In forests
and sierras we had hunted them, flying like wild beasts from us; we
had captured them in thousands, only to cut their throats, crucify
them, blow them from guns, and tear them limb by limb to pieces with
wild horses.
I was only pouring oil on the blazing fire of his insanity.
"Aha!" he shouted, his eyes sparkling, while he wildly clutched my arm
with his skinny, claw-like hands, "did I not know--have I not said it?
Did I not fight for a hundred years, wading through blood every day,
and then at last send you forth to finish the battle? And every day
our enemies came and shouted in my ears, 'Victory--victory!' They told
me you were dead, Calixto--that their weapons had pierced you, that
they had given your flesh to be devoured of wild dogs. And I shouted
with laughter to hear them. I laughed in their faces, and clapped my
hands and cried out, 'Prepare your throats for the sword, traitors,
slaves, assassins, for a Peralta--even Calixto, devoured of wild
dogs--is coming to execute vengeance! What, will God not leave one
strong arm to strike at the tyrant's breast--one Peralta in all this
land! Fly, miscreants! Die, wretches! He has risen from the grave--he
has come back from hell, armed with hell-fire to burn your towns to
ashes--to extirpate you utterly from the earth!'"
His thin, tremulous voice had risen towards the close of this mad
speech to a reedy shriek that rang through the quiet, darkening house
like the long, shrill cry of some water-fowl heard at night in the
desolate marshes.
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