He was an acquaintance of Lloyd Griscom’s, who took an interest in the young rebel because they had both been in the diplomatic service abroad. One afternoon, while Griscom and the lawyer were sitting together in the office of the latter, five soldiers entered the place and ordered the suspected revolutionist to accompany them to the cartel. As he happened to know something of the law, he protested that they must first show him a warrant, and while two of them went out for the warrant and the others kept watch in the outer office Griscom mapped out a plan of escape. The lawyer’s office hung over the Bay of Panama, and Griscom’s idea was that he should, under the protection of the darkness, slip down a rope from the window to a small boat below and be rowed out to the _Barracouta_, of the Pacific Mail Company’s line, which was listed to sail that same evening up the coast. The friends of the rebel were sent for, and with their assistance Griscom made every preparation for the young rebel’s escape, and then came to the hotel and informed Somerset and myself of what he had done, and asked us to aid in what was to follow. We knew nothing of the rights or the wrongs of the revolutionists, but we considered that a man who was going down a rope into a small boat while three soldiers sat waiting for him in an outer room was performing a sporting act that called for our active sympathy. So we followed Griscom to his friend’s office, and, having passed the soldiers, were ushered into his presence and introduced to him and his friends. He was a little man, but was not at all alarmed, nor did he pose or exhibit any braggadocio, as a man of weaker calibre might have done under the circumstances. When we offered to hold the rope for him, or to block up the doors so that the soldiers might not see what was going forward, he thanked us with such grateful politeness that he made me feel rather ashamed of myself; for my interest in the matter up to that point had not been a very serious or a high one. Indeed, I did not even know the gentleman’s name. But as we did not know the names of the government people against whom he was plotting either, we felt that we could not be accused of partiality. The prisoner did not want his wife to know what had happened, and so sent her word that important legal business would detain him at the office, and that his dinner was to be brought to him there. The rope by which he was to escape was smuggled past the soldiers under the napkin which covered this dinner. It was then seven o’clock and nearly dark, and as our rebel friend feared our presence might excite suspicion, he asked us to go away, and requested us to return in half an hour. It would then be quite dark, and the attempt to escape could be made with greater safety.