University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The sea never fails to furnish noble studies to those who, by
frequent travel, have succeeded in overcoming its annoyances.
But the number is few who feel reconciled to calm thought and
patient meditation while roaming, at large and lone, on its wilderness
of bosom. Those only who have completely undergone
that sea change, of which Shakspere tells us in the “Tempest,”
can yield themselves fairly up to the fancies which it inspires and
the subliming thought which it awakens. Unhappily, to the
greater number of those the subject has lost all its freshness.
When we have so frequently boxed the compass, that we can

he forfeits all his mysteries.

It is surprising to note how little there is really visible in the
great deeps to those who go down frequently upon the waters.
To such eyes they even lose their vastness, their vagueness, the
immensity which baffles vision, and fills the mind with its most
impressive ideas of eternity. Your “Old Salt” is a notorious
skeptic. He wears his forefinger perpetually upon the side of
his nose. He is not to be amused with fancies and chimeras.
He has outgrown wholly his sense of wonder, and his thought
of the sea is somewhat allied with the contemptuous, as was that
of the Mississippian for the brown bear whom he had whipped
in single combat. As for marvels and mysteries in the creature
— beauties of splendor or grandeur — these wholly elude his
thoughts and eyes. If he appreciates the sea at all, it is solely
because of its sharpening effect upon his appetite!

Most of those wayfarers whom you meet often upon the route
belong to this order. You will find them at all times peering
into the larder. In their sleep, they dream of it, and you will

hear broken speeches from their lips which show their memories
still busy with yesterday's feast, or their anticipations preparing
for that of the morrow. The steward and cook aboard-ship are
the first persons whose acquaintance they make. These they
bribe with shillings and civilities. You will scarcely open your
eyes in the morning, ere you will see these “hail fellows” with
toast and tankard in their clutches; a bowl of coffee and a cracker
is the initial appetizer, with possibly a tass of brandy in the
purple beverage, as a lacer. Then you see them hanging about
the breakfast table, where they take care to plant themselves
in the near neighborhood of certain of the choicest dishes. All
their little arrangements are made before you get to the table,
and there will be a clever accumulation of good things about the
plates of these veterans, in the shape of roll and egg, etc., which
would seem destined to remind the proprietor, in the language
of warning which was spoken daily (though with a far different
object) to the monarch of the Medes and Persians —“Remember,
thou art mortal.”

This is a fact which our veterans of the high seas never forget.
They carry within them a sufficient monitor which ever cries,
like the daughter of the horse-leech, “Give! Give!” They
have no qualms of conscience or of bowels; and it seems to do
them rare good to behold the qualms of others. It would seem
that they rejoiced in these exhibitions, simply as they are, assured
by these, that the larder is destined to no premature invasion
on the part of the sufferers.

I have often looked upon this class of travellers — not with
envy, Heaven forefend! — though it would have rejoiced me frequently,
at sea, to have possessed some of their immunities —
that rare insensibility, for example, in the regions of diaphragm
and abdomen, which, if unexercised for appetite, might at least
suffer other sensibilities to be free for exercise.

But it has provoked my wonder, if not my admiration, that
inflexible stolidity of nature, which enables the mere mortal so
entirely to obtain the ascendency over the spiritual man. Our
gourmand sees no ocean waste around him — follows no tumbling
billows with his eye — watches not, with straining eagerness,
where the clouds and the waters descend and rise, as it were in
an embrace of passion. Sunrise only tells him of his coffee and

cracker, noon of lunch, sunset of tea, and the rarely sublimed
fires of the moonlight, gleaming from a thousand waves, suggest
only a period of repose, in which digestion goes on without any
consciousness of that great engine which he has all day been
packing with fuel. Tell him of porpoise and shark, and his
prayer is that they may be taken. He has no scruples to try a
steak from the ribs of the shark, though it may have swallowed
his own grandmother. Of the porpoise he has heard as the seahog,
and the idea of a roast of it, is quite sufficient to justify the
painstaking with which he urges upon the foremast man to take
his place at the prow, in waiting, with his harpoon. Nay, let a
school of dolphins be seen beneath the bows, darting along with
graceful and playful sweep, in gold and purple, glancing through
the billows, like so many rainbows of the deep, he thinks
of them only as a fry — an apology for whiting and cavalli, of
which he sighs with the tenderest recollections, and for which
he is always anxious to find a substitute. I have already observed
that we have two or three specimens of this genus now
on board the Marion.

“I don't know,” said our fair companion, “but that steam
has robbed the sea very equally of its charms and terrors.”

“Ah! we have now no long voyages. Your coastwise travelling
seldom takes you from sight of land, and you scarcely
step from the pier head in one city, before you begin to look out
for the lighthouse of another. Even when crossing the great
pond, you move now so rapidly, and in such mighty vessels, that
you carry a small city with you — a community adequate to all
your social wants — and are thus made comparatively indifferent
to your absolute whereabouts.”

“Well, there is something pleasant,” said one, “to be able to
fling yourself into your berth in one city only to awaken in another.
I confess that it takes away all motive to thought and
survey. Few persons care to look abroad and about in such
short periods. There is little to amuse or interest, traversing
the ship's decks for a night, in the face of smoke and steam,
jostling with strange people wrapped in cloaks, whom you do not
care to know, as it is not probable that you are ever to meet
again when you part to-morrow. You must be long and lonely
on the seas, before the seas will become grateful in your sight

and reveal their wonders. Steam has removed this necessity
and thus taken away all the wonders of the deep. You now see
no mysteries in the surging billows — hear no spiritual voices
from the shrouds. The spell has been taken from the waters —
the trident is broken in the hands of the great Triton. Steam, a
mightier magic, has puffed away, as by a breath, a whole world
of unsubstantial, but very beautiful fable. The ocean is now as
patient as the wild horse under the lasso — subdued to the will
of a rider who was never known to spare whip or spur.”

“The worst feature in this improved navigation is its unsocial
influence. It deprives you of all motive to break down those
idle little barriers of convention which are apt to fetter the very
best minds, and cause a forfeiture of some of their sweetest humanities.
You seek to know none of the virtues of your companions,
and certainly never care to put in exercise your own.
One ceases to be amiable in a short voyage. A long one, on
the contrary, brings out all that is meritorious as well in yourself
as your shipmate. A sense of mutual dependence is vastly
promotive of good fellowship.—Then you see something of one
another, and hear something of the world. People show what
they are, and tell you what they have seen; and intimacies,
thus formed, have ripened into friendships, which no after events
have been able to rupture. Commend me to the ancient slow-and-easy
packet ships that left you time for all these things; —
that went between Charleston and New York, and never felt
any impatience to get to the end of their journey; — that took
every advantage afforded by a calm to nap drowsily on the bosom
of the broad element in which they loved to float; — and
rocked lazily upon the great billows, as if coquetting with the
breezes rather than using them for progress.”

“There was leisure then for study and philosophy and poetry;
nay, love-making was then an easy and agreeable employment,
to such as had the stomach for it. It will not be easy for me
to forget my thousand experiences of the tender passion on such
voyages — by moonlight and starlight — `with one sweet spirit
for my minister,' gazing together on the great mirror-like ocean,
or up into the persuasive heavens, till we drank in floods of tenderness,
from a myriad of loving eyes.”

“Ah!” cried Duyckman archly, “one is reminded of Moore—

“By the way, why should we not have some tales of wandering
youth to-night — and why not some songs too. Miss
Burroughs, it has not escaped my very curious eye that there is
a guitar among your luggage. May I hope that you will suffer
me to bring it you?”

The lady hesitated. I interposed:—

“Oh! surely; we must not suffer such a night of beauty, such
a sea of calm, such a mild delicious evening, to pass unemployed,
and in the only appropriate fashion. We are a little world to
ourselves — pilgrims to one Canterbury, and we may well borrow
a leaf from Boccacio and a lesson from Chaucer. You will
sing for us, and we shall strive to requite you, each after his
own fashion. Here are several whom I know to be capable of
pleasant contribution in the way of song and story, and my
friend Duyckman can hardly refuse to follow your example, as
he suggests it. In your ear, I may whisper that he is full of romances,
and has a whole budget of legends wrought out of Provençal
and Troubadour history.”

“Fie! Fie! Honor bright.”

The lady now gracefully consented.

“The temptation is too great to be resisted. My scruples
yield to your persuasions. Will you order the guitar?”

It was brought. We had the music, but not alone. To the
great delight of all parties, the fair charmer gave us her lyrics
woven in with an historical narrative — a romance in itself,
which, in a brief and pleasant introduction, she mentioned that
she had gathered herself from the lips of the celebrated General
— of Venezuela, who was only last year in the country. I
must deliver the story, as nearly as possible as it came from the
lady's lips, not forgetting to mention that, in the lyrical portions,
the guitar contributed the accompaniment, and the effect of
the pieces, thus delivered, was singularly dramatic and effective.

Our circle contracted about the fair raconteur, silence followed,
and raised attention, and she began.

THE STORY OF THE MAID OF BOGOTA.

1. CHAPTER I.

Whenever the several nations of the earth which have
achieved their deliverance from misrule and tyranny, shall point,
as they each may, to the fair women who have taken active part
in the cause of liberty, and by their smiles and services have
contributed in no measured degree to the great objects of national
defence and deliverance, it will be with a becoming and
just pride only that the Colombians shall point to their virgin
martyr, commonly known among them as La Pola, the Maid of
Bogota. With the history of their struggle for freedom her
story will always be intimately associated; her tragical fate,
due solely to the cause of her country, being linked with all the
touching interest of the most romantic adventure. Her spirit
seemed to be woven of the finest materials. She was gentle,
exquisitively sensitive, and capable of the most true and tender
attachments. Her mind was one of rarest endowments, touched
to the finest issues of eloquence, and gifted with all the powers
of the improvisatrice; while her courage and patriotism seem to
have been cast in those heroic moulds of antiquity from which
came the Cornelias and Deborahs of famous memory. Well
had it been for her country had the glorious model which she
bestowed upon her people been held in becoming homage by
the race with which her destiny was cast — a race masculine
only in exterior, and wanting wholly in that necessary strength
of soul which, rising to the due appreciation of the blessings of
national freedom, is equally prepared to make, for its attainment,
every necessary sacrifice of self. And yet our heroine was but
a child in years — a lovely, tender, feeble creature, scarcely
fifteen years of age. But the soul grows rapidly to maturity in
some countries, and, in the case of women, it is always great in
its youth, if greatness is ever destined to be its possession.

Doña Apolinaria Zalabariata — better known by the name
of La Pola — was a young girl, the daughter of a good family
of Bogota, who was distinguished at an early period, as well for
her great gifts of beauty as of intellect. She was but a child

when Bolivar first commenced his struggles with the Spanish
authorities, with the ostensible object of freeing his country from
their oppressive tyrannies. It is not within our province to discuss
the merits of his pretensions as a deliverer, or his courage
and military skill as a hero. The judgment of the world and
of time has fairly set at rest those specious and hypocritical
claims, which, for a season, presumed to place him on the pedestal
with our Washington. We now know that he was not only
a very selfish, but a very ordinary man — not ordinary, perhaps,
in the sense of intellect, for that would be impossible in the case
of one who was so long able to maintain his eminent position,
and to succeed in his capricious progresses, in spite of inferior
means, and a singular deficiency of the heroic faculty. But his
ambition was the vulgar ambition, and, if possible, something
still inferior. It contemplated his personal wants alone; it
lacked all the elevation of purpose which is the great essential
of patriotism, and was wholly wanting in that magnanimity of
soul which delights in the sacrifice of self, whenever such sacrifice
promises the safety of the single great purpose which it
professes to accomplish.

But we are not now to consider Bolivar, the deliverer, as one
whose place in the pantheon has already been determined by
the unerring judgment of posterity. We are to behold him only
with those eyes in which he was seen by the devoted followers
to whom he brought, or appeared to bring, the deliverance for
which they yearned. It is with the eyes of the passionate
young girl, La Pola, the beautiful and gifted child, whose dream
of country perpetually craved the republican condition of ancient
Rome, in the days of its simplicity and virtue; it is with her
fancy and admiration that we are to crown the ideal Bolivar,
till we acknowledge him, as he appears to her, the Washington
of the Colombians, eager only to emulate the patriotism, and to
achieve like successes with his great model of the northern
confederacy.

Her feelings and opinions, with regard to the Liberator, were
those of her family. Her father was a resident of Bogota, a
man of large possessions and considerable intellectual acquirements.
He gradually passed from a secret admiration of Bolivar
to a warm sympathy with his progress, and an active support —

so far as he dared, living in a city under immediate and despotic
Spanish rule — of all his objects. He followed with eager eyes
the fortunes of the chief, as they fluctuated between defeat and
victory in other provinces, waiting anxiously the moment when
the success and policy of the struggle should bring deliverance,
in turn, to the gates of Bogota. Without taking up arms himself,
he contributed secretly from his own resources to supplying
the coffers of Bolivar with treasure, even when his operations
were remote — and his daughter was the agent through whose
unsuspected ministry the money was conveyed to the several
emissaries who were commissioned to receive it. The duty was
equally delicate and dangerous, requiring great prudence and
circumspection; and the skill, address, and courage, with which
the child succeeded in the execution of her trusts, would furnish
a frequent lesson for older heads, and the sterner and the bolder
sex.

La Pola was but fourteen years old when she obtained her
first glimpse of the great man in whose cause she had already
been employed, and of whose deeds and distinctions she had
heard so much. By the language of the Spanish tyranny which
swayed with iron authority over her native city, she heard him
denounced and execrated as a rebel and marauder, for whom
an ignominious death was already decreed by the despotic viceroy.
This language, from such lips, was of itself calculated
to raise its object favorably in her enthusiastic sight. By the
patriots, whom she had been accustomed to love and venerate,
she heard the same name breathed always in whispers of hope
and affection, and fondly commended, with tearful blessings, to
the watchful care of Heaven.

She was soon to behold with her own eyes this individual
thus equally distinguished by hate and homage in her hearing.
Bolivar apprized his friends in Bogota that he should visit them
in secret. That province, ruled with a fearfully strong hand by
Zamano, the viceroy, had not yet ventured to declare itself for
the republic. It was necessary to operate with caution; and it
was no small peril which Bolivar necessarily incurred, in penetrating
to its capital, and laying his snares, and fomenting insurrection,
beneath the very hearth-stones of the tyrant. It was
to La Pola's hands that the messenger of the Liberator confided

the missives that communicated this important intelligence to
her father. She little knew the contents of the billet which she
carried him in safety, nor did he confide them to the child. He
himself did not dream of the precocious extent of that enthusiasm
which she felt almost equally for the common cause, and for the
person of its great advocate and champion. Her father simply
praised her care and diligence, rewarded her with his fondest
caresses, and then proceeded with all quiet despatch to make his
preparations for the secret reception of the deliverer.

It was at midnight, and while a thunder-storm was raging,
that he entered the city, making his way, agreeably to previous
arrangement, and under select guidance, into the inner apartments
of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the conspirators
— for such they were — of head men among the patriots of
Bogota, had been contemplated for his reception. Several of
them were accordingly in attendance when he came. These
were persons whose sentiments were well-known to be friendly
to the cause of liberty, who had suffered by the hands, or were
pursued by the suspicions of Zamano, and who, it was naturally
supposed, would be eagerly alive to every opportunity of shaking
off the rule of the oppressor.

But patriotism, as a philosophic sentiment, to be indulged
after a good dinner, and discussed phlegmatically, if not classically,
over sherry and cigars, is a very different sort of thing
from patriotism as a principle of action, to be prosecuted as a
duty, at every peril, instantly and always, to the death if need
be. Our patriots at Bogota were but too frequently of the contemplative,
the philosophical order. Patriotism with them was
rather a subject for eloquence than use. They could recall
those Utopian histories of Greece and Rome which furnish us
with ideals rather than facts, and sigh for names like those of
Cato, and Brutus, and Aristides. But more than this did not
seem to enter their imaginations as at all necessary to assert
the character which it pleased them to profess, or maintain the
reputation which they had prospectively acquired for the very
commendable virtue which constituted their ordinary theme.
Bolivar found them cold. Accustomed to overthrow and usurpation,
they were now slow to venture property and life upon
the predictions and promises of one who, however perfect in

their estimation as a patriot, had yet suffered from most capricious
fortunes. His past history, indeed, except for its patriotism,
offered but very doubtful guarantees in favor of the enterprise
to which they were invoked.

Bolivar was artful and ingenious. He had considerable powers
of eloquence — was specious and persuasive; had an oily, and
bewitching tongue, like Belial; and, if not altogether capable of
making the worse appear the better cause, could at least so shape
the aspects of evil fortune, that, to the unsuspicious nature, they
would seem to be the very results aimed at by the most deliberate
arrangement and resolve.

But Bolivar, on this occasion, was something more than ingenious
and persuasive; he was warmly earnest, and passionately
eloquent. In truth, he was excited much beyond his wont. He
was stung to indignation by a sense of disappointnent. He had
calculated largely on this meeting, and it promised now to be a
failure. He had anticipated the eager enthusiasm of a host of
brave and noble spirits, ready to fling out the banner of freedom
to the winds, and cast the scabbard from the sword for ever.
Instead of this, he found but a little knot of cold, irresolute men,
thinking only of the perils of life which they should incur, and
the forfeiture and loss of property which might accrue from any
hazardous experiments.

Bolivar spoke to them in language less artificial and much
more impassioned than was his wont. He was a man of impulse
rather than of thought or principle, and, once aroused, the intense
fire of a southern sun seemed to burn fiercely in all his
words and actions.

His speech was heard by other ears than those to which it
was addressed. The shrewd mind of La Pola readily conjectured
that the meeting at her father's house, at midnight, and
under peculiar circumstances, contemplated some extraordinary
object. She was aware that a tall, mysterious stranger had
passed through the court, under the immediate conduct of her
father himself. Her instinct divined in this stranger the person
of the deliverer, and her heart would not suffer her to lose the
words, or, if possible to obtain it, to forego the sight of the great
object of its patriotic worship. Besides, she had a right to know

and to see. She was of the party, and had done them service.
She was yet to do them more.

Concealed in an adjoining apartment — a sort of oratory, connected
by a gallery with the chamber in which the conspirators
were assembled — she was able to hear the earnest arguments
and passionate remonstrances of the Liberator. They confirmed
all her previous admiration of his genius and character. She
felt with indignation the humiliating position which the men of
Bogota held in his eyes. She heard their pleas and scruples,
and listened with a bitter scorn to the thousand suggestions of
prudence, the thousand calculations of doubt and caution, with
which timidity seeks to avoid precipitating a crisis. She could
listen and endure no longer. The spirit of the improvvisatrice
was upon her. Was it also that of fate and a higher Providence?
She seized the guitar, of which she was the perfect
mistress, and sung even as her soul counselled and the exigency
of the event demanded. Our translation of her lyrical overflow
is necessarily a cold and feeble one.

At the first sudden gush of the music from within, the father
of the damsel started to his feet, and, with confusion in his countenance,
was about to leave the apartment. But Bolivar arrested
his footsteps, and in a whisper commanded him to be silent and
remain. The conspirators, startled if not alarmed, were compelled
to listen. Bolivar did so with a pleased attention. He
was passionately fond of music, and this was of a sort at once
to appeal to his objects and his taste. His eye kindled as the
song proceeded. His heart rose with an exulting sentiment.
The moment, indeed, embodied one of his greatest triumphs —
the tribute of a pure, unsophisticated soul, inspired by Heaven

with the happiest and highest endowments, and by earth with
the noblest sentiments of pride and country. When the music
ceased, Zalabariata was about to apologize and to explain, but
Bolivar again gently and affectionately arrested his utterance.

“Fear nothing,” said he. “Indeed, why should you fear? I
am in the greater danger here, if there be danger for any; and
I would as soon place my life in the keeping of that noble
damsel, as in the arms of my mother. Let her remain, my
friend; let her hear and see all; and above, do not attempt to
apologize for her. She is my ally. Would that she could make
these men of Bogota feel with herself — feel as she makes even
me to feel.”

The eloquence of the Liberator received a new impulse from
that of the improvisatrice. He renewed his arguments and entreaties
in a different spirit. He denounced, in yet bolder language
than before, that wretched pusillanimity which, quite as
much, he asserted, as the tyranny of the Spaniard, was the
curse under which the liberties of the country groaned and
suffered.

“And now, I ask,” he continued, passionately, “men of Bogota,
if ye really purpose to deny yourselves all share in the
glory and peril of the effort which is for your own emancipation.
Are your brethren of the other provinces to maintain the conflict
in your behalf, while, with folded hands, you submit, doing
nothing for yourselves? Will you not lift the banner also?
Will you not draw sword in your own honor, and the defence
of your firesides and families? Talk not to me of secret contributions.
It is your manhood, not your money, that is needful
for success. And can you withhold yourselves while you profess
to hunger after that liberty for which other men are free to
peril all — manhood, money, life, hope, everything but honor
and the sense of freedom. But why speak of peril in this?
Peril is everywhere. It is the inevitable child of life, natural to
all conditions — to repose as well as action, — to the obscurity
which never goes abroad, as well as to that adventure which
for ever seeks the field. You incur no more peril in openly
braving your tyrant, all together as one man, than you do
thus tamely sitting beneath his footstool, and trembling for ever
lest his capricious will may slay as it enslaves. Be you but

true to yourselves — openly true — and the danger disappears
as the night-mists that speed from before the rising sun. There
is little that deserves the name of peril in the issue which lies
before us. We are more than a match — united, and filled with
the proper spirit — for all the forces that Spain can send against
us. It is in our coldness that she warms — in our want of unity
that she finds strength. But even were we not superior to her
in numbers — even were the chances all wholly and decidedly
against us — I still can not see how it is that you hesitate to
draw the sword in so sacred a strife — a strife which consecrates
the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your
souls so subdued by servitude, are you so accustomed to bonds
and tortures, that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness?
Are you so wedded to inaction that you cease to
feel? Is it the frequency of the punishment that has made you
callous to the ignominy and the pain? Certainly, your viceroy
gives you frequent occasion to grow reconciled to any degree of
hurt and degradation. Daily you behold, and I hear, of the
exactions of this tyrant — of the cruelties and the murders to
which he accustoms you in Bogota. Hundreds of your friends
and kinsmen, even now, lie rotting in the common prisons, denied
equally your sympathies and every show of justice, perishing
daily under the most cruel privations. Hundreds have perished
by this and other modes of torture, and the gallows and
garote seem never to be unoccupied. Was it not the bleaching
skeleton of the venerable Hermano, whom I well knew for his
wisdom and patriotism, which I beheld, even as I entered, hanging
in chains over the gateway of your city? Was he not the
victim of his wealth and love of country? Who among you is
secure? He dared but to deliver himself as a man — and, as he
was suffered to stand alone, he was destroyed. Had you, when
he spoke, but prepared yourselves to act, flung out the banner
of resistance to the winds, and bared the sword for the last
noble struggle, Hermano had not perished, nor were the glorious
work only now to be begun. But which of you, involved in the
same peril with Hermano, will find the friend, in the moment of
his need, to take the first step for his rescue? Each of you, in
turn, having wealth to tempt the spoiler, will be sure to need
such friendship. It seems you do not look for it among one
another — where, then, do you propose to find it? Will you
seek for it among the Cartagenians — among the other provinces
— to Bolivar without? Vain expectation, if you are unwilling
to peril anything for yourselves within! In a tyranny
so suspicious and so reckless as is yours, you must momentarily
tremble lest ye suffer at the hands of your despot. True manhood
rather prefers any peril which puts an end to this state of
anxiety and fear. Thus to tremble with apprehension ever, is
ever to be dying. It is a life of death only which ye live — and
any death or peril that comes quickly at the summons, is to be
preferred before it. If, then, ye have hearts to feel, or hopes
to warm ye — a pride to suffer consciousness of shame, or an
ambition that longs for better things — affections for which to
covet life, or the courage with which to assert and to defend
your affections — ye can not, ye will not hesitate to determine,
with souls of freemen, upon what is needful to be done. Ye
have but one choice as men; and the question which is left for
ye to resolve, is that which determines, not your possessions, not
even your lives, but simply your rank and stature in the world
of humanity and man.”

The Liberator paused, not so much through his own or the
exhaustion of the subject, as that his hearers should in turn be
heard. But, with this latter object, his forbearance was profitless.
There were those among them, indeed, who had their
answers to his exhortations, but these were not of a character to
promise boldly for their patriotism or courage. Their professions,
indeed, were ample, but were confined to unmeaning generalities.
“Now is the time — now!” was the response of
Bolivar to all that was said. But they faltered and hung back
at every utterance of his spasmodically-uttered “now! now!”
He scanned their faces eagerly, with a hope that gradually
yielded to despondency. Their features were blank and inexpressive,
as their answers had been meaningless or evasive.
Several of them were of that class of quiet citizens, unaccustomed
to any enterprises but those of trade, who are always slow
to peril wealth by a direct issue with their despotism. They
felt the truth of Bolivar's assertions. They knew that their
treasures were only so many baits and lures to the cupidity and
exactions of the royal emissaries, but they still relied on their

habitual caution and docility to keep terms with the tyranny at
which they yet trembled. When, in the warmth of his enthusiasm,
Bolivar depicted the bloody struggles which must precede
their deliverance, they began, indeed, to wonder among themselves
how they ever came to fall into that mischievous philosophy
of patriotism which had involved them with such a restless
rebel as Bolivar! Others of the company were ancient hidalgos,
who had been men of spirit in their day, but who had survived
the season of enterprise, which is that period only when
the heart swells and overflows with full tides of warm and
impetuous blood.

“Your error,” said he, in a whisper to Señor Don Joachim
de Zalabariata, “was in not bringing young men into your
counsels.”

“We shall have them hereafter,” was the reply, also in a
whisper.

“We shall see,” muttered the Liberator, who continued,
though in silence, to scan the assembly with inquisitive eyes, and
an excitement of soul, which increased duly with his efforts to
subdue it. He had found some allies in the circle — some few
generous spirits, who, responding to his desires, were anxious to
be up and doing. But it was only too apparent that the main
body of the company had been rather disquieted than warmed.
In this condition of hopeless and speechless indecision, the emotions
of the Liberator became scarcely controllable. His whole
frame trembled with the anxiety and indignation of his spirit.
He paced the room hurriedly, passing from group to group,
appealing to individuals now, where hitherto he had spoken collectively,
and suggesting detailed arguments in behalf of hopes
and objects, which it does not need that we should incorporate
with our narrative. But when he found how feeble was the
influence which he exercised, and how cold was the echo to his
appeal, he became impatient, and no longer strove to modify the
expression of that scorn and indignation which he had for some
time felt. The explosion followed in no measured language.

“Men of Bogota, you are not worthy to be free. Your chains
are merited. You deserve your insecurities, and may embrace,
even as ye please, the fates which lie before you. Acquiesce
in the tyranny which offends no longer, but be sure that acquiescence

never yet has disarmed the despot when his rapacity
needs a victim. Your lives and possessions — which ye dare not
peril in the cause of freedom — lie equally at his mercy. He
will not pause, as you do, to use them at his pleasure. To save
them from him there is but one way — to employ them against
him. There is no security against power but in power; and to
check the insolence of foreign strength you must oppose to it
your own. This ye have not soul to do, and I leave you to the
destiny you have chosen. This day, this night, it was yours to
resolve. I have perilled all to move you to the proper resolution.
You have denied me, and I leave you. To-morrow — unless
indeed I am betrayed to-night” — looking with a sarcastic
smile around him as he spoke — “I shall unfurl the banner of
the republic even within your own province, in behalf of Bogota,
and seek, even against your own desires, to bestow upon you
those blessings of liberty which ye have not the soul to conquer
for yourselves.”

2. CHAPTER II.

Hardly had these words been spoken, when the guitar again
sounded from within. Every ear was instantly hushed as the
strain ascended — a strain, more ambitious than the preceding,
of melancholy and indignant apostrophe. The improvvisatrice
was no longer able to control the passionate inspiration which
took its tone from the stern eloquence of the Liberator. She
caught from him the burning sentiment of scorn which it was no
longer his policy to repress, and gave it additional effect in the
polished sarcasm of her song. Our translation will poorly suffice
to convey a proper notion of the strain.

As the song proceeded, Bolivar stood forward as one rapt in
ecstacy. The exultation brightened in his eye, and his manner
was that of a soul in the realization of its highest triumph. Not
so the Bogotans by whom he was surrounded. They felt the
terrible sarcasm which the damsel's song conveyed — a sarcasm
immortalized to all the future, in the undying depths of a song
to be remembered. They felt the humiliation of such a record,
and hung their heads in shame. At the close of the ballad,
Bolivar exclaimed to Joachim de Zalabarietta, the father:—

“Bring the child before us. She is worthy to be a prime minister.
A prime minister? No! the hero of the forlorn hope! a
spirit to raise a fallen standard from the dust, and to tear down
and trample that of the enemy. Bring her forth, Joachim. Had
your men of Bogota but a tithe of a heart so precious! Nay,
could her heart be divided among them — it might serve a thousand
— there were no viceroy of Spain within your city now!”

And when the father brought her forth from the little cabinet,
that girl, flashing with inspiration — pale and red by turns —
slightly made, but graceful — very lovely to look upon —
wrapped in loose white garments, with her long hair, dark and
flowing unconfined, and so long that it was easy for her to

walk upon it[1] — the admiration of the Liberator was insuppressible.

“Bless you for ever,” he cried, “my fair Princess of Freedom!
You, at least, have a free soul, and one that is certainly
inspired by the great divinity of earth. You shall be mine ally,
though I find none other in all Bogota sufficiently courageous.
In you, my child, in you and yours, there is still a redeeming
spirit which shall save your city utterly from shame!”

While he spoke, the emotions of the maiden were of a sort
readily to show how easily she should be quickened with the
inspiration of lyric song. The color came and went upon her
soft white cheeks. The tears rose, big and bright, upon her
eyelashes — heavy drops, incapable of suppression, that swelled
one after the other, trembled and fell, while the light blazed,
even more brightly from the showers in the dark and dilating
orbs which harbored such capacious fountains. She had no
words at first, but, trembling like a leaf, sunk upon a cushion at
the feet of her father, as Bolivar, with a kiss upon her forehead,
released her from his clasp. Her courage came back to her a
moment after. She was a thing of impulse, whose movements
were as prompt and unexpected as the inspiration by which she
sung. Bolivar had scarcely turned from her, as if to relieve her
tremor, when she recovered all her strength and courage. Suddenly
rising from the cushion, she seized the hand of her father,
and with an action equally passionate and dignified, she led him
to the Liberator, to whom, speaking for the first time in that
presence, she thus addressed herself:—

“He is yours — he has always been ready with his life and
money. Believe me, for I know it. Nay more! doubt not that
there are hundreds in Bogota — though they be not here — who,
like him, will be ready whenever they hear the summons of
your trumpet. Nor will the women of Bogota be wanting.
There will be many of them who will take the weapons of those
who use them not, and do as brave deeds for their country as
did the dames of Magdalena when they slew four hundred
Spaniards.”[2]

“Ah! I remember! A most glorious achievement, and worthy
to be written in letters of gold. It was at Mompox, where
they rose upon the garrison of Morillo. Girl, you are worthy to
have been the chief of those women of Magdalena. You will
be chief yet of the women of Bogota. I take your assurance
with regard to them; but, for the men, it were better that thou
peril nothing even in thy speech.”

The last sarcasm of the Liberator might have been spared.
That which his eloquence had failed to effect was suddenly accomplished
by this child of beauty. Her inspiration and presence
were electrical. The old forgot their caution and their years.
The young, who needed but a leader, had suddenly found a
genius. There was now no lack of the necessary enthusiasm.
There were no more scruples. Hesitation yielded to resolve.
The required pledges were given — given more abundantly than
required; and, raising the slight form of the damsel to his own
height, Bolivar again pressed his lips upon her forehead, gazing
at her with a respectful delight, while he bestowed upon her the
name of the Guardian Angel of Bogota. With a heart bounding
and beating with the most enthusiastic emotions — too full
for further utterance — La Pola disappeared from that imposing
presence which her coming had filled with a new life and
impulse

3. CHAPTER III.

It was nearly dawn when the Liberator left the city. That
night the bleaching skeleton of the venerable patriot Hermano
was taken down from the gibbet where it had hung so long, by
hands that left the revolutionary banner waving proudly in its
place. This was an event to startle the viceroy. It was followed
by other events. In a few days more, and the sounds of

insurrection were heard throughout the province — the city still
moving secretly — sending forth supplies and intelligence by
stealth, but unable to raise the standard of rebellion, while Zamano,
the viceroy, doubtful of its loyalty, remained in possession
of its strong places with an overawing force. Bolivar himself,
under these circumstances, was unwilling that the patriots
should throw aside the mask. Throughout the province, however,
the rising was general. They responded eagerly to the
call of the Liberator, and it was easy to foresee that their cause
must ultimately prevail. The people in conflict proved themselves
equal to their rulers. The Spaniards had been neither
moderate when strong, nor were they prudent now when the
conflict found them weak. Still, the successes were various.
The Spaniards had a foothold from which it was not easy to expel
them, and were in possession of resources, in arms and material,
derived from the mother-country, with which the republicans
found it no easy matter to contend. But they did contend,
and this, with the right upon their side, was the great guarantee
for success. What the Colombians wanted in the materials of
warfare, was more than supplied by their energy and patriotism;
and, however slow in attaining their desired object, it was yet
evident to all, except their enemies, that the issue was certainly
in their own hands.

For two years that the war had been carried on, the casual
observer could, perhaps, see but little change in the respective
relations of the combatants. The Spaniards still continued to
maintain their foothold wherever the risings of the patriots had
been premature or partial. But the resources of the former
were hourly undergoing diminution, and the great lessening of
the productions of the country, incident to its insurrectionary
condition, had subtracted largely from the temptations to the
further prosecution of the war. The hopes of the patriots naturally
rose with the depression of their enemies, and their increasing
numbers, and improving skill in the use of their weapons,
not a little contributed to their endurance and activity. But
for this history we must look to other volumes. The question
for us is confined to an individual. How, in all this time, had
La Pola redeemed her pledge to the Liberator — how had she
whom he had described as the “guardian genius of Bogota,”

adhered to the enthusiastic faith which she had voluntarily
pledged to him in behalf of herself and people?

Now, it may be supposed that a woman's promise, to participate
in the business of an insurrection, is not the thing upon
which much stress is to be laid. We are apt to assume for the
sex a too humble capacity for high performances, and a too
small sympathy with the interests and affairs of public life. In
both respects we are mistaken. A proper education for the sex
would result in showing their ability to share with man in all
his toils, and to sympathize with him in all the legitimate concerns
of manhood. But what, demands the caviller, can be expected
of a child of fifteen? and should her promises be held
against her for rigid fulfilment and performance? It might be
enough to answer that we are writing a sober history. There is
the record. The fact is as we give it. But a girl of fifteen, in
the warm latitude of South America, is quite as mature as the
northern maiden of twenty-five; with an ardor in her nature
that seems to wing the operations of the mind, making that intuitive
with her, which, in the person of a colder climate, is the
result only of long calculation and deliberate thought. She is
sometimes a mother at twelve, and, as in the case of La Pola, a
heroine at fifteen. We freely admit that Bolivar, though greatly
interested in the improvvisatrice, was chiefly grateful to her for
the timely rebuke which she administered, through her peculiar
faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen.
As a matter of course, he might still expect that the
same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter.
But he certainly never calculated on other and more decided
services at her hands. He misunderstood the being whom he
had somewhat contributed to inspire. He did not appreciate
her ambition, or comprehend her resources. From the moment
of his meeting with her she became a woman. She was already
a politician as she was a poet. Intrigue is natural to the genius
of the sex, and the faculty is enlivened by the possession of a
warm imagination. La Pola put all her faculties in requisition.
Her soul was now addressed to the achievement of some plan of
co-operation with the republican chief, and she succeeded, where
wiser persons must have failed, in compassing the desirable
facilities.

Living in Bogota — the stronghold of the enemy — she exercised
a policy and address which disarmed suspicion. Her father
and his family were to be saved and shielded, while they remained
under the power of the viceroy, Zamano — a military despot
who had already acquired a reputation for cruelty scarcely
inferior to that of the worst of the Roman emperors in the latter
days of the empire. The wealth of her father, partly known,
made him a desirable victim. Her beauty, her spirit, the charm
of her song and conversation, were exercised, as well to secure
favor for him, as to procure the needed intelligence and assistance
for the Liberator. She managed the twofold object with
admirable success — disarming suspicion, and, under cover of the
confidence which she inspired, succeeding in effecting constant
communication with the patriots, by which she put into their
possession all the plans of the Spaniards. Her rare talents and
beauty were the chief sources of her success. She subdued her
passionate and intense nature — her wild impulse and eager
heart — employing them only to impart to her fancy a more impressive
and spiritual existence. She clothed her genius in the
brightest and gayest colors, sporting above the precipice of feeling,
and making of it a background and a relief to heighten the
charm of her seemingly wilful fancy. Song came at her summons,
and disarmed the serious questioner. In the eyes of her
country's enemies she was only the improvvisatrice — a rarely
gifted creature, living in the clouds, and totally regardless of the
things of earth. She could thus beguile from the young officers
of the Spanish army, without provoking the slightest apprehension
of any sinister object, the secret plan and purpose — the
new supply — the contemplated enterprise — in short, a thousand
things which, as an inspired idiot, might be yielded to her with
indifference, which, in the case of one solicitous to know, would
be guarded with the most jealous vigilance. She was the princess
of the tertulia — that mode of evening entertainment so common,
yet so precious, among the Spaniards. At these parties
she ministered with a grace and influence which made the house
of her father a place of general resort. The Spanish gallants
thronged about her person, watchful of her every motion, and
yielding always to the exquisite compass, and delightful spirituality
of her song. At worst, they suspected her of no greater

offence than of being totally heartless, with all her charms, and
of aiming at no treachery more dangerous than that of making
conquests, simply to deride them. It was the popular qualification
of all her beauties and accomplishments that she was a coquette,
at once so cold, and so insatiate. Perhaps, the woman
politician never so thoroughly conceals her game as when she
masks it with the art which men are most apt to describe as the
prevailing passion of the sex.

By these arts, La Pola fulfilled most amply her pledges to
the liberator. She was, indeed, his most admirable ally in
Bogota. She soon became thoroughly conversant with all the
facts in the condition of the Spanish army — the strength of the
several armaments, their disposition and destination — the operations
in prospect, and the opinions and merits of the officers —
all of whom she knew, and from whom she obtained no small
knowledge of the worth and value of their absent comrades.
These particulars, all regularly transmitted to Bolivar, were
quite as much the secret of his success, as his own genius and
the valor of his troops. The constant disappointment and defeat
of the royalist arms, in the operations which were conducted
in the province of Bogota, attested the closeness and correctness
of her knowledge, and its vast importance to the cause of
the patriots.

4. 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

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 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.

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

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.