"Tell these good people who killed Cobo. Was it Narciso Villar?"
"It was," O'Reilly smiled. "The fellow is dead."
There was renewed murmuring. The crowd pressed Jacket closer; they
passed the knife from hand to hand. Doubters fell silent; the boy
swelled visibly. Bantam-like he strutted before their admiring
glances, and when his benefactor had passed safely out of hearing
he went on:
"God! What a fight we had! It was like those combats of the
gladiators you hear about. The man was brave enough; there's no
denying his courage, which was like that of ten men--like that of
a fierce bull; but I--I was superb, magnificent! The man bellowed,
he roared, he grunted; he charged me, flinging the earth high with
his heels, but I was banderillero, picador, and matador in one. I
was here, I was there, I was everywhere; so swiftly did I move
that no eye could follow me." Jacket illustrated his imaginary
movements with agile leaps and bounds. "The terror of his name
frightened me, I'll admit, but it lent me a desperate courage,
too. I thought of the brave men, the good women, the innocent
children he had slain, and I fell upon him from this side, from
that side, from the front, from the rear. I pricked him, shouting:
'That for the people of Las Villas! This for the women of the San
Juan. And once again for the babies you have killed.
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