Chapter 9

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

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

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

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

Why King Congo was Late

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

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

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

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

The Chase of Taito Perico

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

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

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

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

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

It was in one of these abductions that he worked his own undoing. Near St. John of the Remedies lived the pretty Anita de Pareira, daughter of a frugal and worthy couple and fiancée of a prosperous planter of the district. The time for the wedding having been set, the father and mother were in their little garden discussing ways and means, and Anita was indoors trimming the gown in which she was to walk to the altar. Her head was full of pretty fancies, and she hummed softly to herself as she plied her needle or gazed into the distance, smiling at the pictures created by her own fancy. She was rudely awakened from these pleasing reveries. The door was burst in by a tremendous blow with a fist and there stood glaring upon her a Caliban with mighty neck and shoulders, great goggling eyes, a hooked nose, a bush of coarse hair erect upon his head, and a stout lance in his hand. As this creature advanced into the room with extended arms she swooned and did not regain her senses until she had been carried for a mile or more from her home. She found herself lying across the back of a horse that was galloping furiously toward the hills with the savage in the saddle behind her.

The father and mother ran into the road tossing their hands in despair; a dozen belated rescuers hurried to them, each arrival adding his screams to the hubbub; then each advising the rest what should be done, and nobody doing anything. The young planter, Anita's betrothed, was quickly on the ground, and he alone was resolute and cool. He gathered the bolder men about him, saw that they were supplied with proper arms and mounts, and with encouraging words to those who were left behind, he rode away on the outlaw's trail. Over pastures, through ravines, across rivers, under forest arches dim as twilight, they hurried on, a pack of hounds yapping in advance, a broken branch, a trampled bush, a hoof-print in the margin of a stream also giving proof that they were on the right path; a herder, who had seen the ruffian pass, likewise testifying to the fact, and giving his service to the company; and so they came to a clearing, where they found the marauder's abandoned and exhausted horse.

Putting their own horses under guard of negroes, twenty of the men pressed on afoot through tangled vines and thorny bushes, still led by the dogs, until they brought up at the bottom of a tall cliff, and here the hounds seemed to be at fault, for they ran around and around a tree, looking up into it and whining. The herder swung himself into the branches and scrambled almost to the top. "Nobody here," he called. Then, when he had partly descended, they heard him utter an exclamation of surprise. He crept to the end of a long branch and swung lightly to a shelf on the face of the crag. "Footsteps!" he exclaimed, in a low, strained voice, and pointed to a thin turf that covered the jut of rock. The dogs were right. Taito Perico had climbed the tree and scaled the cliff. The dogs were hoisted by means of a lariat, the men gained the shelf, and clambering along in single file they presently reached the summit. A furious barking led them on; then those in the rear heard a shout. The savage was seen, half a mile away, crossing an opening at a run and striking at the dogs that leaped and yelped around him. Leaving his companions to follow the Indian, the lover devoted himself to the search for Anita, and presently found her at the foot of a tree, bound, gagged, but safe and thankful.

For several days and nights the chase went on and on with reinforcements, and the Indian was at last overtaken on the mountain that, in memory of the event, bears the name of Loma del Indio, where he was slain, to the great relief of the whole island. Even in death his aspect was so terrific that the people along the way were set a-shaking and a-praying as his body was carried on to Puerto Principe. Though he could do harm no longer, the post-mortem punishment inflicted on him gave general satisfaction; for the corpse was first hanged, then dragged at a horse's heels, then chopped apart and buried in several places, and the head, in a cage, was exposed on a pole in Tanima. And if three men like Taito Perico could terrorize all Cuba, a hundred of such would have freed it.

The Voice in the Inn

"No trifling, señor. Speak up plainly and say what you heard." The prosecuting attorney gave a nervous twitch at his pointed beard, a habit peculiar to him, and leaned a little toward the witness. The elder judge blinked drowsily, straightened in his chair, then turned and looked at the crucifix on the wall, for when the sun touched the bloody figure on the cross it was time for lunch. It was still in shadow. He sighed. His associates of the tribunal were duly attent.

"I'm afraid you will not believe me," objected the witness.

"Never mind your fears. Come, now: You were passing the deserted inn on the Minas road, you say, when you heard a voice. The voice of one of the brigands?"

"I hardly think so, señor."

"How? You charge this defendant here ----"

"With attempted robbery. Yes, señor attorney. But it was not his voice that spoke. I think worse mischief has been done near the inn."

"Worse mischief?"

"Truly. For when this thief heard the words he let his pistol fall and dropped the bridle of my mule. By the moon I could see his face glisten with sweat, and it looked white."

"He was afraid, eh? He was a coward? This poor cheat of a creature could not even be a brigand?"

"Afraid! Any one would be. As for myself, I gave my mule a cut and he was off at a lope, with this fellow coming after as fast as his legs could carry him, until he ran plump into the arms of the civil guard."

"Yes, yes. You have told all that. But this voice. You heard it plainly?"

"Why, yes, although it sounded as if it came from a distance, or from under a building, or--or--out of a tomb. I couldn't--I couldn't help thinking it sounded like a man beneath a floor."

The attorney twisted his beard again impatiently, coughed, then tightly folded his arms. He was silent for a little. Then, as if surprising himself out of a revery, he commanded, "Well, well. Go on."

"This voice, señor," resumed the witness, leaning forward and speaking mysteriously, "it was so hollow and low, and spoke the words so long, like a creature dying and in pain, and it gave me a chill."

"Are you never to tell us what it said?"

"It moaned, 'For the sake of the Virgin, of Her Blessed Son, of the Holy Saint Peter, of the Good God, pray for me. Pray for a sinner. Beg the good fathers at Nuevitas to say a mass for the soul of Enrique Carillo.' Then there was a sort of groan----"

"My God!" It was the prosecutor who had gasped the words.

"Yes, just like that. Ah! Pardon, señor. I did not see. You are ill."

For the lawyer's face had become of a deathly pallor, his head had sunk forward, his lips trembled, his hands shook as they clutched the edge of the table behind him. The idlers in the back of the room were awake in a moment. The sun touched the figure of Christ, splashed with blood in the fashion of the official crucifix, and it seemed to look down on the scene below as in torture. The prisoner's counsel sprang forward, placed a chair for his opponent and helped him to be seated. An officer brought a glass of water, which the lawyer drank eagerly, then sat as in a daze for an instant, shuddered, passed his hands over his face, and said, "I ask the indulgence of the court. I have lost my sleep for the last few nights. I--I----"

The senior judge had half-risen, his wig awry, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. "Clear the court! It is the fever!" he cried.

There was a stampede of the unoccupied in the back of the room. The others in the court reached for their hats and drew away, leaving the prosecutor alone. He smiled faintly. "No, your Honor," he said. "It is over now. It was a touch of faintness; nothing more."

"With the consent of counsel I will adjourn the case."

The face of the prosecutor hardened; he set his jaw doggedly, he regained his feet with a sort of spring. The judges slipped back deeper into their seats; the elder wiped his brow and puffed.