e campaign (when in command of a brigade), he had gambled away
his horses, pistols, and accoutrements, to the very epaulettes, playing
monte with his colonels the night before the battle. Finally, he had
sent under escort his sword (a presentation sword, with a gold hilt) to
the town in the rear of his position to be immediately pledged for five
hundred pesetas with a sleepy and frightened shop-keeper. By daybreak he
had lost the last of that money, too, when his only remark, as he rose
calmly, was, "Now let us go and fight to the death." From that time he
had become aware that a general could lead his troops into battle
very well with a simple stick in his hand. "It has been my custom ever
since," he would say.

He was always overwhelmed with debts; even during the periods of
splendour in his varied fortunes of a Costaguana general, when he held
high military commands, his gold-laced uniforms were almost always
in pawn with some tradesman. And at last, to avoid the incessant
difficulties of costume caused by the anxious lenders, he had assumed
a disdain of military trappings, an eccentric fashion of shabby old
tunics, which had become like a second nature. But the faction Barrios
joined needed to fear no political betrayal. He was too much of a real
soldier for the ignoble traffic of buying and selling victories. A
member of the foreign diplomatic body in Sta. Marta had once passed a
judgment upon him: "Barrios is a man of perfect honesty and even of
some talent for war, _mais il manque de tenue_." After the triumph of the
Ribierists he had obtained the reputedly lucrative Occidental
command, mainly through the exertions of his creditors (the Sta. Marta
shopkeepers, all great politicians), who moved heaven and earth in his
interest publicly, and privately besieged Senor Moraga, the influential
agent of the San Tome mine, with the exaggerated lamentations that if
the general were passed over, "We shall all be ruined." An incidental
but favourable mention of his name in Mr. Gould senior's long
correspondence with his son had something to do with his appointment,
too; but most of all undoubtedly his established political honesty. No
one questioned the personal bravery of the Tiger-killer, as the populace
called him. He was, however, said to be unlucky in the field--but this
was to be the beginning of an era of peace. The soldiers liked him
for his humane temper, which was like a strange and precious flower
unexpectedly bl