Permitted for a little while to play the tragi-comedy of life according to their own inclinations, now the stern edict had gone forth that they were to act their allotted parts in one of those fascinating if blood-stained dramas that the history of nations so often puts on the stage.

The future is the most cunning of playwrights.

No man may tell what the next scene shall be.

And no man, nor any woman, could guess the mad revel of hate and war that would rage that night around the placid homestead of Las Flores.
Behind the veranda was a huge ballroom, converted, by the exigencies of the campaign, into a dining hall for the many inmates of the _finca_.
The Brazilian ladies, the sailors, some sick or wounded officers who were not confined to bed, even the household servants, took their meals there in common.

Supper was served soon after nine o'clock.