Part 2 (2/2)

We then mounted and rode quietly home. Of course, we were chaffed without mercy, especially by the old negress, who had foreseen all along, she told us, just how it would be. One would have imagined, to hear this old black creature talk, that she looked on milk-drinking as one of the greatest moral offences man could be guilty of, and that in this case Providence had miraculously interposed to prevent us from gratifying our depraved appet.i.tes.

Eyebrows took it all very coolly.

”Do not notice them,” he said to me. ”The la.s.so was not ours, the horse was not ours, what does it matter what they say?”

The owner of the la.s.so, who had good-naturedly lent it to us, roused himself on hearing this. He was a very big, rough-looking man, his face covered with an immense s.h.a.ggy black beard. I had taken him for a good-humoured specimen of the giant kind before, but I now changed my opinion of him when his angry pa.s.sions began to rise. Blas, or Barbudo, as we called the giant, was seated on a log sipping _mate_.

”Perhaps you take me for a sheep, sirs, because you see me wrapped in skins,” he observed; ”but let me tell you this, the la.s.so I lent you must be returned to me.”

”These words are not for us,” remarked Eyebrows, addressing me, ”but for the cow that carried away his la.s.so on her horns--curse them for being so sharp!”

”No, sir,” returned Barbudo, ”do not deceive yourself; they are not for the cow, but for the fool that la.s.soed the cow. And I promise you, Epifanio, that if it is not restored to me, this thatch over our heads will not be broad enough to shelter us both.”

”I am pleased to hear it,” said the other, ”for we are short of seats; and when you leave us, the one you now enc.u.mber with your carca.s.s will be occupied by some more meritorious person.”

”You can say what you like, for no one has yet put a padlock on your lips,” said Barbudo, raising his voice to a shout; ”but you are not going to plunder me; and if my la.s.so is not restored to me, then I swear I will make myself a new one out of a human hide.”

”Then,” said Eyebrows, ”the sooner you provide yourself with a hide for the purpose, the better, for I will never return the la.s.so to you; for who am I to fight against Providence, that took it out of my hands?”

To this Barbudo replied furiously:

”Then I will have it from this miserable starved foreigner, who comes here to learn to eat meat and put himself on an equality with men.

Evidently he was weaned too soon; but if the starveling hungers for infant's food, let him in future milk the cats that warm themselves beside the fire, and can be caught without a la.s.so, even by a Frenchman!”

I could not endure the brute's insults, and sprang up from my seat. I happened to have a large knife in my hand, for we were just preparing to make an a.s.sault on the roasted ribs of a cow, and my first impulse was to throw down the knife and give him a blow with my fist. Had I attempted it I should most probably have paid dearly for my rashness.

The instant I rose Barbudo was on me, knife in hand. He aimed a furious blow, which luckily missed me, and at the same moment I struck him, and he reeled back with a dreadful gash on his face. It was all done in a second of time, and before the others could interpose; in another moment they disarmed us, and set about bathing the barbarian's wound. During the operation, which I daresay was very painful, for the old negress insisted on having the wound bathed with rum instead of water, the brute blasphemed outrageously, vowing that he would cut out my heart and eat it stewed with onions and seasoned with c.u.mmin seed and various other condiments.

I have often since thought of that sublime culinary conception of Blas the barbarian. There must have been a spark of wild Oriental genius in his bovine brains.

When the exhaustion caused by rage, pain, and loss of blood had at length reduced him to silence, the old negress turned on him, exclaiming that he had been rightly punished, for had he not, in spite of her timely warnings, lent his la.s.so to enable these two heretics (for that is what she called us) to capture a cow? Well, his la.s.so was lost; then his friends, with the grat.i.tude only to be expected from milk-drinkers, had turned round and well-nigh killed him.

After supper the _capatas_ got me alone, and with excessive friendliness of manner, and an abundance of circ.u.mlocutory phrases, advised me to leave the _estancia_, as it would not be safe for me to remain. I replied that I was not to blame, having struck the man in self-defence; also, that I had been sent to the _estancia_ by a friend of the Mayordomo, and was determined to see him and give him my version of the affair.

The _capatas_ shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

At length Don Policarpo returned, and when I told him my story he laughed slightly, but said nothing. In the evening I reminded him of the subject of the letter I had brought from Montevideo, asking him whether it was his intention to give me some employment on the _estancia_.

”You see, my friend,” he replied, ”to employ you now would be useless, however valuable your services might be, for by this time the authorities will have information of your fight with Blas. In the course of a few days you may expect them here to make inquiries into that affair, and it is probable that you and Blas will both be taken into custody.”

”What then would you advise me to do?” I asked.

His answer was, that when the ostrich asked the deer what he would advise him to do when the hunters appeared, the deer's reply was, ”Run away.”

I laughed at his pretty apologue, and answered that I did not think the authorities would trouble themselves about me--also that I was not fond of running away.

Eyebrows, who had hitherto been rather inclined to patronise me and take me under his protection, now became very warm in his friends.h.i.+p, which was, however, dashed with an air of deference when we were alone together, but in company he was fond of parading his familiarity with me. I did not quite understand this change of manner at first, but by and by he took me mysteriously aside and became extremely confidential.

”Do not distress yourself about Barbudo,” he said. ”He will never again presume to lift his hand against you; and if you will only condescend to speak kindly to him, he will be your humble slave and proud to have you wipe your greasy fingers on his beard. Take no notice of what the Mayordomo says, he also is afraid of you. If the authorities take you, it will only be to see what you can give them: they will not keep you long, for you are a foreigner, and cannot be made to serve in the army.

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