Chapter 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The citation had been obeyed!

The Virgin's Diamond

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

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

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

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

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

A Spanish Holofernes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And you never suspected it before?"

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

The Courteous Battle