During the operation, which I daresay was very painful, for the old
negress insisted on having the wound bathed with rum instead of water,
the brute blasphemed outrageously, vowing that he would cut out my
heart and eat it stewed with onions and seasoned with cummin seed and
various other condiments.

I have often since thought of that sublime culinary conception of Blas
the barbarian. There must have been a spark of wild Oriental genius
in his bovine brains.

When the exhaustion caused by rage, pain, and loss of blood had at
length reduced him to silence, the old negress turned on him, exclaiming
that he had been rightly punished, for had he not, in spite of her
timely warnings, lent his lasso to enable these two heretics (for that
is what she called us) to capture a cow? Well, his lasso was lost;
then his friends, with the gratitude only to be expected from
milk-drinkers, had turned round and well-nigh killed him.

After supper the _capatas_ got me alone, and with excessive
friendliness of manner, and an abundance of circumlocutory phrases,
advised me to leave the _estancia_, as it would not be safe for
me to remain. I replied that I was not to blame, having struck the man
in self-defence; also, that I had been sent to the _estancia_ by
a friend of the Mayordomo, and was determined to see him and give him
my version of the affair.

The _capatas_ shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

At length Don Policarpo returned, and when I told him my story he
laughed slightly, but said nothing. In the evening I reminded him of