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Rh then proceeded to seize the cabille, or town hall, on the west side of the Plazza, or city square. Part of the garrison in the fort were Paraguayan soldiers; and these had been bribed by the Blancoes to rise and join them. But the Government having tidings of this, had had them removed to another place the evening before. When the governor, Flores, who was at the fort, heard that the Cabille had been seized, he set off by himself in his carriage to go there. Three sets of hired assassins were placed, one in each of the three ways by which Flores must approach the Cabille, and which they had concluded he would do. One ambush was an unfinished house that I had passed only five minutes before. And as Flores came by, the conspirators rushed out, shot his coachman and horses, and stabbed him to death in his carriage.

Berro, the leader of the Blancoes, went with about a dozen of his party to the fort to seize it, expecting the Paraguayan soldiers there immediately to desert to him and join him. He shot two of the soldiers that opposed him, but was soon mastered, with his party, some of whom succeeded in escaping by a boat to some vessel in the harbour. Flores' son, Edwardo, who was quite a youth, came up to Berro in the fort, and without suffering him to excuse himself by saying that "if he had not taken the lead, his own party would have assassinated him," nor permitting him to divulge who his confederates were first embraced Berro, who was a fine old grey headed and mild-looking man, and had been his former friend; then, drawing back, he drew his revolver and shot him dead. So much for style in Spanish tragedy.