amalia















AMALIA
A Romance of the Argentine
















TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH OF
JOSE MARMOL
BY
MARY J. SERRANO

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
68 1 Fifth Avenue
Copyright, 1919
By E. p. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America

PREFATORY NOTE

- In this picture of Argentine life during the reignof
terror instituted by the Dictator Rosas, Daniel, the hero of the story, represents the spirit incarnate of the best elements of the Argentine people struggling for democracy and freedom, in opposition to militarism and autocracy. It is in fact a social study of a period in Argentine history during which were laid the foundations of the greatness of a people whose soul is revealed in thesepages in the vivid and intense emotions and feelings of actual life, portrayed with a master's art by the hand of an actor in its events who himself experienced the feelings he portrays, as event succeeds event, as defeat succeeds victory, victory defeat, but where courage never fails and where confidence in the ultimate triumph of Freedom and of
Right is never lost. And over all is spread the magicglamour of deathless love, redeeming the suffering and the bitterness of defeat and exalting and ennobling the vision of a victory still to be won, but to be surely won.

M. J. S.





















CONTENTS


CHAPTER PAGE

I. Treachery i
II. The First Dressing i8
III. The Letters 35
-IV. The Dinner Hour 44
--- V. Commandant Cuitino 59
VI. Victorica67
VII. Sir John Henry Mandeville 77
- VIII. An Angel and a Demon 94
IX. One of Damel's Agents 108
X. In wmcH the Man with the Bamboo Cane Makes

His Appearance 115
""XI. Florencia and Daniel 126
XII. President Salomon 132
-XIII. The White Rose . .142
XIV. Scenes in a Ballroom 153
XV. Daniel Bello 164
XVI. Scenes in a Ballroom Continued . . . .175
XVII. After the Ball 181^ XVIII. Dona Mar'a Josefa Escurra 185
XIX. Two of a Kind 194
^XX. Prologue of a Drama 201
"TXXI. A Restless Night 217
-'•XXII. Continuation of the Preceding 223
XXIII. Of How Things are Read that are not Written . 230
XXIV. How We Discovered that Don Candido Rodriguez

Resembled Don Juan Manuel Rosas . . . 239
XXV. The Two Friends . 244
"OCXVI. Amalia in Presence of the Police. . " . " . 250

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER _ PAGE

XXVII. Manuela Rosas 258
XXVIII. Continuation of the Preceeding . . . .265
-^ XXIX. The Solitary House 270
-«"XXX. The OrFiCER of the Day 281
XXXI. Continuation of the Preceding . . . .291
XXXII. Country, Lo\te and Friendship . . . .299
XXXIII. Don Candido Rodriguez Appears as He Always

Appears 305
XXXIV. Pylades Angry 313XXXV. The Smuggler of Men 321
XXXVI. The Chief of the Night-watchmen . . .329
—XXXVII. The Launch 340
XXXVIII. The Federal Patrol 351
^ XXXIX. Of Forty only Ten 363
XL. English Sanctuary 369
XLI. Mr. Slade ^ • 3^0
XLII. How Don Candido was a Relation of Cxhtino's 391
XLIII. The Warning of the Soul 403
-tXLIV. The Brh>al Veil 407
—XLV. The Nuptial Couch 411

Epilogue 4^9INTRODUCTION

Among the political chiefs of South America Juan Manuel Rosas, the Argentine ruler, for the unscrupulousness of his aims and the ruthlessness of his methods in seeking to attain them stands out a sanguinary figure. Succeeding General Lavalle in 1835 ^s Governor with extraordinary powers, of Buenos Ayres, his rule was for thecountry a reign of terror; and the blood-red color which he chose for his own w^as emblematic of the policy of persecution against his political opponents, the Unitarians, or Unionists, which guided it.

Nor were the political enemies of Rosas, in Buenos Ayres, the only victims of his sanguinary policy. More
than one sudden death among the Federal leaders before
he finally became chief of the...