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They signed the desired quittance, cabled Schmidt again to ask if Senhor Pondillo was in need of other ships of the Unser Fritz class, and the members of the firm indulged that evening in the best dinner that the tip-top restaurant of Hamburg could supply.
The Dona Pondillo could not create English clothes, nor bad copies of French, but her own daughters dressed in the height of local fashion, and Dom Corria's earnest request had made them generous. The dark-eyed, olive-complexioned women of Alagoas are often exceedingly beautiful, but few of those present had ever seen a brown-haired, brown-eyed, fair-faced Englishwoman.
It was written in German, addressed to a Hamburg shipping firm, and ran as follows: "Have sold Unser Fritz to Senhor Pondillo of this port as from September 1st, for 175,000 marks. If approved, cable confirmation, and draw on Paris branch Deutsche Bank at sight. Franz Schmidt, care German Consul, Maceio."
The Dona Pondillo and her daughters, together with the female relatives of several noted men among the insurgents, were cutting and stitching most industriously. Iris Yorke's advice, perhaps her assistance, was evidently in demand.
His Excellency had foreseen the difficulty. Those who knew Dom Corria best would not credit that he should forget anything. The Senhora Pondillo awaited Iris at the hotel with a supply of new clothing. Captain Schmidt, of course, could depend on his own wardrobe, but Captain Coke and the Senhor Hozier would find a tradesman in their rooms who had guaranteed to equip them suitably.
"You naturally ask how I propose to safeguard the companions of my flight from Fernando Noronha," he went on. "I answer at once by taking them with me. The Senhora Pondillo and her family will accompany her husband to my quinta at Las Flores. A special train will take all of us to the nearest railway station this afternoon. Thence my estate is but a day's march.
At the close of the speech he muttered to Hozier: "Wish I'd ha' known wot sort of beano I was comin' to. Dam if I ain't meltin'." This ordeal ended, déjeuner was served. The President took in Iris and the Dona Pondillo. They were the only ladies present. The three sailors, some staff officers, and a few local celebrities, made up the rest of the company.
The Dona Pondillo deemed her a spirit when she appeared on the veranda, but Carmela's impetuous kiss soon disabused the worthy dame of her error. Iris, wondering why the lively chatter of her Brazilian friends was so suddenly stilled, to be succeeded by a hubbub of excited words as the older ladies present gathered around the new-comer, asked one of the Pondillo girls what had happened.
"They are in the room prepared for your Excellency." "Let me go there at once and change my clothing. I must appear before the troops as their President, not as a jail-bird. For the moment I leave everything to you and San Benavides. Let Senhor Pondillo be summoned. He will attend to the civil side of affairs.
But convention is stronger than the primal impulses sometimes it triumphs over death itself and convention was all-powerful now. It led Iris away captive in the train of the smiling and voluble Senhora Pondillo, and it immersed Hozier in a tangle of fearsome words which turned out to be the stock in trade of a clothier. The mere male of Maceio decks himself with gay plumage.
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