Gaspar Ruiz | Page 4

smooth as a girl's, flushed with the shame of his
perplexity. Its nature humiliated his spirit. His hairless upper lip
trembled; he seemed on the point of either bursting into a fit of rage or
into tears of dismay.
Fifty years later, General Santierra, the venerable relic of revolutionary

times, was well able to remember the feelings of the young lieutenant.
Since he had given up riding altogether, and found it difficult to walk
beyond the limits of his garden, the general's greatest delight, was to
entertain in his house the officers of the foreign men-of-war visiting the
harbour. For Englishmen he had a preference, as for old companions in
arms. English naval men of all ranks accepted his hospitality with
curiosity, because he had known Lord Cochrane and had taken part, on
board the patriot squadron commanded by that marvellous seaman, in
the cutting-out and blockading operations before Callao--an episode of
unalloyed glory in the wars of Independence and of endless honour in
the fighting tradition of Englishmen. He was a fair linguist, this ancient
survivor of the Liberating armies. A trick of smoothing his long white
beard whenever he was short of a word in French or English imparted
an air of leisurely dignity to the tone of his reminiscences.

III
"YES, my friends," he used to say to his guests, "what would you have?
A youth of seventeen summers, without worldly experience, and owing
my rank only to the glorious patriotism of my father, may God rest his
soul, I suffered immense humiliation, not so much from the
disobedience of That subordinate, who, alter all, was responsible for
those prisoners; but I suffered because, like the boy I was, I myself
dreaded going to the adjutant for the key. I had felt, before, his rough
and cutting tongue. Being quite a common fellow, with no merit except
his savage valour, he made me feel his contempt and dislike from the
first day I joined my battalion in garrison at the fort. It was only a
fortnight before! I would have confronted him sword in hand, but I
shrank from the mocking brutality of his sneers.
"I don't remember having been so miserable in my life before or since.
The torment of my sensibility was so great that I wished the sergeant to
fall dead at my feet, and the stupid soldiers who stared at me to turn
into corpses; and even those wretches for whom my entreaties had
procured a reprieve I wished dead also, because I could not face them
without shame. A mephitic heat like a whiff of air from hell came out
of that dark place in which they were confined. Those at the window
who heard what was going on jeered at me in very desperation; one of
these fellows, gone mad no doubt, kept on urging me volubly to order

the soldiers to fire through the window. His insane loquacity made my
heart turn faint. And my feet were like lead. There was no higher
officer to whom I could appeal. I had not even the firmness of spirit to
simply go away.
"Benumbed by my remorse, I stood with my back to the window. You
must not suppose that all this lasted a long time. How long could it
have been? A minute? If you measured by mental suffering it was like a
hundred years; a longer time than all my life has been since. No,
certainly, it was not so much as a minute. The hoarse screaming of
those miserable wretches died out in their dry throats, and then
suddenly a voice spoke, a deep voice muttering calmly. It called upon
me to turn round.
"That voice, senores, proceeded from the head of Gaspar Ruiz. Of his
body I could see nothing. Some of his fellow-captives had clambered
upon his back. He was holding them up. His eyes blinked without
looking at me. That and the moving of his lips was all he seemed able
to manage in his overloaded state. And when I turned round, this head,
that seemed more than human size resting on its chin under a multitude
of other heads, asked me whether I really desired to quench the thirst of
the captives.
"I said, 'Yes, yes!' eagerly, and came up quite close to the window. I
was like a child, and did not know what would happen. I was anxious
to be comforted in my helplessness and remorse.
"'Have you the authority, senor teniente, to release my wrists from their
bonds?' Gaspar Ruiz's head asked me.
"His features expressed no anxiety, no hope; his heavy eyelids blinked
upon his eyes that looked past me straight into the courtyard.
"As if in an ugly dream, I spoke, stammering: 'What do you mean? And
how can I reach