THE FLAG OF CASTILE.
“Twelve hours from now, Miss Hathaway, you will have your first glimpse
of Cuba. Then, our business transacted, a quick and uninterrupted run to
Santiago, and to-morrow you will be on terra firma.”
“It has been a remarkably short voyage, Mr. Van Zandt.”
“Deplorably so. I never before regretted the speed of the Semiramis, but
now—would that she were as snail-like as the old West Indian tub we
overhauled yesterday. Can I prevail upon you, Miss Hathaway, to again
favor me with my pet Chopin nocturne? The electric fans render the
saloon as comfortable as the deck.”
“My poor playing is always at your service, Mr. Van Zandt. I assure you
that I never expected to enjoy a voyage, to Cuba or elsewhere, as I have
this. Your kindness in granting us—”
“My kindness was purely selfish,” interposes Van Zandt.
It is easy to see that for two people on board the yacht the last few
days have swiftly sped. Van Zandt and Miss Hathaway have been much in
each other’s company. Confidences have been neither asked nor given, but
a mutual sympathy has taken root that might prove destructive to the
reserve of one and the “marble” of the other were the voyage to the
tropics to last many days longer.
Cyrus Felton is restricted to his stateroom most of the time, a victim
of the malady of the sea and a gnawing, indefinable distrust of the
owner of the yacht. As for Don Manada, he divides his attention between
the huge cigars from which his fingers or teeth are never free, and a
careful outlook for any of the Spanish squadron that is supposed to
blockade the coast of the isle of Cuba.
But the sensuous indolence of the tropic day and the glories of the
tropic night lure Van Zandt and Miss Hathaway into dreams of peace and
hope and fulfillment. The days spent on the quarterdeck, sheltered by an
awning from the rays of the sun, the speed of the yacht providing a
delightful breeze, glide gently into the brief twilight. The great stars
shoot out of the blue with quivering points of fire, and the wind sighs
musically through the rigging as the tireless steam drives the boat
through the phosphorescent waves.
“Consider what the voyage would have been to me without your presence,”
continues Van Zandt, as he leads the way to the saloon. “With Don Manada
there, engrossed in Quixotic schemes for achieving the independence of
his beloved country, and Capt. Beals as communicative as a sphinx, your
society has saved me from myself—a synonym for dreariness. And now for
the nocturne.”
While Van Zandt is telling Miss Hathaway that she is the only woman he
has ever heard play Chopin intelligently, and the latter is modestly
disclaiming such ability, the musical echo of the lookout’s call is
passed to the saloon:
“Sail ho!”
“Where away?” is the challenge.
“On the weather bow. A large steamer, judging from her smoke!”
Don Manada casts his cherished cigar to the waves and glues his eyes to
the telescope.
As announced, the unknown vessel is directly on the weather bow and will
pass within half a mile of the Semiramis, if the two craft hold to their
present courses.
The captain intently watches the approaching vessel. The Semiramis is
far beyond the five-mile limit of the Cuban coast, but if the unknown is
a Spanish cruiser she may become suspicious of the trim yacht.
It therefore behooves the American steamer to insure the stranger a wide
berth if the latter displays the arms of Castile; to show a clean pair
of heels, in the vernacular of the sailor, if flight is necessary.
Again are preparations made to force the Semiramis to her highest speed.
The awnings are removed, the boats once more unswung from the davits,
the force of stokers in the engine-room augmented by half a score of
sturdy seamen, and soon the roaring of the forced draught in the funnels
again drowns the hum of the engines.
At rail or in rigging, from bridge or quarterdeck the people of the
Semiramis watch intently the approaching vessel, whose funnels and upper
works are now visible through the glass.
The Semiramis bears gradually to the westward, to afford the stranger at
least three miles leeway. Suddenly Capt. Beals lays aside his glasses
and rubs his chin thoughtfully.
“Do you care to show your papers to the Don?” he asks Van Zandt.
“To the Don? Is she a Spaniard, sure? But we shall pass a comfortable
distance to windward of her and she will not attempt to interrupt us.”
“She has already changed her course and is bearing directly across our
bows. See!”
The unknown, now less than ten miles distant, seems to be steaming at
full speed for a point directly in the course of the Semiramis. Her
broadside is now visible to the anxious watchers on the yacht. She is
apparently an armored cruiser of perhaps 5,000 tons, her hull painted a
dull and featureless gray. No flag or emblem is as yet displayed from
her taut and business-like rigging.
“She is painted and cleared for action. She is—ah! I thought so!”
A flag is broken from the cruiser’s masthead, and Capt. Beals, as he
focuses his binocular upon the streaming emblem, mutters between his
teeth: “The flag of Castile!”
“’Tis a Spanish warship, Senor Van Zandt!” exclaims Manada, who has been
studying the stranger. “Can your beautiful craft bear us from harm’s
way? I fear that yonder ship is the Infanta Isabel, the latest and most
formidable accession to the navy of our hated oppressors. She has been
detailed to intercept vessels supposed to bear arms and re-enforcements
to our friends, and especially to watch for and destroy our gallant
Pearl of the Antilles.”
“Have no fears, Don Manada. Your cargo is safe. We will show the
Spaniard a trick or two; eh, Beals?”
Capt. Beals does not reply in words to his employer’s confident
assertion, but an observant man might distinguish a slight relaxation of
the muscles about his mouth.
The Semiramis holds steadily on her course. Only the increasing clouds
of smoke that pour from her funnels indicate that anything out of the
ordinary is expected of the yacht.
Only six miles distant! Five! Four!
A puff of white that rolls lazily from the forward deck of the cruiser
is succeeded by a dull roar.
“Show the Don our colors,” Capt. Beals orders the second officer.
While the smoke from the cannon yet lingers above the Spaniard’s deck
the glorious stars and stripes unfurl from the mainmast of the
Semiramis, and snap gayly, defiantly, upon the breeze. And still the
American yacht continues to steadily lessen the distance that separates
the two craft.
Boom!
Another puff of white, followed a few seconds later by the report; and
this time the watchers on the yacht can see the flash of the gun.
Only two miles distant now, and the Spanish warship, apparently
convinced that the American understands and designs to obey the
peremptory summons to heave to, has slowed her engines until the cruiser
has barely headway on the long swells.
Calmly pacing the bridge, as if a thousand miles separated the
vessels—nearly equal in size, but how dissimilar in destructive
power!—Capt. Beals has not indicated a slowing of the yacht’s engines,
although the bow of the Semiramis points at the steep side of the
Spaniard, directly amidship.
Not half a dozen lengths away!
The officers and men on the man-of-war are clearly visible to those on
the yacht. The captain and his subalterns are grouped on the
quarterdeck, the marines amidship, the blue-jackets crowding the rail
and adjacent rigging. The cruiser is stationary on the water.
But with no sensible diminution of speed the Semiramis bears upon the
Spaniard, the white foam dashing high on either side of her bow. Capt.
Beals is fingering the electric buttons that regulate the speed and
course of the yacht.
The Spanish captain nearly drops his speaking trumpet. What is El
Americano thinking of? He cannot stop in five times his own length at
such a frightful speed! Is he mad? Ah! Dios! Caramba! And a dozen more
Castilian expletives poured forth in a torrent of astonishment, rage and
chagrin.
For with a sudden turn to the windward that causes the yacht to careen
until her white sides below the water line gleam for an instant in the
sunlight, with an accession of speed that sends her forward as a whip
would a nervous horse, the Semiramis darts by the stern of the Spanish
man-of-war, the smoke from her furnaces enveloping for a moment the
cruiser’s afterdeck.
Two minutes later she is a mile astern of the warship, her long white
trail sparkling in the sunlight, and the red, white and blue still
snapping defiantly at the masthead.
“I wonder if the Don can turn in five times his own length,” observes
the sententious Mr. Beals, as he watches the warship slowly getting
under way.
Whether he can or cannot is not at this time to be demonstrated. The
cruiser makes no attempt to about ship, but another report booms from
the forward gun, followed a second or two later by one from the aft
barbette, and a solid shot ricochets along the waves astern of the
Semiramis and plunges beneath the water an eighth of a mile distant.
Van Zandt grows grave as he realizes the significance of this last shot,
but a glance at the receding cruiser convinces him of the futility of
the cannonade. The Spaniard, too, appears convinced, and the cruiser is
soon lost to view in the expanse of ocean.
The rest of the day the Semiramis holds unmolested her course for the
mountain-girth shores of Cuba. As night draws on the engines are slowed,
and, with fires banked and double watch posted, the yacht quietly rocks
on the bosom of the deep. A wavy outline on the horizon indicates the
southern coast of the revolution-racked isle and somewhere on that
outline is the sequestered little harbor of Cantero.
It is a weary, an unnerving vigil, for Don Manada at least. For hours
his anxious gaze sweeps the horizon, while the Semiramis rides the
breasting waves as gracefully as a summer bird soars into the blue.
As the first shafts of light radiate from the emerging disk, Louise
Hathaway, whom the unwonted excitement of the preceding day has driven
early from her pillow, cries out with a girlish enthusiasm that brings a
smile to the face of Capt. Beals: “Sail ho! Sail ho!”
Every one springs to rail or rigging. “Where away?” is the quick
challenge of Mr. Beals.
“Right there, sir,” is the unnautical response of Miss Hathaway, and she
indicates a point not five degrees north of the rising orb of day.
With the glass at his eyes, the taciturn commander of the Semiramis
watches intently the speck on the glowing horizon that means much to the
excited Manada at his elbow and to the latter’s struggling
fellow-patriots on the isle whose outlines are now bathed in the flood
of sunlight.
Is it another Spanish warship, or is it the looked-for Cuban cruiser,
the doughty Pearl of the Antilles?
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