A strange figure I
must have looked as I stood blinking and gaping in the blinding
sunlight.
My body was bent like a cripple's, for I could not straighten my
stiff joints, and half my coat was as red as an English soldier's
from the lees in which I had lain.
They laughed and laughed, these dogs, and as I tried to express
by my bearing and gestures the contempt in which I held them
their laughter grew all the louder. But even in these hard
circumstances I bore myself like the man I am, and as I cast my
eye slowly round I did not find that any of the laughers were
very ready to face it.
That one glance round was enough to tell me exactly how I was
situated. I had been betrayed by these peasants into the hands
of an outpost of guerillas. There were eight of them,
savage-looking, hairy creatures, with cotton handkerchiefs under
their sombreros, and many- buttoned jackets with coloured sashes
round the waist.
Each had a gun and one or two pistols stuck in his girdle.
The leader, a great, bearded ruffian, held his gun against my ear
while the others searched my pockets, taking from me my overcoat,
my pistol, my glass, my sword, and, worst of all, my flint and
steel and tinder.
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