"When you resigned the power into my hands, Don Tadeo, the enemy was conquered and a prisoner—the liberty was victorious: but now everything is changed. The peril is greater than ever."
"My friend," Don Tadeo replied, with an accent of profound sadness, "another voice calls me likewise."
"Public safety is superior to family affections! Remember your oath!" said Don Gregorio sternly.
"But my daughter!—my poor child!—the only comfort I possess!" he exclaimed.
"Remember your oath, King of Darkness!" Don Gregorio repeated with the same solemnity of voice.
"Oh!" the unhappy father exclaimed, "will you not have pity on a parent?"
"It is well," Don Gregorio replied with asperity. "I will go back, Don Tadeo. For ten years we have sacrificed everything for the cause you now betray; we know how to die for that liberty which you abandon! Farewell, Don Tadeo! The Chilian people will succumb, but you will recover your daughter. Farewell! I know you no longer!"
"Oh, stop! stop!" Don Tadeo cried, "Retract those frightful words! I will die with you! Let us be gone!—Let us be gone! My daughter!" he added—"pardon me!"
"Oh! I have found my brother again!" Don Gregorio exclaimed. "No! with such a champion liberty can never perish!"
"Don Tadeo," Valentine cried, "go where duty calls you; I swear to you by my God that we will restore your daughter to you!