"Colonel," she cried, rising in her cart like a jack-in-the-box, "you will please place more distance between me and that blasphemous person yonder."
There was a pause in the procession. New intervals were tried. But the widow's carabao was slow, and the inspector's, possibly impressed by the fervent soliloquy going on behind him, persisted in coming up within earshot.
"Captain, I refuse to continue under the present conditions," ultimatumed the widow. And, springing out of her cart, she squatted resolutely in the centre of the road and refused to budge.
A happy inspiration came to Gomez. He appealed to the inspector's chivalry.
The inspector was cooling a bit by this time, and he was a man of some intelligence.
"You cut that rope that holds me like a chicken," he said, "and I'll parleyvoo."
Gomez cut the rope, and the inspector agreed to keep his feelings unexpressed.
The procession moved on. The carabaos laboured, the carros creaked and groaned and wailed. The sun mounted, more biting every moment. The ladrones lit cigarettes and shuffled along the road. The widow dozed.
A more pronounced lurch of her cart suddenly awakened her, and again her clamour was resounding in the heated silence.
Again it was the unlucky inspector. His cart had crept up little by little, till close to the widow's, and her eyes had opened upon the fact that he was not properly clad. Now, such a thing at times is excusable. It isn't your fault if a band of pestiferous ladrones pounce upon you in the morning and whisk you out in your pajamas.
"Sergeant," shrilled the widow (with concern Gomez noticed that each time she addressed him it was with a diminution of title). "Sergeant, dress that man!"
Gomez demurred. Again the widow sprang from her cart and sat in the road. Again the train was blocked.
"I will not budge till you have clothed that man," the widow declared. "I insist upon a pair of trousers."
There was a hurried questioning of the band, a general denegation, and Gomez returned, discouraged.
"Señora, no hay pantalones," he announced.
"Give him one of your own men's," she commanded briefly.
Again the troop, drawn up in line, was questioned, but still more vehement were the denegations. It was not that they needed them so much for covering, those precious pantaloons; they were full of holes and covered little; but they were all more or less be-striped, and the men very properly refused to part with their insignia of rank. The inspector, also, was interested. After a careful inspection, a horror at the thought of placing against his skin such garments as were displayed before him made his hair rise on end. Diplomatically he suggested to the widow that a transfer would only add to the shame of the situation, for it would leave one of the ladrones with nothing on at all, while he, at least--