“As I had nothing to do, I was one of the first to take the train to the east through the forest; and I took the opportunity to go over the scenes of my old adventures. I got Dick Binge and Tommy to come with me. I started by going to San Marco, where the marriage party was so kind to me. I found Uncle Philip still living, in the same farm. His niece had married Hernando, the man who dispensed the cordials in the waggon. They were living at a farm near by and doing well. I had promised them when I parted from them to return the clothes they gave me. I couldn’t quite do this, but I was able to get them a couple of pedigree cows from His Excellency, which I hope will thrive up there on the hill.
“After seeing them, we went with a guide two days into the forest to the temple where the cousin of the Hundred Yards Blue nearly plugged me. The place has long since been opened up and explored. From some of the Indians thereabouts I learned of the end of Letcombe-Bassett, if that were his name. It seems that a few days after I escaped, he worked into the temple by himself and made a certain number of finds. A big stone fell across his legs and pinned him there. He called to his Indians to lift the stone, but the Indians wouldn’t, because they hadn’t liked his ways, so he stayed pinned there for three days and nights, till he died of thirst. So Dudley Wigmore was avenged. We had a look for Dudley Wigmore’s bones, but the jungle had taken charge of them. I learned later that one or two of his things and some of the treasure from the temple were recovered and sent to his old mother at Shepton Mallet. This was done by one of Wigmore’s French friends, years ago, during the troubles, soon after I was there. The rest of the things found in the temple are in the museum at Santa Barbara.
“From this point, as so much of the forest had been cleared and a lot of the bog drained, it was easy to make the next stage to the ranch, where the corpse looked through the window. Here I learned what had happened; it had long been a puzzle to me.
“The troop of Pitubas who had burned the Ribote house made one or two forays into the Gaspar country, to burn the houses of other prominent Whites. Word came that afternoon that they were coming to burn this particular ranch. That old ruffian, Don Pablo, who would not let me go to Anselmo, ordered the people to vacate the ranch, and to join his body, which (he said) would then attack the Pitubas. They hurried the women away to safety; then, as they rode out to join Don Pablo, someone in a panic fired a shot, and everybody began to blaze away at nothing. These were the shots which I heard.
“A young Englishman employed in the ranch stayed there after the others lest a telephone call should come through with news of Don Manuel. While he waited, he saw the Pituba spy and shot him through the window; being then thoroughly scared, he took horse and galloped away. I heard him go.
“The telephone call came through while I was there, as I am not likely to forget.
“The people who challenged me and shot my horse, as I left the place, were the Pitubas, who burned the ranch to the ground that night. I found it rebuilt and thriving. That old ruffian, Don Pablo, owns it: he is a Senator and a grandissimo: I saw him there. He looks liker a portrait of a beadle than ever: a beadle or a town-bull.
“From this point we rode through the forest to the place where I went astray in the rain; and thence up the pass to the crater; and so, by degrees, to the Ribotes’ ranch. The old man and wife were still alive. The old man was failing and the old woman had had so many troubles that she did not care to see me, but I paid for my horse, I am glad to say, at last, and heard their news. The daughter had become an enclosed nun and the son, Anton, had been killed in the anti-clerical rebellion five years ago. I was grieved indeed not to see those two again. The house had been divided against itself, like so many during the troubles. From there, I rode on to the little town where I had been jailed. It has become a very prosperous place since I was there. They have built a new town hall and a new jail. They have also changed its name from Ribote to Tres de Mayo. Some don of state had built a lovely palace on the site of the Ribote mansion, which was burned while I was there.
“From here we rode on and camped in the clump where the officer made me a prisoner. Of all the places which I visited, this was the only one which did not seem to have changed. In the morning, we rode on and came to the falls down which I had been swept when I escaped from Brother Bright Tooth and his friend. As there was very little water in the river it did not look the same, but I could see the place with the overhanging bank where I came ashore. Just at the place where I took the water there is now a railway bridge; the track by which I rode on Bright Tooth’s horse has now the railway beside it. The hamlet where Bright Tooth and his mother lived has changed beyond all recognition into a thriving market town, but I found the German. He had become very stout and enormously prosperous. He remembered me quite well and told me all about Bright Tooth and his mother. The mother, he said, went into Santa Barbara during the troubles and was ended when the troubles were ended. Bright Tooth and a friend of his, I hope the friend who was with him when they tried to nobble me, were garrotted under His Excellency for murdering an old woman at Medinas.
“From this point, it was only a short stage to Carpinche, which is now a port for big forest timber. There were ships of up to a thousand tons in the harbour there. I watched them heaving the great red-hearts and green-hearts in through the holes in their bows. Not that the forests are being skinned. They are being planted as well as being cut.