Round us, and crash quickly followed crash, making the doors
and windows rattle in their frames, while there high above us in the
very midst of the awful tumult stood my father calm as ever. Not
satisfied that he was high enough on the floor of the look-out he had
got up on the topmost rail, and standing on it, with his back against
the tall pole, he surveyed the open plain all round through his spy-
glass in search of the lost horses. I remember that indoors my mother
with white terror-stricken face stood gazing out at him, and that the
whole house was in a state of terror, expecting every moment to see
him struck by lightning and hurled down to the earth below.
A second and in its results a more disastrous shining quality was a
childlike trust in the absolute good faith of every person with whom
he came into business relations. Things being what they are this
inevitably led to his ruin.
To return to our unwelcome visitors. On this occasion my father's
perfectly cool smiling demeanour, resulting from his foolhardiness,
served him and the house well: it deceived them, for they could not
believe that he would have acted in that way if they had not been
watched by men with rifles in their hands from the interior who would
open fire on the least hostile movement on their part.
Suddenly the scowling spokesman of the troop, with a shouted "Vamos!"
turned his horse's head and, followed by all the others, rode out and
broke into a gallop. We too then hurried out, and from the screen of
poplar and black acacia trees growing at the side of the moat, watched
their movements, and saw, when they had got away a few hundred yards
from the gate, the young unarmed officer break away from them and
start off at the greatest speed he could get out of his horse. The
others quickly gave chase and at length disappeared from sight in the
direction of the Alcalde's or local petty magistrate's house, about a
mile and a half away. It was a long low thatched ranch without trees,
and could not be seen from our house as it stood behind a marshy lake
overgrown with all bulrushes.
While we were straining our eyes to see the result of the chase, and
after the hunted man and his pursuers had vanished from sight among
the herds of cattle and horses grazing on the plain, the tragedy was
being carried out in exceedingly painful circumstances. The young
officer, whose home was more than a day's journey from our district,
had visited the neighbourhood on a former occasion and remembered that
he had relations in it; and when he broke away from the men, divining
that it was their intention to murder him, he made for the old
Alcalde's house. He succeeded in keeping ahead of his pursuers until
he arrived at the gate, and throwing himself from his horse and
rushing into the house, and finding the old Alcalde surrounded by the
women of the house, addressed him as uncle and claimed his protection.
The Alcalde was not, strictly speaking, his uncle but was his mother's
first cousin. It was an awful moment: the nine armed ruffians were
already standing outside, shouting to the owner of the place to give
them up their prisoner, and threatening to burn down the house and
kill all the inmates if he refused. The old Alcalde stood in the
middle of the room, surrounded by a crowd of women and children, his
own two handsome daughters, aged about twenty and twenty-two
respectively, among them, fainting with terror and crying for him to
save them, while the young officer on his knees implored him for the
sake of his mother's memory, and of the Mother of God and of all he
held sacred, to refuse to give him up to be slaughtered.
The old man was not equal to the situation: he trembled and sobbed
with anguish, and at last faltered out that he could not protect him -
that he must save his own daughters and the wives and children of his
neighbours who had sought refuge in his house. The men outside,
hearing how the argument was going, came to the door, and finally
seizing the young man by the arm led him out and made him mount his
horse again and ride with them. They rode back the way they had gone
for half a mile towards our house, then pulled him off his horse and
cut his throat.
On the following day a mulatto boy who looked after the flock and went
on errands for the Alcalde, came to me and said that if I would mount
my pony and go with him he would show me something. It was not seldom
this same little fellow came to me to offer to show me something, and
it usually turned out to be a bird's nest, an object which keenly
interested us both. I gladly mounted my pony and followed. The broken
army had ceased passing our way by now, and it was peaceful and safe
once more on the great plain. We rode about a mile, and he then pulled
up his horse and pointed to the turf at our feet, where I saw a great
stain of blood on the short dry grass. Here, he told me, was where
they had cut the young officer's throat: the body had been taken by
the Alcalde to his house, where it had been lying since the evening
before, and it would be taken for burial next day to our nearest
village, about eight miles distant.
The murder was the talk of the place for some days, chiefly on account
of the painful facts of the case - that the old Alcalde, who was
respected and even loved by every one, should have failed in so
pitiful a way to make any attempt at saving his young relation.
