The two men of national repute disguised themselves with the various articles Julio brought with him, left the room unobserved by anyone but the soldiers guarding the room, and were soon safely quartered with those of the President’s party who had not left the city that morning in a palace car ready to be hurried away to Washington.
The Governor and his two scientific friends returned to his residence, but could only get within one block of it in the cab, for the rabble and soldiers.
They left the cab and mingled with the crowd, and soon were safely in the house by a private entrance.
In a sense they were safe; but how long safety would last they could not say. All night the Governor and his two scientific friends in company with many high officials of State, discussed the present state of affairs and laid plans for immediate action should further trouble come.
The President had promised that United States troops would arrive at the shortest notice possible and put an end to the uprising if the State troops were insufficient.
CHAPTER XII.
A LIFE SAVED.
There never had been such excitement in Chihuahua as that caused by the arrests of Don Francisco R. Cantu y Falomir, and Father Hernandez.
Not even the execution of Hidalgo, the good priest who sought to free the people of Mexico from the terrible slavery in which the church held them, created the same fervor. The mad rabble and the church fanatics were too ignorant to realize the awfulness of their deed. They believed what they had been told by the church, that whoever advocated freedom of thought must die. And few were the tears shed when, in the year of 1810, the life of the great and noble Father Hidalgo was taken in Chihuahua. At least, it was the few who shed tears.
Don Francisco R. Cantu y Falomir had been known as a quiet, law-abiding citizen, very wealthy and eccentric. It was generally known that he prided himself upon the fact of his blue Mexican blood, and persisted in signing Falomir, his mother’s maiden name, to his own surname, as was the custom in Mexico up to the close of the nineteenth century. Yet no one ever dreamed that he nursed any ill-will against the law of the land of his birth—against the United States of America.
Everyone seemed to think that he had a right to his peculiarities, and while Chihuahuans smiled when the name Don Francisco R. Cantu y Falomir was spoken they were always ready to point out this wealthy, aristocratic and eccentric citizen to visitors in Chihuahua and obtain an introduction to him for them, if possible.