Of course I did not tell him of that warrant.
'If he gets over the first three or four days safely he'll be all
right,' Dr. Robson told me; and before the British Minister went away, I
implored him to try and get leave for me to stay in Santa Cruz till
then. He was awfully decent, drove straight away to the Club, found
Captain Roger Hill, got leave not only for me but for Cousin Bob, and
made us stay at his house too--which was jolly kind of him. As it was
not far from General Zorilla's house we could very often run in to see
Gerald for a few minutes at a time.
They sent our clothes up from the ship, and as Gerald went on very well
indeed, we had quite a good time; but on the second day after he'd been
shot, I had to get into my brother's things and lead his little brown
chaps down to Los Angelos. They wouldn't go without him, were getting
troublesome again, and the city was in deadly fear lest they should
still take it into their heads to sack the place. The little chaps
still took me for Gerald whilst I was on horseback, with his polo helmet
jammed down over my head, but I don't imagine that most of the officers
did so. They pretended that I was Gerald in order to keep their men
under control, and were much too anxious to get back to their homes and
plantations in the provinces to give the show away.
The 'Gnome' and Jose both came with me to help the deception, and I
heard the 'Gnome' give a great sigh of relief when, eventually, the last
of Gerald's men were put aboard those transports inside the breakwater.
As each transport steamed out of the harbour, the little Santa Cruz
ships cheered wildly and the men cheered back, '_Viva los Horizontals!'
'Viva de Costa!' 'Viva Don Geraldio!_' and as the last one steamed
slowly round the lighthouse and passed the _Hercules_, I could still
hear cries of '_Viva Don Geraldio!' 'Viva los Inglesas!_'
I stood on the wharf for some time, watching the transports steaming
along the coast, some northwards, the others to the south, and I really
felt very sorry to see the last of the little chaps with whom I had gone
through so many exciting days. I could see that the 'Gnome,' however
relieved he was for them to go away, felt as I did, and they seemed to
have had so little reward for all they'd done in the last three months
that you couldn't help feeling that, after all their pluck and
hardships, they hadn't gained much for themselves.
We rode slowly up the mountain to Santa Cruz, and at that sharp turning,
where we had seen the yellow and green flag last flying, we stopped and
for a minute watched the transports, little smoky dots on the glistening
sea, a thousand feet below us, as they carried the brave little chaps to
their homes.
On the fifth morning after the operation, Bob and I had to wish Gerald
good-bye, and go back to the _Hercules_. He was going on grandly.
'You'll have a pretty big job as Commander-in-Chief when you get well,'
I said jokingly, but he shook his head. 'No, Billums! I shall chuck it
and try and make some money on the estate again. I'm rather bored with
revolutions and fighting just at present, and want to get away from
here. I'll get that little chap you call the "Gnome" to come with me,
and I'll see if I can't pay off some of my debts.'
No one had told Gerald about the warrant, so it wasn't funk which made
him think of leaving Santa Cruz, and you can guess how pleased I was to
hear him say this, and how jolly pleased the mater would be too.
'We've had an exciting three months of it, old chap, haven't we? but I'm
going to take a rest. We've done all this fighting and killing, marching
and starving, and we've only turned out one bad President to put
another, just as bad, in his place. The game's not worth the candle.'
At the back of my mind I really thought the same, and I only hoped that
he would still stick to his determination when he did get strong again.
I had to leave him there, in Zorilla's house--with the two nuns and Jose
to look after him--and Bob and I rode, for the last time, through that
square.
Dear old Zorilla had lent us horses, and he and the 'Gnome' came with us
along the road past San Sebastian and beyond the spot where Bob, the
'Angel,' and I had knocked over the carriage with the _Hercules_'
midshipmen, right along till the road began to drop down towards Los
Angelos.
I shook the old man's hand--I felt that Gerald would be safe with
him--and I gripped the 'Gnome's' hand too; it was all I could do, for we
could not speak each other's languages, and we rode away. At the next
turning we looked back and they were still there, watching us, the
General on his big black horse and the 'Gnome' on a little white
one--showing up against the sky. We waved our hats, they gravely waved
theirs, and that was the last we saw of them. We both felt intensely
miserable, and didn't say a word for quite half an hour, when Bob at
last said, 'Do you know what those two remind me of?--the picture of Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza.'
I smiled at him. No knight of old could have been a grander chap than
was old Zorilla, and I thought of what the British Minister had told me
just before we left him. 'The first time in his life that old Zorilla
has ever been known to disobey an order was when he tore your brother's
warrant into pieces.'
Funnily enough, the one thing that always makes me feel so glad, when I
now think of this three months, was that I rescued his black horse, and
was the means of him getting it back again.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*The *_*Hector*_* goes Home*
_Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N._