GILBERT BURNHAM.
"Are you alone?" I asked, when I had recovered sufficiently to speak.
"An American!" came the low cry. "Yes, I am alone. Who are you, and
what do you want?"
"I came to save you--that is, I thought my father was a prisoner here,"
I stammered. "Are you tied up?"
"Worse, chained. But I think the chain can easily be broken. If you'll
help me get away from here, I'll consider myself in your debt for life."
"I'll do what I can for you. But keep quiet, for there are a number of
guards about," I whispered.
With an effort I squeezed through the hole that had been made, and felt
my way to the prisoner's side, for the interior of the cell was dark.
He had a chain around one wrist, and the chain was fastened by a large
staple driven into a log of the wall of the fort.
Jorge had come up behind me, and, learning of the staple, began to cut
at the woodwork surrounding it with his machete. The lower end of the
blade was fairly keen, and he made such rapid progress that in less
than five minutes a sharp jerk cleared the staple from the log, and the
prisoner was free.
"Good for you," he whispered to the colored guide. "Now which is the
way out of this hole?"
"Follow me, and keep very quiet," I whispered, and motioned to Jorge to
lead the way.
Soon the guide had disappeared into the opening we had made. Going from
the prison was worse than getting in, and the man we were trying to
rescue declared the passage-way too small for him.
We commenced to enlarge it, I with my dagger and he with his hands. We
had just made it of sufficient size when we heard a cry from outside.
Jorge had emerged into the open, only to be discovered by a sentry
who chanced to be looking his way. There was a shot, and half a dozen
soldiers came running up, at which the guide took to the river with a
loud splash.
"I'm afraid we are lost!" I cried, and stopped, half in and half out
of the hole. Then the prison door was banged open, and the rays of a
lantern flared into the cell.
The American I had discovered promptly showed fight by leaping on the
intruder. But this was madness, as the soldier was backed up by four
others, all armed with pistols and guns. In the meantime another light
flashed from outside the hole, and I felt myself caught, very much like
a rat in a trap.
"_De donde viene V.?_ [Where do you come from?]" demanded a cold, stern
voice, and I felt myself grabbed by the hair. Realizing that resistance
was useless, I gave myself up, and immediately found myself surrounded
by a dozen Spanish soldiers. In the meantime Jorge had made good his
escape.
The soldiers marched me around to the entrance of the fort, where an
officer began to question me in Spanish. He could speak no English, and
as soon as he found my command of Spanish was very limited he sent off
for an interpreter. Then I was taken inside the fort and consigned to
one of the prison cells.
My feelings can be better imagined than described. Bitterly I regretted
having started on my midnight quest without notifying Captain Guerez.
My hasty action had brought me to grief and placed me in a position
from which escape seemed impossible. What my captors would do with
me remained to be seen. That they would treat me in anything like a
friendly fashion was out of the question to expect. It was likely that
they would hold me as a prisoner of war.
Presently the door of the cell was opened, and somebody else was thrown
in bodily and with such force that he fell headlong. The door was
banged shut and bolted, and the crowd which had been outside went away.
The new arrival lay like a log where he had been thrown, and for a few
minutes I fancied he must be dead from the way he had been treated.
I bent over him, and in the dim light of the early dawn made out that
it was the American I had sought to rescue. I placed my hand over his
heart and discovered that he still breathed, although but faintly.
There was nothing at hand with which I could do anything for him. My
own pockets had been turned inside out by my captors, and even my
handkerchief, with which I might have bound up an ugly wound on his
brow, was gone. I opened his coat and vest and his shirt around the
neck, and gave him as much air as I could.
"Oh!" he groaned, as he finally came to his senses. "Oh! Don't kick me
any more! I give in!"
"You're all right--they have put you in a cell with me," I hastened to
reassure him, and then he sat up.
"Who--what----" he paused. "In a cell, eh? And they caught you, too?"
"Yes."
"That's too bad." He drew a deep breath. "Did you fight with them?"
"No. I saw it would be no use."
"I was a fool to do it. I'm too hot-blooded for this sort of work. I
ought to have stayed in Boston reporting local affairs."
"Are you a reporter?"
"Hush! Yes; but I don't want it to become known if I can help it. They
think I am nothing more than an inquisitive American."
"Then why did they lock you up?"
"That was more of my hot-headedness. I was sketching a picture of the
town and this fort or prison, when a Spanish officer came up and tried
to snatch the drawing from my hand. Instead of demanding an explanation
I promptly knocked him down. Then a couple of guards ran for me, and I
dusted. But it was no use. They sent a company of soldiers after me,
and here I am."
"And here we are both likely to remain for some time to come," I added
bitterly.
"Looks that way, that's a fact. By the way, you said something about
your father, didn't you?"
"Yes. My father is a prisoner of the Spaniards, and I felt almost
certain he was in this fort."
"What's your father's name?"
"Richard Carter. My name is Mark."
"And my name is Gilbert Burnham. I've heard of your father, come to
think of it. He joined the Cuban army along with a plantation owner
named Guerez and another American named Hawley."
"You are right. Did you hear anything at all of him here in Cubineta or
the vicinity?"
"No. But then, you see, that is not strange, as I talk very little
Spanish. I certainly haven't seen any Americans here but you and
myself."
Gilbert Burnham asked me to tell him my story; and, feeling that I
could lose nothing by so doing, I favored him with a recital of my
efforts to get to my father. He was quite interested.
"By Jove, young man, if I get clear from here I'll do what I can to
help you," he said.
Then he told me his own history--how he had grown tired of newspaper
reporting in Boston and begged the head editor of the paper he
represented to send him on an "assignment" to Cuba. He had been in the
island four months, and had had a varied list of adventures, although
none of a particularly thrilling or perilous nature.
"But now it looks as though I was in for it," he concluded moodily.
"That officer I knocked down will make matters as hard as he can for
me."
"And I'm afraid trying to break away from prison won't help matters," I
said.
"You are right there. But, heigho! we must make the best of it."
Yet making the best of it was small satisfaction to me. Tired out in
body and mind, I sank down in a corner of the gloomy and damp cell and
gave myself up to my bitter reflections.