Harry Collingwood

“ But the cavalryman who had entered the place with him, and had listened in silence and with a lowering brow to his shameful story, now sprang out of his seat, and, seizing Alvaros by his shoulders, thrust him violently back into his chair, hissing between his clenched teeth:
“Silence, cochinillo! Sit down, and do not dare to further disgrace your sword by drawing it on an unarmed man! I will manage this affair. Señor,” turning to Jack, “you have publicly insulted an officer of the Spanish Army, and, great as has been your provocation, you must give the man satisfaction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I remember reading, some years ago, the story of a gigantic craft that was either airship or submarine, at the will of her crew, and which was capable of doing some very wonderful things; but I regarded the yarn as nothing more than the flight of a romancer’s vivid imagination. Yet it must have been some such vessel that disabled the Spanish warships; which goes to prove again the soundness of the old adage that ‘truth is stranger than fiction’. But your yacht’s disablement was an entirely different matter, as I understood, for you actually steamed several miles before you broke down. ”

“ We Cubans, as you perhaps know, have been trying, ever since ’68, to induce the Spaniards to govern us mildly and justly, but thus far all our efforts have been fruitless: we are still being ground down and tyrannised over until the lives of many of us have become a burden; neither the property, the liberty, nor the life of any Cuban is safe to-day, unless he is well-known to be a supporter of the Spanish Government. ”

“ There are many more cheerful places in the world than the Havana Botanical Gardens just at sunrise, for at that hour the mists lie chill and heavy upon the ground, the grass is saturated with dew, and the numerous trees not only freely bespatter everything beneath their widespreading branches with copious showers of dewdrops, as the wind sweeps through them, but many of them have a trick of assuming a singularly weird and uncanny appearance in the first faint light of the early dawn ”

“ 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 Señora 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.” ”

“ Although Jack was not a racing man—the Lalage being of altogether too ancient a type to pose as a racer—he was by no means unknown in the yachting world, and he found a host of acquaintances ready and willing to welcome his appearance in Cowes Roads, especially coming as he did in such a fine, handsome little ship as the Thetis; and for the first fortnight of the racing the new steamer, with her burgee and blue ensign, was a quite conspicuous object as, with large parties of friends, both male and female, on board, she followed the racers up and down the sparkling waters of the Solent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meanwhile the saloon party on board the Thetis, having comfortably bestowed themselves in capacious basket chairs under the awning on the top of the deck-house when the yacht got under way, watched with mingled interest and amusement the strenuous pursuit of their own vessel by the Spanish torpedo boat; and when at length Milsom gave the order for the yacht’s engines to be first stopped and then sent astern, they with one accord rose to their feet and brought their glasses to bear upon the torpedo boat, intent upon seeing what would next happen. ”

“ The clocks in the city were just striking ten when, after a somewhat tedious journey, the train clattered and jolted into the Western Station at Havana; and, jumping out, the lads chartered a volante—the local hansom, which is an open vehicle, mounted upon a pair of enormously high wheels, and fitted with such long shafts that it can only be turned with the utmost difficulty in the narrow streets—and drove down to the wharf, where they hired a shore boat to take them off to the yacht, which was lying moored to a pair of the trunk buoys in the harbour. ”

“ Nothing would be easier than for you to find yourself involved in one of the numerous conspiracies which we know to be brewing; and, once involved, you would find it exceedingly difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to extricate yourself. Therefore take my advice, and go forthwith. It is good advice; for I tell you plainly that you are not wanted here!”
“Thanks!” answered Jack coolly. “I am very much obliged to you, Señor Alvaros, for the friendly feeling which has prompted you to give me what I suppose you wish me to understand as a ‘warning’. ”

“ And you, in turn, may inform Señor 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 Echaguë 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! ”

“ Meanwhile, the crew had pinned their faith to burnt cork and their working slops as a disguise, except the five who were to form Jack’s boat’s crew; these having discarded their working slops and donned dungaree overalls, ancient cloth trousers, rusty with salt-water stains, and stiff with tar and grease, big thigh-boots, and worsted caps. A cutlass belted to the waist, and a knife and brace of revolvers in the belt gave the finishing touch of realism to the get-up, and obviated any possibility of doubt as to the seriousness of their mission. ”

“ Those hills, inland there, are called the Organ Mountains; though, to my mind, the name is much too grandiloquent for such insignificant elevations. I hope that pilot chap who is to take us into the lagoon will be keeping a bright lookout for us; I have just been having a squint at the chart, and I tell you, Jack, that I don’t half like the idea of taking this little beauty in over that precious Bank, where it would be the easiest thing in the world to rip the bottom out of her on some unsuspected upstanding coral snag. ”

“ Each boat her own crew, and no more; you will want every inch of room you can spare for those poor fellows who are struggling for their lives yonder. Hurry, lads, lively now; every second is worth a man’s life, remember, for the harbour swarms with sharks! Ah, here you are, Macintyre—come along with me! Is there steam enough in the steamboat’s boiler to move her? Good! Then we will try her. I want two more hands. Will you come, Jack, and Carlos? ”

“ Bang! barked the twelve-pounder for the second time, and there was now a vicious tone in the bark which said unmistakably that the gun was shotted; while, if anybody on board the Marañon had any doubt about it, that doubt was a moment later dispelled by the sudden up-leaping of a fountain of foam some twenty fathoms ahead of the vessel. That proved conclusively that the mysterious gunboat flying the Cuban flag was in no humour to be trifled with; and the Spanish captain, objurgating vehemently, rang down for his engines to stop. ”

“ Señor, those are very big words; and you ought to be perfectly certain of yourself before you use them. They are offensive, sir; and a Spanish officer allows no one to use such words to him with impunity!” exclaimed the Spaniard.
“Sir,” retorted Milsom, “the behaviour of your captain in firing upon this yacht was offensive; and he will find that he cannot treat Englishmen in that fashion with impunity. There is a right and a wrong way of doing these things, and your captain has chosen the wrong way; he will therefore be made to suffer for it.” ”

“ I understand, however, that Commander Albuquerque made the amende honourable in a manner that was absolutely satisfactory to yourself, Señor; and, with the expression of my own personal profound regret, I trust that you will have the extreme generosity to allow the deplorable affair to be forgotten.”
“Of course I will,” said Jack heartily; “I am not one to bear malice. We are all liable to make mistakes at some time or other of our lives.” ”

“ I am destitute, as my appearance doubtless testifies, and I am most anxious to return to my country and take up arms against the oppressor. The English, enjoying liberty themselves, are reputed to be in sympathy with us Cubans in our endeavours to throw off the hated yoke of a foreign oppressor; and I have ventured to hope that the Señor would be magnanimous enough to give me a passage across to Havana in his beautiful yacht. ”

“ There were several American men-o’-war of various descriptions, ranging from battleships to torpedo boats, lying at anchor in the roadstead, as well as two cruisers, three gunboats, and a torpedo boat flying the Spanish flag; and Singleton noticed, with mingled concern and amusement, that, as the little Thetis swept past the Spanish vessels at close quarters, with the blue burgee and ensign of the “Royal Thames” gaily fluttering from masthead and ensign staff, the yacht was an object of the keenest interest to the officers who were promenading the navigating bridges. ”

“ The business of the day had hardly begun; the ferryboats to Regla were loaded with passengers; boats conveying meat, vegetables, fruit, and fish to the shipping were lazily rippling through the scum that coated the surface of the water; belated fishermen were sweeping their crazy-looking craft out to sea; and a thin column of brown smoke was rising vertically into the motionless air from the funnel of torpedo boat Number 19, which was evidently getting up steam in good time to go in search of the James B. Potter. ”

“ As it happened, Jack did not see a solitary human being until he presently emerged into one of the wider and more frequented streets; and twenty minutes later he was safely on board the Thetis again, to the great astonishment of Milsom, who had been pacing the deck in an endeavour to raise an appetite for dinner, and meanwhile picturing to himself the pleasant time that he supposed Jack to be having at the hacienda. ”

“ Carlos flushed with angry annoyance as he beheld this treatment of his friend, for which he apologised as soon as the pair were alone together; but Jack’s sunny temperament was not so easily ruffled, and he simply laughed, saying:
“Don’t you let that worry you, old chap; it doesn’t hurt me in the least. I don’t care a brass button whether the man likes or dislikes me; I care neither for his friendship nor his enmity. ”

“ The Capitan-General, who was a fine, stately, white-haired man, listened with the most courteous attention to what the two Englishmen had to say, and then, with equal courtesy, proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole story, insisting upon the exceeding unlikelihood of any officer of Captain Alvaros’ standing in the Spanish service stooping to so degrading and cowardly a step as that of hiring an assassin to “remove” an almost total stranger from his path. ”

“ It is now nearly a year since Señor Marti—the man who above all others has been conspicuous in his efforts on behalf of Cuba—got hold of the Pater and succeeded in convincing him that it is the duty of every Cuban to do his utmost to free his country from the grasp of the tyrant; and one of the first-fruits of this was the giving of an order by the Pater—through a friend—for the construction of a fast steam-yacht, to be used as may be required in the service of the country, but primarily for the purpose of smuggling arms, ammunition, and necessaries of all kinds into the island. ”