|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 14
"'Listen,' says O'Connor, 'to what will occur. At noon next Tuesday
25,000 patriots will rise up in the towns of the republic. The
government will be absolutely unprepared. The public buildings will be
taken, the regular army made prisoners, and the new administration set
up. In the capital it will not be so easy on account of most of the army
being stationed there. They will occupy the president's palace and the
strongly fortified government buildings and stand a siege. But on the
very day of the outbreak a body of our troops will begin a march to the
capital from every town as soon as the local victory has been won. The
thing is so well planned that it is an impossibility for us to fail. I
meself will lead the troops from here. The new president will be Senor
Espadas, now Minister of Finance in the present cabinet.'
"'What do you get?' I asked.
"''Twill be strange,' said O'Connor smiling, 'if I don't have all the
jobs handed to me on a silver salver to pick what I choose. I've been
the brains of the scheme, and when the fighting opens I guess I won't be
in the rear rank. Who managed it so our troops could get arms smuggled
into this country? Didn't I arrange it with a New York firm before I
left there? Our financial agents inform me that 20,000 stands of
Winchester rifles have been delivered a month ago at a secret place up
coast and distributed among the towns. I tell you, Bowers, the game is
already won.'
"Well, that kind of talk kind of shook my disbelief in the infallibility
of the serious Irish gentleman soldier of fortune. It certainly seemed
that the patriotic grafters had gone about the thing in a business way.
I looked upon O'Connor with more respect, and began to figure on what
kind of uniform I might wear as Secretary of War.
"Tuesday, the day set for the revolution, came around according to
schedule. O'Connor said that a signal had been agreed upon for the
uprising. There was an old cannon on the beach near the national
warehouse. That had been secretly loaded and promptly at twelve o'clock
was to be fired off. Immediately the revolutionists would seize their
concealed arms, attack the comandante's troops in the cuartel, and
capture the custom-house and all government property and supplies.
"I was nervous all the morning. And about eleven o'clock O'Connor became
infused with the excitement and martial spirit of murder. He geared his
father's sword around him, and walked up and down in the back room like
a lion in the Zoo suffering from corns. I smoked a couple of dozen
cigars, and decided on yellow stripes down the trouser legs of my
uniform.
"At half-past eleven O'Connor asks me to take a short stroll through the
streets to see if I could notice any signs of the uprising. I was back
in fifteen minutes.
"'Did you hear anything?' he asks.
"'I did,' says I. 'At first I thought it was drums. But it wasn't; it
was snoring. Everybody in town's asleep.'
"O'Connor tears out his watch.
"'Fools!' says he. "They've set the time right at the siesta hour when
everybody takes a nap. But the cannon will wake 'em up. Everything will
be all right, depend upon it.'
"Just at twelve o'clock we heard the sound of a cannon--BOOM!--shaking
the whole town.
"O'Connor loosens his sword in its scabbard and jumps for the door. I
went as far as the door and stood in it.
"People were sticking their heads out of doors and windows. But there
was one grand sight that made the landscape look tame.
"General Tumbalo, the comandante, was rolling down the steps of his
residential dugout, waving a five-foot sabre in his hand. He wore his
cocked and plumed hat and his dress-parade coat covered with gold braid
and buttons. Sky-blue pajamas, one rubber boot, and one red-plush
slipper completed his make-up.
"The general had heard the cannon, and he puffed down the sidewalk
toward the soldiers' barracks as fast as his rudely awakened two hundred
pounds could travel.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|