Word: maracaibo
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Capt. A. T. Morris of the American steamer Maracaibo, leaned over the ship's rail smoking an evening pipe, gazing at the placid harbor of Willemstad, Curaçao. A thin sliver of moon hung over the tanks of the Royal Dutch oil refinery on shore, shone on the yellow plaster façade of the Governor's Palace...
Suddenly from the shadows on the pier swarthy individuals climbed the Maracaibo's gangplank. The leader, stepping forward, introduced himself as Capt. Rafael Simon Urbina of Venezuela. Politely he asked Captain Morris to transport his rebel army to the Venezuelan mainland...
...They bowed to Capt. Morris, and slipped down the gangplank again. Almost immediately the Dutch calm of Willemstad was punctuated with shots, shouts and horrid outcry. Dark figures rushed along the waterfront to little Fort Amsterdam. Half an hour later Capt. Urbina, flushed, triumphant, returned to the S. S. Maracaibo with 400 followers and the disheveled Governor of Curaçao, His Excellency, Mr. L. A. Fruytier, captured in bed, and Willemstad's Chief of Police. Pressing an enormous pistol against Capt. Morris's abdomen, Rebel Urbina ordered him to sail for the Venezuelan mainland, 40 miles away. Capt. Morris agreed...
...blasts were blown on the Maracaibo's whistle. At this pre-arranged signal motor trucks loaded with guns and ammunition careened down to the pier. The munitions were stolen from Fort Amsterdam, three of whose 71 defenders had been killed in the raid...
Capt. Morris obediently jangled the engine room telegraph. Wheezing asthmatically, the Maracaibo put out to sea. All the way to the mainland the Venezuelan rebels, inflamed with the success of the most daring filibuster in years, ate and drank and shouted again and again the words of their Captain, "On to Caracas! Nobody can stop...