Any one
might guess what that would be. The words mattered more than the air.
For here we had before us not a small sweet singer, a goldfinch in a
cage, but a cock - a fighting cock with well-trimmed comb and tail and
a pair of sharp spurs to its feet. Listen, friends, he is now about to
flap his wings and crow.
I was leaning against the table on which he sat and began to think it
was a dangerous place for me, since I was certain that every word was
distinctly heard by Barboza; yet he made no sign, but went on swaying
from side to side as if no mocking word had reached him, then launched
out in one of his most atrocious _decimas_, autobiographical and
philosophical. In the first stanza he mentions that he had slain
eleven men, but using a poet's license he states the fact in a
roundabout way, saying that he slew six men, and then five more,
making eleven in all:
Seis muertes e hecho y cinco son once.
which may be paraphrased thus:
Six men had I sent to hades or heaven,
Then added five more to make them eleven.
The stanza ended, Marcos resumed his comments. What I desire to know,
said he, is, why eleven? It is not the proper number in this case. One
more is wanted to make the full dozen. He who rests at eleven has not
completed his task and should not boast of what he has done. Here am I
at his service: here is a life worth nothing to any one waiting to be
taken if he is willing and has the power to take it.
This was a challenge direct enough, yet strange to say no sudden
furious action followed, no flashing of steel and blood splashed on
table and benches; nor was there the faintest sign of emotion in the
singer's face, or any tremor or change in his voice when he resumed
his singing. And so it went on to the end - boastful stanza and
insulting remarks from Marcos; and by the time the _decima_ ended a
dozen or twenty men had forced themselves in between the two so that
there could be no fight on this occasion.
Among those present was an old gaucho who took a peculiar interest in
me on account of my bird lore and who used to talk and expound gaucho
philosophy to me in a fatherly way. Meeting him a day or two later I
remarked I did not think Barboza deserving of his fame as a fighter. I
thought him a coward. No, he said, he was not a coward. He could have
killed Marcos, but he considered that it would be a mistake, since it
would add nothing to his reputation and would probably make him
disliked in the district.
