The dazzling, almost continuous
lightning appeared to be not only in the black cloud over the house
but all 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.
