"That's a pretty horse you've got there," he said, "and a nice rifle. Lend them to me."
"But I haven't any other——" began Juan.
"I am your superior officer," returned the doctor. And that was the last we ever saw of doctor, horse and rifle.
I said farewell to the General, who was lying in torture in bed, sending bulletins to his mother by telephone every fifteen minutes. "May you journey happily," he said. "Write the truth. I commend you to Pablito."
CHAPTER IV
LA TROPA ON THE MARCH
And so I got inside the coach, with Rafaelito, Pablo Seañes, and his mistress. She was a strange creature. Young, slender, and beautiful, she was poison and a stone to everybody but Pablo. I never saw her smile and never heard her say a gentle word. Sometimes she treated us with dull ferocity; sometimes with bestial indifference. But Pablo she cradled like a baby. When he lay across the seat with his head in her lap, she would hug it fiercely to her breast, making noises like a tigress with her young.
Patricio handed down his guitar from the box, where he kept it, and to Rafael's accompaniment the Lieutenant-Colonel sang love-ballads in a cracked voice. Every Mexican knows hundreds of these. They are not written down, but often composed extemporaneously, and handed along by word of mouth. Some of them are very beautiful, some grotesque, and others as satirical as any French popular song. He sang:
"Exiled I wandered through the world—
Exiled by the government.
I came back at the end of the year,
Drawn by the fondness of love.
I went away with the purpose
Of staying away forever.
And the love of a woman was the only thing
That made me come back."
And then "Los Hijos de la Noche":