"Stuff, why pity him?" Wilhelm said, carelessly; "he died like a soldier."
The fall of Tahi-Mari, which was not known to the Indians for some minutes, did not at once check the order of the battle. Leon's band, which had advanced too far, had extraordinary difficulties in effecting a retreat, and joining the debris of the army marching on Valparaíso.
The Moluchos, deprived of the man of genius, who had conceived the plan of this daring campaign, and who was alone capable of bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion, henceforth were a body without a soul. Dissensions broke out among them, each chief claiming to succeed the great Tahi-Mari, and they could not come to any understanding. The league of the twelve nations was; broken; the Ulmens no longer acted harmoniously, and soon undertook isolated expeditions, which had disastrous results.
The Indians were for nine days masters of Santiago; at the end of that time, the Spaniards, who had vigorously assumed the offensive, expelled them from the capital, and pursued them even beyond their frontier line. Of the 200,000 men who had invaded the Chilian territory, 40,000 at the most succeeded in regaining the inaccessible llanos which serve as their retreat. The others found death in the land which they had for a moment hoped to conquer. Such was, through the imbecility of the chiefs, the result of this enterprise, which, if better conducted, might have changed the fate of South America.
Six months after these events Leon Delbès was married at the church of La Merced to Doña Maria de Soto-Mayor. The old general and his son, Don Juan, who had both recovered from their wounds, were present at the ceremony, offering up vows for the happiness of the young couple. Inez lived for a year without regaining her reason, but her madness had become a sort of gloomy and taciturn melancholy, which nothing in the world could remove. She expired one day without pain, for her death-agony was a pallid smile, in the midst of which her soul fled away.
As for the secondary characters of the story, we will mention their fate in a few words. The band of smugglers was broken so soon as Leon left to go and live with the general. Wilhelm, for his splendid conduct on the night of the capture of Santiago, was given a commission as lieutenant in the Chilian army. The worthy abbess of the Convent of the Purísima Concepción continued to sell her aqua milagrosa at the fairest price. And one fine day, Master Crevel, tired of the annoyance the police inflicted on him, placed the ocean between them and him by returning to France.