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My duties not requiring me to be away from Arequipa often, much of my time was spent with Felicita. Together we would ride horseback over the picturesque valley, with its olive and orange groves and along shaded avenues of palms, with pebbly brooks of crystal waters on either side. The pure air and semi-tropical skies stimulated our buoyant spirits, and made these the halcyon days of my existence.
As the Arequipena was to go ahead, I would endeavor to get the officers out to eat at Vincocaya. I would give a signal for him to uncouple his engine and follow at full speed. It would be impossible to stop him and they would be at the mercy of the government troops, which would leave that afternoon, according to the instructions given the Prefecto of Puno from Arequipa.
We stayed seven days in Arequipa, making our last preparations for the work that lay before us and then we went on again by train to Sicuani, in the valley of the Vilcañota.
About this time, the arch rebel Giron caused the deposed governor, Gil Ramirez, to betaken from prison and escorted forty leagues on his way towards Arequipa, and then set free.
I told him I thought no one would pay any attention to the arrival of the train but would consider it the ordinary routine railway business. A consultation was held, and after they found that I knew the contents of the message I had brought, they admitted me to their council. They asked me to get the Arequipena ready, and they and the principal officers would flee to Arequipa.
He waited therefore at Arequipa about three weeks, expecting the junction of D'Acosta, who at length arrived, but with very diminished numbers, as already related, many having abandoned him, and having put many of his followers to death on suspicion that they intended to desert. After the junction of D'Acosta, Gonzalo found himself at the head of five hundred men.
The Prefectos of Arequipa and Puno, the Commanding General of the Government troops, the manager and officials of the railway and a host of friends of lesser note, but none the less loyal hearts, crowded the banquet room. They feasted, drank wine, sang songs and made speeches to me and about me that were enough to have satisfied the vanity of a survivor of Thermopylae.
About twice in a century the spirits of the sleeping volcanoes stir, roll over, and go to sleep again. But they shake the bed! And Arequipa rests on their bed. The possibility of a "terremoto" is always present in the subconscious mind of the Arequipeño. One evening I happened to be dining with a friend at the hospitable Arequipa Club.
Anxiously I looked for a letter and with trembling hands I broke the seal. The letter was dated Lima, and read: "Don Juan, I am crazy. Felicita is dead. Will write you all, when I am composed. Julian." Never was human being more distracted than I. Absenting myself from everybody night after night in deep ravines and valleys, among the lofty mountains that surrounded Arequipa, I wandered.
Aldana likewise placed an advanced picket of twelve horsemen, of those who had deserted from the insurgents, on the road towards Arequipa, to bring him timely notice of any thing that might occur in that quarter, with orders to return with all speed in case of the enemy making a countermarch, or of any important event.
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