Chapter IV: Part 4

Tacon started, and his glance fell on a couple of pistols that lay on the desk before him. He always kept them there, primed and loaded. Marti smiled, drew from beneath his coat two larger ones, handsomely mounted with silver, and placed them on the desk. "I am through with them," said he.

Tacon looked at him almost with admiration. "You begin well," he admitted, "and you shall have your pardon. But until you have fulfilled your promise and helped us to break up these bands of smugglers and--ah----"

"Oh, speak out: Thieves! That is right."

"Well, thieves,--we must keep you under guard."

"I am satisfied; only, let us get to work as soon as possible, and have the business over."

"We will start to-morrow."

Marti was placed in a large room in a hotel under watch of the constabulary, but free to order any comfort or luxury he could pay for. On the very next morning he set out with a posse of soldiers and visited all the resorts of his former associates in the vicinity. The fellows had evidently suspected something, for they had made off. Their haunts being thus disclosed, however, much of their plunder was afterward recovered, and Marti's surrender having left them without a leader, they retreated to distant provinces, and safety and peace were restored to the island.

If Marti had any misgivings as to the certainty of his pardon after this exploit, he did not show them. He returned to General Tacon's office as cool and self-possessed as if he were running a boat-load of spirits under the noses of the customs officers.

"You have been true to your part of the agreement," said the general, "and I will be to mine. Here is your pardon, signed and sealed, and this is my order on the treasury for the reward for your arrest. Sly dog!"

"I accept the pardon with gratitude, your Excellency, but I do not need the money. My country is poor. Let her keep it. I am rich. Never mind how I became so. Yet, if I may claim a reward, give me a monopoly of the fisheries on this coast. Havana will not suffer if your generosity takes this form."

And it did not. He got the fisheries, but he spent his profits freely, and one of the first of his benefactions was the construction of a market that had no superior in beauty and fitness elsewhere in the world.

The Justice of Tacon

When the parades were over, or church was out, or it was near time for the play, one always found a dozen officers and gallants sauntering down the Calle de Comercio, bound for the same place: the tobacco shop of Miralda Estalez. In 1835 Miralda was known all over the town as "the pretty cigar girl," and it was quite the thing for young sprigs of family to lounge against her counter, tell her how charming she was, make her light their cigarettes and sometimes take the first puff from their cigars. All this she took with jesting good-nature, chaffing all of her customers, commiserating with them in mocking tones on their fractured hearts, and lamenting the poverty that confined their purchases to the cheaper brands of her wares. She knew how far to allow a compliment to go. If it became too free the smile faded from her lip, her black eyes flashed, and an angry rose mounted into the clear olive of her cheek.

If there was one young man who, more than any other, caused these angry symptoms to appear it was the Count Almonte. His attentions had become annoying. She had told him that his flattery was distasteful; that her betrothed was Pedro Mantanez, the boatman, and that they were waiting to be married only until their savings had reached a certain figure. After one of these dismissals of more than usual frankness, the count went to his apartments in town, arrayed himself in his uniform of honorary lieutenant of the guards, asked the commandant to let him have an escort of half a dozen men, as he expected trouble at his country-place at Cerito, and within an hour or two appeared before Miralda's little shop. He entered this time with an easy, confident air and an evil smile. "You must come with me, my beauty," he said, trying to chuck her under the chin.

"Leave my place at once, señor. I have nothing more to say to you."

"Oh, but I have much to say to you; and to begin with, I have a warrant for your arrest."

"Arrest!"

"For theft,--the theft of a heart,--my heart."

"Your jokes are always in such wretched taste. Your heart! You never had one."

"Then my duty becomes all the easier. You see this paper? It is an order for your arrest. Will you go quietly, or do you prefer to go under guard of a whole company."

Astonished, confused, afraid, yet hoping that one of those wretched pleasantries known as practical jokes would be the upshot of this seeming outrage, the girl locked her door, allowed the count to assist her into the carriage that was in waiting, and was rapidly driven, not to the jail, not to the forts, not to the police office, but out of town--to Cerito. He assisted her to alight, urged her hastily in at the door of a handsome residence, where she was received by a couple of servants, and escorted to a large, comfortably furnished apartment, with windows barred after the fashion usual in Spanish houses.

"This, my pretty one, is your home for the future," explained the count, dropping easily upon a divan and lighting a cigar.

"What place is this?"

"It is my house. Ah, but it shall be yours, if only you are kind. It is for you to say how long you will be a prisoner."

"But the arrest--the order----"

"Ha! ha! Mere sham. I was bound to have you in one way, if I could not get you in another. All's fair in love and war. You made war. I made love."

There was an explosion of wrath, of scorn, of hate; there were tears, cries, prayers, threats, promises. Count Almonte merely laughed, and left the young woman to weep herself into a state of resignation or exhaustion.

Mantanez, the boatman, learned before long that the shop was closed, and naturally fearing that Miralda had been taken ill, he hurried around to make inquiry. What he heard was disquieting enough, but he could not, would not believe it, until he had gone to Cerito to see for himself. In the gown of a monk he gained access to the grounds, and walked slowly by, singing the verse of a song that Miralda liked, meanwhile scanning the windows closely. His heart gave a leap, and then sank miserably low, for his love appeared behind the bars of an upper window. She stretched her hands to him appealingly, told him in a few half-whispered words the story of her abduction, implored him to hurry back to town, put the case before General Tacon and demand justice.

Mantanez did so. The tale was so unusual that the general made him swear to the truth of it on his knees before the crucifix. Then he sent for the count and ordered him to bring the girl with him. In two hours they were at the palace. The general looked searchingly at Almonte. "It is a strange charge that has been brought against you, count," said he, "that of stealing a woman in open day, taking her to your house and keeping her under lock and key."

"The young woman has been well treated, general."

"You arrested her?"

"Yes."

"In our uniform?"

"It was the only way. I loved her."

"You still love her?"

"To distraction."

"Humph! We shall see. Orderly, send a priest to me, and tell him to come prepared to perform a marriage ceremony."

Tacon was sphinx-like, and busied himself with his papers. The count was puzzled, yet smiling, and disposed to be incredulous. The girl and her lover wore looks of doubt and fear. The priest arrived.

"Father," said Tacon, "you will make the Count Almonte and Miralda Estalez man and wife."

"Impossible!" exclaimed the count.

"You have just said that you loved her."

"But, your Excellency, you seem to forget that she is but a girl of the people. I have to remind you that I am of the Spanish nobility; that my ancestors--"

"Tush, tush! What have your ancestors to do here? You have ruined the girl, and you shall make amends, here and now."

Miralda clasped her hands in a passion of entreaty, and her betrothed, the boatman, sank upon a bench, overcome with despair.

"I am sorry for you," continued Tacon, "but there is no other way. Proceed with the ceremony."

Knowing Tacon to be inflexible, and with a wholesome dread of punishment in case of refusal, the young rake finally expressed his willingness to yield to the command, and with a freckled trooper for bridesmaid, and another for groomsman, the marriage rites were said. While the priest was speaking Tacon had written a note which he gave to an orderly, instructing him to deliver it to the captain of the guard. After the nobleman, flushed and trembling with anger, and the half-fainting girl had been pronounced man and wife, the boatman meanwhile abandoning himself to a frenzy of tears, Tacon said to the count, "Your wife will remain here for the present. It is my order that you return to your country-house alone. You will depart at once."

With blazing eye, widened nostril, and hard-set jaw, Count Almonte left the room without any recognition of his bride, without the usual acknowledgment of the governor-general's presence. Tacon bade the young woman be seated, and told Mantanez also to remain, as he wished to speak with them after a time. Ten minutes passed. Some guns were heard at a distance. In ten minutes more an officer hastily entered the room. Tacon looked up from his writing. "Report, captain," he commanded.

"I have to inform your Excellency that your orders have been obeyed. The Count Almonte lies dead with nine bullets in his body."

The general arose, took the hand of the young woman and placed it in that of the boatman. "Countess," he said, "you are the widow of a rich man. You are sole heir to the estate of the late Count Almonte. As to you, sir, I presume you have no objection to wedding a lady so well provided with this world's goods. Adieu, Madame Countess, and may your second marriage be happier than your first."

The Cited

Did Alonzo Morelos begrudge liberty or happiness to Felipe Guayos? Surely the life of a Havanese artisan could have mattered little to a prosperous lawyer. Politics may have set the big man's enmity against the little one, or it may possibly have been that more advanced form of politics that is called patriotism. It was a good time for a man to refrain from airing his opinions, unless they were orthodox, for the revolution of 1829 had just been declared. If Guayos was a party to this rising he was an indifferent and inactive one, or else he kept his counsel wondrous well. His acquaintances testified that he was industrious,--that is, he practised what in Havana passed for industry,--was fond of his wife, cared little for cock-fighting or the bull-ring, was of placid demeanor, and was altogether the sort of man who could be relied on _not_ to attend secret meetings or lose valued sleep by drilling in hot barns or chigger-infested clearings in the woods. Yet it was on Morelos's oath that this obscure citizen was arrested.

The tongues clacked up and down the by-ways: What was the rich man's interest in the poor one? the professional man's in the mechanic? the man of society in the man unknown? Then it was true, eh? that the mulatto (for Guayos was a "yellow man") had spoken to the lawyer familiarly in the street in presence of ladies and officers? Maybe. The laundress at the second house down the street had said so, but, fie! it was only on a matter of business. Tut! Business was no excuse, considering that Don Alonzo was of Spanish parentage, while the other had been nothing but a Cuban for two centuries. To forget this breach or try to bridge it, to presume on the tolerance of an occasional employer, unless one were a slave or a servant and used to indulgence--that was not to be forgiven. A rumor that travelled more quietly was that Morelos himself was a revolutionary and had caused this arrest as a blind, or in order to silence a tongue that might speak damage. A third rumor, that went in a whisper, and so went farther than the others, said that the yellow man had a pretty wife, and that the lawyer had been seen to call at the little house in the master's absence. This tale seemed to be doubted, for the wife of the butcher gave it as her opinion that the Señora Guayos was too rusty of complexion to be pleasing, and the Señor Morelos was so faultless in his appearance and his taste; the club steward's unmarried sister declared the señora's manners to be rustic and her voice loud; the woman in the carpenter's family would lend no ear to such a scandal because the subject of it was dumpy, shapeless, and dressed absurdly, even for the wife of a stonemason. Howbeit, the little woman was now in grief, for her husband lay in jail awaiting trial on the gravest charge that could be brought against a Cuban,--the charge of treason. In that day, as on many sad days that were to follow, to be charged with disaffection toward the crown was virtually to be sentenced to death.

Cuban law was at least as tardy and involved as any, but on the day when they tried Guayos it was strangely brisk. The stifling, unclean court-room was crowded, but of all the company none seemed to feel so little concern in the proceedings as the accused man himself. Through an open window he saw a couple of palms swinging softly against the sky in the warm wind. The trees appeared to pacify, to fascinate him. They were his realities, and the goggling throng, the judge, the officers, were visions. Often when his name was spoken by a witness or examiner he would look around with a start, then fall into his dreams again. His case was traversed without waste of words. Evidence was adduced to prove that he had once owned a gun, had attended a certain meeting, had carried letters to such and such persons, had spoken equivocal phrases, had been seen to lift his nose in passing certain men, had admitted a suspect to his house at night. He was declared guilty. The celerity in reaching this verdict led his friends to believe that it had been agreed upon in advance.

During the last hour of the trial Guayos had aroused from his revery, had turned from the window, and had fixed his eyes steadily on Morelos, who was seated among the lawyers in the centre of the room. Morelos returned the gaze calmly for a time; then he frowned and turned the pages of a law-book. After a little he moistened his lips with his tongue, took a studied attitude of listlessness, and showed signs of weariness and boredom. He did not look at the prisoner again until the verdict had been given.

When the chief judge put the usual question as to whether the convicted man had anything to say why death-sentence should not be passed upon him, Guayos arose, his face pale but fixed in a stony calm. Looking at neither judge nor audience, but straight at his accuser, with eyes that were no longer the eyes that had dreamed upon the palms, so great and black they were and searching, he said, in a clear, tense voice, "I go to my death. It is useless to speak, for you have condemned me. But I cite you, Don Alonzo Morelos, to appear beside me at the bar of God, one year from my death-day, and testify how I came to my end."

There was a moment of silence; then moans and murmurs in the crowd. The lawyer was white, as with wrath. The judges gestured to the officers and left the bench. The court was cleared. As he was led away, Guayos looked once more at the palms, and half smiled as a breath of freshened air came in at the window. Palms! Where had he been told of them? What did they mean? Had they not somewhere, in some far land, been waved in victory when One innocent was about to suffer? Were not palms awarded in another world to the meek and the honest who had been despitefully used in this?

Last to leave the room was Morelos. He had remained, seated at a table, biting a pen, fingering some papers, gazing abstractedly at the vacant bench. The whoop of a barefooted, black-faced urchin in the corridor roused him. With a scowl and a shrug he slowly resumed his hat and went to his home by a roundabout way.

Priests called daily at the prison. Guayos made no appeal, asked for no delay. The loyalists were clamoring for an example that should stay the revolution. In a week the condemned man was hanged. An odd thing happened at the execution: the rope had slipped a little, and the knot, working toward the front, had left an impress there after the body was cut down, as of two crossed fingers. The friends of Guayos held this to be a sign of grace.

Now, if there were any in the world to pray for the peace of a human soul, it was not the soul of Guayos that asked it. He had affirmed his innocence to the end, had been shrived, had gone to the gallows with a dauntless tread, and there were palm branches on his coffin. But the lawyer? In a month after the trial white hairs appeared among his locks, hitherto as black as coal. He grew gray and dry in his complexion, his shoulders began to stoop, his eyes lost their clearness and boldness, his mouth was no longer firm. Often he wore a harried, hunted look. Yet they said he was growing softer in his humor, that he oftener went to church, that he gave more for charity than other men of his means, and that if the widow Guayos did not know from whom the five hundred pesetas came that a messenger left at her home one night the neighbors pretended to. Don Morelos became an object of a wider interest than he knew. Even the boys in the street would point as he passed, with head bent and hands clasped behind his back, and whisper, "There goes El Citado" (the cited), and among the commoners he was known as well by that name as by the one his parents had given to him. But he appeared less and less in public. He began to neglect his practice; he resigned from his club; he avoided the company of his former associates, taking his walks at night alone, even though the sky was moonless, storms were threatening, and the cut-throat crew were abroad that made life at some hours and in some quarters of the city not of a pin's fee in value. His housekeeper told a neighbor that on some nights he paced the floor till dawn, and that now and again he would mutter to himself and appear to strike something. Was he smiting his own heart?

Before long it was rumored, likewise, that the grave of Guayos was haunted, or worse, for a black figure had been seen, on some of the darkest nights, squatted or kneeling before his tomb. It was remarkable that this revolutionist should have had a burial-place of his own, when all his relatives and a majority of the people in his station were interred in rented graves, and their bones thrown into the common ditch if the rent were not paid at the end of the second year. Certain old women affirmed that this watching, waiting figure in the dark had horns and green eyes, like a cat's, while other people said that it was merely the form of a man, taller, thinner, more bent than Guayos; therefore not his ghost. But what man?

The anniversary of the hanging had come. The small hours of the morning were tolling, heavily, slowly, over the roofs of the sleeping city. Sleeping? There was one who had no rest that night. An upper window of the house of Morelos looked out upon a court in which two palm trees grew. They had been tall and flourishing. One might see them from the court-room. But for a year they had been shedding their leaflets and turning sere. Tonight their yellow stems had clashed and whispered until the wind was down, leaving the night sullen, brooding, thick, starless, with dashes of rain and a raw chill on the ground that brought out all the malefic odors of the pavement. The window on the side toward the court was closed and curtained. The one overlooking the street was slightly open, and if the night-bird prowling toward the den he called his home had looked up, or had listened, he would have seen the glimmer of a candle and heard the eager scratching of a pen and rustling of papers. For an hour in the first half of the night Morelos had been walking about his chamber. At about three in the morning the housekeeper, whose room was at the opposite end of a corridor from her master's, found herself sitting upright in bed. She did not know why. Nobody had called to her. Listening intently, as if she knew that somebody was about to speak, she distinguished a faint sound of crumpling paper. A chair was moved hastily, and there was a cry in a strained voice, "No, no! My God!" Then the house shook. She bolted her door and prayed. In the morning twilight Don Alonzo Morelos lay very still on the floor of his chamber, with a mark on his throat like that made by the pressure of two crossed fingers.

The citation had been obeyed!

The Virgin's Diamond

Miguel Jose was a loving and dutiful son, but he could help the old folks only a little. He had a heartache every time a letter came from Leon, for he knew it held a request for money, and a private's pay, which at best is small, is frequently nothing in a Spanish regiment. Young Miguel had been on service in Havana for a couple of years, and his parents had been growing steadily poorer. He could hardly buy cigarettes. First it was a pig that was wanted at home; then a better roof on the cottage; then a contribution for a new altar in the village church; finally it was illness, and his mother needed medicines and delicacies. How could he get money? The paymaster had received none in months, he said, and even the officers were in debt. His fellow-soldiers? No; they were as poorly off as he,--so he could not borrow. He could not steal in the streets, for his uniform would betray him. He was not allowed to accept work from civilians, for that was against the army regulations. After dress-parade one evening he went to a lonely place behind the barracks and cried. Then, having leave of absence, he went to one of the churches and knelt for a long time before the Virgin's shrine, imploring her, with moans and tears, to give him some means of relieving his mother's distress. She was a mother. She would understand. She would pity the sufferings of others. There was no answer. He left the dark and empty building tired and disheartened.

Next evening he returned, and for an hour and more he begged the Virgin to bestow some material mercy on his mother. Looking up he was startled, though delighted, to see that the statue of Mary was rolling its glass eyes upon him, and tears stood in them. He bent to the floor, overcome by his emotions. Then a light step sounded over the stones, and, behold! the Virgin had left her pedestal and was regarding him with kindness and pity in her face. Slowly she extended her hand. He gazed with new astonishment, for this was the right hand, bearing the famous diamond which had been placed upon it some years before by a pious resident of Havana. It could not be that she intended this treasure for him! Yes, she smiled and nodded assuringly. With trembling fingers he withdrew the jewel, kissed the outreached hand, stammered his thanks, and, hardly waiting till she had remounted her pedestal, ran from the church.

There was in the city at that time one Señor Hyman Izaaks, whose business--which a cruel law required him to follow in secret--was the relief of pecuniary embarrassments, on security, and our soldier went straightway to the office of that philanthropist, arriving breathless but happy. Señor Izaaks advanced a larger sum on the diamond than Jose had dared to hope for. He wrote a hasty letter, enclosing the banknotes, and mailed it to his parents on that very night.

Next morning the sacristan of the church, who was making his rounds and placing fresh candles on the altar, received a shock. The Virgin's diamond was gone! The priests, the bishop, the governor, the general, the police were notified, and there was a mighty coil. What sacrilegious wretch had done this thing? Miguel had been seen to enter the church on the previous night; therefore suspicion attached to him. He was arrested and charged with the crime. To the astonishment of all, he made no secret of it, though he protested against the word "theft." He was proud to have been the recipient of kindness from heaven, and he related, frankly and circumstantially, how he had appealed to the Virgin, for what good purpose, how she had answered, how Señor Izaaks had taken the stone and given him money for it. A military court was ordered to try him, but it was puzzled to know what to do with him. If the fellow were a common thief he deserved more than prison: he merited the gallows and a quicklime burial, for he had added sacrilege to robbery. But if he were a thief, why did he confess so freely, and even glory in his sin? Then, too, if it were the wish of the Virgin that he should receive this gift, by what right did any civic or military body interfere, for would it not be blasphemy to doubt or deny the designs of Providence? Was not the accused soldier under the acknowledged protection of the Virgin? Would she not visit with indignation, if she did not vigorously punish, the attempt to set aside her benefits?

Truly, here was a pickle! The confession of the accused man had enabled the police to secure the diamond,--which they did without any formalities of payment to Señor Izaaks, to his unbounded grief,--and the ring being restored to the finger of the statue, and the money being on its way across the sea, and the soldier being entitled to some part of it as back-pay, the court-martial at length resolved to release Miguel Jose from arrest. It did so with the historic finding of "Not guilty, but don't do it again."

A Spanish Holofernes

While it has been the fate of women in the Spanish islands to suffer even more than their husbands and brothers from severity and injustice, instances are not lacking in which they have shown an equal spirit with the men. In the insurrections a few of them openly took the field, and the Maid of Las Tunas is remembered,--a Cuban Joan of Arc, who rode at the head of the rebel troops, battled as stoutly as the veterans, and was of special service as scout and spy. Three times she fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Twice she coaxed her way to freedom. The third time the governor gave her to a crowd of brutal soldiers, who afterward burned her alive.

Quite another sort of woman was Niña Diaz, whom Weyler intended to compliment when he said she was the only loyal Cuban, and who is hated by all other Cubans as a fiend. Her love for a Spanish captain was cleverly played upon by Weyler, who induced her to become his spy. She begged contributions for the insurgents. Of course, those who gave were in sympathy with the insurrection, so that all she had to do was to place her list of subscribers in the hands of Weyler, who promptly shot or imprisoned them, or herded them among the reconcentrados to die of starvation. When the Cubans caught her she said that she had a father and a brother in their ranks,--which was true,--and was on her way to them. Where could they be found? They told her and set her free, and in the morning the Spanish troops were on the march to their hiding-place.

It is pleasanter to read of Spanish women serving their own cause than of Cuban women who betrayed their country, and the Spanish dames have often shown as much grit and pride as the dons. Pauline Macias is alleged to have led the soldiers back to their guns in San Juan de Puerto Rico after they had run from Sampson's shells. She seized a sword from an officer, beat the runaways with it, roused them by pleas and commands, and kept them at their work until their pieces were disabled or the ammunition had given out.

In the tradition of an earlier and slighter war the heroine is a woman of still different type. Isabella, wife of the Doctor Diaz, was often called "the queen" in Bayamo, not merely because of her name, but because of her piety, her charities, her beauty, and her dignified bearing. She was young, well reared, distinguished, and her home was a centre for the best society of the town. Among those who felt free to call without invitation were several of the officers of the garrison, most of them models in deportment and dress, and of sufficient breeding to refrain from allusion to politics; for the Diazes, though Spanish by only one remove, were avowedly Cuban in their sympathies, and the revolution was fast coming to a focus. It was understood, however, that Doctor Diaz would remain a non-combatant, for the duty he owed to suffering humanity was higher than the duty his friends tried to persuade him he owed to his country. Hence, the physician and his wife would be under the white flag, it was supposed, and if remarks were made as to their share in the approaching hostilities, it was always with a frank and laughing admission on their part and a jest on that of the accusers.

Among all the men in the garrison but one was actually disliked by the young practitioner and his wife. Captain Ramon Gonzales had been quartered upon them once for a week in an emergency, and his removal to another household had been asked for. It was not that he lacked manners or was obviously disrespectful, but his compliments to the lady of the house were something too frequent, his regard of her too admiring, his air toward the doctor that of the soldier and superior, rather than the friend. Señora Diaz never saw him alone, never invited him to call. He disappeared one afternoon, and it was understood that he had received a summons to return to Havana.

The rising came at last. Fires glimmered on the hills, bodies of men assembled in the woods, the drumming and brawling of troops were heard in hitherto quiet villages, and prayers for the success of the Cuban arms were offered in a hundred churches. But not all the women were content to pray. They were helping to arm their husbands, brothers, sweethearts, sons; they worked together in assembling supplies, hospital stores, clothing, and even in casting bullets.

One or two nights after the first blow had been struck there came a loud summons at the door of Doctor Diaz. Thinking it a call for his services, he stepped into the dark street, when he was seized, handcuffed, placed between two lines of soldiers, and marched away to prison. The despairing cry of his wife, as she peered from the open door and saw this arrest, was the only farewell. He never heard her voice again. He was shot a few days later as an enemy to Spain, the specific charge against him being that of "aiding and sheltering" a rebel, the said rebel being a feeble-minded youth, a "moon-struck," to whom, as a matter of charity, he had given occasional work in weeding his garden. On the night after Doctor Diaz's arrest his wife was requested by a messenger to go quickly to a small house on the edge of the town to meet one who might secure his release, but wished to consult with her as to the means. Hastily wrapping a mantilla about her, she followed the messenger to the street; then, as acting under sudden impulse, left him waiting for a moment, while she returned to bolt a door. In that moment, unseen by the messenger, she slipped a sheathed stiletto into the bosom of her dress.

The house was a ramshackle cottage, with a damp and moldy air pervading it within and without. The negro messenger opened the door without knocking, held it open while she passed in, then abruptly closed it and turned a key on the outside. The woman was trapped. In a minute voices were heard in the street; that of the messenger, and one that she knew better,--and worse,--the voice of Captain Gonzales.

The situation flashed upon her. Her husband had been falsely charged. She had been lured to this place, and would leave it dead or dishonored. The walls of the cabin swam before her, and she had nearly fallen when the sound of the key in the lock aroused her. A fierce chill shook her frame. She held to a table for support. A tumult of thought possessed her, but as the door swung open it quieted to a single idea: hardly a thought: a purpose.

In the light of the single candle that stood on the table she saw Captain Gonzales enter. He had been at the wine. His eyes were heavy, his cheeks a dusky red, his mouth was more sensual, his jaw more cruel than ever. He stepped inside and locked the door. "Your pardon, señora, for these strong measures," he said, in a thick tone. "I am a victim of love and hate. Your hus--another--has hated me. Your husband is--is--likely to be absent for some time. You will require a protector. I have the honor to offer myself. I throw myself at the feet of the loveliest lady in Cuba. I tell her of the love that for the past year has turned my life to torture. I will be her companion, her adorer, only--ha! You smile! It is not possible you care for me? It is joy too great. Señora! Isabella! Can it be?"

"And you never suspected it before?"

The face was white, the lips twitched, but the smile remained. The woman cast down her eyes--what star-bright eyes they were!--then slowly opened her arms. With a roaring laugh Gonzales strode across the room. The laugh changed to a gurgling cry as he placed his hands upon her waist. His hand went to his sword, but fumbled; his knees shook; then he fell backward at full length, with his heart's blood pulsating from a dagger-wound. The wife of Doctor Diaz picked up the key that had fallen from his fingers, unlocked the door, and returned to her home alone.

The Courteous Battle

In the bay where more than three and a half centuries later the Spanish fleet was to be destroyed the don once fought the enemy with different result. It was in 1538, in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, that the battle occurred,--Santiago of sad memory, with its shambles, where insurgents were shot by platoons; with its landings, where slaves were unloaded at night and marched thence to the plantations, like mules and cattle; with its Morro, connected by wells and traps with caves in the rock beneath, where bodies of men mysteriously done to death slipped away on the tide. A French privateer had appeared before the town, demanding ransom or surrender. Luckily for Santiago, a Spanish caravel had arrived a few days before, under command of Captain Diego Perez, and this gallant sailor offered to go out and defend the town. His ship was attacked as soon as it came within range of the enemy's guns, and, turning so as to deliver an effective fire, he gave as good as he got. All that day the people of the town heard the pounding of the brass pieces and saw the smudge of powder against the blue to the south, yet at the fall of evening little damage had been done: the ships lay too far apart, and the aim on both sides was ridiculous.

Each commander had seen enough of his adversary to respect him, however, and moved by a common impulse they raised white flags, declared for a cessation of hostilities through the night, and every night, so long as they should continue to oppose one another. Then followed an exchange of fruit and wine, of which both crews were in need, and, confident in the honor of their enemies, all hands slept as tired men usually sleep. Said the Spanish captain to the French commander in the morning, "Artillery is a cowardly and abominable invention. It is desired to hurt a foe while those who serve it run no risk. How say you if we put the tompions back into our cannon and fight, as chivalric men should ever fight, with sword and pike?"

To this the Frenchman gave willing consent, and, the ships ranging near, the battle reopened, after prayers and breakfast, to some purpose. With cries of "Santo Iago!" the Spanish tried to board the pirate ship, but could not secure a footing. Blows were exchanged throughout the day, save when one ship or the other drew off, that the wounded might have attention, and the dying prayers, for much blood was shed and several lost their lives. At the end of the day both commanders declared their admiration for the skill and courage of their opponents, and again gave presents of fruit and wine as they stopped work until the morrow. Perez sent ashore that night to tell the people of Santiago that fighting was an exhausting business, and to some extent a risky one, and would they kindly send a few able-bodied fellows to replace the dead and disabled on his ship?

The response to this call was so meagre that he began to mistrust his countrymen, and he asked if, in case he lost his ship, the town would reimburse him, considering that he was risking his all in their defence. After much debate the townsmen replied, through their officials, that they were not in a position to make good his loss, but they trusted that such a calamity would not be possible; that he would maintain a stout heart and fight on to prove the superiority of Spanish valor to French craft; that the blessed Santo Iago would watch over him and his gallant crew; that their best wishes were with him, and that his kindness would never, never be forgotten. A trifle disheartened, Captain Perez nevertheless resumed the fight on the next day, and again on the fourth day, and after the usual exchange of courtesies at evening, he told the privateer on the fifth day that he would encounter with him as usual. The persistence of the Spaniard in thus holding out against seeming odds--for the Frenchman had the larger crew--set the privateer to thinking, and a sudden fear arose within him that Spanish reinforcements were on their way, and that Perez was merely fighting for time until they should arrive. This fear grew until it became belief, though a baseless one, and, hoisting sail as quietly as possible, he stole out of Santiago Bay on the fourth night after hostilities had opened. As thanks are cheap, Perez received a good many of them.

Why King Congo was Late

As in all the Spanish Americas, there were churchly feasts and celebrations in Cuba whose origin has been forgot. Why did the slaves serenade their masters on New Year morning, jingling huge tambourines, and in the villages how came it to be thought that the cause of righteousness was advanced by parades and music on saints' days? Hatred of the Jews was an inheritance rather than an experience, and for lack of Jews to prove it upon there was an annual display of wrath at Judas, who was represented by a grotesque effigy made up of straw, old clothes, and a mask. In the cities this figure was merely called The Jew, and after being carried through the streets with revilings, on the day after Good Friday, it was hanged in some conspicuous place and there stoned and shot by the crowd.

In Santiago there used to be a queer celebration on the 6th of January, "the day of the kings," or "All Kings' day," meaning the kings who journeyed to Bethlehem to worship the new-born Christ. In time this function lost its dignity and became a sport, a gasconade, in which the slaves attired themselves extravagantly and paraded about, begging, blowing horns, beating drums, and bandying jokes with the spectators. In the days of King Congo the procession had some claim to show and importance, if only because he was at the head of it, for he had, in ways known only to himself, come into possession of the chapeau of a captain-general, a lieutenant's coat, one epaulette, a pair of blue breeches, and a belt; hence, attired in all these grandeurs at once, and mounted on a mule, he looked every inch the king he said he was. For, albeit, he had been a slave, he claimed an African king as his father, and as that parent was dead, for aught he could certify to the contrary, the title, if not the crown and emoluments, descended to him; leastwise, nobody on this side of the sea could dispute it; and he bore it with conscious dignity. His family name, if he had one, has been lost, and it is as King Congo that he was known. That his royalty was genuine the other negroes never doubted, and to parade on the day of the kings without a real king of their own color to marshal the procession was not to be thought of.

El Rey Congo was aware of his power and of the impression he made on the humbler residents of Santiago. Every now and then he heightened his superiority to common clay by appearing in public in a starched collar, looking over the top of it with an assumption of pride and ease, as of one born to such luxury, but in reality chafing his neck against its ragged edges and longing to be in the fields, where he would not need to be spectacular. One year the day of the kings dawned without a cloud, and Santiago was in a holiday humor. Everybody who had work to do postponed it till to-morrow, as if All Kings' Day were like every other day; for the procession that year was to be extra large and fine. King Congo was to ride with spurs, though barefooted, and was to have a military guard of four men. The band had been increased, especially in the drum department, and the ladies, who would have figured in the king's court if he had had a court, were turbaned in new bandanas of red and yellow. The clergy and officers of the garrison had promised to review the parade, and the cooper, down by the custom-house, suggested that he'd better put a few hoops around King Congo to keep his swelling heart from cracking his ribs.

A long trumpet-call from the square announced the hour for assembly, and all eyes turned toward the street through which the king had been used to make his entry. He did not come. Tardiness is a privilege of kings. It proves them superior to the obligations laid upon the vulgar herd. Beside, what is an hour in a mañana country? But as the hour went by and the king kept refraining from his arrival, some presuming subjects went to look him up, and after much inquiry and pedestrian exercise they found the sovereign in jail. His Majesty explained that he had been arrested for debt a few days before, and that because of a shortage in the paltry coin of a white man's state--a wretched matter of $4.15--he was doomed to remain behind the bars, perhaps forever. The messengers ran back to the square, made an excited appeal to the populace, scratched the required sum together in penny subscriptions, paid the innkeeper every centavo that the king owed him, woke up the sheriff and the magistrate, and before noon King Congo was a free man, in the same old uniform, riding the same old mule, and stiffly bowing to the admiring populace as he passed. The parade was a great success. So was the scheme conceived that morning by el Rey Congo; for, every year thereafter, three or four days before the festival of the adoration, he laid in supplies of rum and cigars, with even a new hat or a second-hand medal, and after getting the goods safely bestowed in his cabin, defied his creditors to collect their pay. The shopkeepers winked at this device, and regularly sent him to jail, for they knew that on the 6th of January their royal customer would pay, though by proxy. And that is more than you can say of some kings. Isn't it?

The Chase of Taito Perico

In 1779 the Bishop of Havana took into his household as servants, and into the cathedral as altar-boys, three harum-scarum Indians, then said to have come from Florida, now believed to have been of Mexican origin, though there were not wanting citizens who solemnly declared that the trio had come from a warmer place than any on the surface of this planet. The object in the bishop's mind was to Christianize the scapegraces and turn them loose among their own people, that they, too, might be made to see the light. The poor old clergyman little knew with whom he had to deal. When the astonishment of the youngsters at the glories of Havana had subsided, and even a regiment with a band could parade without their company, the Indian in them asserted itself once more, and they grieved the bishop by playing hookey, shirking mass, running off to the mountains on hunting trips, and once, when he went out in his night-cap to inquire the cause of a rumpus in his yard, they tripped him up and circled around and around, whooping like demons while he was trying to regain his feet and apply his cane.

At last they upset, not the clergy but the laws. Their offence was not grave, being rather a result of high spirits than of malice, but it brought the constabulary upon them and they were carried to the arsenal to work out the term of their imprisonment at loading ships and other heavy, uncongenial labor. Not many days had passed here before a chance offered for their escape, and they seized upon it, vanishing under the noses of the guard--at least, that was the way the guard reported it--like shadows before the sun. In fact, from that hour they were looked upon as a bit uncanny. The three lads found a hiding-place in the Falaco vegas, among a vagrom populace of brigands, runaway slaves, and wreckers, and there for several weeks they supported themselves by hunting, fishing, gambling, even working a little when sore pressed. Better if they had been left alone to live out their lives there. If useless, they at least were harmless. But, no; the majesty of the law again asserted itself. They were caught by a company of soldiers and marched back to Havana. Their protector and friend, the bishop, was dead. Again they were laden with chains and returned to the arsenal to work out some months of penal servitude. Their natures seemed to change in a day. To them Spaniards and Cubans now stood for tyranny and injustice. They did not understand their imprisonment as a correction: it was an act of oppression, and how were they to know that it would not last for the remainder of their lives? Every waking moment from the time of their second arrest they gave to plots for liberty and vengeance. The escape came presently. It seemed as if walls and bars were not made that could restrain them.

Two days after this last escape the country-side was stirred with horror, for just before dawn a hamlet near Guanes was burned, and when the neighbors, attracted by the flame and smoke seen above the tree-tops, arrived on the ground they found the gashed bodies of the inhabitants lying about on the gore-sodden earth. The quickness, the secrecy of the act were terrifying. All sorts of fantastic reports were spread about the province, especially after the massacre and the burning had been repeated in a second village--and a third--and a fourth. The vega was in a panic. The people went from place to place only in armed bands. The Vuelta Abajo was completely cowed, and sentries patrolled every settlement. It was reported that the murders had been committed by three giants who cut down men, horses, and cattle as they stalked across the country, and whose weapons were charmed, so that they always struck a vital spot, no matter how carelessly they were aimed. The three monsters were of vast strength and horrible countenance; they climbed tall cliffs as cats climb fences, and leaped chasms fifty feet across as other men skip over gutters.

A cave near Cape San Antonio that the aborigines had chambered for tombs was their reputed hiding-place, where they also worshipped their master, Satan, with fantastic ceremonies, and sacrificed in his honor the best of the cattle, sheep, and horses they captured on their raids. And the utter helplessness of the Spanish authorities gave a certain color to these rumors, for the giants snapped their fingers at their pursuers and went on killing, looting, burning, running off stock, always appearing in unexpected places and disappearing like mists at sunrise. Thus, two and a half years went by, and the offer of five thousand dollars each for the heads of the devil-brigands had come to nothing. Finally the Havana authorities were prayed and pestered into a spell of activity. They organized a troop of one hundred and fifty men and sixty dogs, put twenty officers at the head, and sent along four chaplains to pray the evil charms away. The three savages were cornered on a mountain, where two of them were killed after they had inflicted many hurts on their pursuers. The heads of these two were lopped, forwarded to the capital, and every one supposed that the reign of terror was at an end.

But, as if the strength of the slain ones had passed into his arm, the third man, Taito Perico, who had escaped during the fight, became a greater scourge than ever. He was fury incarnate, and so sudden were his visitations, so quick and deadly his work, so complete his disappearances, that more than ever it was believed he was a fiend. He resumed the work of slaughter in the Vuelta Arriba. He had a horse now, carried a huge lance, and killed or wounded almost every one he met,--but not all. There was in this black heart a core of sympathy. Once he stole a little child and kept her with him for some time, lavishing on her the affection of a barbarian big brother, and so endearing him to her that when she was rescued from his jungle haunt, while he was absent hunting, she wept for the kind Taito Perico, even in her parents' arms. Then he stole a boy of eight years and kept him for some months, allowing him at the end of that time to return unharmed to his parents.