gons. The
road wound around the mountains for a distance of perhaps twenty-five
miles, although as the crow flies it was not more than five miles
between the two cities. Between them, however, the tremendous ridge of
mountains rose to a height of nearly ten thousand feet. Starting from
the very level of the sea, the road crossed the divide through a
depression at an altitude of about six thousand feet and descended
thence some three thousand feet to the valley in which lay Caracas.

This was the road over which Alvarado and Mercedes had come and on the
lower end of which they had been captured. It was now barred for the
young soldier by the detachment of buccaneers under young Teach and
L'Ollonois, who were instructed to hold the pass where the road crossed
through, or over, the mountains. Owing to the configuration of the pass,
that fifty could hold it against a thousand. It was not probable that
news of the sack of La Guayra would reach Caracas before Morgan
descended upon it, but to prevent the possibility, or to check any
movement of troops toward the shore, it was necessary to hold that road.
The man who held it was in position to protect or strike either city at
will. It was, in fact, the key to the position.

Morgan, of course, counted upon surprising the unfortified capital as he
had the seaport town. It was the boast of the Spaniards that they needed
no walls about Caracas, since nature had provided them with the mighty
rampart of the mountain range, which could not be surmounted save in
that one place. With that one place in the buccaneer's possession,
Caracas could only rely upon the number and valor of her defenders. To
Morgan's onslaught could only be opposed a rampart of blades and hearts.
Had there been a state of war in existence it is probable that the
Viceroy would have fortified and garrisoned the pass, but under present
conditions nothing had been done. As soon as a messenger from Teach
informed Morgan that the pass had been occupied and that all seemed
quiet in Caracas, a fact which had been learned by some bold scouting
on the farther side of the mountain, he was perfectly easy as to the
work of the morrow. He would fall upon the unwalled town at night and
carry everything by a _coup de main_.

Fortunately for the Spaniards in this instance, it happened that there
was another way of access to the valley of Caracas from La Guayra.
Directly up and over the mountain there ran a narrow and difficult