"Let me go there at once and change my clothing. I must appear before the troops as their President, not as a jail-bird. For the moment I leave everything to you and San Benavides. Let Senhor Pondillo be summoned. He will attend to the civil side of affairs. You have my unqualified approval of the military scheme drawn up by you and my other friends. There is one thing—a gunboat lies in the harbor. Is she the Andorinha?"
The newly-promoted general smote his huge stomach with both hands—"beating the drum," he called it—and the rat-tat signified instant readiness for action.
"The guns will soon scare that bird," he exclaimed. As Andorinha means "swallow" in English there was some point to the remark. Nor was he making a vain boast. The most astounding feature of every revolution in a South American republic is the alacrity with which the army will fire on the navy, et vice versâ. The two services seem to be everlastingly at feud. If politicians fail to engineer a quarrel, the soldiers and sailors will indulge in one on their own account.
It was so now at Maceio. Dawn was about to peep up over the sea when twelve guns lumbered through the narrow streets, waking many startled citizens. A few daring souls, who guessed what had happened, rushed off on horseback or bicycle to remote telegraph offices. These adventurers were too late. Every railway station and post-office within twenty miles was already held by troops. Revolts are conducted scientifically in that region. Their stage management is perfect, and the cumbrous methods of effete civilizations might well take note of the speed, thoroughness, and efficiency with which a change of government is effected.
For instance, what could be more admirable than the scaring of the bird by General Russo? He drew up his three batteries on the wharf opposite the unsuspecting Andorinha, and endeavored to plant twelve shells in the locality of her engine-room without the least hesitation. There was no thought of demanding her surrender, or any quixotic nonsense of that sort. In the first place, no man would act as herald, since he would be shot or stabbed the instant his errand became known; in the second, as Hozier had explained to Iris, the gunboat could slip her cable very quickly, and Russo's artillerists might miss a moving object.
As it was, every gun scored, though the elevation was rather high. The shells made a sad mess of the superstructure, but left the engines intact. The sailors, on their part, knew exactly what had happened. Every man who escaped death or serious injury from the bursting missiles ran to his post. A wire hawser and mooring rope were severed with axes, the screw revolved, and the Andorinha was in motion. Though winged, she still could fly. The second salvo of projectiles was less damaging; again the gunners failed to reach the warship's vitals. Her commander got his own armament into action, and managed to demolish a warehouse and a grain elevator. Then he made off down the coast toward Rio de Janeiro.
The sudden uproar stirred Maceio from roof to basement. Its inhabitants poured into the Plaza. Every man vied with his neighbor in yelling: "The revolution is here! Viva Dom Corria! Abajo São Paulo!"
That last cry explained a good deal. The State of São Paulo had long maintained a "corner" in Brazilian Presidents. De Sylva, a native of Alagoas, was the first to break down the monopoly. Hence the cabal against him; hence, too, the readiness of Maceio, together with many of the smaller ports and the whole of the vast interior, to espouse his cause.
For the purposes of this story, which is mainly concerned with the lives and fortunes of a few insignificant people unknown to history, it is not necessary to follow in detail the trumpetings, proclamations, carousals, and arrests that followed Dom Corria's first success. It is a truism that in events of international importance the very names of the chief actors ofttimes go unrecorded. Future generations will ask, perhaps:—Who blew up the Maine? Who persuaded the Tsar to break his word anent Port Arthur? Who told Paul Kruger that the Continent of Europe would support the Boers against Great Britain? Such instances could be multiplied indefinitely, and the rule held good now in Brazil.
If any polite Pernambucano, Maceio-ite, or merchant of Bahia were informed that President De Sylva's raid was alone rendered possible by the help of a truculent British master-mariner and a dozen or so of his hard-bitten crew, he (the said Brasileiro) might be skeptical, or, at best, indifferent. But let the name of some puppet politician hailing from São Paulo be mentioned, and his eyes would flash with angry recognition; yet the Andromeda's small contingent achieved more than a whole army of conspirators.