“What, Calixto,” he exclaimed at length, “is this the way you come into my presence? Ha, you thought I would not recognise you! Down—down, boy, on your knees!”
I glanced at his daughter standing behind him; she was watching my face anxiously, and made a slight inclination with her head.
Taking this as an intimation to obey the old man’s commands, I went down on my knees, and touched my lips to the hand he extended.
“May God give you grace, my son,” he said, with tremulous voice. Then he continued: “What, did you expect to find your old father blind then? I would know you amongst a thousand, Calixto. Ah, my son, my son, why have you kept away so long? Stand, my son, and let me embrace you.”
He rose up tottering from his chair and threw his arm about me; then, after gazing into my face for some moments, deliberately kissed me on both cheeks.
“Ha, Calixto,” he continued, putting his trembling hands upon my shoulders and gazing into my face out of his wild, sunken eyes, “do I need ask where you have been? Where should a Peralta be but in the smoke of the battle, in the midst of carnage, fighting for the Banda Orientál? I did not complain of your absence, Calixto—Demetria will tell you that I was patient through all these years, for I knew you would come back to me at last wearing the laurel wreath of victory. And I, Calixto, what have I worn, sitting here? A crown of nettles! Yes, for a hundred years I have worn it—you are my witness, Demetria, my daughter, that I have worn this crown of stinging-nettles for a hundred years.”
He sank back, apparently exhausted, in his chair, and I uttered a sigh of relief, thinking the interview was now over. But I was mistaken. His daughter placed a chair for me at his side. “Sit here, señor, and talk to my father, while I have your horse taken care of,” she whispered, and then quickly glided from the room. This was rather hard on me, I thought; but while whispering those few words she touched my hand lightly and turned her wistful eyes with a grateful look on mine, and I was glad for her sake that I had not blundered.
Presently the old man roused himself again and began talking eagerly, asking me a hundred wild questions, to which I was compelled to reply, still trying to keep up the character of the long-lost son just returned victorious from the wars.
“Tell me where you have fought and overcome the enemy,” he exclaimed, raising his voice almost to a scream. “Where have they flown from you like chaff before the wind?—where have you trodden them down under your horses’ hoofs?—name—name the places and the battles to me, Calixto?”
I felt strongly inclined just then to jump up and rush out of the room, so trying was this mad conversation to my nerves; but I thought of his daughter Demetria’s white, pathetic face, and restrained the impulse. Then in sheer desperation I began to talk madly as himself. I thought I would make him sick of warlike subjects. Everywhere, I cried, we had defeated, slaughtered, scattered to the four winds of heaven, the infamous Colorados. From the sea to the Brazilian frontier we have been victorious. With sword, lance, and bayonet we have stormed and taken every town from Tacuarembó to Montevideo. Every river from the Yaguaron to the Uruguay had run red with Colorado blood. In forests and sierras we had hunted them, flying like wild beasts from us; we had captured them in thousands, only to cut their throats, crucify them, blow them from guns, and tear them limb by limb to pieces with wild horses.
I was only pouring oil on the blazing fire of his insanity.
“Aha!” he shouted, his eyes sparkling, while he wildly clutched my arm with his skinny, claw-like hands, “did I not know—have I not said it? Did I not fight for a hundred years, wading through blood every day, and then at last send you forth to finish the battle? And every day our enemies came and shouted in my ears, ‘Victory—victory!’ They told me you were dead, Calixto—that their weapons had pierced you, that they had given your flesh to be devoured of wild dogs. And I shouted with laughter to hear them. I laughed in their faces, and clapped my hands and cried out, ‘Prepare your throats for the sword, traitors, slaves, assassins, for a Peralta—even Calixto, devoured of wild dogs—is coming to execute vengeance! What, will God not leave one strong arm to strike at the tyrant’s breast—one Peralta in all this land! Fly, miscreants! Die, wretches! He has risen from the grave—he has come back from hell, armed with hellfire to burn your towns to ashes—to extirpate you utterly from the earth!’ ”
His thin, tremulous voice had risen towards the close of this mad speech to a reedy shriek that rang through the quiet, darkening house like the long, shrill cry of some waterfowl heard at night in the desolate marshes.
Then he loosened his hold on my arm and dropped back moaning and shivering into his seat. His eyes closed, his whole frame trembled, and he looked like a person just recovering from an epileptic fit; then he seemed to sink to sleep. It was now getting quite dark, for the sun had been down some time, and it was with the greatest relief that I saw Doña Demetria gliding like a ghost into the room. She touched me on the arm and
