Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
himself up with a thick stick. No! He had earned enough military glory to satiate any man, he insisted to Mrs. Gould, trying at the same time to put an air of gallantry into his attitude. A few jetty hairs hung sparsely from his upper lip, he had a salient nose, a thin, long jaw, and a black silk patch over one eye. His other eye, small and deep-set, twinkled erratically in all directions, aimlessly affable. The few European spectators, all men, who had naturally drifted into the neighborhood of the Gould equipage, betrayed by the solemnity of their faces their impression that the general must have had too much punch (Swedish punch, imported in bottles by Anzani) at the Amarilla Club before he had started with his staff on a furious ride to the harbor. But Mrs. Gould bent forward, self-possessed, and declared her conviction that still more glory awaited the general in the near future.
"Señora," he remonstrated, with great feeling, "in the name of God, reflect! How can there be any glory for a man like me in overcoming that bald-headed embustero with the dyed mustaches?"
Pablo Ignacio Barrios, son of a village alcalde, general of division, commanding in chief the Occidental military district, did not frequent the higher society of the town. He preferred the unceremonious gatherings of men, where he could tell jaguar-hunt stories, boast of his powers with the lasso, with which he could perform extremely difficult feats of the sort "no married man should attempt," as the saying goes among the Llaneros; relate tales of extraordinary night rides, encounters with wild bulls, struggles with crocodiles, adventures in the great forests, crossings of
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