Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/175

Rh man has his own, and she carries his baggage, buys all his food, and prepares his meals.

Then came the troops, Garcia, leading. Mounted on a splendid horse, wearing a brilliant uniform, he appeared like a star of the first magnitude in the constellation of his staff. A tall man, he showed head and shoulders above the generals and colonels prancing around him. His tri-color plumes waved splendidly in the wind, and the deafening rant of bugles accompanied him. Handsome, radiant, happy was he, nonchalantly curling his black mustache and smiling on all with brilliant white teeth. Garcia smiled to the ladies as he passed under their balconies, and the ladies, showering down rose-leaves over horse and rider, called him by his Christian name, Pedro. In this triumphal fashion, he slowly rode round the square twice, and then came to a halt in the middle of it, between two guns, his staff behind him and, before him, two Indians bearing a standard, a quaint patch-work quilt of a flag, which was the token of submission of all the tribes to the new government These men wore hats covered with variegated plumes, and had over their shoulders surplice-like tunics.

Five hundred infantrymen and two hundred horse had formed round the square. Young girls, clad in floating tunics and wearing Garcia's