And all the while quite other destinies were held
in store by Fate. The remissness of a mercantile correspondent of his
father altered the current of his life, and mightily influenced, even to
the present day, the fortunes of his country.
A sum was owing to Don Jose by a trader of Capudare, and he intrusted
his son with the task of collecting the debt. One fine day, in the
spring of 1807, the lad accordingly set out, in high spirits at his
important mission, armed with a brace of pistols and a cutlass, and
mounted on a trusty mule. The money was duly collected, but, as young
Jose Antonio journeyed home with it, a rumor of his precious charge was
spread, and he was beset in a lonely by-path by four highwaymen. The
pistols flashed from Jose's holsters, and one of the _churriones_ fell
the next moment with a bullet in his brain. Instantly presenting the
second pistol, which was not loaded, he advanced upon the remaining
three, who fell back in consternation, and fled, panic-stricken, from
the boy. Jose Antonio was left alone with the highwayman's corpse. It
was no light thing in Venezuela to commit a homicide without testimony
of innocence, and young Jose hastened homewards with his treasure, in a
state of trepidation far greater than any the living highwaymen could
have inspired. Even in his parents' dwelling, he dreaded, every moment,
the arrival of an order for his arrest, and to appease his groundless
anxiety his father shortly suggested that he should take refuge upon the
Llanos,--the Sherwood of Venezuelan Robin Hoods.
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