The mids. hadn't noticed him go, for they were tremendously excited
again. Some more cavalry were clattering along between the lines of
soldiers, and in front of them, his black horse flecked with white foam,
they had recognised the Governor of Los Angelos and his two A.D.C.'s,
the fat little chap looking a jolly sight smarter on a horse than he did
climbing down ladders on board the _Hector_. They stopped opposite the
cathedral, dismounted, the Governor strode up the steps, the black
A.D.C. handed him a big blue paper, and he stood there looking nervously
first at the velvet curtains drawn across the entrance, and then at the
troops and the kneeling masses of people behind them. A battery of
field artillery began unlimbering on each side of the steps, the guns
pointing straight across the Plaza, more infantry marched up and formed
a semicircle, four deep, round the base of the steps, and the line of
soldiers, turning round, forced the people to rise from their knees, and
pressed them back away from the cathedral. There wasn't the least doubt
that something was going to happen, and I remembered that Mr. Macdonald
had told us that the Vice-President might be arrested or shot directly
after the service--perhaps that blue paper the Governor of Los Angelos
had in his hand was the warrant.
All this time the huge bell in the cathedral tower above us clanged and
jarred, and the minute-guns from San Sebastian shook the air, and made
it feel even hotter than it was. We were so excited that, for a moment,
I forgot about Gerald.
Suddenly we heard the organ inside the cathedral throbbing, the velvet
curtains were drawn aside, the Governor of Los Angelos, unfolding his
blue paper, sprang forward, and the little white figure of the President
appeared. The massed bands blared out some weird tune--probably the
Santa Cruz National Anthem--the troops presented arms, the Governor
saluted, and then seemed uncertain what to do. He was looking for some
one--the Vice-President, I felt certain--but his clumsy figure didn't
appear, only the long string of notables. I saw the Governor shake his
head and disappear into the cathedral, one of his A.D.C.'s dashed down
the steps, and the President, without looking back or moving a muscle of
his face, mounted a white horse, which was waiting for him, and cantered
away at the head of a cavalry escort, all the troops presenting arms and
shouting, '_Viva el Presidente_.'
Once or twice since we'd been in that window, hawkers had tried to make
us buy things by shoving up little baskets, of sweets and fruit,
fastened to long poles. They went from window to window and did a
roaring trade. Now as we watched the President cantering away, another
basket was thrust up. I pushed it away, but it came again. I shook my
head at the man down below who had done it, and saw something strange in
his expression. He nodded, and motioned with his free hand as if he
wanted me to pick something out, shoving the basket right under my nose.
I looked in, and there, under some small oranges, was a piece of folded
paper. I seized it, the basket was drawn down again, and I unfolded it.
Hurriedly scrawled there was, 'Can't come back. Get back to the Club
quickly, and stay there.--Gerald.'
'Phew!' I went cold all over with excitement. I didn't know what to
think.
I looked at my watch, it was 1.30, and remembered that Mr. Macdonald had
told us chaffingly that the revolution would begin at 1.25 sharp. I
wasn't going to move yet, especially if there was going to be any
fighting; we hadn't to meet Mr. Macdonald till three o'clock, and we
might as well see all the fun there was going on.
The soldiers began clearing the square now, crowds of people passing
along under our windows, Bob and his chum spotted some of our mids., and
yelled to them and to the four _Hercules_ mids. who came by too, but the
noise was so great, and they were so busy shoving and pushing in the hot
crowd, that they didn't hear them.
Presently Captain Grattan--Old Tin Eye--squinting through his eyeglass
and smiling at the crowd, Captain Roger Hill, sitting bolt upright and
looking bored, Perkins, and the Fleet Surgeon drove past in a carriage.
They were all in uniform, and the soldiers made a way for them through
the people.
'There's not going to be any firing after all,' the Angel said sadly.
'Look how peaceably all the people are clearing out.'
'Well, come along,' I sang out, 'we'll go along to the Club,' so we
picked up our hats and sticks, opened the door, and ran 'slick' into the
arms of that ugly little chap I'd seen outside the Club--the one Gerald
said had been shadowing him.
He had half-a-dozen sturdy nigger soldiers behind him, and he held up a
blue paper in front of me, grinning cunningly--hateful little beast.
I couldn't read the lingo, but there was Senor Gerald Wilson written
among the print, and a scrawling 'Jose Canilla' at the bottom, so I
guessed at once that this was a warrant for Gerald's arrest, and that he
must have given the little beast the slip. The nigger chaps began
closing round me, and had the cheek to try and seize hold of my wrists.
Well, I'm pretty strong, and I'm pretty bad-tempered too, and this was
too much for me. I'd torn the warrant to bits, punched Gerald's friend
good and hard in the face, and laid out the first two chaps who'd
touched me--banged their heads against the woodwork of the narrow
passage, before I'd thought of it--but then the others drew their
revolvers, and that wasn't playing the game. I yelled to the mids.,
shoved them back into the room, banged the door, and slipped two bolts
in as the chaps charged it.
'Lean out and try to get some of our fellows to help us,' I sang out;
'I'll hang on to the door.' It was the first idea that came, but then
it flashed through my head that the longer I kept them fooling round
after me, the more chance Gerald would have of escaping--I knew now that
that was what he must be doing.
'Slide down into the street--over the balcony--get to the Club--and tell
the Skipper I've been arrested,' I yelled out.
'Ain't going to leave you,' the Angel and Bob cried, and came in again
and got their shoulders against the door. 'There's not a single one of
our chaps about,' they panted, pushing against the creaking door.
My Christopher! it was a shoving match. Luckily the passage outside was
so narrow that only two people abreast could shove properly, but the
screws in the clasps of the bolts at the top of the door began to
'draw,' and I knew we couldn't hold them for long. Then they fired a
pistol through the door--high up--the bullet smashing against the
opposite wall.
I knew it was no use staying any longer, I didn't want a bullet in me.
'Clear out, and I'll come too,' I sang out, and we bolted to the window,
climbed over the balcony, and shinned down the iron uprights. As my feet
touched the pavement, a dozen soldiers threw themselves on top of me; I
hadn't a chance to strike out, my head was covered with a cloak, and the
next I knew I was inside the hotel bar, being trussed like a turkey.
As soon as he could do it safely, the little brute who'd had the warrant
came and kicked me in the stomach and spat at me--I must have had my
pipe in my hand when I hit him, for he had a gash across his
forehead--and the two whose heads I'd banged came along and kicked me
too.
Thank goodness, Bob and his chum weren't there--I guessed that they'd
been cute enough to cut away to the Club.
Even then I rather enjoyed it (not the kicking part--I'd be even with
those swine some day), thinking how disappointed they would all be when
they found that I wasn't Gerald.
Some more soldiers poured into the room, the little brute pulled a dirty
greasy cloth off a table, I was covered with it, carried outside like a
sack of potatoes, and dumped into a cart. Something else soft was
dumped in beside me, half-a-dozen chaps sat on me to keep me quiet, and
off we drove. I could hear horses' hoofs on either side of the cart and
the clatter of scabbards and jingle of accoutrements, so knew I had a
cavalry escort, and felt jolly proud that Gerald was such a big 'pot' in
the revolution business as to require one.
We went slowly after a little while--going uphill. I wondered whether
they were taking me to San Sebastian, but didn't wonder long, because a
minute-gun was fired--about the last of them--and it sounded quite
close.
In a minute or two we bumped and rattled across a wooden bridge, and
then stopped.
As I was hauled out, they pulled the cloth away from the soft thing
beside me, and it was the body of the officer who'd been shot in the
square. Ugh! that was rather beastly. An old chap came along--the boss
of the fort, I suppose--and jawed to me in French and Spanish, and got
savage when I couldn't understand him. He thought I _wouldn't_.
He soon got tired of this, and I was led across the courtyard by a band
of ruffians with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles (I saw them load their
magazines). We passed behind the crumbling old walls, where a party of
soldiers were cleaning out the saluting guns, and I was shoved into a
kind of store-room, dug out of the rock or in the thickness of the
walls, and shut in there by a big iron gateway of a door, on the outside
of which a miserable little beast of a half-nigger sentry leant and
smoked cigarettes.
There were seven others in there, all quiet individuals in plain
clothes, who rose and bowed to me when I was brought in, thinking at
first, I suppose, that I was Gerald. They looked very relieved when
they saw that I wasn't. Two of them had rosettes of black and green
with the stripes horizontal, so I knew why they were there. One very
courteous old gentleman put a cigarette between my lips, lighted it with
his own, and then slacked off the ropes round my wrists and arms, the
sentry, turning round to watch us, simply shrugged his shoulders when my
arms were free again, and I commenced whirling them round and round to
try and do away with the numbness and the 'pins and needles.' He just
half opened the breech-bolt of his Mauser rifle, pointed very
suggestively at the cartridges inside, turned round again, and went on
smoking. Somebody offered me an empty cartridge-box and I sat on it,
watching the other chaps busy writing things in notebooks or even on
their shirt cuffs.