Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/243

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THE CERRO DE LAS CAMPANAS.
237

head as if in agony, and expired with a struggle, as the echoes of the muskets died away among the canons of the distant Sierra.

Died away did I say? No; not there, nor then!

Those echoes rolled across the broad Atlantic and shook every throne in Europe. The royal plotter against the liberties of men heard them in his palace by the Seine, and grew pale as he listened. They rolled over the Pyrenees, and the throne of Isabella began to crumble; over the Alps, and every monarch from Italy to the farthest East heard in them the rumblings of the coming earthquake—the prelude of the fall of empires. They will roll on, and on, through the coming ages, and be answered by the uprising millions of future generations, until "Kingly Prerogatives" and "Divine Right" are things of the past. The world had waited long for these echoes, and was better when it heard them at last.

The ground, which but a few short months ago was torn by cannon-shot, trampled by contending armies, and drenched with the blood of Europe and America, is now covered with corn-fields; and three plain, wooden crosses, painted black, without inscription of any kind, and mounted on a rude pile of stones, alone mark the spot whereon was enacted the last scene of one of the most tremendous dramas of our time.

The laborers were engaged in gathering the corn, when our carriages drove up, and they stopped a moment and looked on with silent interest, as Mr. Seward stood beside the rude mound, while the uncle of Miramon told the story of the execution, and the two sisters of the most ambitious, bigoted and unscrupulous of Mexico's celebraties, clad in black, stood weeping silently behind them. Some there may be, who will think that