“CUBA LIBRE.”
“I love thee, I love thee
Far better than wine,
But the curse is above me--
Thou’lt never be mine!
“As the blade wears the scabbard,
The billow the shore,
So sorrow doth fret me
For evermore.
“Fair beauty, I’ll leave thee
To conquer my heart;
I’ll see thee, I’ll bless thee
And then--depart.
“Let me take, ere I vanish,
One look of thine eyes,
One smile for remembrance,
For life soon flies.
“And now for the fortune
That hangeth above,
And to bury in battle
My dream of love.”
The stranger sighed as he turned his hollow eyes on Viola’s pale face,
replying:
“I will hasten, for I know all the anguish of suspense myself too
well to inflict it on another, so will go back to the time in April,
1896, when I first made the acquaintance of Rolfe Maxwell, whom I
envied above all things for his newly achieved fame as a great war
correspondent.”
“Yes, oh, yes!” breathed Viola, eagerly, her deep eyes burning on his
face as he continued:
“In March a year ago I came from my home in Florida to Cuba with
the intention of enlisting in the army to fight for the freedom
of that fair isle of the sea, but owing to a physical defect, an
organic weakness of the heart, I was not accepted. Through sheer
disappointment, I was quite ill for days afterward, during which I made
the acquaintance of Rolfe Maxwell, whom I admired and envied equally as
a journalist who had leaped into sudden but well-deserved fame as the
capable correspondent of a leading newspaper in New York.
“He was so kind to me in my illness that we became great friends, and
confidential enough for me to suspect that the brilliant, versatile
young man had suffered some crushing disappointment in love that had
embittered his cheerful nature to the verge of despair.”
“Alas!” breathed Viola, while her father stifled a sigh of keen
self-reproach for the fatal blunder he had made in parting Rolfe and
Viola.
The stranger sighed in sympathy, and went on with his story:
“Finding that I could not enlist in the army, my next ambition was to
become a correspondent, so as to let my pen at least be employed in
defending the cause of the heroic revolutionists, whom I regarded as
the noblest, most injured of men.
“But even here I was balked in my aspirations, the journalistic field
being so fully covered that no opening was left for me, dooming me to
inaction, while my whole soul burned with fiery ardor in Cuba’s cause.
“At this juncture Rolfe Maxwell came to my aid with a startling
proposition that we should change names, he resigning to me his
journalistic position and enlisting in the army, for which his
education at West Point, his sympathy with the Cubans, and his reckless
state of mind equally fitted him. Indeed, he confessed to me that his
preference was the army, and that he should have entered it on first
coming to Cuba but for the thought of his widowed mother, who would
have grieved unceasingly.
“‘I will own to you, my friend, that I have a secret, intolerable
sorrow that goads me to despair,’ he said to me, with a sadness that
made my heart ache in sympathy. ‘I wedded the most lovely and charming
girl on earth, only to find that she came to regret the bonds that
fettered us, and to wish herself free. I swear to you that the dearest
wish of my heart is to end my hopeless pain by a brave and honorable
death on the field of battle.’”
Viola, unable to control her emotion, burst into a fit of passionate
sobbing, crying:
“Oh, there was a terrible mistake that wrecked both our lives, and he
went away too soon in his rash pride to find out the real truth that I
loved him with the same tenderness he bore to me. But now, alas! ’tis
too late! He will never know how well I loved him! You are going to
tell me he is dead!”
“My story is almost ended,” he answered, evasively, as she stifled her
bursting sobs, permitting him to proceed:
“Our arrangements for the harmless fraud we proposed were easily
made, and I will not enter into them, thus protracting your suspense.
Suffice it to say that I can not understand why you did not learn
that he still lived after his reported shooting, as it was planned he
should still write his mother under his own name. Perhaps his letters
went astray, and were not received. Anyway, he went into the army and
distinguished himself under my name, while I, within two weeks, and
just as I was earning welcome laurels as a correspondent, was arrested
and thrown into prison under his pseudonym. There I remained until this
week, denied all communication with the world outside my dungeon door,
expecting to be shot any time at day-break, with the hundreds whose
death-knells each morning echoed dismally across the water, announcing
the dawn of a new day, and feeling myself already as dead as if the
grave had closed over me. That is all, except that on my release from
prison I learned that Rolfe Maxwell, under my name of Arthur Linwood,
had earned the rank of captain in the Cuban army, and covered himself
with glory.”
“Linwood--Captain Linwood!” almost shrieked Viola, who had read so
often of the brave young American whose deeds of daring on many a
hard-fought field had won the plaudits of the admiring world.
“Yes, Captain Linwood,” repeated Arthur Linwood; adding: “The Cubans
fairly worship this gallant hero, who has risked his life so often to
serve their cause, and I am told that America also is proud of her
gallant son. When I go home tomorrow his countrymen shall hear through
their favorite newspaper the whole story of his identity and of my
release. It is a story that will thrill their hearts with pride and
sorrow.”
“Sorrow?” echoed Viola, with a convulsive start; and he answered,
reluctantly:
“The saddest part of my story must be told now. You may have heard of
the recent terrible fighting in the Province of Santa Clara. Well,
the news from the battle-field yesterday reported Captain Linwood as
mortally wounded.”