IN A NOVEL PRISON.
I looked with much foreboding upon the faces of the soldiers who had
surrounded us. All were stern almost to the verge of cruelty, and the
face of the captain when he came up was no exception to the rule. Alano
and I learned afterward that Captain Crabo had met the day previous
with a bitter attack from the insurgents, who had wounded six of his
men, and this had put him in anything but a happy frame of mind.
"Who are you?" he demanded in Spanish, as he eyed us sharply.
Alano looked at me in perplexity, and started to ask me what he had
best say, when the Spanish captain clapped the flat side of his sword
over my chum's mouth.
"Talk so that I can understand you, or I'll place you under arrest," he
growled. And then he added, "Are you alone?"
"Yes," said Alano.
"And where are you going?"
"I wish to join my father at Guantanamo. His father is also with
mine," and my chum pointed to me.
"Your name?"
Seeing there was no help for it, Alano told him. Captain Crabo did not
act as if he had heard it before, and we breathed easier. But the next
moment our hearts sank again.
"Well, we will search you, and if you carry no messages and are not
armed, you can go on."
"We have no messages," said Alano. "You can search us and welcome."
He handed over his valise, and I followed suit. Our pistols we had
placed in the inner pockets of our coats. By his easy manner my chum
tried to throw the Spaniards off their guard, but the trick did not
work. After going through our bags, and confiscating several of my silk
handkerchiefs, they began to search our clothing, even compelling us to
remove our boots, and the weapons were speedily brought to light.
"Ha! armed!" cried Captain Crabo. "They are not so innocent as they
seem. We will look into their history a little closer ere we let
them go. Take them to the smoke-house until I have time to make an
investigation to-night. We must be off for Pueblo del Cristo now."
Without ceremony we were marched off across the clearing and around the
back of the stable, where stood a rude stone building evidently built
many years before. Alano told me what the captain had said, and also
explained that the stone building was a smoke-house, where at certain
seasons of the year beef and other meat were hung up to be dried and
smoked, in preference to simple drying in the sun.
As might be expected, the smoke-house was far from being a clean place;
yet it had been used for housing prisoners before, and these had taken
the trouble to brush the smut from the stones inside, so it was not so
dirty as it might otherwise have been.
We were thrust into this building minus our pistols and our valises.
Then the door, a heavy wooden affair swinging upon two rusty iron
hinges, was banged shut in our faces, a hasp and spike were put into
place, and we were left to ourselves.
"Now we are in for it," I began, but Alano stopped me short.
"Listen!" he whispered, and we did so, and heard all of our enemies
retreat. A few minutes later there was the tramping of horses' feet,
several commands in Spanish, and the soldiers rode off.
"They have left us to ourselves, at any rate," said my chum, when we
were sure they had departed. "And we are made of poor stuff indeed if
we cannot pick our way out of this hole."
At first we were able to see nothing, but a little light shone in
through several cracks in the roof, and soon our eyes became accustomed
to the semi-darkness. We examined the walls, to find them of solid
masonry. The roof was out of our reach, the floor so baked it was like
cement.
"We are prisoners now, surely, Mark," said Alano bitterly. "What will
be our fate when that _capitan_ returns?"
"We'll be sent back to Santiago de Cuba most likely, Alano. But we must
try to escape. I have an idea. Can you balance me upon your shoulders,
do you think?"
"I will try it. But what for?"
"I wish to examine the roof."
Not without much difficulty I succeeded in reaching my chum's broad
shoulders and standing upright upon them. I could now touch the ceiling
of the smoke-house with ease, and I had Alano move around from spot to
spot in a close inspection of every bit of board and bark above us.
"Here is a loose board!" I cried in a low voice. "Stand firm, Alano."
He braced himself by catching hold of the stone wall, and I shoved
upward with all of my strength. There was a groan, a squeak; the board
flew upward, and the sun shone down on our heads. I crawled through
the opening thus made, and putting down my hand I helped Alano to do
likewise.
"Drop out of sight of the house!" he whispered. "Somebody may be
watching this place."
We dropped, and waited in breathless silence for several minutes, but
no one showed himself. Then we held a consultation.
"They thought we couldn't get out," I said. "More than likely no one is
left at the homestead but a servant or two."
"If only we could get our bags and pistols," sighed Alano.
"We must get them," I rejoined, "for we cannot go on without them. Let
us sneak up to the house and investigate. I see no dogs around."
With extreme caution we left the vicinity of the smoke-house, and,
crawling on hands and knees, made our way along a low hedge to where
several broad palms overshadowed a side veranda. The door of the
veranda was open, and, motioning to Alano to follow, I ascended the
broad steps and dashed into the house.
"Now where?" questioned my Cuban chum, as we hesitated in the broad and
cool hallway. "Here is a sitting room," and he opened the door to it.
A voice broke upon our ear. A negro woman was singing from the
direction of the kitchen, as she rattled among her earthenware pots.
Evidently she was alone.
"If they left her on guard, we have little to fear," I said, and we
entered the sitting room. Both of us uttered a faint cry of joy, for
there on the table rested our valises and provisions, just as they had
been taken from us. Inside of Alano's bag were the two pistols with the
cartridges.
"Now we can go at once," I said. "How fortunate we have been! Let us
not waste time here."
"They owe us a meal for detaining us," replied my chum grimly. "Let me
explore the pantry in the next room."
He went through the whip-end curtains without a sound, and was gone
several minutes. When he came back his face wore a broad smile and he
carried a large napkin bursting open with eatables of various kinds, a
piece of cold roast pork, some rice cakes, buns, and the remains of a
chicken pie.
"We'll have a supper fit for a king!" he cried. "Come on! I hear that
woman coming."
And coming she was, in her bare feet, along the polished floor. We
had just time left to seize our valises and make our escape when she
entered.
"_Qué quiere V.?_ [What do you want?]" she shouted, and then called
upon us to stop; but, instead, we ran from the dooryard as fast as we
could, and did not halt until the plantation was left a good half mile
behind.
"We are well out of that!" I gasped, throwing myself down under the
welcome shade of a cacao tree. "Do you suppose she will send the
soldiers in pursuit?"
"They would have hard work to find us," replied Alano. "Here, let us
sample this eating I brought along, and then be on our way. Remember we
have still many miles to go."
We partook of some of the chicken pie and some buns, the latter so
highly spiced they almost made me sneeze when I ate them, and then went
on our way again.
Our run had warmed us up, and now the sun beat down upon our heads
mercilessly as we stalked through a tangle where the luxurious
vegetation was knee-high. We were glad enough when we reached another
woods, through which there was a well-defined, although exceedingly
poor, wagon trail. Indeed, let me add, nearly all of the wagon roads
in Cuba, so I have since been told, are wretched affairs at the best.
"We ought to be in the neighborhood of Tiarriba," said Alano about the
middle of the afternoon.
"We won't dare enter the town," I replied. "Those soldiers were going
there, you must remember."
"Oh, the chances are we'll find rebels enough--on the quiet," he
rejoined.
On we went, trudging through sand and shells and not infrequently
through mire several inches to a foot deep. It was hard work, and I
wished more than once that we were on horseback. There was also a brook
to cross, but the bridge was gone and there was nothing left to do but
to ford the stream.
"It's not to our boot-tops," said Alano, after an examination, "so we
won't have to take our boots and socks off. Come; I fancy there is a
good road ahead."
He started into the water, and I went after him. We had reached the
middle of the stream when both of us let out a wild yell, and not
without reason, for we had detected a movement from the opposite bank,
and now saw a monstrous alligator bearing swiftly down upon us!