Part 5

'Tut, tut, tut, tut,' our Captain said, jumping out of his chair and screwing in his eyeglass. 'Tut, tut, that's serious. Come this way,' and he took us in to the British Minister--a big tall chap with a nose like a hawk and great bushy eyebrows, dressed in white duck clothes. We had to tell our story again, clutching each other; he made us so frightened, looking at us so fiercely. You couldn't tell from his face what he thought of it, but he told the Captain that he'd change into uniform and take us to the President right away.

'It's serious,' he said. 'Gerald Wilson is too openly mixed up in politics to claim our protection, and things may go badly with his brother.'

We felt so jolly relieved that something was at last going to be done that we did have some tea then, the ladies crowding round the Angel and helping him, though they weren't so keen on me--they never are, which is a jolly good thing. 'If I'd a face like a girl's they'd fuss round me too,' I told the Angel, and he was beastly rude and called me 'Old Pimple Face,' and made them all laugh at me. I could have kicked him.

The Minister was back again before we'd finished stuffing, and then hurried us away--he and the Captain in one carriage, and Mr. Perkins and we two in another.

We drove as fast as ever we could back to the town, and the soldiers we passed looked as if they'd like to shoot us. They scowled so much that I was jolly glad that the Minister was in his gorgeous gold braid uniform and the Captain and Mr. Perkins were in theirs. We had to pass close to San Sebastian, and we told Mr. Perkins that that was probably where Billums had been taken. 'Mr. Macdonald told us they take all the revolutionary people there.'

Just as we'd told him this, we heard a scrappy kind of a volley from inside the walls.

'Good God!' Mr. Perkins nearly jumped off his seat, his red face turning quite yellow; 'they're shooting people already. Why can't we go faster?' I almost blubbed.

We were back again in the city now, the streets simply filled with soldiers, leaning up against the walls, trying to find a little shade and some of them shouting rudely at us as we passed.

At last we stopped opposite some big iron gates through which soldiers were coming and going in hundreds. The sentries there wouldn't let the Minister pass through at first, till an officer came along. Then we all got out and walked in, following the Minister, who stalked along, head and shoulders taller than any of the officers standing about, and pushed his way into a big room crowded with very excited people, most of them officers, half of them niggers and the other half not much lighter. They left off chattering as we appeared, and bowed and clicked their heels when they saw the Minister, but didn't look at all pleased.

'They hate us English,' I heard the Minister tell the Captain. 'Most of us favour the Vice-President's party, though only Gerald Wilson has been fool enough to do so openly.'

We stuck very closely to him whilst officers and orderlies kept on streaming in and out of a small door leading into another room. Most of their uniforms were jolly smart--either white with yellow facings or khaki with white facings. Cavalry officers had a light-blue striped cotton tunic fitting very tightly and very bulging khaki riding-breeches. They looked awful dandies, and all wore stiff white shirts with cuffs although it was so hot--the blacker they were and the more like niggers, the more stiff white cuffs they showed.

What the Angel and I noticed chiefly about the infantry officers was that they didn't seem to worry so much whether their clothes fitted them, and they nearly all wore patent-leather 'Jemima' boots, with the elastic generally worn out and quite loose round the ankles.

'The President is not here--won't be here for some time--he's gone to San Sebastian,' the Minister said in a low voice.

You could never tell whether he was worried about it or not--his voice and his face never changed. 'We shall have to wait. He's a fiery little chap--thinks he is the Napoleon of the west, and loves to show off before us Europeans. He'll be in a pretty bad temper to-day. He meant to arrest the Vice-President, de Costa, as he left the cathedral, but he and his friends got wind of it and left by a side door; smuggled away as priests or nuns, some say, and have slipped through his fingers. He meant to "scotch" the revolution which is coming, and he's failed badly, so he'll be a pretty handful to tackle.'

'Well, _he_ might be able to tackle him,' the Angel whispered, and we both thought that he looked perfectly grand in his uniform. Then there was a great clatter outside; we could hear officers calling their men to attention; trumpets were blown, all the officers in the room took their cigarettes out of their mouths, stood bolt-upright, and in came the President just as we'd seen him in the procession. Every one made a lane for him to pass into the room beyond, and he spotted us, but hardly took any notice of the Minister's salute or of our Captain's either, which made the Angel and me very angry, though we were really too frightened at his very cruel-looking eyes to be angry.

Several people followed him--all very gorgeously dressed--covered with medals and with green and yellow sashes over their shoulders, and the last to come in was the little A.D.C. from Los Angelos with the big spurs and the curved sword.

The Minister spoke to one of them, who seemed to be doing 'orderly' officer, but he only shrugged his shoulders, went into the little room. We heard a few fierce words and back he came, shrugging his shoulders all the more.

'He says the President is too busy to see me,' the Minister told the Captain, who was gradually getting angry at being treated like this. Then there was another commotion, and in came the grand-looking old Governor of Los Angelos and the black A.D.C. He seemed to be a friend of the Minister, for he stopped and shook his hand, bowed and yarned quite pleasantly. He too went into the other room.

'I've told him that I must see the President,' the Minister said, and we waited again, though even he wasn't successful, and came back shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands, his great sword clanking along the floor.

The Minister's face never altered the slightest bit. 'He refuses to see me--will only receive the senior foreign Minister--that is the Comte de Launy, the Frenchman. It's no use waiting here any longer--we must go and find him--it will take an hour.'

His voice never altered in the slightest degree, but the Captain was 'tut tutting' and polishing his eye-glass, whilst Mr. Perkins was bubbling over with wrath.

As we went out we saw the officers all sneering at us, but the Governor sang out something very angrily, and they stood to attention and he himself bowed us out. We were jolly glad to get out, I can tell you, because it was such a horrid feeling to have all these strange fierce-looking officers all round us without being able to understand a word they said, and to feel certain that they'd like to murder us.

'Well, the old Governor's a gent, isn't he?' the Angel whispered.

We drove back to the Residence--I was feeling awfully sick with funk about Billums--and there we were left whilst the Captain and the Minister drove away again to find the Frenchman.

It was long after four o'clock; Mr. Macdonald would be on his way down to Los Angelos, and we hadn't the least idea how we should get back; but we didn't want to go back so long as old Billums was shut up in San Sebastian, and might be shot any minute.

There were only three ladies there now, the Minister's wife and her two daughters, and they did their very best to cheer us up. The Angel was in great form--he always was when ladies were about--and sang his rotten songs; but as I couldn't sit still, I wandered out into the courtyard, and fed some goldfish in one of the fountains. It was fairly cool there, and every time I heard wheels I ran to the gateway, but they didn't come back till nearly six o'clock, and when I rushed out, hoping to see Billums with them, there was only a dried-up little man in another gorgeous uniform--the French Minister.

'No good, Temple,' the Captain said, looking awfully serious.

'He won't let him go till his brother surrenders--does it to humiliate us.'

'What are you going to do now, sir?' I asked him, but he didn't answer.

They all three drove away again, and Mr. Perkins told me that they were going to collect all the foreign Ministers, and intended to see him in a body.

Then he and we two mids. had to do more waiting--it was terrible. The sun went down, it got dark quite suddenly, and we couldn't help thinking of the awful road down the mountains to Los Angelos and how we were going to get down there at night.

The Minister's wife gave us some dinner and tried to be jolly, but I couldn't be, and couldn't eat anything. She and the girls were pretty nervous too, because, all the time we were pretending to have dinner, there were noises as if a riot was going on in the town. We were all fidgeting, and the black men-servants in their scarlet liveries were very jumpy. You could see by the way they moved about that they were frightened too.

The Minister's wife made them close the big windows and that drowned a good deal of the noise, and I couldn't see the dark creepy shadows of the palms outside and felt less uncomfortable. She kept on saying, 'I wish your father would come back,' and, just as we were going to have some coffee, we heard the banging of rifles. The black footman dropped his tray, and all of them simply trembled. It was no use to sit any longer at the table, the two girls began to cry, and then it was our turn to do something to help.

The firing sometimes seemed to be coming our way, so we three went round the garden and made sure that all the gates were locked--a jolly creepy job it was out there in the dark, and I jumped every time I heard a rifle go off. The servants were all standing about, whispering and looking frightened, which made it all the more horrid; so, to give them something to do, we sent them to close all the shutters, though we couldn't get them to go into the street to close some there, and had to do that ourselves. Then we made the three ladies come into the drawing-room, lighted all the lamps, and tried to cheer them up. The Angel played the piano, and Mr. Perkins, who hates singing, bellowed out some sea-songs and made them join in the choruses. That wasn't much of a success, so he scratched his funny old head and did a few tricks. One was to stand straight upright and then sit down on the floor without bending his knees, and he did it so jolly well that it nearly shook the ornaments off the mantelpiece, and the bump frightened them all. Then he showed them how he could fall flat on his chest without bending his knees, and did it, but banged his chin hard on the polished floor, so that wasn't quite a success either.

We couldn't think of any other tricks.

Nine o'clock came, and ten o'clock--there was no firing now--and half-past ten came before we heard several carriages coming towards the house, and went out into the courtyard to the street gate.

The Minister, the Captain, the tall German, who turned out to be the German Minister, and was in a grand-looking uniform, the little Frenchman, four or five others, and the United States Minister in ordinary evening dress, got down, and then several ladies, closely wrapped up, came in too.

All the Ministers disappeared into another room by themselves, only the Captain and the ladies coming into the drawing-room. He was saying 'tut, tut' all the time, and all we could get out of him was, 'We've been treated like children--tut, tut--by a miserable half-bred savage--he won't listen to us.'

'A lot of firing going on in the city, isn't there, sir?' Mr. Perkins asked.

'Only a few drunken soldiers letting off their rifles,' he grunted, and then he was sent for, and a few minutes afterwards a man-servant came in to ask the Minister's wife to speak to her husband. She went out, and we could hear her speaking to him, and back she came looking very pale. 'Captain Grattan' (that was our Captain) 'has asked us to stay on board the _Hector_, my dears; we are going down with him to-night.'

She tried to look cheerful, but they and we knew what that meant--that it wasn't safe for them in Santa Cruz any longer--and the girls began to cry again. All three of them went away to get ready.

'Phew! Great smokes,' Mr. Perkins whistled, 'it's come to a pretty pass--that ass of a Sub has stirred up a hornets' nest, if you like.'

'It wasn't his fault, sir,' I said; 'he couldn't help it.'

Just then the Captain and the Ministers trooped in. They looked as though they'd come to some decision which pleased them, and it made the Angel and me feel more happy about poor old Billums up there in San Sebastian. We both wondered whether he'd had any dinner, and what he thought had become of us--all this time. Some more ladies came in, all wrapped up in furs because the night was very cold, and in the middle of all the hubbub we heard a lot of cavalry coming along. They stopped outside the house, and a moment later the Governor of Los Angelos, with his two A.D.C.'s, came in. Weren't we pleased to see him, that's all! There was more bowing and scraping, coffee was handed round, and we two edged alongside the little A.D.C. who had talked English in the gun-room yesterday. He recognised us then and said, smiling, 'We take you to Los Angelos to-night--the senoras and the senoritas also--we have many horse soldiers--the road it has much danger.'

'How about Billums--William Wilson--our Sub?' we asked, 'up in San Sebastian.'

He smiled, and pulled out--what d'you think?--old Billums's cigarette case--I knew it jolly well--and said, 'I give him my--he give me him,' but shut up like an oyster, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head when we asked him if Billums was coming with us. That made us miserable again, and we went out to see what the cavalry escort were like. They had dismounted, and were swaggering into the courtyard, looking absolute villains, most of them niggers, their carbines and bandoliers over their shoulders, revolvers in their belts, and swords, which clanked and rattled whenever they moved. The servants were giving them cigarettes and some food, but, for all that, they didn't seem at all friendly, and the whites of their eyes showed up under the swinging lanterns, and made them look more like brigands than ever. The Angel palled up to them and made them show him their rifles, but I felt too frightened and only hoped that the Governor was coming with us. The carriages drove up, all the ladies came out and were put into them, the dear old Governor of Los Angelos handing them in and bending down to kiss our Minister's wife's hands in such a jolly manner that the Angel and I could have hugged him.

We felt that he could be absolutely trusted, and weren't we jolly glad again when his horse was led up and he and part of the escort rode away with the ladies.

In the last carriage the Captain, Mr. Perkins, and we two mids. were stowed, and away we went after them with the two A.D.C.'s bobbing behind on their horses and the rest of the escort, leaving the Ministers all standing together under the lamp which lit up their faces and all their beautiful gold lace.

'They don't look very "sniffy," do they?' I whispered to the Angel, 'I should if I was letting my wife go away like this.'

'Not if you'd got those uniforms on and had a Frenchman or a German or a Dutchman watching you,' he whispered.

I expect he was right.

The Governor came clattering back on his great horse to see that we'd started, and then went on ahead again, the black A.D.C. bumping along after him.

You can imagine what a row we made, and how, as we got into the streets, all the shutters of the windows were thrown back and people peered at us from behind the bars; dogs, too, flew out and barked from every doorway. It was a wonderful night--a big moon and millions of stars, the tops of the mountains showing up all round us. Jolly cold it was, too, and the Angel and I were glad to snuggle together under a rug.

We seemed to go a long way round, skirting the city, and though sometimes at street corners pickets and patrols challenged us, they were quite satisfied. Presently we passed close to a great shadowy building high up on our right. It had a funny little tower at one corner, and we recognised the shadow at once--it was San Sebastian.

The Angel and I squeezed each other to buck ourselves up, and kept our eyes on it all the time. It looked most awfully gloomy, and it seemed horrid to think that only twelve hours ago Billums had driven past it with us, and now he was inside and we were going back without him.

'What will he think of us?' I gulped. 'Poor old Billums!'

Well, we got on to the main road, left the city behind us, and presently began to go downhill. Mr. Perkins went to sleep soon, his jolly red face rolling from side to side as the carriage bumped, and the Captain snuggled down in the other corner, and we knew when he went to sleep, because his eyeglass fell out, and he didn't 'tut, tut,' and put it back.

We didn't go to sleep for a long time--we were too miserable and cold--and watched the troopers riding on each side of us with their blankets over their shoulders, and every half-mile or so, flaming fires at the side of the road, with soldiers sitting round them. We could hear them challenging the carriages in front, but when we got up to them, they only stared at us, or called out to the escort, and wrapped their blankets round them more closely. There was a huge nigger chap riding on my side of the carriage, and both he and his wretched thin horse seemed nearly asleep. I watched him bobbing and lurching from side to side in his saddle, waking up with a start whenever his poor brute stumbled, and then must have gone to sleep, because the next I remember was finding that we were going past rows of houses--pitch dark, with not a sound coming from them--and knew that we'd got down to Los Angelos.

I was colder than ever, because the Angel had all the rug, but the smell of the sea was grand.

We drove down to the wharf where we'd landed in the morning. The carriages all stopped--I could hardly stand when I got out because my legs were so cramped--and two of our barges were waiting for us, their mids. holding up lanterns and singing out to let us know where they were.

The cavalry escort clattered away, the old Governor kissed the hands of all the ladies as he helped them into the boats, the two A.D.C.'s, looking frightfully sleepy, clicked their heels and bowed, the Captain said, 'Tut, tut,' a good many times and shook the Governor by the hand, the Angel and I managed to get hold of the fat A.D.C. and shake his hand, and off we all went.

It was simply splendid to be in a boat again and to hear the oars go 'click, click' in the rowlocks, and when we'd got round the end of the breakwater to see the lights of the _Hector_ and _Hercules_. The other chaps who had gone back before us had taken orders for the two barges to wait in, all night, if necessary; that was why we'd found them there.

The Angel and I were both of us dead tired, and went down below to turn in, but there was a lot of scurrying up above; we heard the Gunnery Lieutenant sent for, and the Captain's Clerk was turned out. Evidently something exciting was going to happen, so we ran up on deck again and, peeping down the ward-room skylight, saw our Captain and the Captain of the _Hercules_, the Commander, and most of our senior officers all sitting round the table, which was littered with papers and confidential books.

We stole away, because the officer of the watch whacked us over the back with his telescope, and were undressing in the gun-room flat when the bugler sounded the 'officers' call' and 'both watches fall in.' We heard 'Clear lower deck' being shouted along the mess decks and bugles sounding aboard the _Hercules_, so instead of undressing we shifted into uniform, whilst every one else tumbled out of their hammocks and shifted into theirs. We all clattered up on deck.

'Everybody aft' was piped, and the men came streaming through the dark battery door into the glare of the group light on the quarterdeck, buttoning up the tops of their trousers and stuffing their flannels down them.

The master-at-arms reported 'Lower deck cleared, sir,' to the Commander, he reported to the Captain, and the Captain, standing on the top of the after 9.2 inch turret, coughed, said 'tut, tut,' a good many times, and then told the men that Billums had been collared because he was so much like his brother, who'd mixed himself up in politics, that the President was going to keep him till Gerald surrendered, and that all the foreign Ministers were agreed that steps had to be taken jolly quickly to get him out of San Sebastian.

The men were as quiet as lambs, waiting for the exciting part and to know what he intended doing. You couldn't hear a sound. 'I want you to clear for action--now--do it quickly--I'm going to take the _Hector_ inside the breakwater at daylight, whilst Captain Roger Hill'--he called him 'Old Spats,' but corrected himself--'gets under way in the _Hercules_ and prepares to tackle the forts. They've got some--you've seen them--up on the hill above the town--but won't give us much trouble. If Mr. Wilson is not at the landing-stage at noon, the foreign Ministers will be, and they and all the Europeans who wish will come aboard this ship. That being the case, I shall then--acting under the Ministers' orders--take possession of the five Santa Cruz cruisers and gunboats inside and shall tow them out.'

You could feel the men getting excited, and then he gave several more 'tut, tuts,' and told us that a revolution had started, and that, as the revolutionary people came from both the provinces to the north and south, and the mountains separated them and made it impossible for them to combine successfully by land, the only way they could do so was by the sea, and as long as the President had his cruisers and gunboats he could prevent them doing so, and keep the upper hand.

'If we capture his ships, the insurgents can do what they like,' and he finished up with, 'There are ladies aboard--we couldn't leave them in Santa Cruz--so work quietly. Carry on, Commander!' We dug out like smoke, turning the boats in and filling them with water, getting down davits and rails, lashing the rigging, and working hard till daylight came.

Then all us mids. scrambled down below to get some hot cocoa and bread and butter, and were up on deck again in a jiffy, for the buglers sounded 'cable officers,' which meant that we were just going to weigh anchor, and we didn't want to miss any of the fun.

The _Hercules_, cleared for action, just astern of us, was looking awfully grim, her long guns simply bristling over the sides, and white ensigns lashed in her rigging.

Petty Officer O'Leary came up to ask about Billums--he was very worried about him--and, just as we began to steam ahead, a cloud of smoke shot out from one of the forts above the town.

'They're going to fight,' I sang out, not quite certain that I wasn't frightened.

But O'Leary growled, and said, 'No such luck, sir, anyway, that's only the sunrise gun--late as usu'l, sir.'

'General quarters' was sounded--we could hear it too aboard the _Hercules_--and we all had to rush to our stations. Mine was in the starboard for'ard 9.2 turret, and you may bet your life that directly we'd cleared it away, and had things ready inside, I got my head jammed outside the sighting hood to see what was going on.