"You see, about those automobiles,—it is a trifle! I can stop one of those 'bichos' with only this," showing his carbine. "Once in Cordoba I had some accounts to settle with a rich gentleman who was my enemy. I drew up my mare on one side of the road, and when that 'bicho' came along in a cloud of dust and stinking of petroleum, I shouted 'Halt!' He did not choose to stop, so I put a ball into one of his wheels. To cut it short, the automobile stopped a little further on and I galloped up and settled my accounts with the fellow. A man who can put a ball wherever he chooses, can stop anything on the road."
Gallardo felt more and more astonished as he heard Plumitas tell of his exploits on the road, with quite professional simplicity.
"I did not wish to stop you. You are not one of those rich men. You are a poor man like myself, only you have better luck, more than enough in your profession; if you have made money you have earned it well. I like you because you are a fine matador, and I have a weakness for brave men. The two of us are like comrades; we both live by exposing our lives. For this reason, although you did not know me, I was there, seeing you pass without even asking a cigarette from you, for fear that some rascal should take advantage by going on the highway and saying he was Plumitas; stranger things have happened...."
An unexpected apparition cut short the bandit's speech, and the torero's face changed to a look of extreme annoyance. "Curse it! Doña Sol! Had not El Nacional given his message?"... The banderillero followed the lady, making various signs from the kitchen door, which meant that all his prayers and advice had been useless.
Doña Sol came down in her travelling coat, her golden hair combed and knotted hurriedly. El Plumitas in the farm: What joy! Part of the night she had been thinking of him, proposing on the following morning to ride about the solitudes around La Rinconada, in the hopes that good luck would make her run against the interesting bandit. And as if her thoughts exercised a far distant influence in attracting people, the bandit had obeyed her wishes and had appeared early in the grange.
El Plumitas! The name alone called up the full figure of the bandit before her imagination. She scarcely needed to know him; she would scarcely feel any surprise. She saw him tall, slim, of dark complexion, a pointed hat placed over a red handkerchief, from under which appeared curls of hair as black as jet. She saw an active man, dressed in black velvet, his slim waist encircled by a purple silk sash, and his legs in gaiters of a fine date colour—a veritable knight errant of the Andalusian steppes.
Her eyes, wide open with excitement, wandered over the kitchen, without seeing either a pointed hat or a blunderbus. She saw an unknown man, standing up, a kind of keeper with a carbine, just like any of those she had so often seen on estates belonging to her family.
"Good day, Señora Marquesa.... Your uncle, the Marquis, is he quite well?"
The looks of every one converging on that man, told her the truth. "Ay! And that was Plumitas!"...
He had taken off his hat with clumsy courtesy, abashed by the lady's presence, and continued standing with his carbine in one hand, and the old felt hat in the other.