James Hopper

“ The sun had set, far off, very somberly, a line as of blood still streaked the horizon, and from the sea, a gray patch at the end of a long and gradual declivity of musty jungle, a multitude of great black bats were flying, making for the hills. ”

“ Imagine these poor, slovenly disreputables, badly armed, untrained, filled, no doubt, with a distrust of themselves, with a knowledge of their insufficiency, of the hopelessness of any cause which they might champion—and in spite of this following their "Capitan" and he, the "Capitan," aware with absolute certitude of their worthlessness, using them anyway, at this extremity relying upon them out of a burst of loyalty, as it were, of exasperated loyalty to the dreams he had dreamed!
So Ali Baba and his Thieves charged for the Casa Popular. Why the Casa Popular? ”

“ Imagine an old geezer, an old rich geezer, down and out with that blamed cholera; put a little of that medicine stuff under his nose—and he'd pay something for it—oh, wouldn't he though—oh, no, not at all! Say, do you know, this country is too easy, too easy altogether; it makes a man ashamed. ”

“ His khaki, red-trimmed, followed his angular frame with incredible fidelity, a huge revolver hung on his hip, his shoes, belt, and puttees were new and yellow, and at the slightest movement he fairly crackled. In this short time he had already acquired a lot of extraordinary information about the country, and he bristled with plans. In the interior, he explained, there lived hacenderos—Spanish mestizos—on lands big as empires, rich as Solomon's mines, with whole populations at their mercy, with silver and carriages and retinues of servants, and—he didn't blush—beautiful daughters. ”

“ Well, he never did get them "trained"; never did the Forty Thieves achieve the heights of efficiency and cohesion and loyalty so rigidly expected of them; they never even learned to shoot, though he did manage to get out of the poor devils a fidelity that showed up rather prettily at the end. ”

“ And then—this time he did blush, a faint rosy hue—there was the chance of a marriage. An officer, moderately good-looking, brass-buttoned and powerful,—amid these isolated people, very wealthy, but lacking society,—might aspire to much—to anything. ”