ark trousers tucked into boots, a white
linen jacket, sabre at his side, and revolver at his belt. In this
disturbed time nothing could find the Senor Gobernador with his boots
off, as the saying is.

At a slight nod from one of the serenos, the man, a messenger from
the town, dismounted, and crossed the bridge, leading his horse by the
bridle.

Don Pepe received the letter from his other hand, slapped his left
side and his hips in succession, feeling for his spectacle case. After
settling the heavy silvermounted affair astride his nose, and adjusting
it carefully behind his ears, he opened the envelope, holding it up at
about a foot in front of his eyes. The paper he pulled out contained
some three lines of writing. He looked at them for a long time. His grey
moustache moved slightly up and down, and the wrinkles, radiating at the
corners of his eyes, ran together. He nodded serenely. "Bueno," he said.
"There is no answer."

Then, in his quiet, kindly way, he engaged in a cautious conversation
with the man, who was willing to talk cheerily, as if something lucky
had happened to him recently. He had seen from a distance Sotillo's
infantry camped along the shore of the harbour on each side of the
Custom House. They had done no damage to the buildings. The foreigners
of the railway remained shut up within the yards. They were no longer
anxious to shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners; then he reported
Montero's entry and the rumours of the town. The poor were going to be
made rich now. That was very good. More he did not know, and, breaking
into propitiatory smiles, he intimated that he was hungry and thirsty.
The old major directed him to go to the alcalde of the first village.
The man rode off, and Don Pepe, striding slowly in the direction of a
little wooden belfry, looked over a hedge into a little garden, and saw
Father Roman sitting in a white hammock slung between two orange trees
in front of the presbytery.

An enormous tamarind shaded with its dark foliage the whole white
framehouse. A young Indian girl with long hair, big eyes, and small
hands and feet, carried out a wooden chair, while a thin old woman,
crabbed and vigilant, watched her all the time from the verandah.

Don Pepe sat down in the chair and lighted a cigar; the priest drew
in an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm. On his
reddish-brown face, worn, hollowed as if crumbled, the eyes, fresh and
candid, sparkled like two