Nourse and Wilson were sentenced to seven years and Leigh to three and one-half years in Pentridge prison. With the time deducted for good behavior, this meant five years and three months for Nourse and Joe and less than three years for Leigh. When the case assumed a more serious aspect than I had believed it would when I bargained with Nourse to take my place, I sent word to him that I would pay him well if he would “play the string out,” and as soon as I left the tomb I deposited five thousand dollars which was to be paid to him when he was released. I spent some time and considerable money in an effort to secure a pardon for my companions, but when I found that was impossible I returned to England, with a promise to be back in Australia by the time their terms expired. On the long trip back to London I spent a lot of time in reproaching myself for the result of the unfortunate cruise. It was the first mistake I had ever made and, while I was not primarily to blame, the responsibility was mine, for I was at fault in not having seen that all of the papers were in proper form. That experience taught me a lesson and I never again fell into a blunder of that sort. The Highland Railway subsequently sold the “Ferret” to run between Albany and Adelaide. CHAPTER XII A LAND OF MYSTERY AND MURDER With my return to London in the early eighties, after I had been sent to prison by proxy for seven years in Australia, the old lure of the West Indies, with their continuous riot of revolutions, came over me so strongly that I could not hold out against it, nor did I try. Frank Norton, my old partner in piracy, had the “Queen of the Seas” at the East Indian docks, where he was displaying a ship ventilating apparatus which he had invented. He urged me to go back to the China Sea with him and resume operations against the pirates, but I put him off. Soon after leaving him I ran into an English engineer named Tucker, whom I had known in Venezuela, and from him I learned that Guzman Blanco, the Dictator, was in Paris, his foreign capital, from which he was directing the government of Venezuela through a dummy President, and was anxious to see me. I was not particularly desirous of seeing him, however, for I feared I could not resist him, and I had no wish to again be tied down in Caracas, as I had been before when I was his confidential agent. I was much more interested in reports which reached me, through contraband channels, that a new revolution was shaping up in Costa Rica, and that there was a prospect of trouble in Hayti and even in Venezuela.