CHAPTER IV.
Unfortunately, however, one of her communications was intercepted,
and the cowardly bearer, intimidated by the terrors
of impending death, was persuaded to betray his employer. He
revealed all that he knew of her practices, and one of his statements,
namely, that she usually drew from her shoe the paper
which she gave him, served to fix conclusively upon her the
proofs of her offence. She was arrested in the midst of an admiring
throng, presiding with her usual grace at the tertulia, to
which her wit and music furnished the eminent attractions.
Forced to submit, her shoes were taken from her feet in the
presence of the crowd, and in one of them, between the sole and
the lining, was a memorandum designed for Bolivar, containing
the details, in anticipation, of one of the intended movements of
the viceroy. She was not confounded, nor did she sink beneath
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
this discovery. Her soul seemed to rise rather into an unusual
degree of serenity and strength. She encouraged her friends
with smiles and the sweetest seeming indifference, though she
well knew that her doom was certainly at hand. She had her
consolations even under this conviction. Her father was in safety
in the camp of Bolivar. With her counsel and assistance he
would save much of his property from the wreck of confiscation.
The plot had ripened in her hands almost to maturity, and, before
very long, Bogota itself would speak for liberty in a formidable
pronunciamento. And this was mostly her work! What
more was done, by her agency and influence, may be readily
conjectured from what has been already written. Enough, that
she herself felt that in leaving life she left it when there was
little more left for her to do.
La Pola was hurried from the tertulia before a military court—
martial law then prevailing in the capital — with a rapidity
corresponding with the supposed enormity of her offences. It
was her chief pang that she was not hurried there alone. We
have not hitherto mentioned that she had a lover, one Juan de
Sylva Gomero, to whom she was affianced — a worthy and noble
youth, who entertained for her the most passionate attachment.
It is a somewhat curious fact that she kept him wholly from
any knowledge of her political alliances; and never was man
more indignant than he when she was arrested, or more confounded
when the proofs of her guilt were drawn from her person.
His offence consisted in his resistance to the authorities
who seized her. There was not the slightest reason to suppose
that he knew or participated at all in her intimacy with the patriots
and Bolivar. He was tried along with her, and both condemned—
for at this time condemnation and trial were words
of synonymous import — to be shot. A respite of twelve hours
from execution was granted them for the purposes of confession.
Zamano, the viceroy, anxious for other victims, spared no means
to procure a full revelation of all the secrets of our heroine. The
priest who waited upon her was the one who attended on the
viceroy himself. He held out lures of pardon for both, here
and hereafter, upon the one condition only of a full declaration
of her secrets and accomplices. Well might the leading people
of Bogota tremble all the while. But she was firm in her
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
refusal. Neither promises of present mercy, nor threats of the
future, could extort from her a single fact in relation to her proceedings.
Her lover, naturally desirous of life, particularly in
the possession of so much to make it precious, joined in the entreaties
of the priest; but she answered him with a mournful
severity that smote him like a sharp weapon —
“Gomero! did I love you for this? Beware, lest I hate you
ere I die! Is life so dear to you that you would dishonor both
of us to live? Is there no consolation in the thought that we
shall die together?”
“But we shall be spared — we shall be saved,” was the reply
of the lover.
“Believe it not — it is false! Zamano spares none. Our lives
are forfeit, and all that we could say would be unavailing to
avert your fate or mine. Let us not lessen the value of this
sacrifice on the altars of our country, by any unworthy fears.
If you have ever loved me, be firm. I am a woman, but I am
strong. Be not less ready for the death-shot than is she whom
you have chosen for your wife.”
Other arts were employed by the despot for the attainment of
his desires. Some of the native citizens of Bogota, who had
been content to become the creatures of the viceroy, were employed
to work upon her fears and affections, by alarming her
with regard to persons of the city whom she greatly esteemed
and valued, and whom Zamano suspected. But their endeavors
were met wholly with scorn. When they entreated her, among
other things, “to give peace to her country,” the phrase seemed
to awaken all her indignation.
“Peace! peace to our country!” she exclaimed. “What
peace! the peace of death, and shame, and the grave, for ever!”
And her soul again found relief only in its wild lyrical overflow.
What peace for our country, when ye've made her a grave,
A den for the tyrant, a cell for the slave;
A pestilent plague-spot, accursing and curst,
As vile as the vilest, and worse than the worst!
The chain may be broken, the tyranny o'er,
But the sweet charms that blessed her ye may not restore;
Not your blood, though poured forth from life's ruddiest vein,
Shall free her from sorrow, or cleanse her from stain!
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
'Tis the grief that ye may not remove the disgrace,
That brands with the blackness of hell all your race;
'Tis the sorrow that nothing may cleanse ye of shame,
That has wrought us to madness, and filled us with flame.
Years may pass, but the memory deep in our souls,
Shall make the tale darker as Time onward rolls;
And the future that grows from our ruin shall know
Its own, and its country's, and liberty's foe.
And still, in the prayer at its altars shall rise,
Appeal for the vengeance of earth and of skies;
Men shall pray that the curse of all time may pursue,
And plead for the curse of eternity too!
Nor wantonly vengeful in spirit their prayer,
Since the weal of the whole world forbids them to spare;
What hope would there be for mankind if our race,
Through the rule of the brutal, is robbed by the base?
What hope for the future, what hope for the free,
And where would the promise of liberty be,
If Time had no terror, no doom for the slave,
Who would stab his own mother, and shout o'er her grave!
Such a response as this effectually silenced all those cunning
agents of the viceroy who urged their arguments in behalf of
their country. Nothing, it was seen, could be done with a spirit
so inflexible; and in his fury Zamano ordered the couple forth
to instant execution. Bogota was in mourning. Its people covered
their heads, a few only excepted, and refused to be seen
or comforted. The priests who attended the victims received
no satisfaction as concerned the secrets of the patriots; and they
retired in chagrin, and without granting absolution to either victim.
The firing party made ready. Then it was, for the first
time, that the spirit of this noble maiden seemed to shrink from
the approach of death.
“Butcher!” she exclaimed to the viceroy, who stood in his
balcony, overlooking the scene of execution. “Butcher! you
have then the heart to kill a woman!”
These were the only words of weakness. She recovered herself
instantly, and, preparing for her fate, without looking for
any effect from her words, she proceeded to cover her face with
the saya, or veil, which she wore. Drawing it aside for the purpose,
the words “Vive la Patria!” embroidered in letters of
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
gold, were discovered on the basquina. As the signal for execution
was given, a distant hum, as of the clamors of an approaching
army, was heard fitfully to rise upon the air.
“It is he! He comes! It is Bolivar! It is the Liberator!”
was her cry, in a tone of hope and triumph, which found its echo
in the bosom of hundreds who dared not give their hearts a voice.
It was, indeed, the Liberator. Bolivar was at hand, pressing
onward with all speed to the work of deliverance; but he came
too late for the rescue of the beautiful and gifted damsel to whom
he owed so much. The fatal bullets of the executioners penetrated
her heart ere the cry of her exultation had subsided from
the ear. Thus perished a woman worthy to be remembered
with the purest and proudest who have done honor to nature
and the sex; one who, with all the feelings and sensibilities of
the woman, possessed all the pride and patriotism, the courage,
the sagacity and the daring of the man.
-- --
Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870 [1854], Southward ho! A spell of sunshine. (Redfield, New York) [word count] [eaf686T].
