Explore "The Insurgent Chief" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If Emile Gagnepain became somewhat more calm, certainly the strange spectacle that he had before him had aroused not only his gaiety but his caustic fancy. This shameless parody of interviews accorded by the chiefs of a powerful nation to the representatives of another -- played seriously by bandits with low and cruel features, and hands red with blood -- half fox and half wolf -- whose affected manners had something despicable and repulsive in them -- disagreeably impressed the young man, and caused him to experience an undefinable sentiment of disgust and pity for the Spanish officers, who did not scruple to come and humbly implore the aid of these ferocious partisans, whom for a long time they had implacably pursued, to punish them for their innumerable misdeeds.
And, in fact, the Spanish officers appeared to be perfectly aware of their anomalous position, and of the reprehensible step, with regard to honour and the right of nations, that they did not at this moment scruple to take.