These men were guerilleros: a sentry half asleep, leaning on his lance, and with his back against the wall, was supposed to be watching the arms of the cuadrilla, arranged in a file. Under the portello, a man seated in a hammock, was desperately strumming a jarana, while singing in a ropy voice the languishingly amorous words of a triste. A fat little man, with grey eyes full of motion, and a mocking countenance, came out of the venta and approached the hammock.
"Señor don Felipe," he said with a respectful bow to the improvised musician; "will you not dine?"
"Señor ventero," the officer answered roughly "when you speak to me, you might, I think, be more respectful toward me, and give me the title to which I have a right—that is to say, call me Colonel."
"Excuse me, Excellency," the host replied with a deeper bow than the first; "I am a ventero, and very little acquainted with military ranks."
"That will do—you are excused! I will not dine yet, for I am expecting someone who has not yet arrived, but will be here shortly."
"That is certainly very unfortunate, señor coronel don Felipe," the ventero remarked; "a dinner that I have prepared with so much care, will be entirely spoiled."
"That would be a misfortune; but what is to be done? Well, lay the table, I have waited long enough, and have too formidable an appetite to delay any longer."
The landlord bowed, and at once retired. In the meanwhile the guerillero had made up his mind to leave his hammock, and lay aside his jarana for the present. After rolling and lighting a husk cigarette, he carelessly walked a few paces towards the end of the portello, and with his arms crossed on his back, and cigarette in his mouth, surveyed the country. A horseman, enfolded in a dense cloud of dust raised by his rapid pace, was coming toward him. Don Felipe uttered a cry of joy, for he was certain that the horseman coming toward him was the person he had so long been expecting.
"Ouf!" the traveller said, stopping his horse short before the portello and leaping off; "I could not stand it any longer, válgame Dios; what a horrible heat!"
At a sign from the colonel, a soldier took the horse and led it to the corral.