The collector of customs at Maracaibo “borrowed” a fine rifle from me, which is one of the South American varieties of graft, and put me up at the club, where I was thrown in friendly contact with the people I wished to meet. I found that General Alcantara was acting as dummy President while Guzman was enjoying himself in Europe, and I soon satisfied myself, from remarks dropped by his friends in response to my guarded inquiries, that he was ambitious to become the ruler of Venezuela in fact as well as in name. The movement to overthrow Guzman was, in fact, taking definite form, and I sold a part of my arms to Alcantara’s friends. They wanted to buy the entire cargo, but I refused to part with it, on the ground that the bulk of it had been contracted for elsewhere. It was apparent that serious trouble was brewing for Guzman and, instead of proceeding to Costa Rica, I sailed for La Guaira, intending to visit Caracas and look the situation over at close range. At the capital there was the same undercurrent of revolt against the dictatorship of Guzman, which was being secretly encouraged by the partisans of the acting President. I called at the Yellow House to pay my respects to Alcantara, whom I had known in Guzman’s army, and in the course of our conversation he suggested that I remain in Caracas and become his friend, as I had been Guzman’s. He did not tell me of his real ambition in so many words, but I needed no binoculars to see what was in his mind. I at once wrote Guzman fully, telling him of Alcantara’s treachery and describing the situation as I had found it, and then sailed for Costa Rica. Guzman had also heard of what was going on through other sources and, as I subsequently learned, he returned to Venezuela a few months later, before the revolt that was being hatched had broken its shell. The government was promptly turned over to him by Alcantara, who at once started to leave the country, evidently fearing that if he remained he would be summarily sent to San Carlos, then as now the unhappy home of political prisoners. He started for La Guaira by the old post road, along which were a number of public houses. In one of these he met a party of politicians and while with them he died suddenly. It was charged by Alcantara’s friends that he was poisoned by order of Guzman, who suspected that he was going away to launch a revolution, but the friends of Guzman claimed that he ate heartily of rich salads while in a heated condition and died from acute indigestion. The latter version of it has always been my view, for Guzman was not the man to have an enemy, nor even a friend who had played him false, put out of the way in such fashion. Guzman was a dictator to his finger tips, but he was nothing of a murderer.