the
violin. If I may--" His eyes rested longingly on the instrument.

"_Certamente_, if you can use the arm," the coronel acquiesced. With a
little difficulty Jose drew his arm from the sling, balanced his left
elbow on the chair arm, and poised the violin. A half smile showed in
the eyes of the coronel as he glanced at his guests. He, and they as
well, expected a discordant, uncouth attempt to scrape out some obscene
ditty of the frontier.

But as Jose, after jockeying a bit, began drifting the bow across the
strings, the suppressed smiles faded and eyes opened. Here was a man
who, as he said, once could play. And he wasted no time on airs composed
by others and known to half the world. Under his touch the mellow wood
began to talk, and in the minds of the listeners grew pictures.

City streets, blank-walled houses, patios, the rattle of the hoofs of
burros over cobbles, the shuffle of human feet, the toll of bells from a
convent tower. Gay little bits of music, laughter, flashing eyes, a
voluptuous love song repeated over and over. A sudden wild outbreak,
fighting men, shots, the clash of steel--again a tolling bell and a
requiem for the dead. A horse galloping in the night. Mountain winds
crooning mournfully, rising to the scream of tempest and the crash of
thunder. Dreary uplands, the hiss of rain, the sough of drifting snow,
the patient plod of a mule along a perilous trail. And then the jungle:
its discordant uproar, its hammering of frogs, its hoots and howls, the
dismal swash of flood waters. A monotonous ebb and flow of life,
punctuated by sudden flares of fight. Then a long, mournful wail--and
silence.

His bow still on the strings, Jose sat for a minute like a stone image,
his eyes straight ahead, his pale face drawn, his red kerchief glowing
dully in the semishadow like a cap of blood. For once his face was empty
of all insolence, changed by a pathetic wistfulness that made it tragic.
Then, wordless, he lowered the violin, held it out to the coronel,
fumbled absently at his sling, and slowly incased his wounded arm. When
he looked up his old mocking expression had come back and he once more
looked the reckless buccaneer.

For a time no one spoke. Each felt that he had glimpsed something of
this man's past; felt, too, that he who now was a bloody-handed borderer
had once been a _caballero_, moving in a much higher circle. Certainly
he could not play like this unless he had been of the upper class in his