“Did you find the house of Don Simon, Senor Fortescue?” he asked when he saw me.

“Yes, but I did not find him.  The house is empty and deserted.  What do you mean by sending me on such a fool’s errand?”

“I beg your pardon, senor.  You asked me to direct you to Senor Ulloa’s house, and I did so.  What could I do more?” And the fellow cringed and smirked, as if it were all a capital joke, till I could hardly refrain from pulling his long nose first and kicking him afterwards, but I listened to the voice of prudence and resisted the impulse.

“You know quite well that I sought Senor Ulloa.  Did I not tell you that I had a letter for him?  If you were a caballero instead of a wretched posadero, I would chastise your trickery as it deserves.  What has become of Senor Ulloa, and how comes it that his house is deserted?”

“Senor Ulloa is dead.  He was garroted.”

“Garroted!  What for?”

“Treason.  There was discovered a compromising correspondence between him and Bolivar.  But why ask me?  As a friend of Senor Ulloa, you surely know all this?”

“I never was a friend of his—­never even saw him!  I had merely a letter to him from a common friend.  But how happened it that Senor Ulloa, who, I believe, was a correjidor, entered into a correspondence with the arch-traitor?”

“That made it all the worse.  He richly deserved his fate.  His eldest son, who was privy to the affair, was strangled at the same time as his father; his other children fled, and Senora Ulloa died of grief.”

“Poor woman!  No wonder the house is deserted.  What a frightful state of things!”

And then, feeling that I had said enough, and fearing that I might say more, I turned on my heel, lighted a cigar, and, while I paced to and fro in the patio, seriously considered my position, which, as I clearly perceived, was beginning to be rather precarious.

As likely as not the innkeeper would denounce me, and then it would, of course, be very absurd, for I was utterly ignorant, and Zamorra, a Royalist to the bone, must have been equally ignorant that his friend Ulloa had any hand in the rebellion.  The mere fact of carrying a harmless letter of introduction from a well-known loyalist to a friend whom he believed to be still a loyalist, could surely not be construed as an offense.  At any rate it ought not to be.  But when I recalled all I had heard from Morena, and the stories told me but an hour before by Carera, I thought it extremely probable that it would be, and bitterly regretted that I had not mentioned to the latter Ulloa’s name.  He would have put me on my guard, and I should not have so fatally committed myself with the posadero.

But regrets are useless and worse.  They waste time and weaken resolve.  The question of the moment was, What should I do?  How avoid the danger which I felt sure was impending?  There seemed only one way—­immediate flight.  I would go to Carera, tell him all that had happened, and ask him to arrange for my departure from Caracas that very night.  I could steal away unseen when all was quiet.