He sat contemplating the maestro a while and then added with an accent of conviction: "I think, Señor Juan, that we have come into the world rather late. What deeds of valor and glory young fellows like ourselves would have done in other times! You would not kill bulls and I would not roam over the plains hunted like a wild beast. We would be viceroys, grand moguls! Some great thing across the seas! You have not heard of one Pizarro, Señor Juan?"
Señor Juan made an ambiguous gesture, not wishing to reveal his ignorance of this mysterious name which he heard for the first time.
"The Señora Marquesa knows who he is better than I and she will pardon me if I say wild things. I learned that history when I was a sacristan and turned myself loose on old romances belonging to the priest. Well, Pizarro was a poor fellow like us, who crossed the sea with twelve or thirteen youths as ragged as himself, and entered a country finer than Paradise—a kingdom where lies Potosí—I need say no more. They had I don't know how many battles with the natives of the Americas who wear feathers and carry bows and arrows, and finally they became their masters, appropriated the treasures of the kings of the country, and the least of them filled his house to the roof all with gold coins, and there wasn't one that wasn't made a marquis, a general, or a personage of power. Many others are like them. Imagine, Señor Juan, if we had only lived then! What would it have cost us for you and me and some of these stout fellows who are listening to me to do as much or more than that Pizarro?"
And the men of the plantation, ever silent, but with eyes glowing with emotion at this marvellous history, assented to the bandit's theories, nodding their heads.
"I repeat that we are born too late, Señor Juan. Great careers are closed to the poor. The Spaniard knows not what to do. There is no longer any place left for him to go. What there used to be in the world to be divided up, now the English and other foreigners have appropriated. The door is closed and we brave men have to rot inside this barn-yard listening to hard words because we don't surrender ourselves to our fate. I, who like enough would have become a king in the Americas, or some other place, go along the roads branded as an outcast, and they even call me a thief! You, who are a valiant man, kill bulls and get applause, but I know that many gentlemen look upon bull-fighting as a low-down trade."
Doña Sol intervened to give the highwayman counsel. Why did he not become a soldier? He could go to distant lands where there were wars and utilize his powers nobly.
"Yes, I would be good for that, Señora Marquesa. I have often thought of it. When I sleep at some plantation or hide myself in my house a few days, the first time I get into bed like a Christian and eat a hot meal on a table like this, my body is grateful for it, but I soon tire, and it seems to me the mountain calls me with all its poverty, and I long to sleep in the open wrapped in my blanket with a stone for a pillow. Yes; I would make a good soldier. But where could I go? There are no longer any real wars, where each one with a handful of comrades does whatever seems wisest to him. To-day there are only herds of men all wearing the same color and the same brand, who live and die like clowns. The same thing happens as in the world: shearers and shorn. You do a great deed and the colonel appropriates it; you fight a wild beast and they give the reward to the general. No, I was also born too late to be a soldier."
Plumitas lowered his eyes, remaining a long time as if absorbed in inward contemplation of his misfortune, realizing that he had no place in the present epoch.
Suddenly he grasped his carbine, about to rise.
"I must go—many thanks, Señor Juan, for your attentions. Farewell, Señora Marquesa."