All this time Molara said not a word. With the approach of danger he made great efforts to regain his calmness, that he might have a clear head to meet it; but for all his strength of will, his hatred of Savrola filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else. As he reached the palace the revolt broke out all over the city. Messenger after messenger hurried up with evil news. Some of the regiments had refused to fire on the people; others were fraternising with them; everywhere barricades grew and the approaches to the palace were on all sides being closed. The Revolutionary leaders had gathered at the Mayoralty. The streets were placarded with the Proclamation of the Provisional Government. Officers from various parts of the town hastened to the palace; some were wounded, many agitated. Among them was Sorrento, who brought the terrible news that an entire battery of artillery had surrendered their guns to the rebels. By half-past three it was evident, from the reports which were received by telegram and messenger, that the greater part of the city had passed into the hands of the Revolutionaries with very little actual fighting.
The President bore all with a calmness which revealed the full strength of his hard, stern character. He had, in truth, a terrible stimulant. Beyond the barricades and the rebels who lined them was the Mayoralty and Savrola. The face and figure of his enemy was before his eyes; everything else seemed of little importance. Yet he found in the blinding emergency an outlet for his fury, a counterirritant for his grief; to crush the revolt, but above all to kill Savrola, was his heart’s desire.
“We must wait for daylight,” he said.
“And what then, Sir?” asked the War-Minister.
“We will then proceed to the Mayoralty and arrest the leaders of this disturbance.”
The rest of the night was spent in organising a force with which to move at dawn. A few hundred faithful soldiers (men who had served with Molara in the former war), seventy officers of the regular army, whose loyalty was unquestionable, and the remaining battalion of the Guard with a detachment of armed police, were alone available. This band of devoted men, under fourteen hundred in number, collected in the open space in front of the palace-gates, and guarded the approaches while they waited for sunrise.
They were not attacked. “Secure the city,” had been Savrola’s order, and the rebels were busily at work on the barricades, which in a regular system rose on all sides. Messages of varied import continued to reach the President. Louvet, in a hurried note, expressed his horror at the revolt, and explained how much he regretted being unable to join the President at the palace. He had to leave the city in great haste, he said; a relative was dangerously ill. He adjured Molara to trust in Providence; for his part he was confident that the Revolutionaries would be suppressed.
The President in his room read this with a dry, hard laugh. He had never put the slightest faith in Louvet’s courage, having always realised that in a crisis he would be useless and a coward. He did not blame him; the man had his good points, and as a public official in the Home-Office he was admirable; but war was not his province.
He passed the letter to Miguel. The Secretary read it and reflected. He also was no soldier. It was evident that the game was up, and there was no need for him to throw his life away, merely out of sentiment as he said to himself. He thought of the part he had played in the drama of the night. That surely gave him some claims; it would be possible at least to hedge. He took a fresh piece of paper and began to write. Molara paced the room. “What are you writing?” he asked.
“An order to the Commandant of the harbour-forts,” replied Miguel promptly, “to acquaint him with the situation and tell him to hold his posts in your name at all hazards.”
“It is needless,” said Molara; “either his men are traitors or they are not.”
“I have told him,” said Miguel quickly, “to make a demonstration towards the palace at dawn, if he can trust his men. It will create a diversion.”
“Very well,” said Molara wearily; “but I doubt it ever reaching him, and he has so few men that could be spared after the forts are held adequately.”
An orderly entered with a telegram. The clerk at the office, a loyalist, an unknown man of honour, had brought it himself, passing the line of barricades with extraordinary good-fortune and courage. While the President tore the envelope open, Miguel rose and left the room. Outside in the brilliantly lighted passage he found a servant, terrified but not incapable. He spoke to the man quickly and in a low voice; “twenty pounds, the Mayoralty, at all costs,” were the essentials of his instructions. Then he reentered the office.
“Look here,” said Molara; “it is not all over yet.” The telegram was from Brienz, near Lorenzo:
Clear the line. Strelitz and force two thousand rebels advanced on the Black Gorge this afternoon. I have repulsed them with heavy loss. Strelitz is prisoner. Am pursuing remainder. I await instructions at Turga.
“This must be published at once,” he said. “Get a thousand copies printed, and have them circulated among the loyalists and as far as possible in the city.”
The news of the victory was received with cheers by the troops gathered in the palace-square, and they waited with impatience for morning. At length the light of day began to grow in the sky, and other lights, the glow of distant conflagrations, paled. The President, followed by Sorrento, a few officers of high rank, and his aide-de-camp Tiro, descended the steps, traversed the courtyard and passing through the great gates of the palace, entered the square where the last reserves of his power were assembled. He walked about and
