Señor Juan made an indefinable gesture, as he did not wish to admit his ignorance of this name which he now heard for the first time.
"The Señora Marquesa knows all about him; I learnt his history when I was a sacristan, and read the old romances that the priest had. Well, Pizarro was a poor man like us, who crossed the sea with twelve or thirteen gachos, as good fighters as himself, and entered a country that must have been a real paradise, a country in which were the mines of Potosi: I can't say more. They fought many battles with the inhabitants, and at last conquered them, seizing their king's treasures, and he who got least got his house full up to the roof with gold pieces, and there was not one of them who was not made a Marquis, or a General, or a Justiciary. Just imagine, Seño Juan, if we had lived then! What you and I could have done with a handful of brave men like these who are listening to me!"
The farm men listened in silence, but their eyes flashed as the bandit spoke.
"I repeat, we have been born too late, Seño Juan. The gates are closed to poor men, the Spaniard does not now know where to go or what to do. All the places where he might have spread have been appropriated by the English or other countries. I, who might have been a king in America or elsewhere, am proclaimed an outlaw, and they even call me a thief. You, who are a brave man, kill bulls and carry off the palms, still I know many who look upon a torero's profession as a low one."
Doña Sol interrupted to ask the bandit why he did not become a soldier. He could go to distant countries where there were wars and utilize his talents nobly.
"I might have done so, Señora Marquesa. I have often thought of it. But when I sleep at a farm, or hide in my house for a few days, the first time I lie in a bed like a Christian, or have a hot meal at a table like this, a feeling of comfort pervades my body, but in a short time I get restless; it seems as if the mountain, with all its miseries, draws me, and I long once more to sleep on the ground, wrapped in my blanket with a stone for my pillow.... Yes, I might have been a soldier, and I should have been a good one. But where to go? Besides, the same things happen over again in the army as in the world—the shorn and the shearers. You do some great thing and the Colonel appropriates it, or you fight like a wild beast and the General is rewarded.... No, I have been born too late to be a soldier."
Plumitas remained some time silent with lowered eyes, as if he were absorbed in the mental contemplation of his misfortune, at finding no place for himself in the present age.
Suddenly he stood up grasping his carbine.
"I am going.... Many thanks, Seño Juan, for your kindness. Good-bye, Señora Marquesa."
"But where are you going?" said Potaje, catching hold of him. "Sit down. You are better here than anywhere else."