ssippi our steamer broke her rudder. We
sent for a tug to tow us back and lost three days. When we struck
the blue waters of the Gulf, all the storm clouds of the Atlantic
seemed to have concentrated above us. We thought surely to sweeten
those leaping waves with our sugar, and to stack our arms and lumber
on the floor of the Mexican Gulf.

"Kearny did not seek to cast off one iota of the burden of our
danger from the shoulders of his fatal horoscope. He weathered every
storm on deck, smoking a black pipe, to keep which alight rain and
sea-water seemed but as oil. And he shook his fist at the black
clouds behind which his baleful star winked its unseen eye. When the
skies cleared one evening, he reviled his malignant guardian with
grim humour.

"'On watch, aren't you, you red-headed vixen? Out making it hot for
little Francis Kearny and his friends, according to Hoyle. Twinkle,
twinkle, little devil! You're a lady, aren't you?--dogging a man
with your bad luck just because he happened to be born while your
boss was floorwalker. Get busy and sink the ship, you one-eyed
banshee. Phoebe! H'm! Sounds as mild as a milkmaid. You can't judge
a woman by her name. Why couldn't I have had a man star? I can't
make the remarks to Phoebe that I could to a man. Oh, Phoebe, you
be--blasted!'

"For eight days gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our
course. Five days only should have landed us in Esperando. Our Jonah
swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that
scarcely lessened the hardships our cause was made to suffer.

"At last one afternoon we steamed into the calm estuary of the
little Rio Escondido. Three miles up this we crept, feeling for the
shallow channel between the low banks that were crowded to the edge
with gigantic trees and riotous vegetation. Then our whistle gave a
little toot, and in five minutes we heard a shout, and Carlos--my
brave Carlos Quintana--crashed through the tangled vines waving his
cap madly for joy.

"A hundred yards away was his camp, where three hundred chosen
patriots of Esperando were awaiting our coming. For a month Carlos
had been drilling them there in the tactics of war, and filling them
with the spirit of revolution and liberty.

"'My Captain--_compadre mio!_' shouted Carlos, while yet my boat was
being lowered. 'You should see them in the drill by _companies_--in
the column wheel--in the march by fours--they are superb! Also in
the manual of arms--but