"Senora!" he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in the name of God,
reflect! How can there be any glory for a man like me in overcoming that
bald-headed embustero with the dyed moustaches?"
Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcalde, general of division,
commanding in chief the Occidental Military district, did not frequent
the higher society of the town. He preferred the unceremonious
gatherings of men where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of his
powers with the lasso, with which he could perform extremely difficult
feats of the sort "no married man should attempt," as the saying
goes amongst the llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides,
encounters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles, adventures in
the great forests, crossings of swollen rivers. And it was not mere
boastfulness that prompted the general's reminiscences, but a genuine
love of that wild life which he had led in his young days before he
turned his back for ever on the thatched roof of the parental tolderia
in the woods. Wandering away as far as Mexico he had fought against the
French by the side (as he said) of Juarez, and was the only military
man of Costaguana who had ever encountered European troops in the field.
That fact shed a great lustre upon his name till it became eclipsed
by the rising star of Montero. All his life he had been an inveterate
gambler. He alluded himself quite openly to the current story how once,
during some campaign (when in command of a brigade), he had gambled away
his horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes, playing
monte with his colonels the night before the battle. Finally, he had
sent under escort his sword (a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to
the town in the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for five
hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened shop-keeper. By daybreak he
had lost the last of that money, too, when his only remark, as he rose
calmly, was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From that time he
had become aware that a general could lead his troops into battle
very well with a simple stick in his hand. "It has been my custom ever
since," he would say.
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