 running round the room, out of which the
remnants of torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy rags.
    »We are not barbarians,« he said.
    This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito, the guerrillero
skilled in the art of laying ambushes, charged by his brother at his own demand
with the organization of Sulaco on democractic principles. The night before,
during the consultation with his partisans, who had come out to meet him in
Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Señor Fuentes -
    »We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confiding the destinies of
our beloved country to the wisdom and valiance of my heroic brother, the
invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you understand?«
    And Señor Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, had inclined his head
slightly to the left, letting a thin, bluish jet of smoke escape through his
pursed lips. He had understood.
    His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation. Not a single chair,
table, sofa, étagère or console had been left in the state rooms of the
Intendencia. His Excellency, though twitching all over with rage, was restrained
from bursting into violence by a sense of his remoteness and isolation. His
heroic brother was very far away. Meantime, how was he going to take his siesta?
He had expected to find comfort and luxury in the Intendencia after a year of
hard camp life, ending with the hardships and privations of the daring dash upon
Sulaco - upon the province which was worth more in wealth and influence than all
the rest of the Republic's territory. He would get even with Gamacho by-and-by.
And Señor Gamacho's oration, delectable to popular ears, went on in the heat and
glare of the Plaza like the uncouth howlings of an inferior sort of devil cast
into a white-hot furnace. Every moment he had to wipe his streaming face with
his bare fore-arm; he had flung off his coat, and had turned up the sleeves of
his shirt high above the elbows; but he kept on his head the large cocked hat
with white plumes. His ingenuousness cherished this sign of his rank as
Commandante of the National Guards. Approving and grave murmurs greeted his
periods. His opinion was that war should be declared at once against France,
England, Germany, and the United States, who, by introducing railways, mining
enterprises, colonization, and under such other shallow pretences, aimed at
robbing poor people of their lands, and with the help of these Goths and
paralytics, the aristocrats would convert them into toiling and miserable
