Officers with green and black badges in their caps and helmets came backwards and forwards from the city for orders, and some of them, I saw, had done just as Gerald had said, simply turned the badges round and inked out the yellow stripe. It made me laugh, but he kept a face as sober as a judge, and sent them flying here, there, and everywhere, and they clicked their heels, saluted, and rushed off, as if he had always been their Commanding Officer. I don't expect they would have dared come among our little chaps without blacking out the yellow stripe, although now, with their stomachs full, they were quite peaceful and contented, and went to sleep on the slope below the fort or sat drying themselves in the sun, and forgot, for a time, about looting the city.
Mr. Arnstein, the German Minister, came out during the morning to arrange for the safety of European property, and as he was an old friend of my brother, was jolly pleasant. Whilst they were yarning together de Costa's Secretary drove hurriedly across the drawbridge, to say very excitedly that the New President and the Provisional Government were coming up the mountain road from Los Angelos, and wanted to see Gerald. Gerald sent him back again as quickly as he'd come.
'I'm hanged if I'm going down there,' he told me. 'For one thing, I daren't leave these chaps of mine. I've told him that it's simply impossible for me to leave San Sebastian, and told him to warn de Costa to bring along as many regulars as he can get hold of—as soon as they've shifted their badges.
'We shall have them here as soon as they can come,' he added, smiling. 'They'll be so frightened lest I seize the palace and become Dictator before they can get hold of it, that they'll come along like "one o'clock."'
He was right too. An hour later de Costa and the whole of the Provisional Government came rattling across the drawbridge, and simply threw themselves on old Gerald; they would have kissed him if he'd only taken his pipe out of his mouth, but as they'd got hold of both his hands he couldn't. They shook my hands, too, till they ached, and then went away to take up their quarters in the palace, feeling more easy in their minds, I expect, about that Dictatorship.
I wished that they had never come, for one of them had a note for me from the Commander of the Hercules, ordering me back on board as soon as possible.
I showed it to Gerald. 'Confound the ship, I'll have to go back at once.'
He got me a horse, and sent the 'Gnome' down with me in case there was any trouble on the road, shouting out, 'Good-bye! Hope to see you up again before long,' as we clattered out of San Sebastian. I shouted 'Buenos! Buenos!' to the little brown chaps, a great number of them jumping up and giving me a fine 'send off' as we cantered down to the city.
Regular troops were at every corner—their badges twisted round and blackened—and it really was ludicrous to see the attempts the townspeople had made to show their loyalty to the New President; for at nearly every window there was some kind of an attempt at a black and green flag with the stripes horizontal.
A great number of people thought I was Gerald himself, so I came in for quite a royal reception, but we cantered rapidly through the square, field batteries at every corner, past the front of the cathedral, with that huge bell still jarring overhead, and as we passed the Hotel de l'Europe I looked up at the window from which Bob and I and the poor little 'Angel' had seen the funeral procession and tried to escape that beastly little ex-policeman. I wondered what had become of him, and whether the stumps of his fingers had healed.