The Purple Land Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb's Adventures in The Banda Orientál, in South America, as Told By Himself by W. H. Hudson

Author:W. H. Hudson [Hudson, W. H. (William Henry)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure stories, British -- Uruguay -- Fiction, Uruguay -- Fiction
Published: 2004-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XVIII

About the stirring events of the succeeding days I have little to relate, and no reader who has suffered the malady of love in its acutest form will wonder at it. During those days I mixed with a crowd of adventurers, returned exiles, criminals, and malcontents, every one of them worth studying; the daylight hours were passed in cavalry exercises or in long expeditions about the country, while every evening beside the camp fire romantic tales enough to fill a volume were told in my hearing. But the image of Dolores was ever before my mind, so that all this crowded period, lasting nine or ten days, passed before me like a phantasmagoria, or an uneasy dream, leaving only a very confused impression on my brain. I not only grieved for the sorrow I had occasioned her, but mourned also that my own heart had so terribly betrayed me, so that for the moment the beautiful girl I had persuaded to fly from home and parents, promising her my undying affection, had ceased to be what she had been, so great was this new inconvenient passion. The General had offered me a commission in his tatterdemalion gathering, but, as I had no knowledge of military matters, I had prudently declined it, only requesting, as a special favour, that I might be employed constantly on the expeditions he sent out over the surrounding country to beat up recruits, seize arms, cattle, and horses, and to depose the little local authorities in the villages, putting creatures of his own in their places. This request had been granted, so that morning, noon, and night I was generally in the saddle.

One evening I was in the camp seated beside a large fire and gloomily staring into the flames, when the other men, who were occupied playing cards or sipping maté, hastily rose to their feet, making the salute. Then I saw the General standing near gazing fixedly at me. Motioning to the men to resume their cards, he sat down by my side.

“What is the matter with you?” he said. “I have noticed that you are like a different person since you joined us. Do you regret that step?”

“No,” I answered, and then was silent, not knowing what more to say.

He looked searchingly at me. Doubtless some suspicion of the truth was in his mind; for he had gone to the Casa Blanca with me, and it was scarcely likely that his keen eyes had failed to notice the cold reception Dolores gave me on that occasion. He did not, however, touch on that matter.

“Tell me,” he said at length, “what can I do for you?”

I laughed. “What can you do except to take me to Montevideo?” I replied.

“Why do you say that?” he returned quickly.

“We are not merely friends now as we were before I joined you,” I said. “You are my General; I am simply one of your men.”

“The friendship remains just the same, Richard. Let me know frankly

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