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.General Robles' division was occupied entirely in guarding the destroyed quarters of the town from the depredations of these inhuman monsters.Taken up with my duties of orderly officer, it was only in the morning that I could assure myself of the safety of my own family.My mother and my sisters had escaped with their lives from that ballroom, where I had left them early in the evening.I remember those two beautiful young women – God rest their souls – as if I saw them this moment, in the garden of our destroyed house, pale but active, assisting some of our poor neighbours, in their soiled ball-dresses and with the dust of fallen walls on their hair.As to my mother, she had a stoical soul in her frail body.Half-covered by a costly shawl, she was lying on a rustic seat by the side of an ornamental basin whose fountain had ceased to play for ever on that night.I had hardly had time to embrace them all with transports of joy when my chief, coming along, dispatched me to the ravine with a few soldiers, to bring in my strong man, as he called him, and that pale girl.But there was no one for us to bring in.A landslide had covered the ruins of the house; and it was like a large mound of earth with only the ends of some timbers visible here and there – nothing more.Thus were the tribulations of the old Royalist couple ended.An enormous and unconsecrated grave had swallowed them up alive, in their unhappy obstinacy against the will of a people to be free.And their daughter was gone.That Gaspar Ruiz had carried her off I understood very well.But as the case was not foreseen, I had no instructions to pursue them.And certainly I had no desire to do so.I had grown mistrustful of my interference.It had never been successful, and had not even appeared creditable.He was gone.Well, let him go.And he had carried off the Royalist girl! Nothing better.Vaya con Dios.This was not the time to bother about a deserter who, justly or unjustly, ought to have been dead, and a girl for whom it would have been better to have never been born.So I marched my men back to the town.After a few days, order having been re-established, all the principal families, including my own, left for Santiago.We had a fine house there.At the same time the division of Robles was moved to new cantonments near the capital.This change suited very well the state of my domestic and amorous feelings.One night, rather late, I was called to my chief.I found General Robles in his quarters, at ease, with his uniform off, drinking neat brandy out of a tumbler – as a precaution, he used to say, against the sleeplessness induced by the bites of mosquitoes.He was a good soldier, and he taught me the art and practice of war.No doubt God has been merciful to his soul; for his motives were never other than patriotic, if his character was irascible.As to the use of mosquito nets, he considered it effeminate, shameful – unworthy of a soldier.I noticed at the first glance that his face, already very red, wore an expression of high good-humour.›Aha! Señor teniente,‹ he cried, loudly, as I saluted at the door.›Behold! Your strong man has turned up again.‹He extended to me a folded letter, which I saw was superscribed ›To the Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Armies.‹›This,‹ General Robles went on in his loud voice, ›was thrust by a boy into the hand of a sentry at the Quartel General, while the fellow stood there thinking of his girl, no doubt – for before he could gather his wits together the boy had disappeared amongst the market people, and he protests he could not recognize him to save his life.‹My chief told me further that the soldier had given the letter to the sergeant of the guard, and that ultimately it had reached the hands of our generalissimo.His Excellency had deigned to take cognizance of it with his own eyes.After that he had referred the matter in confidence to General Robles.The letter, señores, I cannot now recollect textually.I saw the signature of Gaspar Ruiz.He was an audacious fellow
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