There is nothing else for me to do, since this Oriental world
is indeed an oyster only a sharp sword will serve to open. As for arms
and armies and military training, all that is quite unnecessary. One
has only got to bring together a few ragged, dissatisfied men, and,
taking horse, charge pell-mell into poor Mr. Chillingworth's dilapidated
old tin-pot. I almost feel like that unhappy gentleman to-night, ready
to blubber. But, after all, my position is not quite so hopeless as
his; I have no brutalised, purple-nosed Briton sitting like a nightmare
on my chest, pressing the life out of me."
The shouts and choruses of the revellers grew fainter and fewer, and
had almost ceased when I sank to sleep, lulled by a solitary tipsy
voice droning out in a lugubrious key:
We won't go--home till morning.
CHAPTER VII
Early next morning I left Tolosa and travelled the whole day in a
south-westerly direction. I did not hurry, but frequently dismounted
to give my horse a sip of clear water and a taste of green herbage.
I also called during the day at three or four _estancia_ houses,
but failed to hear anything that could be advantageous to me. In this
way I covered about thirty-five miles of road, going always towards
the eastern part of the Florida district in the heart of the country.
About an hour before sunset I resolved to go no farther that day; and
I could not have hoped to find a nicer resting-place than the one now
before me--a neat _rancho_ with a wide corridor supported by
wooden pillars, standing amidst a bower of fine old weeping-willows.
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