"You mean by that you will take my home from me?"

"No, that is exempt in this State; but the other property is not."

Annie Stevens, on whom it seemed as if the sun of happiness would never again shine, went to her husband's attorney and told him of the interview. After meditating a few moments, he said:

"You have an uncle in Kentucky?"

"Yes, sir."

"You can save more in the money than you can in real estate. Why not go to that uncle to live, and take the money? Once in your possession and out of the State, Parker can not touch it.

"Would that be honest?"

"On general principles, no; but in this case, yes. To begin with, I don't believe his claim is just. I have no evidence on

which to found that

belief, but belief and opinions are not always founded on evidence. We have intuitions quite. as reliable as eyesight. Besides, we know from good authority that Joe Parker is a hypo

"I DO NOT WANT TIME, MR. PARKER. I WANT MERCY."

critical rascal, cunning and shrewd. If you can beat him and save this money for your children, your act will meet the approval of all right-minded men." She decided to act upon it; but there was one obstacle in the way. The money was deposited in Mr. Parker's bank. Her lawyer thought if she pre

sented a check for it before a judgment could be obtained or an execution issued, they would not dare refuse to pay her.

She wrote to her uncle that very day, telling him her condition and asking if he would give them a home; but through some strange fatality Mr. Parker learned that the widow was going to leave the State, and he issued an attachment against her, garnished the funds in the bank, and levied on all that belonged to her husband.

Under the laws of the State, nothing was exempt from an attachment when the debtor was about to leave the State. In the cause for the attachment he set up that Fernando Stevens, one of the defendants in the suit, had absented himself from his usual place of abode, so that personal service could not be had on him. At the trial it was shown that there was no evidence that Stevens was dead, and a strong suspicion was advanced, by witnesses whom Mrs. Stevens had never seen before, that she was going to rejoin her husband, who had taken this plan to cheat his creditors. The lawyer made it his chief plea at

the trial, and a jury held the attachment good; so the widow's property was all swept away by the kind-hearted Mr. Parker, who declared that it made him weep to take it, but that he was a creature of law-inexorable law.

Mrs. Stevens went to live at her uncle's house. She secured the position as teacher in the village school, and they got along much better than she had hoped. Her children grew to be bright boys. Fernando, the eldest, never tired of listening to the tragic story of his father's adventures, and in his young heart he vowed to go to Cuba when he became a man, and avenge his death.

Having completed his education at an early age, he went to Louisville and engaged to work for a sugar importer. It was not strange that his occupation and the bent of his mind should lead him to the very land where his father had so mysteriously disappeared.

His brother George at an early age secured an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and, graduating, was commissioned a midshipman and sent aboard one of the Pacific squadron.

Their widowed mother lived for her sons-her only hope and joy of her life. Her husband's fate she knew only from faint rumors and suspicions. Despite great wrongs and sorrows, she still struggled on and lived, tho she felt her heart was half dead.

CHAPTER VI.

A SCRAP OF CUBAN HISTORY.

THE Spanish-American War had been long expected. With Cuba, the largest and most beautiful and productive isle of the West Indies, at our very doors, enslaved, maltreated, bruised, and bleeding, it was only natural that the American people should be aroused. To Spain, the discoverer of the New World, with all its riches and beauty, the New World should have belonged, and would to-day but for the cruelty of the discoverers and conquerors.

Scarcely did the Spaniards come to realize that a continent existed across the ocean when hordes of unscrupulous adventurers and robbers began to overrun the West Indies, South America, and Mexico in search of gold, treasure, and honors. Balboa, Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto, and Velasquez were only so many legalized freebooters sent to plunder, enslave, and murder the wretched inhabitants. Tho men of great daring and capable of enduring wonderful hardships, their real object was blood and plunder; and tho there were many patriotic men

among them, whose intentions were good, the great mass of Spanish conquerors were legalized brigands.

Religious fanaticism, cupidity, and avarice have ever characterized the Spaniards in their dealings with their possessions in America. In the first and second volumes of this series, "Columbia” and “Estevan," the author has dealt fully with the discovery and conquest of the island of Cuba.

The history of Cuba is one long tale of oppression and bloodshed, extending over a period of more than four hundred years. Spanish rule, whether exercised. upon the aborigines, the blacks brought from Africa, or the whites who drove out the original natives, has been despotic and barbarous. One by one the vast possessions of Spain on the Western hemisphere were swept from her, till at last Cuba, the "Ever-faithful Isle," and Puerto Rico, were all of importance that remained. It has been said that history repeats itself, and a brief review of the affairs of the island of Cuba, from the time of Columbus to the present, shows the repetition to be continuous. Velasquez, the first conqueror of the island, darkened his conquest by burning Hatuey, a native chief, at the stake.*

Cuba is about 700 miles in length, and 22 miles wide at its narrowest point. According to Humboldt, the best authority, its superficial area is 43,000

"Estevan," vol. ii., p. 58.