In the city at this time was a certain Colonel Cobo, in
command of Spanish Volunteers, those execrable convict troops from
the Isle of Pines whose atrocities had already marked them as
wolves rather than men, and to him Pancho went with his story.
"Ah yes! That Varona boy. I've heard of him," Cobo remarked, when
his caller had finished his account. "He has reason to hate you, I
dare say, for you robbed him." The Colonel smiled disagreeably. He
was a disagreeable fellow, so dark of skin as to lend credence to
the gossip regarding his parentage; a loud, strutting, domineering
person, whose record in Santa Clara Province was such that only
the men discussed it.
Cueto murmured something to the effect that the law had placed him
in his position as trustee for the crown, and should therefore
protect him; but Colonel Cobo's respect for the law, it seemed,
was slight. In his view there was but one law in the land, the law
of force.
"Why do you come to me?" he asked.
"That fellow is a desperado," Pancho declared. "He should be
destroyed."
"Bah! The country is overrun with desperadoes of his kind, and
worse. Burning crops is nothing new. I'd make an end of him soon
enough, but nearly all of my men are in Cardenas. We have work
enough to do."
"I'd make it worth while, if you could put an end to him," Pancho
said, hesitatingly.
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