nder the roof of the municipal portals in front of a
city square covered with weeds, a tumbled kiosk, and some abandoned
adobe houses.

"Valderrama," Demetrio called, looking away from the ring with tired
eyes, "come and sing me a song--sing 'The Undertaker.'"

But Valderrama did not hear him; he had no eyes for the fight; he was
reciting an impassioned soliloquy as he watched the sunset over the
hills.

With solemn gestures and emphatic tones, he said:

"O Lord, Lord, pleasurable it is this thy land! I shall build me three
tents: one for Thee, one for Moses, one for Elijah!"

"Valderrama," Demetrio shouted again. "Come and sing 'The Undertaker'
song for me."

"Hey, crazy, the General is calling you," an officer shouted.

Valderrama with his eternally complacent smile went over to Demetrio's
seat and asked the musicians for a guitar.

"Silence," the gamesters cried. Valderrama finished tuning his
instrument.

Quail and Meco let loose on the sand a pair of cocks armed with long
sharp blades attached to their legs. One was light red; his feathers
shone with beautiful obsidian glints. The other was sand-colored with
feathers like scales burned slowly to a fiery copper color.

The fight was swift and fierce as a duel between men. As though moved
by springs, the roosters flew at each other. Their feathers stood up on
their arched necks; their combs were erect, their legs taut. For an
instant they swung in the air without even touching the ground, their
feathers, beaks, and claws lost in a dizzy whirlwind. The red rooster
suddenly broke, tossed with his legs to heaven outside the chalk lines.
His vermilion eyes closed slowly, revealing eyelids of pink coral; his
tangled feathers quivered and shook convulsively amid a pool of blood.

Valderrama, who could not repress a gesture of violent indignation,
began to play. With the first melancholy strains of the tune, his anger
disappeared. His eyes gleamed with the light of madness. His glance
strayed over the square, the tumbled kiosk, the old adobe houses, over
the mountains in the background, and over the sky, burning like a roof
afire. He began to sing. He put such feeling into his voice and such
expression into the strings that, as he finished, Demetrio turned his
head aside to hide his tears.

But Valderrama fell upon him, embraced him warmly, and with a
familiarity he showed everyone at the appropriate moment, he whispered:

"Drink them! ... Those are beautifu