Margarita; or, the Queen of Night. A novel ... Freely translated from the Spanish of Messrs. Fernandez and Gonzalez [or rather M. F. y G.], by Viscount Pollington

Chapter I. Rosalia

I. TV /T ARGARITA stopped for breath; she had now talked for more than two hours, and was beginning to feel tired ; however, she soon continued. " I then, breaking through my ordinary custom, began to get up before dawn. " Then I could breathe the fresh pure air of morning with greater freedom and pleasure than the stifling atmosphere of noon. " The time during which I felt most cheerful was always that between the first glimpse of dawn and the sunrise. VOL. II. 1! Margarita ; or, 1 " Well, one morning, as I had hardly set my foot out of doors on that side of the house which led to the slaves' quarters, I was much frightened by hearing horrible shrieks and howls of pain and despair proceeding from thence. " I looked in the direction from whence the shrieks came, and saw that the overseer — an emancipated negro — was furiously beating a female slave, whose hair he was holding by one hand.

"When she saw me she held out her arms towards me and screamed out, ' Oh ! lady, have pity upon me, for God's sake ! I cannot endure more ; this man will kill me !' " ' Melchor !' I shouted, ' what do you mean ?' at the same time running up towards the poor unfortunate creature to see how I could help her. The whip fell from the overseer's hands. The poor slave, who was half naked and bleeding from the force of the lashes, dragged herself along the ground towards me, took hold of the skirts of my gown, and swooned away. " ' She is an idle wretch, mademoiselle !' said Melchor to me ; ' she will neither work nor eat anvthing.' " I replied, ' I take her for my slave.' the Queen of Night. 3 " ' Well, of course you must do as you please ; but I give you warning that the master will be furious if you do so !' " ' I take all the responsibility upon myself.' " ' I had better tell you that slave — " ' Enough ! just give some of the slaves orders to take her up to my own room.' The marquis had given orders to the effect that every slave in the house should obey my commands as if his own ; so Melchor obeyed, although with unconcealed reluctance.

"'You have a very good heart, mademoiselle,' he said ; ' but you do not know what you are doing now ; there will be a dreadful to-do about this — well I know it ! Rosalia is a wretch ! she will neither work nor take her food ; and the master left special orders that she was to be treated with unusual severity.' " However, in spite of his opposition, Melchor called for some of the slaves appointed to do the household work, and they soon carried up Rosalia to my private room, and put her into a bed near my own. Her skin was bruised and partly broken. Wherever the strokes of the whip had broken her skin I could see the horrible discoloration produced by inflammation. Margarita ; or, 4 It was a long time before Rosalia came to herself again ; the slaves used all means in their power to bring her to life again, but to no purpose.

I was obliged to have recourse to professional skill ; and I sent a man into Havana with the carriage to bring back a doctor ; he was absent for twelve hours — twelve hours passed by me in mortal anxiety, for I was fearful my ' protegee ' might die in my arms. At length he returned, bringing one of the best physicians of Havana with him. " When the doctor saw her, he told me that as yet he could not answer for her life. I begged him to stay in the house to look after her ; and after a great deal of persuasion he consented. For three days a mounted slave was continually riding backwards and forwards from the hacienda to Havana for or with medicines. Rosalia suffered not alone from her wounds ; the doctor talked to me of aneurisms, of nervous disease, of I know not how many dangerous disorders — all complicated and serious — combined in the un fortunate woman ; thus completely refuting the old theory of the co-existence of two acute disorders in the same body at the same time being impossible ! the Qtteen of Night. 5 " For eight days Rosalia lay between life and death.

" All this time de la Roca was absent ; and I sometimes confess I felt a little uncomfortable when I recollected what the overseer had said when he saw me determined to protect her. ' The master will be furious when he hears of it !' " But why on earth should he be furious because I chose to protect the unfortunate woman from Melchor's barbarous lash ? " What terms existed between the master and slave here ? What could be the reason of de la Roca's cruelty to this girl ? I was fated to hear the explanation of all this very soon with horror, for the hatred of the marquis towards Rosalia only arose from another of his crimes. At length the day arrived when the doctor said that Rosalia was out of danger for the present. For some time, however, her weakness was so great that I was forced, most unwillingly, to forego asking any explanation of her.

All this while some mysterious feeling within me told me that the statements of this poor slave would be of great service to me as an arm against de la Roca. "She was now thin to a degree from not being able to eat much food, and this kept her in such a feeble state that poor Rosalia was perfectly helpless and almost powerless to move hand or foot at the expiration of the eight days. "After a time, however, thanks to the care I took of her, Rosalia was able to leave her bed, and to take a short walk, leaning upon me, to taste the fresh air in the garden. "When Melchor caught sight of me supporting her he shook his head, and I could hear him mutter, 'You don't know what you are doing, mademoiselle. You have too good a heart. Rosalia is a bad girl, and when the master returns and sees you with her he will be furious !' " The slaves about the plantation, I could see, kept murmuring against her, when they saw her coming along dressed in my clothes and leaning on my arm.

I could see a singular expression upon their faces. It could not be envy, for I treated them all alike; I tried to be kind and considerate to all of them, and had advice or presents for all when they wanted them. " They knew well enough that I would have done as much for any of them, had they been in Rosalia's position. " Then what stigma, invisible to me, could be impressed on her forehead ? All hated her — that I could plainly perceive ; but I could not under stand how an unfortunate creature, reduced to the most abject misery, could have become an object of hatred to any. As yet I had not remarked her exceeding beauty, for the ravages made in her face by disease had effaced her loveliness. I had not yet discovered how natu rally haughty and proud she was, for when I first saw her the hour had come for Rosalia, during which the most exalted notions of pride must be in abeyance, and the most proud bend.

In her misery her strength of body, as well as of mind, had given way ; and of her there only remained a creature to be pitied — subdued, almost crushed as she was by suffering, by the infamous treat ment she had undergone, and the disgrace heaped upon her. " Rosalia had done the utmost in her power to avoid her degradation. At first she had pre ferred the lash to a degrading task. Then, worn out by long-continued and cruel scourgings, she had sought her liberty by the only means left to her — by death. Not having been able, owing to the constant watch kept over her every move ment, to eat one of the numerous deadly plants that grow in profusion under a tropical sun, she had at last refused to eat the food necessary to sustain her. " But the overseer's lash forbade even this ; that would not suffer her to die and put herself out of her misery, oh ! no !

They had at length scourged her till the blood came, but before me, and my compassion had rescued her, half dead. "Now, my kindness towards her had been able to effect what fear and cruelty had been unable to accomplish. " Andres ! you can hardly understand to what lengths the strength of will of South Africa's sons and daughters will carry them. Their sullen tenacity is unconquerable. When once their hatred is aroused they are implacable, irrecon cilable, and terrible in their hate. " When one of these unhappy beings, enslaved, has once been lord in his own forests, by the mouth of one of their great rivers, or on the shores of their enormous lakes, every effort to reduce him to submission is utterly vain. Unlike white men, they seldom care to find a refuge from their ills in death. " Now, as I found out from her own lips, Rosalia, or rather Itumela — that was her African name, and signified 'the graceful' — had been a queen in her own land, the wife of Moene Dillolo, or ' lord of the lake.'" "A queen ?"

I exclaimed. " Yes ! the wife of a ' cacique !' When I found that out I understood the hatred the other slaves bore towards her. Her companions in misfortune could not bear to see that, even in her slavery, Itumela preserved her dignity and pride becoming her former quasi-regal con dition. " These caciques, who have a hut for palace, three ostrich feathers for a diadem, a mat for a throne, and one old gun for sceptre, whose jewels consist for the most part in pieces of glass and glass beads obtained from European traders in barter for elephants' tusks and wild beasts' skins, are the most perfect ensamples of absolute despotic seigniority over their own small domain — some hundred roods of jungle near some river's mouth. " Here they reign over some two or three Margarita ; or, 10 hundred men and women, whose only riches consist in their more or less numerous herds, and who inhabit a village of miserable huts.

"The cacique is absolute lord over the lives and property of his vassals, or rather servants. His is the sovereign will which none dare gainsay. He is the monarch of all he surveys— unless, indeed, his eyesight extend into a neighbouring lord's domains, when it is very different ! " His is a power that none can thwart until some more powerful neighbour attacks and kills him. Then the huts are burnt, the herds driven away, the women and young men and children taken as slaves, and the old people murdered. The conquered cacique is the most miserable slave of all, unless he has found death before captivity. " His queen is reduced to the most abject and deplorable condition before his eyes, and his children are ignominiously treated by the victor. "There the light of the gospel has never shone.

Religion has never been able to re_ generate the unhappy people and infuse the feeling of a conscience amongst them. All missions have failed or degenerated before the apathy, the want of religious tone of those souls, lost amongst the enormous jungles and wilds of the deadly South and Central African soil. " Excepting missionaries — few and far between in such a boundless tract of country — the only Europeans or whites to be met with there are men degraded by avarice, in whom the expect ation of enormous gains has served to overcome the natural repugnance felt by most men to encounter the perils of every kind which have to be faced at every step in this inhospitable region. Malignant fevers, poisonous insects, arid deserts or jungles covered with rank and deadly vege tation, and totally destitute of water, serpents, wild and ferocious animals, reptiles, the natives themselves, are so many terrible obstacles, inter posing a barrier between civilization and their vast empire. in.

"For all this the Protestant missionaries con trive occasionally to make a few converts — rudimentary Christians — who are very far from comprehending, in all its sublimity, the holy doctrine of the gospels, and whose notions of charity and goodwill generally centre in them selves. Far be it from me to say this does not Margarita ; or, 12 extend to Christianity out of Africa. Here, however, the habits of these converts are to some degree softened under the influence of this pale reflex of the sun of true Christianity. " The cacique is almost, as a matter of course, the first neophyte. Conversion must begin with the highest of the tribe, and then descend. If a subject were to dare to avow himself a Christian without his lord the cacique being one also he would soon be put out of the way. Even these royal converts cannot become Christians without exposing themselves to great danger.

Their subjects are thereby predisposed to rebellion, and their neighbours to war. A trifling cause may then bring destruction upon them, or, what is infinitely worse, slavery. " Moene Dillolo and Itumela were both con verts. They used to assemble their tribe at the ordinary place of meeting, where public feasts were celebrated, and war or peace determined upon, where justice was administered and put into instant execution — temple, palace, market, school, tribunal, and scaffold, all in one. " Here the new use was introduced by Moene Dillolo and Itumela of sitting around, with their whole tribe, whilst portions of the Bible were read out in the language of the country by one of the missionaries, who, after the service, turned schoolmaster, and endeavoured to teach the natives reading and writing, but found them most unwilling disciples.

Moene Dillolo, on being baptized, had sent seven of his eight wives back to their relations — powerful caciques of neighbouring tribes — from whose palaces he had carried them off to wive them. This naturally excited the displeasure and ill-will of his neigh bours, at having the useless women returned upon their hands ; and they were unable to com prehend the benefits of the Christian religion, when accompanied with the restriction to one wife. " After his conversion, Moene Dillolo married Itumela — already a Christian — his eighth wife having lately died. " But Moene Dillolo's conversion did not end in his having only one wife ; he was a superior man, and saw full well the advantages of civili zation. "He adopted European dress as far as prac ticable, and turned his royal hut into a sort of small palace, which soon arose, clean and cheerful, with English windows, by the banks of the lake, Margarita ; or, 14 environed by the small poor huts, arranged in due order in the primitive style of the country, which constituted the largest village, or perhaps better, the court, of Moene Dillolo's tribe.

" I do not know the name of the people over whom Moene Dillolo was cacique or king. Rosalia herself — from whom I obtained all these details — was ignorant of it. Whenever I asked her, she answered, ' I do not know, lady. In my own country, I lived at home inside a baobab tree.' " ' And what is a baobab tree ?' I asked. " ' A baobab is a species of enormous tree, of so great circumference that a comfortable dwell ing can be hewn out of its trunk. A long time before, a wise " medicine man " had taken up his abode inside this baobab, in which he had con structed himself a most pleasant abiding-place, which I inherited. He had come there to live, far away from all villages, by himself, and he never approached the haunts of men, excepting when some natives used to come and fetch him, to cure persons or cattle, or to cause rain to fall, when long-continued drought had partially destroyed the crops, and decimated men and beasts by thirst.

" ' As time went on, some of the friends of this wise man came with their families and herds, and settled around the great baobab, building their huts around. When, after many years, the wise man died, so many natives had congregated here, that there was a large village around the tree, the head of a numerous and powerful tribe. " ' Later on, a valiant warrior, who arrived here from some great inland lake, subdued the baobab tribe, as it was called, and granted their lives to the conquered, leaving them even their herds and wives and elephants' tusks, and made himself their king. " ' In order to secure his title to and alliance with the tribe, Ramotoos (that was the terrible warrior's name) took as wives the daughters of the most powerful chiefs in the subdued village. '"One of these wives, Baleriking by name, and the favourite of Ramotoos, bore him a daughter — myself.' " On arriving at this point in her narrative, Rosalia turned to me, ' I am the daughter and the wife of a king,' she said ; and her eyes flashed indomitable pride, whilst her lip curled in in effable disdain as she looked into the courtyard and perceived the slaves at work.

" ' I was so beautiful in my father's eyes when I was born, that he called me Itumela. The daughters of his chiefest and most powerful sub jects waited upon me, and ministered unto my slightest wish. '"When I was twelve years old, my father took me to the baobab, and showing me the charming rooms excavated therein, he said, " Itumela, that good fortune envied by the gods themselves waits on whosoever sleeps under this tree, where the wise and good medicine man, who used to dwell therein, lies buried. I desire your happiness, my daughter ; live from henceforth in this baobab." " ' From that day I dwelt there, surrounded by the companions of my childhood and playmates of my own age, who respectfully attended upon me. Was I not the favourite child, the light of the eyes of Ramotoos ? " ' My father used to go out on hunting or warring expeditions every day, to take captives, or obtain ivory in large quantities, and the skins of lions, tigers, and other animals, either by the chase, or taking them from the tribes which he attacked.

" ' These he used to exchange for rich stuffs and beautiful jewels, with the white traders, who came twice a year to our tribe, when the leaves fell, and again when they burst forth in spring.' " ' And what sort of stuffs,' I asked, ' did these traders give your father in exchange, and what jewels ? Do you not think, from what you have seen during your sad experience in captivity, that he was often taken in as to their value, Rosalia ?' " I was very curious to hear what she would say, for I had often heard, and indeed knew it my self, that rthe chief gala of a negress with money consisted in printed calicoes and strings of glass beads. " She answered me : ' Oh no ; in exchange for the productions of his own country, my father used to get beautiful silks, velvets, robes, and the finest linen, as stuffs ; then as to jewels, just the same as rich white women wear, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, every sort of precious stone.' " I shook my head incredulously.

" ' But it is quite true,' she repeated. ' The whites could not deceive my father ; he well knew what was a diamond and what an imitation ; false stones do not glitter in the sunlight, as do brilliants, nor do they cut glass. One can bite vol. 11. c through imitation pearls, whereas the genuine are as hard as stone, and the teeth can make no impression upon them.' " ' But how did your father learn to make use of all these means of telling true from false stones ?' " ' One day a negro, whom no one knew, entered the tribe ; he came from a far distant land, or rather he had just returned from Cuba — the very island we are in now — to his native country, after a long captivity and slavery of twenty years' duration. " ' In his youth he had been taken a prisoner and enslaved. The white traders in human flesh who bought him, took him to Cuba, and sold him there : by dint of hard work, he managed in the twenty years to amass money enough to buy his freedom from his master, and, besides, to get together merchandize sufficient to ex change for a hut and a herd upon returning to his native soil.

" ' Manuca — that was his name, for he had left his slave and Christian appellation behind him in the island when he embarked for Africa, as the last vestige of his slavery — Manuca, I say, when he returned home, found but a heap of ashes and ruins still cropping up here and there amongst the rank vegetation, where he had expected to find the village of his tribe. His countrymen were gone ; an inimical tribe had long since destroyed them and sold the warriors into slavery. Manuca stayed to shed a tear upon the spot where he had passed the early days of his life, and then set out to find another tribe wherein to erect his domicile, other pastures for his cattle, and other people to be his own. He passed through many villages, which did not attract him, and finally settled down in ours. In very truth, my father was a great warrior ; and the name of Ramotoos was feared whenever it was pronounced, so that Manuca knew very well that he and his property would be safest in his tribe.

" ' Manuca, when he first came amongst us, went to my father's place, saluted him humbly, asked him for his permission to settle down in his territory, and offered him certain presents of linen sheets, glass beads, guns, powder and shot. Besides these, he also presented my father with some presents which excited universal admiration, and for one of which no cacique could have refused the giver anything whatsoever or grudged any price ; these were small looking-glasses and crystal cups. In exchange for a looking-glass for me and one for each of his wives, my father gave Manuca an extensive pasturage and six cows. '"From that day forth, Manuca was the richest subject my father had in his tribe. There were still two things which Manuca did not offer my father, and which he ever refused to part with.

These were — a ring that he wore on one of his fingers, and a earring in his left ear. " ' There was a large lustrous brilliant in the ring, and an enormous pearl in the earring. He often told my father — " I could buy up and pay for your whole village and all your cattle with the value of these two jewels. I brought them home with me over the sea in order to augment our riches." " ' " And how will they augment them ?" asked my father, who thought they were most probably enchanted. " ' " Listen !" said Manuca to him ; " whilst I was traversing the country before getting to this place, I saw whole troops of elephants, thousands of buffaloes, and innumerable herds of gazelles. As I passed through the woods I heard conthe Queeti of Night. 21 tinually the roar of lions and tigers ; and all around your tribe I observed other tribes, weak and cowardly.

When the whites come for your ivory, your skins, and your captives, ask in ex change for them, besides arms and ammunition for war, pearls, diamonds, and gold. They will give you these ; and when you have accumulated treasures of precious stones and metals, you will be able to go to Capetown ; and there you will be a very rich man — richer than all the whites there put together." My father took Manuca's advice, and he again assisted him in making choice of the precious things the traders brought ; so that presently no chief far and wide was richer than Ramotoos.' " Now I was enabled to understand how Rosalia had whilst in her own country come to possess velvets and satins and diamonds. When Manuca entered her father's tribe, a man who really knew all about trading, and who had lived amongst civilized beings for twenty years, came into it and brought with -him knowledge, which is power, and the rudiments of the arts of civilization.

Margarita ; or, 22 IV. "'I was happy,' continued Rosalia; 'the beautiful Itumela no sooner expressed a wish than her desire was granted. Manuca superintended the finishing touches to the interior of my baobab, and certainly made it most luxurious, according to our ideas. There were manycoloured mats on the floor; the walls, or, as a tree scarcely can be said to have walls, the sides were hung with silks. Then plates of porcelain to eat upon, and glasses of real glass to drink out of. A charming hammock suspended from the roof, and made by the universal Manuca, served for me to rock myself in when awake, and for others to rock me to sleep in when I was tired. My garments were of the finest; and on this neck and bosom, now scored by the cruel marks of the lash, sparkled diamonds and pearls. " ' Manuca, who continued to make the white traders give us these treasures in exchange, it is true, for much greater ones, but then of no use to us, used to say every morning when he saw me come out of the baobab, after my night's rest, " Look at the queen !

If the whites could see you now, as you are, so beautiful, so richly dressed, they would not believe their eyes ; they would think they were dreaming." " ' My father used still to leave me daily whilst he went on his expeditions ; sometimes he would take the greater part of the tribe, or at any rate, of the fighting men with him ; and Manuca used always to accompany him on his roving expeditions, which occasionally would last for several days together, if he had attacked a distant tribe. He was always the conqueror, owing to his own skill in commanding his warriors and the firearms purchased at Manuca's instigation. My father was never seriously wounded ; indeed in the hottest encounters he almost always came off with a few slight scratches or skin wounds. He bore seemingly a charmed life, for he was ever prone to rush into any danger, when glory or booty awaited his onset.

" ' I was happy ; my youthful companions gratified my slightest whim. Before my door there extended a carpet of the softest verdure, green like unto emeralds, and soft and yielding as velvet. A little farther on, there streamed a limpid and joyously babbling rill, which cooled the air, even in the hottest summertide. The sun could never penetrate into my abode. I was sheltered first by my baobab, then cork trees, dwarf palms with fan-like foliage, strawberry trees that blossomed twice a year, cacti with their broad leaves, birches, with dark green fronds, evergreen oaks with ash-coloured boughs, lofty and graceful palms, the motsuroi, with its rose-coloured fruit, prickly pears with red blossoms — all these granted grateful shade, and formed a thick screen, impervious to the scorching rays of the sun, underneath which the streamlet ran murmuring on its course, between its two banks, overgrown with myrtles and canes, where the sod was carpeted, as it were, with countless variegated-hued flowers, each of them rich in delicate shades of colour.

I was happy indeed ! " ' Just as the sun's rays never penetrated to my abode, so the glance of no man, saving Manuca's and my father's, could spy me out. Manuca had wormed himself into my father's confidence, and was his favourite. Only these ever over stepped the boundaries of the sacred precincts of the enclosure, in whose centre rose my baobab like unto a giant among the surrounding trees. "'Outside this enclosure the trees had been cut down by my father's orders for more than a mile all round. The extensive clump that formed my shady retreat was universally called " the bower of the graceful maid." My grove was surrounded by a strong and lofty palisade that no tiger could jump over, and there was but one entrance into it ; this entrance gave directly upon the chief village, which was reached through my father's palace.

This was composed of several buildings in a circle, and the " Tata " or throne was raised in the centre of this circle. " ' Two warriors armed to the teeth guarded the entrance to my bower, and had strict injunc tions to forbid ingress to the sacred precincts unto all strangers. Two other warriors patrolled around to watch over the security of the palisade, and prevent any attempts at clandestine entry. I was happy ! " ' Whenever any great festivities took place in our tribe, be the occasion what it might, such as my father's return from a successful raid upon neighbouring territory, or when rain fell after a prolonged drought, or, again, when the period ically-returning plague of locusts disappeared, I used to come out of my bower magnificently dressed and surrounded by my companions, almost equally splendidly attired.