Two personages whom one would hardly have expected to see there were Señor Fagasta and Captain Pierola. Señor Mollendo had been informed by Tim of the warning given by the gobernador, which had resulted in the discomfiture of Pardo's night attack on the house. The President argued from this that Señor Fagasta had his good points; and being anxious to conciliate the officials under the old régime he reinstated the burly gentleman in his former office. For the same reason he offered to Captain Pierola, now recovered of his wound, the command of the republican forces, which Mr. O'Hagan, deaf to all entreaties, had relinquished.
In a balcony at the opposite end of the hall sat a bevy of ladies, to watch the feasting in which they, angelically, were not to partake, and to hear the speeches that would follow. Mrs. O'Hagan sat in the centre beside Señora Mollendo. The younger ladies, dressed with all the grace and charm of which the Peruvian belle is mistress, were impatient for the end of the tiresome preliminaries: the banquet in which they could not share, the speeches which some of them had already heard rehearsed, had less attractions for them than the dance which was to round off the proceedings.
The table decorations were unusual. The vases were filled with leaves, blossoms, and berries of the nasturtium, of which homely plant every guest had a flower in his button-hole.
The courses were handed round; the glasses of wine and pisco were filled and emptied and filled again; and then the President rose. A smile beamed upon his benevolent features as he surveyed the cheering company. A broad band of orange satin formed a graceful loop over his white waistcoat, and a large diamond in his shirt-front flashed as it caught the rays of the innumerable candles. He was a dignified and impressive figure.
When the cheers had subsided, he began to speak. After a few introductory sentences, he launched into a summary of the events which had led up to this culminating scene. He described the birth of the Republic, enunciated with great eloquence the principles which would govern his administration, and then, turning to personal matters, announced the honours and dignities which he had conferred on certain of the gentlemen whom he saw on either side. He made graceful references to the legal attainments of Señor Fagasta, to the military abilities of Captain Pierola, to the loyal services of Señores Pedro Galdos and Nicolas Romaña, whom he had appointed respectively treasurer and secretary of the Republic. Then, after an expressive pause, he proceeded:
"Gentlemen, on this great and auspicious occasion I have a duty to perform---a duty of which I acquit myself with all the ardour of an overflowing heart. There are epochs in the life of nations when the firmament is obscured by dark aggregations of cloud, which exclude the radiance of heaven's bright luminaries, and among which the thunder rumbles with awful and portentous reverberation. At such a period of distress and gloom, when Rome, the heart and centre of the ancient world, saw herself threatened by pestilent hosts of waspish barbarians, the eyes of men turned in their trouble towards a simple farmer, who pursued the avocations of bucolic life in his rural retreat, amid sounds no more horrific than the lowing of his cattle and the guttural ejaculations of his swine. To him repaired a deputation of his despairing countrymen, who found him cleaving the stubborn soil with his labouring plough, and besought him to quit those haunts of industry and peace, and, exchanging the gleaming ploughshare for the well-tempered sword, the smock of Ceres for the shining corslet of Mars, to return with them and save the State.
"You know, gentlemen, the sequel of that momentous domiciliary visit. You know how Cincinnatus marshalled his hosts, led them against the enveloping invaders, and having smitten Volscians and Æquians with irresistible might, laid aside the implements of war, and withdrew to replace the yoke upon his toiling oxen, and ruminate in rustic simplicity upon the vicissitudes of mortal things.
"Gentlemen, we too have our Cincinnatus. We have in our midst a gentleman who, driven from his peaceful fields by the shameless greed of tyranny, threw in his lot with the despairing victims of a rapacious despot: who, having laid down the sword which he had wielded with conspicuous dexterity in his youth against the enemies of his adopted country, girded it on in his maturer years at the call of an oppressed and suffering community. Gentlemen, it is to him we owe the inception of the reign of peace and prosperity in this elevated region. I bid you raise your glasses and drain them to the health of our illustrious friend and liberator, our Cincinnatus, Señor General O'Hagan."
The President's speech was hailed with a chorus of vivas as the company sprang to their feet to honour the toast. Handkerchiefs fluttered in the ladies' gallery. Tim, catching Durand's eye, winked, and his friend responded with a look which meant "Look out! The old buffer hasn't done yet." Tim wondered what his father would say in answer to this effusion. He found that the President, instead of resuming his seat when the cheers had died away, remained standing, took a sip from his glass, and went on:
"History does not record whether Cincinnatus was a married man, but, indulging our imaginations, we may suppose that he had a wife and family. We may see with our mind's eye the homely Roman matron, leaving the meal-tub when her husband broke to her the fateful news, and wiping the flour from her industrious hands that she might gird him with the sword, and furbish his shield, and arrange the folds of his toga in comely dignity. We may picture his sons and daughters gazing with admiration not unmixed with awe at their heroic father, watching him as he bestrode his fields with the proud senators who had brought the people's summons, gazing with longing eyes day after day into the misty distance, wondering with anxious fears how their beloved progenitor was faring in the stress and heat of strife. We can imagine their pride and gladness when he returned, crowned with the laurel wreath of victory, and, so far as history relates, without a wound. We can see them gathered about his knee, on the winter nights when the pine-logs crackle, and the wolf's long howl undulates across the marshes, and hang upon his lips as he relates the story of great doings on the stricken field.
"These, I say, are the pictures which imagination paints for us; but we need no aid from imagination to behold the domestic life of our own Cincinnatus. Integer vitae, sceleris purus, as the great Roman sang, he has lived among us, in a home graced by the presence of a beauteous spouse, and brightened by the lively merits of a gallant youth. Such praise and gratitude as we owe to the father we owe also in no small measure to the son, who sits beside me in all the glow of healthy juvenility, blushing with ingenuous pride in the achievements of his noble sire. What need to recount, gentlemen, the exploits of this youthful warrior! Modestly as he himself has veiled them, the admiration of his devoted men could not be silenced, and they proclaim his prowess with unbated enthusiasm. Picture the scene, gentlemen, when, pursued for long miles by the mounted warriors of the tyrant, our dauntless friend sped on unfaltering on his matchless steed, and was not abashed when he beheld the yawning gulf unbridged before him. For him Fate had not ordained the sacrificial leap of Marcus Curtius; the safety of the State did not demand his death. Flashing like a meteor to the very brink of the abyss, he defied the laws of Nature, and soared through the startled air with the swift legerity of a mountain bird. Thus wonderfully preserved from peril behind and before, he played a manful part in the final scenes of this glorious revolution, and, in the words of the august orator of Rome, de republica bene est meritus. I bid you raise your glasses, and drain them to the health of Señor Capitan O'Hagan."
The toast was hailed with thunderous applause. Tim sat with downcast eyes, wishing that the floor would open and swallow him. "I hope to goodness the old josser is done now!" he thought. But the President waited with a benignant smile until silence was restored, then went on:
"It is known to you, gentlemen, that the Señor Capitan is the first recipient of the Order of the Nasturtium, which I have founded in celebration of the new era upon which we have entered. Since it becomes us to invoke the gracious countenance of feminine loveliness upon the order, I have inscribed at the head of the roll the name of the Señora O'Hagan."
Here he bowed very gallantly towards the balcony, and Tim, glancing up, saw his mother incline her head, and raise her handkerchief to her mouth, as if to hide a smile.
"It is known to you also, gentlemen," the President continued, "that in deference to the unanimous wish of the citizens, I have consented that a statue of myself shall be erected in the plaza of this town, not in any spirit of vainglory, but as a permanent witness of the triumph of the principles which I profess. But I deemed it unfitting that the sister town of San Rosario should be without a similar memorial, and I have therefore taken upon myself to order, from Paris, the home of art, two other statues, to stand in the plaza of our neighbour. The one will represent the Señor General as Cincinnatus, garbed in the toga of ancient Rome, with a sword crossed upon a ploughshare at his feet. The other will exhibit the effigy of the Señor Capitan. It was a matter of much deliberation how to mould this second statue that it might form a harmonious companion of the first. As you are aware, the Romans did not anticipate the triumphs of the inventive modern mind. They did not possess the motor-bicycle. But by dint of much thought I have reconciled the old with the new. The Señor Capitan will appear as Mercury, the messenger of the gods, with his caduceus in his hand, and his winged feet planted on a globe. These statues will face each other in the public square, and proclaim to future generations the features and the characteristics of the two gentlemen whose achievements and merits we honour so heartily to-night."
The President at last sat down. Mr. O'Hagan, looking supremely uncomfortable, thanked him and the company, for himself and Tim, for the flattering honours that had been paid to them; and after speeches from Señor Fagasta, Colonel Zegarra, and half a dozen other notables, the proceedings came to an end, and the hall was cleared for dancing.
"I say, old chap," said Durand, when he had an opportunity of speaking to Tim, "won't you feel rather cold as Mercury?"
"Shut up!" growled Tim. "Old Moll's off his chump. But he doesn't mean it."
"But he does!"
"Well then, I'll waylay the silly old thing on the road, and smash it to bits. I never heard of such silly rot."
But these violent measures were not necessary. Every now and then during the next few months Durand put Tim in a rage by announcing that the statues had left Paris, that they had reached Lima, that they were on the road. But the truth is that the financial straits to which the new republic was soon reduced have hindered the realisation of President Mollendo's generous dream, and up to the present the plaza of San Rosario is destitute of classic statuary. Cincinnatus lives very contentedly on his farm, and Mercury is now leading a grimy existence in some famous engineering shops on the Tyne.