IX

DISTRACTED between doubts and hopes, dis- mayed by the sound of bells pealing out the ar- rival of Pedrito Montero, Sotillo had spent the morn- ing in I ..ittling with his thoughts a contest to which IB was unequal from the vacuity of his mind and the Bolence of his passions. Disappointment, greed, an- ger, and fear made a tumult in the colonel's breast louder than the din of l>ells in the town. Nothing he ftd planned had come to pass. Neither Sulaco nor me silver of the mine had fallen into his hands. He had performed no military exploit to secure his posi- pn, and had obtained no enormous booty to make off with. Pedrito Montero, either as friend or foe, filled him with dread. The sound of bells maddened him. Imagining at first that he might be attacked at once, he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stop- ping sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right Bud with a lurid sideway glare fixed on the floor; fcn with a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, 'whip, sword, and revolver were lying on the t.iHe. His officers, crowding the window giving the iew of the town gate, disputed among themselves the

wse of his field-glass, bought last year on long credit