"Why—damn it, man!—stick to the side you think is right!"
"Right! Right!" Delgoa laughed in a very access of irony. "My dear amigo, I am a politician. I have nothing to do with—" He interrupted himself to listen to the increased ripping and tearing of the gun fire; then, with his head cocked sidewise, he looked steadily at Strawbridge and whispered, "I believe Saturnino is winning...."
The drummer was outraged.
"Well—by God!—between the two I stand by the general!"
"But look yonder!" The minister pointed down the plaza. "Yonder are the guards falling back!"
At that moment a flurry of men that looked like leaves before a wind, whirled out of a street into the plaza and instantly settled into every niche and crevice they could find. Almost immediately came another whirl of men, falling back behind every makeshift ambuscade. The minister gripped the American's arm.
"Your general is losing; we are going to change dictators!"
The American burst out in profanity:
"I don't give a damn! I've always been against Saturnino! He's nothing but a rascal, a damn clever rascal! Hasn't got a principle in him!" The drummer shook off the doctor's arm, and next moment darted out of his covert, toward the long flight of steps at the entrance of the palace.
The big American's flight might have been the signal for the whole regiment of palace guards to retreat headlong toward the presidencia. Immediately a company of insurgents deployed into the square, and knelt to fire. Even in the drummer's short sprint across the calle, the attackers discharged a volley. The crash, pent up between the houses, roared down the calle, and a shower of leaves and twigs fell from the ornamental greenery in the plaza. Stone flakes leaped from the façade of the palace; spots of dust floated up into the air along the calle; the air was filled with a whining. Here and there a flying guard stumbled in the plaza; two or three of the less severely wounded went crawling on their hands and knees toward the side streets, to escape the steel storm. Strawbridge dashed up the long flight of steps and was hardly inside the recessed doors when the van of the retreating guard began to pour up the steps into the building.