A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife. In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he met. The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate, when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast very deliberately. When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and went out. To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank. We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on, and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on--not, however, that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side, taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty; for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.