Chapter 9 - Page 2

And he had carried off the
Royalist girl! Nothing better. Vaya con Dios. This was not the time to
bother about a deserter who, justly or unjustly, ought to have been
dead, and a girl for whom it would have been better to have never been
born.

"So I marched my men back to the town.

"After a few days, order having been re-established, all the principal
families, including my own, left for Santiago. We had a fine house
there. At the same time the division of Robles was moved to new
cantonments near the capital. This change suited very well the state
of my domestic and amorous feelings.

"One night, rather late, I was called to my chief. I found General
Robles in his quarters, at ease, with his uniform off, drinking neat
brandy out of a tumbler--as a precaution, he used to say, against the
sleeplessness induced by the bites of mosquitoes. He was a good
soldier, and he taught me the art and practice of war.

"No doubt God has been merciful to his soul; for his motives were
never other than patriotic, if his character was irascible. As to the
use of mosquito nets, he considered it effeminate, shameful--unworthy
of a soldier.

"I noticed at the first glance that his face, already very red, wore
an expression of high good-humour.

"'Aha! senor teniente,' he cried loudly, as I saluted at the door.
'Behold! Your strong man has turned up again.'

"He extended to me a folded letter, which I saw was superscribed 'To
the Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Armies.'

"'This,' General Robles went on in his loud voice, 'was thrust by a
boy into the hand of a sentry at the Quartel General, while the fellow
stood there thinking of his girl, no doubt--for before he could
gather his wits together, the boy had disappeared amongst the market
people, and he protests he could not recognise him to save his life.'

"My chief told me further that the soldier had given the letter to the
sergeant of the guard, and that ultimately it had reached the hands of
our generalissimo. His Excellency had deigned to take cognisance of it
with his own eyes. After that he had referred the matter in confidence
to General Robles.

"The letter, senores, I cannot now recollect textually. I saw the
signature of Gaspar Ruiz. He was an audacious fellow. He had snatched
a soul for himself out of a cataclysm, remember. And now it was that
soul which had dictated the terms of his letter. Its tone was very
independent. I remember it struck me at the time as noble--dignified.
It was, no doubt, her letter. Now I shudder at the depth of its
duplicity. Gaspar Ruiz was made to complain of the injustice of which
he had been a victim. He invoked his previous