ARAUCANIA.
II.
TEGUALDA.
It happened once, after there had been a desperate encounter between the Spaniards and Araucanians, that Don Alonso de Ercilla went out late at night to meditate on the lessons of the battle-field strewn with the bodies of those who had been well and brave but a few hours before. The night was dark and gloomy, and yet he thought he discerned indistinctly a form moving from place to place, quietly and noiselessly as a spirit might move; and anon there came from it sighs and groans dismal to hear. Bending down, and hiding himself in the long grass, he tracked the figure, not without some fear at heart; but clasping his trusty sword, he came swiftly upon it. Then it rose erect, and addressed him in humble, timorous accents: “Señor, Señor, have pity on me; I am but a woman, and never have I offended you! If my misery does not move you to spare me, at least consider that there is no glory to be gained by killing a woman—or rather, slay me, but first let me fulfil my work.” Then Don Ercilla asked her what it was had brought her there. And she in dolorous tones answered, “Never was grief like mine; I loved him with true love and purest constancy, and to-day he was taken from me, and slain. Let me but seek the body of him who was my soul, and let me lay it in a decent grave, and then take my life, lay my body beside his, for so great is my grief that I dread living without him more than lying beside him in death.”
Don Ercilla was greatly moved by her sorrow, but still he had his duty as a soldier to consider; she might have come to spy the situation of the Spanish camp, under the idea that, as a woman, she would be less easily suspected; and her grief might be assumed in order to induce him to release her. Yet his compassion swayed him at last, so he let her live, and moreover assisted her in her search, leading her to relieve her oppressed heart by pouring out all her story.
“Woe is me!” she said, “for no relief is possible for me, no rest till death. He is gone, and if I open now the old wounds by thinking of him, it is but in the hope that in the violent effort I may sink and die.
“Know then, that I am Tegualda, daughter of the Cacique Brancol. Vain of the attentions that were paid me through many young years, I refused to listen to the suits of any of the young Caciques whom my father presented to me; nor when they danced or wrestled before me would I regard them with favour.
“One day my father took me to the shady thicket where gentle Gualebo pours its limpid stream into the floods of broad Itata with a soothing murmur, and where the sunlight playing through the thick foliage of the breeze-shaken trees, diapered the perfumed air.
“Scarcely had we sat down, when there entered on the plain that spread away before us a band of youths, earnest and silent. At a sign from Brancol various games began, in which each exerted himself to the utmost only to win a glance from me. To me, however, it was a greater pleasure to stand detached from them all, and while they ran, and fought, and showed strange feats of endurance, rather than gratify them by a look, to rest my eyes on the murmuring stream, watching the polished stones, now bathed in snow-like foam, now piercing, black and stark through the mimic waves; or on the waving trees, flinging their lithesome limbs in every graceful attitude, now wide apart, now interlaced in one another’s thrall; or on the far-off sky, sparkling and peering through the leafy shade; on any thing rather than on the contending youths; and thus I sat there, disdaining all interest in the games, and, as I deemed, fancy-free, when all at once a loud cry rose from the contending throng: this was no unusual occurrence, but it was so exulting and prolonged that I could not choose but ask the cause. The youth who stood nearest me made answer, ‘Did you not observe, Señora, how the brave Mareguano has won the victory over every other combatant? and now when, with joyous haste, we were leading him to receive the conqueror’s wreath from your hand, to gird his temples in token that he is the first and bravest of our company—all at once that handsome lad yonder, wearing green and scarlet for his device, suddenly confronted him, and at their first contest laid him low on the green sward. Mareguano no sooner regained his feet than he required to be allowed another trial; but as this is against all our rules, it was refused him. So the stranger youth comes to be crowned by you, unless you, whose power is absolute over us, suffer them to renew the contest.’