r your safety," he said. "I should be
sorry indeed were any harm to befall an English caballero who has risked
his life to serve us and brought us such good news."

"What harm can befall me, now that I have got rid of that packet?" I
asked.

"In a city under martial law and full of spies, there is no telling what
may happen. Being, moreover, a stranger, you are a marked man. It is not
everybody who, like the commandant of La Guayra, will believe that you are
travelling for your own pleasure. What man in his senses would choose a
time like this for a scientific ramble in Venezuela?"

And then Senor Carera explained that he could arrange for me to leave
Caracas almost immediately, under excellent guidance. The _teniente_ of
Colonel Mejia, one of the guerilla leaders, was in the town on a secret
errand, and would set out on his return journey in three days. If I liked
I might go with him, and I could not have a better guide or a more
trustworthy companion.

It was a chance not to be lost. I told Senor Carera that I should only be
too glad to profit by the opportunity, and that on any day and at any hour
which he might name I would be ready.

"I will see the _teniente_, and let you know further in the course of
to-morrow," said Carera, after a moment's thought. "The affair will
require nice management. There are patrols on every road. You must be well
mounted, and I suppose you will want a mule for your baggage."

"No! I shall take no more than I can carry in my saddle-bags. We must not
be incumbered with pack-mules on an expedition of this sort. We may have
to ride for our lives."

"You are quite right, Senor Fortescue; so you may. I will see that you are
well mounted, and I shall be delighted to take charge of your belongings
until the patriots again, and for the last time, capture Caracas and drive
those thrice-accursed Spaniards into the sea."

Before we separated I invited Senor Carera to _almuerzo_ (the equivalent
to the Continental second breakfast) on the following day.

After a moment's reflection he accepted the invitation. "But we shall have
to be very cautious," he added. "The _posada_ is a Royalist house, and the
_posadero_ (innkeeper) is hand and glove with the police. If we speak of
the patriots at all, it must be only to abuse them.... But our turn will
come, and--_por Dios!_--then--"

The fierce light in Carera's eyes, the gesture by which his words were
emphasized, boded no good for the Royalist