“That is what I and my companions have sworn to sustain. Those who are in accord with the plan may come to sign it. Those, who are not, are free to ask for their passports.”
The profoundest silence reigned.
“Does no one wish his passport?” he asked.
And as an equal silence reigned, he said in a voice less abrupt: “Very well, let them come to sign.”
Some started to the table in order to sign, but as others vacillated or remained near the door, Rojas spoke again:
“No one can leave the hacienda, unless accompanied by one of my aides, after he has signed. That is the order I have given the guard which is watching the doors.”
In fact, the galeones were watching the door from the hall to the corridor, that of the street, and all the other exits; there seemed no possible means of escape without placing one’s signature to the shameful document. Nudgings with the arms, joggings with the feet, and words said so low that they seemed rather the buzzing of a fly, were the only protests which worthy and honorable leaders, there present, dared make.
Rojas signed, and his secretary who was an insignificant Indian, signed; Herrera y Cairo followed, his secretary, Aristeo Moreno signing beside him; General Julio García was called and I felt a shiver run through me from head to foot, because I ought to follow him as his secretary, and, no less, the secretary of the republican government of Colima.... In that moment of supreme anxiety, I felt it the height of folly to publicly oppose the signing of that infernal abortion, which would be the same as to provoke an undesirable quarrel in which the probabilities were that we who were decent men, being few, would perish at the hands of the