"¡Caramba! General; and we also all love him--the brave old man who might be our father, and who tells us during the nights of bivouac such pleasant tales of old times."
The chief of the party smiled, without answering.
"But what is he bringing us here?" suddenly cried don Estevan Albino, the officer who had first spoken. "Why, I can see the folds of a robe and a mantilla fluttering in the wind!"
"Two robes and two mantillas, if you please, Don Estevan; and even more, if I am not deceived," sententiously remarked Don Juan Armero.
"¡Válgame Dios!" said the young officer, laughing; "The old boy is bringing us a bevy of petticoats."
The officers rose; some opened their lorgnettes, and began to examine attentively the troops which were arriving, freely commenting on the prize made by the old officer, and which he was bringing with him.
Zeno Cabral had fallen again into his reverie, apparently indifferent to what was passing around him; but the feverish flush which suffused his face, and the knitting of his eyebrows, belied the affected calm, and showed that he was inwardly a prey to strong emotion.
Meanwhile, the horsemen rapidly traversed the plain, and approached nearer and nearer, coming towards the group of officers, recognisable by the Buenos Airean flag, the staff of which was fixed in the ground, and which floated in long folds to the breeze.
On the arrival of the horsemen the Montoneros rose, looked at them curiously, and then followed them, laughing and sneering among themselves, so much that, when they reached the foot of the little hill where the officers were waiting for them, they found themselves literally enveloped by a compact crowd that Captain Quiroga was obliged to separate with a blow or two from a piece of lancewood, of which he acquitted himself with imperturbable coolness.
The officers had not calumniated the worthy captain. The difference of costume apart, he resembled, trait for trait, Don Quixote, at the time of his second sortie.
There was the same long and meagre body, the same lean and angular countenance, with a depressed forehead, sunken eyes, hooked nose like the beak of a bird, large jaws furnished with a few worn-out teeth, long grey moustaches, and high reddish cheekbones.