We came upon an aged peon carrying fagots. "No," he said, "there had been no colorados. The Maderistas? Yes, they had come last night—hundreds of them, all running. But at dawn they had gone back to La Cadena to 'lift the fields' (bury the dead)."
From around the fire under the alamos came a great shout: "The meester! Here comes the meester! Que tal, compañero? How did you escape?" It was my old friends, the peddlers. They crowded around eagerly, questioning, shaking my hand, throwing their arms around me.
"Ah, but that was close! Carramba, but I was lucky! Did I know that Longinos Güereca was killed? Yes, but he shot six colorados before they got him. And Martinez also, and Nicanor, and Redondo."
I felt sick. Sick to think of so many useless deaths in such a petty fight. Blithe, beautiful Martinez; 'Gino Güereca, whom I had learned to love so much; Redondo, whose girl was even then on her way to Chihuahua to buy her wedding dress; and jolly Nicanor. It seems that when Redondo found that his flank had been turned his troop deserted him; so he galloped alone toward La Cadena, and was caught by three hundred colorados. They literally shot him to pieces. 'Gino, and Luis Martinez, and Nicanor, with five others, held the eastward side of the hacienda unaided until their cartridges were gone, and they were surrounded by a ring of shooting men. Then they died. The colorados carried off the Colonel's woman.
"But there's a man who's been through it all," said one of the peddlers. "He fought till his last cartridge was gone, and then cut his way through the enemy with a saber."
I looked around. Surrounded by a ring of gaping peons, his lifted arm illustrating the great deed, was—Apolinario! He caught sight of me, nodded coldly, as to one who has run from the fight, and went on with his recital.
All through the long afternoon Froilan and I played ribota with the peons. It was a drowsy, peaceful day. A gentle wind rustled the high branches of the great trees, and the late sun, from behind the hill that is back of Santo Domingo, warmed with color their lofty tops.
It was a strange sunset. The sky became overcast with light cloud toward the end of the afternoon. First it turned pink, then scarlet, then of a sudden the whole firmament became a deep, bloody red.
An immense drunken man—an Indian about seven feet tall—staggered out in the open ground near the ribota court with a violin in his hand. He tucked it under his chin and sawed raggedly on the strings, staggering to and fro as he played. Then a little one-armed dwarf sprang out of the crowd of peons and began to dance. A dense throng made a circle around the two, roaring with mirth.
And just at that moment there appeared against the bloody sky, over the eastern hill, the broken, defeated men—on horseback and on foot, wounded and whole, weary, sick, disheartened, reeling and limping down to Santo Domingo....