. Good-by."

"Good-by, Rosario. Take care not to stumble against the furniture."

"I can find my way here perfectly, cousin. We shall soon see each
other again. Stand at your window if you wish to receive my telegraphic
despatch."

Pepe Rey did as he was bade; but he waited a long time, and Rosario did
not appear at the window. The engineer fancied he heard agitated voices
on the floor above him.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SOLDIERS

The inhabitants of Orbajosa heard in the twilight vagueness of their
morning slumbers the same sonorous clarionet, and they opened their
eyes, saying:

"The soldiers!"

Some murmured to themselves between sleeping and waking:

"At last they have sent us that rabble."

Others got out of bed hastily, growling:

"Let us go take a look at those confounded soldiers."

Some soliloquized in this way:

"It will be necessary to hurry up matters. They say drafts and
contributions; we will say blows and more blows."

In another house were heard these words uttered joyfully:

"Perhaps my son is coming! Perhaps my brother is coming!"

Everywhere people were springing out of bed, dressing hastily, opening
the windows to see the regiment that caused all this excitement entering
the city in the early dawn. The city was gloom, silence, age; the army
gayety, boisterousness, youth. As the army entered the city it seemed as
if the mummy received by some magic art the gift of life and sprang
with noisy gayety from its damp sarcophagus to dance around it. What
movement, what shouting, what laughter, what merriment! There is nothing
so interesting as a regiment. It is our country in its youthful and
vigorous aspect. All the ineptitude, the turbulence, the superstition
at times, and at times the impiety of the country as represented in the
individual, disappears under the iron rule of discipline, which of so
many insignificant figures makes an imposing whole. The soldier, or so
to say, the corpuscle, separating at the command "Break ranks!" from
the mass in which he has led a regular and at times a sublime life,
occasionally preserves some of the qualities peculiar to the army. But
this is not the general rule. The separation is most often accompanied
by a sudden deterioration, with the result that if an army is the glory
and honor of a nation, an assemblage of soldiers may be an insupportable
calamity; and the towns that shed tears of joy and enthusiasm when they
see a victorious battalion enter