THE PROGRESS OF THE REVOLT.
Meanwhile the President and his two followers pursued their way through
the city. Many people were moving about the streets, and here and
there dark figures gathered in groups. The impression that great
events were impending grew; the very air was sultry and surcharged with
whisperings. The barricade, which was being built outside Savrola's
house, had convinced Molara that a rising was imminent; half a mile
from the palace the way was blocked by another. Three carts had been
stopped and drawn across the street, and about fifty men were working
silently to strengthen the obstruction: some pulled up the flat
paving-stones; others were carrying mattresses and boxes filled with
earth from the adjacent houses; but they paid little attention to the
President's party. He turned up his collar and pressing his felt hat
well down on his face clambered over the barrier,--the significance of
what he saw filling his mind; the Subaltern indeed in his undress
uniform drew some curious looks, but no attempt was made to stop his
progress. These men waited for the signal.
All this time Molara said not a word. With the approach of danger he
made great efforts to regain his calmness, that he might have a clear
head to meet it; but for all his strength of will, his hatred of
Savrola filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else. As he
reached the palace the revolt broke out all over the city. Messenger
after messenger hurried up with evil news. Some of the regiments had
refused to fire on the people; others were fraternising with them;
everywhere barricades grew and the approaches to the palace were on all
sides being closed. The Revolutionary leaders had gathered at the
Mayoralty. The streets were placarded with the Proclamation of the
Provisional Government. Officers from various parts of the town
hastened to the palace; some were wounded, many agitated. Among them
was Sorrento, who brought the terrible news that an entire battery of
artillery had surrendered their guns to the rebels. By half-past three
it was evident, from the reports which were received by telegram and
messenger, that the greater part of the city had passed into the hands
of the Revolutionaries with very little actual fighting.
The President bore all with a calmness which revealed the full strength
of his hard, stern character. He had, in truth, a terrible stimulant.
Beyond the barricades and the rebels who lined them was the Mayoralty
and Savrola. The face and figure of his enemy was before his eyes;
everything else seemed of little importance. Yet he found in the
blinding emergency an outlet for his fury, a counter-irritant for his
grief; to crush the revolt, but above all to kill Savrola, was his
heart's desire.
"We must wait for daylight," he said.
"And what then, Sir?" asked the War-Minister.
"We will then proceed to the Mayoralty and arrest the leaders of this
disturbance."
The rest of the night was spent in organising a force with which to
move at dawn. A few hundred faithful soldiers (men who had served with
Molara in the former war), seventy officers of the regular army, whose
loyalty was unquestionable, and the remaining battalion of the Guard
with a detachment of armed police, were alone available. This band of
devoted men, under fourteen hundred in number, collected in the open
space in front of the palace-gates, and guarded the approaches while
they waited for sunrise.
They were not attacked. "Secure the city," had been Savrola's order,
and the rebels were busily at work on the barricades, which in a
regular system rose on all sides. Messages of varied import continued
to reach the President. Louvet, in a hurried note, expressed his
horror at the revolt, and explained how much he regretted being unable
to join the President at the palace. He had to leave the city in great
haste, he said; a relative was dangerously ill. He adjured Molara to
trust in Providence; for his part he was confident that the
Revolutionaries would be suppressed.
The President in his room read this with a dry, hard laugh. He had
never put the slightest faith in Louvet's courage, having always
realised that in a crisis he would be useless and a coward. He did not
blame him; the man had his good points, and as a public official in the
Home-Office he was admirable; but war was not his province.
He passed the letter to Miguel. The Secretary read it and reflected.
He also was no soldier. It was evident that the game was up, and there
was no need for him to throw his life away, merely out of sentiment as
he said to himself. He thought of the part he had played in the drama
of the night. That surely gave him some claims; it would be possible
at least to hedge. He took a fresh piece of paper and began to write.
Molara paced the room. "What are you writing?" he asked.
"An order to the Commandant of the harbour-forts," replied Miguel
promptly, "to acquaint him with the situation and tell him to hold his
posts in your name at all hazards."
"It is needless," said Molara; "either his men are traitors or they are
not."
"I have told him," said Miguel quickly, "to make a demonstration
towards the palace at dawn, if he can trust his men. It will create a
diversion."
"Very well," said Molara wearily; "but I doubt it ever reaching him,
and he has so few men that could be spared after the forts are held
adequately."
An orderly entered with a telegram. The clerk at the office, a
loyalist, an unknown man of honour, had brought it himself, passing the
line of barricades with extraordinary good-fortune and courage. While
the President tore the envelope open, Miguel rose and left the room.
Outside in the brilliantly lighted passage he found a servant,
terrified but not incapable. He spoke to the man quickly and in a low
voice; _twenty pounds, the Mayoralty, at all costs_, were the
essentials of his instructions. Then he re-entered the office.
"Look here," said Molara; "it is not all over yet." The telegram was
from Brienz, near Lorenzo: _Clear the line. Strelitz and force two
thousand rebels advanced on the Black Gorge this afternoon. I have
repulsed them with heavy loss. Strelitz is prisoner. Am pursuing
remainder. I await instructions at Turga_. "This must be published at
once," he said. "Get a thousand copies printed, and have them
circulated among the loyalists and as far as possible in the city."
The news of the victory was received with cheers by the troops gathered
in the palace-square, and they waited with impatience for morning. At
length the light of day began to grow in the sky, and other lights, the
glow of distant conflagrations, paled. The President, followed by
Sorrento, a few officers of high rank, and his aide-de-camp Tiro,
descended the steps, traversed the courtyard and passing through the
great gates of the palace, entered the square where the last reserves
of his power were assembled. He walked about and shook hands right and
left with these faithful friends and supporters. Presently his eye
caught sight of the rebel proclamation which some daring hand had
placed on the wall under cover of the darkness. He walked up and read
it by the light of a lantern. Savrola's style was not easy to mistake.
The short crisp sentences of the appeal to the people to take up arms
rang like a trumpet-call. Across the placard a small red slip, such as
are used on theatrical advertisements to show the time of the
performance, had been posted at a later hour. It purported to be the
_facsimile_ of a telegram and ran thus: _Forced Black Gorge this
morning. Dictator's troops in full retreat. Am marching on Lorenzo.
Strelitz._
Molara quivered with fury. Savrola did not neglect details, and threw
few chances away. "Infamous liar!" was the President's comment; but he
realised the power of the man he sought to crush, and for a moment
despair welled in his heart and seemed to chill his veins. He shook
the sensation off with a great effort.
The officers were already in possession of the details of the plan,
whose boldness was its main recommendation. The rebels had succeeded
in launching their enterprise; the Government would reply by a _coup
d'état_. In any case the stroke was aimed at the heart of the revolt,
and if it went home the results would be decisive. "The octopus of
Rebellion, Gentlemen," said the President to those around him, and
pointing to the Revolutionary proclamation, "has long arms. It will be
necessary to cut off his head." And though all felt the venture to be
desperate, they were brave men and knew their minds.
The distance from the palace to the Mayoralty was nearly a mile and a
half along a broad but winding avenue; by this avenue, and by the
narrower streets on either side, the force advanced silently in three
divisions. The President marched on foot with the centre column;
Sorrento took command of the left, which was the threatened flank.
Slowly, and with frequent halts to keep up communication with each
other, the troops marched along the silent streets. Not a soul was to
be seen: all the shutters of the houses were closed, all the doors
fastened; and though the sky grew gradually brighter in the East, the
city was still plunged in gloom. The advanced files pressed forward up
the avenue, running from tree to tree, and pausing cautiously at each
to peer through the darkness. Suddenly as they rounded a bend, a shot
rang out in front. "Forward!" cried the President. The bugles sounded
the charge and the drums beat. In the dim light the outline of a
barricade was visible two hundred yards off, a dark obstruction across
the roadway. The soldiers shouted and broke into a run. The defenders
of the barricade, surprised, opened an ineffective fire and then,
seeing that the attack was in earnest and doubtful of its strength,
beat a retreat while time remained. The barricade was captured in a
moment, and the assailants pressed on elated by success. Behind the
barricade was a cross street, right and left. Firing broke out
everywhere, and the loud noise of the rifles echoed from the walls of
the houses. The flanking columns had been sharply checked at their
barricades, but the capture of the centre position turned both of
these, and their defenders, fearing to be cut off, fled in disorder.
It was now daylight, and the scene in the streets was a strange one.
The skirmishers darted between the trees, and the little blue-white
puffs of smoke spotted the whole picture. The retiring rebels left
their wounded on the ground, and these the soldiers bayoneted savagely.
Shots were fired from the windows of the houses and from any shelter
that offered,--a lamp-post, a pillar-box, a wounded man, an overturned
cab. The rifle-fire was searching, and the streets were very bare. In
their desire to get cover, to get behind something, both sides broke
into the houses and dragged out chairs, tables, and piles of bedding;
and though these were but little protection from the bullets, men felt
less naked behind them.
All this time the troops were steadily advancing, though suffering
continual loss; but gradually the fire of the rebels grew hotter. More
men were hurried to the scene each moment; the pressure on the flanks
became severe; the enveloping enemy pressed in down the side streets,
to hold which the scanty force at the President's disposal had to be
further weakened. At length the rebels ceased to retreat; they had
reached their guns, four of which were arranged in a row across the
avenue.
The Mayoralty was now but a quarter of a mile away, and Molara called
on his soldiers for a supreme effort. A dashing attempt to carry the
guns with the bayonet was defeated with a loss of thirty killed and
wounded, and the Government troops took shelter in a side street at
right angles to the main avenue. This in turn was enfiladed by the
enemy, who swept round the columns and began to cut in on their line of
retreat.
Firing was now general along a wide half-circle. In the hope of
driving the improvised artillery-men from their places, the troops
forced their way into the houses on either side of the avenue, and
climbing along the roofs began to fire down on their adversaries. But
the rebels, repeating the manoeuvre, met them and the attempt dwindled
into desperate but purposeless fighting among the chimney-pots and the
skylights.
The President exposed himself manfully. Moving from one part of the
force to another, he animated his followers by his example. Tiro, who
kept close to him, had seen enough war to realise that the check was
fatal to their chances. Every moment was precious; time was slipping
away, and the little force was already almost completely encircled. He
had taken a rifle and was assisting to burst in the door of a house,
when to his astonishment he saw Miguel. The Secretary was armed. He
had hitherto remained carefully in the rear, and had avoided the danger
in the air by hiding behind the trees of the avenue; but now he
advanced boldly to the doorway and began to help in battering it down.
No sooner was this done than he darted in and ran up the stairs crying
out, "We are all soldiers to-day!" Several infantrymen followed him to
fire from the lowest windows, but Tiro could not leave the President;
he felt, however, surprised and pleased by Miguel's gallantry.
It soon became evident to all that the attempt had failed. The numbers
against them were too great. A third of the force had been killed or
wounded, when the order to cut their way back to the palace was given.
On all sides the exulting enemy pressed fiercely. Isolated parties of
soldiers, cut off from the retiring column, defended themselves
desperately in the houses and on the roofs. They were nearly all
killed eventually, for everyone's blood was up, and it was a waste of
time to ask for quarter. Others set fire to the houses and tried to
escape under cover of the smoke; but very few succeeded. Others again,
and among them Miguel, lay hid in closets and cellars, from which they
emerged when men's tempers were again human and _surrender_ was not an
unknown word. The right column, which consisted of five companies of
the Guard battalion, were completely surrounded, and laid down their
arms on the promise of a rebel general that their lives should be
spared. The promise was kept, and it appeared that the superior
officers among the Revolutionists were making great efforts to restrain
the fury of their followers.
The main body of the Government troops, massed in a single column,
struggled on towards the palace losing men at every step. But in spite
of their losses, they were dangerous people to stop. One party of
rebels, who intercepted their line of retreat, was swept away in a
savage charge, and some attempt was made to reform; but the rifle-fire
was pitiless and incessant, and eventually the retreat became a rout.
A bloody pursuit followed in which only some eighty men escaped capture
or death, and with the President and Sorrento regained the palace
alive. The great gates were closed, and the slender garrison prepared
to defend themselves to the last.