Crasweller turned upon his heel and walked down the hill with the officers,—all the crowd accompanying them; while Bunnit and the bar-keeper had gone off with the horses. I had not descended from the carriage; but there I was, planted alone,—the President of the Republic left on the top of the hill in his carriage without means of locomotion! On looking round I saw Jack, and with Jack I saw also a lady, shrouded from head to foot in black garments, with a veil over her face, whom I knew, from the little round hat upon her head, to be Eva. Jack came up to me, but where Eva went I could not see. "Shall we walk down to the house?" he said. I felt that his coming to me at such a moment was kind, because I had been, as it were, deserted by all the world. Then he opened the door of the carriage, and I came out. "It was very odd that those fellows should have turned up just at this moment," said Jack.
"When things happen very oddly, as you call it, they seem to have been premeditated."
"Not their coming to-day. That has not been premeditated; at least not to my knowledge. Indeed I did not in the least know what the English were likely to do."
"Do you think it right to send to the enemies of your country for aid against your country?" This I asked with much indignation, and I had refused as yet to take his arm.
"Oh but, sir, England isn't our enemy."
"Not when she comes and interrupts the quiet execution of our laws by threats of blowing us and our city and our citizens to instant destruction!"
"She would never have done it. I don't suppose that big gun is even loaded."
"The more contemptible is her position. She threatens us with a lie in her mouth."
"I know nothing about it, sir. The gun may be there all right, and the gunpowder, and the twenty tons of iron shot. But I'm sure she'll not fire it off in our harbour. They say that each shot costs two thousand five hundred pounds, and that the wear and tear to the vessel is two thousand more. There are things so terrible, that if you will only create a belief in them, that will suffice without anything else. I suppose we may walk down. Crasweller has gone, and you can do nothing without him."
This was true, and I therefore prepared to descend the hill. My position as President of the Republic did demand a certain amount of personal dignity; and how was I to uphold that in my present circumstances? "Jack," said I, "it is the sign of a noble mind to bear contumely without petulance. Since our horses have gone before us, and Crasweller and the crowd have gone, we will follow them." Then I put my arm within his, and as I walked down the hill, I almost took joy in thinking that Crasweller had been spared.