The bands suddenly ceased, from the open cathedral doors we heard the grand rolling sound of an organ, and, as the coffin was borne up the steps, choristers broke out into a shrill anthem—an awfully melancholy sound, which made me catch my breath for a second. The little President and the lumbering great Vice-President, mopping his forehead, walked after the coffin side by side, and disappeared into the gloom of the cathedral, followed by all the untidy string of notables, who scrambled in after them in a very undignified manner, as though they wanted to get out of the heat. As the last one crowded in, the velvet curtains were drawn across the door again and shut out the noise of the singing. ’That’s the last time any one will see those two together again in peace,’ Gerald muttered, and turning round I saw that he was looking fearfully worried and anxious. ’What’s the matter?’ I asked. ’There’s hardly a Vice-President’s man among that lot,’ he whispered. ’What’s that mean?’ ’They’ve cleared out, Billums—fled to the country—it’s the beginning. Something’s gone wrong. It’s beginning too soon.’ He was very excited, and could hardly sit still. In a minute or two he jumped up, sang out that he must find out how the land ’lay,’ and told us to stay where we were. ’If there’s any shooting, lie down on the floor—there may be some.’ ’Let me come with you?’ I asked, awfully keen to go, but he shook his head, and went out. I wished he’d have let me go with him. The mids. hadn’t noticed him go, for they were tremendously excited again. Some more cavalry were clattering along between the lines of soldiers, and in front of them, his black horse flecked with white foam, they had recognised the Governor of Los Angelos and his two A.D.C.’s, the fat little chap looking a jolly sight smarter on a horse than he did climbing down ladders on board the _Hector_. They stopped opposite the cathedral, dismounted, the Governor strode up the steps, the black A.D.C. handed him a big blue paper, and he stood there looking nervously first at the velvet curtains drawn across the entrance, and then at the troops and the kneeling masses of people behind them. A battery of field artillery began unlimbering on each side of the steps, the guns pointing straight across the Plaza, more infantry marched up and formed a semicircle, four deep, round the base of the steps, and the line of soldiers, turning round, forced the people to rise from their knees, and pressed them back away from the cathedral. There wasn’t the least doubt that something was going to happen, and I remembered that Mr. Macdonald had told us that the Vice-President might be arrested or shot directly after the service—perhaps that blue paper the Governor of Los Angelos had in his hand was the warrant.