White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1857-12-03
CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.
kept my course through past insratitude;
Could not but those insults as they fell.
BRowxINs
His seorn is lying on nv heart like snow,
My eyes are weary, and fain would sleep;
The quietest sleep is underneath the ground.
ALEXANDER SMITH.
There came a time when, deny it as We may,
Benedict Arnold received injury at the hands Of
the country he had so faithfully served.
We say this, not to palliate the crime of his
treason-Heaven forbid!-there were no wrongs
great enough to drive true heart to this-but
to show how brave man may sometimes be
worried into madness.
Benedict Arnold had his glory and his crimes;
he had his lcrOngs, too.
There were aspersions cast upon his hitherto
fair fame. He had been accused Of Selling Ger
tain goods at Montreal without lawful warrant.
Congress had appointed five major generals, all
his Juniors in rank, without remembering in the
distribution Of her favors, the hero of Quebec
and Champlain, and then sought by the paltry
gift-of war horse, to recompense him for the
blood he had shed in the service of his country.
And such proceedings as these terribly CALLED
this impetuous man. True, afterward his seryi-
ces were recognized, when the board Of war de-
clared that his character had been uniustly as
persed, and Congress gave him the rank he had
so fully wen; but their hardness and neglect had
sunk into his heart to rankle there.
Chafed and stung, he had resigned his commits
sion; but when, at the instance of Washington,
he was called to join the army in the north, he
did not hesitate, but again went forth to fight
his country's battles.
And then series of brilliant victories follow
ed, wherein he honored himself and America
when he was junior in command, was at once
leader and hero.
In May, 177s, Arnold joined the army at Val
ley Forge, and shortly afterward took up his
residence at Philadelphia, where he married his
lovely ch.ld-wife, the beautiful Margaret Ship
pen, the friend and correspondent of Major An
DIRE, the leader of fashion and gaiety in the Qua
ker City, yet, withal, the friend and companion
Of her hero husband.
Alas that in all those long years since his ship
sailed out of the harbor of Havana, and he turn
ed its PROV toward his native land, in those five
years of glsry on the battlefield, with such men
as George Washington, Ethan Allen, and Dan
iel Morgan, for his companions-int the brilliant
saloons of Philadelphia, with bright eyes beam
ing upon him, and such a woman as Margare.
Arnold for his wife--with such honors as Con-
gress eventually, though tardily, had heaped
upon him-alas that Benedict Arnold had no
memory of the promise his lips had spoken, no
thoughts for the Spanish girl wac long ere this
had been laid to sleep under the gay green sod
Of her native Indian isle!
For sweet Inez Valasquez was dead
The hot Spanish blood of her sires flowed not
so strong within her veins as the gentler tide
caught from the heart of her blue-eyed English
mother. Her pride could not crush her tender.
ness, hence her life went out in the struggle.
Month after month, year after year, rolled
their weary circles into the eternity of the past
and still the impetuous, gallant American, who
had won her heart, came not.
Then she knew that Benedict Arnold had de.
serted her, and then she dropped and died.
Truly for the heart-broken Inez,-
q The quietest sleep was underneath the ground"
And thus it was hat in that quaint old Moorish
garden, washed BY the ocean tides sweeping out
ward from the harbor of Havana, they laid her
down to sleep; thus 1t was that where her life
began it ended; where her heart was won, j,
broke, and over her white headstone the starry
jasmines waved to and fro like cloud of how
ering angels, and the scarlet pomegran4te bios
SONS futtered down like flock Of fame winged
birds continually alighting upon her grave.
Poor Inez Valssquez!
And all the time, while the ruby life-tide was
ebbing within thy heart, thy gift, the blOOd-red
cross, had never paled upon thy lovers. Sill,
like thing of fire, it burned upon his breast,
while the fires of ambition were smothering
withiu-those baleful flames, which when wa
kened there, would lap up the very life-blOOd ei
his honor.
Step by step he was walking the path whose
end was ruin. Slowly his star was sloping ] Us
downward way.
And so they made the Spanish maiden grave
amid the richness of the tropics, and all luxu.
rant, beautiful things. Better by far for Ben
edict Arnold had he died, too, and been laid to
sleep beside her-he had NOS lived to become q
traitor then. I'D