"Oh! I dare say they know what our arrangements are," replied Mr. Jackson. "It's no secret that we get our pay once a fortnight from Bolivar. We may expect a visit from them next pay-day, if not before. I only hope they won't bother us as they did the French company some years ago: they broke 'em, with the assistance of floods and earthquakes. Ah well! every cloud has a silver lining."
Next day O'Connor devoted himself to the fortification of the camp, employing a hundred men--a fourth of the whole company of peons--on the work. To lessen the labour, he took the embankment as one wall, and palisaded the top for about a hundred yards. Then he made a rough circular wall around the camp enclosure, using rails and sleepers and a number of trucks, defending the whole circuit with a chevaux-de-frise made of branches lopped from the neighbouring woods. Mr. Jackson doubted whether the terms of their concession from the Government admitted the use of timber for this purpose, but O'Connor made the very pertinent answer that permission to build a railway was of little value unless it included the right to defend the line and those employed on it; upon which the Chief said no more.
These defensive works occupied several days. Before they were completed a muleteer came from the mines to report that Captain Espejo had visited them and demanded money from the manager. Luckily the fortnight's pay had not arrived, and his cash-box was almost empty; but the Captain had seized all the money that was left, and also impressed a score of the miners, who had been marched away, presumably to the head-quarters of General Carabaño.
During these days news was brought in by several of the haciendados of the neighbourhood, from whom the Chief obtained supplies of food, that General Carabaño had captured two or three small towns to the eastward, and recruited a considerable number of men, who were for the most part poorly armed, and still worse equipped. The workers on the railway were delighted at the discomfiture of Captain Espejo; none of them had any wish to share the unenviable lot of men impressed in the revolutionary cause. At present they had hard work, but good pay; as hirelings of General Carabaño they would lead the life of dogs, liable to be whipped or slashed or even shot if they chanced to offend their officers, and to get no pay at all.
On the day after Captain Espejo's visit Mr. Jackson wrote to the Provincial Jefe at Ciudad Bolivar, with whom he was on good terms, relating what had happened, and asking for the protection of Government troops. He sent the letter by mounted messenger to the junction about fifty miles off, whence it was conveyed by rail. In two days he received a reply, in which the Jefe sympathized with his position, but said that he had just been obliged to dispatch the greater part of the force under his command to Caracas, which was threatened by a rising in Valencia. He could not further deplete his garrison without endangering Bolivar. His letter concluded with a strong warning to Mr. Jackson against affording any assistance to the rebels.
"We're between the devil and the deep sea," said the Chief, discussing the letter with his staff. "The Government can't help us, and leaves us at the mercy of the rebels; and yet it will punish us if we help them, which they may force us to do. What a country!"
"Why didn't you stay at home, Chief?" asked O'Connor.
"Because I didn't want to run the risk of clerking at thirty bob a week," replied Mr. Jackson. "That's the fate of many good men in the old country, worse luck."
Azito, the Indian, had attached himself to Will, constituting himself an additional servant, much to the disgust and jealousy of the negro José. The two quarrelled so frequently that Will thought it advisable to separate them. Accordingly he got Mr. Jackson to make use of Azito as a scout. He gave him a pony and sent him to learn what he could of the revolutionaries: where General Carabaño had fixed his head-quarters, how many men he had with him, and what his intentions were. The Indian was at first very reluctant to venture within reach of his late master; but on Will promising that he should be well paid and provided for, the man consented, rather from blind devotion to his rescuer than from any other motive.
Returning after two days' absence, he reported that General Carabaño was quartered in a hill-village about twenty-five miles north-east of railhead. His force, as estimated by the Indians of the neighbourhood, consisted of some five hundred men. It was rumoured that the General, when he considered himself strong enough, intended to attack Ciudad Bolivar, on the Orinoco about forty-five miles farther to the north-east. His numbers were being continually increased, but he was obviously in great need of money, and had already begun to make forced requisitions on the haciendados and the Indians. Mr. Jackson devoutly hoped that money would not be forthcoming. A leader of strong personality could easily and at any time gather a large army of desperadoes in Venezuela if he had the money to pay them.