'My mamma is waiting at the bottom of the garden, and wants to know whether she may come in.'
'Certainly, my boy,' I said. 'But who is your mother?'
'My father is the governor, and we have had to run away from the town, for the soldiers are burning the houses and killing everybody.'
With that he ran away into the rain and the darkness, and came back after a second or two, followed by a lady, with several children and two maid-servants.
I immediately took them into the bedroom, and handed an armchair to Mrs. D——, the governor's wife, who was pale with exhaustion and suffering, and almost in a fainting condition. As soon as she was sufficiently rested to be able to speak, she told me that on the previous night, shortly after twelve o'clock, she had been startled from her sleep by the discharge of cannon, with which the mutineers had signalised the commencement of the revolt. Her husband immediately rushed into the street. He had hardly been gone two minutes, when suddenly a hail of mitrailleuse bullets began to crash through the house, riddling the very walls of her bedroom. By a miracle, in the midst of this deadly fire, she had time to collect all her children, and escape with them unhurt into the street by a back-door. In a few seconds more the house was in flames, and as she hurried away, she could hear the jubilant shouts with which the mutineers greeted the supposed successful slaughter of her husband and his family. She managed to escape to a little house on the beach, where she had remained hidden during the day without having been detected. But towards night the uproar and fighting amongst the mutineers increased, several houses were set fire to, and fearing that any moment a passing soldier might burst into the house and discover her, as soon as it got dark she had decided on attempting to reach the English consul's house. By chance she had learned during the daytime that her husband had escaped, and that in all probability he had gone to fetch the Chilian man-of-war Magellanes, now at Skyring Water, to put down the revolt.
I told her that Mr. Dunsmuir would, in all probability, not be back that night, but that, in the meantime, I should be glad to render her any assistance that she might require.
The children, the eldest of whom was the little boy who had come to the door first, and he was only seven, were dressed in whatever clothes the servants had hurriedly been able to snatch up on the night of the first alarm.
The poor things were in a terrible plight. They had been more than two hours on the road from Sandy Point, and were drenched to the skin with the rain and mire. They had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. I took them in some tea; but rest being what they chiefly required, with the help of mattresses and rugs, etc., we managed to make some tolerably comfortable beds for them. Having done this, we withdrew to the sitting-room, there to consult as to our plan of action, should the mutineers come to the house.
In the midst of the discussion, there was another knock; and on the door being opened, two more fugitives from the colony, an Irishman and his wife, made their appearance. Both seemed to have had recourse to strong stimulants to support their courage, and under the circumstances they were certainly not a desirable addition to our party.
During all this time McGregor had preserved a cheerful, unconcerned demeanour. He had been particularly active in his attentions to the D—— family, to the extent of insisting, with well-meant but misplaced zeal, that all should swallow a drop of whisky before going to bed. He found the new-comers did not require so much pressing.