A withering volley crashed through the window[Illustration: A withering volley crashed through the window]
A withering volley crashed through the window[Illustration: A withering volley crashed through the window]
"Now, come on!" shouted the same voice, and Philip Hozier rushed into the ballroom, followed by his scouts and a horde of Brazilian regulars. No one not actually an eye-witness of that thrilling spectacle would believe that a fight waged with such determined malevolence could stop so suddenly as did that fray in Las Flores. It was true, now as ever, that men of a mixed race cannot withstand the unforeseen. Dom Miguel fallen, and his cohort decimated by the leaden storm that tore in at them from an unexpected quarter, the rest fled without another blow. They raced madly for their horses, to find that every tethered group was in the hands of this new contingent. Then the darkness swallowed them. Dom Miguel's cavalry was disbanded.
At once the medley within died down. Men had no words as yet to meet this astounding development. Dom Corria went to where his rival lay. Dom Miguel was dying. His eyes met De Sylva's in a strange look of recognition. He tried to speak, but choked and died.
Then the living President stooped over the dead one. He murmured something. Those near thought afterward that he said:
"Is it worth it? Who knows!"
But he was surely President now; seldom have power and place been more hardly won.
His quiet glance sought Philip.
"Thank you, Mr. Hozier," he said. "All Brazil is your debtor. As for me, I can never repay you. I owe you my life, the lives of my daughter and of many of my friends, and the success of my cause."
Philip heard him as in a dream. He was looking at Iris. Her eyes were shining, her lips parted, yet she did not come to him. By her side was standing a white-haired old man, an Englishman, a stranger. Bending over Coke, and wringing his hands in incoherent sorrow, was another elderly Briton. A fear that Philip had never before known gripped his heartstrings now. He was pale and stern, and his forehead was seamed with foreboding.
"Who is that with Miss Yorke?" he said to Dom Corria.
The President had a rare knack of answering a straight question in a straight way.
"A Mr. Bulmer, I am told," he said.
There was a pause. General Russo, carved from head to foot, but so stout withal that his enemies' weapons had reached no vital part, approached. He thumped his huge stomach.
"We must rally our men," he said. "If we collect even five thousand to-night——"
"Yes," said De Sylva, "I will come. Before I go, Mr. Hozier, let me repeat that I and Brazil are grateful."
"May the devil take both you and Brazil!" was Philip's most ungracious reply, and he turned and strode out into the night.
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 theAndromeda; three were Germans from theUnser 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 thePresident, 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 theAndorinhawas 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 theAndromedasailed?" 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 theAndromeda."
"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! Carmelacara, 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 theAndromeda."
"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 weatherWhen 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 steamshipUnser 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 theAndromeda. 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 theAlicebrig 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