About forty or fifty, trooped to the house to be
entertained at dinner.
As the day was hot and the indoor accommodation insufficient, the
tables were in the shade of the willows, and there we had our feast of
roast and boiled meat, with bread and wine and big dishes of _aros
con leche_ - rice boiled in milk with sugar and cinnamon. Next to
cummin-seed cinnamon is the spice best loved of the gaucho: he will
ride long leagues to get it.
The dinner over and tables cleared, the men and youths disposed
themselves on the benches and chairs and on their spread ponchos on
the ground, and started smoking and conversing. A guitar was produced,
and Barboza being present, surrounded as usual by a crowd of his
particular friends or parasites, all eagerly listening to his talk and
applauding his sallies with bursts of laughter, he was naturally first
asked to sing. The accompanist in this case was Goyo Montes, a little
thick-set gaucho with round staring blue eyes set in a round pinky-
brown face, and the tune agreed on was one known as _La Lechera_ - the
Milkmaid.
Then, while the instrument was being tuned and Barboza began to sway
his body about, and talking ceased, a gaucho named Marcos but usually
called _El Rengo_ on account of his lameness, pushed himself into the
crowd surrounding the great man and seated himself on a table and put
his foot of his lame leg on the bench below.
El Rengo was a strange being, a man with remarkably fine aquiline
features, piercing black eyes, and long black hair. As a youth he had
distinguished himself among his fellow-gauchos by his daring feats of
horsemanship, mad adventures, and fights; then he met with the
accident which lamed him for life and at the same time saved him from
the army; when, at a cattle-parting, he was thrown from his horse and
gored by a furious bull, the animal's horn having been driven deep
into his thigh. From that time Marcos was a man of peace and was liked
and respected by every one as a good neighbour and a good fellow. He
was also admired for the peculiarly amusing way of talking he had,
when in the proper mood, which was usually when he was a little
exhilarated by drink. His eyes would sparkle and his face light up,
and he would set his listeners laughing at the queer way in which he
would play with his subject; but there was always some mockery and
bitterness in it which served to show that something of the dangerous
spirit of his youth still survived in him.
On this occasion he was in one of his most wilful, mocking, reckless
moods, and was no sooner seated than he began smilingly, in his quiet
conversational tone, to discuss the question of the singer and the
tune.
