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 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 companias—in the column wheel—in the march by fours—they are superb! Also in the manual of arms—but, alas! performed only with sticks of bamboo. The guns, capitan—say that you have brought the guns!”

“‘A thousand Winchesters, Carlos,’ I called to him. ‘And two Gatlings.’

“‘Valgame Dios!’ he cried, throwing his cap in the air. ‘We shall sweep the world!’

“At that moment Kearny tumbled from the steamer’s side into the river. He could not swim, so the crew threw him a rope and drew him back aboard. I caught his eye and his look of pathetic but still bright and undaunted consciousness of his guilty luck. I told myself that although he might be a man to shun, he was also one to be admired.

“I gave orders to the sailing-master that the arms, ammunition, and provisions were to be landed at once. That was easy in the steamer’s boats, except for the two Gatling guns. For their transportation ashore we carried a stout flatboat, brought for the purpose in the steamer’s hold.

“In the meantime I walked with Carlos to the camp and made the soldiers a little speech in Spanish, which