the bandit,
whose existence was a protest against the irresponsible tyranny of all parties
alike, against the moral darkness of the land. The gloom of Los Hatos woods was
preferable; a life of hardships in the train of a robber band less debasing.
Antonia embraced with all her soul her uncle's obstinate defiance of misfortune.
It was grounded in the belief in the man whom she loved.
    In his message the Vicar-General answered upon his head for Hernandez's
fidelity. As to his power, he pointed out that he had remained unsubdued for so
many years. In that letter Decoud's idea of the new Occidental State (whose
flourishing and stable condition is a matter of common knowledge now) was for
the first time made public and used as an argument. Hernandez, ex-bandit and the
last general of Ribierist creation, was confident of being able to hold the
tract of country between the woods of Los Hatos and the coast range till that
devoted patriot, Don Martin Decoud, could bring General Barrios back to Sulaco
for the reconquest of the town.
    »Heaven itself wills it. Providence is on our side,« wrote Father Corbelàn;
there was no time to reflect upon or to controvert his statement; and if the
discussion started upon the reading of that letter in the Amarilla Club was
violent, it was also shortlived. In the general bewilderment of the collapse
some jumped at the idea with joyful astonishment as upon the amazing discovery
of a new hope. Others became fascinated by the prospect of immediate personal
safety for their women and children. The majority caught at it as a drowning man
catches at a straw. Father Corbelàn was unexpectedly offering them a refuge from
Pedrito Montero with his llaneros allied to Señores Fuentes and Gamacho with
their armed rabble.
    All the latter part of the afternoon an animated discussion went on in the
big rooms of the Amarilla Club. Even those members posted at the windows with
rifles and carbines to guard the end of the street in case of an offensive
return of the populace shouted their opinions and arguments over their
shoulders. As dusk fell Don Juste Lopez, inviting those caballeros who were of
his way of thinking to follow him, withdrew into the corridor, where at a little
table in the light of two candles he busied himself in composing an address, or
rather a solemn declaration to be presented to Pedrito Montero by a deputation
of such members of Assembly as had elected to remain in town. His idea was to
propitiate him in order to save the form at least of parliamentary institutions.
Seated before a blank sheet of paper, a goose-quill pen