baric state was kept up at the
residence. It was furnished with the loot of frontier towns. When first
admitted to the principal sala, they saw his wife lying down (she was
not in good health then), with Gaspar Ruiz sitting at the foot of the
couch. His hat was lying on the floor, and his hands reposed on the hilt
of his sword.

"During that first conversation he never removed his big hands from
the sword-hilt, except once, to arrange the coverings about her, with
gentle, careful touches. They noticed that whenever she spoke he would
fix his eyes upon her in a kind of expectant, breathless attention, and
seemingly forget the existence of the world and his own existence,
too. In the course of the farewell banquet, at which she was present
reclining on her couch, he burst forth into complaints of the treatment
he had received. After General San Martin's departure he had been
beset by spies, slandered by civil officials, his services ignored, his
liberty and even his life threatened by the Chilian Government. He got
up from the table, thundered execrations pacing the room wildly, then
sat down on the couch at his wife's feet, his breast heaving, his eyes
fixed on the floor. She reclined on her back, her head on the cushions,
her eyes nearly closed.

"'And now I am an honoured Spanish officer,' he added in a calm voice.

"The captain of the English frigate then took the opportunity to inform
him gently that Lima had fallen, and that by the terms of a convention
the Spaniards were withdrawing from the whole continent.

"Gaspar Ruiz raised his head, and without hesitation, speaking with
suppressed vehemence, declared that if not a single Spanish soldier were
left in the whole of South America he would persist in carrying on the
contest against Chile to the last drop of blood. When he finished that
mad tirade his wife's long white hand was raised, and she just caressed
his knee with the tips of her fingers for a fraction of a second.

"For the rest of the officers' stay, which did not extend for more than
half an hour after the banquet, that ferocious chieftain of a desperate
partida overflowed with amiability and kindness. He had been hospitable
before, but now it seemed as though he could not do enough for the
comfort and safety of his visitors' journey back to their ship.

"Nothing, I have been told, could have presented a greater contrast to
his late violence or the habitual taciturn reserve of his manner. Like a
man