They were not kept very long in suspense. A few days later, as they were about to sit down to dinner, a negro peon presented himself, with the report that a large body of Spanish troops, having marched down the road from Pinar del Rio, were at that moment pitching their camp on the plain, some two miles away; and just as the party had finished their meal, and were on the point of rising from the table, the beat of horses' hoofs, approaching the house, was heard, with, a little later, the jingle of accoutrements; and presently footsteps, accompanied by the clink of spurs and the clanking of a scabbard, were heard ascending the steps leading to the veranda. The next moment the major-domo flung open the door and, with the announcement of "Capitan Carera", ushered in a fine, soldierly looking man, attired in a silver-braided crimson jacket and shako, and light-blue riding breeches, tucked into knee-boots adorned with large brass spurs.

The newcomer bowed with easy courtesy as he entered, and then paused, apparently taken somewhat aback as his eye fell on the Senora. He quickly recovered himself, however, and, addressing himself to Don Hermoso, asked if he might have the honour of a few minutes' private speech with the owner of the estate; to which Don Hermoso replied by conducting his visitor to the room in which he was wont to transact his business. The interview was very brief, and when it was ended the soldier bowed himself out and, descending the steps, took his horse from the orderly who had accompanied him: then, mounting, he went clattering away down the private road leading through the tobacco fields to the highway, and thence to the distant camp.

"Well, what is the news, Pater?" demanded Carlos, as Don Hermoso presently returned to the dining-room, looking very pale and agitated.

"The news, my son, is this," answered Don Hermoso, his voice quivering with anger: "General Echague, who is in command of the troops which have just encamped in our neighbourhood, has sent a message to me regretfully intimating that it will be his duty to destroy this house, together with all its warehouses and outbuildings of every description, to prevent its seizure by the rebels who are known to be in this neighbourhood. And, as an act of grace, he gives me until noon to-morrow to remove my household and belongings to such a place of safety as I may select!"

"Oh! he does, does he?" retorted Carlos. "Awfully kind of him, I'm sure! And what answer did you return to the message?"

"I simply replied that I thanked General Echague for the time given me, and that I would do my utmost to complete my preparations by the hour named," answered Don Hermoso.

"That is all right!" commented Carlos grimly. "I think we can complete our preparations by noon to-morrow. What say you, Jack?"

"I say," answered Jack, "that we can not only complete our preparations in the time given us, but have plenty of time for play afterwards. As a matter of fact, our preparations are practically complete already. We have nothing to do except blow up the bridge, and that we will do as soon as you, Don Hermoso, and the Senora are far enough on your way to Pinar to be safe from pursuit. Then we will teach these arrogant Spaniards a much-needed lesson on the desirability of modifying their tyrannical methods."

"What do you mean, Jack?" demanded Don Hermoso. "Do you imagine for a moment that I will seek safety in flight, and leave you two lads to defend my property for me?"

"No, Senor, I don't mean that at all," answered Jack. "What I mean is this: the natural situation of the place is happily such that, with the preparations already made for its defence, and perhaps one or two more which we can easily make to-morrow morning, we can without difficulty hold the estate against a much stronger force than that encamped on the plain below; and therefore there is not the slightest reason why you should not remove the Senora from the turmoil and excitement of the fight which is sure to come to-morrow."

"I see," said Don Hermoso. "It is the same thing, however, stated in different words. 'The turmoil and excitement of the fight', as you put it, will scarcely be perceptible here, in the house, and will therefore not be likely to have any injurious effect upon my wife, who must be induced to remain indoors while we are arguing the point with the Spaniards. I shall therefore remain and take my share of the risks with you."

And from this resolution Don Hermoso was not to be moved.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

WIPED OUT.

With the first sign of dawn on the following morning the Montijo estate became a scene of bustling activity; for, as Jack observed, since fight they must, they might as well begin early and get it over during the hours of daylight. Jack and Carlos, who had, with the tacit consent of Don Hermoso, jointly assumed the responsibility of defending the place, had, on the previous night, held a short council of war, and had finally come to the conclusion that of the two vulnerable points of attack which still remained, that which they had by common consent come to speak of as the "cross-country route" was the weaker, since at one point the river was so narrow that it could be jumped by a horseman, and consequently was capable of being temporarily bridged without much difficulty. The defence of this position, therefore, Carlos insisted on personally undertaking, with the assistance of a force consisting of two-thirds of the negroes employed upon the estate; while Jack, with the other third, was to defend the approach by way of the main road and the mined bridge. It was also arranged that Jack was to have the twelve- pounder field gun, while Carlos took the two Maxims.

Now, it happened that while the two youths were making these final dispositions, it occurred to Don Hermoso that the attack upon his estate would afford Antonio Maceo and his four thousand guerrillas up there in the mountains a splendid opportunity to come down and take the Spaniards in the rear; he therefore retired to his own room, wrote a long letter to Maceo, in which he fully set forth all the particulars of the situation, and dispatched it by the hands of a trusty negro by way of the ravine and gorge where Alvaros was supposed to have died, the negro asserting his ability to cross the gorge at the waterfall by means of a pine tree which he would cut down in such a manner as to cause it to fall across the gap, and which he would afterwards throw into the abyss, returning to the estate, after the execution of his mission, with Maceo and his men.

The reveille was just sounding in the Spanish camp when Jack, having placed his forces in position in open order behind a screen of bamboo and scrub which completely commanded the approach to the mined bridge, and also effectually masked the position of his twelve-pounder, proceeded down the road alone for the purpose of destroying the bridge. Ten minutes later a deep boom, accompanied by a volcanic upheaval of dust and debris, announced the successful accomplishment of the task, at the same time that it startled the Spanish soldiery and aroused the curiosity and suspicion of the Spanish general, who at once dispatched a small reconnoitring party to investigate the nature of the explosion. Jack, who had waited to examine the result of his engineering experiment, and had seen with much satisfaction that, while the crown of the arch was completely destroyed, rendering the bridge absolutely impassable, it would be a simple matter to repair the damage later on, observed the approach of the party, and at once determined to await it, deeming it an excellent opportunity to establish a clear understanding with the Spaniards and bring matters at once to an issue. Accordingly, he stood there, on his own side of the wrecked bridge, in clear view of the approaching reconnoitring party, and patiently awaited its arrival.

Presently the officer in charge of the party, catching sight of him, galloped forward alone and, reining up on the opposite side of the gap in the bridge, indignantly demanded:

"Hola, Senor! What is the meaning of this, and who is responsible for the deed?"

"I am responsible for it," answered Jack; "and it means that Senor Montijo is not disposed to tamely submit to the destruction of his property. You may therefore return to General Echague and inform him that we have placed the estate in a condition of defence; that we are prepared to resist attack to the last gasp; and that if he is ill- advised enough to persist in his attempt at destruction, he, and he only, will be responsible for the bloodshed that must ensue."

"It is well, Senor," answered the officer; "I will tell the General what you say. And you, in turn, may inform Senor Montijo that if he persists in his mad resolve to resist us, his blood and that of every soul who takes part with him will be on his own head: for General Echague is in no mood to deal leniently with rebels; when he turns his back upon you a few hours hence the estate will be a blackened, fire-scorched waste, and every man, woman, and child upon it will have been put to the sword!"

And, wheeling his horse, with a swaggering show of contemptuous indifference to possible danger he rode slowly away.

Jack watched the party until it had returned to the camp, and the officer in command had made his report; and then, seeing that the Spanish troops were to be allowed to get breakfast before being led to the attack, he dispatched Calderon—who had undertaken to perform the duties of galloper—to Carlos with a message to the effect that no immediate attack was to be expected. Then, having posted sentries and given his own contingent instructions to get their breakfast at once, where they were, he mounted his horse and galloped up to the house to snatch the meal which he knew would by this time be ready for him. It was a hurried meal, of course, but it was none the less welcome on that account, and it imparted that feeling of refreshment and vigour which is so comforting to a man who is about to engage in a possibly long and arduous fight; while it also afforded him the opportunity to personally acquaint Don Hermoso and Carlos—who also presently came in—with the details of what had passed between him and the Spanish officer.

Then, having fortified himself with food, Jack returned to his post, to find his negro forces busily discussing their own breakfast, which they finished nearly half an hour before there was any sign of movement in the Spanish camp. At length, however, the blare of bugles and the rattle of drums gave intimation that a movement of some sort was impending; and presently the troops were seen to be mustering under arms. They consisted, as Jack soon saw, mainly of infantry: but there was a small body of cavalry with them, about fifty in number; and they also had two light field pieces, each drawn by six mules.

While the infantry were forming up, and the mules were being put to the guns, the general and his staff suddenly rode out of camp and advanced along the main road, with the evident intention of reconnoitring the menaced position and ascertaining the most promising point of attack. But Jack had no idea of allowing them to gain even so much advantage as that; he therefore moved among his men, and selecting some twenty of the best shots, rapidly transferred them to another patch of cover which commanded the junction of the private with the main road, and instructed them to open fire upon the reconnoitring party the moment that it should come into view, himself remaining with them to encourage and give them confidence. He had scarcely got his little body of sharpshooters into position when the leading files of the reconnoitring party appeared in sight at the junction of the two roads, evidently bent upon examining the wrecked bridge; and Jack, waiting only until the entire body came into view, gave the order to fire. The effect was disastrous to the Spaniards, for the negroes, concealed as they were, and confident of their own absolute safety, took aim with the utmost coolness and deliberation, with the result that seven out of the dozen saddles were emptied, while the general and another officer had their horses shot under them. There was an immediate wild stampede of the survivors, the two dismounted men contriving with difficulty to catch and mount a couple of riderless horses; and ere they had got beyond range two more men and three more horses were bowled over by the main body of Jack's negroes, who had the adventurous party in view as soon as they were lost to sight by the band of sharpshooters nearer the bridge.

Upon regaining his camp the Spanish general at once ordered forward his two field guns, his instructions to the artillerymen apparently being to shell the little clump of cover in which Jack had concealed his sharpshooters. But the latter, despite his youth and inexperience, was shrewd enough to foresee some such move as this, and accordingly he had no sooner put the reconnoitring party to flight than he withdrew his men from their place of concealment and marched them back to rejoin their comrades, taking care to keep them all together, for he had a very strong suspicion that he would again need them for special service ere long.

The guns were advanced at a gallop, brought to action front, and unlimbered, all with very creditable smartness; and the next moment shell fire was opened by both weapons upon the little patch of cover just vacated by Jack's marksmen. The aim was good, shell after shell dropping so close to where those marksmen had been concealed that within the first five minutes they must all have been destroyed had they remained there, even although about two out of every three shells failed to explode. The Spanish general was soon convinced that his guns had accomplished their mission, for when they had fired some thirty shells a galloper was seen approaching the artillery officer, and the next moment that individual gave the word to cease fire and limber up. At the word, the drivers put their mules into motion and advanced toward the guns; whereupon Jack, who had been patiently awaiting this movement, gave an order to his sharpshooters, who immediately opened fire upon the teams, with the result that before the guns could be moved every animal was down. Then the artillerymen themselves attempted to drag the weapons away, upon which they also began to drop; and at length a squad of cavalry was dispatched to move the weapons. But they were obliged to gallop nearly half a mile across Jack's front, within range the whole time; and, although they covered the ground at a good pace, so hot was the fire maintained upon them, and so deadly the aim, that not one of the horsemen was able to reach the guns: Jack had got the weapons under the cover of his rifles, and he did not mean to let them go.

But Singleton soon had something else than the two guns of the enemy to think about; for while he had been concentrating his attention upon the two field pieces, the entire body of troops had begun to move, and were advancing, in two columns, with the evident intention of endeavouring to force the passage of the stream somewhere in the neighbourhood of the ruined bridge: apparently they were unaware of the existence of the still weaker position which Carlos had undertaken to defend. Through some strange oversight or carelessness on the part of their commander, they were advancing in close order, and Jack felt that now was the moment when his twelve-pounder was likely to prove useful. He intended to captain the gun himself, and had caused it to be loaded with shrapnel some time before: and he therefore now carefully aimed the weapon at a certain spot over which the troops must pass, and the distance of which he knew almost to an inch. Then, waiting patiently until the leading column was within about three yards of it, he fired. The shell appeared to strike the ground and explode almost at the feet of the advancing troops, and when the smoke of the explosion cleared away it was seen that an enormous gap had been made in the advancing column, which had been thrown into the utmost confusion, those men in the immediate vicinity of the gap, on either side of it, having halted in dismay, while the right and left wings had continued to advance; and in the midst of the gap could be seen a long swath of prostrate men, the most of whom were lying horribly and unnaturally still. It was pitiable to see those men, many of them scarcely out of their boyhood, led forth to die in support of grinding, unendurable tyranny and misgovernment: yet that was not the moment in which to indulge a feeling of mistaken humanitarian sentiment—mistaken, because Jack knew that unless those same men could be driven off they would be remorselessly used as the instruments of ruthless destruction and indiscriminate slaughter; so, while the confusion among the ranks was still at its height, he ordered the gun to be reloaded, and again plumped a shell right in the very midst of them.

This second shell appeared to have been even more terribly destructive in its effects than the first, for the two columns were, when it fell, bunched close together, and it seemed to have dropped where the men were thickest; and ere the now demoralised troops could recover from the panic into which they had been thrown, their ranks were yet more disastrously thinned, a rattling crash of Maxim fire from Carlos' position indicating the direction from which this new punishment had come. But by this time General Echague had begun to recover his presence of mind. He saw that to attempt to advance farther in close formation in the face of such a withering fire would be suicidal, and he gave the word for his men to take open order, which they instantly did: and a moment later a slight change in the formation of the attacking troops showed that while the leading column was intended to be used in forcing the passage of the river at the point where the bridge had been destroyed, the other column had been diverted to attack the position which Carlos had undertaken to defend.

The troops, having taken open order, were next ordered to lie down and thus minimise their exposure as far as possible; and in this posture they advanced to the attack, creeping gradually forward and firing independently at any spot where the flash of a rifle, or a puff of smoke, showed that an enemy lay concealed. There was one small party of men in particular that attracted Jack's attention, and a careful inspection of them through his glasses showed that they were provided with something which had the appearance of scaling ladders, which they were laboriously dragging after them, and which Singleton very shrewdly suspected were intended to span the gap in the broken bridge and thus afford a passage for the troops across the river. To these men, and to the cavalry who were still persistently endeavouring to recover the possession and use of the two field pieces, Jack commended the especial attention of his negroes, leaving the remainder of the Spanish troops to be dealt with a little later on; for, the defenders being safely ensconced in cover, the rifle fire of the attacking party was absolutely harmless to them, and the young Englishman felt that so long as he could keep the party with the scaling ladders at arm's length, and the field pieces from being used against him, he was practically master of the situation. And these two objects he gained most successfully, the party with the ladders very soon being wiped out, while all attempts on the part of the main body to supply its place were effectually frustrated; while, as for the guns, by the time that the cavalry-men had lost rather more than a quarter of their number they had evidently arrived at the conclusion that to move the pieces from the exposed position which they occupied was an impossible task, and they accordingly abandoned it, turning their attention next to the position which Carlos was defending.

The unequal fight had been in progress for nearly two hours, during which Singleton's party had experienced less than a dozen casualties, while the enemy, exposed in the open, had suffered very severely, when another body of men suddenly made their appearance in the rear of the Spanish forces, and, with howls and yells of vengeful delight, rushed forward to the attack. A small flag of Cuba Libre which was borne in their midst proclaimed them to be a body of revolutionaries, and the Spanish troops were hastily called off from the attack on the estate and formed up in square to receive them. But the Spaniards might as well have attempted to stop the wind as to stem the onrush of those fierce and determined men, who were, moreover, in overwhelming numbers; they had time only to pour in a couple of hasty, ill-directed volleys, and then the Cubans—armed, some with rifles, and others with swords, cane- knives, machetes, scythe blades, pikes, hatchets, ay, and even crowbars and smiths' hammers—swept down upon and overwhelmed them. For the space of perhaps three minutes there was a hideous melee, a confused mass of men struggling, yelling, shrieking; a popping of pistol shots, a whirling and flashing of blades in the sun; and then out from the midst of the confusion there emerged a bare half-dozen of panic-stricken horsemen, who set spurs to their frantic steeds and galloped for their lives off that fatal field. Another Spanish force had been wiped out by the insurgents!

Half an hour later, when the dead had been stripped of their weapons and ammunition, Antonio Maceo and a little body of his subordinate officers, using the scaling ladders left on the field by the Spaniards, crossed the gap in the wrecked bridge, and made their way up to the house for the purpose of thanking Don Hermoso for the letter of warning which he had dispatched to them, and with a request for the loan of all the spades and other tools which he could spare to enable the insurgents to bury the dead: and by sunset that night a long, low mound of fresh- turned earth, showing red amid the vivid green of the grass-grown plain, was all that was left as evidence of the tragedy; while Maceo and his four thousand patriots were wearily wending their way back to their mountain fastness, the richer by two six-pounder field guns, a thousand stand of arms, with a considerable quantity of ammunition, and the entire spoils of the Spanish camp.

It was subsequently ascertained that General Echague and five of his staff had succeeded in making good their escape from that field of slaughter; and as it was anticipated that the Spaniards, infuriated by their terrible reverse, would be more than likely to seek an early revenge, Jack and Carlos were kept very busy during the ensuing fortnight in so far improving the defences of the estate as to render it practically impregnable. The remains of the wrecked stone bridge were removed, and a timber drawbridge was built in its place; entrenchments were dug commanding the approach to it and to the one or two other spots where it was thought that the passage of the river might possibly be forced; a further supply of ammunition was sent for; and a small lookout and semaphore station was constructed on the hillside, at a point which commanded a view of every possible approach to the estate. And then ensued a period of rather trying inactivity, during which Jack and Carlos were kept constantly on the tenterhooks of expectancy, vainly striving to get some inkling of the intentions of the enemy.

Then at length came the news that General Weyler, baffled in his efforts to force a general engagement with, the enemy, and galled by the constant heavy losses which he was sustaining, through the ravages of disease and at the hands of the insurgents, had issued an order for the concentration of the entire rural population in the fortified towns, in order that they might thus be prevented from supplying the various bands of armed revolutionaries with provisions and other necessaries. The effect of this cruel and tyrannical order was to drive practically every man into the ranks of the rebels—since he could no longer follow his vocation without exposing himself to severe punishment for disobedience; while the women and children, to the number of some sixty thousand, were perforce obliged to obey the decree, and, forsaking their homes, betake themselves to the towns. But no sooner had they done so than it became apparent that no sufficient provision had been made for their maintenance; and, since it was impossible for them to earn a living for themselves, the suffering and loss of life among these unfortunates quickly assumed appalling proportions, to the horror and indignation of the American people, who had been watching, with steadily and rapidly growing disapproval, the peculiar methods of the Spaniards for the suppression of the rebellion. It was the opinion of America, indeed— and not of America alone, it may be said—that there would have been no rebellion in Cuba but for the gross corruption and inefficiency of the local government; and that the proper method of suppression was, not force of arms, but the introduction of reforms into the system of government. The fact is, that the state of affairs in Cuba was generating a strong and increasing feeling of hostility between the United States of America and Spain; for while, on the one hand, the outspoken comments of the American press deeply wounded the sensitive pride of the Spanish nation, which could ill brook anything that even in the remotest degree savoured of censure, or of interference with its own private affairs, the determination of that nation to manage those affairs in such manner as seemed to it most fit led to many ill-advised acts, tending to further strengthen the sympathy of the freedom-loving American for the oppressed and persecuted Cuban—a sympathy which found expression in the generous supply of munitions of war to the insurgents. This feeling of mutual hostility was further strengthened about this time—that is to say, in June of the year 1896—by what was spoken of at the time as the Competitor incident. The Competitor was a vessel manned by a crew consisting, with one solitary exception, of citizens of the United States; and in the month above-named she was surprised and captured on the north-west coast of the island by the Spanish authorities, immediately after landing a cargo of arms and ammunition destined for Maceo and his little army of patriots. The crew of the ship were forthwith tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot: but under the treaties existing between the United States and Spain it was specially provided that, unless American citizens were actually in arms against Spain when captured, they could only be proceeded against before the ordinary tribunals; the United States, therefore, through General Lee, its Consul-General in Havana, promptly intervened on behalf of the crew, declaring that their trial by court martial was illegal. Spain as promptly retorted that she was perfectly justified in the action which she had taken, and manifested a very strong disposition to abide by the decision of the court martial, and execute its sentence. But the United States remained so inflexibly firm, and made it so clear that it would tolerate no departure whatsoever from the terms of the treaty, that Spain, after holding out as long as she dared, was at length compelled to yield and order a new trial by ordinary process; with the result that the ship's crew, after having been kept for a long time in prison, were eventually released and expelled from the island. This incident greatly embittered the relations between the two nations, Spain especially resenting the humiliation of defeat; and there seems very little doubt that it was the primal cause which led up to the Spanish-American War.

One day, as the little party at the casa Montijo were about to sit down to second breakfast, Antonio Maceo suddenly made his appearance.

"Good-day, Senores!" he exclaimed, as he mounted the steps leading to the front veranda. "Good-day, Senora! And how are you to-day?"

"Quite well, thank you, Senor," answered the Senora. "And you? But I need scarcely ask; the mountain air evidently agrees with you. This is a quite unexpected pleasure, Senor Antonio."

"You mean my visit to you, Senora? It is very good of you to say so. Not knowing what facilities you may have for obtaining news, I thought I would come down to let you know that I believe we have at length driven the Spaniards completely out of the neighbourhood. Your friend General Echague attacked us in force about a month ago, with the avowed determination, as I have since learned, of dislodging us from our stronghold; and we had the most splendid fight that I have ever participated in. We allowed him to gradually drive us back some six miles into the mountains, until we had drawn him into a very carefully prepared ambuscade, and there we punished him so severely that I believe he will not again dare to trouble us, especially as I learn that the general himself was severely wounded. But," he continued, taking Don Hermoso by the arm and leading him to the end of the veranda, out of earshot of the Senora, "that is not what I came down to tell you. I learned, only yesterday, that that fiend Weyler, maddened by his inability to check the progress of the rebellion, and the failure of his arms generally, has personally taken the field at the head of an army of sixty thousand men, and is marching through Havana, on his way to Pinar del Rio, carrying fire and sword through the province, and leaving behind him nothing but black and blood-stained ruin. Before he left Havana he proclaimed that a free pardon would be granted to all insurgents who should choose to surrender themselves to the Spanish authorities, and a certain number of those among us who have become incapacitated through sickness have, with the consent of the leaders, accepted his offer: but their surrender, so far from weakening us, has strengthened our hands, for we no longer have them to nurse and look after. But he has also issued another order, to the effect that the Spanish troops, while marching through the country, will henceforth destroy all buildings, crops, cattle, and other property which may be capable of sheltering or assisting the insurgents in any way whatsoever; and, furthermore, that all persons met with who have disobeyed the 'concentration' order will be treated as rebels—which means that they will be tried by drum-head court martial and shot. I don't know whether or not you have yet heard this news, Senor Hermoso, but you have aided us thus far in so magnificently generous a manner that I deemed it my duty to come down and make certain, and also to warn you of what you may expect if Weyler should happen to find you here. As for me, I have come to the conclusion that I can do no good by remaining pent up among the mountains, while it is equally certain that with four thousand men I cannot hope successfully to encounter Weyler and his sixty thousand. I have therefore determined to endeavour to slip through the trocha and demonstrate against Havana, in the hope that Weyler will thus be induced to abandon his march and return to protect the city. So far as you are concerned, my advice to you is that you leave this place at once, and either accompany me or fly to some place of safety, whichever you please. But in either case you cannot do better, I think, than turn all your negroes over to me, with such arms as you can spare."

"Come in and take some breakfast with us," said Don Hermoso. "This is serious news indeed, and what it is best to do, under the circumstances, is a matter that is not to be decided in a moment; it needs careful consideration, and therefore I will talk it over after breakfast with you—if you can spare me an hour or two—my son, and the young Englishman, who, although only a lad, seems to have a man's head on his shoulders. My present inclination is to remain where I am, and let Weyler do his worst. I believe that, with the dispositions which we have made since Echague's attack upon us, we can hold the estate against all comers."

And when, after an hour's earnest conference a little later on in the day, and a tour of the estate in the company of Don Hermoso, Carlos, and Jack, Antonio Maceo took his leave, in order to return to his men among the mountains, he expressed the opinion that, given an ample supply of ammunition, and a sufficient store of provisions, it was just possible that Don Hermoso might be able to hold even Weyler and his sixty thousand men at bay. Whereupon it was decided that the attempt should be made.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A GALLANT DEFENCE.

It is not to be supposed that so momentous a decision as that mentioned at the close of the last chapter could be arrived at without bringing the occupants of the hacienda face to face with many anxieties, one of the most serious of which was, undoubtedly, the question whether the ammunition for which they had sent would arrive ere the appearance upon the scene of General Valeriano y Nicolan Weyler, with his devastating army of sixty thousand men. If it did, all might possibly be well; but if it did not—well, in that case disaster was practically certain. For nearly a week they hung painfully upon the tenterhooks of suspense, waiting for news; and the only news which reached them was to the effect that the new Capitan-General, with characteristic vigour, had issued the most rigorous instructions for a vigilant patrol of the entire coast line of the island to be maintained, with the express object of preventing any further landing of munitions of war of any description whatsoever, the obvious conclusion at which he had arrived being that if such supplies could be effectually stopped the rebellion must eventually be starved out of existence for want of them. But, after a long week of keenest anxiety, intelligence arrived that Milsom had succeeded in eluding the guardacostas, and had landed his cargo in a small cove under the lee of San Domingo Point, on the south coast; and that the moiety of that cargo asked for by Don Hermoso was even then well on its way to the estate. The next day it arrived, and was safely stored, to the great relief of the defenders, who now found themselves possessed of a supply of ammunition ample enough to enable them, with care, to withstand a siege of a month's duration, if need be; while they doubted very much whether General Weyler would be disposed to devote even half that amount of time to their subjugation.

But the ammunition came to hand only just in the nick of time: for on the very day of its arrival the anxious watchers became aware of a faint odour of burning on the breeze; and when at length darkness closed down upon them, the sky to the eastward glowed red, showing that Weyler and his destroyers were at hand. With the dawn the smell of burning became more pronounced; the hitherto crystalline clearness of the air was seen to be dimmed by a thin veil of brownish-blue vapour; and the lookout in his eyrie far up the mountain-side signalled that flames and thick smoke were visible in the direction of Consolacion del Sur. As the day progressed the haze with which the air was charged grew thicker, the taint of fire and smoke more pungent, and an occasional vibration of the atmosphere suggested to those who became conscious of it the boom of distant artillery; while with the approach of nightfall the whole of the eastern sky became suffused with a flickering, ruddy light, the lookout up the mountain signalling that the entire country to the eastward, as far as the eye could see, seemed to be in flames.

On the morrow all these signs of destruction became very greatly accentuated: with the passage of every hour the atmosphere became more thickly charged with smoke, more pungent with the smell of burning; clouds of black ash darkened the sky from time to time, as they were swept along upon the wings of the strong breeze; dense columns of smoke rising here and there showed where the spoilers were at work upon properties so near at hand that they could now be identified and named; while the frequent rattle and crash of rifle fire seemed to indicate that there were others who, like Don Hermoso, were not prepared to stand supinely by and see their entire possessions destroyed. Work was still being carried on by Don Hermoso's employes, but they had been turned- to that morning with the injunction that at the sound of the alarm bell they were to instantly drop their tools and muster before the shed in which the arms were stored. As for Singleton and Carlos Montijo, they had jumped into the saddle at daybreak, and were maintaining a ceaseless patrol of the boundaries of the estate, riding in opposite directions, and encountering each other from time to time, when they would exchange such items of information as they might happen to have gleaned in the interim.

All through the morning the work of destruction proceeded apace: the atmosphere became hourly thicker and more suffocating with smoke; great tongues of flame could occasionally be seen leaping skyward here and there above the tops of trees; dull boomings from time to time told of the blowing up of buildings; intermittent crashes of volley firing, mingled with shouts and yells and shrieks, told that desperate fights were raging—or that, perchance, some ruthless and summary execution was taking place; and by and by, shortly after mid-day, a solitary horseman, mounted upon a steed in a lather of sweat and recognised by Carlos as their next neighbour to the eastward, came galloping over the temporary drawbridge with a warning to Don Hermoso to fly, with all his family and dependents, since Weyler, with his army of butchers, was already approaching in such overpowering strength that nothing could possibly stand before him. The poor fellow gasped out a breathless story of ruthlessly savage murder and destruction, telling how he had seen every atom of his property looted and burnt, every member of his family shot down; and how he had at the last moment escaped by the skin of his teeth, with the horse he rode and the clothes that he stood up in as his sole remaining possessions in the world. He had effected his escape with some mad idea of flying for his life somewhere, he knew not whither; but upon learning that Don Hermoso was resolved to defend his property to the last, the poor fellow—a certain Don Luis Enrile—begged permission to be allowed to remain and assist in the defence, since he was now a ruined man and had nothing left to live for save revenge. Naturally, Don Hermoso readily acceded to his request.

The unhappy Don Luis, having drawn, in broken, gasping sentences, the main outlines of his tragical story, was still filling in some of the more lurid details of that morning's happenings upon his farm, when the lookout perched aloft on the hillside signalled the approach of the enemy; and while Carlos dashed off in one direction to sound the alarm bell and occupy his former defence post, Jack rushed off in the other to raise the temporary drawbridge which had been constructed to take the place of the wrecked stone bridge, and which was now the only means of entering upon and leaving the estate. Having raised the bridge, and carefully secured it against any possibility of becoming lowered by accident, Jack climbed the structure to its uplifted extremity, and from thence looked out over the wide plain that gently sloped away toward the east, south, and west of him; and presently he became aware of a loud, confused, rumbling jumble of sound which, when he was presently able to dissect it, resolved itself into a mingled trampling of multitudinous feet and hoofs, a rumbling and creaking of many wheels, the combined murmur of many human voices, the occasional low, deep, protesting bellow of overdriven animals, the crack of whips, and the continuous shouts of men. The air was still thick with acrid smoke, rendering it difficult to see anything clearly at a distance greater than half a mile; but presently it thickened still more, and Jack recognised that the thickening was produced by a great cloud of dun-coloured dust, out of the midst of which there presently cantered into view a number of Spanish cavalry scouts, a dozen of whom, upon reaching the main road, wheeled to their right and dashed along it toward the point of its junction with the private road leading to Don Hermoso's estate.

Jack considered that the moment had now arrived for him to quit his post of observation, and he accordingly slid down the rail of the bridge until he reached the ground, where he was almost immediately joined by the contingent of labourers which was to operate under him, as before, for the defence of the estate at that point. The wood away to the left, and the bamboo coppice, afforded perfect cover and shelter for the whole of his party; and since each man now knew to an inch where he was required to post himself, everybody was in position and entirely hidden from sight a full minute before the leading couple of the cavalry came into view round the bend of the road leading to the ruined bridge. But no sooner did that leading couple appear than two whiplike rifle reports snapped out from somewhere in front of them, and while one rider dropped forward and collapsed on his horse's neck, the other flung up his arms, tossed away the carbine which he was carrying in his right hand, and reeled out of the saddle to the ground with a crash, while his horse, tossing up his head, wheeled sharply round and dashed off to the rear, dragging his dead rider by the left stirrup. The next instant another pair of scouts swung into view, when again out snapped that ominous, double, whiplike crack. This time one of the two riders, dropping his carbine to the ground, clapped his right hand convulsively to his breast as he swiftly wheeled his horse and galloped off; while the horse of his companion, rearing upright and pawing the air furiously for a moment with his fore hoofs, fell backward with a crash and lay dead, pinning his helpless rider beneath him: whereupon the remainder of the party wheeled their horses, and, dashing in their spurs, took to precipitate flight.

Shortly afterwards, doubtless in consequence of the report of those men, another reconnoitring party, consisting of half a dozen brilliantly- garbed officers, approached, evidently with the idea of inspecting the nature of the defences of the estate, and ascertaining its weak points. But Jack would have none of it; the moment that they came within point- blank rifle range he opened fire upon them with his sharpshooters, and only three of the half-dozen were able to make good their retreat.

Meanwhile the main body of troops gradually debouched into view upon the plain—a motley crowd of infantry clad in rags so effectually bleached and discoloured by exposure to rain and sun that it would probably have puzzled their own officers to name the various regiments to which they belonged; about one hundred cavalry; and three batteries of field artillery: the whole accompanied by an enormous number of baggage, ambulance, and ammunition wagons, water carts, and nondescript vehicles of every imaginable description, and an immense lowing, bellowing, and bleating herd of captured cattle, sheep, and goats, many of which seemed to be half-mad with terror. Mounted officers in scores dashed frantically to and fro among this medley of men, vehicles, and animals; and finally, when the herd of cattle was at length separated from the main body and driven off, a detachment of some three thousand men, and one battery of guns, with a proportion of the wagons and other vehicles, halted on the plain, with the evident intention of attacking the estate, while the remainder of the body went forward.

The attack began immediately. A puff or two of white smoke had revealed to the reconnoitring parties the lurking-place of those who had fired upon them, and they had of course pointed out the spot to the artillerymen as that upon which they were to concentrate their fire; with the result that immediately the guns were wheeled to action front, they opened a hot fire upon the bamboo coppice. But, as on the occasion of the previous attack, no sooner had the reconnoitring parties withdrawn than Jack moved his sharpshooters from their cover of bamboo to that of a line of artfully constructed earthworks, which, while far enough removed from the bamboos to be perfectly safe from the artillery fire which he felt certain would be immediately opened upon them, equally commanded the road leading to the ruined bridge, and enabled him to effectually check all endeavours to reconnoitre that point of approach. The result was that after the bamboos had been fiercely shelled for some ten minutes, without producing a single casualty among the defenders, another reconnoitring party, believing that that particular patch of cover had been pretty effectually cleared, boldly galloped forward, under cover of the continued shell fire, to examine the spot which, from the resolution with which it had been defended, they felt convinced must be one of the keys of the position. And there is little doubt that they were as much surprised as disgusted to be received with a volley, from a totally different and not easily discernible point, which caused them to again retire precipitately, leaving nearly two-thirds of their number behind them.

Finding himself thus persistently foiled, the officer in command slightly altered his tactics; and, while instructing his artillery to persistently shell every bit of timber or other cover that could possibly afford concealment to the defenders, deployed his infantry into a column of open order and threw out a strong firing line, with instructions to them to advance, taking advantage of every bit of cover that they could find, and shoot at every puff of smoke that they could see. As on the occasion of the previous attack, many of the Spanish shells failed to burst; but, notwithstanding this, a few casualties now began to occur among Jack's party of defenders, and he therefore decided that the moment had arrived for bringing his twelve-pounder into action. This gun, accordingly, which Jack had by this time got mounted on a cleverly-constructed and carefully-masked earth battery, now opened fire upon the enemy's artillery; and as Singleton had personally laid the piece, and knew the exact range to practically an inch, he was lucky enough to dismount and put out of action one of the Spanish guns with his first shot, while his second swept away every one of the artillerymen from the gun next to it. His third and fourth shots did comparatively little damage; but his fifth shell struck one of the guns fair upon the muzzle, at the precise moment when it was being fired, with the result that both shells burst simultaneously, completely shattering the fore part of the gun, as far back as the trunnions, and scattering death and destruction broadcast among the rest of the artillerymen. But by this time the Spanish gunners had managed to locate the position of the weapon that was punishing them so fearfully, and from that moment they devoted their attention exclusively to it, with the result that shells began to drop thick and fast about Jack's ears, smothering and half-blinding him with dust, and occasionally peppering him pretty smartly with the pebbles and fragments of stone that were mingled with the earth of which his battery was composed. Still he gallantly maintained the unequal fight, and actually succeeded in disabling four out of the six guns ere a splinter of shell struck him on the temple and knocked him senseless. When he recovered, he found that darkness was closing down; that he was in his own room and on his own bed, whither he had been brought by an ambulance party of his men; and that Mama Faquita, poor Senorita Isolda's nurse, had taken him in charge, cleaned and dressed his wound, and was looking after him generally. An intermittent crackle of rifle fire told him that the attack was still being pressed, but Faquita informed him that there had been very few serious casualties thus far, and that all was going well. The old woman would fain have kept him confined to his room; but Jack knew that with the darkness would come the real danger, and despite his nurse's vehement protests he not only rose from his bed, but returned to the spot which his contingent of men were still defending.

Arrived there, he soon found that events had been happening during his absence. In the first place, it appeared that the remainder of the gun's crew had continued to work the twelve-pounder, and, after firing away a perfectly ruinous quantity of ammunition, had actually succeeded in disabling one of the two remaining Spanish guns; soon after accomplishing which feat, the twelve-pounder itself had been dismounted and put out of action by a shell which had completely destroyed the carriage and at the same time had slain four of the gunners. Whereupon a little party of sharpshooters, remembering the tactics that Jack had adopted during the previous attack upon the estate, had exclusively devoted themselves to a repetition of them, by first of all exterminating the entire crew of the remaining Spanish gun, and then rendering it impossible for anyone else to approach the gun to work it. Meanwhile, the officer in command, finding it useless to try to do anything with his men, exposed as they were upon the open plain, had withdrawn them out of gunshot and gone into camp. It was clear that he proposed to wait until the darkness came to veil his movements.

Jack quite anticipated that the first thing which the Spaniards would attempt would be to reconnoitre the entire position, with the object of finding a way to get across the river; and he knew that there were only two points at which this feat of crossing was possible, namely, those which Carlos and he were defending. He therefore scribbled a little note to his friend, warning the latter what to guard against, and dispatched it by a negro messenger, whom he also instructed to afterwards call at the house and bring from thence a pair of binocular glasses which were to be found on a table in his (Jack's) bedroom.

By the time that the messenger returned with the glasses it had grown intensely dark: for to the natural obscurity of night there was added the further obscuration caused by the smoke with which the atmosphere was laden; while, to still further intensify the blackness, a heavy thunderstorm was working up against the wind, the combined result being a darkness in which it was literally impossible to see one's hand before one's face. Jack was at first inclined to anathematise the darkness; but when at length he was enabled to fully realise the intensity of it he felt much more disposed to bless it, for, having moved about half a dozen paces away from his post, and experienced some difficulty in finding his way back, he began to comfort himself with the reflection that the enemy, utterly strange to the country as they were, could do nothing until light enough should come to at least enable them to see where to put their feet.

Yet Jack was mistaken in so supposing, for as the time went on he became aware of certain sounds out there on the plain which seemed to indicate pretty unmistakably that, despite the darkness, the Spaniards were busily employed. When the moaning and sighing of the night wind among the branches of the trees, the rustle of the bamboos, and the clash of the palm leaves subsided for an instant, allowing more distant sounds to reach his ears, he intermittently caught what seemed to be the sounds of picks and shovels at work at no very great distance; moreover, there were lights flitting about the distant camp, and much movement there, though what it portended Jack was quite unable to discover, even with the help of his night glasses. At length, however, the period of darkness came to an end, for sheet lightning began to flicker and quiver among the densely packed clouds low down on the western horizon, at first for an instant only and at comparatively long intervals, but soon increasing greatly in vividness and rapidity: and then the young Englishman perceived, to his disgust and alarm, that the Spanish soldiers had availed themselves of the obscurity not only to entrench a strong body of riflemen to right and left of their own end of the ruined bridge, but also to advance a long, light platform, or gangway, mounted on the wheels of one of the disabled field pieces, which they seemed to be preparing to throw across the gap in the bridge as soon as they could get sufficient light to enable them to run it into position; indeed, they were actually engaged in moving it forward at the very moment when Jack discovered its existence.

To bring up his men, and place them in a position among the bamboos which would enable them to frustrate this bold attempt to span the river was the work of but a minute or two for Jack; then he immediately opened a hot fire upon the working party who were engaged in moving forward the gangway. But no sooner had he done this than he found how seriously the conditions had changed for the worse during those two hours of total darkness; for now the Spaniards who had established themselves in the trenches were so close at hand that the cover of the bamboos was no longer an efficient defence, and casualties among the defenders became disconcertingly frequent. Furthermore, it soon appeared that the Spaniards had got two strong hauling parties sheltered behind a couple of low earthworks, and that these people, by means of two stout ropes attached to the gangway, were steadily and with much skill hauling the thing toward the required position. Jack soon saw, however, that it would be quite impossible for the hauling parties to haul it far enough forward to enable it to be dropped into position across the gap in the ruined bridge: a moment must come, sooner or later, when the concealed men who were dragging upon the ropes would be obliged to leave their cover and push the platform the remaining portion of the distance; and he quickly determined to reserve his energies and his ammunition until that moment.

The time quickly arrived. A single bugle blast appeared to be the signal for the entrenched Spanish riflemen to concentrate their fire upon the clump of bamboo brake wherein Jack had hidden his men, and at the same instant about a hundred infantry-men sprang from behind their sheltering earthwork and made a dash at the platform, their every movement being clearly visible by the light of the vivid electric discharges which had by this time become practically continuous. With the utmost resolution they seized the light structure and started to run it forward toward the gap in the bridge; but—Jack having by this time instilled into his dusky troops the virtue of coolness and deliberation in fighting—the next moment they were swept back to cover by a perfectly withering fire that placed nearly half of them hors de combat.

Meanwhile sounds of hot and sustained firing had gradually breezed up in the direction of the position which Carlos was defending, and ere long it became evident that there also the attack was being pressed; and although the sounds of strife thitherward were soon almost swallowed up in the long, continuous crash and crackle of the rifle fire that was being maintained by the entrenched troops upon Jack's party, the young Englishman could not avoid the suspicion that his friend was being somewhat hardly pressed; for whenever a momentary lull occurred in the firing in front of him, Jack could not only hear that the volume of firing in Carlos' direction was fully maintained, but it seemed to him that it was steadily increasing! And presently a breathless messenger arrived from Carlos, begging Jack to spare the former as many men as he possibly could, to help in driving back a body of Spanish troops who had actually succeeded in forcing a passage across the river! In response to this request Jack of course instantly detached every man he could possibly spare, retaining less than fifty to aid him in defending his own position: but the news which he had just received made it perfectly clear to him that the defence was practically at an end; for if Carlos had been unable to prevent the Spaniards from forcing the passage of the river, it was in the highest degree unlikely that he would be able to stem the rush, much less drive it back. Jack at once began to consider what was the best course to pursue under the new conditions; and, as he thought, a plan began to gradually unfold itself in his mind. The estate, he felt, was lost, for if only a sufficient number of the Spaniards could once get across the river to hold Carlos' force at bay for five minutes, by the end of that time a reinforcement would have crossed strong enough to sweep the defenders out of existence: nothing, therefore, in that case could save the estate from destruction, but it might be possible to visit upon the destroyers a heavy retribution.

Jack's mind was thus occupied when another messenger arrived from Carlos to tell him that all was lost, and that Carlos, with the remnant of his party—with whom were Don Hermoso and his wife—was retreating up the valley, hotly pursued by a strong party of Spanish soldiers; while other Spaniards were in possession of the house and the several outbuildings, which they were obviously preparing to set on fire: and the message concluded by requesting Jack to follow with his party, and join the fugitives, if possible.

Now it happened that Carlos' retreat up the valley chimed in excellently well with the scheme which was beginning to take shape within Jack's brain; the latter therefore lost no time in collecting together his little band of riflemen and leading them through the wood, round by the rear of the house and outbuildings, and along a bush path, to a spot at which he could intercept and join the retreating party, and at which, moreover, owing to the nature of the ground, he believed he could pretty effectually check the pursuit, and cover the retreat of the main body of the defenders. As he pressed forward at the head of his own scanty contingent the sounds of occasional shots told him that Carlos was still maintaining a good running fight: but, as the path which he was following constituted a short cut to the spot which he desired to reach, he soon left those sounds in his rear, and, pressing rapidly forward, at length arrived at the main path; and, aided by the lightning, which was now flashing incessantly, contrived to place his men in ambush behind a number of big boulders that studded the almost perpendicular sides of the bush-clad hill, just as the leading files of the retreating party came into view round a bend of the path.

Jack saw with satisfaction that the retreat was being conducted in good order. First came a body of some fifty well-armed negroes, who were keeping a wary eye about them, to guard against the possibility of being ambuscaded by some portion of the enemy who might have pushed on and got in front of them—although such a thing was scarcely likely to have happened; then came the Senora, in a hammock suspended from a pole borne on the shoulders of two stout negroes, with Don Hermoso and Senor Calderon walking, one on either side of her; and behind these again came the main body of the retreating defenders, with the two Maxim guns in their midst, and with Carlos bringing up the rear in charge of a party of about twenty riflemen, who were covering the retreat by frequently facing round and exchanging shots with the pursuers. As these last came into view, Jack rose from his place of ambush—at the imminent risk of being shot by his friends before they could recognise him—and made the fact of his presence and that of his party known, bidding the others pass on and leave the heaviest of the covering work to him. Their losses, Jack could see, had been terribly heavy, and they looked weary to death with their long hours of fighting: yet he was gratified to observe that, with very few exceptions, the men carried themselves as resolutely as ever, and displayed the effect of his training by taking the fullest advantage of every particle of cover, dodging behind rocks, boulders, trunks of trees, and clumps of bush; taking as careful aim as though they were shooting in a match; re-loading, and then flitting from cover to cover to take up a fresh position.

The rear-guard under Carlos had not passed much more than a hundred yards ahead when the leading files of the pursuers appeared round the bend of the path, breathless, from the fact that the retreating party had no sooner disappeared round the elbow than the Spaniards had broken into a run, taking advantage of the circumstance that they were for a moment out of sight of the enemy to shorten the distance between themselves and the pursued. As the vanguard of some twenty pursuing Spaniards dashed round the bend they dropped on one knee and raised their rifles to their shoulders, availing themselves of the lightning flashes to take aim at the little crowd of retreating figures imperfectly seen here and there through the overhanging and swaying branches.

The Cruise of the Thetis—by Harry Collingwood



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

TRAPPED!

Never for a moment did they suspect the existence of the little body of men concealed among the ferns and undergrowth and boulders, some sixty feet up the precipitous side of the hill round the base of which they were winding, until, before the quickest of them could pull trigger, there rang out above them an irregular volley, aimed with such deadly precision that every man of them went down before it, and were there found, blocking the path, when their comrades arrived upon the scene a minute or two later. As these in turn swung round the bend and came upon the prostrate forms, they naturally halted and proceeded to examine the bodies, with the view of separating the living from the dead; with the result that there was almost instantly a crowd of about a hundred Spanish soldiers bunched together in the narrow path, some of them performing ambulance work, but the majority simply waiting for an opportunity to pass. This was altogether too good a chance to be neglected; and, waiting only until the jostling crowd in the pathway was at its thickest, Jack raised a whistle to his lips and blew a single, shrill note.

The call was instantly answered by a crashing volley from the concealed negroes, which took such murderous effect upon the crowd below that scarcely a dozen men were left upon their feet; and those who were untouched were so utterly demoralised that they incontinently turned tail and retreated upon the main body, shouting: "Back! back! There is an ambuscade round the bend of the road; and we shall be slaughtered to a man if we go forward!" Whereupon the Spanish officer in charge of the pursuit—who was prudently remaining with the main body, instead of pushing forward with the vanguard—at once halted his men, and proceeded to enquire what all the confusion was about. The truth was that, finding himself on strange ground, following a narrow, winding, bush path, with a deepening ravine on his right, and a precipitously steep hillside on his left, overgrown with ferns and scrub thick enough to give perfect cover to an unlimited number of men; and with a furious thunderstorm raging, which promised to speedily develop into something very considerably worse than what it already was, he had no stomach for continuing the pursuit, and was only too glad of an excuse to call a halt and allow the enemy to go upon his way without further molestation. On the other hand, Jack, having satisfied himself that he had at least checked the pursuit, gave the word to his men to move forward; and, taking a short cut over the spur of the hill, they soon found themselves once more in the path, and close upon the heels of their companions.

As Jack's party presently overtook what had originally been the rear- guard, Carlos dropped into the rear and joined his friend, and the two youths seized the opportunity to effect an exhaustive interchange of news, and to relate to each other the most stirring episodes in the defence of their respective positions. The young Cuban explained the means adopted by the Spaniards to force a passage across the river, and how he had eventually been overpowered and forced to retire; and then Singleton unfolded to Carlos his views upon the subject of how to deal with the enemy, could the latter be induced to follow them to a certain spot up among the hills which Jack described and Carlos remembered.

This spot they were now rapidly approaching. It consisted of a nearly straight defile, about half a mile in length, with a bend in its middle just sufficient to shut out the view of one end of it from the other. This defile was simply a cleft in the stupendous mass of rock that formed a great spur of the mountain on the left-hand side of the path, and was undoubtedly the result of some terrific natural convulsion of prehistoric times, which had rent the living rock asunder, leaving a vertical wall on either side, the indentations in the one wall accurately corresponding to the projections on the other. At the lower extremity—that is to say, the extremity which the fugitives were now approaching—access to the defile was gained by means of a sort of portal, less than six feet wide, the space between the rock walls thence narrowing gradually to about four feet, and thus forming a kind of passage about fifty feet long; beyond which the rock walls gradually receded from each other until, at the other extremity of it, the defile was nearly a hundred feet wide. The walls were unscalable throughout the entire length of the defile, which abruptly ended in a rough and torn rock face some two hundred feet in height. This rock face could scarcely be described as unscalable, because it was so rough that, although practically vertical, the projections on it were so numerous and pronounced that an active man could climb it without much difficulty, if uninterfered with; but if the summit and flanks happened to be held by even a small force of men armed with rifles, to climb it would at once become an absolute impossibility. Outside the entrance there was a small, open, grassy space, backed by dense scrub; and Jack's plan was that Carlos, with about fifty men, should enter the defile, pass through it to its upper extremity and scale the rock face there, holding it against the Spaniards, and thus checking their further advance, while Jack, and the remainder of the negroes, with the two Maxims, should secrete themselves in the scrub and remain in hiding until the entire Spanish force had passed into the defile, when they would emerge and block the entrance with the two Maxims, thus bottling up the Spaniards and compelling them to surrender—or be annihilated.

By the time that Singleton had completely unfolded his plans to Carlos, the vanguard of the fugitives had reached the entrance to the defile, where they halted, awaiting further instructions; whereupon Carlos ran forward and, picking his fifty men, led them through the portal, while Jack, taking command of the remainder, caused them to carefully drag and lift the two Maxims into concealment, obliterate all trace of the passage of the guns into the scrub, and afterwards conceal themselves therein—the Senora, Don Hermoso, and Senor Calderon remaining with the party. They had scarcely hidden themselves, and removed all signs of their presence to Jack's satisfaction, when the storm which had been threatening for so long a time burst with terrific fury, the air being continuously a-glimmer with the flickering and quivering of lightning flashes, while the very ground beneath their feet seemed to quake with the deafening, soul-shaking crash of the thunder; and the rain, breaking loose at last, descended in such cataractal volumes that, even partially sheltered as most of them were by the dense foliage of the scrub amid which they cowered, every soul of them was wet to the skin in less than a minute. And in the midst of it all, Jack, peering out from his hiding-place a few feet from the path, saw the wretched Spanish soldiery go splashing and squelching past, too wet, and altogether too utterly tired and miserable apparently, to take any notice of where they were going, and seemingly anxious only to press forward in the hope of somewhere finding shelter.

There were about six hundred of them; and by the time that they had all passed into the defile the storm had nearly spent itself. The rain had ceased, the lightning flickered only occasionally, and then low down toward the horizon; the thunder had dwindled to a low, hollow, muffled rumbling, and the clouds overhead had broken up and were drifting fast away, revealing a nearly full moon sailing high overhead, in the strong, silvery light of which the saturated vegetation glittered.

As the last Spaniard disappeared within the portal, Singleton cautiously emerged from his hiding-place, and, forcing his way through the sodden herbage, peered round the angle of the rock, watching the movements of the retiring foe. He waited patiently until the rearmost files had penetrated a good hundred yards up the defile, and then he raised his hand, waving it as a signal for his men to come forth. The next instant the place was alive with men. Fifty willing hands dragged forth the Maxims and planted them fair and square in the portal, pointing up the ravine, the ammunition boxes were opened and bands of cartridges placed in position: rifles were loaded; and ere the last of the Spaniards had passed round the bend and out of sight every preparation to give them a warm reception upon their return was complete.

The watchers by the portal had not very long to wait. The enemy were not out of sight much more than ten minutes when a solitary rifle shot cracked out at the head of the defile and came echoing down its rocky sides; then another one; then three or four more; until at length a brisk fusillade was proceeding, accompanied by a good deal of confused shouting. This lasted for the best part of an hour, when there came first a lull in the firing, and then the sound of many approaching feet, following which a disorderly crowd of Spanish soldiers appeared doubling down the defile, in full flight toward the entrance.

With the appearance of the first of them Jack sprang up on a boulder, and shouted to them to halt; but so eager were the Spaniards to escape from the punishment that had been inflicted upon them at the other end of the defile that it was not until one of the Maxims opened fire upon them that they could be persuaded to stay their precipitate flight. But the sharp, thudding, hammer-like reports of the machine-gun, and the stream of lead that began to play upon them and thin their ranks, soon brought them to a halt, when, flinging down their arms, they cried for quarter, which of course was at once given them. Then, Carlos' party closing in upon them from the rear, the Spaniards were carefully disarmed, their ammunition taken away from them, and their weapons destroyed by being consumed in a huge bonfire, formed of dry wood collected from the depths of the bush. And while this regrettable but necessary act of destruction was in process of execution, Carlos and Jack went among the prisoners, questioning them as to their number, who was in command, upon what principle they were working, and so on. Unfortunately they were unable to extract very much information, for it appeared that every officer had perished, either in the attack upon the estate, or at the far end of the defile: while the soldiers seemed either too stupid or too ill-informed to be able to give trustworthy replies to any of the questions asked, except that General Weyler had gone back to Havana, and that the operations in the province of Pinar del Rio were being conducted by Generals Bernal and Arolas, who, by strict command of Weyler, were laying the entire country waste, destroying every building of whatsoever description, churches included, on the ground that they afforded possible places of refuge or shelter for revolutionaries; mercilessly shooting down every man, woman, and child found, on the plea that, not having obeyed General Weyler's concentration order, they were contumacious rebels: that, in short, where this host went they found smiling prosperity, and left behind them a blood-stained, fire-blackened waste. The troops were not acting in concert, or as one body, but in independent detachments, to each of which was allotted the duty of covering a strip of country of a certain width, which strip it was their task to ravage from end to end. The detachment to which the duty of destroying Don Hermoso's property had fallen had consisted of some three thousand infantry, a troop of cavalry, and a battery of field artillery; and according to the story of the prisoners it had suffered frightfully during the attack, the officer in command having wasted his men most recklessly in his determination to conquer at any cost—indeed, if they were to be believed, with the exception of about half a squadron of cavalry, a few artillerymen, and perhaps fifty men left behind to destroy the buildings, they were the sole survivors of the attack and the pursuit.

The question which now presented itself to Jack and Carlos was: What were they to do with their prisoners, now that they had them?—for that they were a distinctly embarrassing possession was an indisputable fact. In the first place, the unfortunate wretches were by this time suffering acutely from hunger and thirst, but their captors had neither food nor drink to give them; indeed, they had none wherewith to satisfy their own pressing needs. Also, since all the buildings on the estate were doubtless by this time utterly destroyed by fire, there was no place in which to confine them; yet it would obviously be the height of folly to set them free while their comrades were still in the neighbourhood, for that would only mean that they would bring back those comrades to complete the work which they themselves had failed to finish. At length, after a long and anxious consultation, it was agreed that the only possible course was to pen the Spaniards inside the defile, keeping them there by the wholesome dread inspired by the presence of the two Maxims and a strong band of armed men holding the portal, under Carlos' command; that Jack, with a picked body of fifty armed negroes, should escort Don Hermoso and the Senora back to the house, in the hope that, somewhere among the ruins, at least a partial shelter might be found for the unhappy lady, who, drenched to the skin, was now threatened with a serious attack of fever; and that, after a shelter had been found for her, Jack and his men should reconnoitre the camp of the enemy and endeavour to learn something of their immediate intentions.

This having been arranged, the prisoners were given to understand that they must make themselves as comfortable as they could where they were, for the present, and that any attempt on their part to break out would be visited with immediate and rigorous punishment: after which Jack and his party, accompanied by Don Hermoso and his wife, briskly stepped out on their way down the valley, along the road by which they had so recently come, emerging, about an hour later, into the open space that had been occupied by the warehouses. Some of these, as well as the whole of the negro huts, were found to be nothing but a heap of black and smouldering ruins; while others had been set on fire, but the flames had obviously been extinguished by the pelting rain that had fallen during the latter part of the recent thunderstorm. Those buildings which had happened to contain large quantities of combustible goods had naturally suffered most severely, and were now merely a collection of roofless, smoke-blackened walls; while those which had been empty had suffered comparatively little damage—indeed, in one or two cases, practically none at all, except that the doors had been broken open and partly wrenched off their hinges. One of these was at once utilised as a shelter for Don Hermoso's wife; and, while the negroes mounted guard round the building, the Don and Jack hurried away toward the house, to ascertain its condition, and, so far as the former was concerned, to endeavour to find a change of clothing for the Senora.

At the first glimpse, the house, when they reached it, appeared to have suffered very severely, for many of the windows were broken, and the once immaculately white walls were streaked and blackened here and there by fire and smoke: and when they entered the building, everything was found in a most shocking state of confusion; the furniture was overturned and much of it was broken, a great deal of it was irretrievably damaged by fire, great holes had been burnt here and there in the flooring, cupboards and bureaus had been broken open and their contents scattered, apparently in a search for money or valuables; many small articles of value were missing, pictures were slashed and torn, poor Dona Isolda's grand piano had but one leg left and was otherwise a complete wreck, and some priceless china vases and bowls that had been the glory of the drawing-room were lying on the floor, shivered to atoms. But a little closer inspection revealed that while an immense amount of damage had been done—much of it through pure wantonness and lust for destruction—the building itself was practically intact, the roof was still weatherproof, and some of the rooms were in quite inhabitable condition; while there were many articles of furniture and dress, as well as many utensils of various kinds, that could still be made serviceable. Among the inhabitable rooms were the bedroom used by Don Hermoso and his wife, as also those usually occupied by Carlos and Jack; indeed, it appeared as though the spoilers had confined their destructive efforts almost entirely to the front part of the house. Under these circumstances, as there were no signs of the enemy in the immediate neighbourhood, Don Hermoso lost no time in hurrying back to his wife and getting her up to the house and into bed, that being all he could do at the moment to combat the fever which had seized upon her.

This much having been accomplished, Jack set his negroes to search among the wreckage for anything in the nature of food which might perchance have escaped destruction, while he, single-handed, set off to reconnoitre the camp of the enemy, out on the plain. His shortest route thereto was by way of the position which Carlos had so resolutely defended; and he chose this because, the enemy having forced the passage of the river at this spot, he believed he would there find the means of crossing most easily himself. He had scarcely traversed a hundred yards from the house ere he began to encounter evidences of the severity of the fight that had waged throughout the afternoon and evening of that disastrously eventful day, in the shape of dead and wounded men, the former lying stark and cold in the light of the moon, some of them with limbs disposed as though they merely slumbered, while the contorted bodies of others showed that they had passed away in the throes of mortal agony; some with eyes decently closed, others with their sightless eyeballs upturned until only the whites were visible: while from the lips of the wounded there issued one low, continuous moan of: "Water—water! For the love of God, water!" It was a pitiable sight beyond all human power of description, and as Jack looked round him and beheld those units of slain and tortured humanity a great and righteous anger took possession of him against the arrogant Power that had been the cause of all this anguish and misery—to say nothing of what was enacting elsewhere—rather than surrender its grip upon the fair island that it had neither the will nor the ability to wisely govern—the Power that had deliberately entered upon a vindictive war against those whom it had goaded to rebellion.

It was of course quite impossible for him, unaided, to ameliorate appreciably a hundredth part of the physical anguish of the men who lay there writhing and groaning on the sodden ground; but there was one poor wretch who managed to attract his attention—a Spanish soldier who, the lower part of his body paralysed, supported himself upon one hand while he mutely pointed with the other to his open mouth and protruding tongue, and who seemed to be the very living embodiment of torturing thirst. The mute appeal in this poor creature's eyes was so movingly eloquent that the young Englishman simply could not pass on and callously leave him in his torment. He therefore stooped and, laying the man's arms over his shoulders, lifted the poor fellow on to his back and carried him a little way to where a depression in the ground had been converted by the rain into a pool some three or four yards in diameter, from which several wounded men were already slaking their fiery thirst; and there he laid him down within reach of the precious liquid, and stood for a moment to watch the poor creature suck down great draughts of the thick, muddy water!

There were scores of other unfortunates in sight whose sufferings were probably as acute as those of the poor wretch whom Jack had just helped, and who had an equally strong claim upon his compassion, but stern necessity demanded that he should neglect them in favour of the mission which he had set out to execute; also, he recognised that his first duty was to secure the safety of his friends. He therefore perforce steeled his heart, and pushed on toward the point at which the Spaniards had effected the passage of the river, and where he consequently expected to find the means of getting across. It was a gruesome journey, if a short one, for every yard that he advanced the dead and wounded lay more thickly piled together, until at length, by the margin of the river, the prostrate bodies of friend and foe were so closely intermingled that he found it difficult to progress at all without trampling them under foot, while the now still night air positively reeked with the odour of blood! It was awful beyond the utmost that the young Englishman's imagination had ever pictured, and as he glanced about him with shrinking gaze and rising gorge he again mentally execrated the leader to whose savagery all those unspeakable horrors were due.

But now at last he was at the river, and now also he saw by what means the Spaniards had finally succeeded in accomplishing the task of forcing the passage of the barrier. A single glance at the contrivance was sufficient to prove that the assailants possessed among them at least one skilled engineer, for spanning the stream Jack saw an extraordinarily light yet strong bridge, constructed entirely of bamboos so lashed and braced together as to be capable of sustaining the weight of a continuous column of men, two abreast, over its entire length. It was fashioned upon the principle of the bowstring girder, and was considerably longer than was actually needed—which Jack accounted for by the fact that the Spaniards had been allowed no opportunity to gauge the actual width of the river, and had therefore been obliged to guess at it; yet, so light did it appear to be that he believed thirty men might easily have handled and placed it in position. He quickly passed across it, finding it perfectly firm to the tread, and then set out to cross the open plain toward the distant camp. He had still his night glasses with him, and as he went he frequently made use of them, as much to avoid the risk of being detected by the sentries as to observe what was passing in the camp; but from the outset he failed to detect the presence of any sentries whatever, and gradually it began to dawn upon him that the occupants of the camp, believing the defenders of the estate to be not only absolutely and irretrievably beaten, but also in panic-stricken flight, had not deemed it necessary to post any sentries at all, and were all sleeping in fancied perfect security. And this in fact he found to be actually the case, when at length, with the observance of every possible precaution, he actually stood within the precincts of the camp and looked about him. There was not a light in any one of the many tents round him; the watch fires had burnt low, and in some cases had died out altogether; not a soul was moving from one end of the camp to the other, and all round him were sleeping men! He waited only long enough to assure himself that this was actually the case, and then, withdrawing as carefully as he had come, he hurried back to where he had left his fifty men resting in one of the least damaged of the warehouses, and roused them with the intimation that they were required for instant action. Then, briefly acquainting them with what he had done and what he proposed to do, and ordering them to load their weapons, he marched them out across the bamboo bridge on to the plain, where he bade them take open order and, crouching low on the grass, advance upon the camp, exposing themselves as little as possible, since should but one person in the camp awake and detect them, all this labour would be lost.

It took the little band of adventurers a full hour to accomplish the passage across the plain; and when at length they arrived within about fifty yards of the camp, Jack caused the signal to be passed along the line for all hands to lie prone in the grass, while he went forward alone to satisfy himself that everything was still as he had left it. Then, as he had done some two hours previously, Jack crawled right into the heart of the camp and gazed carefully about him. Everything was still perfectly quiet, save that from certain of the tents there issued sounds advertising the fact that there were noisy sleepers within. Then Singleton rose cautiously to his feet and lifted his right hand above his head. The next minute fifty armed negroes, under his whispered directions, were moving about the camp, silent-footed as cats, collecting the piled arms and every other weapon which they could find, and concealing them among the long grass at a safe distance from the camp. Then, this done, Jack raised his revolver above his head and fired a single shot into the air; at the sound of which the startled occupants of the tents came tumbling out, one over another, to learn what the disturbance was about, and to seize their weapons. But, instead of their piled arms, their eyes fell upon fifty stalwart negroes facing them with levelled rifles, and Jack beside them with a revolver in each hand.

Such an unexpected sight naturally caused the Spaniards to pause in their rush, of which circumstance Singleton took advantage to thrust one of his revolvers back into his belt, and then raise his hand, with a command for silence. The Spaniards, their eyes still heavy with sleep, and disconcerted by the discovery that every one of their weapons had mysteriously vanished, obeyed readily enough, whereupon Jack requested the officer in command to step forward.

A barefooted man, in shirt and trousers only, and carrying in his hand the sheathed sword of a Spanish infantry captain, which he had evidently snatched from his tent pole as he sprang from his camp bed, stepped forward, and, announcing himself as the senior surviving officer, demanded to know who Jack was, and what he wanted.

"I am," said Jack, "the commander of a body of negroes, of whom you see a detachment before you. We are in arms against Spain, as are thousands more of the inhabitants of this island, because we very strongly object to the cruel tyranny and oppression with which we have been governed, and demand our freedom. Your march through the country has been marked by violence and outrage of every conceivable description, and you have left in your track nothing but death and desolation. The measure of your iniquity is full, and Cuba will endure no more. Your General Weyler has declared a war of extermination against Cubans, and you who execute his murderous mandate must pay the penalty. Yet, since it would be manifestly unfair to punish the innocent for the guilty, and since I am convinced that many of you have only obeyed your general's orders most unwillingly, I will spare those of you who will surrender, and execute only those who, by refusing, exhibit a readiness to persist in their iniquitous deeds. And do not look for any help from your comrades yonder; they triumphed temporarily, achieving a victory by sheer force of numbers, but since you and they parted company they have fallen into a trap—and now those who still live are prisoners. Will you join them; or will you go the way of those others who have to-night laid down their lives at the behest of a man who knows not the meaning of mercy? Let those among you who are willing to surrender throw up their hands." The officer turned and looked behind him: every man under his command had thrown his hands above his head! It was enough; his humiliation was complete. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he placed the point on the ground; then, bending the blade into the form of a bow, he gave the hilt a sudden, peculiar thrusting jerk, and the blade snapped in twain. Then, tossing the hilt from him, he exclaimed, in a tone of concentrated bitterness, "I surrender!" and burst into tears of anger and mortification.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.

The prisoners, about a hundred in number, many of whom were less than half-dressed, were now allowed five minutes wherein to retire to their tents and assume their clothing; after which they were formed up four deep, and marched off in the direction from which Jack and his party had come, a young, swift-footed negro having been dispatched on ahead with a note from Singleton for Carlos, informing the latter of the capture of the camp and its occupants, and suggesting that he should bring his prisoners down to the compound adjoining the warehouses.

With the arrival of the prisoners and their armed escort within half a mile of the spot where the bamboo bridge crossed the river, they began to come upon the first evidences of the recent fight, in the shape, first, of widely scattered units, and then of little groups of two or three dead or wounded. The first they were obliged to leave, for the moment; but the wounded were, by Jack's orders, now sought for and succoured, so far as succour was possible by unskilled hands, by being, in the first instance, borne closer to the river, and having their fiery thirst temporarily assuaged, and, later on, by having their wounds dressed, so far as the conveniences available permitted. With so large a number of wounded, this labour of mercy necessarily occupied a considerable amount of time, so that it was broad daylight when at length Jack conducted his prisoners into the compound and marched them into an empty and partially ruined storehouse which Carlos had already caused to be prepared for their reception, the prisoners which the young Cuban had brought down from the defile having already been lodged in an adjoining building. Then came the question of feeding the hungry—a very formidable task, considering that practically all the food on the estate had been destroyed by fire on the preceding night. This difficulty, however, was overcome by Jack revisiting the captured camp with a party of a dozen of the least exhausted negroes, and collecting a wagon-load of foodstuffs which, with half a dozen oxen, they drove on to the estate by way of the lowered drawbridge. Then, with infinite labour, the wounded were once more sought out, and carried into one of the storehouses which had suffered least from the fire, where they were attended to, so far as they could be, by a band of their compatriots who had volunteered for the service, and who had given their parole that they would not again take up arms against the Cubans. And next came the terrible task of burying the dead, which was also done, under Jack's supervision, by the prisoners, kept in a proper state of submission by a strong guard of armed negroes. It was by this time considerably past mid-day: at least half of the negroes, who had fought so stubbornly and well in defence of the estate, had had an opportunity to snatch a few hours' sleep, and were consequently in a condition to again mount guard over the prisoners; and then, and only then, did Jack and Carlos retire to their rooms, and flinging themselves, still dressed, upon their beds, sink at once into absolute oblivion.

The two young men were aroused about nine o'clock that night to partake of food, when they learned that Don Hermoso had taken over the direction of affairs; also, that the wounded were for the most part doing well, having been taken in hand by a Spanish surgeon who, himself one of the wounded, had been brought in from the field of battle, and, having been attended to by Mama Faquita, was now sufficiently recovered to be able to do duty. This was a quite unexpected bit of good news for the two young men; but there was bad news also for them, in the fact that the unfortunate Senora Montijo was in a state of such high fever that the Spanish doctor was deeply concerned as to her condition, which became still more critical as the night wore on.

Before again retiring to rest, Jack "went the rounds", as he expressed it, and saw for himself that everything was satisfactory; and he did the same the first thing upon rising the next morning. Then he, Don Hermoso, and Carlos held a consultation as to how the prisoners were to be disposed of, the difficulty of feeding and controlling so large a number being one that was likely to grow daily: and it was finally decided that, as the rest of the army had by this time passed on, and were scarcely likely to return over the same ground, the sound prisoners, together with those of the wounded who were so slightly hurt as to be able to travel, should be set at liberty and escorted for some few miles on the road to Pinar del Rio by a strong band of armed negroes, whose duty it would be to see that the released men did not attempt to rejoin the main army; that as soon as those were disposed of, the estate—which was practically destroyed, and therefore could not very well be further injured—should be abandoned to the Spanish doctor and such assistants as he could persuade to remain with him to look after the wounded; and that, as soon as the Senora's health would permit, Don Hermoso, Carlos, and Jack should attach themselves to one of the guerrilla bands who were hanging upon the skirts of the main Spanish army and harassing it night and day. The only difficulty in the way of this programme was the question of what to do with the Senora; but this was disposed of by a suggestion from Jack that the lady should be conveyed to the Laguna de Cortes, where the Thetis was due to arrive in about a fortnight, and be put on board the yacht.