CHAPTER XV.


It was into a badly-lighted tavern, with two or three rooms leading out
of one another, that his friend then conducted him. Men of the most
various social positions, many with a military look, and in
half-threadbare uniforms, filled the inner rooms; and in the outer one
he had seen upon entering a number of seafaring men, who looked like
Americans, and who nodded to him on the strength of his sailor's dress.
There were several women, more or less well dressed, moving about among
them, and others standing with eager faces over the gambling-table in
the inner room. All were drinking acachacas, and the whole place was
pervaded with a cloud of tobacco-smoke, out of which there came a
deafening clamour of talk.

Salvé had a seat found for him by his friend at a long table, amongst a
number of bronzed, bearded men, with large hats, leather breeches, and
spurs, whose company he by no means cared about. They looked like
mounted bullock-drivers, such as he had seen at Monte Video, or still
more, perhaps, like brigands, or banditti.

"They belong to Mendez's volunteer corps," whispered Federigo, as he
presented him then to the chief of the party, who sat at the top of the
table--a powerful fellow, with a weather-beaten complexion, heavy black
mustachios, and a pair of small active eyes, which, more than once
afterwards, when Salvé was not looking, were turned critically upon him.