one reverences our General more than Fernando Altimira. No grander man
ever wore a uniform! But he is fighting in a hopeless cause, and the
fewer who uphold him the less blood will flow, the sooner the struggle
will finish."

Doña Modeste covered her beautiful face and wept. Many of the women
sobbed in sympathy. Bright eyes, from beneath gay rebosas or delicate
mantillas, glanced approvingly at the speaker. Brown old men and women
stared gloomily at the floor. But the greater number followed every
motion of their master-spirit, Doña Eustaquia Ortega.

She walked rapidly up and down the long room, too excited to sit down,
flinging the mantilla back as it brushed her hot cheek. She was a woman
not yet forty, and very handsome, although the peachness of youth had
left her face. Her features were small but sharply cut; the square
chin and firm mouth had the lines of courage and violent emotions, her
piercing intelligent eyes interpreted a terrible power of love and hate.
But if her face was so strong as to be almost unfeminine, it was frank
and kind.

Doña Eustaquia might watch with joy her bay open and engulf the hated
Americans, but she would nurse back to life the undrowned bodies flung
upon the shore. If she had been born a queen she would have slain in
anger, but she would not have tortured. General Castro had flung his hat
at her feet many times, and told her that she was born to command. Even
the nervous irregularity of her step to-day could not affect the extreme
elegance of her carriage, and she carried her small head with the
imperious pride of a sovereign. She did not speak again for a moment,
but as she passed the group of young men at the end of the room her eyes
flashed from one languid face to another. She hated their rich breeches