“Oh!” exclaimed the officer, turning to Marcos, “you are also an Englishman unprovided with a passport, I suppose? You might at least have supplied yourself with a couple of blue crockery eyes and a yellow beard for your greater safety.”
“I am only a poor son of the soil,” said Marcos meekly. “This young Englishman is looking for an estancia to buy, and I came as his attendant from the capital. We were very careless not to get our passports before starting.”
“Then, of course, this young man has plenty of money in his pocket?” said the officer.
I did not relish the lies Marcos had taken upon himself to tell about me, but did not quite know what the consequences of contradicting them might be. I therefore replied that I was not so foolish as to travel in a country like the Banda Orientál with money on my person. “To pay for bread and cheese till I reach my destination is about as much as I have,” I added.
“The government of this country is a generous one,” said the officer sarcastically, “and will pay for all the bread and cheese you will require. It will also provide you with beef. You must now come with me to the Juzgado de las Cuevas, both of you.”
Seeing no help for it, we accompanied our captors at a swinging gallop over a rough, undulating country, and in about an hour and a half reached Las Cuevas, a dirty, miserable-looking village, composed of a few ranchos built round a large plaza overgrown with weeds. On one side stood the church, on the other a square stone building with a flagstaff before it. This was the official building of the Juez de Paz, or rural magistrate; just now, however, it was closed, and with no sign of life about it except an old dead-and-alive-looking man sitting against the closed door, with his bare, mahogany-coloured legs stretched out in the hot sunshine.
“This is a very fine thing!” exclaimed the officer, with a curse. “I feel very much inclined to let the men go.”
“You will lose nothing by doing so, except, perhaps, a headache,” said Marcos.
“Hold your tongue till your advice is asked!” retorted the officer, thoroughly out of temper.
“Lock them up in the calaboso till the Juez comes tomorrow, Lieutenant,” suggested the old man by the door, speaking through a bushy white beard and a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“Do you not know that the door is broken, old fool?” said the officer. “Lock them up! Here I am neglecting my own affairs to serve the State, and this is how I am treated. We must now take them to the Juez at his own house and let him look after them. Come on, boys.”
We were then conducted out of Las Cuevas to a distance of about two miles, where the Señor Juez resided in the bosom of his family. His private residence was a very dirty, neglected-looking estancia house, with a great many dogs, fowls, and children about. We dismounted, and were immediately taken into a large room, where the magistrate sat at a table on which lay a great number of papers—goodness knows what they were about. The Juez was a little hatchet-faced man, with bristly grey whiskers, standing out like a cat’s moustache, and angry eyes—or, rather with one angry eye, for over the other a cotton handkerchief was tied. No sooner had we all entered than a hen, leading a brood of a dozen half-grown chickens, rushed into the room after us, the chickens instantly distributing themselves about the floor in quest of crumbs, while the mother, more ambitious, flew on the table, scattering the papers right and left with the wind she created.
“A thousand demons take the fowls!” cried the Juez, starting up in a fury. “Man, go and bring your mistress here this instant. I command her to come.”
This order was obeyed by the person who had ushered us in, a greasy-looking, swarthy-faced individual, in threadbare military clothes; and in two or three minutes he returned, followed by a very fat, slatternly woman, looking very good-tempered, however, who immediately subsided, quite exhausted, into a chair.
“What is it, Fernando?” she panted.
“What is it? How can you have the courage to ask such a question, Toribia? Look at the confusion your pestilent fowls are creating amongst my papers—papers that concern the safety of the republic! Woman, what measures are you going to take to stop this before I have your fowls all killed on the spot?”
“What can I do, Fernando?—they are hungry, I suppose. I thought you wanted to ask my advice about these prisoners—poor fellows! and here you are with your hens.”
Her placid manner acted like oil on the fire of his wrath. He stormed about the room, kicking over chairs, and hurling rulers and paperweights at the birds, apparently with the most deadly intentions, but with shockingly bad aim—shouting, shaking his fist at his wife, and even threatening to commit her for contempt of court when she laughed. At last, after a great deal of trouble, the fowls were all got out, and the servant placed to guard the door, with strict orders to decapitate the first chicken that should attempt to enter and disturb the proceedings.
Order being restored, the Juez lit a cigarette and began to smooth his ruffled feathers. “Proceed,” he said to the officer, from his seat at the table.
“Sir,” said the officer, “in pursuance of my duty I have taken in charge these two strangers, who are unprovided with passports or documents of any description to corroborate their statements. According to their story, the young man is an English millionaire going about the country buying up estates, while the other man is his servant. There are twenty-five reasons for disbelieving their story, but I have not sufficient time to
