“This is the young man?”
One of the two officers who appeared at the head of a file of a dozen
soldiers turned and put the question to Senor Vasquez.
That consummate liar responded by a nod of the head.
Though Hal Maynard had not studied his attitude, he stood at that
moment a typical young American.
With feet rather spread, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets,
shoulders manfully back and head inclining slightly forward, he ignored
Vasquez, but regarded the officers with a rather indolent look in which
there was just a trace of curiosity.
“A visitation, I presume?” he said, addressing one of the officers in
Spanish.
But the latter, barely looking at him, turned to the other officer to
command:
“Search the trunk.”
“It is locked,” said Hal, stepping slowly forward. “Permit me to offer
you the key.”
The officer who received it merely grunted, and immediately knelt
before the trunk.
Hal stood by looking on, until one of the soldiers, after scowling at
him an instant, darted forward and gave the boy a push.
“If I am in your way,” retorted Maynard, recovering his equilibrium,
“won’t you be kind enough to say so?”
“Silence!” ordered the commanding officer.
Hal responded by a polite nod.
“These officers don’t belong to the mob, and they should be gentlemen,”
he murmured. “If they’re not, it’s not for me to set them the example.”
Flop! went a lot of Hal’s clothing, strewed promiscuously over the
floor.
Slap! followed his linen.
Smash! went a small hand mirror, flung across the room so that it
struck the wall and landed on the floor in atoms.
“May I ask a question, sir?” queried Hal, turning to the officer in
charge.
“Silence!”
“I beg your pardon,” went on Hal, imperturbably. “All I wanted to ask
was whether my property is to be ruthlessly destroyed before a charge
has been even made against me?”
“Silence!”
“If I had committed any breach of decorum in asking,” pursued Hal,
calmly, “please consider that I didn’t ask.”
“Silence!”
Thump! The butt of a soldier’s musket landed forcibly in Hal’s stomach.
“Ouch!” grunted the boy.
“Silence!”
“Not even allowed to express natural emotion,” murmured our hero. He
couldn’t have talked much in his breathless condition, just then, even
if he wanted to.
He saw the soldier’s musket-butt aimed at him, and dodged as nimbly as
he could.
Click!
Another soldier cocked his weapon, aiming fully at the American’s head.
At this the commanding officer smiled. Some of the soldiers laughed
softly. They wanted to see the Yankee flinch, and were sure that he
would--for had not their Havana newspapers told them that all the
Yankees were cowards?
But Hal, who felt reasonably sure that nothing short of violence on his
part would result in his death just then, did not feel inwardly alarmed.
Instead, he slowly folded his arms, closed one eye, and with the other
squinted down the steel barrel that stared him in the face.
“Bah!” muttered he who had aimed, now raising the muzzle of his piece.
“The Yankee pig doesn’t even know what a gun is.”
“Silence!” came sharply from the commanding officer.
“Well,” murmured Hal, under his voice, “I am gratified to learn that
somebody else besides myself has to hold his tongue. I wouldn’t like to
do all the shutting-up!”
It was all a picnic, so he fancied, since he was not only sure that the
officers would find nothing compromising, but also sure that, whoever
got the money, Senor Vasquez would not.
But the Spaniard, who had been narrowly watching the boy, now
interposed:
“Captain, may a civilian subject suggest that the accused has not yet
been searched?”
“Senor,” replied the captain, bowing slightly, “your loyal suggestion
shall be at once acted upon. I myself will make the search.”
Thereupon the captain waved the soldiers away, most of them withdrawing
to the corridor and doorway.
“Stand beside the accused,” ordered the captain, nodding at two of his
men, who accordingly ranged themselves on either side of the American.
“Senor,” said the captain, coldly, “you will understand that what I am
about to do is a duty imposed upon me.”
There was a trace of civility about this, which caused Hal to reply
politely:
“If it is your duty, captain, I would be the last one to urge you from
it. But I can tell you what I have about me. I have a pocket knife and
a sum of money.”
“Money?” uttered Vasquez, becoming alert at once. “It is mine--mine by
right!”
“You are mistaken,” replied Hal, coldly; “but if you need it you may
have it. I have only three pesetas.”
“Three pesetas?” faltered the Spanish merchant. He looked as angry as a
man who is being robbed, for three pesetas is but about sixty cents.
“You may have it,” rejoined Hal, with mock generosity, “if the officer
permits me to present it to you.”
Then he threw his hands up while the captain went through his pockets.
That officer looked a trifle ashamed of his task, for an army officer
is a gentleman, at least by education.
But Hal’s pockets, under the most rigid search, showed no more than he
had mentioned.
“Off with your clothes, senor,” came the next command.
Hal looked and felt a trifle surprised, but saw that the order was a
serious one.
“Shall I er--er--withdraw to the closet before disrobing?” he suggested.
“Naturally not,” was the dry answer.
There was no help for it. Hal had to obey, which he did with the
poorest grace in the world.
But he passed through this ordeal like the others without mishap, and
was curtly informed that he could put on his clothing again.
This Hal did, next standing at ease between the two soldiers.
“Do you find anything?” asked the captain, turning to his subordinate.
“Nothing,” replied the lieutenant.
“A mare’s nest, eh?” smiled the captain, grimly.
Hal duplicated the smile, but in a more genial manner, then turned to
look at Vasquez.
But that Spaniard suddenly darted over to the trunk, knelt beside the
lieutenant, and began to help rummage among the few remaining articles
there.
“Ha! Here is something,” announced Vasquez, holding up a slip of paper.
Hal looked on, wide-eyed, for he knew well that no such paper had been
among his possessions when he packed them.
Then he gave a gasp, for he realized the Spaniard’s game at last.
That scoundrel, by some clever legerdemain, had slipped a paper among
Maynard’s effects.
“Ho!” grunted the Spaniard, running his eyes over the page. “This is a
note, apparently, from one of the comrades of that bandit chief, Gomez.”
He finished reading, while the captain stood looking calmly on.
“An American plotter!” screamed Vasquez. “This is proof conclusive
enough to merit for him a dozen deaths if that were possible!”
He held the page in one hand, pointing a denouncing finger at our
startled hero.
“Let me see it,” commanded the captain. “A letter relating to a
filibustering expedition, eh? This is, indeed, evidence. So!” turning
to Maynard. “You are one of the Yankees who help his majesty’s subjects
to rebel.”
“Upon my honor,” protested Hal, “I know nothing about that letter.”
“Your honor?” cried the captain. “Bah, you Yankee pig! Lieutenant,
bring him along under guard. To the Prefatura.”
To the Prefatura! To Havana’s police headquarters? Over the door of
that grim building might well be written, “All hope abandon, ye who
enter here!”
It was at the door of this building that all trace had been lost of
countless Cuban insurgents, the members of their families, and of
others who had in any way been suspected of sympathy with the cause of
the rebels.
From here, in the late hours of night, countless doomed ones had
been led away, ostensibly to imprisonment in Morro Castle or Cabanas
Fortress--with this horrible peculiarity, that they had never reached
their destinations or been heard from again!
To the Prefatura! For an instant, contemplating the letter which the
captain now held in his hand, Hal felt his heart sinking utterly.
“I was sure I could not be mistaken,” murmured Senor Vasquez, softly.
That voice aroused the American as the bite of a snake would have done.
“Senor Vasquez,” he cried, throwing his head back proudly, “we have not
seen the end of this matter!”
Then, bowing to the captain, Hal stepped between the two files of
soldiers as they formed.
Down the stairs they started. Vasquez brought up the rear, gnashing his
teeth.
He had found no trace of the money.
But perhaps he yet hoped to!