
naturally drifted into the neighbourhood of the Gould carriage, betrayed by the
solemnity of their faces their impression that the general must have had too
much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by Anzani) at the Amarilla Club
before he had started with his Staff on a furious ride to the harbour. But Mrs.
Gould bent forward, self-possessed, and declared her conviction that still more
glory awaited the general in the near future.
    »Señora!« he remonstrated, with great feeling, »in the name of God, reflect!
How can there be any glory for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed
embustero with the dyed moustaches?«
    Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcade, general of division,
commanding in chief the Occidental Military district, did not frequent the
higher society of the town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of men
where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of his powers with the lasso,
with which he could perform extremely difficult feats of the sort no married man
should attempt, as the saying goes amongst the llaneros; relate tales of
extraordinary night rides, encounters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodile,
adventures in the great forests, crossings of swollen rivers. And it was not
mere boastfulness that prompted the general's reminiscences, but a genuine love
of that wild life which he had led in his young days before he turned his back
for ever on the thatched roof of the parental tolderia in the woods. Wandering
away as far as Mexico he had fought against the French by the side (as he said)
of Juarez, and was the only military man of Costaguana who had ever encountered
European troops in the field. That fact shed a great lustre upon his name till
it became eclipsed by the rising star of Montero. All his life he had been an
inveterate gambler. He alluded himself quite openly to the current story how
once, during some campaign (when in command of a brigade), he had gambled away
his horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes, playing monte
with his colonels the night before the battle. Finally, he had sent under escort
his sword (a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to the town in the rear of
his position to be immediately pledged for five hundred pesetas with a sleepy
and frightened shop-keeper. By daybreak he had lost the last of that money, too,
when his only remark, as he rose calmly, was, »Now let us go and fight to the
death.« From that time he had become aware that a general
