Almost simultaneously a bullet
shattered his right wrist. The coachman lashed the horse in an
attempt to escape, but the horse reared and threw the carriage against
a hedge. The coachman then dragged Caceres from the carriage and
assisted him to the stable of a house on the roadside, adjoining the
American legation, but the conspirators meantime continued to fire
furiously and several shots struck the president. Seeing their object
accomplished, the assassins withdrew, and the president, mortally
wounded, was carried to the American legation, where he expired a few
minutes later.
The conspirators were a handful of malcontents led by General Luis
Tejera, a young man of prominent family, at one time governor of the
capital under Caceres, but lately estranged. Caceres had known of
Tejera's seditious sentiments but refused to take them seriously.
Immediately after the shooting, the conspirators hastened away in a
waiting automobile, carrying with them their leader Tejera, who had
been wounded in the leg during the affray. At the Jaina ferry the
automobile was accidentally precipitated into the river, and the
wounded man was fished out half drowned.
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