Face to face with Nature on the vast hills
at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?
Out of his heart God shall not pass:
His image stamped is on every grass.
My comrades, anxious to get through the Cuchilla, were already on
horseback, shouting to me to mount. One more lingering glance over
that wide prospect--wide, yet how small a portion of the Banda's twenty
thousand miles of everlasting verdure, watered by innumerable beautiful
streams? Again the thought of Dolores swept like a moaning wind over
my heart. For this rich prize, her beautiful country, how weakly and
with what feeble hands had we striven! Where now was her hero, the
glorious deliverer Perseus? Lying, perhaps, stark and stained with
blood on yon darkening moor. Not yet was the Colorado monster overcome.
"Rest on thy rock, Andromeda!" I sadly murmured, then, leaping into
the saddle, galloped away after my retreating comrades, already half
a mile away down in the shadowy mountain pass.
CHAPTER XIX
Before it had been long dark, we had crossed the range and into the
department of Minas. Nothing happened till towards midnight, when our
horses began to be greatly distressed. My companions hoped to reach
before morning an _estancia_, still many leagues distant, where
they were known and would be allowed to lie in concealment for a few
days till the storm blew over; for usually shortly after an outbreak
has been put down an _indulto_, or proclamation of pardon, is
issued, after which it is safe for all those who have taken arms against
the constituted government to return to their homes.
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