CHAPTER LIII.

THE LAST OF ANTONIO EL CUBANO.

As we entered Santa Cruz we found a great crowd of colonists, citizens, mulattoes, Creoles, and negroes, all in motley and gaudily-striped linen jackets and trousers, assembled in the Plaza, where a guard of Spanish infantry, with muskets shouldered and bayonets fixed, kept back the people in the form of a hollow square, about a raised wooden platform, which was covered with black cloth, and whereon was placed the garotte.

"What is all this about?" we asked.

"It is for the execution of Antonio, a Cuban pirate, who is to die by the _garotte_," replied a soldier.

This instrument of the law was simply an upright wooden post rising from the platform. At its base was a low stool, on which the condemned are seated; and about three feet above that appears an iron ring with a handle and screw, by the compression of which they are strangled, instantly or slowly, according to sentence.

The crowd was very impatient; the hour at which the grim scene was to have taken place was now long past. Loud murmurs rose from the people, who had heard most exaggerated stories of Antonio's stature, strength, and ferocity, and glances of anger and impatience were darted at the gilt dial of the town-house, on which a black banner was hoisted but half-mast high.

We recognized nearly all the crew of the _San Ildefonso_ in front of the mob; and there, too, were a number of British sailors of H.M.'s steam sloop-of-war _Active_, which had anchored in the harbor that morning.

Several priests in long gray robes were hurrying to and fro, begging a "peseta" to pay for masses for the soul of the condemned man.

As neither Hislop nor I had any desire to witness a scene so barbarous and revolting as an execution, we hastened to our posada to breakfast, where we were joined by Captain José Estremera, who had just come from the Castle of Santa Cruz, where the culprit was confined, and where a most extraordinary scene had taken place.

The little Spanish skipper was quite excited; his black eyes were round as saucers; his olive cheek was flushed crimson; and he spoke so fast and said so much that he nearly choked himself over his eggs and scalding-hot coffee.

His narrative was as follows, and it presented a singular instance of mad ferocity, of cowardice, and despair.

In the morning, probably about the same time that Hislop and I were busy with our diamond, the bastonero, or turnkey, of the Castle of Santa Cruz, which is at once a prison, a barrack, and fortress, opened the door of Antonio's cell to announce to him, in the usual form, that Senor the Judge of the First Instance, accompanied by an Escribano of the Court, had arrived to read over his sentence again, and to convey him to the Chapel of the Doomed, where Fra Anselmo would confer and pray with him prior to his execution.

On entering, the bastonero found Antonio whistling cheerfully, and deliberately using a sharp file, which he had procured no one knew how, but with the aid of which, he had released one of his ankles from the fetterlocks, by which his feet had been secured to a ponderous iron bar that traversed his cell. But though still held fast by one leg, he flung himself bodily, like a wild animal, on the unsuspecting bastonero, tore the heavy keys from his leather girdle, and after dealing him a deadly blow on the head, dashed him, bleeding and senseless, against the wall outside the cell door.

He then closed the latter, locked it on the inside, and resumed the use of the file, which was heard rasping on the steel, while he sang his favorite "Companero, companero," &c.

Aware that the crowd were waiting in the Plaza, and that Spanish crowds were not to be trifled with, in vain did the commandant of the Castle of Santa Cruz, the judge, the escribano, and Fra Anselmo entreat Antonio to cease his fruitless resistance, as his fate was sealed now beyond the reach of pardon even from the captain-general.

Resolved to die as he had lived, like a tiger, Antonio fiercely refused.

The priest next implored him to pass the keys through the iron grating in the cell door.

He uttered a shout of laughter.

The armorer of the castle was now summoned to force the lock; but the mechanism of it resisted all his strength and skill. Senor the commandant was furious!

The pioneers of the garrison were next ordered in with their iron crowbars and sledge-hammers to beat down the door.

It was small but enormously thick, being built of bars of oak and iron bolted together, and curiously inserted in a groove formed in the massive wall of the old castle.

For an hour they toiled at it, and in the intervals of their labor the sound of Antonio's file was heard at work, together with his maledictions, his songs, and fierce derisive laughter.

"Ho! ho! my fine fellow," said the Commandant, rattling his sabre, "we shall soon see the end of this fine game!"

At last the door fell in fragments, but unfortunately one strong iron bar still remained across the aperture; the daylight streamed into the vault, and now, like a baited wild beast, Antonio, who was still fettered to the iron bar, dragged himself toward the doorway, armed with the large key, which was about a foot long.

When another bastonero attempted to enter by stooping, a blow from the key fell like a thunderbolt upon his defenceless head, and he was dragged out by the heels, apparently in a dying state.

Several others who ventured in met with the same fate; the whole place became splashed with blood; the consternation increased, and the authorities were at their wits' end, for the doorway was so small that one person alone could enter at a time, and then only when stooping low,--a position which placed them completely at the mercy of Antonio.

For another hour did that frenzied ruffian keep all at bay, replying to the threats of the Commandant, the entreaties of Fra Anselmo, and the suave legal rhetoric of the Judge of the First Instance with laughter and derision.

Tired at last of wielding his large key, or finding that none would come within reach of it, he flung it at the group outside, and broke the nether jaw of the escribano, who left the field of battle with great precipitation.

The commandant now summoned a party of soldiers, and twelve men of the castle guard came, under the orders of the lieutenant, Don Luiz Pineda, who at once ordered them to load with ball-cartridge.

On seeing these dire preparations, which he could no longer withstand, Antonio ceased in his untimely ribaldry. Great drops of perspiration poured over his low but narrow temples. His dark brow was furrowed deeper, as if by baffled rage and futile ferocity; his black eyes glistened with a fearful glare, and his vast bulky form seemed to dilate in muscular strength and size; the blue pallor of death passed over his thin and cruel lips, but still they were writhed by a mocking smile.

"Senor Don Luiz," said Fra Anselmo, "I entreat you not to have him shot dead----"

"What then, Senor Padre?"

"But merely wounded, that he may have time for repentance."

"Buena,--then wounded he shall be."

At that moment Antonio struck the young lieutenant on the face, by hurling the file at him, and inflicted a severe wound.

"Fire!" cried Pineda, mad with rage.

A musket was levelled and fired; and while the vaults of the castle rang with a hundred echoes the loud laugh of Antonio was heard. He had crawled along the iron bar into a dark corner of his prison, where, coiled up at the extreme length of his chain, he escaped the bullet, which was flattened on the masonry.

Again and again the soldiers fired in succession, but missed him, and the vault became full of smoke.

"Basta!" said they; "what is the use of wasting powder on a picaroon who is bullet-proof?"

Pineda now took a musket, and aiming very deliberately, fired. Then Antonio's chain was heard to rattle as he sprang from the iron bar with a wild bound, for the ball had broken his right thigh-bone.

Now he howled, bellowed, and literally foamed at the mouth, as he rolled about on the floor, encumbered by his iron chain, his broken leg, and fettered foot. Two other shots were fired; by one an arm was broken, and by the other a collar-bone. On this he lay still, and called out in a husky voice,--

"Senores, I surrender--have mercy!"

Then the pioneers rushed in and dragged him out. But the spirit of the fiend was yet strong within him, for as he was borne past Don Luiz, bleeding from three wounds, he clenched the hand which yet retained power, and struck him a violent blow.

On that instant the sword of the fiery young lieutenant would have been passed through his heart, had not Fra Anselmo arrested the blade by grasping it.

Just as José Estremera had reached this point in his narrative of the morning's proceedings, we heard a tremendous hubbub, and on hurrying to the front windows of the posada, saw a vast crowd running after a low hurdle that was drawn by two mules past the end of the street which led straight toward the great Plaza.

It bore the miserable and half-dead form of Antonio el Cubano to the final scene of his crimes and recent sufferings,--_the garotte_.

So perished this sinner!