I told him of my efforts the year before to meet him in London and Paris and their purpose; that I was running contraband, more to satisfy my love of adventure than as a business, and I believed I could be useful to him; that South America was prolific of revolutions and I was ambitious to have a hand in them. After he had studied me, asked all sorts of questions, and apparently satisfied himself that I could be relied on, Guzman told me, in a general way, of his plans and asked me to secure for him three thousand old Remington rifles and five hundred thousand cartridges and deliver them as quickly as possible at Curacoa. We sailed for New York the day after the order was given, early in January, and made the trip in just a month. I bought the arms from P. D. Orvis & Co., of Whitehall Street, and we were on our way back within a week. We made the return trip in twenty-eight days and reached Curacoa just before the sunset gun was fired. The entrance to the harbor at Curacoa is very narrow and in those days it was, and I believe still is, closed during the night by a great chain, which was raised at sunset and lowered at sunrise by a powerful windlass. I went ashore at once and to the club where, instead of Guzman Blanco, whom I expected would be waiting for me, I found Gen. Ortega, who was with Guzman when I first met him and seemed to be fully in his confidence. Ortega handed me a note, bearing what purported to be the signature of Guzman, which directed me to deliver the cargo at a place to be indicated by Ortega, and stated that payment for it would be made on my cabin table. As I was not familiar with Guzman’s writing I showed the signature to Dr. Leon and to old man Jesurun, who owned the shipyard, who knew Guzman well, and both of them pronounced it genuine. I had no suspicion that anything was wrong and took this precaution simply as a matter of ordinary business sense. Ortega directed me to deliver the cargo at Tucacas Point, a little peninsula about one hundred miles west of La Guaira, and said we must put to sea that night, as Guzman was anxiously awaiting the arms. Through exceptional representations of some sort to the commandante he secured the lowering of the chain, and we left at once, arriving off the point the next evening.