"You may go along with either of the parties," invited the colonel, "or you may stay here with the women until the fight is over."
"No, certainly not! I'll go by the river," chose Strawbridge, at once.
The colonel nodded, and smiled once again through his grime.
"As you will; and may luck wait on your courage! Adios!"
The two men reached across the necks of their stolen horses and shook hands.
"Same to you, colonel, and so long," said the drummer, somewhat moved.
Saturnino suddenly jerked his horse in a curvette, and saluted easily as the big English animal plunged with him back toward his line.
The drummer turned his own mount and rode toward Rosales's column. Lieutenant Rosales was a smallish, sharp-featured youth whose eyes were surrounded with such dark rings that they showed through the dust. Strawbridge remembered having seen him before, in the plaza. Now he was going to fight under this little roué, perhaps die under his command. He felt as if he were going to fight with a crowd of street gamins. It was a mean adventure.
The men under Rosales sat stolid and quiet on their mules and horses. Saturnino's sarcasm revisited the drummer's mind: "These peons are perpetually fighting for their freedom, under this savior and that. They've been at it upward of four centuries. Now I'm leading them," and he had laughed.
A gust of pity shivered through the American's bowels for these stolid men, arming and seeking a leader for four centuries, and led by Saturnino, a man to whom their travail was a game!