Then the missionary appeared upon the shore, crying:
“Come, Starei, my sister, I love thee.”
The silhouette of the pirogue, like a black wing, was losing itself in the indistinct line where the sea joins the sky. Starei had joined herself in marriage to the devil.
And the voice which resounded, sad and melancholy, from the rock, continued—this is the centre of the domain of Starei; from here her eternal vengeance against the whites radiates. The missionary died soon after, of a strange disease, and his cold body turned horribly yellow, as if from it were reflected the eyes of gold of Zekom. Since then every year Starei weeps for him, disconsolate, and her tears evaporated by the tropic heat poison the atmosphere of the Gulf, and woe for the sons of the cold land.
The raindrop fell to the ground; the coach proceeded on its way, and I turned to glance at my friend; he was insensible; a livid, yellow hue was invading his skin and his eyes seemed to start from their orbits. “I die, I die, oh, my mother,” said the poor boy. I did not know what to do. I clasped him in my arms trying to sooth his sufferings, to give him courage. We reached Cordoba. The poor fevered patient said: “Look at her—the yellow woman.” “Who? Is it Starei?” I asked him. “Yes. It is she,” he answered.
It was necessary for me to leave him. On arriving at Mexico I read this paragraph in a Vera Cruz paper: “The young German, Wilhelm S., of the house of Watermayer & Co., who left this city in apparent health, has died of yellow fever at Cordoba, R. I. P.”
VICTORIANO SALADO ÁLBAREZ.
Victoriano Salado Álbarez was born at Teocaltoche, in the State of Jalisco, September 30, 1867. He studied law in the Escuela de Jurisprudencia in the city of Guadalajara, taking his title of Abogado, on August 30, 1890. He has long been engaged in journalistic work, serving as editor of various periodicals. For three years past he has lived in the City of Mexico and has represented the State of Sonora in the Chamber of Deputies of the National Congress. He is also professor of the Spanish language in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School). He is a member of the Mexican Academy.
In literature, Señor Álbarez stands for the careful and discriminating use of pure Spanish, and for the treatment of truly Mexican themes in a characteristically Mexican way. He is an uncompromising antagonist of the present tendency, in Mexico, to copy and imitate the “modern” (and quite properly called “decadent”) French writings. His De mi cosecha (From My Harvest) is a little volume of reviews and criticisms, in which he assails this modern school and pleads for a sane and truly national literature. De autos (From Judicial Records), is a collection of tales, original and reworked. His largest work so far in print is De Santa Anna á la Reforma (From Santa Anna to the Reform), an anecdotal treatment of that period of the national history. His latest work, La Intervencion y el Imperio (The Intervention and the Empire) is now being published in Barcelona, Spain. It is of similar character to the preceding, but deals with the time of Maximilian. The two first parts of this, Las ranas pidiendo rey (The Frogs Begging for a King) and Puebla, are in press as this notice is being written.