The deportation of Rizal gave to the Katipunan a great impetus; the masses of people bitterly resented the cowardice and perfidy that had contrived at last to drag down the popular champion. At first they knew no way to voice their protest. The Katipunan relieved them of their uncertainty; it was the weapon thrust into their hands. A year went by under this slowly darkening sky; then two years. Rizal was at Dapitan; it seemed likely he would remain there until his last day, for nothing would soften the hatred with which the friars and patricians regarded him, and their word was the country’s law. Yet if he could be brought back in the character of a revolutionary leader the whole country would rise behind him. Ingenious minds brooded upon the ease with which he could be rescued. Only a small force of troops guarded Dapitan; it could be overpowered by a handful of resolute men. Rizal’s habit was to take long canoe journeys alone around the coast, pursuing his scientific inquiries; of his own will he would never violate his parole, but suppose he should be seized and carried off by force? He could then be picked up by a British mail-steamer, be landed at Singapore, and be free. Intimations of these plans were conveyed to him: he vetoed all of them. It was his word of honor that he had given never to attempt to escape; not even with the least connivance at a rescue would he taint his word; not even by allowing other men to entertain a thought that his faith could be tainted; and not even in dealing with a Government that had dealt perfidiously with him. Bonifacio, looking into the faces of his people, believed more strongly every day that the time to strike was near at hand, and every day he longed the more for the active assistance of Rizal. [197] He knew well enough the danger his movement stood in and how that danger increased hour by hour as knowledge of what was afoot spread and could be therefore the less easily controlled. At last he went to the length of sending an emissary to see Rizal, to lay before him the plans for the revolution and to ask his help. The messenger chosen was Pio Valenzuela, a name afterwards famous and honored among his countrymen. To disguise the real object of his visit he took with him a blind man upon whom, it was pretended, Rizal was to perform an operation. Helped by this ruse, the messenger had a fair chance to talk freely with the exile.