Castro violated all the precedents of his plundering profession by failing to run through the hole that had been left for him. When Ferrer saw him the next morning, in the middle of the ring calmly waiting for the fight to begin, he was nonplussed. He could not understand that method of warfare and, concluding that Castro must be a real hero and perhaps, as he even then claimed to be, a genuine “man of destiny,” he solved the problem by joining forces with him, for which he was subsequently rewarded by being made Minister of War. Castro learned from Ferrer that he was alone in the revolution, his promised partners having failed to take the field on account of bickerings and jealousies among themselves. This discovery and the addition of Ferrer’s forces gave him his first really serious notion that he might become President, and he marched forward in a frenzy of bombastic joy. He picked out a star as his own and ceremoniously worshipped it. Clearly his star was in the ascendant, figuratively at least, for at Victoria, only thirty-five miles outside of the capital, he made terms with General Mendoza, who was disgruntled with Andrade, and picked up another army. When the tottering President heard of this final evidence of disloyalty he boarded a gunboat at La Guaira, taking with him a well-filled treasure chest, and went to Trinidad. The alleged warship leaked badly and Andrade, who had a sense of humor, sent word back to Castro by her commander to have her repaired at once so that she might be in better shape for a hurried departure when it should come his turn to be deposed.