brutal as you are cowardly," said Dona Perfecta,
turning pale. "Why do you talk about killing? I want no one killed, much
less my nephew--a person whom I love, in spite of his wickedness."

"A homicide! What an atrocity!" exclaimed Don Inocencio, scandalized.
"The man is mad!"

"To kill! The very idea of killing a man horrifies me, Caballuco," said
Dona Perfecta, closing her mild eyes. "Poor man! Ever since you have
been wanting to show your bravery, you have been howling like a ravening
wolf. Go away, Ramos; you terrify me."

"Doesn't the mistress say she is afraid? Doesn't she say that they will
attack the house; that they will carry off the young lady?"

"Yes, I fear so."

"And one man is going to do that," said Ramos contemptuously, sitting
down again, "Don Pepe Poquita Cosa, with his mathematics, is going to do
that. I did wrong in saying I would slit his throat. A doll of that kind
one takes by the ear and ducks in the river."

"Yes, laugh now, you fool! It is not my nephew alone who is going to
commit the outrages you have mentioned and which I fear; if it were he
alone I should not fear him. I would tell Librada to stand at the door
with a broom--and that would be sufficient. It is not he alone, no!"

"Who then?"

"Pretend you don't understand! Don't you know that my nephew and the
brigadier who commands that accursed troop have been confabulating?"

"Confabulating!" repeated Caballuco, as if puzzled by the word.

"That they are bosom friends," said Licurgo. "Confabulate means to be
like bosom friends. I had my suspicions already of what the mistress
says."

"It all amounts to this--that the brigadier and the officers are hand
and glove with Don Jose, and what he wants those brave soldiers
want; and those brave soldiers will commit all kinds of outrages and
atrocities, because that is their trade."

"And we have no alcalde to protect us."

"Nor judge."

"Nor governor. That is to say that we are at the mercy of that infamous
rabble."

"Yesterday," said Vejarruco, "some soldiers enticed away Uncle Julian's
youngest daughter, and the poor thing was afraid to go back home;
they found her standing barefooted beside the old fountain, crying and
picking up the pieces of her broken jar."

"Poor Don Gregorio Palomeque, the notary of Naharilla Alta!" said
Frasquito. "Those rascals robbed him of all the money he had in his
house. And all the brigadier said, when he was told about it, was it was
a lie.