There are few darker pages in the modern annals of South America than the record of the months of October 1841, and April 1842, in the devoted town of Buenos Ayres. Rosas, himself secure amid his savage soldiery, issued his secret death-roll. The chiefs of the Masorcheros, anxious to secure their own safety, rivalled each other in their zeal to capture; and the work of death itself was intrusted to hands whose trade was blood. Without trial[7] for offences, without warrants for apprehension, without even a knowledge of danger, houses were openly entered, men massacred, women flogged, and property destroyed; victims were decoyed out, by friends, from theatres and ball-rooms; men were followed in the streets, and stabbed at their own doors; and concerted signals were arranged to tell the police carts, that wandered about the streets at night, where to find out the victims. We shall not give any more harassing details here. There is no doubt that there were more massacres committed than ever were ordered by authority: the machinery of murder, once set agoing, revolved of itself, and knives were sometimes made to settle old quarrels and long accounts; Rosas, when he found things going on too far, easily put a stop to them by disposing of some of the Masorcheros themselves, among others, the chief, who was thus for ever prevented from telling any tales against his master.
Such unheard-of and unexpected scenes suddenly occurring in the midst of a happy, prosperous, and orderly city, were accompanied by strange anomalies. Foreigners could scarcely conceive the existence of a regular organised body of assassins. Natives, not yet schooled into distrust of their best friends, and perhaps not even conscious of guilt, could not, all at once, throw aside their habits of social conviviality. The churches were open for their usual services, the markets still crowded; there was no rioting in the streets, which the police paraded as usual. Ministers and consuls still displayed their flags, and balls and dinners were as numerously attended as ever; and those who had not seen or suffered were unwilling to believe the horrid reports that circulated in secret whispers; and many who knew, or had seen some of the fearful goings-on around them, probably deemed an affectation of ignorance or indifference their best policy. Such was the state of the city until the frequency of outrages forced the natives to keep their houses, take refuge under the roofs of foreigners, smuggle themselves on board merchant vessels or men-of-war, or sneak through the deserted streets like doomed men, shunning the contact of their fellows as if it had been a city of the plague.
It was at the beginning of this reign of terrorism, and the morning after the ball at Señora Tertulia’s, that our friend Tom Thorne awoke in a room by no means so snug, airy, or odorous as his own well-appointed bed-chamber in the Calle Derecho. Close beside, him, busily engaged in brushing his clothes with his hands, and alternately muttering maledictions against sanguinary Spaniards, and mumbling over odds and ends of old songs, was a strong-built ruddy-looking gentleman of about twenty-eight or thirty.
“Holla, Griffin!” cried Tom, “where the deuce is this, and how came you here?”
“Faith, Mr Thorne. I came here for much the same reason as you did; and, though not in a very creditable place, I can thank my stars I’m in good company any how.”
“But how came we here, Griffin?”
“Faith, Thorne, except your nerves are very steady—and in virtue of Señora Tertulia’s champagne, mine are not—I think it might be as well to defer that same story until you have shaved, or you may run the risk of having some of the cuts in your face which were intended for your throat last night. You see, sir, I left La Señora’s about the same time you did. They say the cool air is refreshing, but I never found it so after drinking champagne. Well, as I was stumbling along, I fell over a body, stretched across the pavement. ‘You have taken mighty convenient quarters for a cold night,’ thought I, ‘bad luck to you;’ and, intending to do him a good turn, as I might require it myself soon, I was trying to raise him up, when two men, who were standing in the shadow of a door-way, within a few feet of me, cried, ‘Hist, hist, passa adelante, amigo.’ ‘Come and help me with this poor devil here,’ said I. ‘Pass a-head, friend, if you do not wish the same accommodation,’ said they, throwing the light of a dark lantern suddenly, and only for a moment, on the object of my attention. I required no second bidding, Thorne. The pavement was soft and warm enough for a corpse! My first thought was for a pistol or a stick, but I had neither. I looked at the men,—there they stood as cool and careless as the door-posts, and me fixed and staring at them as if they had been Gog and Magog. ‘Passa adelante,’ growled out one of them, drawing a knife, at the same time. This brought me to my senses, and I passed on—and, mark me, Thorne, as sober as a judge.
“Well, sir, off I started, leaving Gog and Magog to keep their watch at the door-post, when who should I overtake but yourself, walking as proud as a prince and as bold as a lion. We did not walk far, till three men met us, one of whom threw the light of his dark-lantern full into your face, scanning it for a few seconds with more freedom than manners. Although dazzled and stupefied by the light, I saw you grasping your stick, and beginning to break out, when I interposed. ‘Gentlemen,’ said I, in my best Spanish—for it’s always best to be civil—‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘we are gentlemen who have lost our way. I’ll give you fifty dollars,[8] and thanks to boot, if you please to take us to the police office.’ You appeared inclined to show fight at the mention of the police office, but I passed it off as if you had more money than sense, and promised them fifty from you too; so after a slight struggle we secured you, and here we are, without any solutions of continuity, as surgeons say, except in our raiment.”
“But why did you not tell them to take us to my house?” said Thorne.
“Why, in the first place,” said Griffin, “I have not the honour of knowing where you live; and, by Castor and Pollux! I would not have left you with these ruffians for a world of coppers.”