"Tell him, with my compliments, that I shall be glad to meet him at the colonel's quarters in fifteen minutes."
The queerly-assorted pair moved off across the barrack square. The sentry looked after them.
"My excellent captain seems to have been brawling," he grinned. "But what of the _mendigo_?"
What, indeed? A most pertinent question for Brazil, and one that would be loudly answered.
The colonel's house was in darkness, yet San Benavides rapped imperatively. An upper window was raised. A voice was heard, using profane language. A head appeared. Its owner cried, "Who is it?"--with additions.
The head popped in. Soon there was a light on the ground floor. The door opened. A very stout man, barefooted, who had struggled into a pair of abnormally tight riding-breeches, faced them.
"Can it be possible?" he exclaimed, striking an attitude.
Dom Corria spoke not a word. He knew the value of effect, and could bide his time. The three passed into a lighted apartment. De Sylva placed himself under a chandelier, and took off a frayed straw hat which he had borrowed from someone on board the _Unser Fritz_. The colonel, a grotesque figure in his present _deshabillé_, bowed low before him.
"My President!--I salute you," he murmured.
"Thank you, General," said Dom Corria, smiling graciously. "I knew I could depend on you. How soon can you muster the regiment?"
"See that there is plenty of ammunition for the machine guns. What of the artillery?"
"The three batteries stationed here are with us heart and soul."
"Colonel San Benavides, as chief of the staff, is acquainted with every detail. You, General, will assume command of the Army of Liberation. Some trunks were sent to you from Paris, I believe?"
"They are in the room prepared for your Excellency."
"Let me go there at once and change my clothing. I must appear before the troops as their President, not as a jail-bird. For the moment I leave everything to you and San Benavides. Let Senhor Pondillo be summoned. He will attend to the civil side of affairs. You have my unqualified approval of the military scheme drawn up by you and my other friends. There is one thing--a gunboat lies in the harbor. Is she the _Andorinha_?"
The newly-promoted general smote his huge stomach with both hands--"beating the drum," he called it--and the rat-tat signified instant readiness for action.