Sarita, the Carlist

by Arthur W. Marchmont

"If you take the initials of the first sentence you will see the meaning of the second."

"Of course, Carlos, by the grace of God," I exclaimed.

"It is a phrase that Spain will learn to know one day," she said. "It will be the watchword of the New Liberty," and her face lighted with enthusiasm.

"The 'New Liberty,' Sarita; what do you mean by that?"

"The liberty, the greatness that our rightful King will bring back to us. Where do we stand now, but at the very bottom of the scale of contempt? What is Spain, but the doormat on which every upstart country, even this America, wipes her feet? And what were we once—the leaders of the world; the possessors of half the earth, rulers holding sway on sea as well as land? Are we not the same Spaniards to-day as then? What we did once can we not do again? Aye, and Don Carlos will lift from us the shame of our sloth, put blood and fire once more into the veins of apathy, restore us to our ancient standing, and once again give us the strength to show the face of pride to our enemies. Is not that a day for Spaniards to pray for; and to work, scheme, plot, and toil unceasingly; to shed our blood for, if the need demands it? I will give mine freely and without stint;" and her face glowed like the face of a martyr.

"It is a dream, no more. Look at your countrymen, Sarita, and ask yourself where is to be found the power to work this miracle; where the men, the resources, the brains, the energy, everything that is of the very essence of success?"

"Do you think we do not know that? But it is just all that which Don Carlos will alter? What are we now but a people in whose lives the very salt and marrow are withering? I know it; but I know also what will stop the decay; and Don Carlos will give it us. We must free ourselves from the corroding blight of the misgovernment which those who have usurped the throne have forced on us that they might buttress up their own wrongful claims. While we are weak, divided, torn by dissension and undone by mistrust, they can continue to force on us the oppression which they miscall government. They sap the nation's very life that they may pluck for themselves the ever-dwindling fruits from such branches as have not yet been destroyed. But do we not know the cure? Can you yourself not see it? If the forceful blood of true liberty was once again set flowing in the veins of our nation, the change would soon tell. You know, for you are an Englishman. You have the liberty denied to us, and craved by us. You and these Americans, who would now put this last dire shame upon us. You are increasing, we are dwindling. You enjoy the splendours of the achievements of liberty; we are pining on the undigested meal of past greatness. You are what we were once, the very opposite of what we are now; and what you are, Don Carlos would make us—aye, and by the grace of God, he shall yet do it; and if my little life can help him, I shall not have lived it in vain."

So absorbing, so thrilling was her enthusiasm, that I did not wonder at others yielding to her whirlwind influence. I sought to argue with her, to show her the fallacy of her dreams, to convince her that Don Carlos at best was merely struggling to get back the throne from anything but self-less motives, that the destiny of a nation lay not with the leadership of one man, but in the nature of the people themselves—but argument broke itself in vain against her passion and enthusiasm.

"There is nothing before you but disillusion, Sarita," I said at length; "whether it comes in the form of failure to rouse your countrymen—for men more easily fit themselves with a new skin than with a new nature; or in the more tragic form of passing success in the Carlist movement, to be followed by a knowledge that after all your Don Carlos is no more than a man, and a Spaniard."

"I do not expect you to see things with my eyes," she said; then, after a long pause, "If I dream, well, I dream. But I would rather live a dreamer of dreams, and die in striving to realise them, than live and die a drone among drones. But I have told you I will not have your help."