" cynically said Sherry. "The Aztecs got rattled, and then the
bullets rattled. And what was done to the Aztecs?"

"Senor, what could be done? They meant no harm, as you can see."

"Of course, of course; but you put the Little Red Peg down two holes
just the same, eh, my Becodar--with your Gerado. I smell a great man
in your Gerado, Becodar. Your bandit turned soldier is a notable
gentleman--gentlemen all his tribe.... You see," Sherry added to me,
"the country was infested with bandits--some big names in this land had
bandit for their titles one time or another. Well, along came Diaz, a
great man. He said to the bandits: 'How much do you make a year at your
trade?' They told him.

"'Then,' said he, 'I'll give you as much a month and clothe you. You'll
furnish your own horses and keep them, and hold the country in order.
Put down the banditti, be my boundary-riders, my gentlemen guards, and
we will all love you and cherish you.' And 'it was so,' as Scripture
says. And this Gerado can serve our good compadre here, and the Little
Red Peg in the wall keeps tally."

"What shall you do with Bernal the boy when he grows up?" added Sherry
presently.

"There is the question for my mind, senor," he answered. "He would be
a toreador--already has he served the matador in the ring, though I did
not know it, foolish boy! But I would have him in the Rurales." Here he
fetched out and handed us a bottle of mescal. Sherry lifted his glass.

"To the day when the Little Red Peg goes no farther!" he said. We drank.

"To the blind compadre and the boy!" I added, and we drank again.

A moment afterwards in the silent street I looked back. The door was
shut, and the wee scarlet light was burning over it. I fell to thinking
of the Little Red Peg in the wall.

A FRIEND OF THE COMMUNE

"See, madame--there, on the Hill of Pains, the long finger of the
Semaphore! One more prisoner has escaped--one more."

"One more, Marie. It is the life here that on the Hill, this here below;
and yet the sun is bright, the cockatoos are laughing in the palms, and
you hear my linnet singing."

"It turns so slowly. Now it points across the Winter Valley. Ah!"

"Yes, across the Winter Valley, where the deep woods are, and beyond to
the Pascal River."

"Towards my home. How dim the light is now! I can only see It--like a
long dark finger yonder."

"No, my dear, there is bright sunshine still; there is no cloud at all:
but It is like a finger;