It was well for the boys that they had frequently been impressed with the little general’s prowess, else they might not have restrained their laughter at the sight which he had presented. Hearing their report of the enemy, he had jumped from his bed and had run without stopping to dress. The evening before, Captain Saunders had given him a pair of his pyjamas, and these the little general had been compelled to turn up both at the legs and arms, until the fold of the former reached to his knees and of the latter to his elbows. He was evidently accustomed to wearing a nightcap when at home, and such an article not being in the American’s wardrobe, the Peruvian had tied his handkerchief over his head. Beneath this band of white his long, black mustachios stood out straight and his shaggy eyebrows protruded.
In his haste and excitement he pushed Carl and Louis one side, and to see the better, when he reached the place that commanded a view of the harbor entrance, he stood up on the foot-board of the rail. Then he broke out into violent exclamations.
“C-a-r-a-m-ba!” he hissed, “the audacity of them! To bring the _Huascar_ here with their abominable flag flying! And my little _Pilcomayo_! My pride! My treasure! With dirty Chileños on her decks! C-a-r-a-m-b-a! It is too much! It is too much!”
Tears commenced to roll down his face, and he became almost hysterical. The man who, during his lifetime, had faced death perhaps a hundred times without flinching, the man who, in the streets of Lima, had led a cavalry squadron right into the very centre of a battery, was sobbing like a child. But they understood those tears and also the convulsive chokings. They knew that not only sorrow, but anger, was struggling for utterance, and in addition to all was humiliation.
“They are coming ashore, coming to give notice!” he explained, noticing for the first time the little steam launch that was now some distance from the largest ship. “I hope that notice will be of a bombardment; that they will engage the forts like men, and not skulk in the offing and destroy ships that cannot fight. O for one shot at them with the castle guns!”
He darted away from the railing and started for the stairs that led from the veranda to the main floor beneath.