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All of a sudden, it strikes him as stupid to be talking about climbing up that ravine when he can’t even move a finger.

“They took all the supplies, and all the ammunition, too,” the little soldier whimpers. “It’s not my fault, sir. It’s Colonel Campelo’s fault.”

He hears him sob like a babe in arms and it occurs to him that he’s drunk. He feels hatred and anger toward this bastard who’s sniveling instead of pulling himself together and going to fetch help. The little soldier lifts his head and looks at him.

“Are you from the Second Infantry?” the sergeant asks him, noticing as he speaks how stiff his tongue feels. “From Colonel Silva Telles’s brigade?”

“No, sir,” the little soldier says, screwing up his face and weeping. “I’m from the Fifth Infantry of the Third Brigade. Colonel Olímpio da Silveira’s brigade.”

“Don’t cry, don’t be stupid, come over here and help me get this thing out of my belly,” the sergeant says. “Come here, you son of a bitch.”

But the little soldier buries his head in the dirt and weeps.

“In other words, you’re one of those we came to rescue from the English,” the sergeant says. “Come over here and save me now, you idiot.”

“They took everything we had away from us! They stole everything!” the little soldier whimpers. “I told Colonel Campelo that the convoy shouldn’t fall so far behind, that we could be cut off from the column. I told him, I told him! And that’s what happened, sir! They even stole my horse!”

“Forget the convoy they robbed you of, pull this thing out of me!” Frutuoso calls out. “Do you want us to die like dogs? Don’t be an idiot—think about it!”

“The porters double-crossed us! The guides double-crossed us!” the little soldier whines. “They were spies, sir, they fired on us with shotguns, too. Count things up for yourself. Twenty carts with ammunition, seven with salt, flour, sugar, cane brandy, alfalfa, forty sacks of maize. And they made off with more than a hundred head of cattle, sir! Do you see what an insane thing Colonel Campelo did? I warned him. I’m Captain Manuel and I never lie, sir: it was his fault.”

“You’re a captain?” Frutuoso Medrado stammers. “A thousand pardons, sir. Your gold braid isn’t showing.”

The reply is a death rattle. His neighbor is silent and motionless. “He’s dead,” Frutuoso Medrado thinks. He feels a shiver run down his spine. He thinks: “A captain! I took him for a raw recruit.” He, too, is going to die at any moment. The Englishmen got the better of you, Frutuoso. Those goddamned foreign bastards have killed you. And just then he sees two figures silhouetted on the edge of the ravine. The sweat running into his eyes keeps him from making out whether or not they are wearing uniforms, but he shouts “Help, help!” nonetheless. He tries to move, to twist about, so that they’ll see that he’s alive and come down. His big head is a brazier. The silhouettes leap down the side of the ravine and he feels that he is about to burst into tears when he realizes that they’re dressed in light blue and are wearing army boots. He tries to shout: “Pull this stick out of my belly, boys.”

“Do you recognize me, Sergeant? Do you know who I am?” says the soldier who, like an imbecile, instead of squatting down to unpin him, stands there resting the tip of his bayonet on his neck.

“Of course I recognize you, Coríntio,” he roars. “What did you think, you idiot? Pull this thing out of my belly! What are you doing, Coríntio? Coríntio!”

Florisa’s husband is plunging his bayonet into his neck beneath the revolted gaze of the other one, whom Frutuoso Medrado also recognizes: Argimiro. He manages to say to himself that Coríntio did know, after all.

[III]

“Why wouldn’t those who took to the streets to lynch monarchists have believed it, down there in Rio, in São Paulo, if those who were at the very gates of Canudos and could see the truth with their own eyes believed it?” the nearsighted journalist asked.

He had slid out of the leather armchair and was now