The guards fell in on each side of him; two men came behind him with fixed bayonets; the officers brought up the rear with drawn revolvers; the captain called “March!” As they set out, the Occidental train-hand darted two steps forward and crouched to screech some insults. He mocked, showed his teeth and jeered at Sard, making again the gesture of the stomach-ripper. “You get him,” he screeched in English, “you get-a your bag cut. A te te . . . ucho!”
Just a couple of paces beyond this screamer, the other train-hand stood, twirling his club as though puzzled. He was looking hard at Sard with a face made of broken commandments: Sard expected a bat on the head from him as he passed. He did not get it: the man dropped his eyes as before, and spat sideways as though dismissing the thought of Sard. They passed out of the station enclosure to the town, which was crowded with inhabitants, who had either come to see the train or were now coming to see “the bandit.” Most of the citizens were mestizos or Indios. Sard looked in vain for an American or English face. He heard the comments passed upon him.
“An English bandit who robbed the silver train.”
“That a white so sickly should have so much blood!”
“Ha, dirty thief, to the gallows!”
“Ho, Englishman, it is not so easy to rob our silver: we are not your Africans from whom you may rob gold.”
“Englishman, the garota: cluck-cluck!”
“They say he killed seven before being taken.”
“He? An Englishman? They were asleep, covered in their blankets. He stabbed them sleeping.”
“Hear you, he killed seven, sleeping.”