The four revolvers jumped and spit--once--twice--and the wounded slipped back against their comrades' legs. More men entered the hall below, and filed wildly into the darkness above and around. Then Hicks, Santosa, and Smith left their windows and pumped lead into the housebreakers. The noise was deafening. The air was unfit to breathe. O'Rourke wondered at something hot and wet against his leg. Hemming was angry because none would come within cutting distance. Smith felt very sick, but did not mention the fact. He knelt against the bannisters, and fumbled with the hammer of his revolver, and the blood from a great furrow in his neck ran down one of the polished rounds that supported the carved hand-rail. But it was dark, and he could not see it. But presently he dropped his revolver and felt the blood with his fingers, and wondered, in a dim way, who it was dared to make such a mess in Mr. Tetson's house. The firing outside the house, which had died away for a minute, increased suddenly, and cries of warning and consternation rang above it. More men came to the open doorway. They were armed with rifles instead of the short carbines of the Pernamba army. They discharged a volley or two into the backs of the scrambling soldiers on the stairs. "That ends the revolution," remarked Hemming, calmly, removing his monocle from his eye. "I think we could have done it without help," said Santosa. The men on the stairs cried for mercy. "Are you all safe, up there?" asked a voice from the door. Smith clung to the rounds of the bannisters and closed his eyes, and O'Rourke leaned against the wall with one knee drawn up. "The same leg," he muttered, and twisted his face at the pain of it. CHAPTER XV. REST IN PERNAMBUCO Miss Tetson and Mr. Valentine Hicks were married in the little English church in Pernambuco. The ex-President gave the bride away, the ex-commander-in-chief supported the groom, and the major supported the clergyman officiating. Mrs. McPhey supplied the wedding breakfast, and McPhey made all the speeches. Then the Tetsons and Hicks sailed away for New York, leaving Herbert Hemming to nurse Mr. O'Rourke and Smith. The invalids were housed in cool rooms in the McPhey mansion, on the outskirts of the city, and they and Hemming were guests of honour for as long as they would stay in the country. O'Rourke's leg was in a bad way, but poor Smith's neck was in a worse. For the first week of his attendance the clever American surgeon who had them both in charge felt anxious enough for the valet's life. But modern methods and unflagging care won the day, and a wound that, in the time of the Crimean War, meant certain death, left nothing but a sunken white scar.