Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/348

 cessor had borne on his shoulder and breast. He rode forward with a sharp spurring of his horse, expressive of the defiance and contempt of those who had commanded him in the power of a situation which fortune had placed in their hands. Within a rod of the spot where Henderson and Felipe stood to receive him, Roberto threw his weight back on the reins, bringing the headlong advance to a spectacular and dusty stop.

Out of the dust of his defiant coming Roberto scowled on the two men who confronted him, his petulant long lip stretching at the corners as if he mouthed a bit. The end of a plaster covering the wound his own soldier had given him in the plaza came down to his eyebrow. He waited for them to speak; they, with more dignity, in spite of the dust of his trampling in which they stood, were determined that he must begin. Roberto must take the place of one who had come to sue, not to demand.

Roberto's anger swelled as they stood in silence. General that he was, his disposition was not founded on any great or substantial dignity. Seeing now that his consequence was not rated very seriously by the men before him, he boiled over like a pot of brose.

"If you have touched Don Abrahan you shall hang!" he said, his voice high and strained in passionate note. "Where is he? Produce him this instant!"

"Your bluster would not add an hour to Don