almost from the moment of starting, conducted the party to the entrance
of a very wild, romantic, and picturesque-looking gorge which seemed to
pierce right into the very heart of the mountains. For some time the
going had been growing increasingly difficult, especially for the two
horsemen; and now a single glance ahead sufficed to show that it must
speedily become impossible for mounted men, for the side of the mountain
grew increasingly steep, as one looked forward, until, about a quarter
of a mile farther on, it seemed to be practically perpendicular, while
the pine trees grew so thickly that in places it appeared as though
there would be scarcely room for a man, much less a horse, to pass;
moreover, the side of the hill was covered with big outcrops of rock,
interspersed with loose boulders, to pass over and among which would
require a clear head, a steady eye, and a sure foot. The two young men
therefore determined to dismount forthwith and proceed on foot, leaving
their horses in charge of one of the negroes.
And it was well that they did so, for the path almost immediately grew
so steep and difficult that before they had advanced another hundred
yards the party found it necessary to frequently drop on their hands and
knees to pass some of the more awkward places without being precipitated
into the stream which they heard brawling some hundreds of feet below
them at the bottom of the ravine. And now, as they slowly and with
difficulty made their way along the steep mountain-side, a low murmur,
gradually growing in strength and volume of sound, told them that they
were approaching a waterfall or cataract of some sort: and after another
half-hour of exhausting and perilous crawling, and slipping, and sliding
over the loose and shaley ground, they came in sight of it as it opened
out before them from behind an enormous, precipitous crag--a solid
column of water about twenty feet in diameter, leaping out of a narrow
cleft in the rock some three hundred feet above them, and gradually
resolving itself into mist as it plunged down into the dark and gloomy
depths of the gorge below. To Carlos--and still more to Jack--it seemed
impossible that the fugitive should have chosen to pursue the track
which they were now following--for to where did it lead? The place was
quite new to Carlos; he had never been there before, and it seemed
unlikely in the extreme that a stranger to the neighbourhood as Alvaros
was would know more about it than one who had dwelt only a few miles off
during practically his whole life: yet Juan was now pressing on, a long
way ahead, as though he were following on a hot scent, and presently he
disappeared altogether in a thick cluster of fir trees high up the side
of the hill. Ten minutes later he emerged on the other side of the
clump and went scrambling toward the spot where the stream of water
spouted out of the rock. Then Carlos saw him suddenly stop and look
steadily down the almost vertical side of the mountain, then at the
ground at his feet. It took the two lads nearly a quarter of an hour to
reach the spot where Juan stood, now surrounded by the other four
negroes, to whom he was talking animatedly; and, as they approached, the
Fantee pointed to some scars on the hillside which looked as though they
had been quite recently made by the passage of some heavy body.
"Look, Senores," he cried; "that is where the Spaniard has gone! A
loose boulder caught him just here and swept him down into the gorge
below. We shall never see him again!"
Carlos and Jack looked. Yes; the marks were precisely such as a falling
boulder would make, and they were apparently quite fresh, possibly less
than half an hour old. But how did Juan know that Alvaros had gone down
the hillside with the boulder? Jack asked the question.
"Because," answered the black triumphantly, "he came as far as this--as
we have seen by his footprints--but went no farther; there are no more
footprints to be found. And see, the boulder struck the ground just
here"--pointing to a big, raw dint in the soil--"and bounded off,
striking again down there where you see that mark. It must have struck
here just as the Spaniard reached the spot, and hurled him down to the
bottom of the gorge before it. He is doubtless down there at the bottom
of the stream, at this moment, pinned down by the boulder that killed
him!" And the other negroes emphatically corroborated the statements
and suggestions.
To Jack and Carlos the theory enunciated by Juan appeared quite
possible. Of course they had to accept Juan's word for it that the
fugitive's footsteps had been followed thus far, and had utterly
disappeared at the precise spot where the boulder--or whatever it was--
had struck. But, this much granted, the remainder of the story seemed
quite plausible, seemed indeed the only possible explanation; and since
it was quite impossible to test its truth or falsehood without
descending to the river below--which was also an impossibility--they
were disposed to accept it as true.
And thus, very materially assisted by the fortuitous fall of a boulder
down a hillside, did the negroes on Senor Montijo's estate successfully
hoodwink their white masters, and effectually and for ever put a stop to
any further enquiries as to what had become of Major Alvaros, of His
Spanish Majesty's light infantry, and erstwhile Governor of La Jacoba.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE WAR-CLOUD OVERSHADOWS THE HACIENDA MONTIJO.
For the first fortnight or three weeks following the evanishment of
Senor Alvaros a considerable degree of uneasiness prevailed at the
hacienda Montijo, the inmates of which daily looked for the appearance
of some emissary of the Spanish Government, charged with the duty of
investigating the circumstances connected with the disappearance of an
important Spanish official: and it was recognised that not only would
the enquiries of such an individual be difficult to reply to, but also
that his presence would incidentally result in the discovery that the
members of the Montijo family, instead of being at Fernando Po, were--
with one exception--at home again. It was admitted to be a contingency
that needed careful yet firm handling, and after much consideration a
plan was evolved by Jack and Carlos which it was believed would deal
effectively with the difficulty, and the necessary steps were taken.
But as day after day passed without bringing upon them the complication
which they apprehended, their uneasiness rapidly lessened, until at
length a day arrived when the conviction forced itself upon them that
the attention of the Spanish Government was so fully occupied with other
and much more important matters that the disappearance of Senor Alvaros
seemed likely to be permitted to pass without especial notice. And
thereupon Jack undertook to pay a visit to Don Ramon Bergera in Havana,
with the object of ascertaining, as far as possible, what was the
attitude of the Spanish official mind upon the subject. He accordingly
set out for Pinar del Rio one morning after early breakfast, and arrived
in Havana the same afternoon, intending to return to the hacienda
Montijo on the following day. But he remained in Havana a full
fortnight, during which he and Don Ramon learned many things--among
them, the facts that Senor Alvaros was solely responsible for the arrest
and attempted transportation of the Montijos, and also for the seizure
of the estate--neither of which acts had been reported to the Capitan-
General, or been officially recorded: and that, doubtless because of
these important reasons, when he had set out on his last journey to
visit the estate which he had thus secretly seized, he had omitted to
mention to anyone his intentions, his destination, or the probable
duration of his absence, with the result that eventually, when the
accumulated arrears of his work at length attracted attention and
provoked enquiry, nobody could throw the least light upon his
whereabouts. The conviction had therefore at length been arrived at
that--the man being well-known as possessing a singularly arrogant,
overbearing, and irascible disposition--he had perished in some obscure
and, quite possibly, discreditable quarrel; and his post as Governor of
La Jacoba Prison had been given to another man. These particulars had
been gleaned by dint of very patient and careful enquiry on the part of
Don Ramon, so judiciously conducted that not a particle of suspicion had
anywhere been raised that any enquiry at all was being made: and with
them Jack returned to the hacienda and restored tranquillity to the
minds of its inhabitants, for it had now been made clear not only that
they might dismiss all apprehension of embarrassing enquiry concerning
the fate of Senor Alvaros, but also that nobody was likely to dispute
Don Hermoso's right to retain his own property.
But no sooner were their minds relieved upon this point than they were
filled with apprehension on another, namely, poor Senora Montijo's
mental condition, which seemed to steadily grow worse. For the first
few months of the unfortunate lady's affliction she had been very quiet,
giving no trouble at all, and appearing to suffer chiefly from complete
loss of memory. But now, just at the moment when Jack and Carlos were
completing their preparations to take the field with the rebel forces, a
change for the worse occurred: her memory returned to her
intermittently, bringing with it the recollection of her daughter's
fate, and then, by some peculiar mental process, nothing would console
the unhappy mother but the presence and companionship of her son and
Jack; and if the lads happened to be both absent when these paroxysms of
revived memory occurred, the poor lady quickly became plunged into a
condition of such abysmal despair and such maniacal violence that she
was for the time being a menace to herself and everybody else. Nobody
but Carlos or Jack seemed to have the power of soothing her, and
sometimes the combined efforts of both were needed: thus it came about
that many months passed, during which the two youths felt themselves
constrained to remain within call, and to devote themselves to the task
of alleviating the misery of the unhappy lady.
Meanwhile, the rebellion, which had arisen in the first instance in the
province of Santiago, was for some time confined to the eastern end of
the island. At the moment of its outbreak Spain had a garrison of some
seventeen thousand men in Cuba, which was an amply sufficient force to
have stamped out the rising, had the authorities dealt with it
energetically. But they either could not, or would not, see, until it
was too late, that serious trouble was impending; and when at length
this fact was recognised, and the garrison raised to some thirty
thousand men, the rebellion had made such headway that the rebels
already had a force of four thousand men in the field, with Maximo Gomez
as its Commander-in-chief, and Antonio Maceo as second in command. At
this time, however, very few whites had actually taken up arms in the
revolutionary cause, for Gomez was a native of San Domingo, while Maceo
was a mulatto, and the whites in Cuba entertained the same objection to
serving under coloured men that is to be found practically all the world
over. But this was more than compensated for by the great accession of
coloured recruits attracted to the insurgent ranks by the appearance of
Maceo in a position of authority. At the same time secret committees
were formed in every town in Cuba for the purpose of preaching the
gospel of revolt, with the result that the whole province of Santiago
and the greater part of Puerto Principe quickly became aflame.
General Martinez Campos, the Capitan-General of the island, at length
began to realise the increasing gravity of the situation, and sent to
his home government a report to the effect that, in consequence of the
rapid spread of the rebellion, it would be absolutely necessary to
occupy every province of the island in force, and to vigorously attack
the insurgents wherever met with in the field; and that, to do this
effectively, he must have still more troops. Accordingly, more troops
were dispatched, with the result that by the end of the year 1895 the
Spanish arms in Cuba totalled no less than one hundred thousand men,
while the rebel strength had increased to ten thousand, who, however,
were very badly in need of arms, ammunition, and stores. Consequently
Milsom, in the _Thetis_, was kept busy at this time picking up supplies
wherever he could get them, and then smuggling them into the island with
a boldness and ingenuity that completely baffled all the efforts of the
Spaniards to detect him.
The proportion of Spanish troops to the revolutionary forces was at this
time, it will be observed, as ten to one. This, on paper, appears to be
enormous, yet it was not so in reality: for, whereas the Cubans were all
native to the soil and inured to the climate, and were, moreover,
familiar with the topography of the country, the Spanish soldiers were
mostly young, raw recruits, poor shots, quite new to service in the
Tropics, unacclimatised, of poor stamina, and therefore peculiarly
liable to fall victims to the fever and dysentery which follow upon
exposure to tropical rain. Moreover, they were badly fed, and worse
looked after; the great disparity between the strength of the two forces
was consequently much more apparent than real. Then, too, the Spanish
officers were mostly of very indifferent quality: they suffered from the
same climatic disabilities as their men; the heat enervated them to such
an extent that they could not be induced to take the least trouble about
anything, or undertake the least labour; they made no attempt to improve
the quality of their men's shooting; they were lax in the enforcement of
discipline--save, perhaps, in the exaction of a proper measure of
respect from their subordinates; they were strangers to the island and
quite ignorant of its topography, and they were too indolent to attempt
to learn anything of it; and, lastly, the maps with which they had been
supplied were even worse than useless, for they were absolutely
misleading. Thus the insurgents experienced no difficulty in eluding
the pursuit of the Spanish forces, and in luring them, time after time,
into carefully prepared traps, from which escape was only possible at
the cost of heavy loss.
The insurgents were careful that news of their oft-repeated successes
against the Spanish troops should be published throughout the island,
despite the desperate efforts of the authorities to suppress it; and, as
a consequence, new recruits were constantly being added to their ranks.
The insurrectionary movement grew apace; and at length a provisional
Government was formed, with the Marquez de Cisneros at its head, as
President of the Cuban Republic. The first act of the new Government
was to divide up the entire island into different districts; and over
each district was appointed a civilian as Prefect. It was of course
only natural that the Prefecture of the Pinar del Rio district should be
offered to Don Hermoso Montijo; but when he was made fully acquainted
with the views of the provisional Government he declined it, for he
considered that these views on certain points were so extreme as to
render the Government unpopular, and to bring absolute ruin upon a very
important section of the community, the planters to wit. One of the
proposals of the new Government was to impose certain taxes for the
purpose of raising funds wherewith to carry on the revolutionary
movement, and to this there could of course be no reasonable objection;
but when it was further proposed that non-payment of those taxes should
be punished by the destruction of the buildings and crops and the
seizure of the live stock of defaulters, Don Hermoso asserted that such
action was altogether too drastic, and savoured too much of tyranny to
meet with his approval, and he firmly declined to associate himself in
any way with it, electing to continue instead to serve the movement, as
heretofore, by lavish contributions of money, and the assistance of the
yacht.
The next step of the insurgent leaders was also one of which Don Hermoso
very strongly disapproved, and against which he passionately pleaded--in
vain, with the result that a certain feeling of estrangement, not very
far removed from enmity, arose between him and the leading spirits of
the revolution. The latter, it appeared, had conceived the idea that so
long as industry was permitted to flourish in the island, so long would
Spain be able to find the necessary funds for the maintenance of a large
army in Cuba; but that the moment industry ceased, the fountain of
revenue must run dry, and the troops must be withdrawn. They therefore
determined to march their forces right through the island to Havana,
destroying everything before them; and this terrible resolution they
carried into effect, with the result that their track became a long line
of burnt cane fields and fire-blackened buildings, the owners of which,
whether Spaniards or Cubans, foes or sympathisers, were of course
absolutely ruined. The Capitan-General, with ten thousand men, vainly
strove to check this terrible advance, but the insurgents easily eluded
him and forced their way into the western provinces; with the result
that the home Government superseded Campos, sending out in his stead
General Don Valeriano y Nicolan Weyler, a man of wide military
experience, and possessing a sinister and unenviable reputation for
energy and relentless severity.
The dispatch of such a man as General Weyler to Cuba was undoubtedly
due, in a very great measure, to the fact that the United States of
America, keeping a watchful eye upon the struggle going on, as it were,
at its very doors, manifested a rapidly increasing disposition to
sympathise with the insurgents, fighting gallantly for their liberty
against an almost overwhelming force. This exhibition of sympathy,
which the Americans took no especial pains to conceal, was highly
offensive to Spain, and unquestionably went far toward strengthening her
determination to suppress the revolution by force of arms; wherefore she
not only dispatched General Weyler to Cuba, but also sent with and after
him troops sufficient to raise the Spanish army in the island to the
number of two hundred and thirty-five thousand men, including guerrillas
and volunteers.
Meanwhile, Antonio Maceo, with a force of nearly four thousand men, had
penetrated so far west as the province of New Filipipa, where he
established himself in a stronghold among the fastnesses of the Sierras
de los Organos, or Organ Mountains, from which he swept down at frequent
intervals, first upon one town in the neighbourhood and then upon
another, harassing and cutting up the Spanish garrisons in them, and
generally making of himself a thorn in the flesh of Weyler. The spot in
which he had established himself was distant only some ten miles, as the
crow flies, from the hacienda Montijo; and he had no sooner made himself
comfortable in his new quarters than he surprised and slightly
discomposed the inhabitants of the casa by paying them a flying visit.
He had been one of the most determined advocates, and the most ruthless
executant, of the Republican Government's policy of destructive
suppression of the island's industries, and Don Hermoso's firm
opposition to that policy had created something very nearly approaching
to bad blood between the two; but now, when it was too late, he probably
recognised the disastrous mistake that had been made, for it soon became
apparent that the chief, if not the sole, object of his visit was to
endeavour to regain Don Hermoso's good opinion. But the attempt was not
wholly successful; and he did not repeat his visit. The presence of
Maceo and four thousand very imperfectly disciplined guerrilla troops,
most of whom were coloured men, not too careful in their discrimination
between friend and foe, was a double menace of a very serious character
to Don Hermoso: for, on the one hand, they were certain, sooner or
later, to attract a large body of Spaniards to the neighbourhood, for
the purpose of hunting them down; while, on the other, should the
patriots find themselves hard pressed, it was quite on the cards that
they might take it into their heads to sweep down upon the estate and
destroy it utterly, in order to prevent the possibility of the Spaniards
seizing it and operating therefrom against them. These two
possibilities were anxiously discussed over the dinner-table of the casa
Montijo; and it was finally decided that on the following day steps
should be taken to put the estate into a condition of defence against
both parties.
Now there were three--and only three--possible ways of approach to the
estate, the first being by the main road from Pinar del Rio; the second
by the cross-country route which Jack and Carlos had followed when
riding into Pinar del Rio on the occasion of their intervention in the
_James B. Potter_ incident; and the third by the route which Alvaros
was supposed to have taken on the occasion of his flight, this being the
road from the mountains by which Maceo had travelled. This last was an
exceedingly difficult route, so difficult, indeed, that there were
several spots at which it could be made absolutely impassable with very
little difficulty, the most suitable of all, perhaps, being at the
waterfall near which Alvaros was supposed to have met his death. At
this spot the road--or, rather, path--crossed the ravine by way of an
enormous overhanging rock which jutted out from the hillside immediately
over the place where the stream flung itself down into the gorge
beneath; and, even so, it needed a man with a steady head and good
nerves to traverse it, for it was necessary to get from the overhanging
rock across a chasm of nearly twelve feet in width to another large rock
on the opposite side. A careful examination of this spot convinced Jack
that a few pounds of blasting powder, judiciously placed beneath the
overhanging mass of rock, would send it hurtling down into the gorge
beneath and thus effectually bar all passage in that direction; and this
was immediately done. The carriage road from Pinar del Rio could be
almost, as easily defended, for, at a few yards from the main road, the
private road giving access to Don Hermoso's estate was carried across a
wide stream by means of a single-arched masonry bridge, which bridge
could be readily destroyed by means of dynamite; and Jack soon made all
the arrangements for its destruction, if necessary, at a moment's
notice. As for the cross-country road, it, too, led across a stream,
much too deep and swift to be forded, and only passable at the point
where Jack, Carlos, and their guide, Carnero, had jumped their horses
across it. The country on the far side was open for more than a mile,
affording not sufficient cover to shelter a rabbit, much less a man; and
Jack was of opinion that a Maxim, mounted in a small earthwork which
might be thrown up by a few men in less than an hour, would prove amply
sufficient to defend the passage against any force that would be likely
to be sent against them. Three days, therefore, after Maceo's visit to
the hacienda saw their preparations for defence complete, save in the
important matter of the Maxims and their ammunition; and two of these,
together with a number of rifles, came to hand some three weeks later,
Jack having undertaken to proceed to the Laguna de Cortes and there
await the arrival of the _Thetis_ with another cargo of contraband of
war which she was to land at that spot. The stuff had been purchased
with Don Hermoso's money, and Jack therefore felt justified in
appropriating as much of it as he considered might be required. He also
commandeered one of half a dozen very handsome twelve-pounder field
guns, together with a considerable quantity of ammunition. And when he
got back with his spoils he took upon himself the duties of musketry
instructor to the negroes on the estate, who were knocked off work an
hour earlier every evening for the purpose; and, by dint of the exercise
of almost inexhaustible patience, he contrived to make very excellent
marksmen of a good percentage of them.