Weeks passed, busy weeks for Marcelino Ponce de Leon. Every morning at cockcrow the reveillé sounded at the Chacra de Los Sauces, at sunrise the recruits mustered, and the first six hours of the day were spent in steady drill and in long marches. Marcelino had but a dozen muskets which had been lent him by the commandant of the Guardia; a dozen men were detached every hour for instruction in the manual exercise by the sergeant, the rest were instructed in evolutions by Marcelino himself and the corporals. The afternoons were spent by the negroes in the manufacture of accoutrements, and in the routine work of the encampment; at sundown they were paraded again, and sentinels were told off for the night.
Under this discipline the negroes improved rapidly, lost their slouching gait, and some of them showed such intelligence that in January Marcelino selected sergeants and corporals from among them, and advanced his four Spaniards to brevet rank as subaltern officers. Not a week passed but he received some accession of strength by small drafts of slaves from the estancias or chacras round about; at the end of January he had 150 men. At this time he received a note from Don Gregorio Lopez of the Barrancas, telling him that he was going to march his newly-raised squadron inside for inspection by General Liniers, and advising him to accompany him, as, if his recruits would bear inspection, the Reconquistador would probably give him arms for them at once.
It was the second week in February; Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon and his wife Doña Constancia had a houseful of guests at their quinta. The paved verandah round the house had resounded all day with the clanking of sabres and the jingling of armed heels. The Reconquistador and his staff had breakfasted with them that day at noon, after inspecting the cavalry regiment from Las Barrancas and the negro recruits under the command of Marcelino Ponce de Leon. Her military guests had done full justice to the plentiful breakfast Doña Constancia had placed before them, patriotic toasts had been honoured with enthusiasm, cheerfulness and confidence had shone in every face.
The morning inspection had passed off very well, the cavalry had performed some simple evolutions without getting into hopeless disorder; the negroes, now fully armed and accoutred, had marched and wheeled with a rapidity and precision which surprised the general, and had elicited a warm eulogium from Major Belgrano of the Patricios, for whose opinion the commandant of the negroes had a very high regard. All this was very pleasing to Doña Constancia, but nevertheless, now that Liniers and his staff had returned to town, and her remaining guests were chiefly members of their own family, sitting at her ease under the front verandah with her favourite son beside her, she was far from cheerful or happy herself. She had cause for anxiety, one face that she had been accustomed to see almost daily for more than twenty years she had not seen to-day, nor for many days past, the face of her second son, Juan Carlos.
Early in January a detachment of the Patricios had volunteered to proceed to Monte Video to aid in the defence of that city against the English. They had crossed the river too late to take part in the action of the 20th January, in which the Spanish troops had been defeated by Sir Samuel Auchmuty. Since then the city had been invested by land and sea, and whether the Patricios were on their way back again, or whether they had succeeded in entering the city, and now formed a portion of the beleaguered garrison, was as yet unknown in Buenos Aires. Among these volunteers had gone Juan Carlos Ponce de Leon with the rank of lieutenant.
Mother and son found much to talk of, and they talked together sitting side by side, till the long shadows of the trees had stretched themselves right across the open space in front of the house, had climbed up the white palings of the outer fence, shutting them out from the sinking sun, and had then stretched on into infinity until they were no longer shadows at all, but all was one general shadow, the shadow of night. Others came and went in the verandah, some who had had a busy day seating themselves there to rest their weary limbs, but presently lounging away again to some room inside where they could rest yet more at their ease. Others walked to and fro under the shade of the trees in couples, blue smoke curling up from under the wide brims of their hats, and as they themselves were lost to sight under the darkling shade of the foliage, the fiery tips of their cigars yet gave evidence of their presence. Among them Dolores flitted backwards and forwards, having taken upon herself the care of their guests now that the more important of them had gone, and so leaving her mother at liberty and at rest. She was dressed in a white gossamer-like material bound together some few inches below her shoulders by a broad scarlet ribbon, tied behind her in a huge bow with two long streamers. The sleeves of her dress were very short, not reaching down to her elbows, and were puffed out till they looked like a pair of young balloons. Her round white arms were uncovered, and on her head she wore a small straw hat, also adorned with scarlet bows and streamers, of which hat she was very proud, only wearing it on great occasions, for such a head-dress was rarely seen in Buenos Aires at that time.
This review of the recruits raised by her uncle and brother had been a great occasion for Dolores. During the inspection she had ridden at the left hand of General Liniers in this her gala dress, with the addition of a flowing mantle and gloves reaching up to her elbows. The general had been very polite to her, treating her with great deference and toasting her afterwards at the breakfast as the Queen of the day. In his suite she had also found many other attentive cavaliers, who had found a sure way to her smiles and good graces by lavishing encomiums upon her brother and his negro troops. Among these cavaliers was one who seemed to take almost as much pride as herself in the proficiency of the negroes, but who looked somewhat contemptuously upon the cavalry, Lieutenant Gordon, who was again her father's guest at the Quinta de Ponce. To him General Liniers had been very cordial, and Major Belgrano of the Patricios had ridden beside him all the morning, conversing with him and listening attentively to all his critiques upon the movements and bearing of the recruits. Major Belgrano had not returned to town with the General and his staff, but had accepted Don Roderigo's invitation to remain at the quinta until the following day.
Dolores had also had another cavalier in attendance who had enjoyed the military display even more than she had done, her youngest brother Evaristo, who was yet only fourteen years of age. Mounted on a pony, he had galloped about all the morning, eagerly trying to make himself useful, chiefly succeeding in being always in the way when any rapid movement was performed, but invariably extricating himself with great skill and presence of mind from his difficulties.
"They will ride over that boy presently," said Liniers to Dolores, on one of the occasions. "Who is he?"
"He is my brother," replied Dolores.