Aguardiente

“ I made Agathemer show me what spoil he had brought and at once ordered him to light the charcoal brazier, heat the iron and brand me. He demurred.
"If you feel feverish," he said, "the pain of the branding will double your fever and, if you have three inflamed wounds, the brand will fester to a certainty. You'll probably die of it, if I brand you."
"As well die one way as another," I said. "If we stay here we are certain to be discovered sooner or later. Our only hope is to get away as soon as may be. ”

“ He also keeps a corresponding "tally-sheet" with beans, and compares notes with his employer when being paid.
The aguador is a person of importance; nobody knows better than he the inner life of the household that he serves. He is often made the messenger between lovers, and when for any reason he may refuse to perform that office, the ingenious lover resorts to artifice, and by means of wax fastens the missive upon the bottom of the chochocol, and the unconscious aguador thus conveys it to the expectant fair one, who informed of the device, is ready to remove the epistle. ”

“ Howl by!—Where?—where?—there is no worm to creep
Amid the waters of the lonely deep;
But I will take me Agathè upon
This sorrowful, sore bosom, and anon,
Down, down, through azure silence, we shall go,
Unepitaph'd, to cities far below;
Where the sea triton, with his winding shell,
Shall sound our blessed welcome. We shall dwell
With many a mariner in his pearly home,
In bowers of amber weed and silver foam,
Amid the crimson corals; we shall be
Together, Agathè! fair Agathè!—
But thou art sickly, ladye—thou art sad ”

“ I slept till broad daylight.
When I waked Agathemer gave me a moderate draught of wine and all the bread and cheese I chose to eat: also a handful of olives. Then he displayed the total of his plunder: hats, with brims neither too broad nor too narrow, the best pattern if one was to have only one hat, worn and battered enough to suit us as being inconspicuous, yet nowhere torn, broken or slit; a tunic and cloak apiece, about the oldest and most patched in my villa-farm storage-loft, such as Ofatulena would hand out to newly bought and untried slaves ”

“ As well try to track out the secret of the twistings in the flight of those swallows out there above the river, or to follow to its source the faint scent of the lilies in that bowl! How should she know what was passing in here—this little old woman whose blood was cold? And Audrey had the sensation of watching someone pelt her with the rind and husks of what her own spirit had long devoured. She had a longing to get up, and take the hand, the chill, spidery hand of age, and thrust it into her breast, and say: “Feel that, and cease!” ”

“ But when it comes to her possession of an ornament of beauty, as beautiful as the aigrette, it weighs with her, but it doesn't tip the scale against her possession of it. I am sorry to have to say this to you, but it is a fact. A woman will regret that the mother-bird must be tortured and her babies starve, but she will have the aigrette. She simply trains herself to forget the origin. ”

“ The sea, the vast ocean our travail and trouble consoles!
Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing-ships, help me depart!
Far, far, here the dust is quite wet with our showering tears,
Oh, say! it is true that Agatha's desolate heart,
Proclaimeth, "Away from remorse, and from crimes, and from cares,"
Oh, carry me, waggons, oh, sailing ships, help me depart!
How distant you seem to be, perfumed Elysian fields!
Wherein there is nothing but sunshine and love and glee ”

“ Agatha answered simply, and said,
' Renounce thou thy gods which are of stone and wood,
and pray to thy Creator who truly liveth;
if thou despisest Him, thou shalt suffer in eternal torments.'
Then the impious man became incensed, and bade stretch her on the rack,
and cruelly twist her like a withy-rope, and said,
' Forsake thy self-will, that thy life may be saved.'
Agatha answered on the rack thus,
'So greatly I rejoice in these painful torments
even as he that seeth him whom he hath desired,
or as he that findeth many hoards of gold. ”

“ Just at dusk we came to reasonably firm going and walked due north about a furlong. There, as the twilight deepened, we encountered another stretch of ooze. We retreated from it a dozen paces and camped under some swamp-maples on comfortably dry ground. We ate about half of our food, bread, olives, and dried figs; and while eating dried and warmed our feet and shanks at a generous fire of fallen boughs, which Agathemer, who was clever with flint and steel, had made quickly. When our feet felt as if they really belonged to us, we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and slept soundly. ”

“ Edgeworth’s daily life; her bewilderment, her loneliness, her despair, how she must have wondered whether any one really wanted machines to climb walls, and assured the gentlemen that turnips were better cut simply with a knife, and so blundered and floundered and been snubbed that she dreaded the almost daily arrival of the tall young man with his pompous, melancholy face, marked by the smallpox, his profusion of uncombed black hair, and his finical cleanliness of hands and person. ”

“ But vanity is the besetting sin of the whole household. Aggland himself tells you candidly he considers he understands the violin better 29than any man in the country, and he calls his brother farmers, openly, fools and prejudiced donkeys. As for me, he thinks me perfectly ignorant of theology. He has a curious smattering of learning; can talk French a little, German a little, and quote some Latin passages. He draws likewise, and formerly used to play on the guitar. ”

“ Many and strange thoughts rushed through Agueda's brain during those blissful hours. Life began for her then, and she found it well worth living. She awoke. Her child's heart sprang into full being, to lie dormant never again. Nada's words came back to her. She did not wish to recall them, but they forced themselves upon her: "Never trust a gentleman, Agueda; he will only betray you." ”

“ Sunshine in the Dark! Dancing Water! Audrey that will not be called 'mademoiselle' nor have the wooing of the son of a French chief! Then shall she have the wooing of the son of a Monacan woman. I am a hunter. I will woo as they woo in the woods."
Audrey bent to her pole, and made faster progress down the creek. Her heart was hot and angry, and yet she was afraid. All dreadful things, all things that oppressed with horror, all things that turned one white and cold, so cold and still that one could not run away, were summed up for her in the word "Indian." ”

“ At dawn I ate even less than at dusk, but I did eat something. Eating roused me enough for me to insist on Agathemer's stripping me and scourging me. He felt my forehead, my wrists and my feet, and shook his head.
"You have a terrific fever," he said, "and four festering wounds, for the brand-mark is festering already; you are in danger of death anyhow as it is; you will never recover from a scourging." ”

“ We can take her into the deep woods to gather the mamey apples, and to the bushes down in the river pasture to gather the aguacate. Only the little thing must be taught to keep away from the prickly branches, and—sometimes, Don—Beltran, we might take the child as far as Haldez, if some acrobats or circus men should arrive. We have not been there since Dondy-Jeem walked the rope that bright Sunday. Oh, yes! we shall find something to amuse her, certainly. A little child! We are to have a child in the house!" It was always a happy "we" with Agueda. "How old is the little thing?" ”

“ And, to fix a cause for her grief, Envy pictured to her imagination her sister, her sister's blest marriage and the god in all his beauty, magnifying the excellence of everything. Maddened by this, Aglauros eats her heart out in secret misery; careworn by day, careworn by night, she groans and wastes away most wretchedly with slow decay, like ice touched by the fitful sunshine. She is consumed by envy of Herse's happiness; just as when a fire is set under a pile of weeds, which give out no flames and waste away with slow consump- tion. ”

“ But Agathemer restrained me.
"The face of the rock," he said, "would feel cold as ice to your skin. You have, even if you do not realize it, somewhat warmed the leaves next you. For the present we are least uncomfortable where we are. The dawn-wind cannot get at our hides while we are under these leaves. ”

“ It is the custom in Ogreland, that the Ogre, Ogress, and the young Ogres, always sleep in their fine gold crowns. This is the only pomp they indulge in; and they would rather be hung or strangled than forego it. When they were all asleep, the Princess, who was thinking of her lover, remembered, that although Ravagio and Tourmentine had given her their word of honour they would not eat him; if they felt hungry in the night, (which was almost always the case when there was fresh meat near them,) it would be all over with him ”

“ On the said road likewise are found two rivers in the first league, — a small one which is not permanent except in the rainy season; as is the case with an aguada which is found in the middle of the road on the slope of a ridge which is ascended in times of rain with some difficulty, although the other river, which is found about three leagues off, is permanent, the water of which, though it is somewhat sluggish, for they say it is a river of copper, nevertheless is very cool and raises very good fish, though not very large ones. ”

“ Tony and Papita waited some time, but in vain; the father and mother egret did not come back to the nest.
"They don't come back ever, the big angel birds; but we go and look for them, Papita. You see, the little ones are so hungry; they die if we don't feed them." The children paddled up and down the swamp, searching everywhere, and finally found the old egrets—all that the plume hunters had left—just the two snowy bodies, from which the beautiful, long aigrette plumes had been roughly torn. ”

“ It sometimes appalls me to be so far from a doctor or a chemist shop, but after all what the Adirondacks cannot do for Bertie no man can, and Agatha has a trunk full of physic. And these friendly mountains make disaster and heartbreak seem impossible. ”

“ On reaching the bank of the igaripé, the araguatoes were evidently at fault. Their intention had been to proceed down along the main river, and the creek now interfered. Its water lay directly across their course, and how were they to get over it? Swim it, you may, say. Ha! little do you know the dread these creatures have of water. Yes; strange to say, although many species of them pass their lives upon trees that overhang water, or even grow out of it, they are as much afraid of the water beneath them as if it were fire. ”

“ Wondering a little at what might be going to happen to him, the youth did as the ogre bade him, and when they reached the shore of the lake, the ogre turned and said to him:
‘Step into the water and shut your eyes! You will find yourself sinking slowly to the bottom; but take courage, all will go well. ”

“ There was a look never seen before in Ivor's face, and a soft gladness unknown in Agatha's; both faces were in clear sunlight outlined upon a rock-wall overhung by the quaint, goblin-handed boughs of prickly pear.
"Aggie," he cried, "dear, dearest Aggie, I was a beast yesterday. I was a beast! You were right. All you said was true. I had no right to ask such things of you—no man has of any woman. Yet you had saved me, you had picked me out of the gutter all the time. No, it's no use saying anything. I saw the necklace and guessed. The beast sold it to Strozzi—and made upon it, trust him! ”

“ Another aguada lies in an easterly direction, a distance of half a league, and the water here is permanent and deep. It breeds very good fish of large size and tame, so that, although the soldiers went in swimming, the fish did not flee away, so that they gave an opportunity to any one who had a machete in his hand to kill them. ”

“ Aggland tossed back his hair,—his 137hair which was like the mane of a wild horse,—and said, “‘Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?’ Do you think I am ‘moulded of such coarse metal’ as all that comes to? Do you imagine I have no love for anything but myself—that, though I have reared her as my own child—though I do not deny that the idea of her leaving me, of her marrying you, is ‘like the tyrannous breathing of the north,’ which ‘shakes all our buds from growing,’—that I cannot still desire her happiness, and try for her sake—for the sake of the dead and gone—to see clearly? ”

“ Few ogres are handsome; but this one was so horrid and nasty, even for an ogre, that none of the other ogres would live with him, and no ogress would marry him; so he was forced to sulk by himself in this solitary bachelor cavern. His name was Uglymuggimo; but the prince didn’t know that. ”

“ Agathemer said that he had been barely grazed by the broken drain-pipe and hardly noticed his scratches. I, on the other hand, was in great pain from the gouge along my hip, and hardly less pained by the tear in my shoulder. The water, under which I had to keep up to my chin, dulled the pain of my wounds, but chilled me till my teeth chattered, though the weather was hot; so hot in fact, that the sunrays on my head seemed to scorch my hair, even through the willows and alders. ”

“ We shall be married in France, my darling. You should be as a queen in the guard of her most humble slave. I am half mad to think I must go. Ah, kiss me, love, and say yes! Listen! I must sail away and make believe that I have gone. My Peregrine is a bird that none can overtake, but I shall [278] come back to-night. Listen: If you will be on the island to-night—Sir Adrian is there already, and I hear your sister is coming—a freak of fancy—and he, God bless him, has told her to bring you too (it shows my luck has not deserted me yet) . I shall be there, unknown to all except Renny. ”