Under this able leader I fought in several engagements that were fierce and sanguinary as all such fratricidal contests are and ever have been in the annals of civil war, at San Sebastien, Carapana, Tarasca, and elsewhere, our guerilla struggle extending over the whole extensive country in almost every direction, where there was a town to sack or property to plunder, until at last the insurgent “patriots” were conquered and peace restored.
All this took a long time; and then, having had enough and to spare of fighting and bloodshed, and tired of mining too, I disposed of my interest in the Gondifera mine, and at last sailed for Europe, bidding a long adieu to Venezuela and everything belonging to it, my journey home being hastened by a somewhat tenderer letter than usual from Elsie, who had read a paragraph in the papers about my having been wounded at the battle of San Sebastien, though, of course, I had not mentioned anything about the affair to her or my mother, as it was a mere flea bite and of no consequence, and I feared to have alarmed them needlessly had I said anything about it in my letters to them at home.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Home at Last!
Fellows who knock about the world sailoring and so on cannot help coming to the conclusion that its compass is narrower than stay-at-home folk might be inclined to believe, for you can hardly stir a step without knocking across some one whom you previously imagined to have been miles and miles away, separated, perhaps, by an ocean from yourself.
I had scarcely stepped into the train from Southampton, bound Londonwards, en route for Liverpool, having only landed from the mail steamer that brought me direct all the way from Colon that very morning, when whom should I see looking at me from the opposite corner of the railway carriage but a big, bushy-haired, brown-bearded man whom I did not know from Adam.
“Faith,” exclaimed this gentleman, after a moment’s scrutiny, a broad grin lighting up his face and his eyes twinkling with a comical expression that would alone have made me recognise him, had I not heard his delightful, to me at any rate, Irish brogue, “ye’re ayther Dick Haldane or the divvle!” stretching out both hands to grasp mine.
I was as pleased to see him, as may readily be believed, as the genial Irishman was to see me, I was sure, even without his telling me so.