Читать книгу Chata and Chinita. A Novel онлайн

118 страница из 163

Such was the political aspect, so far as known at Tres Hermanos, upon the eve when the first straggling band of soldiery crossed the peaceful valley, and its doors opened to receive the first of those armed guests, which in the near future were to become so numerous and so dreaded.

In one far corner of the great house there was a little balcony with its high iron railing; and behind it, scarce reaching to its top, stood two children on tip-toe, looking with wide eyes upon the glory of the purpling mountains, and then with mundane curiosity dropping them upon the more homely attractions within hearing as well as sight. And upon that special afternoon in October these chanced to be of a somewhat unusual character; for across the plain rode one of those predatory bands, which in those wild days sprang up like magic even in the most isolated regions,—the arid mountains and the fertile plains alike furnishing their quota of material, which blindly, ignorantly, but for that none the less furiously, became sacrifices to the ambition of a score or more contesting chiefs. Yet amid the cupidity, unscrupulousness, and barbarity of these chiefs still lingered the spirit of liberty, which though drenched in blood, and bound down by ecclesiastical as well as military despotism, was yet to rise triumphant, perhaps after its years of long struggle stronger, purer, holier than the world before had known it.