company formed up in couples, with the band leading, and marched round the village, each man leaving his partner at her own door.
An hour or so later I strolled up the village street, and much to my disgust found the loaded pack-mules wandering about in different directions, and the arriero, who should have been well on his way to Palenque, quietly sitting on a doorstep smoking a cigarette. In spite of his grumbles and growls I soon had his mules together again and hustled him off; but just as he was passing the Comandante's house, at the edge of the village, he fired a parting speech over his shoulder at me, the exact words of which I did not catch, but it was certainly not complimentary. However, I took no notice of it and was congratulating myself that the mules were well under weigh, and that I should see nothing of them or the surly muleteer until I should overtake them in the evening; but I reckoned without the Comandante, who had overheard the speech from his house, and before I could understand what was up, had darted out, caught the arriero by his collar, pulled him off his mule, and called to two of his men to carry him off to prison. As soon as the torrent of words with which he overwhelmed his prisoner was at an end, he turned to me and offered a thousand apologies for the insult I had received from a savage, a bushman, who did not know how to treat a gentleman, or how to conduct himself with decency when he left his native wilds and entered into a civilized town, but the lesson must be learnt and an example should be made of him. Of course I expressed my profound thanks and then dashed off to catch one of the pack-mules who was attempting to scrape off his pack against the overhanging bough of a tree, whilst the Comandante, having vindicated the civilization of Monte Cristo, returned to his hammock to finish his broken sleep. All hope of making a start for Palenque was at an end, so I collected the straying mules together and drove them back along the silent street. Luckily Don Adolfo, the only man in the village who had not been to the Carnival ball, was up and about, and he kindly helped me to unload the mules, and then asked me to stay and share his breakfast. In the afternoon the villagers began to wake up again, and there was a preliminary interchange of courteous messages between myself and the Comandante; later on I ventured to call on him, and after many polite speeches, in which we deplored the wanton ways of ignorant and savage men who were not "gente de razon," at last in deference to my urgent request (which I was assured showed the goodness of my heart even when dealing with an unworthy subject), and in order that I should personally suffer no inconvenience, the Comandante said that he would on this one occasion overlook the arriero's offence and order his immediate release. As soon as the fellow was free I made him load up his mules and
