Troubled
happiness! Ah, yes, and my greatest trouble was when I looked on her,
my partner for life, when she seemed loveliest, so small, so exquisite
in her dark blue eyes that were like violets, and silky black hair and
tender pink and olive complexion--so frail in appearance! And I had
taken her--stolen her--from her natural protectors, from the home where
she had been worshipped--I of an alien race and another religion,
without means, and, because I had stolen her, an offender against the
law. But of this no more. I begin my itinerary where, safe on our
little ship, with the towers of Buenos Ayres fast fading away in the
west, we began to feel free from apprehension and to give ourselves
up to the contemplation of the delights before us. Winds and waves
presently interfered with our raptures, Paquita proving a very
indifferent sailor, so that for some hours we had a very trying time
of it. Next day a favourable north-west breeze sprang up to send us
flying like a bird over those unlovely red billows, and in the evening
we disembarked in Montevideo, the city of refuge. We proceeded to an
hotel, where for several days we lived very happily, enchanted with
each other's society; and when we strolled along the beach to watch
the setting sun, kindling with mystic fire heaven, water, and the great
hill that gives the city its name, and remembered that we were looking
towards the shores of Buenos Ayres, it was pleasant to reflect that
the widest river in the world rolled between us and those who probably
felt offended at what we had done.
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