The majority of the soldiers spoke in much the same
tenor. Even a top sergeant candidly confessed, "Yes, I
enlisted all right. I wanted to. But, by God, I missed the
right side by a long shot. What you can't make in a life-
time, sweating like a mule and breaking your back in
peacetime, damn it all, you can make in a few months
just running around the sierra with a gun on your back,
but not with this crowd, dearie, not with this lousy
outfit ...."

Luis Cervantes, who already shared this hidden, im-
placably mortal hatred of the upper classes, of his offi-
cers, and of his superiors, felt that a veil had been re-
moved from his eyes; clearly, now, he saw the final out-
come of the struggle. And yet what had happened? The
first moment he was able to join his coreligionists, in-
stead of welcoming him with open arms, they threw him
into a pigsty with swine for company.

Day broke. The roosters crowed in the huts. The
chickens perched in the huizache began to stretch their
wings, shake their feathers, and fly down to the ground.

Luis Cervantes saw his guards lying on top of a dung
heap, snoring. In his imagination, he reviewed the fea-
tures of last night's men. One, Pancracio, was pock-
marked, blotchy, unshaven; his chin protruded, his
forehead receded obliquely; his ears formed one solid
piece with head and neck--a horrible man. The other,