“Let them kill him, then. We have enough of these whites at our doors without Englishmen.”
The barracks were close to the station. The party marched into the patio of the barrack buildings: the heavy maruca-wood gates were closed behind them. The place looked as dingy as a prison and as mean as a workhouse: it smelt like a cesspool. One end of it, the men’s end, was two storeys high and covered with scaling plaster, the sides were one storey adobe buildings which had been limewashed once since they were built. The left side of the square seemed to be officers’ quarters, for it was screened by a verandah. On the side opposite to it were stables, kitchens, and a sort of barton where two charrucas were housed.
“You will be imprisoned till you can give an account of yourself,” the lieutenant said. “Take him to the cells, you men.”
“I am perfectly ready to go to the cells,” Sard said, “but I wish to let the English of this town know that I am here.”
“This is not England,” the lieutenant said, “but the Occidental Republic, where the English, the Irish, and other accursed gringos have no voice, save when they mew like cats for the charity of our leavings. Your presence shall be explained to such English as may be here. The brothel-keeper is English and the town-scavenger Irish. There is also a Scotchman in the road-gang for murder. Such are the places of your race among the Occidentales.”
“We do the things most needed,” Sard answered. “Next to begetting a new race.”
“For half a peseta I would blow your brains out.”
“Any Occidental would do murder for half a peseta.”
“You will find, my dog, that we do justice for nothing.”
“So America thinks.”