CHARLES GOULD turned towards the town. Before him the jagged peaks of the Sierra came out all black in the clear dawn. Here and there a muffled¹ lepero whisked round the corner of a grass-grown street before the ringing hoofs² of his horse. Dogs barked behind the walls of the gardens; and with the colourless light the chill of the snows seemed to fall from the mountains upon the disjointed pavements and the shuttered houses with broken cornices and the plaster peeling in patches between the flat pilasters of the fronts. The daybreak struggled with the gloom under the arcades³ on the Plaza⁴, with no signs of country people disposing their goods for the day’s market, piles of fruit, bundles of vegetables ornamented⁵ with flowers, on low benches under enormous mat umbrellas; with no cheery early morning bustle⁶ of villagers, women, children, and loaded donkeys. Only a few scattered⁷ knots of revolutionists stood in the vast space, all looking one way from under their slouched hats for some sign of news from Rincon. The largest of those groups turned about like one man as Charles Gould passed, and shouted, “Viva la libertad!” after him in a menacing tone.

Charles Gould rode on, and turned into the archway of his house. In the patio⁸ littered with straw, a practicante, one of Dr. Monygham’s native assistants, sat on the ground with his back against the rim⁹ of the fountain, fingering a guitar discreetly¹⁰, while two girls of the lower class, standing

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