Under this discipline the negroes improved rapidly, lost their slouching gait, and some of them showed such intelligence that in January Marcelino selected sergeants and corporals from among them, and advanced his four Spaniards to brevet rank as subaltern officers. Not a week passed but he received some accession of strength by small drafts of slaves from the estancias or chacras round about; at the end of January he had 150 men. At this time he received a note from Don Gregorio Lopez of the Barrancas, telling him that he was going to march his newly-raised squadron inside for inspection by General Liniers, and advising him to accompany him, as, if his recruits would bear inspection, the Reconquistador would probably give him arms for them at once. * * * * * It was the second week in February; Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon and his wife Doña Constancia had a houseful of guests at their quinta. The paved verandah round the house had resounded all day with the clanking of sabres and the jingling of armed heels. The Reconquistador and his staff had breakfasted with them that day at noon, after inspecting the cavalry regiment from Las Barrancas and the negro recruits under the command of Marcelino Ponce de Leon. Her military guests had done full justice to the plentiful breakfast Doña Constancia had placed before them, patriotic toasts had been honoured with enthusiasm, cheerfulness and confidence had shone in every face. The morning inspection had passed off very well, the cavalry had performed some simple evolutions without getting into hopeless disorder; the negroes, now fully armed and accoutred, had marched and wheeled with a rapidity and precision which surprised the general, and had elicited a warm eulogium from Major Belgrano of the Patricios, for whose opinion the commandant of the negroes had a very high regard. All this was very pleasing to Doña Constancia, but nevertheless, now that Liniers and his staff had returned to town, and her remaining guests were chiefly members of their own family, sitting at her ease under the front verandah with her favourite son beside her, she was far from cheerful or happy herself. She had cause for anxiety, one face that she had been accustomed to see almost daily for more than twenty years she had not seen to-day, nor for many days past, the face of her second son, Juan Carlos.