I had been with Guzman Blanco for about a year after he proclaimed himself Dictator of Venezuela, on February 14, 1871, when I began to grow restless again. This was in no sense due to any fault I had to find with Guzman. He had treated me with every mark of friendship and had proved, time and again, that I possessed his entire confidence. He had paid me fifty thousand dollars for the cargo of arms which Pulgar secured through Ortega’s forgery and had been liberal in other financial matters, though I would not accept any direct payment for my confidential services, as I considered myself, in a sense, his guest. But, under the strong hand of Guzman, things were settling down to a humdrum, and I rebelled against peace and order and fretted under the restraint of the land. At sea I could go where I pleased, when I pleased, and do what I pleased; on shore, except for the Yellow House and the evening social events, all of which were alike, my time was largely divided between Madam Santa Amand’s hotel in Caracas and the old Posada Neptuno in La Guaira, and my movements were circumscribed by the part I was playing. Then, too, revolutions were popping in Central America, according to the reports that reached Caracas, and I felt that I was missing a lot of excitement and some business. This latter consideration entered into my thoughts not largely, and at all only because my expenses were greatly in excess of the amounts I received from Guzman in roundabout ways. In those days and for years afterward, I gratified my foolishly extravagant tastes without any regard to the cost of things; it is only within recent years that I have come to understand that money has a value. With my whole nature clamoring for a change to more strenuous scenes I put the situation up to Guzman and secured his permission to go away, on the promise that I would return within six months. I summoned the “Juliette” from Curacoa and set sail for England, for the double purpose of securing a cargo of arms, with which to add to the joy of living in Central America, and looking up Frank Norton, who had so well planted within me the germ of his China Sea insanity that it was taking root. With the good little ship heeled over to the steady trade winds that fanned my dusky cheek, lovingly as I fancied in my enthusiasm, and with the waters that are nowhere else so blue murmuring a welcome back to them, I was again a rover of the sea and my exultant soul joined in the lyric chorus of the rigging.