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 the President, 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 the Andorinha was 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.