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Updated: August 22, 2024
The fight had now lasted an hour, and the line had reached a more open country, with a slight incline upward toward a wood, on the edge of which was a ruined house. This house was a former distillery for aguardiente, and was now occupied in force by the enemy.
One of them took out of his haversack a quantity of provisions and a flask of aguardiente; and Coronado handed them to Thurstane with a smile, hoping that he would surfeit himself and die. "No," said Clara, seizing the food. "You have eaten enough. You may drink." "Where are the others?" she presently asked. "In the hills," he answered. "Starving. I must go and find them." "No, no!" she cried.
He then galloped out upon the plain, and after half an hour's absence returned, and having placed his horse once more in the stable, came and seated himself next to me, to whom he commenced talking in a gibberish of which I understood very little, but which he intended for French. He was half intoxicated, and soon became three parts so, by swallowing glass after glass of aguardiente.
The manufacture of aguardiente is a government monopoly, which is farmed out to contractors. The contracts are always given to the political supporters of the party in power. There are many private illegal stills in the mountains.
I might have added to this enumeration the tall, dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the aguardiente.
The foyer we named a patio a space fragrant with the perfume of oranges, which the public were always sucking, and perilous with peel. Add to this a refreshment-room, refectorio, full of the rarest old cigarros, and redolent of aqua de soda and aguardiente. Here the botellas of aqua de soda were continually popping, and the corchos flying with a murmur of merry voices and of mingling waters.
"Intoxicated?" repeated Enriquez, with exasperating languishment. "Yes; that is the word that shall express itself. My friend, you have made a shot in the center you have ring the bell every time! It is intoxication but not of aguardiente. Look! I have long time an ancestor of whom is a pretty story. One day in church he have seen a young girl a mere peasant girl pass to the confessional.
God of my soul! it is said that he knows more than his Excellency himself, that his mind works faster. Ay! but there was a time when he was wild, when the mescal burnt his throat like hornets and the aguardiente was like scorpions in his brain; but that was long ago, before he was twenty; now he is thirty-four.
By the time he is four years old there is scarcely a colt in all the Argentine that he will not fearlessly mount; at six, he whirls a miniature lasso around the horns of every goat or ram he meets. At twenty-one he is in his glory. Then we must look for him in the pulperías, the bar-rooms of the Pampas, whither he repairs on Sundays and fiestas, to get drunk on aguardiente or on Paraguay rum.
Telling him that I was anxious to learn about something which had been stolen from me, I asked what was necessary in the way of preparation. He demanded a candle and aguardiente. A great taper of yellow wax and a bottle of spirits were supplied. Taking these in his hand, he entered the little chapel of the hacienda, considering it a good place for conjuring.
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