The horses were tired, so we rested a day in La Zarca. Behind the Casa Grande lay a ruined garden, full of gray alamo trees, figs, vines, and great barrel-cactuses. It was walled around by high adobe walls on three sides, over one of which the ancient white tower of the church floated in the blue sky. The fourth side opened upon a reservoir of yellow water, and beyond it stretched the western desert, miles upon miles of tawny desolation. Trooper Marin and I lay under a fig tree, watching the vultures sail over us on quiet wing. Suddenly the silence was broken by loud, swift music. Pablo had found a pianola in the church, where it had escaped Che Che Campa’s notice the previous year; with it was one roll, the "Merry Widow Waltz." Nothing would do but that we carry the instrument out into the ruined patio. We took turns playing the thing all day long; Rafaelito volunteering the information that the "Merry Widow" was Mexico’s most popular piece. A Mexican, he said, had composed it. The finding of the pianola suggested that we give another _baile_ that night, in the portico of the Casa Grande itself. Candles were stuck upon the pillars, the faint light flickering upon broken walls, burned and blackened doorways, the riot of wild vines that had twisted unchecked around the roof-beams. The entire patio was crowded with blanketed men, making holiday, even yet a little uncomfortable in the great house which they had never been allowed to enter. As soon as the orchestra had finished a dance, the pianola immediately took up the task. Dance followed dance, without any rest. A barrel of _sotol_ further complicated things. As the evening wore on the assembly got more and more exhilarated. Sabas, who was Pablo’s orderly, led off with Pablo’s mistress. I followed. Immediately afterward Pablo hit her on the head with the butt end of his revolver, and said he’d shoot her if she danced with anyone else, and her partner too. After sitting some moments meditating, Sabas rose, pulled his revolver, and informed the harpist that he had played a wrong note. Then he shot at him. Other _compañeros_ disarmed Sabas, who immediately went to sleep in the middle of the dance-floor. The interest in Meester’s dancing soon shifted to other phenomena. I sat down beside Julian Reyes, he with the Christ and Virgin on the front of his sombrero. He was far gone in _sotol_—his eyes burned like a fanatic’s. He turned on me suddenly: "Are you going to fight with us?" "No," I said. "I am a correspondent. I am forbidden to fight." "It is a lie," he cried. "You don’t fight because you are afraid to fight. In the face of God, our Cause is Just." "Yes, I know that. But my orders are not to fight." "What do I care for orders?" he shrieked. "We want no correspondents. We want no words printed in a book. We want rifles and killing, and if we die we shall be caught up among the saints! Coward! Huertista!..."