“We all know already what your boasting and bragging signify,” replied Dona Perfecta.  “Poor Ramos!  You want to pretend to be very brave when we have already had proof that you are not worth any thing.”

Ramos turned slightly pale, while he fixed on Dona Perfecta a strange look in which terror and respect were blended.

“Yes, man; don’t look at me in that way.  You know already that I am not afraid of bugaboos.  Do you want me to speak plainly to you now?  Well, you are a coward.”

Ramos, moving about restlessly in his chair, like one who is troubled with the itch, seemed greatly disturbed.  His nostrils expelled and drew in the air, like those of a horse.  Within that massive frame a storm of rage and fury, roaring and destroying, struggled to escape.  After stammering a few words and muttering others under his breath, he rose to his feet and bellowed: 

“I will cut off the head of Senor Rey!”

“What folly!  You are as brutal as you are cowardly,” said Dona Perfecta, turning pale.  “Why do you talk about killing?  I want no one killed, much less my nephew—­a person whom I love, in spite of his wickedness.”

“A homicide!  What an atrocity!” exclaimed Don Inocencio, scandalized.  “The man is mad!”

“To kill!  The very idea of killing a man horrifies me, Caballuco,” said Dona Perfecta, closing her mild eyes.  “Poor man!  Ever since you have been wanting to show your bravery, you have been howling like a ravening wolf.  Go away, Ramos; you terrify me.”

“Doesn’t the mistress say she is afraid?  Doesn’t she say that they will attack the house; that they will carry off the young lady?”

“Yes, I fear so.”

“And one man is going to do that,” said Ramos contemptuously, sitting down again, “Don Pepe Poquita Cosa, with his mathematics, is going to do that.  I did wrong in saying I would slit his throat.  A doll of that kind one takes by the ear and ducks in the river.”

“Yes, laugh now, you fool!  It is not my nephew alone who is going to commit the outrages you have mentioned and which I fear; if it were he alone I should not fear him.  I would tell Librada to stand at the door with a broom—­and that would be sufficient.  It is not he alone, no!”

“Who then?”

“Pretend you don’t understand!  Don’t you know that my nephew and the brigadier who commands that accursed troop have been confabulating?”

“Confabulating!” repeated Caballuco, as if puzzled by the word.

“That they are bosom friends,” said Licurgo.  “Confabulate means to be like bosom friends.  I had my suspicions already of what the mistress says.”

“It all amounts to this—­that the brigadier and the officers are hand and glove with Don Jose, and what he wants those brave soldiers want; and those brave soldiers will commit all kinds of outrages and atrocities, because that is their trade.”

“And we have no alcalde to protect us.”