Five times the launch slipped lazily down the harbour along the straggling two mile water-front; five times it loafed back. The moon, which was in the first quarter, sank. For the hundredth time Don Juan Cafetéro chanted dolorously “The Death of Sarsfield” and the tuneful glories of the late O'Donnel Abu--and then to Webster's alert ear there floated across the still waters the sound of a gentle purring--the music of an auto-truck. He set the launch in toward Leber's little dock, and presently they saw the door of Leber's warehouse open. Men with lanterns streamed forth, lighting the way for others who bore between them heavy burdens.
“They're emplacing the machine guns in the motor-truck,” he whispered to Dolores. “We will not have to wait long now. It's nearly four o'clock.”
Again they backed out into the bay until they could see far out over the sleeping city to the hills beyond in the west. Presently along the side of those hills the headlight of a locomotive crept, dropping swiftly down grade until it disappeared in the lowlands.
A half-hour passed; then to the south of the city a rocket flared skyward; almost instantly another flared from the west, followed presently by a murmur, scarcely audible, as of a muffled snare drum, punctuated presently by a louder, sharper, insistent _puck-puch-puch-puch_ that, had Webster but known it, was the bark of a Maxim-Vickers rapid-fire gun throwing a stream of shells into the cantonments of the government troops on the fringe of the city.
Webster's pulse quickened. He was possessed of that feeling which actuates a small boy to follow the fire-engines. “There goes the 'tillery to the south, sor,” Don Juan called, and even as he spoke, a shell burst gloriously over the government palace, the white walls of which were already looming over the remainder of the city, now faintly visible in the approaching dawn.
“That was to awaken our friend Sarros,” Webster cried. “I'll bet a buffalo nickel that woke the old horsethief up. There's another--and another.” The uproar swelled, the noise gradually drifting around the city from west to south, forming, seemingly, a semicircle of sound. “The government troops are up and doing now,” Webster observed, and speeded up his motor. “I think it high time we played the part of frightened refugees. When that machine-gun company with its infantry escort starts up through the city from Leber's warehouse it may encounter early opposition--and I've heard that Mauser bullets kill at three miles. Some strays may drop out here in the bay.”