Ponce de Leon: The Rise of the Argentine Republic

by William Pilling

Together they stood watching the dawn of the morning, their hearts communing one with another in silent sympathy, the sympathy of mutual trust and love. Together they watched the rising of the sun on the morning of the 25th May, a sunrise which is now hailed every year as the day comes round by the thundering salute of the cannon of emancipated peoples, and by the voices of thousands of children, who in every city and town throughout the one-time colonies of Spain welcome with patriotic songs the rising of the sun on the 25th of May.

Together they stood in the porch and looked forth upon the eastern sky. The clouds which hung low over the city seemed to form but one cloud, stretching from horizon to horizon in one dense mass of dark grey, shaded with pink, which cast a bright pink reflection upon the domes and towers of the churches, and upon the white-washed walls of the houses in the nearest quintas. Then as they stood together and looked, the pink tints died out of the sky, and the dark grey of the clouds changed to a brilliant orange. Far away on the eastern horizon, just in the path of the rising sun, there was a break in the vast uniformity of cloud, a semicircle of deep blue; in the centre of this blue sky, up rose the sun, launching his fiery beams straight on the concave surface of the cloud. In an instant the orange tints died out, and the whole cloud became one mass of brilliant yellow, so brilliant and free from shades that it was impossible to tell that there was any cloud at all. It seemed as though a noonday sun had spread himself over the whole sky, that the sky itself had become a sun, bathing the world beneath in a flood of yellow light, which was reflected from every object round, dazzlingly brilliant, but without one ray of warmth in it.

As they gazed in silence, still hand in hand, from north to south there darted a rosy streak of lightning, and the curtain of cloud sank down over the blue space on the eastern horizon, shutting out the sun. As the cloud descended the golden sheen faded away out of the sky, and there came from far off in the north a clap of thunder, which rolled and rolled away above the clouds, echoing and re-echoing till it lost itself in the farthest south. Then the clouds were again one mass of dull grey, hanging low over the city, and heavy drops of rain fell pattering on the roof of the porch above them.

"What is this?" said Magdalen, drawing closer to Marcelino; "never have I seen a sunrise like this."

"Nor I," replied Marcelino; "and if I mistake not, the day which follows will be a day such as has never been seen before in Buenos Aires."

"Saw you the sun, how brilliantly he shone out? Then there came that angry flash of lightning, all the glory died out of the sky, and there was a long roll of thunder. Do you believe in omens? Do you not tremble?"

"I do not tremble," said Marcelino; "have you not taught me faith? to do right and fear nothing? What can be more right or more noble than to free one's native country from the slavery of centuries? The liberty we shall win to-day, may but give us the right to toil and labour for years to come, but is it not more noble to labour than to sleep?"

Then Magdalen leaned upon his arm and whispered:

"Yes, that is faith."

Marcelino, throwing his arms round her, pressed her to his breast and kissed her. For a minute there was silence between them. That kiss was the seal of a compact of which both had thought much, but of which neither had spoken until this day—a compact which bound them to each other so long as their lives should last, a compact which made the cares and toils of one, the cares and toils of both, a compact which blended their two lives into one life, and which death alone could cancel.