CHAPTER III

AN EXCITING AND INTERESTING JOURNEY.

THE stars were yet in the sky when a gentle hand touched the American's shoulder and a voice whispered :

"Awake, señor; we must ride before the sun, and behold! there is a light coming in the east."

The American leaped from his bed, to find Don Manuel, booted and spurred, with whip in hand, awaiting him. The Cuban said he would wait on the great porch on the north, and passed through the open window. Stevens quickly dressed and joined him.

He had wisely encumbered himself with little luggage, and buckling on a pair of spurs and taking a whip in his hand he was ready for the journey. Don Manuel beckoned and led the way to his stables, where were some fine-blooded Spanish horses. Two were saddled and ready.

There was a faint glow on the hill beyond the orange grove, which indicated the locality of the guerrillas' camp. Silently the two mounted and

rode from the stable paddock to the great gate, which Don Manuel unlocked with his key. The American went out with the horses, and Don Manuel, locking the great gate, crept through a narrow gap in the hedge, two hundred yards to the left, rejoined his friend, and, mounting, they rode briskly away.

“We will have a good start of them,” he remarked, as their horses cantered along the road.

"What will your guests think of your sudden departure?"

"I explained to Señor Nicoli that I might go suddenly to Havana, where my wife is. He will excuse my absence to the others, and to all save the spies it will be satisfactory. They will suspect us both, but it will be too late to overtake us."

"Don Manuel, I greatly fear that I will bring trouble on you. I had no intention, when I began this journey, to involve a friend."

"Señor, it was coming anyway. This will only hasten it. Your coming and my aiding you will not add anything to the annoyance I would have suffered."

When they had gone a mile or so from the casa of the Don, they found the road so wretchedly poor that it would have been folly to try to drive a vehicle over it, and even horses were forced to travel with care.

Brighter and brighter grew the eastern horizon,

until the sun in all his tropical splendor arose, flooding mountain, hill, and vale with golden glory. Then, as they rode on, they began to meet people, always on horseback or muleback. In Cuba one never meets a tramp; "everybody rides. Poor and in desperate case, indeed, is the meanest guajiro who owns no jacas or pony."

The coming dawn awoke all the feathered songsters of Cuba. "Bewildering as may be the flowers in the Gem of the Antilles, the variety and singing of birds are positively ravishing. It has been said that what tropical birds gain in brilliancy of plumage they lose in variety and quality of song. This is not true of Cuba." In the early morning ride, the American was continually delighted with the sweetest songs, while brilliant green, blue, scarlet, and yellow plumage fluttered in all the thickets, in an endless variety.

At this time there were brigands in Cuba; but they harmed no one not a Spaniard. Don Manuel assured our friend that no American or Cuban need have any fears of them, tho they were a terror to Spain's standing army in Cuba. Matagas the Terrible in his day was more of a patriot than an outlaw. His methods can hardly be recommended, yet all through seasons of peace he kept the Spanish soldiery in a constant state of alarm, and worried and. harassed them ceaselessly, until the home governor

was compelled continually to send fresh troops to take their place. When sought, the brigands never could be found, but were always turning up at some unexpected point when least anticipated.

"Brigand or planter, guajiro or montero, he always had a ready-saddled pony at command. Like a flash, he was into the saddle and away. And what a perfect rider he was! He sat not like one of your park horsemen, who, ramming the pommel into the pit of his stomach, points to the horizon with his trembling legs, and exposes the laughing sky between himself and his saddle; but straight as the wild cane, his knees well forward, with loose rein, and in harmony with every movement of the animal beneath him, rode the patriot outlaw. He could pick up his sombrero from the ground at full run; and because his perfect naturalness and good sense in the saddle were as potent to his horse as any onlooker, there was no reasonable demand to which his pony would not respond."

The exhilarating morning ride of the American through the valleys and mountains furnished him with many observations of Cuban yeomanry in that region, of the espionage and public brigandage of the Spanish soldiery themselves, of Cuban deep woods and their tenantry of beast, bird, and reptile, and of Cuban coffee-lands and coffee culture.

"The Spanish soldiery's goading of the Cuban peo

ple was no better and no worse than it had been for years previous, even before the proclamation of martial law. The class which seemed best qualified to incite a revolution was the guardia civil. These prowled about the country in small squads, on the pretext of searching for bandits and their harborers, and perpetrated all manner of indignities and outrages upon helpless, innocent people."

On the third day of their journey, Stevens had a sample of their delicate system of levying contributions and collecting Spanish revenues. They were far enough away to be beyond suspicion, when, as they were riding along a mountain road, with a Spanish fort about four miles on their right, there suddenly emerged from behind a thicket of tamarinds half a dozen of the guardia civil.

"Arto!" ("Halt!") they shouted to the trav

elers.

"Had we better halt, fight, or fly?" the American asked his companion.

"Let them come to us," said Don Manuel. "They can have no knowledge of whom we are, and we will get along better by not seeming to fear them or attempting to fight them."

With drawn revolvers, they galloped down upon them.

Quien es vd?" ("Who are you?") the man who seemed to be in command asked.