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For a year or more I was the greatest power in Mexico, and yet, though hundreds were privy to my plot, it was so well hidden that no whisper of it came to the ears of the Government. At length all was ready, and so carefully were my plans laid that success seemed certain; but the unforeseen happened, and I failed—thus:

That woman whose life I had saved, my own wife whom I loved and trusted, who was bound to my cause and that of her countrymen by every tie human and divine, betrayed me and it. Just before the time fixed for the rising, it was agreed that she should be placed, as one of whom we could be sure, to play the part of a servant in the house of the man who ruled Mexico in those days, that she might spy upon him.

Instead of so doing, she, my wife, fell in love with him. It is easy to guess the rest. One night, but a week before the appointed time, I and some five or six others, the leaders of our party, were seized. My companions were made away with secretly, but I was brought before the great man, who received me alone, holding a pistol in his hand.