A CUBAN REBEL
Stuart stood with the supposed fisherman at the door of the hut until
the throbbing of the motor boat's engine had died away in the distance.
Then, American fashion, he turned to the brown-skinned occupant with an
air of authority.
"Who is this man Cecil?" he asked. The phrase began boldly, but as he
caught the other's glance, the last couple of words dragged.
Brown-skinned this fisherman might be, but the dark eyes were keen and
appraising. Stuart, who was no fool, realized that his new host--or, was
it captor?--was more than he seemed. At the same time, the boy
remembered that he was in rags and that his own skin was stained brown.
Yet the fisherman answered his question courteously.
"Does not the young Senor know him? Senor Cecil is an Englishman, and
wealthy."
"But what does he do?" persisted Stuart.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Can anyone tell what wealthy Englishmen do?" he queried. "They are all
a little mad."
The boy held his tongue. This evasive reply was evidence enough that he
would not secure any information by questioning. Also, Stuart realized
that anyone whom the Englishman trusted was not likely to be
loose-mouthed.
"Senor Cecil said you were an American," the fisherman continued, "he
meant by that----"
"Probably he meant that he knew I'd like to get this brown off my skin,"
declared Stuart, realizing that his disguise was unavailing now. "Have
you any soap-weed root?"
The Cuban bent his head and motioned the boy to enter the hut. It was
small and clean, but did not have the atmosphere of use. Stuart guessed
that probably it was only employed as a blind and wondered how his host
had come to know of the arrival of the motor boat. Then, remembering
that the sound of the motor boat's engine had been heard for several
moments, as it departed from the cove, he thought that perhaps the noise
of the "chug-chug" would be a sufficient signal of its coming, for,
surely, no other motor boats would have any reason for entering so
hidden a place.
"If the young Senor will add a few drops from this bottle to the water,"
commented his host, "the stain will come out quicker."
Stuart stared at the man. The suggestion added to the strangeness of the
situation. The presence of chemicals in a fisherman's hut tallied with
the boy's general idea that this man must hold a post of some
importance in the plot. But he made no comment.
While he was scrubbing himself thoroughly, so that his skin might show
white once more, the fisherman prepared a simple but hearty meal. His
ablutions over, Stuart sat down to the table with great readiness, for,
though he had joined Cecil in a cold snack on the motor boat, the boy
had passed through thirty-six hours of the most trying excitement, since
his departure from Millot the morning of the day before. The food was
good and plentiful, and when Stuart had stowed away all he could hold,
drowsiness came over him, and his head began to nod.
"When do we go to bed?" he asked with a yawn.
The fisherman motioned to a string-bed in the corner.
"Whenever the young Senor wishes," was the reply.
"And you?"
"Did you not hear Senor Cecil say that I was to be sure you did not get
lost?" He smiled. "You might have dreams, Senor, and walk in your sleep.
When Senor Cecil says 'Watch!' one stays awake."
At the same time, with a deft movement, he pinioned Stuart's arms, and
searched him thoroughly, taking away his revolver and pocket knife. No
roughness was shown, but the searching was done in a businesslike
manner, and Stuart offered no resistance. As a matter of fact, he was
too sleepy, and even the bravest hero might be cowed if he were fairly
dropping for weariness. Stuart obediently sought the string-bed, and, a
few seconds later, was fast asleep.
It was daylight when he awoke. Breakfast was on the table and the boy
did as much justice to the breakfast as he had to the supper. With rest,
his spirits and energy had returned, but he was practically helpless
without his revolver. Besides, on this desolate bit of beach on the
eastern end of Cuba, even if he could escape from his captor, he would
be marooned. Such money as the boy possessed was secreted in Cap
Haitien, most of his friends lived in Western Cuba. If this fisherman
were indeed to aid him to get to Havana, nothing would suit him better.
All through the meal he puzzled over the fisherman's rough mode of life,
and yet his perfect Spanish and courtly manners.
"If the young Senor will accompany me to the stable?" suggested his
host, when the meal was over, the mild words being backed by an
undertone of considerable authority. Stuart would have liked to protest,
for he was feeling chipper and lively, but, just as he was about to
speak, he remembered Andy's remark, on board the motor boat, about "food
for fishes." Probably Cecil's allies were ready for any kind of
bloodshed, and the boy judged that he would be wise to avoid trouble. He
followed without a word.
The stables were of good size and well kept, out of all proportion to
the hut, confirming Stuart's suspicion that a house of some pretensions
was hidden in the forest nearby. A fairly good horse was hitched to a
stoutly-built light cart and the journey began. The driver took a rarely
traveled trail, but, at one point, an opening in the trees showed a snug
little town nestling by a landlocked harbor of unusual beauty.
"What place is that?" queried Stuart, though not expecting a response.
To his surprise, the driver answered promptly.
"That, Senor," he said, "is Baracoa, the oldest town in Cuba, and the
only one that tourists seldom visit."
Whereupon, breaking a long silence, Vellano--for so he had given his
name to Stuart--proceeded to tell the early history of Eastern Cuba with
a wealth of imagery and a sense of romance that held the boy spellbound.
He told of the peaceful Arawaks, the aboriginal inhabitants of the
Greater Antilles, agriculturists and eaters of the cassava plant,
growers and weavers of cotton, even workers of gold. He told of the
invasion of the meat-eating and cannibal Caribs from the Lesser
Antilles, of the wars between the Arawaks and Caribs, and of the
hostility between the two races when Columbus first landed on the
island. He told of the enslavement of the peaceful Arawaks by the
Spaniards, and of the savage massacres by Caribs upon the earliest
Spanish settlements.
From that point Vellano broke into a song of praise of the gallantry of
the early Spanish adventurers and conquerors, the conquistadores of the
West Indies, who carried the two banners of "Christianity" and
"Civilization" to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. He lamented the
going of the Spaniards, took occasion to fling reproach at France for
her maladministration and loss of Haiti, and, as Stuart was careful to
observe, he praised England and Holland as colonizing countries as
heartily as he condemned the United States for her ignorance of
colonization problems.
This fitted in exactly with Stuart's opinion of the plot of which Cecil
was the head. Here, in Vellano, was an underling--or another
conspirator, as it might be--favorable to England, resentful of the
United States, and probably in a spirit of revolt against existing
conditions in his own country. The boy decided to test this out by
bringing up the subject a little later in the journey.
Presently the road turned to the westward, following the valley of the
Toa River. Duala, Bernardo and Morales were passed, the road climbing
all the time, the mountain ranges of Santa de Moa and Santa Verde rising
sentinel-like on either side. The trail was obviously one for the saddle
rather than for a cart, but Stuart rightly guessed that Vellano was
afraid that his captive might escape if he had a separate mount.
They stayed that night at a small, but well-kept house, hidden in the
forests. The owner seemed to be a simple guarijo or cultivator, but was
very hospitable. Yet, when Stuart, tossing restlessly in the night,
chanced to open his eyes, he saw the guarijo sitting near his bed,
smoking cigarettes, and evidently wide awake and watching. It was clear
that he was keeping guard while Vellano slept. Certainly, the Englishman
had no need to complain that his orders were unheeded!
Taking up the way, next morning, the road became little more than a
trail, through forests as dense as the Haitian jungle. The guarijo
walked ahead of them with his machete, clearing away the undergrowth
sufficiently for the horse and cart to get through. From time to time,
Velanno took his place with the machete and the guarijo sat beside the
boy. Never for a moment was Stuart left alone.
It was a wild drive. The trail threaded its way between great Ceiba
trees, looming weird and gigantic with their buttressed trunks, all
knotted and entwined with hanging lianas and curiously hung with air
plants dropping from the branches. Gay-colored birds flashed in the
patches of sunlight that filtered through the trees. The Cuban
boa-constrictor or Maja, big and cowardly, wound its great length away,
and the air was full of the rich--and not always pleasant--insect life
characteristic of the Cuban eastern forests.
Approaching San Juan de la Caridad, the trail widened. Machete work
being no longer necessary, the guarijo was enabled to return, which he
did with scarcely more than an "adios" to Vellano.
The trail now skirted the edges of deep ravines and hung dizzily on the
borders of precipices of which the sharply and deeply cut Maestra
Mountains are so full. The forest was a little more open. Thanks to the
information given him by Cecil during their walk through the Haitian
jungle, after the parachute descent, Stuart recognized mahogany, lignum
vitae, granadilla, sweet cedar, logwood, sandalwood, red sanders and
scores of other hardwood trees of the highest commercial value, standing
untouched. Passing an unusually fine clump of Cuban mahogany, Stuart
turned to his companion with the exclamation:
"There must be millions of dollars' worth of rare woods, here!"
"Cuba is very rich," came the prompt reply, coupled with the grim
comment, "but Cubans very poor."
"They are poor," agreed Stuart, "and in this part of the island they
seem a lot poorer than in the Pinar plains, where I lived before. Why?
Here, nine out of every ten of the guarijos we've seen, live like hogs
in a sty. Most of the huts we've passed aren't fit for human beings to
live in. Why is it?"
Stuart had expected, and, as it turned out, rightly, that this opening
would give Vellano the opportunity to express himself on Cuban
conditions as he saw them. Stuart was eager for this, for he wanted to
find out where his companion stood, and hoped to find out whether he was
ripe for revolt. But he was surprised at the bitterness and vehemence of
the protest.
"Ah! The Rats that gnaw at the people!" Vellano cried. "The Rats that
hold political jobs and grow fat! The government Rats who care for
nothing except to make and collect taxes to keep the people poor! The
job-holders of this political party, or that political party, or the
other political party! What are they? Rats, all! Tax-Rats!
"Why do the guarijos live like hogs in a sty? The Rats ordain it. It is
the taxes, all on account of the taxes. Consider! All this land you see,
all undeveloped land, belonging, it may be, to only a few wealthy
people, pays no tax, no tax at all. But if a man wishes to make a
living, settles on the ground and begins to cultivate it, that day, yes,
that hour, the owner will demand a high rent. And why will he ask this
rent? Because, Young Senor, as soon as land is cultivated, the
government puts a high tax on it. The Rats punish the farmers for
improving the country.
"What happens? I can tell you what happens in this province of Oriente.
In the province of Camaguey, too. The small farmer finds a piece of good
land. He settles on it--what you Americans call 'squatting'--and, if he
is wise, he says nothing to the owner. Perhaps he will not be found out
for a year or two, perhaps more, but, when he is found, he must pay a
big rent and the owner a big tax. Perhaps the guarijo cannot pay. Then
he must go away.
"Generally he goes. In some other corner, hidden away, he finds another
piece of land. He squats on that, too, hoping that the tax-Rats may not
find him. He does not cultivate much land, for he may be driven off next
day. He does not build a decent house, for he may have to abandon it
before the week's end.
"Suppose he does really wish to rent land, build a house and have a
small plantation, and is willing to pay the rent, however high it be.
Why then, Young Senor, he will learn that it will be many years before
he finds out whether the man to whom he is paying the rent is really the
owner of the land. And if he wishes to buy, it is worse than a lottery.
In this part of the island no surveys have been made--except a circular
survey with no edges marked--and land titles are all confused. Then the
lawyer-Rats thrive."
"It's not like that near Havana," put in Stuart.
"Havana is not Cuba. Only three kinds of people live in Havana: the
Rats, the tourists, and the people who live off the Rats and the
tourists. They spend, and Cuba suffers.
"For the land tax, Senor, is not all! Nearly all the money that the
government spends--that the Rats waste--comes from the tax on imports.
No grain is grown in Cuba, and there is no clothing industry. All our
food and all our clothes are imported, and it is the guarijo who, at
the last, must pay that tax. Young Senor, did you know that, per head of
population, the poor Cuban is taxed for the necessities of life imported
into this island three and a half times as much as the rich American is
taxed for the goods entering the United States?
"Even that is not all. Here, in Cuba, we grow sugar, tobacco,
pineapples, and citrus fruit, like oranges, grapefruit and lemons. Does
America, which made us a republic, help us? No, Young Senor, it hurts
us, hinders us, cripples us. In Hawaii, in Porto Rico, in the southern
part of the United States, live our sugar, tobacco and fruit
competitors. Their products enter American markets without tax. Ours are
taxed. What happens? Cuba, one of the most fertile islands of the West
Indies is poor. The Cuban cultivator, who is willing to be a hard
worker, gives up the fight in disgust and either tries in some way to
get the dollars from the Americans who come here, or else he helps to
ruin his country by getting a political job."
Stuart, listening carefully to this criticism, noticed in Vellano's
voice a note of hatred whenever he used the word "American." Connecting
this with his own suspicion that Cecil was head of a conspiracy against
the United States and that this supposed fisherman was evidently the
Englishman's tool, he asked, casually:
"Then you don't think that the United States did a good thing in
freeing Cuba from Spain?" he hazarded.
To the boy's surprise, his companion burst out approvingly.
"Yes, yes, a magnificent thing! But they did not know it, and they did
not know why! The Americans thought they were championing an oppressed
people struggling for justice. Nothing of the sort. They took the side
of one party struggling for jobs against another party struggling for
jobs. But the result was magnificent. Under the last American Military
Governor, Leonard Wood, Cuba advanced more in two years than she had in
two centuries. When the Americans went away, though, it was worse than
if they had never come. Cubans did not make Cuba a republic, Americans
made Cuba a republic and then abandoned us. Of course, confusion
followed. And in the revolution of 1906 and other revolutions, the
Americans meddled, and yet did nothing. It is idle to deny that American
influence is strong here! But what does it amount to? We are neither
really free, nor really possessed."
"But what do you want?" queried Stuart. "I don't seem to understand. You
don't want to be a possession of Spain, you don't want to be an American
colony, and you don't want to be a republic. What do you want?"
"Do I know?" came the vehement reply. "Does anyone in Cuba know? Does
anyone, anywhere, know? Remember, Young Senor, the Cuban guarijo does
not feel himself to be a citizen of Cuba, as an American farmer feels
himself a citizen of the United States. He has been brought up under
Spanish rule, and is, himself, Spanish in feeling.
"What does he know about a republic? Unless he can get a political job
for himself, unless he sees the chance to be a Rat, he cares nothing
about politics, but he will fight, at any time, under any cause, for any
leader who will promise him a bigger price for his sugar, his tobacco or
his fruit. The World War helped him, for sugar was worth gold. But
now--if the Cuban wishes to say anything to America, he must do it
through the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust or the Fruit Trust.
"What!" Vellano flamed out, "The United States will not answer us when
we pray, nor listen when we speak? Then we will make her hear!"
Upon which, suddenly realizing that in this direct threat he might have
said too much, Vellano dropped the subject. Nothing that Stuart could
suggest would tempt him to say anything more.
The boy had been brought up in Cuba, and, though he had never been in
this eastern part of the island, he knew that a great deal of what his
companion had said was true. At the same time, he realized that Vellano
had not done justice to the modern improvements in Cuba, to the
extension of the railroads, the building of highways, the improvement of
port facilities, the establishment of sugar refineries, the spread of
foreign agricultural colonies, the improved sanitation and water supply
and the development of the island under foreign capital. It was as
foolish, Stuart realized, for Vellano to judge all Cuba from the wild
forest-land of Oriente as it is for the casual tourist to judge the
whole of Cuba from the casinos of Havana.
Cuba is not small. Averaging the width of the State of New Jersey, it
stretches as far as the distance from New York to Indianapolis. Its
eastern and western ends are entirely different. Originally they were
two islands, now joined by a low plain caused by the rising of the
sea-bottom.
Climate, soil and the character of the people vary extremely in the
several provinces. High mountains alternate with low plains, dense
tropical forests are bordered by wastes and desert palm-barrens. Eighty
per cent of the population are Cubans--which mean Spanish and negro
half-breeds with a touch of Indian blood, and of all shades of
color--fifteen per cent Spanish and less than two per cent American.
Foreign colonies are numerous, though small. They are to be found in all
the provinces, and exhibit these same extremes. About one-half have sunk
to a desolation of misery and ruin, one-half have risen to success. As
Stuart once remembered his father having said:
"I will never advise an American, with small capital, to come to Cuba.
If he will devote the same amount of work to a piece of land in the
United States that he will have to give to the land here, he will be
more prosperous, for what he may lose in the lesser fertility of the
land, he will gain by the nearness of the market. There are scores of
derelicts in this island who would have led happy and useful lives in
the United States."
Crossing the hills--by a trail which threatened to shake the cart to
pieces at every jolt--the two travelers reached Palenquito, and thence
descended by a comparatively good road to Vesa Grande and on to Rio
Seco. A mile or so out of the town, Stuart saw the gleaming lines of the
railway and realized that this was to be the end of the long drive.
"I have no money for a trip to Havana!" he remarked.
"That is a pity," answered Vellano gravely, who, since he had searched
the boy's pockets, knew that only a few dollars were to be found
therein, "but Senor Cecil said you were to go to Havana. Therefore, you
will go."
There seemed no reply to this, but Stuart noted that, at the station,
the supposed fisherman produced money enough for two tickets.
"Are you coming, too?" queried Stuart, in surprise.
"Senor Cecil said that I was to see that you did not get lost on the
way," came the quiet answer.
Certainly, Stuart thought, the Englishman's word was a word of power.
From Rio Seco, the train passed at first through heavy tropical forests,
such as those in the depths of which Vellano and Stuart had just driven,
but these were thinned near the railroad by lumbering operations. The
main line was joined a little distance west of Guantanamo. Thence they
traveled over the high plateau land of Central Oriente and Camaguey, on
which many foreign colonies have settled, the train only occasionally
touching the woeful palm barrens which stretch down from the northern
coast.
Vellano, who seemed singularly well informed, kept up a running fire of
comment all the way, most of his utterances being colored by a
resentment of existing conditions--for which he blamed the United
States--and containing a vague hint of some great change to come.
At Ciego de Avila, where a stay of a couple of hours was made, Stuart's
companion pointed out the famous _trocha_ or military barrier which had
been erected by the Spaniards as a protection against the movements of
Cuban insurgents, and which ran straight across the whole island.
This barrier was a clearing, half-a-mile wide; a narrow-gauge railway
ran along its entire length, as did also a high barbed-wire fence. Every
two-thirds of a mile, small stone forts had been built. Each of these
was twenty feet square, with a corrugated iron tower above, equipped
with a powerful searchlight. The forts themselves were pierced with
loopholes for rifle fire and the only entrance was by a door twelve feet
above ground, impossible of entrance after the ladder had been drawn up
from within. The forts were connected by a telephone line. They have all
fallen into ruins and are half swallowed up by the jungle, while the
half mile clearing is being turned into small sugar plantations.
Beyond Ciego, the train passed again through a zone of tropical forest
lands and then dropped into the level plains of Santa Clara, the center
of the sugar industry of Cuba. From there it bore northward toward
Matanzas, through a belt of bristling pineapple fields.
One station before arriving at Havana, Stuart's companion, who showed
signs of fatigue--which were not surprising since he had wakened at
every stop that the train had made during the night to see that the boy
did not get off--prepared to alight.
"You're not going on to Havana?" queried Stuart.
"I shall step off the train here after it has started," replied Vellano.
"There will be no opportunity for you to do the same until the train
stops at the capital. Senor Cecil said only that I was to see that you
did not get lost on the way. He said nothing about what you should do in
Havana. Possibly he has plans of his own."
The train began to move.
"Adios, Young Senor," quoth the supposed fisherman, and dropped off the
train.
During the long train trip, and especially when lying awake in his
berth, Stuart had plenty of time to recall the events of the four days
since he first met Manuel on the streets of Cap Haitien and had offered
himself as a guide to the Citadel of the Black Emperor. Much had passed
since then, and this period of inaction gave the boy time to view the
events in their proper perspective.
The more he thought of them, the more serious they appeared and the more
Stuart became convinced that the plot was directed against United States
authority in Haiti. Perhaps, also, it would attack American commercial
interests in Cuba. As the train approached Havana, Stuart worked himself
up into a fever of anxiety, and, the instant the train stopped, he
dashed out of the carriage and into the streets feeling that he, and he
alone, could save the United States from an international tragedy.