ntry after having slept the night in Rincon. And first
came straggling in through the land gate the armed mob of all colours,
complexions, types, and states of raggedness, calling themselves the
Sulaco National Guard, and commanded by Senor Gamacho. Through the
middle of the street streamed, like a torrent of rubbish, a mass of
straw hats, ponchos, gun-barrels, with an enormous green and yellow flag
flapping in their midst, in a cloud of dust, to the furious beating of
drums. The spectators recoiled against the walls of the houses shouting
their Vivas! Behind the rabble could be seen the lances of the cavalry,
the "army" of Pedro Montero. He advanced between Senores Fuentes and
Gamacho at the head of his llaneros, who had accomplished the feat of
crossing the Paramos of the Higuerota in a snow-storm. They rode four
abreast, mounted on confiscated Campo horses, clad in the heterogeneous
stock of roadside stores they had looted hurriedly in their rapid ride
through the northern part of the province; for Pedro Montero had been in
a great hurry to occupy Sulaco. The handkerchiefs knotted loosely around
their bare throats were glaringly new, and all the right sleeves of
their cotton shirts had been cut off close to the shoulder for greater
freedom in throwing the lazo. Emaciated greybeards rode by the side
of lean dark youths, marked by all the hardships of campaigning, with
strips of raw beef twined round the crowns of their hats, and huge iron
spurs fastened to their naked heels. Those that in the passes of the
mountain had lost their lances had provided themselves with the goads
used by the Campo cattlemen: slender shafts of palm fully ten feet long,
with a lot of loose rings jingling under the ironshod point. They were
armed with knives and revolvers. A haggard fearlessness characterized
the expression of all these sun-blacked countenances; they glared down
haughtily with their scorched eyes at the crowd, or, blinking upwards
insolently, pointed out to each other some particular head amongst the
women at the windows. When they had ridden into the Plaza and caught
sight of the equestrian statue of the King dazzlingly white in the
sunshine, towering enormous and motionless above the surges of the
crowd, with its eternal gesture of saluting, a murmur of surprise ran
through their ranks. "What is that saint in the big hat?" they asked
each other.

They were a good sample of the cavalry of the plains with which Pedro
Montero