"In life or in death, his only," he muttered to himself.
Then he thought of how he had sacrificed all for her, how he had sacrificed the creed which had been so far the guiding principle of his life, and had united himself with those who could never be other than the tyrants of his country, how he had sacrificed his ambition, perchance even the future of his country; for, as he now said to himself, the power of a man such as Don Roderigo could be but transient. He thought of the sentence in his article for the Diario, through which Don Roderigo had drawn his pen, the only sentence in that whole paper which spoke plainly of the right of all men to think for themselves, which spoke plainly of some future day of freedom.
As he thought of all this, he asked himself why he had so forsaken his old creed, why he had forced himself to think that a republic of Argentines was a dream, practicable only in some remote future, in which he could have no part. To these questions his heart answered for him, that he had done it for her sake.
Then he pictured to himself what would have followed had he and his friends boldly resisted the assumption of power by Don Baltazar de Cisneros. He saw the country rent by civil war, himself and Don Roderigo, leaders on different sides; he pictured to himself this deadly strife, and as he did so his thoughts flew back to an evening on which he had dreamed a dream, a dream full of presage of future woe, a dream so bitter that its memory had been present with him ever since, a dream in which Dolores had fallen dead at his feet, stricken to the death by his own hand.
"It cannot be, it cannot be," he said to himself. "That fair young life sacrificed to a memory that is gone. Fool that I was not to tell her the truth at once!"
As he said this he struck himself fiercely on the breast with his clenched fist, and a sharp pang shot through his arm. Drawing up the cuff of his coat and unbuttoning the wristband of his shirt he turned up the sleeve; there on his arm, where her hand had rested, were four black marks corresponding to the four fingers of the tiny hand of Lola Ponce, four bruises inflicted by the pressure of those small fingers. Evaña walked into the moonlight and gazed long upon these four black marks, then raising his arm he pressed his lips upon them, muttering to himself with a deep sigh:
"In life or in death, his only."
[11] This is a translation of the then popular cry, "Libertad de Comercio!" and has not the thorough meaning of the English expression. It simply implies an open port.