olitical Chief of the town in his pocket, and was all impatience to
enter upon his functions.

In the long audience room, with its tall mirrors all starred by stones,
the hangings torn down and the canopy over the platform at the upper end
pulled to pieces, the vast, deep muttering of the crowd and the howling
voice of Gamacho speaking just below reached them through the shutters
as they stood idly in dimness and desolation.

"The brute!" observed his Excellency Don Pedro Montero through clenched
teeth. "We must contrive as quickly as possible to send him and his
Nationals out there to fight Hernandez."

The new Gefe Politico only jerked his head sideways, and took a puff at
his cigarette in sign of his agreement with this method for ridding the
town of Gamacho and his inconvenient rabble.

Pedrito Montero looked with disgust at the absolutely bare floor, and
at the belt of heavy gilt picture-frames running round the room, out
of which the remnants of torn and slashed canvases fluttered like dingy
rags.

"We are not barbarians," he said.

This was what said his Excellency, the popular Pedrito, the guerrillero
skilled in the art of laying ambushes, charged by his brother at his
own demand with the organization of Sulaco on democratic principles. The
night before, during the consultation with his partisans, who had
come out to meet him in Rincon, he had opened his intentions to Senor
Fuentes--

"We shall organize a popular vote, by yes or no, confiding the destinies
of our beloved country to the wisdom and valiance of my heroic brother,
the invincible general. A plebiscite. Do you understand?"

And Senor Fuentes, puffing out his leathery cheeks, had inclined his
head slightly to the left, letting a thin, bluish jet of smoke escape
through his pursed lips. He had understood.

His Excellency was exasperated at the devastation. Not a single chair,
table, sofa, etagere or console had been left in the state rooms of the
Intendencia. His Excellency, though twitching all over with rage, was
restrained from bursting into violence by a sense of his remoteness and
isolation. His heroic brother was very far away. Meantime, how was he
going to take his siesta? He had expected to find comfort and luxury
in the Intendencia after a year of hard camp life, ending with the
hardships and privations of the daring dash upon Sulaco--upon the
province which was worth more in wealth and influence than all the rest
of the Republic's t