known to each other. He had had my whole life and mind open to him, to
read it as in a book. HIS life was a closed and clasped volume to me. His face darkened, and after a few moments' silent reflection he got up
and left me with a cold good-bye, and without that hand-grasp which had
been customary between us. After his departure I had the feeling that a great loss, a great
calamity, had befallen me, but I was still smarting at his too candid
criticism, all the more because in my heart I acknowledged its truth. And that night, lying awake, I repented of the cruel retort I had made,
and resolved to ask his forgiveness and leave it to him to determine
the question of our future relations. But he was beforehand with me, and
with the morning came a letter begging my forgiveness and asking me to
go that evening to dine with him. We were alone, and during dinner and afterwards, when we sat smoking and
sipping black coffee in the veranda, we were unusually quiet, even to
gravity, which caused the two white-clad servants that waited on us--the
brown-faced subtle-eyed old Hindu butler and an almost blue-black young
Guiana Negro--to direct many furtive glances at their master's face. They were accustomed to see him in a more genial mood when he had a
friend to dine. To me the change in his manner was not surprising: from
the moment of seeing him I had divined that he had determined to open
the shut and clasped volume of which I had spoken--that the time had now
come for him to speak.

CHAPTER I

Now that we are cool, he said, and regret that we hurt each other, I am
not sorry that it happened. I deserved your reproach: a hundred times
I have wished to tell you the whole story of my travels and adventures
among the savages, and one of the reasons which prevented me was the
fear that it would have an unfortunate effect on our friendship. That
was precious, and I desired above everything to keep it. But I must
think no more about that now. I must think only of how I am to tell you
my story. I will begin at a time when I was twenty-three. It was early
in life to be in the thick of politics, and in trouble to the extent of
having to fly my country to save my liberty, perhaps my life. Every nation, someone remarks, has the government it deserves, and
Venezuela certainly has the one it deserves and that suits it best. We
call it a republic, not only because it is not one, but also because a
thing must have a name; and to have a good name, or a fine name, is
very 

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