Dr. Delgoa looked at him, his mind evidently coming back from some painful abstraction.
"Oh, yes.... He couldn't. Saturnino has always been a favorite with the army. Besides, the general needed a tactician. Diablo! I wish the general had kept his wife in the palacio!"
By this time the two men had come to the mouth of the little side street, where it emptied into the main thoroughfare opposite the palace. Delgoa held out an arm to warn the drummer, then advanced carefully to the limit of the protecting walls and peered down the plaza. The place was a litter of scattered goods and broken carts. Here and there a human figure darted across the wreckage, making for some place of safety. The crowd had struggled past and were gone.
Just across the street the doors of the palace stood open. Four soldiers were posted by each shutter, whose duty, evidently, was to close the building at a moment's notice. On top of the palace roof were lined a number of guards, and in the machicolations above the architrave shone the muzzles of some rapid-fire guns.
Dr. Delgoa stood in the calle, peering at the scene before him and listening with all his ears. He said to Strawbridge in an apprehensive voice:
"The cannonading at La Fortuna has stopped."
The drummer listened. It was true, but he had not observed the fact, under the ceaseless tearing sound of the small arms, which was growing louder and louder. It sounded somewhat like an approaching storm. Delgoa waved a hopeless hand.
"Dios mio! which way will this battle go! Canastre! this deciding for your life, your property and your family!" With a tortured face he turned to Strawbridge. "Just think, if I fail to guess the victor just once, I go into La Fortuna, my property confiscated, and my wife...." He snapped his fingers and flung out his hands.
Such frank opportunism amazed the American.