"You insist on seeing everything in gloomy colours. I repeat again: two battles like this one, and you are saved."
"These battles I shall fight, my friend, if they grant me the time, be assured. Ah! If instead of being alone, blockaded in Mexico, I still had faithful lieutenants holding the country, after today's victory, all might be repaired."
At this moment the door of the cabinet was opened, and General Cobos appeared.
"Ah! It is you, my dear General," the President said to him, holding out his hand and suddenly reassuming a laughing air. "You are welcome. What motive procures me the pleasure of seeing you?"
"I implore your Excellency to excuse me for venturing to appear thus, without being announced; but I have to talk with you on serious matters, which admit of no delay."
The adventurer made a movement to withdraw.
"Stay, I beg of you," the President said, checking him by a sign. "Speak, my dear General."
"Excellency, the greatest disorder is prevailing on the Plaza among the people and the troops; the majority are noisily demanding that the officers taken prisoners today, may be immediately shot as traitors to the country."
"What?" the President asked, drawing himself up and turning slightly pale. "What is that you are saying, my dear General?"
"If your Excellency will deign to open the windows of this cabinet, you will hear the cries of death which the army and the people are raising in concert."
"Ah!" Miramón muttered. "Political assassinations committed in cold blood after the victory: I will never consent to authorize such odious crimes. No, a thousand times no! I at least will never have that said of me. Where are the captured officers?"
"In the interior of the palace, under a guard in the courtyard."
"Give orders for them to be at once brought into my presence: go, General."
"Ah, my friend," the President exclaimed with discouragement, as soon as he found himself alone with the adventurer, "what can be hoped from a nation so devoid of moral feeling as ours? Alas! What will the European governments think of this apparent barbarity? What a contempt they must feel for our unfortunate nation! And yet," he added, "this people is not bad-hearted, it is its long slavery which has rendered it cruel, and the interminable revolutions to which it has been constantly a victim for forty years. Come, follow me; we must put an end to this."