"Well, if there is," I repeated, "you can count me in."

"That's all right," he said.

At that moment we reached the top of the incline, and I looked down
into the hollow below. To my surprise I found that this side of the
hill was quite barren of laurel or of any undergrowth, and that it
sloped to a little open space carpeted with high, waving grass, and
cut in half by a narrow stream. On one side of the stream a great herd
of mules and horses were tethered, and on the side nearer us were many
smoking camp-fires and rough shelters made from the branches of trees.
Men were sleeping in the grass or sitting in the shade of the
shelters, cleaning accoutrements, and some were washing clothes in the
stream. At the foot of the hill was a tent, and ranged before it two
Gatling guns strapped in their canvas jackets. I saw that I had at
last reached my destination. This was the camp of the filibusters.
These were the soldiers of Laguerre's Foreign Legion.




III


Although I had reached my journey's end, although I had accomplished
what I had set out to do, I felt no sense of elation nor relief. I
was, instead, disenchanted, discouraged, bitterly depressed. It was so
unutterably and miserably unlike what I had hoped to find, what I
believed I had the right to expect, that my disappointment and anger
choked me. The picture I had carried in my mind was one of shining