The Vanquished Read Online Free Page A

him, regarding his wife gently. “Filomena, your father will be pleased that we’re acting to return his lands to him.”
    â€œHe is weary of all that,” she said. “I don’t believe he cares much any more.”
    â€œI’ll wager he’ll be pleased, just the same,” Crabb said stoutly. “Come here to me, my little bird.”
    Her slight, willow figure came erect and advanced gracefully. She smiled for him and he thought that she was a very pretty woman. “Little bird,” he murmured, and kissed her lips with gallant tenderness, holding her chin with his forefinger.
    Afterward he put a hand to his beard and let his gaze wander absently under a lowered frown, and said, “I shall have to see Cosby immediately. I’ll be back presently, my dear.”
    Her eyes followed him as he took down his greatcoat and hat from the foyer pegs and went out into the brisk damp push of the wind.
    He signaled a hack at the corner of Sacramento Street, and rode over the steep-tilting cobblestone avenues past many rows of misty wooden houses perched on the slopes like balanced rocks, until the hansom soon drew up before a brown wooden house and Crabb stepped down, paid the cabbie, and walked carefully around a puddle while the hack went clopping down the street.
    General Cosby’s door was at the head of six broad weather-beaten steps. Crabb swung the knocker four times and stood tugging his beard until the door opened and the yellow-skinned houseboy took his coat and hat and led him into the parlor. The general’s desk commanded one wall, beside the deep-scalloped window. The view was a bleak row of wooden houses marching down the street’s grade like a mammoth stair.
    General Cosby, loose-paunched and shirtsleeved, sat behind the desk sweating at the armpits. His short-cropped black beard made his face seem even rounder than it was; his eyes were small bright buttons set close together behind a pince-nez with octagonal lenses. His greeting took the form of a grunt. “Hello, Henry.”
    â€œEnlist your army,” Crabb said with force. “We’re about to move, my friend.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œGabilondo just delivered Pesquiera’s agreement to me. The matter is settled.”
    Cosby leaned back and pursed his lips into a little rosebud, as though whistling. “Think of that,” he said.
    â€œDo,” Crabb said drily.
    â€œWell, that’s good,” Cosby grunted. “Now we can be getting down to work. Sit down, Henry, and we’ll discuss the plans.”
    â€œAagh,” Crabb said in friendly disgust. “You haven’t a bone of joy in you, old friend.”
    â€œThere’s time for that kind of thing. Afterward,”
    â€œCan you comprehend celebration? The occasion calls for a drink, I’d say.”
    â€œVery well. Chan?”
    The houseboy appeared in the doorway, his face round and flat and wholly expressionless to the eye. “Two brandies,” Cosby said gutturally, and the yellow face disappeared from the door. “Now,” Cosby said.
    â€œRelax a moment, can’t you?”
    â€œWhy?”
    It took Crabb aback. “Must you always push, my friend?”
    â€œUntil the objective is accomplished, an officer should not rest,” Cosby said. “All that comes to an idle man is whiskers.”
    Crabb shook his head with a bemused smile. “We’ve gained something important today—can’t you see that?”
    â€œHenry, you strike me at this moment as an eager young dog—you have all the bounding enthusiasm of one. But there’s much yet to be done. We can’t sit back and count our rewards yet—we haven’t won them.”
    â€œYou always prick at a man’s pleasures,” Crabb complained. The houseboy entered on padding feet, stolidly carrying a silver tray on which were balanced two goblets of brandy, deep and richly brown. Crabb