite comfortable, and that she had something
particular to say to me. Bryan arose and went away,
and her sister left her to execute her commission. “Sit
close to me,” said she, “dear brother, and listen. I have
a great many things to say to you, and you must task your
patience. This is certainly a lonely and melancholy kind

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

of life, that you have been leading here for a long time.
What would you think, if your sick sister, to whom you
have been so very kind, should spend her last moments, in
choosing a wife for you? Pray do not look with so much
astonishment, for I am not wild, but I shall speak to you
words of the most sober truth. I am sure there can be
nothing forbidding in the idea of my dear Wilhelmine for
a wife. Do you know that this dear girl has all this time
loved you in secret, and in silence? And such a love!
It is not the haughty and coarse sentiment of Dorothea,
nor the romantic fondness of the beautiful Martha; but a
something tenderer, and I am sure as pure, as that of a
sister. She has lived upon this deeply cherished feeling.
She would have died with the rest of us but for this. She
has had something, about which to think, and for which to
hope. You would be to her, father, and brother, and sister,
all in one. We have all known that she entertained
this feeling, and have felt, that instead of loving us the
less, she has loved us the more for it. At the moment
that we knew how deeply this feeling preyed upon her,
she inspired me with jealousy, for I thought she loved
Annette and her father, more then I did. Has she ever
betrayed this deep feeling by a word, or a look to you?”
I answered, that I had not dreamed that she entertained a
feeling towards me, beyond sisterly kindness. “There,”
said she, “you have Wilhelmine's character, just that ardor,
and just that self-control. She well understood all
that would be said, and that was said, about your living
with us, as you have done. Could you have heard what
she said to us on the subject! Oh! such a sister! If you
knew her but half as well as I do, your mind is such, that
you could not but love her in return. I wished this conversation,
that I might make you one request. And you

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need have no fear of frequent teasing in this way. It is
my dying request. This dear girl knows nothing of my
purpose, scarcely suspects that I know she loves you.
The request is, that you should marry Wilhelmine. To-morrow
she will be alone with you. You know what has
been said already. How much more will be said, when I
am gone. I love you too and with a sisterly tenderness,
but I think it is so disinterested, that I would not, to save
her reputation, or her life, ask you to do this, if I did not
firmly believe, that you are formed for each other, and
that she will render you happy;—happier, I dare to say, my
dear brother, than even Martha herself. That overwhelming
sentiment would finally triumph over her melancholy,
and the loss of us all. The times will change, and you
will soon be able to leave these mountains with safety and
honor. Unless she leaves them as your wife, she will not
leave them at all. Here she will spend the sad days of
her remaining existence.”

She was here, so much exhausted, that she was obliged
to lie down, drawing her breath, with that short, rapid,
and laborious respiration, which marks, that the organs are
performing their functions so much the more rapidly, as
they are nearer running down. During this interval of
exhaustion, her sister came to the bed, apparently ignorant
of the purport of her communications to me. We
applied all the little restoratives, that we could command.
Wilhelmine stood over her, feeling her pulse,
and struggling to suppress the appearance of alarm, and
laboring to treat this as one of her customary fits of
faintness. It was half an hour before she revived sufficiently,
to resume the conversation. We then raised her
again, and with a faint smile, she remarked to her sister
that she had not yet quite finished what she had to say.

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Her sister retired again, and she resumed the conversation.
“I had a great many more things to say to you,
but I perceive my strength is failing, and I must come to
an end. What say you, my dear brother, to my proposition?
I have been settling the great concerns of eternity,
for months. There is but this single concern on my mind.
Satisfy me on this point, and I should sink, as in sleep.
I could not bear the thought of her returning to the world,
to encounter shame and reproach; or of her remaining
alone in these mountains, with no other objects to contemplate,
than the graves of her father and her sisters. When
I am once gone, and you and she are left here alone, or
with no witness, no protection, but your servant, guilty
or innocent, it will be the same thing in the view of the
world. Surely you will not embitter my last moments,
by denying to your sister Sophy, the last request she will
ever make you.”

I am not a casuist. I knew not what answer to give
at once to comfort the dying, and not commit my conscience
and my future conduct. It occurred to me to
say, that she might be deceived in respect to her sister's
feelings, and to admit that I was previously occupied with
other sentiments, which I could not immediately conquer,
and that it would be injustice to Wilhelmine, to offer her
a divided affection. But the progress of her decay, saved
me from dissembling or prevarication, and her from the
agony of a refusal. She passed into that state of feverish
exaltation, in which she always found every thing according
to her wishes. She called her sister with such a
strength of voice, that she heard her although at a considerable
distance. Her sister came trembling, or rather
flew to the bed. “I have finished with him,” said she,
“and now, dear Wilhelmine, I wish to speak to you both

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together.” She clasped both our hands in hers. “Do
you remember,” said she, “how sweetly tranquil Annette
was, when she died? Well, I feel equally so. I am at
peace with God. The only earthly concern on my heart
is settled, as I could wish. I shall be happy with my dear
father and Annette, above the stars, and you two will be
happy together for a while on the earth. How sweetly
the mornings will rise upon you, when in your husband
you will find, father and sisters all supplied. Then you
can adore God, and admire this beautiful nature together,
without any fear of evil tongues. Long and happy may
you live together, and when you come to join us above,
may that sweet verse apply to you, as it does to my father
and sister; `They were lovely in their lives, and in their
death they were not divided.' For me, my dear Wilhelmine,
if I am permitted to change my abode, I will share
it in heaven with them, and on earth, by being invisibly
present with you. When you hear the birds sing most
sweetly, and see the mountains, and nature, and the earth,
and the air, and feel existence more delightful than ordinary,
think that the freed spirit of your sister is near;
that I enter into your joys, by the communication of mind
with mind, and that I watch over you, and wait for the
time when we shall all be together.” Saying this, she
closed her eyes from simple exhaustion. We stood by
her with awe, almost unmixed with pain, and scarcely
grieved at the thought, that her disinterested and affectionate
spirit had fled. But she recovered again, so far as to
open her eyes, and, with a sweet smile, to press our hands,
and when she closed her eyes once more, as in a quiet
sleep, we saw that she had ceased to suffer and to breathe.

I pass entirely by the sad details of this funeral, only
remarking, that it was managed as the former had been,

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only with this difference, that the number of the mourners
was less. We laid her beside her father who now reposed
between those daughters, that were so dear to him
when alive. The same priestess prayed, and sung as before,
and it was the same sweet voice of suppressed emetion.
All that was necessary, to make the inscription on
the sycamore appropriate to the three, was the name, the
age, and the time of decease of her who was now united
with the other two. Wilhelmine proposed the addition of
a Spanish verse from Quevedo in the following words.

The first month after this death, was a month of still
greater gloom and sadness, than we had yet experienced.
The loneliness, of course, was more complete and entire,
and our eyes were incessantly turned to the couches, from
which the sufferers had passed. Bryan went out silent and sad,
with his dogs to the chase, and he returned with his spoils,
equally silent and sad. Wilhelmine appeared to court solitude,
and I made it a point on the other hand, to leave
her as little alone, as possible. Within, she employed herself
much, in adding to her funeral piece, and abroad, in
planting privet, and cape jessamines, and altheas, and the
most beautiful flowering shrubs, about the graves, and
many times in the day, she was carrying water to these
shrubs. At other times, she seated herself in silent contemplation
for hours together, at the foot of the sycamore.
During this month, Bryan was once more despatched to
Durango, and once more returned in safety. No important
change had occurred in the political world, nor was
there any presage of a time, when I might safely leave the

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

mountain. But this time Bryan brought me a letter, in the
handwriting which I knew so well. These were the
contents.

“Sir,

“I have wept over the ruin of the amiable family,
with whom you fled to the mountains, victims of a
sympathy, for which the subjects of it do not thank you.
I have a kind of right in what remains of the family, for
Wilhelmine has been my companion, and my fixed friend, and
she was very amiable and good. Now, that her father and
sisters are dead, I feel it to be a duty due to her, to claim,
that you now either marry her, or send the poor forlorn
girl to me. However you may have thought before, you
must surely feel now, that she can no longer reside with
you, as formerly. I will receive, cherish, and comfort her,
will ask no questions, and will answer for her safety. You
cannot mistake your duty, nor my right to this kind of
interference. Present her my love and condolence, and
show her this.”

After the first burst of grief for her sisters' death was past,
I did show her the letter. Indeed, I felt that the contents
of the letter were as true, as they were important to her.
She shed some tears, after she had read it, and for the
first time for months she blushed deeply. I thought it an
omen for good. It evidenced, that earthly emotions still
had their sway. “I would hope,” said she, “that Martha has
written those cold words out of kindness. But I fear, that
she allowed other feelings to influence her, beside simple
regard for me. She does me injustice in her suspicions
but what she writes is not the less true, that we cannot
longer live together here with propriety. I feel it is a
hard case, for every friend on the earth is now gone but
you. But I must conform, like the rest, to the hard laws

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established by common consent, to preserve reputation.
You may have felt, while my poor father was living, that
honor forbade you to escape, and leave him helpless, as he
was, and his helpless daughters, among these rugged mountains.
All these obstacles are now removed. There is
food for a long time for me alone. You have taught me to
be an Amazon. I can procure subsistence, and I have no
fear. I shall never feel lonely, for I shall always feel as
if in the society, and under the protection, of my father and
sisters. You cannot be more sensible, than I am, that you
cannot now remain with me. I never, never can return to
Durango. We all have our peculiarities of temperament,
and this is mine. Take your servant, and escape
to your own country, and be a useful and a happy man,
and think nothing further of me.”

I answered, “You cannot surely be serious in proposing
to remain here alone. Be assured, that I will never leave
you in this place. If you distrust me, or are dissatisfied
with my presence and society, to get rid of it you must
fly from me. But,” I continued, “Whilhelmine, you remember
the conversation I held with your sister, just before
her death. In that conversation, she gave it to me as a
dying charge, to propose, what I am now about to propose.
I am sure, it is impossible to feel more tenderness, respect,
deeper, or more internal consideration for a woman, who
unites every thing that we seek in woman, than I feel for
you. I once derided the notion of any other love. But
I feel to my cost, that above and beyond these tender sentiments,
which have always led me to consider you as the
most amiable and perfect of human beings, there is a sentiment
of another sort, which I have long felt, and expect
forever to feel, without any hope towards another person.
I am but too well aware, that, even if we could leave this

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place with safety, your reputation would be in some sense
committed with mine. The world will measure us by the
scale of its own depravity, and not by that of your purity.
I can make you but one reparation for an unintentional injury.
It is beside the question to leave you here alone, let
the world say what it may. You cannot compel me to do that.
Will you remain with me as my wedded wife? I pledge
to you that honor, that was never violated, that the first
hour, when it can be done with safety for us both, I will
have the tie solemnized with all the publicity, and all the
rites of that church, which you shall prefer. And I will
strive by my tenderness and fidelity, to make you feel as
little, as may be, the loss of those dearer friends, that have
left you.” The proposal appeared to fall abruptly, and
wholly unexpected, on her ear. But she seemed rather
overwhelmed, than offended. Blushes and the paleness
of death succeeded each other in her cheeks. She sat down
under an excess of agitation. “Leave me,” she said, “a
few moments, to consider on what you have said. Return
after an hour, and I will give you an answer.”

At the expiration of the time, I returned. She was
perfectly calm, and evinced great firmness of manner.
“I am sensible, my dear brother,” said she, “of all the
heroism and disinterestedness of this most generous sacrifice,
which you offer. I may, perhaps, now without shame
admit, that I love you deeply, sincerely, and with all my
heart. Who could have seen, what I have seen, and do
otherwise? But though I may be romantic, I am neither
selfish nor weak. I refuse your generous offer, not because
I do not feel all the nobleness of your conduct, in making
it; nor because my own treacherous heart does not incline
me to accept it. But I will be generous, as nearly like you
as I can, and for that reason I will refuse your offer.

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

I know too well what love means, not to know the duties
which it imposes. No words upon the subject, if you
please. My resolution is taken, I cannot return to Durango.
I will confess all. I am not yet firm enough, to see
you happy with Martha. But, as the only return I can
make you for the noble disinterestedness of your proposal,
we will, if you consent, attempt to escape together to
the United States. I will make my way to your parents.
You have heard from my dear father, that he had large
sums in the British funds. Money could be of no further
use to me, but to relieve distress and do good. Perhaps,”
she added, with her sad smile, “I may find in that country
of laws and men, some other brother, who may disenchant
me, and cure this gloom, and restore me to myself and to
humanity. I can listen to no reply to any part of my proposals,
but the last.”

I mediated for a moment, and reflected that the chances
of our reaching the frontier multiplied in proportion,
as death had diminished our numbers. I mentioned the
thing to Bryan. The United States have always been the
paradise of the Irish. His thoughts had always been that
way, and he was in raptures at the proposal. “Now God
Almighty bless your Honor,” said he, “you make my heart
stir within me again. And here it has lain, all the time I
have staid in this weary place, like a lump of lead. Will
I go, do you say? Yes, your Honor, I would cheat or fight
my way there, through an army of devils, to get away from
this country of blood.” I have seldom found much use in
turning over plans and taking new views of them, when
they strike focibly at first sight. I informed Wilhelmine,
that since she refused me as a husband, I would accompany
her flight as a brother, that I felt honored by the
choice she had made of my country, as a place of refuge,

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and that, if we were so fortunate as to reach it, I did not
doubt, but my parents would receive her as a child.

It was a thing of course, to be attempted as soon as possible.
We all three prepared ourselves with Spanish
dresses, as little conspicuous as possible. We spoke the
language with considerable accuracy. We assumed the
badge of the Royalists. Our wagon, and many of our
more cumbrous possessions here, we cheerfully left to the
next occupant. Such articles as were necessary, or had
value attached to them from other circumstances, we packed,
and our cavalcade had the usual appearance of a travelling
party in that country. The time for departure was
fixed for the following morning. The firmness and excitement
of Wilhelmine, which had hitherto so wonderfully
sustained her, passed away on this occasion. The remainder
of the day she was sad, silent, and in tears, giving
me wrong answers, and often running to execute business
most foreign from her apparent intentions. Our arrangements
were soon settled. She retired to long private devotions,
and I requested her to go early to rest, to be
ready to leave with the rising sun. I was myself gloomy
and restless through the night. The moment I slept,
the honest Saxon, and his deceased daughters seemed to
be about me, upbraiding me for deserting them. I arose
a little after midnight, and went abroad. The fair and full
orb of the moon arose from the boundless fog of the plain,
as I have seen the sun arise on the sea, pouring her full
and melancholy light upon the hoary cliffs of these ancient
mountains. The owls were hooting responses from their
hollow trees. The funereal howl of the wolf rung from
cliff to cliff, and from cavern to cavern. In the intervals
of their howl, I heard the low moans of a human voice.
At first, I doubted my ear. The moans were repeated,

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and in a manner to leave no doubt of their origin. I went
in the direction of the sound. Wilhelmine, for it was she,
arose from her kneeling posture beside the graves. “Forgive
me,” she said, “the indulgence of the last opportunity,
I may ever have, to visit these graves. I wished not to
distress you in the morning with my sorrows, and I desired
to finish these sacred duties, unwitnessed and alone.
What a place, in which to leave these dear and hallowed
remains! Wat a funeral torch is that pale moon! What
a monument these everlasting pillars of rock! What a
dirge the howl of those wolves in the caverns of the cliffs!
Here a poor orphan, with a continent and an ocean between
her and the remotest kindred in the land of her
birth, is compelled to leave these dear remains to slumber
alone. If it be His will, who orderth all things right, I
would gladly return to this spot once more. But if not,
there is as short a passage from these mountains to the celestial
mansions, as from any other place. Your spirits,
my dear departed friends, I doubt not have found the road
to your home. Farewell, then. Rest in peace, until the
plains and the mountains, the earth and the sea, shall give
up their dead.” I would have persuaded her to return to
her couch, to avoid the gloom of the scene, and the
dampness of the night air. But I saw, that she intended
to pass the remainder of the night there, and that my
presence was a restraint upon the expression of her feelings.
I left her to commune with the night, and with
these graves, and to utter thoughts, intended only for the
Divine ear.

It was a cheerful morning to all the world, but the solitary
tenants of this cave. A thousand circumstances united,
to render it an affecting event to us all, to leave this
place. We were once more putting to sea in the midst

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of the storm. But the idea of the dangers, upon which
we were throwing ourselves, was not the circumstance the
most impressive. The cheerful hours I had spent with
the dead, the quietness and repose of the place, a thousand
blended associations bound me to this spot. So
dear was it to me, so many attachments to it had grown
up in my heart, that “albeit unused to the melting
mood,” as we were packing, and making arrangements to
mount our horses, my eyes involuntarily filled with tears.
But I felt it must be so much more affecting, and painful
to Wilhelmine, that it became to set her an example
of calmness. The dogs that belonged to the defeated
Royalists, had followed us here, and had been faithful
companions, and of great utility in the chase. They came
about us, wagging their tails, and, apparently knowing
that we were about to decamp. It became a question
whether to take them, or leave them. Bryan's heart
swelled at the thought of leaving them behind. “Please
your Honor,” said he, “dogs are good luck. I would
not leave them for my right hand.” We concluded, that
the pack of dogs would be in keeping with our cavalcade,
and we rejoiced Bryan's heart by consenting.

Bryan led the van. The dogs raised their joyous cry,
and preceded us on the way down the mountain. “Now,”
said I, “dear Wilhelmine, as a brother, since you have forbidden
me the use of a dearer name, I implore you to give
me a good omen, as we depart, and not go away in sorsow.
This place, I well know, must be dear to you by
the tenderest associations. We have had our joys here,
as well as our sorrows. We believe, however, that all
that part of these dear friends that is worthy of mention,
has passed beyond pain and toil, to the repose of the just.
All that we leave here, is unconscious dust. We have

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not striven with the nature, which renders that dust dear.
For we deposited it with awe in the earth, and we bedewed
it with out tears. We have planted flowers, that
will continue to spring on the sod when we are away. If
the gentle spirits that once animated these bodies, descend
from their clouds to these mountains, they will still hear
the red-bird, in whose song they so much delighted when
alive, singing their requiem. Perhaps, in safety and honor,
we may one day be allowed to revisit these mountains,
and remove the dust to a more hallowed rest. It is still
at your option, to return under my protection as brother, or
with the still dearer name of husband.” Saying this, I assisted
her to her horse, and we took our solitary way, after
Bryan, down the mountain. I was neither disappointed
nor sorry, when I heard, by her audible sobbing, that her
heart was throwing off its load of oppression, in unrestrained
weeping.