The Spanish colonel was in a rage, and yet immensely proud; immensely
proud, and yet in a rage of disappointment. There had been a fight and
the insurgents had retreated leaving their dead, but still a valuable
expedition had broken through his lines and escaped to the mountains.
As a matter of truth, he was not sure whether to be wholly delighted or
wholly angry, for well he knew that the importance lay not so much in
the truthful account of the action as it did in the heroic prose of the
official report, and in the fight itself lay material for a purple
splendid poem. The insurgents had run away; no one could deny it; it
was plain even to whatever privates had fired with their eyes shut.
This was worth a loud blow and splutter. However, when all was said and
done, he could not help but reflect that if he had captured this
expedition, he would have been a brigadier-general, if not more.
He was a short, heavy man with a beard, who walked in a manner common
to all elderly Spanish officers, and to many young ones; that is to
say, he walked as if his spine was a stick and a little longer than his
body; as if he suffered from some disease of the backbone, which
allowed him but scant use of his legs. He toddled along the road,
gesticulating disdainfully and muttering: "Ca! Ca! Ca!"
He berated some soldiers for an immaterial thing, and as he approached
the men stepped precipitately back as if he were a fire-engine. They
were most of them young fellows, who displayed, when under orders, the
manner of so many faithful dogs. At present, they were black,
tongue-hanging, thirsty boys, bathed in the nervous weariness of the
after-battle time.
Whatever he may truly have been in character, the colonel closely
resembled a gluttonous and libidinous old pig, filled from head to foot
with the pollution of a sinful life. "Ca!" he snarled, as he toddled.
"Ca! Ca!" The soldiers saluted as they backed to the side of the road.
The air was full of the odour of burnt rags. Over on the prairie
guerillas and regulars were rummaging the grass. A few unimportant
shots sounded from near the base of the hills.
A guerilla, glad with plunder, came to a Spanish captain. He held in
his hand a photograph. "Mira, señor. I took this from the body of an
officer whom I killed machete to machete."
The captain shot from the corner of his eye a cynical glance at the
guerilla, a glance which commented upon the last part of the statement.
"M-m-m," he said. He took the photograph and gazed with a slow faint
smile, the smile of a man who knows bloodshed and homes and love, at
the face of a girl. He turned the photograph presently, and on the back
of it was written: "One lesson in English I will give you--this: I love
you, Margharita." The photograph had been taken in Tampa.
The officer was silent for a half-minute, while his face still wore the
slow faint smile. "Pobrecetto," he murmured finally, with a philosophic
sigh, which was brother to a shrug. Without deigning a word to the
guerilla he thrust the photograph in his pocket and walked away.
High over the green earth, in the dizzy blue heights, some great birds
were slowly circling with down-turned beaks.