A set of six
Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924
\fM\ <' ^* LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY ROSEMARY LIVSEY A SET OF SIX BY THE SAME AUTHOR Almateb's Folly An Outcast of the Islands Chance Falk Lord Jim : A Romance Mirror of the Sea, The Nigger of the "Narcissus," The Nostromo: a Tale of the Seaboabd Point of Honor, The Some Reminiscences Secret Agent, The Tales of Unrest 'TwixT Land and Sea Typhoon and Other Stories T'nuer Western Eyes Youth : A Narrative WITH FORD M. HUEFFER Romance : A Novel The Inheritors: An Extravagant Stort A SET OF SIX BY JOSEPH CONRAD Les petites marionnettet Font, font, jont, Trois petits tours Ei puis s'en cont. NCRSEBY RHTM« GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 1915 Copyright, 1908, by Doubled AY, Page & Company COmtlGBT, 1907. 1908, BT JOSCTH CONHiD To MISS M. H. M. CAPES CONTENTS FAOB Gaspar Ruiz 3 The Informer 89 The Brute 129 An Anarchist 165 The Duel 201 II Conde 331 AUTHOR'S NOTE " The Duel,'' the longest story in this volume^ has appeared already some years ago under the title " The Point of Honor" in the form of a small book adorned by a few clever illustrations; but at my urgent request Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. have agreed to reprint it in its proper place in the "Set of Six," under the title it bore in the first English edition. I don't think there is anything objectionable in this revival. On the contrary. The choice lay betiveen restoring that tale to its proper home and surroundings and the cutting down of the '"Set of Six" to a "Set of Five." But the "Set of Six" if not an organic whole, is a homogeneous group written with a certain unity of method. Moreover "The Duel" is, so far, my only attempt at historical fiction: as earnest an attempt as if the work were ten times its size. To see it dropped out of its place in the collection would have been very painful to my parental feelings. The return of this tale to the light of day has made me happy. The buyers of the volume will obtain X AUTHOR'S NOTE a good many more pages for their money — and that surely cannot be made a ground of complaint. Those who have read the tale on its first appearance by itself in the form of a little book can easily skip it in the collection. As to the possessors of the little book they may draw comfort from tJie thought that they own something which in time is likely to become a bibli- ographical curiosity of some value. The readers who may feel shocked or annoyed at meeting an old acquaintance under another name are begged to accept my apologies. This is entirely my own doing, I have insisted on the reinstatement of the original title as if it were something of extreme importance. Why it should appear so to me I can't explain very well. It is a matter of sentiment in ivhich I have been very kindly humoured by Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. It was an amiable weak- ness on their part which my readers, who I trust are also my friends, vdll scarcely count them for a criine. Joseph Conrad. A ROMANTIC TALE CASPAR RUIZ A REVOLUTIONARY war raises many strange characters out of the obscurity which is the common lot of humble lives in an undisturbed state of society. Certain individualities grow into fame through their vices and their virtues, or simply by their actions, which may have a temporary importance; and then they become forgotten. The names of a few leaders alone survive the end of armed strife and are further pre- served in history; so that, vanishing from men's active memories, they still exist in books. The name of Ceneral Santierra attained that cold paper-and-ink immortality. He was a South American, of good family, and the books published in his lifetime numbered him amongst the liberators of that continent from the oppressive rule of Spain. That long contest, waged for independence on one side and for dominion on the other, developed in the course of years and the vicissitudes of changing fortune the fierceness and inhumanity of a struggle for life. All feelings of pity and compassion disappeared in the s 4 A SET OF SIX growth of political hatred. And, as is usual in war, the mass of the people, who had the least to gain by the issue, suffered most in their obscure persons and their humble fortunes. General Santierra began his service as lieutenant in the patriot army raised and commanded by the famous San Martin, afterward conqueror of Lima and liber- ator of Peru. A great battle had just been fought on the banks of the river Bio-Bio. Amongst the prisoners made upon the routed Royalist troops there was a soldier called Caspar Ruiz. His powerful build and his big head rendered him remarkable amongst his fellow- captives. The personality of the man was unmistak- able. Some months before he had been missed from the ranks of Republican troops after one of the many skir- mishes which preceded the great battle. And now, hav- ing been captured arms in hand amongst Royalists, he could expect no other fate but to be shot as a deserter. Caspar Ruiz, however, was not a deserter; his mind was hardly active enough to take a discriminating view of the advantages or perils of treachery. Why should he change sides.'' He had really been made a prisoner, had suffered ill-usage and many privations. Neither side showed tenderness to its adversaries. There came a day when he was ordered, together with some other captured rebels, to march in the front rank of the Royal troops. A musket had been thrust into his hands. He had taken it. He had marched. He did not want CASPAR RUIZ 5 to be killed with circumstances of peculiar atrocity for refusing to march. He did not understand heroism, but it was his intention to throw his musket away at the first opportunity. Meantime, he had gone on load- ing and firing, from fear of having his brains blown out, at the first sign of unwillingness, by some non-com- missioned officer of the King of Spain. He tried to set forth these elementary considerations before the sergeant of the guard set over him and some twenty other such deserters, who had been condemned sum- marily to be shot. It was in the quadrangle of the fort at the back of the batteries which command the roadstead of Val- paraiso. The officer who had identified him had gone on without listening to his protestations. His doom was sealed; his hands were tied very tightly together behind his back; his body was sore all over from the many blows with sticks and butts of muskets which had hurried him along on the painful road from the place of his capture to the gate of the fort. This was the only kind of systematic attention the prisoners had received from their escort during a four days' journey across a scantily watered tract of country. At the crossings of rare streams they were permitted to quench their thirst by lapping hurriedly like dogs. In the evening a few scraps of meat were thrown amongst them as they dropped down dead-beat upon the stony ground of the halting-place. 6 A SET OF SIX As he stood in the courtyard of the castle in the early morning, after having been driven hard all night, Caspar Ruiz* throat was parched, and his tongue felt very large and dry in his mouth. And Gaspar Ruiz, besides being very thirsty, was stirred by a feeling of sluggish anger, which he could not very well express, as though the vigour of his spirit were by no means equal to the strength of his body. The other prisoners in the batch of the condemned hung their heads, looking obstinately on the ground. But Gaspar Ruiz kept on repeating: "What should I desert for to the Royalists? Why should I desert? Tellme, Estaban!" He addressed himself to the sergeant, who happened to belong to the same part of the country as himself. But the sergeant, after shrugging his meagre shoulders once, paid no further attention to the deep murmuring voice at his back. It was indeed strange that Gaspar Ruiz should desert. His people were in too humble a station to feel much the disadvantages of any form of government. There was no reason why Gaspar Ruiz should wish to uphold in his own person the rule of the King of Spain. Neither had he been anxious to exert himself for its subversion. He had joined the side of Independence in an extremely reasonable and natural manner. A band of patriots appeared one morning early, surrounding his father's ranche, spearing the watch-dogs and hamstringing a fat cow all in the CASPAR RUIZ 7 twinkling of an eye, to the cries of *' Viva la Libertad!** Their oflBcer discoursed of Liberty with enthusiasm and eloquence after a long and refreshing sleep. When they left in the evening, taking with them some of Ruiz, the father's, best horses to replace their own lamed animals, Gaspar Ruiz went away with them, having been invited pressingly to do so by the eloquent officer. Shortly afterward a detachment of Royalist troops, coming to pacify the district, burnt the ranche, carried off the remaining horses and cattle, and having thus deprived the old people of all their wordly possessions, left them sitting under a bush in the enjoyment of the inestimable boon of life. n Caspar Ruiz, condemned to death as a deserter, was not thinking either of his native place or of his parents, to whom he had been a good son on account of the mildness of his character and the great strength of his limbs. The practical advantage of this last was made still more valuable to his father by his obedient disposition. Caspar Ruiz had an acquiescent soul. But it was stirred now to a sort of dim revolt by his dislike to die the death of a traitor. He was not a traitor. He said again to the sergeant: "You know I did not desert, Estaban. You know I remained behind amongst the trees with three others to keep 8 A SET OF SIX the enemy back while the detachment was running away!" Lieutenant Santierra, little more than a boy at the time, and unused as yet to the sanguinary imbecilities of a state of war, had lingered near-by, as if fascinated by the sight of these men who were to be shot pres- ently— "for an example" — as the Commandante had said. The sergeant, without deigning to look at the pris- oner, addressed himself to the young officer with a superior smile: "Ten men would not have been enough to make him a prisoner, mi teniente. Moreover, the other three rejoined the detachment after dark. Why should he, unwounded and the strongest of them all, have failed to do so?" "My strength is as nothing against a mounted man with a lasso," Gaspar Ruiz protested eagerly. "He dragged me behind his horse for half a mile." At this excellent reason the sergeant only laughed contemptuously. The young officer hurried away after the Commandante. Presently the adjutant of the castle came by. He was a truculent, raw-boned man in a ragged uniform. His spluttering voice issued out of a flat, yellow face. The sergeant learned from him that the condemned men would not be shot till sunset. He begged then to know what he was to do with them meantime. CASPAR RUIZ 9 The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard, and, pointing to the door of a small dungeonlike guardroom, receiving light and air through one heavily barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in there." The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal. He hit Caspar Ruiz, whose move- ments were slow, over his head and shoulders. Caspar Ruiz stood still for a moment under the shower of blows, biting his lip thoughtfully as if absorbed by a perplexing mental process — then followed the others without haste. The door was locked, and the adjutant carried off the key. By noon the heat of that low vaulted place crammed to suffocation had become unbearable. The prisoners crowded toward the window, begging their guards for a drop of water; but the soldiers remained lying in indolent attitudes wherever there was a little shade under a wall, while the sentry sat with his back against the door smoking a cigarette, and raising his eyebrows philosophically from time to time. Caspar Ruiz had pushed his way to the window with irresistible force. His capacious chest needed more air than the others ; his big face, resting with its chin on the ledge, pressed close to the bars, seemed to support the other faces crowding up for breath. From moaned entreaties they had passed to desperate cries, and the tumultuous howl- ing of those thirsty men obliged a young officer who 10 "^ A SET OF SIX was just then crossing the courtyard to shout in order to make himself heard. ** Why don't you give some water to these prisoners ? " The sergeant, with an air of surprised innocence, excused himself by the remark that all those men were condemned to die in a very few hours. Lieutenant Santierra stamped his foot. "They are condemned to death, not to torture," he shouted. "Give them some water at once." Impressed by this appearance of anger, the soldiers bestirred themselves, and the sentry, snatching up his musket, stood to attention. But when a couple of buckets were found and filled from the well, it was discovered that they could not be passed through the bars, which were set too close. At the prospect of quenching their thirst, the shrieks of those trampled down in the struggle to get near the opening became very heartrending. But when the soldiers who had lifted the buckets toward the window put them to the ground again helplessly, the yell of disappointment was still more terrible. The soldiers of the army of Independence were not equipped with canteens. A small tin cup was found, but its approach to the opening caused such a com- motion, such yells of rage and pain in the vague mass of limbs behind the straining faces at the window, that Lieutenant Santierra cried out hurriedly: "No, no — you must open the door. Sergeant." GASPAR RUIZ 11 The sergeant, shrugging his shoulders, explained that he had no right to open the door even if he had had the key. But he had not the key. The adjutant of the garrison kept the key. Those men were giving much unnecessary trouble, since they had to die at sun- set in any case. Why they had not been shot at once early in the morning he could not understand. Lieutenant Santierra kept his back studiously to the window. It was at his earnest solicitations that the Commandanie had delayed the execution. This favour had been granted to him in consideration of his dis- tinguished family and of his father's high position amongst the chiefs of the Republican party. Lieuten- ant Santierra believed that the General commanding would visit the fort some time in the afternoon, and he ingenuously hoped that his naive intercession would induce that severe man to pardon some, at least, of those criminals. In the revulsion of his feeling his interference stood revealed now as guilty and futile meddling. It appeared to him obvious that the Gen- eral would never even consent to listen to his petition. He could never save those men, and he had only made himself responsible for the sufferings added to the cruelty of their fate. "Then go at once and get the key from the ad- jutant," said Lieutenant Santierra. The sergeant shook his head with a sort of bashful smile, while his eyes glanced sideways at Gaspar Ruiz* 12 A SET OF SIX face, motionless and sileat, staring through the bars at the bottom of a heap of other haggard, distorted, yelHng faces. His worship the Adjutant de Plaza, the sergeant murmured, was having his siesta; and supposing that he, the sergeant, would be allowed access to him, the only result he expected would be to have his soul flogged out of his body for presuming to disturb his worship's repose. He made a deprecatory movement with his hands, and stood stock-still, looking down modestly upon his brown toes. Lieutenant Santierra glared with indignation, but hesitated. His handsome oval face, as smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of his perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper lip trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage or into tears of dismay. Fifty years later. General Santierra, the venerable relic of revolutionary times, was well able to remem- ber the feelings of the young lieutenant. Since he had given up riding altogether, and found it difficult to walk beyond the limits of his garden, the General's greatest delight was to entertain in his house the officers of the foreign men-of-war visiting the harbour. For Englishmen he had a preference, as for old com- panions in arms. English naval men of all ranks accepted his hospitality with curiosity, because he had known Lord Cochrane and had taken part, on board GASPAR RUIZ 13 the patriot squadron commanded by that marvellous seaman, in the cutting out and blockading operations before Callao — an episode of unalloyed glory in the wars of Independence and of endless honour in the fighting tradition of Englishmen. He was a fair lin- guist, this ancient survivor of the Liberating armies. A trick of smoothing his long white beard whenever he was short of a word in French or English imparted an air of leisurely dignity to the tone of his reminiscences. Ill "Yes, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have.'' A youth of seventeen sum- mers, without worldly experience, and owing my rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his soul. I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the disobedience of that subordinate, who, after all, was responsible for those prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself dreaded going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough and cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except his savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only a fortnight before ! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers. *'I don't remember having been so miserable in my 14 A SET OF SIX life before or since. The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to turn into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window who had heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation : one of these fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order the sol- diers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my heart turn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher officer to whom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit to simply go away. ** Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You must not suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it have been? A minute.'' If you measured by mental suffering it wa.'" like a hundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No, certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of those miserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then sud- denly a voice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon me to turn round. "That voice, seflores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of his body I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered upon his back. GASPAR RUIZ 15 He was holding them up. His eyes bhnked without looking at me. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able to manage in his overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head, that seemed more than human size resting on its chin under a multitude of other heads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst of the captives. "I said, *Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. I was like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious to be com- forted in my helplessness and remorse. *' 'Have you the authority, 5^nor teniente, to release my wrists from their bonds. f* ' Gaspar Ruiz' head asked me. "His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard. *'As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean.^ And how can I reach the bonds on your wrists ? ' "*I will try what I can do,' he said; and then that large staring head moved at last, and all the wild faces piled up in that window disappeared, tumbling down. He had shaken his load off with one movement, so strong he was. "And he had not only shaken it off, but he got free of the crush and vanished from my sight. For a moment there was no one at all to be seen at the win- dow. He had swung about, butting and shouldering. 16 A SET OF SIX clearing a space for himself in the only way he could do it with his hands tied behind his back. "Finally, backing to the opening, he pushed out to me between the bars his wrists, lashed with many turns of rope. His hands, very swollen, with knotted veins, looked enormous and unwieldy. I saw his bent back. It was very broad. His voice was like the muttering of a bull. " ' Cut, senor teniente. Cut ! ' "I drew my sword, my new unblunted sword that had seen no service as yet, and severed the many turns of the hide rope. I did this without knowing the why and the wherefore of my action, but as it were com- pelled by my faith in that man. The sergeant made as if to cry out, but astonishment deprived him of his voice, and he remained standing with his mouth open, as if overtaken by sudden imbecility. "I sheathed my sword and faced the soldiers. An air of awestruck expectation had replaced their usual listless apathy. I heard the voice of Caspar Ruiz shouting inside, but the w^ords I could not make out plainly. I suppose that to see him with his arms free augmented the influence of his strength: I mean by this, the spiritual influence that with ignorant people attaches to an exceptional degree of bodily vigour. In fact, he was no more to be feared than before, on account of the numbness of his arms and hands, which lasted for some time. CASPAR RUIZ 17 "The sergeant had recovered his power of speech. 'By all the saints!' he cried, 'we shall have to get a cavalry man with a lasso to secure him again, if he is to be led to the place of execution. Nothing less than a good enlazador on a good horse can subdue him. Your worship was pleased to perform a very mad thing.' "I had nothing to say. I was surprised myself, and I felt a childish curiosity to see what would happen. But the sergeant was thinking of the difficulty of controlling Caspar Ruiz when the time for making an example would come. *"0r perhaps,' the sergeant pursued vexedly, *we shall be obliged to shoot him down as he dashes out when the door is opened.' He was going to give fur- ther vent to his anxieties as to the proper carrying out of the sentence; but he interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation, snatched a musket from a soldier, and stood watchful with his eyes fixed on the window. IV ** Caspar Ruiz had clambered up on the sill, and sat down there with his feet against the thickness of the wall and his knees slightly bent. The window was not quite broad enough for the length of his legs. It appeared to my crestfallen perception that he meant to keep the window all to himself. He seemed to be taking up a comfortable position. Nobody inside dared to approach him now he could strike with his hands. 18 A SET OF SIX "'Por Dios!' I heard the sergeant muttering at my elbow, * I shall shoot him through the head now, and get rid of that trouble. He is a condemned man.' "At that I looked at him angrily. 'The General has not confirmed the sentence,' I said, though I knew well in my heart that these were but vain words. The sen- tence required no confirmation. 'You have no right to shoot him unless he tries to escape,' I added firmly. *"But sangre de DiosT the sergeant yelled out, bringing his musket up to the shoulder, 'he is escaping now. Look!' "But I, as if that Caspar Ruiz had cast a spell upon me, struck the musket upward, and the bullet flew over the roofs somewhere. The sergeant dashed his arm to the ground and stared. He might have com- manded the soldiers to fire, but he did not. And if he had he would not have been obeyed, I think, just then. "With his feet against the thickness of the wall, and his hairy hands grasping the iron bar, Gaspar sat still. It was an attitude. Nothing happened for a time. And suddenly it dawned upon us that he was straightening his bowed back and contracting his arms. His lips were twisted into a snarl. Next thing we per- ceived was that the bar of forged iron was being bent slowly by the mightiness of his pull. The sun was beating full upon his cramped, unquivering figure. A shower of sweat-drops burst out of his forehead. Watching the bar grow crooked, I saw a little blood CASPAR RUIZ 19 ooze from under his finger-nails. Then he let go. For a moment he remained all huddled up, with a hanging head, looking drowsily into the upturned palms of his mighty hands. Indeed he seemed to have dozed off. Suddenly he flung himself backward on the sill, and setting the soles of his bare feet against the other middle bar, he bent that one, too, but in the opposite direction from the first. *'Such was his strength, which in this case relieved my painful feelings. And the man seemed to have done nothing. Except for the change of position in order to use his feet, which made us all start by its swiftness, my recollection is that of immobility. But he had bent the bars wide apart. And now he could get out if he liked; but he dropped his legs inward, and look- ing over his shoulder beckoned to the soldiers. 'Hand up the water,' he said. 'I will give them all a drink.' "He was obeyed. For a moment I expected man and bucket to disappear, overwhelmed by the rush of eagerness; I thought they would pull him down with their teeth. There was a rush, but holding the bucket on his lap he repulsed the assault of those wretches by the mere swinging of his feet. They flew backward at every kick, yelling with pain; and the soldiers laughed, gazing at the window. "They all laughed, holding their sides, except the sergeant, who was gloomy and morose. He was afraid the prisoners would rise and break out — which would 20 A SET OF SIX have been a bad example. But there was no fear of that, and I stood myself before the window with my drawn sword. When sufficiently tamed by the strength of Gaspar Ruiz they came up one by one, stretching their necks and presenting their lips to the edge of the bucket which the strong man tilted toward them from his knees with an extraordinary air of charity, gentle- ness, and compassion. That benevolent appearance was of course the effect of his care in not spilling the water and of his attitude as he sat on the sill; for, if a man lingered with his lips glued to the rim of the bucket after Gaspar Ruiz had said 'You have had enough,' there would be no tenderness or mercy in the shove of the foot which would send him groaning and doubled up far into the interior of the prison, where he would knock down two or three others before he fell himself. They came up to him again and again; it looked as if they meant to drink the well dry before going to their death; but the soldiers were so amused by Gaspar Ruiz' systematic proceedings that they carried the water up to the window cheerfully. "When the adjutant came out after his siesta there was some trouble over this affair, I can assure you. And the worst of it was that the General whom we expected never came to the castle that day." The guests of General Santierra unanimously ex- pressed their regret that the man of such strength and patience had not been saved. CASPAR RUIZ 21 "He was not saved by my interference," said the General. "The prisoners were led to execution half an hour before sunset. Caspar Ruiz, contrary to the sergeant's apprehensions, gave no trouble. There was no necessity to get a cavalry man with a lasso in order to subdue him, as if he were a wild bull of the campo. I believe he marched out with his arms free amongst the others who were bound. I did not see. I was not there. I had been put under arrest for interfering with the prisoner's guard. About dusk, sitting dismally in ray quarters, I heard three volleys fired, and thought that I should never hear of Caspar Ruiz again. He fell with the others. But we were to hear of him neverthe- less, though the sergeant boasted that, as he lay on his face expiring or dead in the heap of the slain, he had slashed his neck with a sword. He had done this, he said, to make sure of ridding the world of a dangerous traitor. "I confess to you, senores, that I thought of that strong man with a sort of gratitude, and with some admiration. He had used his strength honourably. There dwelt, then, in his soul no fierceness corresponding to the vigour of his body." Caspar Ruiz, who could with ease bend apart the heavy iron bars of the prison, was led out with others to summary execution. "Every bullet has its billet,'* 22 A SET OF SIX runs the proverb. All the merit of proverbs consists in the concise and picturesque expression. In the surprise of our minds is found their persuasiveness. In other words, we are struck and convinced by the shock. What surprises us is the form, not the substance. Proverbs are art — cheap art. As a general rule they are not trufe; unless indeed they happen to be mere platitudes, as for instance the proverb, ''Half a loaf is better than no bread," or '* A miss is as good as a mile." Some proverbs are simply imbecile, others are immoral. That one evolved out of the naive heart of the great Russian people, "Man discharges the piece, but God carries the bullet," is piously atrocious, and at bitter variance with the accepted conception of a compassion- ate God. It would indeed be an inconsistent occupa- tion for the Guardian of the poor, the innocent, and the helpless, to carry the bullet, for instance, into the heart of a father. Gaspar Ruiz was childless, he had no wife, he had never been in love. He had hardly ever spoken to a woman, beyond his mother and the ancient negress of the household, whose wrinkled skin was the colour of cinders, and whose lean body was bent double from age. If some bullets from those muskets fired off at fifteen paces were specifically destined for the heart of Gaspar Ruiz, they all missed their billet. One, however, car- ried away a small piece of his ear, and another a frag- ment of flesh from his shoulder. CASPAR RUIZ 23 A red and unclouded sun setting into a purple ocean looked with a fiery stare upon the enormous wall of the Cordilleras, worthy witnesses of his glorious ex- tinction. But it is inconceivable that it should have seen the antlike men busy with their absurd and in- significant trials of killing and dying for reasons that, apart from being generally childish, were also imper- fectly understood. It did light up, however, the backs of the firing party and the faces of the condemned men. Some of them had fallen on their knees, others remained standing, a few averted their heads from the levelled barrels of muskets. Caspar Ruiz, upright, the burliest of them all, hung his big shock head. The low sun dazzled him a little, and he counted himself a dead man already. He fell at the first discharge. He fell because he thought he was a dead man. He struck the ground heavily. The jar of the fall surprised him. "I am not dead apparently," he thought to himself, when he heard the execution platoon reloading its arms at the word of command. It was then that the hope of escape dawned upon him for the first time. He remained lying stretched out with rigid limbs under the weight of two bodies collapsed crosswise upon his back. By the time the soldiers had fired a third volley into the slightly stirring heaps of the slain, the sun had gone out of sight, and almost immediately with the darkening of the ocean dusk fell upon the coasts of the 24 A SET OF SIX young Republic. Above the gloom of the lowlands the snowy peaks of the Cordilleras remained luminous and crimson for a long time. The soldiers before marching back to the fort sat down to smoke. The sergeant with a naked sword in his hand strolled away by himself along the heap of the dead. He was a humane man, and watched for any stir or twitch of limb in the merciful idea of plunging the point of his blade into any body giving the slightest sign of life. But none of the bodies afforded him an opportunity for the display of this charitable intention. Not a muscle twitched amongst them, not even the powerful muscles of Caspar Ruiz, who, deluged with the blood of his neighbours and shamming death, strove to appear more lifeless than the others. He was lying face down. The sergeant recognized him by his stature, and being himself a very small man, looked with envy and contempt at the prostration of so much strength. He had always disliked that particular soldier. Moved by an obscure animosity, he inflicted a long gash across the neck of Caspar Ruiz, with some vague notion of making sure of that strong man's death, as if a powerful physique were more able to resist the bullets. For the sergeant had no doubt that Caspar Ruiz had been shot through in many places. Then he passed on, and shortly afterward marched off with his men, leaving the bodies to the care of crows and vultures. CASPAR RUIZ 25 Gaspar Ruiz had restrained a cry, though it Iiad seemed to him that his head was cut off at a blow; and when darkness came, shaldng off the dead, whose weight had oppressed him, he crawled away over the plain on his hands and knees. After drinking deeply, like a wounded beast, at a shallow stream, he assumed an upright posture, and staggered on light-headed and aimless, as if lost amongst the stars of the clear night. A small house seemed to rise out of the ground before him. He stumbled into the porch and struck at the door with his fist. There was not a gleam of light. Gaspar Ruiz might have thought that the inhabitants had fled from it, as from many others in the neigh- bourhood, had it not been for the shouts of abuse that answered his thumping. In his feverish and enfeebled state the angry screaming seemed to him part of a hallucination belonging to the weird dreamlike feeling of his unexpected condemnation to death, of the thirst suffered, of the volleys fired at him within fifteen paces, of his head being cut off at a blow. "Open the door!" he cried. " Open in the name of God! " An infuriated voice from within jeered at him: "Come in, come in. This house belongs to you. All this land belongs to you. Come and take it." "For the love of God," Gaspar Ruiz murmured. "Does not all the land belong to you patriots?" the voice on the other side of the door screamed on. "Are you not a patriot.'*" 26 A SET OF SIX Caspar Ruiz did not know. "I am a wounded man," he said apathetically. All became still inside. Gaspar Ruiz lost the hope of being admitted, and lay down under the porch just cutside the door. He was utterly careless of what was going to happen to him. All his consciousness seemed to be concentrated in his neck, where he felt a severe pain. His indifference as to his fate was genuine. The day was breaking when he awoke from a feverish doze; the door at which he had knocked in the dark stood wide open now, and a girl, steadying herself with her outspread arms, leaned over the threshold. Lying on his back, he stared up at her. Her face was pale and her eyes were very dark; her hair hung down black as ebony against her white cheeks; her lips were full and red. Beyond her he saw another head with long gray hair, and a thin old face with a pair of anxiously clasped hands under the chin. "I knew those people by sight," General Santierra would tell his guests at the dining-table. *'I mean the people with whom Gaspar Ruiz found shelter. The father was an old Spaniard, a man of property ruined by the revolution. His estates, his house in town, his money, everything he had in the world had been confiscated by proclamation, for he was a bitter foe of our independence. From a position of great dignity CASPAR RUIZ 27 and influence on the Viceroy's Council he became of less importance than his own negro slaves made free by our glorious revolution. He had not even the means to flee the country, as other Spaniards had managed to do. It may be that, wandering ruined and houseless, and burdened with nothing but his life, which was left to him by the clemency of the Provisional Government, he had simply walked under that broken roof of old tiles. It was a lonely spot. There did not seem to be even a dog belonging to the place. But though the roof had holes, as if a cannon-ball or two had dropped through it, the wooden shutters were thick and tight-closed all the time. "My way took me frequently along the path in front of that miserable rancho. I rode from the fort to the town almost every evening, to sigh at the window of a lady I was in love with, then. When one is young, you understand. . . . She was a good patriot, you may believe. Caballeros, credit me or not, political feeling ran so high in those days that I do not believe I could have been fascinated by the charms of a woman of Royalist opinions. . . ." Murmurs of amused incredulity all round the table interrupted the General; and while they lasted he stroked his white beard gravely. "Senores," he protested, "a Royalist was a monster to our overwrought feelings. I am telling you this in order not to be suspected of the slightest tenderness 28 A SET OF SIX toward that old Royalist's daughter. Moreover, as you know, my affections were engaged elsewhere. But I could not help noticing her on rare occasions when with the front door open she stood in the porch. "You must know that this old Royalist was as crazy as a man can be. His political misfortunes, his total downfall and ruin, had disordered his mind. To show his contempt for what we patriots could do, he affected to laugh at his imprisonment, at the confiscation of his lands, the burning of his houses, and at the misery to which he and his womenfolk were reduced. This habit of laughing had grown upon him, so that he would begin to laugh and shout directly he caught sight of any stranger. That was the form of his madness. "I, of course, disregarded the noise of that madman with that feeling of superiority the success of our cause inspired in us Americans. I suppose I really despised him because he was an old Castilian, a Spaniard born, and a Royahst. Those were certainly no reasons to scorn a man; but for centuries Spaniards born had shown their contempt of us Americans, men as well descended as themselves, simply because we were what they called colonists. We had been kept in abasement and made to feel our inferiority in social intercourse. And now it was our turn. It was safe for us patriots to display the same sentiments; and I being a young patriot, son of a patriot, despised that old Spaniard, and despising him I naturally disregarded his abuse, though CASPAR RUIZ 29 it was annoying to my feelings. Others perhaps would not have been so forbearing. "He would begin with a great yell: 'I see a patriot. Another of them!' long before I came abreast of the house. The tone of his senseless revilings, mingled with bursts of laughter, was sometimes piercingly shrill and sometimes grave. It was all very mad; but I felt it incumbent upon my dignity to check my horse to a walk without even glancing toward the house, as if that man's abusive clamour in the porch were less than the barking of a cur. /Always I rode by pre- serving an expression of haughty indifference on my face. "It was no doubt very dignified; but I should have done better if I had kept my eyes open. A mili- tary man in war time should never consider himself off duty; and especially so if the war is a revolutionary war, when the enemy is not at the door, but within your very house. At such times the heat of passionate convictions, passing into hatred, removes the re- straints of honour and humanity from many men and of delicacy and fear from some women. These last, when once they throw off the timidity and reserve of their sex, become by the vivacity of their intelligence and the violence of their merciless resentment more dangerous than so many armed giants." The General's voice rose, but his big hand stroked his white beard twice with an effect of venerable calm- 80 A SET OF SIX ness. "Si, senores! Women are ready to rise to the heights of devotion unattainable by us men, or to sink into the depths of abasement which amazes our mas- cuHne prejudices. I am speaking now of exceptional women, you understand. . . ." Here one of the guests observed that he had never met a woman yet who was not capable of turning out quite exceptional under circumstances that would en- gage her feelings strongly. "That sort of superiority in recklessness they have over us," he concluded, "makes of them the more interesting half of man- kind." The General, who bore the interruption with gravity, nodded courteous assent. "Si. Si. Under circum- stances. . . . Precisely. They can do an infinite deal of mischief sometimes in quite unexpected ways. 