CHAPTER XVI.

THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL.

“Don Rafael Manada? Yes, sir! Front, show the gentleman to No. 48.”

A few minutes later Ashley is ushered into one of the most sumptuous and expensive suites in the big hotel.

He bows gracefully to the tall gentleman who advances to meet his visitor, bearing in his hand the card that has preceded him. Don Rafael is a man at whom even the least observant would be likely to take a second glance. Of perhaps 40 years of age, his hair of raven hue and unusual abundance is still unflecked by gray. The face is of olive hue, cleanly shaven save as to heavy mustachios, which by an odd freak of nature are snow white; heavy eyebrows of the same hue as the hair surmount eyes of piercing brilliancy; a long, aquiline nose, lips and mouth a trifle too sensuous for the rest of the features, complete a singularly interesting countenance.

“You came from the Hemisphere?” queries Don Manada, in melodious tones, with hardly a trace of the Castilian accent. “I am pleased to greet a representative of that great journal, whose influence is always cast on the side of right and justice. I read with the deepest emotions of gratitude this morning an editorial in your journal protesting against the proclamation which the administration has issued against the fitting out of expeditions designed to aid the insurrection in Cuba. Your paper properly urged that the United States government should recognize the Cubans as belligerents. Ah, my dear sir, could that be done, Cuba would be a free republic within the twelvemonth,” finishes Manada, enthusiastically.

“It was to secure an expression of opinion from you on the outlook in Cuba and the preparations being made in this country that I have been commissioned to interview you, Don Rafael,” says Jack Ashley.

“Anything that it would be proper for me to say, as the agent of the Cuban revolutionary party, I shall be glad to give,” continues Manada, smilingly.

And now the Cuban patriot becomes imbued with nervous energy as he reverts to the absorbing hope and ambition of his life—the freedom of Cuba. He paces the floor with erect, military tread, as he speaks rapidly:

“This war is not a capricious attempt to found an independence more to be feared than useful. It is the cordial congregation of Cubans of various origin, who are convinced that, in the conquest of liberty, rather than abject abasement, are acquired the virtues necessary to maintain our freedom. This is no race war.

“In the Spanish inhabitants of Cuba the revolutionists expect to find such affectionate neutrality or material aid, that through them the war will be shorter, its disasters less and the subsequent peace more easy and friendly. We Cubans began the war; the Cubans and Spanish together will terminate it. If they do not ill-treat us, we will not ill-treat them. Let them respect and they will be respected. Steel will answer to steel and friendship to friendship. In the bosom of the son of the Antilles there is no hatred, and the Cuban salutes in death the Spaniard whom the cruelty of a conscript army tore from his home and hearth and brought over to assassinate in many bosoms the freedom to which he himself aspires. But rather than salute him in death the revolutionists would like to welcome him in life.”

“Very good, indeed, Don Manada,” comments Ashley as he hastily jots down a skeleton of the impassioned words of the Cuban.

“Now, to leave generalities,” says Jack, “upon what specific elements of strength, or of weakness on your opponents’ part do you base your hopes of ultimate success?”

Manada smiles. “All our elements of strength, nor all the Spanish sources of weakness, we may not divulge yet. First, and of this I believe you newspaper men need not be assured, the information that comes from Cuba or from Madrid is entirely untrustworthy, distorted, colored and manufactured to suit Spanish ideas and hopes. It tells you that the insurrection is limited to three or four provinces. Yet you will notice to-day’s dispatches from Madrid state that a blockade of every port of Cuba is imminent, large and small, and an additional squadron of ten Spanish gunboats has been dispatched from Cadiz to aid the big fleet now patrolling Cuban waters. Think you that the Madrid government would declare that blockade if the insurrection were limited to three or four paltry provinces? Bah! I can assure you, while they may not now be ready or willing to declare themselves, yet touch every Cuban in the heart, let him whisper to you his sentiments, and you will find them to a man praying for the success of the revolution. You Americans, in the full enjoyment of true liberty, can form but a faint idea of the real situation in Cuba. Imagine a land where no one is free to write or say anything except what the government judges deem proper! Imagine a government ever ready to throw you into prison, confiscate your property, bring ruin to everything that is dear to you on earth, and to set over you a Spaniard to watch your acts, almost your thoughts! That is the way we live in Cuba. Of late the number of these spies has been increased by hordes. They are not all men. Some of them—and the shrewdest and most harmful to our cause—are women, who ingratiate themselves with prominent revolutionists, sometimes becoming possessed of invaluable plans, which they promptly reveal to the Spanish government. It is believed that some of these women are located in cities in the United States, where it is thought their presence may be useful to spy upon the movements of the friends of Cuba in this country. But of course that is a game two can play at, and we ourselves are not wholly unaware of the secret plans of the enemy.”

“Reference has been made in some of the dispatches from Key West, Don Manada, to the fact that the revolutionists have become possessed of a steamer which has been remarkably successful in evading the Spanish cruisers and landing men and ammunition from the Dominican and Florida coasts?”

Manada’s lip curls scornfully at Ashley’s use of the word “evading.” Then he smiles.

“Did you happen to read in any of the press dispatches an account of the loss of the Spanish man-of-war Mercedes?”

Ashley has seen a casual reference to the disaster. “She ran on a reef near the Great Exuma, while pursuing a suspected filibustering steamer, did she not?”

“The Mercedes was sunk in forty fathoms of water in fair and open fight with the Cuban cruiser Pearl of the Antilles,” in slow and measured tones responds Manada, his black eyes glittering. “The Spanish government has strenuously sought to conceal that fact, but it has leaked out, and only yesterday I received from Le Director de la Guerra a copy of El Terredo’s report of the battle. Ah, that was glorious! The Mercedes went down in less than seven minutes, while the Pearl was unharmed. Senor Ashley, we have to thank the inventive genius of your countrymen for the success of our gallant cruiser, for El Terredo states that it was the wonderful effectiveness of the new dynamite cannon and the Yankee gunner that accomplished the feat.”

Ashley’s unfailing scent for news assures him that this interview is good for at least a two-column leader in the Hemisphere. Here is information that will make a sensation in the morning. The American public has been wholly in the dark as to this new element in the insurrection, this Cuban cruiser, with her patent dynamite gun and Yankee gunner, that has destroyed one of the most powerful of Spain’s cruisers.

“El Terredo? Is he the captain of the Pearl of the Antilles, Don Manada?”

“He is, and one of the bravest and most successful of our commanders on land as well as sea. Why, there is not a cruiser of the Spanish navy now in Cuban waters that alone would dare engage the Pearl! They are well aware of her prowess and the skill and bravery of her commander, whom they have rightly named ‘El Terredo,’ ‘the terror.’

“Then we have other plans the details of which cannot be revealed. Do you remember how the sinking of De Gama’s Brazilian ironclad was effected in the revolution in that country? It did not require another man-of-war to destroy her. Only a little instrument less than five feet in length—whish! boom!—and the resistless water is gushing in a torrent through the sides of the ironclad. Ah, warfare is different in these modern days, Senor Ashley, and victory does not always rest on the side of the heaviest guns.”

“It is said in a Washington dispatch, Don Manada, that the Spanish minister has received information that a formidable filibustering expedition is about to leave this city for Cuba. Have you any knowledge of the fact?”

Manada shrugs his shoulders. “Quien sabe? Are not all vessels clearing for any port obliged to obtain papers stating their destination? And does not the President’s proclamation warn against the shipping of arms and ammunition to Cuba from American ports? But of this be assured—Cuban patriots will not be without arms and ammunition to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is true that is what we most need now. Ammunition especially is not as plentiful as we could wish, but had we none at all, with his trusty machete a Cuban patriot is more than a match for a brace of the puny, boyish conscripts Spain is sending to find early graves on Cuban soil. In the battle of Siguanoa, of which also I have just received an authentic account, our comrades finally charged with their machetes, which they handle with wonderful skill, and completely routed the Spanish troops. The actual fighting masses of the revolutionists, senor, the soldados raso, are no mean soldiers, even from a northerner’s point of view. And they are not all Cuban born or Spanish born who have settled in Cuba and become identified with the island. You would be surprised, I doubt not, to learn that not a few of your own nationality are fighting for human liberty on the side of the revolutionists.”

“And the character of the Spanish officers?” inquires Ashley, getting more and more interested.

Manada frowns. “Gen. Truenos, the new captain-general, we know as yet only by reputation. His chief of staff, the Madrid papers state, is to be Gen. Murillo, who is now in this country—in this city, if I mistake not. He poses as a diplomat and is the head of the spy bureau. Of the other leading Spanish officers in Cuba, they are of the usual foreign-service character. Some veterans, some young and inexperienced, seeking to win laurels in this war, a few Spanish noblemen, whom the exigencies of the family purse have forced into the army. By the way, attached to the new captain-general’s staff, I learn there is a young American, a sugar planter. His name, I am told, was Felton, but he changed it to Alvarez. More Spanish, you see.”

Felton! A question is on Ashley’s tongue, when the utter absurdity of connecting Ralph Felton’s identity with that of a young Cuban planter occurs to him and he refrains.

“Well, Don Manada, I am obliged to you for the half-hour you have accorded me, and I only hope your words will have as convincing an effect on the readers of the Hemisphere as they have had on me.”

“Thank you, Senor Ashley. I shall ever be pleased to meet you when your duties may oblige you to seek one of the Cuban revolutionary party. Adios.”

“Well,” remarks the interviewer to himself, as he stops a moment to strengthen his memory by a fresh Havana, “if my friend of the bleached mustachios is not a rainbow chaser of the latest approved political character, Gen. Truenos and the Spanish army—and navy, too—have considerable work cut out for them in the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea. Hello!” he exclaims, staring at a graceful figure that is crossing Twenty-third Street in his direction. “If that isn’t Miss Louise Hathaway of Raymond, Vt., my memory for faces is entirely destroyed.”