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the aggravation of flight, must have left a damning impression of his character on the minds of the government party.

The day of the destruction of Cumaná was fraught with perhaps a lifelong misery to many persons in that city. To the prisoners whose liberty, and, of some, lives were forfeited, any change whatever that could affect them was beneficial. Especially must they have welcomed the cause that set them at liberty, even though it were the destruction of a city, and the wholesale loss of human lives.

Hills took advantage of the liberty he had received in common with the other prisoners, and lost no time in taking a passage for another place. May the regret which, presumably, he takes with him through life for sending an unprepared soul untimely to its eternal reckoning "unhousel'd unanel'd, with all his imperfections on his head," work repentance in the homicide, and make him a useful, rather than a hopeless man!

CHAPTER XVI.

ENTRY OF SOTILLO'S ARMY.

THE Provisorios kept up the delusion of their ability and intention to drive off Sotillo to the last moment. At about three o'clock one day, they all passed out in battle array by Punta Plata. The town's people were told that they were then going out to a decisive battle. I had never yet seen soldiers going out to fight, as the besieged Provisorios had hitherto taken some other route. Nor have I seen any since. But in this march to action, it seemed to me that the officers were unnecessarily fatiguing themselves, and must have had considerable strength to be able to fight when the fight came. Before each company danced, (yes, I think, danced is the proper word,) an officer brandishing his drawn sword, while he kept on muttering some words, which, if intended to keep alive the courage of the men, must have failed,

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for it seemed like a prosy incantation, or like the monotonous drone of a schoolboy in getting up

his lessons.

I was sorry to see my old friend M. Griselle with his two sons in the company. The old gentleman was shaking his sword and muttering, and occasionally he performed his pirouette. I thought of his rheumatic arm. Poor old gentleman! he must have joined or have fled; but in either case, his property would be subject either to destruction or confiscation. I know he afterwards pleaded compulsion and was pardoned. But he had for a long time to run the gauntlet of the jeers and sarcasms of even some of the Reds, that during the war had skulked off to Trinidad.

A young officer from Cumaná pirouetting like a maniac attracted my notice. He was quite unique, being short, thin, and loosely knitted, and fastened. to his sword case, for I could not make out that it looked at all fastened to him. He jumped about making sword thrusts sometimes in the face of his company, then at one side of the street, and then at the other side. He had learnt of Lady Mac

beth, probably, to "screw his courage to the sticking-place;" but the encouraging words he uttered came out as of one suffering from a fit of ague. Such a little weazen soldier could have been eaten up by a Caribbe.

There was no fighting that day, much to the surprise of many. At night the soldiers returned marching to the sound of music. Then there was a grand ball. Maturin was getting fashionable in balls. Lights flashed, gold lace shone, and swords were abundant; ladies few.

At twelve at night the town was quiet. Not a sound was heard excepting the occasional challenge of the sentinel-" Halté-Quien Vive?" and the response "Venezuela! Ciudadano," by the

adventurous night-walker.

At five in the morning Ferdinand, a mulatto of the place, and connected with a French family, but with us as man of all work, aroused us with the startling cry-"Los Provisorios estan á fuera! La Ciudad es desocupado! Ninguno sentinela es en la calle!" The soldiers are away; the city is deserted, not a sentinel in the street.

I jumped up in great trepidation. What should I do, with my single family in an empty city, given up to the fury of a disappointed soldiery? In truth there was not a soul in the street. As I looked out from the middle up and down, it seemed as if some catastrophe had occurred, and I was solitary, in a city of the dead. The clean, quiet street, the white houses, even the moon shining cold and silent seemed obnoxious to me. I would rather, I thought, be marching with the absconders, one knows not whither, hunted, perhaps to death, than remain in this dreadful solitude and incertitude.

I ran to my next neighbour, a foreigner, and was assured by his presence, and more so that he was satisfied that no harm would happen while our flag was up, and we kept ourselves unobtrusively within. In less than an hour we had several native women with their children and some baggage craving asylum from the "desperados," as they were pleased to call the government party. I could not refuse them, and they huddled themselves together in a room in the yard.

At eight in the morning was heard martial