harbor of Porto Cortez and give the commission for their purchase to
the commandante. Aiken then and always was the most graceful liar I
have ever met. His fictions were never for his own advantage, at least
not obviously so. Instead, they always held out some pleasing hope for
the person to whom they were addressed. His plans and promises as to
what he would do were so alluring that even when I knew he was lying I
liked to pretend that he was not. This particular fiction so
interested the commandante that he even offered us an escort of
soldiers, which honor we naturally declined.

That night when the moon had risen we started inland, each mounted on
a stout little mule, and followed by a third, on which was swung my
trunk, balanced on the other side by Aiken's saddle bags. A Carib
Indian whom Aiken had selected because of his sympathies for the
revolution walked beside the third mule and directed its progress by
the most startling shrieks and howls. To me it was a most memorable
and marvellous night, and although for the greater part of it Aiken
dozed in his saddle and woke only to abuse his mule, I was never more
wakeful nor more happy. At the very setting forth I was pleasantly
stirred when at the limit of the town a squad of soldiers halted us
and demanded our passports. This was my first encounter with the
government troops. They were barefooted and most slovenly looking
soldiers, mere boys in age and armed with old-fashioned Remingtons.
But their officer, the captain of the guard, was more smartly dressed,
and I was delighted to find that my knowledge of Spanish, in which my
grandfather had so persistently drilled me, enabled me to understand
all that passed between him and Aiken. The captain warned us that the
revolutionists were camped along the trail, and that if challenged we
had best answer quickly that we were Americanos. He also told us that
General Laguerre and his legion of "gringoes" were in hiding in the