Indoors or out I generally had Dolores for a companion, and I could
certainly not have had a more charming one. The civil war--though the
little splutter on the Yi scarcely deserved that name yet--was her
unfailing theme. She was never weary of singing her hero Santa Coloma's
praises--his dauntless courage and patience in defeat; his strange
romantic adventures; the innumerable disguises and stratagems he had
resorted to when going about in his own country, where a price was set
on his head; ever labouring to infuse fresh valour into his beaten,
disheartened followers. That the governing party had any right to be
in power, or possessed any virtue of any kind, or were, in fact,
anything but an incubus and a curse to the Banda Oriental, she would
not for one moment admit. To her mind her country always appeared like
Andromeda bound on her rock and left weeping and desolate to be a prey
to the abhorred Colorado monster; while ever to the deliverance of
this lovely being came her glorious Perseus, swift as the winds of
heaven, the lightnings of terrible vengeance flashing from his eyes,
the might of the immortals in his strong right arm. Often she tried
to persuade me to join this romantic adventurer, and it was hard, very
hard, to resist her eloquent appeals, and perhaps it grew harder every
day as the influence of her passionate beauty strengthened itself upon
my heart.
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