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By Root 1935 0

the army, like the Church in the past, would be the nerve center of a secular society frantically pursuing henceforth the goal of scientific progress. They are wondering whether it is true that on the death of Marshal Floriano Peixoto he was so overwrought that he fainted as he was reading the eulogy at the cemetery. People have said that with the coming to power of a civilian president, Prudente de Moraes, the political fate of Colonel Moreira César and the so-called Jacobins is sealed. But, they tell themselves, this must not be true, since, if it were, he would not be here in Queimadas, at the head of the most famous corps of the Brazilian Army, sent by the government itself to carry out a mission from which—who can possibly doubt it?—he will return to Rio with greatly enhanced prestige.

“I have not come to Bahia to intervene in local political struggles,” he is saying, as without looking at them he points to the posters of the Republican Party and the Autonomist Party hanging from the ceiling. “The army is above factional quarrels, on the sidelines of political maneuvering. The Seventh Regiment is here to put down a monarchist conspiracy. For behind the brigands and fanatical madmen of Canudos is a plot against the Republic. Those poor devils are a mere tool of aristocrats who are unable to resign themselves to the loss of their privileges, who do not want Brazil to be a modern country. And of certain fanatical priests unable to resign themselves to the separation of Church and State because they do not want to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. And even of England, apparently, which wants to restore the corrupt Empire that allowed it to buy up the entire output of Brazilian sugar at ridiculously low prices. But they are mistaken. Neither aristocrats nor priests nor England will ever again lay down the law in Brazil. The army will not permit it.”

He has raised his voice little by little and uttered the last sentences in an impassioned tone, with his right hand resting on the pistol suspended from his cartridge belt. As he falls silent there is a reverent hush of expectation in the station hall and the buzzing of insects can be heard as they circle round in mad frustration above the plates of food covered with cheesecloth. The most grizzled journalist, a man who, despite the stifling heat in the room, is still bundled up in a plaid jacket, timidly raises one hand to indicate that he wishes to make a comment or ask a question. But the colonel does not allow him to speak; he has just motioned with his hand to two of his orderlies. Coached beforehand, they lift a box off the floor, place it on the table, and open it: it is full of rifles.

Moreira César begins slowly pacing back and forth in front of the five journalists, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Captured in the backlands of Bahia, gentlemen,” he goes on to say in a sarcastic tone of voice, as though he were making mock of someone. “These rifles, at least, failed to reach Canudos. And where are they from? They didn’t even bother to remove the manufacturer’s label. Liverpool, no less! Rifles of this type have never turned up in Brazil before. Moreover, they’re equipped with a special device for shooting expanding bullets. That explains the gaping bullet holes that so surprised the army surgeons: wounds ten, twelve centimeters in diameter. They looked more like shrapnel wounds than bullet wounds. Is it likely that simple jagunços, mere cattle rustlers, would know about such European refinements as expanding bullets? And furthermore, what is the meaning behind the sudden appearance of so many people whose origins are a mystery? The corpse discovered in Ipupiará. The individual who turns up in Capim Grosso with a pocket full of pounds sterling who confesses to having guided a party of English-speaking horsemen. Foreigners trying to take shipments of provisions and gunpowder to Canudos have even been discovered in Belo Horizonte. Too many apparent coincidences not to point to a plot against the Republic as the source behind them. The enemies of the Republic