WHEREIN THE PRESIDENT PRESIDES
Before the exciting story so rudely interrupted is resumed, it may be
well to set down in their sequence the queer workings of fortune which
led to Philip's timely reappearance at Las FIores.
His troop of scouts consisted of twenty-eight men. Five were sailors
and firemen from the _Andromeda_; three were Germans from the _Unser
Fritz_. But the whole eight were ex-soldiers, and one man-at-arms
trained on the European model is worth ten of the Brazilian product.
The remaining twenty were hillmen, good riders, excellent shots, and
acquainted with every yard of the wild country within a radius of a
hundred miles. They would fight anybody if well led, and here it may
be observed that when Philip called on them to storm the ballroom, he
said, "Come on!"; between which curt command and its congener, "Go on!"
these half-breed warriors drew a fine distinction. The language
difficulty was surmounted partly by an interpreter in the person of one
of the Germans, who spoke English and had lived in Bahia, partly by
signs, and largely by Philip's methods as a leader.
He never asked his men to do anything that he did not do himself, and
they were never dubious as to his tactics, since he invariably closed
with any Nationalist detachment met during the day's operations.
About mid-day, then, they came upon the advance guard of a column sent
off a week earlier by the expert at Pesqueira with instructions to
arrive at Las Flores before sunset that very day. Instantly the
twenty-nine charged; with equal celerity the advance guard bolted.
From the crest of a rocky pass Philip looked down on a column of fully
a thousand men. The situation was critical. It called for prompt
handling. Five men held the horses; twenty-three spread themselves
among the rocks; Philip unslung his carbine; and twenty-four rifles
indulged in long-range practice on a narrow mountain path crowded with
men and animals.
Nothing more was needed. It has been noted already that the Brazilians
disliked long-range shooting. There was a stampede. The scouts
occupied the ridge until sundown, and were returning leisurely to
report the presence of the column, when they fell in with the first
batch of fugitives from the valley. Forthwith, Philip became a general
and each scout an officer. They reasoned and whacked the runaways into
obedience, picked up quite a number of men who were willing enough to
fight if told what was expected of them--and the rest was a matter of
simple strategy such as Macaulay's schoolboy would exhibit in the
escalade of a snow fort. But it was a near thing. Five minutes later,
and Hozier might have seized the presidency himself.
And now, as to the night, and the next day.
Russo and his diminished staff took Philip's little army as a nucleus.
Brazil had duly elected Dom Corria, as provided by the statute, and the
news spread like wild fire. Before morning, the Liberationists were
ten thousand strong. Before night closed the roads again, the
Pesqueira genius wrote to Dom Corria under a flag of truce, and pointed
out that he served the _President_, not any crank who said he was
President, but the honored individual in whom the people of Brazil
placed their trust. Dom Corria replied in felicitous terms, and, as
the newspapers say, the incident ended. The navy sulked for a while,
because they held that Russo's treatment of the _Andorinha_ was not
cricket, or baseball, or whatsoever game appeals most to the Brazilian
sportsman. It was not even professional football, they said; but an
acrimonious discussion was closed by a strong hint from the Treasury
that pay-day might be postponed indefinitely if too much were made of a
regrettable accident to the guns of the Maceio artillery.
Meanwhile, Dom Corria, the man who did not forget, was puzzled by two
circumstances not of national importance. San Benavides, never a
demonstrative lover where Carmela was concerned, was a changed man. He
was severely wounded during the fight, and Carmela nursed him
assiduously, but there could be no doubt that he was under her thumb,
and would remain there. The indications were subtle but unmistakable.
Carmela even announced the date of their marriage.
Dom Corria remembered, of course, what San Benavides and his daughter
had said when they all met in the ballroom. It seemed to him that
Salvador was telling the truth and that Carmela was fibbing on that
occasion. But he let well enough alone. It was good for Salvador that
he should obey Carmela. He blessed them, and remarked that a really
"smart" wedding would be just the thing to inaugurate the new reign at
Rio de Janeiro.
He was far more perplexed by the untimely wrath of Philip Hozier. He
thought of it for at least five minutes next morning. Then he sought
Dickey Bulmer, who had just quitted Coke's bedroom, and was examining
the rare shrubs that bordered the lawn.
"What news of that brave man?" asked Dom Corria, and his deep voice
vibrated with real feeling.
"First-rate, sir," said Dickey. "The bullet is extracted, and the
doctor says 'e'll soon be all right. Leastways, that's wot Iris tells
me. I can't talk Portuguese meself, an' pore old Jimmie's langwidge
ain't fit to be repeated."
The President laughed.
"He is what you call a bundle of contradictions, eh?--a rough fellow
with the heart of a bull. But he saved my life, and that naturally
counts for a good deal with me. And how is your niece after last
night's terrible experience?"
"My niece? D'ye mean Iris?" demanded Bulmer, obviously somewhat
annoyed.
"Yes."
"She's not my niece; she's----"
"Your grand-daughter, then?"
"No, sir. That young lady 'as done me the honor of promisin' to be my
wife."
"Oh!" said Dom Corria, fixing his brilliant eyes on Bulmer's vexed face.
"There's no 'Oh' about it," growled Dickey. "It was all cut an' dried
weeks ago, an' she 'asn't rued of 'er bargain yet, as far as I can make
out."
"You mean that the marriage was arranged before the _Andromeda_
sailed?" said Dom Corria gently.
"W'y, of course. It couldn't very well be fixed after, could it?"
"No--not as between you and her. I can vouch for that. Forgive me,
Mr. Bulmer--I have a daughter of marriageable age, you know, and I
speak as a parent--do you think that it is a wise thing for a man of
your years to marry a girl of twenty?"
"If I didn't, I wouldn't do it."
"But may it not be selfish?"
Then downright Lancashire took hold of the argument.
"Look 'ere, wot are you drivin' at?" demanded Dickey, now in a white
heat of anger. He had yet to learn that the President preferred a
straight-forward way of talking.
"I want you to forego this marriage," he said.
"Why?"
"Because that charming girl loves another man, but feels that she is
bound to you. I understand the position at last. Mr. Bulmer, you
cannot wish to break her heart and drive that fine young fellow, Philip
Hozier, to despair. Come, now! Let you and me reason this thing
together. Possibly, when she agreed to marry you she did not know what
love is. She is high-minded, an idealist, the soul of honor. What
other woman would have consented to be separated from her friends on
Fernando Noronha merely because it increased their meager chances of
safety? How few women, loving a man like Philip Hozier, who is assured
of a splendid reward for his services to this State, would resolutely
deny the claims of her own heart in order to keep her word?"
Bulmer had never heard anyone speak with the crystal directness of Dom
Corria. Each word chipped away some part of the fence which he had
deliberately erected around his own intelligence. Certain facts had
found crevices in the barrier already; Dom Corria broke down whole
sections. But he was a hard man, and stubborn. Throughout his long
life he had not been of yielding habit, and his heart was set on Iris.
"You are mighty sure that she is wrapped up in this young spark," he
growled.
"Were I not, I would not have interfered. Take my advice. First, ask
yourself an honest question. Then ask the girl. She will answer. I
promise you that."
"I'm a rich man," persisted Dickey.
"Yes."
"Nobody forced 'er, one way or the other."
"Possibly. One wonders, though, why she hid herself on the
_Andromeda_."
"It's true, I tell you. David said----"
"Who is David?"
"Her uncle."
"In England, I take it, if a man wishes to marry a girl he does not woo
her uncle. Of course, these customs vary. Here, in Brazil----"
Then Bulmer said something about Brazil that was not to be expected
from one of his staid demeanor. In fact, he regarded Brazil as the
cause of the whole trouble, and his opinion concerning that marvelous
land coincided with Hozier's. He turned and walked away, looking a
trifle older, a trifle more bent, perhaps, than when he came out of the
house.
An hour later, Dom Corria and Carmela met in a corridor. They were
discussing arrangements for a speedy move to the capital when Iris ran
into them. Her face was flushed, and she had been crying. Much to
Carmela's amazement, the English girl clasped her round the neck and
kissed her.
"Tell your father, my dear, that he has been very good to me," she
whispered; then her face grew scarlet again, and she hurried away.
"Excellent!" said the President. "That old man is a gentleman. His
friend is not. Yet they are very much alike in other respects. Odd
thing! Carmela _cara_, can you spare a few minutes from your invalid?"
"Yes, father."
"Go, then, and find that young Englishman, Philip Hozier. Tell him
that the engagement between Miss Yorke and Mr. Bulmer is broken off."
Carmela's black eyes sparkled. That wayward blood of hers surged in
her veins, but Dom Corria's calm glance dwelt on her, and the spasm
passed.
"Yes, father," she said dutifully.
He stroked his chin as he went out to pronounce a funeral oration on
those who had fallen during the fight.
"I think," said he reflectively, "I think that Carmela dislikes that
girl. I wonder why?"
Philip had never, to his knowledge, seen the Senhora De Sylva. Watts
spoke of her, remarking that she was "a reel pleasant young lady, a bit
flighty, p'raps, but, then, 'oo could tell wot any gal would do one
minnit from the next?" And that was all.
It was, therefore, something more than a surprise when the
sallow-faced, willowy girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and most demure
of manner, whom he remembered to have met in the gateway of Las Flores
early on the previous day, came to his tent and asked for him.
She introduced herself, and Philip was most polite.
"My father sent me----" she began.
"I ought to have waited on the President," he said, seeing that she
hesitated, "but several of my men are wounded, and we have so few
doctors."
She smiled, and Carmela could redeem much of her plainness of feature
by the singular charm of her smile.
"Dom Corria is a good doctor himself," she said.
"His skill will be much appreciated in Brazil at the present moment,"
said he, rather bewildered.
"He mends broken hearts," she persisted.
"Ah, a healer, indeed!" but he frowned a little.
"He is in demand to-day. He asked me to tell you of one most
successful operation. The--er--the engagement between Miss Iris
Yorke--is that the name?--and Mr.--Mr.--dear me----"
"Bulmer," scowled Philip, a block of ice in the warm air of Brazil.
"Yes, that is it--well--it is ended. She is free--for a little while."
There was a curious bleaching of Philip's weather-tanned face. It
touched a chord in Carmela's impulsive nature.
"It is all right," she nodded. "You can go to her."
She left him there, more shaken than he had ever been by thunderous sea
or screaming bullet.
"They are cold, these English," she communed, as she passed up the
slope to the house. "It takes something to rouse them. What would he
have said were he in Salvador's place last night!"
It did not occur to her that Philip could not possibly have been in
Salvador's place, since God has made as many varieties of men as of
berries, whereof some are wholesome and some poisonous, yet they all
have their uses. And she might have modified her opinion of his
coldness had she seen the manner of his meeting with Iris.
Visiting the sick is one of the Christian virtues, so Philip visited
Coke. Iris had just finished writing a letter, partly dictated, and
much altered in style, to Mrs. James Coke, Sea View, Ocean Road,
Birkenhead, when a gentle tap brought her to the door. She opened it.
Her wrist was seized, and she was drawn into the corridor. She had no
option in the matter. The tall young man who held her wrist proceeded
to squeeze the breath out of her, but she was growing so accustomed to
deeds of violence that she did not even scream.
"There is a British chaplain at Pernambuco," was Philip's incoherent
remark.
"I must ask my uncle," she gasped.
"No. Leave that to me. No man living shall say 'Yes' or 'No' to me
where you are concerned, Iris."
"Do not be hard with him, Philip dear. He was always good to me,
and--and--I have grown a wee bit afraid of you."
"Afraid!"
"Yes. You are so much older, so much sterner, than when you and I
looked at the Southern Cross together from the bridge of the
_Andromeda_."
"I was a boy then, Iris. I am a man now. I have fought, and loved,
and suffered. And what of you, dear heart? We went through the
furnace hand in hand. What of the girl who has come forth a woman?"
There was an open window at the end of the passage. Watts had bought,
or borrowed, or looted a bottle of wine. Schmidt and he were in a
shaded arbor beneath, and his voice came to them:
"It is always fair weather
When good fellows meet together . . ."
But another voice, hoarse as a foghorn, boomed through the door which
Iris had left ajar.
"Bring 'er in 'ere, you swab. D--n your eyes, if you come courtin' my
nurse, you'll 'ave to do it in my room or not at all. Wot the----"
"Come in, dear," said Iris. "The doctor says he is not to excite
himself. And he will be so glad to see you. He has been asking for
you all day."
* * * * * *
At Pernambuco, his excellency the President of the Republic of Brazil
was waited on by Admiral Prince Heinrich von Schnitzenhausen, who was
attended by an imposing armed guard. After compliments, the admiral
stated that his Imperial master wished to be informed as to the truth
or otherwise of a circumstantial statement made by the German Consul at
Maceio, and confirmed by functionaries at Pernambuco, that on a certain
date, to wit, September the 2d, he, Dom Corria De Sylva, aided and
abetted by a number of filibusters, did unlawfully seize and
sequestrate the steamship _Unser Fritz_, the said steamship being the
property of German subjects and flying the German flag.
Though the admiral's sentence was much longer than its English
translation, it only contained a dozen words. Its sound was fearsome
in consequence, and its effect ought to have been portentous. But Dom
Corria was unmoved.
"There is some mistake," said he.
"Exactly," said the admiral,
"an-error-the-most-serious-and-not-easily-rectifiable."
"On your part," continued Dom Corria. "The vessel you name is the
property of my friend and colleague Dom Alfonso Pondillo, of Maceio.
He purchased and paid for her on September 1st. Here is the receipt of
the former owners, given to the Deutsche Bank in Paris, and handed to
Senhor Pondillo's agents. You will observe the date of the
transaction."
The admiral read. He read again.
"Ach Gott!" he cried angrily. "There are some
never-to-be-depended-upon fools in the world, and especially in
Hamburg."
"Everywhere," agreed Dom Corria blandly. Carmela's memory was not
quite of the hereditary order. She had forgotten, for three whole
days, that the letter containing the receipt was in her pocket.
* * * * * *
When Coke was pronounced fit for comfortable travel, David Verity and
Dickey Bulmer conveyed him home. They took with them drafts on a
London bank for amounts that satisfied every sort of claim for the
sinking of the _Andromeda_. Judged by the compensation given to the
vessel's survivors, there could be no doubt that the dependants of the
men who lost their lives would be well provided for. Even Watts vowed
that the President had behaved reel 'andsome, and, as a token of
regeneration, swore that never another drop o' sperrits would cross his
lips. Wines and beers, of course, were light refreshments of a
different order. Schmidt, too, sublimely heedless of the diplomatic
storm he had caused, seemed to be contented. He taught Watts "_Es gibt
nur eine Kaiser Stadt_," and Watts taught him the famous chanty of the
_Alice_ brig and her marooned crew. But the latter effusion was
rehearsed far from Coke's deck-chair, because the captain of the mail
steamer said that although he liked Coke personally, some of the lady
passengers might complain.
At odd moments David and Dickey Bulmer discussed the partnership. The
young people would be home in two months, and then Philip was to come
into the business.
"We're growing old, David," said Dickey. "I've got plenty of money,
an' you'll 'ave a tidy bit now, but there's one thing neether of us can
buy, and that's youth."
"I don't want to be young again," said David, "but I'd like to go back
just a year or so--no more.
"Why?"
"Well, there's bin times w'en--w'en I'd 'ave acted different. Wot do
you say, Jimmie?"
Coke, thus appealed to, glowered at his employer.
"Say!" he growled. "I say nothink. I know you, David."
Philip and Iris attended Carmela's wedding during their honeymoon. The
cathedral at Rio de Janeiro was packed, and Iris was quite
inconspicuous among the many richly-attired ladies who graced the
ceremony by their presence. Nevertheless, Colonel Salvador San
Benavides favored her with a peculiar smile as he led his bride down
the central aisle.
She laughed, blushed, and looked at her husband.
"Yes, I saw him," he whispered. "But I never feared him. It was you
that made me sit up. By the way, old girl, let us cut out the
reception. I want to call at the bank, and at a shop in the Rua
Grande. You will be interested."
Well, being a good and loving wife, she was interested deeply. Ten
thousand pounds was Dom Corria's financial estimate of the services
rendered by Philip, and Iris was absolutely dumfounded by the total in
milreis. But her voice came back when Philip took her to a jeweler's,
and the man produced a gold cross on which blazed four glorious
diamonds. Dom Corria had given her a necklace many times more
valuable; but this----
"For remembrance!" said Philip.
"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she murmured, and her eyes grew moist.
THE END