CHAPTER XVI.
WHEREIN THE PRESIDENT PRESIDES Before the exciting story so rudely interrupted is resumed, it may be well to set down in their sequence the queer workings of fortune which led to Philip's timely reappearance at Las FIores.
His troop of scouts consisted of twenty-eight men.

Five were sailors and firemen from the _Andromeda_; three were Germans from the _Unser Fritz_.

But the whole eight were ex-soldiers, and one man-at-arms trained on the European model is worth ten of the Brazilian product.
The remaining twenty were hillmen, good riders, excellent shots, and acquainted with every yard of the wild country within a radius of a hundred miles.

They would fight anybody if well led, and here it may be observed that when Philip called on them to storm the ballroom, he said, "Come on!"; between which curt command and its congener, "Go on!" these half-breed warriors drew a fine distinction.

The language difficulty was surmounted partly by an interpreter in the person of one of the Germans, who spoke English and had lived in Bahia, partly by signs, and largely by Philip's methods as a leader.
He never asked his men to do anything that he did not do himself, and they were never dubious as to his tactics, since he invariably closed with any Nationalist detachment met during the day's operations.
About mid-day, then, they came upon the advance guard of a column sent off a week earlier by the expert at Pesqueira with instructions to arrive at Las Flores before sunset that very day.