The people came down to the shore and crowded around her bow as we beached her in front of the custom-house, and a man asked us anxiously in English, “What ship has been wrecked?” And we explained that we were not survivors of a shipwreck, but of a possible conflagration, and wanted ice. And then, when we fell over the side bruised and sleepy, and burning with thirst, and with everything still dancing before our eyes, they refused to give us ice until we grew cooler, and sent out in the meanwhile to the _comandancia_ in search of some one who could identify us as escaped revolutionists. They took our guns away from us as a precaution, but they could have had half our kingdom for all we cared, for the wonderful legend proved true, and at last we got the ice in large, thick glasses, with ginger ale and lemon juice and apollinaris water trickling through it, and there was frost on the sides of the glasses, and a glimpse of still more ice wrapped up in smoking blankets in the refrigerator--ice that we had not tasted for many days of riding in the hot sun and through steaming swamp-lands, and which we had last seen treated with contempt and contumely, knocked about at the bow of a tug-boat in the North River, and tramped upon by many muddy feet on Fifth Avenue. None of us will ever touch ice hereafter without handling it with the same respect and consideration that we would show to a precious stone. The busybodies of Corinto who had decided from the manner of our arrival that we had been forced to leave Honduras for the country’s good, finally found a native who identified me as a filibuster he had met during the last revolution at Leon. As that was bringing it rather near home, Griscom went after Mr. Palaccio, the Italian who serves both England and the United States as consular agent. We showed him a rare collection of autographs of secretaries, ambassadors, and prime-ministers, and informed him that we intended taking four state-rooms on the steamer of the line he represented at that port. This convinced him of the necessity of keeping us out of jail until the boat arrived, and he satisfied the local authorities as to our respectability, and that we had better clothes in our trunks.