"Well. He did not find himself at the fight, he had gone the night before to visit some friends at San José de Flores."
"And afterwards?"
"He presented himself to Don Juan Martin at Las Conchas, but when he found I was not with them he came back to tell my family that I was killed, and here he found me alive."
"The English are coming again," said Don Gregorio.
"You don't say so!"
"True. And there will come more of them this time."
"And all will be to do over again. Look you what heretics they are, that they will not leave us in peace; for my part I abhor them; why did they come here at first?"
"They are at war with the Spaniards," replied Marcelino. "Last year they had a great fight with the Spanish ships on the sea, and the English were the strongest; so now they go about in their ships where they like, and wherever they find Spaniards on the land where they can get near in their ships they come on shore and fight them."
"And that is what they call war?" said Venceslao. "Look you that they are barbarians."
"The same would the Spaniards do to them if they could," said Marcelino.