I not have given, at that moment, for the
privilege of knocking Superintendent Seegrave
down!

As I had promised for them, the other
servants followed my lead, sorely against the
grain, of course, but all taking the view that I
took. The women were a sight to see, while
the police-officers were rummaging among their
things. The cook looked as if she could grill Mr.
Superintendent alive on a furnace, and the other
women looked as if they could eat him when he
was done.

The search over, and no Diamond or sign
of a Diamond being found, of course, anywhere,
Superintendent Seegrave retired to my little
room to consider with himself what he was to
do next. He and his men had now been hours
in the house, and had not advanced us one inch
towards a discovery of how the Moonstone had
been taken, or of whom we were to suspect as
the thief.

While the police-officer was still pondering
in solitude, I was sent for to see Mr. Franklin
in the library. To my unutterable astonishment,
just as my hand was on the door, it was
suddenly opened from the inside, and out
walked Rosanna Spearman!

GENERAL FALCON.

ONE of my first objects on arriving at
Venezuela was to have an interview with General
Falcon, the president of the republic. In my
simplicity, I imagined that my wishes in this
respect would be easily gratified, and I was not
a little surprised when the announcement of
my intention was received everywhere with
shrugs. On inquiry, I was told that the president
never came to the capital; and that if I
was bent on seeing him, I should have to go
to Coro or Maracaybo. The distance of these
places was great, but their inaccessibility was
greater. "Besides," said my informant, opening
his eyes wider and wider, as he thought of
the difficulties, "Coro is so confoundedly
unhealthy, and you will be sure to die of fever, or
to be eaten by wild beasts in the forest, before
you get there. There are no roads, and no
places to put up at, and there is hardly a misery
existing that you will not have to encounter.
Here, just look at the map. You will go by
sea to Puerto Cabello. That is one of the
worst places in the world for yellow fever, and
they have got it there just now. Then, from
Puerto Cabello to the Yaracui and Aroa
rivers, you will have to cross a burning waste,
in which there is not a single shrub ten feet
high to keep off the sun. After that, you will
get into the jungles of Coro, through which it
is hardly possible to push your way—a regular
hot-bed of fever, and swarming with tigers, as
they call the jaguars and panthers here. As
for the road from Coro to Maracaybo, it is a
thousand time worse; but I shall say nothing
about it, for I am sure you will never get so
far."

I could not help smiling at my friend's
vehemence, but I did not feel at all deterred, until
he further assured me that on arriving at Coro
I should very likely find that the president
had gone to some other remote region,
whither it would be impossible for me to follow
him. I then began to feel somewhat as an
envoy would, who, on arriving in London,
accredited to the Court of St. James, should be
told that the queen never came to town, and
that he must go to the Orkney Islands, to be
presented, with the chance of a further
expedition to Cork or Jersey. Not, indeed, that
any journey by rail or steam-boat can compare
with one in a country where no such facilities
exist, and where, generally speaking, there
is—

Neither horse meat, nor man's meat, nor place to
lie down.

After pondering over the matter a good deal,
I came to that well-known conclusion—the
usual refuge of weak minds—that I would be
guided by circumstances. To a man who has
serious business on hand, the chase of a Jack
o'Lanthorn is not a pleasant pastime, even though
the said Jack should be a president and a "grand
mariscal." However, I undertook the pursuit;
and, at last, after being thrown out several
times, discovered the veritable whereabouts of
his excellency, and went to meet him as he
approached Valencia. I succeeded in obtaining
the interview, but it must be confessed that I
owed this, not to the fact that I had come so
many miles for the express purpose of seeing
the great man, nor to the repeated messages I
had sent to him by couriers, but to the breaking
out of disturbances in the central and eastern
provinces of the republic. As soon as the
distant meshes of the political web began to
vibrate, the master spinner made his appearance
from the recesses of Coro, and the reports
of his erratic movements, now to Maracaybo,
now to San Felipe, now to Barquisimeto,
ceased.

It was a bright hot forenoon in the first week
of September when, as I was lazily swinging in
my hammock in the Calle de Constitucion at
Valencia, the unusual sound of martial music
reached my ear. Starting up, I hurried to the
Gran Plaza, and was in time to see the
Venezuelan army enter. Shades of Brion and
Bolivar! what an army it was! I have seen
troops of all nations, civilised and uncivilised,
from China to Peru, but never any like those.
Some of the officers, indeed, were tall and well-
made; but the men were the strangest figures
—lean old scarecrows and starveling boys not
five feet high, the greater number half naked,
with huge strips of raw beef twisted round their
hats or hanging from their belts. Their skins
seemed to have been baked black with exposure
to the sun, and their arms and accoutrements
were of the most wretched description. Yet
they were not contemptible—far from it—but
rather weird, repulsive—a sight to make one
shudder. My first thought on seeing them was,
"What could want, miasma, exposure, or fatigue