However, We Succeeded In Circumnavigating The Lake And Crossing
It Two Or Three Times From Side To Side, And In Slaying Seventy Or
Eighty Of The Enemy With Our Javelins.
At length, when the short, mid-winter day was in its decline, and we
were all feeling stiff and
Cold and half-famished, our commander
thought proper to bring the great lake battle, with awful slaughter of
our barbarian foes, to an end, and we wearily trudged home in our
soaking clothes and squeaking shoes. We were too tired to pay much
heed to the little sermon we had expected, and glad to get into dry
clothes and sit down to food and tea. Then to sit by the fire as close
as we could get to it, until we all began to sneeze and to feel our
throats getting sore and our faces burning hot. And, finally, when we
went burning and shivering with cold to bed we could not sleep; and
hark! the grand nightly chorus was going on just as usual. No, in
spite of the great slaughter we had not exterminated the enemy; on the
contrary, they appeared to be rejoicing over a great victory,
especially when high above the deep harsh notes the long-drawn, organ-
like sounds of the leaders were heard.
How I then wished, when tossing and burning feverishly in bed, that I
had rebelled and refused to take part in that day's adventure! I was
too young for it, and again and again, when thrusting one of the
creatures through with my javeline, I had experienced a horrible
disgust and shrinking at the spectacle. Now in my wakeful hours, with
that tremendous chanting in my ears, it all came back to me and was
like a nightmare.
CHAPTER XIII
A PATRIARCH OF THE PAMPAS
The grand old man of the plains - Don Evaristo Penalva, the Patriarch -
My first sight of his estancia house - Don Evaristo described - A
husband of six wives - How he was esteemed and loved by every one - On
leaving home I lose sight of Don Evaristo - I meet him again after
seven years - His failing health - His old first wife and her daughter,
Cipriana - The tragedy of Cipriana - Don Evaristo dies and I lose sight
of the family.
Patriarchs were fairly common in the land of my nativity: grave,
dignified old men with imposing beards, owners of land and cattle and
many horses, though many of them could not spell their own names;
handsome too, some of them with regular features, descendants of good
old Spanish families who colonized the wide pampas in the seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries. I do not think I have got one of this
sort in the preceding chapters which treat of our neighbours, unless
it be Don Anastacio Buenavida of the corkscrew curls and quaint taste
in pigs. Certainly he was of the old landowning class, and in his
refined features and delicate little hands and feet gave evidence of
good blood, but the marks of degeneration were equally plain; he was
an effeminate, futile person, and not properly to be ranked with the
patriarchs.
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