The Filibusters by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

Author:Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne [Hyne, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure
Publisher: Feedbooks
Published: 1900-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

PREPARATIONS FOR AN EXIT

WE did not ring for orderlies. We went to the stables and saddled the horses ourselves, and rode out of the courtyard without, I believe, anybody noticing us.

The streets were lit and deserted, and the houses were dark. The new President did not encourage wandering about after nightfall in Dolores, and he frowned upon evening parties for the present. He knew that revolutionary schemes were hatched for the most part during evening hours, and for the present at any rate he did not choose to be embarrassed by an active opposition.

Twice we met street patrols who recognised Carew and myself, and let us pass; and then we came to the Nicaragua Gate, and the guard let us through without the least demur. Sir William Carew's escape could not have been made easier. And so there we were, outside the capital; and I, the only responsible being in Sacaronduca who knew of the fellow's colossal treachery, had helped him successfully to avoid the just consequences. It is true I was in a manner forced into doing this, but that did not make me any the more pleased with the result.

We had a good long ride in front of us before we came to a piece of quiet ground, for that side of the city is well fringed with the villas, and bungalows, and country houses of the better-off people, who prefer the sweet open air of the plains to the somewhat dubious scents of Dolores. A cable tramway ran down the first two miles of the road, with double avenues of palms shading the sidewalks on either side, and we trotted along together on the right-hand flank of the metals, to all appearance the most amicable pair of gentlemen who ever took an early morning constitutional.

After villadom, came larger estates and farms, and after the farms came a broad quaking belt of marsh full of black pools and waving reeds, and uneasy with night fowl and alligators. The stars hung in the night above us, the fireflies danced over the sour morasses at our sides, and the road swung under the beat of the horses' hoofs as a ferry swings on a river. A close moist heat exhaled from the place.

In the middle of this belt of quagmire Carew pulled up his horse. " This would suit us, I should say, Birch," he remarked. "After I've shot you I can tip you over the edge of the causeway, and you'll be neatly and inexpensively buried."

"Quite so," said I, " but it happens that I intend to shoot you if it can be managed, and it wouldn't suit me at all to chuck you to the alligators after the event. I should want to take your carcase back to Dolores as a guarantee of good faith."

"And stick my head on a spike at the top of the Nicaragua Gate? Rather out of date that sort of thing, isn't it? However, we can put the horses on one side

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