staff had succeeded in making good their escape from that field of
slaughter; and as it was anticipated that the Spaniards, infuriated by
their terrible reverse, would be more than likely to seek an early
revenge, Jack and Carlos were kept very busy during the ensuing
fortnight in so far improving the defences of the estate as to render it
practically impregnable. The remains of the wrecked stone bridge were
removed, and a timber drawbridge was built in its place; entrenchments
were dug commanding the approach to it and to the one or two other spots
where it was thought that the passage of the river might possibly be
forced; a further supply of ammunition was sent for; and a small lookout
and semaphore station was constructed on the hillside, at a point which
commanded a view of every possible approach to the estate. And then
ensued a period of rather trying inactivity, during which Jack and
Carlos were kept constantly on the tenterhooks of expectancy, vainly
striving to get some inkling of the intentions of the enemy.
Then at length came the news that General Weyler, baffled in his efforts
to force a general engagement with, the enemy, and galled by the
constant heavy losses which he was sustaining, through the ravages of
disease and at the hands of the insurgents, had issued an order for the
concentration of the entire rural population in the fortified towns, in
order that they might thus be prevented from supplying the various bands
of armed revolutionaries with provisions and other necessaries. The
effect of this cruel and tyrannical order was to drive practically every
man into the ranks of the rebels--since he could no longer follow his
vocation without exposing himself to severe punishment for disobedience;
while the women and children, to the number of some sixty thousand, were
perforce obliged to obey the decree, and, forsaking their homes, betake
themselves to the towns. But no sooner had they done so than it became
apparent that no sufficient provision had been made for their
maintenance; and, since it was impossible for them to earn a living for
themselves, the suffering and loss of life among these unfortunates
quickly assumed appalling proportions, to the horror and indignation of
the American people, who had been watching, with steadily and rapidly
growing disapproval, the peculiar methods of the Spaniards for the
suppression of the rebellion. It was the opinion of America, indeed--
and not of America alone, it may be said--that there would have been no
rebellion in Cuba but for the gross corruption and inefficiency of the
local government; and that the proper method of suppression was, not
force of arms, but the introduction of reforms into the system of
government. The fact is, that the state of affairs in Cuba was
generating a strong and increasing feeling of hostility between the
United States of America and Spain; for while, on the one hand, the
outspoken comments of the American press deeply wounded the sensitive
pride of the Spanish nation, which could ill brook anything that even in
the remotest degree savoured of censure, or of interference with its own
private affairs, the determination of that nation to manage those
affairs in such manner as seemed to it most fit led to many ill-advised
acts, tending to further strengthen the sympathy of the freedom-loving
American for the oppressed and persecuted Cuban--a sympathy which found
expression in the generous supply of munitions of war to the insurgents.
This feeling of mutual hostility was further strengthened about this
time--that is to say, in June of the year 1896--by what was spoken of at
the time as the _Competitor_ incident. The _Competitor_ was a vessel
manned by a crew consisting, with one solitary exception, of citizens of
the United States; and in the month above-named she was surprised and
captured on the north-west coast of the island by the Spanish
authorities, immediately after landing a cargo of arms and ammunition
destined for Maceo and his little army of patriots. The crew of the
ship were forthwith tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot: but
under the treaties existing between the United States and Spain it was
specially provided that, unless American citizens were actually in arms
against Spain when captured, they could only be proceeded against before
the ordinary tribunals; the United States, therefore, through General
Lee, its Consul-General in Havana, promptly intervened on behalf of the
crew, declaring that their trial by court martial was illegal. Spain as
promptly retorted that she was perfectly justified in the action which
she had taken, and manifested a very strong disposition to abide by the
decision of the court martial, and execute its sentence. But the United
States remained so inflexibly firm, and made it so clear that it would
tolerate no departure whatsoever from the terms of the treaty, that
Spain, after holding out as long as she dared, was at length compelled
to yield and order a new trial by ordinary process; with the result that
the ship's crew, after having been kept for a long time in prison, were
eventually released and expelled from the island. This incident greatly
embittered the relations between the two nations, Spain especially
resenting the humiliation of defeat; and there seems very little doubt
that it was the primal cause which led up to the Spanish-American War.
One day, as the little party at the casa Montijo were about to sit down
to second breakfast, Antonio Maceo suddenly made his appearance.
"Good-day, Senores!" he exclaimed, as he mounted the steps leading to
the front veranda. "Good-day, Senora! And how are you to-day?"
"Quite well, thank you, Senor," answered the Senora. "And you? But I
need scarcely ask; the mountain air evidently agrees with you. This is
a quite unexpected pleasure, Senor Antonio."
"You mean my visit to you, Senora? It is very good of you to say so.
Not knowing what facilities you may have for obtaining news, I thought I
would come down to let you know that I believe we have at length driven
the Spaniards completely out of the neighbourhood. Your friend General
Echague attacked us in force about a month ago, with the avowed
determination, as I have since learned, of dislodging us from our
stronghold; and we had the most splendid fight that I have ever
participated in. We allowed him to gradually drive us back some six
miles into the mountains, until we had drawn him into a very carefully
prepared ambuscade, and there we punished him so severely that I believe
he will not again dare to trouble us, especially as I learn that the
general himself was severely wounded. But," he continued, taking Don
Hermoso by the arm and leading him to the end of the veranda, out of
earshot of the Senora, "that is not what I came down to tell you. I
learned, only yesterday, that that fiend Weyler, maddened by his
inability to check the progress of the rebellion, and the failure of his
arms generally, has personally taken the field at the head of an army of
sixty thousand men, and is marching through Havana, on his way to Pinar
del Rio, carrying fire and sword through the province, and leaving
behind him nothing but black and blood-stained ruin. Before he left
Havana he proclaimed that a free pardon would be granted to all
insurgents who should choose to surrender themselves to the Spanish
authorities, and a certain number of those among us who have become
incapacitated through sickness have, with the consent of the leaders,
accepted his offer: but their surrender, so far from weakening us, has
strengthened our hands, for we no longer have them to nurse and look
after. But he has also issued another order, to the effect that the
Spanish troops, while marching through the country, will henceforth
destroy all buildings, crops, cattle, and other property which may be
capable of sheltering or assisting the insurgents in any way whatsoever;
and, furthermore, that all persons met with who have disobeyed the
`concentration' order will be treated as rebels--which means that they
will be tried by drum-head court martial and shot. I don't know whether
or not you have yet heard this news, Senor Hermoso, but you have aided
us thus far in so magnificently generous a manner that I deemed it my
duty to come down and make certain, and also to warn you of what you may
expect if Weyler should happen to find you here. As for me, I have come
to the conclusion that I can do no good by remaining pent up among the
mountains, while it is equally certain that with four thousand men I
cannot hope successfully to encounter Weyler and his sixty thousand. I
have therefore determined to endeavour to slip through the _trocha_ and
demonstrate against Havana, in the hope that Weyler will thus be induced
to abandon his march and return to protect the city. So far as you are
concerned, my advice to you is that you leave this place at once, and
either accompany me or fly to some place of safety, whichever you
please. But in either case you cannot do better, I think, than turn all
your negroes over to me, with such arms as you can spare."
"Come in and take some breakfast with us," said Don Hermoso. "This is
serious news indeed, and what it is best to do, under the circumstances,
is a matter that is not to be decided in a moment; it needs careful
consideration, and therefore I will talk it over after breakfast with
you--if you can spare me an hour or two--my son, and the young
Englishman, who, although only a lad, seems to have a man's head on his
shoulders. My present inclination is to remain where I am, and let
Weyler do his worst. I believe that, with the dispositions which we
have made since Echague's attack upon us, we can hold the estate against
all comers."
And when, after an hour's earnest conference a little later on in the
day, and a tour of the estate in the company of Don Hermoso, Carlos, and
Jack, Antonio Maceo took his leave, in order to return to his men among
the mountains, he expressed the opinion that, given an ample supply of
ammunition, and a sufficient store of provisions, it was just possible
that Don Hermoso might be able to hold even Weyler and his sixty
thousand men at bay. Whereupon it was decided that the attempt should
be made.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
A GALLANT DEFENCE.
It is not to be supposed that so momentous a decision as that mentioned
at the close of the last chapter could be arrived at without bringing
the occupants of the hacienda face to face with many anxieties, one of
the most serious of which was, undoubtedly, the question whether the
ammunition for which they had sent would arrive ere the appearance upon
the scene of General Valeriano y Nicolan Weyler, with his devastating
army of sixty thousand men. If it did, all might possibly be well; but
if it did not--well, in that case disaster was practically certain. For
nearly a week they hung painfully upon the tenterhooks of suspense,
waiting for news; and the only news which reached them was to the effect
that the new Capitan-General, with characteristic vigour, had issued the
most rigorous instructions for a vigilant patrol of the entire coast
line of the island to be maintained, with the express object of
preventing any further landing of munitions of war of any description
whatsoever, the obvious conclusion at which he had arrived being that if
such supplies could be effectually stopped the rebellion must eventually
be starved out of existence for want of them. But, after a long week of
keenest anxiety, intelligence arrived that Milsom had succeeded in
eluding the _guardacostas_, and had landed his cargo in a small cove
under the lee of San Domingo Point, on the south coast; and that the
moiety of that cargo asked for by Don Hermoso was even then well on its
way to the estate. The next day it arrived, and was safely stored, to
the great relief of the defenders, who now found themselves possessed of
a supply of ammunition ample enough to enable them, with care, to
withstand a siege of a month's duration, if need be; while they doubted
very much whether General Weyler would be disposed to devote even half
that amount of time to their subjugation.
But the ammunition came to hand only just in the nick of time: for on
the very day of its arrival the anxious watchers became aware of a faint
odour of burning on the breeze; and when at length darkness closed down
upon them, the sky to the eastward glowed red, showing that Weyler and
his destroyers were at hand. With the dawn the smell of burning became
more pronounced; the hitherto crystalline clearness of the air was seen
to be dimmed by a thin veil of brownish-blue vapour; and the lookout in
his eyrie far up the mountain-side signalled that flames and thick smoke
were visible in the direction of Consolacion del Sur. As the day
progressed the haze with which the air was charged grew thicker, the
taint of fire and smoke more pungent, and an occasional vibration of the
atmosphere suggested to those who became conscious of it the boom of
distant artillery; while with the approach of nightfall the whole of the
eastern sky became suffused with a flickering, ruddy light, the lookout
up the mountain signalling that the entire country to the eastward, as
far as the eye could see, seemed to be in flames.
On the morrow all these signs of destruction became very greatly
accentuated: with the passage of every hour the atmosphere became more
thickly charged with smoke, more pungent with the smell of burning;
clouds of black ash darkened the sky from time to time, as they were
swept along upon the wings of the strong breeze; dense columns of smoke
rising here and there showed where the spoilers were at work upon
properties so near at hand that they could now be identified and named;
while the frequent rattle and crash of rifle fire seemed to indicate
that there were others who, like Don Hermoso, were not prepared to stand
supinely by and see their entire possessions destroyed. Work was still
being carried on by Don Hermoso's _employes_, but they had been turned-
to that morning with the injunction that at the sound of the alarm bell
they were to instantly drop their tools and muster before the shed in
which the arms were stored. As for Singleton and Carlos Montijo, they
had jumped into the saddle at daybreak, and were maintaining a ceaseless
patrol of the boundaries of the estate, riding in opposite directions,
and encountering each other from time to time, when they would exchange
such items of information as they might happen to have gleaned in the
interim.
All through the morning the work of destruction proceeded apace: the
atmosphere became hourly thicker and more suffocating with smoke; great
tongues of flame could occasionally be seen leaping skyward here and
there above the tops of trees; dull boomings from time to time told of
the blowing up of buildings; intermittent crashes of volley firing,
mingled with shouts and yells and shrieks, told that desperate fights
were raging--or that, perchance, some ruthless and summary execution was
taking place; and by and by, shortly after mid-day, a solitary horseman,
mounted upon a steed in a lather of sweat and recognised by Carlos as
their next neighbour to the eastward, came galloping over the temporary
drawbridge with a warning to Don Hermoso to fly, with all his family and
dependents, since Weyler, with his army of butchers, was already
approaching in such overpowering strength that nothing could possibly
stand before him. The poor fellow gasped out a breathless story of
ruthlessly savage murder and destruction, telling how he had seen every
atom of his property looted and burnt, every member of his family shot
down; and how he had at the last moment escaped by the skin of his
teeth, with the horse he rode and the clothes that he stood up in as his
sole remaining possessions in the world. He had effected his escape
with some mad idea of flying for his life somewhere, he knew not
whither; but upon learning that Don Hermoso was resolved to defend his
property to the last, the poor fellow--a certain Don Luis Enrile--begged
permission to be allowed to remain and assist in the defence, since he
was now a ruined man and had nothing left to live for save revenge.
Naturally, Don Hermoso readily acceded to his request.
The unhappy Don Luis, having drawn, in broken, gasping sentences, the
main outlines of his tragical story, was still filling in some of the
more lurid details of that morning's happenings upon his farm, when the
lookout perched aloft on the hillside signalled the approach of the
enemy; and while Carlos dashed off in one direction to sound the alarm
bell and occupy his former defence post, Jack rushed off in the other to
raise the temporary drawbridge which had been constructed to take the
place of the wrecked stone bridge, and which was now the only means of
entering upon and leaving the estate. Having raised the bridge, and
carefully secured it against any possibility of becoming lowered by
accident, Jack climbed the structure to its uplifted extremity, and from
thence looked out over the wide plain that gently sloped away toward the
east, south, and west of him; and presently he became aware of a loud,
confused, rumbling jumble of sound which, when he was presently able to
dissect it, resolved itself into a mingled trampling of multitudinous
feet and hoofs, a rumbling and creaking of many wheels, the combined
murmur of many human voices, the occasional low, deep, protesting bellow
of overdriven animals, the crack of whips, and the continuous shouts of
men. The air was still thick with acrid smoke, rendering it difficult
to see anything clearly at a distance greater than half a mile; but
presently it thickened still more, and Jack recognised that the
thickening was produced by a great cloud of dun-coloured dust, out of
the midst of which there presently cantered into view a number of
Spanish cavalry scouts, a dozen of whom, upon reaching the main road,
wheeled to their right and dashed along it toward the point of its
junction with the private road leading to Don Hermoso's estate.
Jack considered that the moment had now arrived for him to quit his post
of observation, and he accordingly slid down the rail of the bridge
until he reached the ground, where he was almost immediately joined by
the contingent of labourers which was to operate under him, as before,
for the defence of the estate at that point. The wood away to the left,
and the bamboo coppice, afforded perfect cover and shelter for the whole
of his party; and since each man now knew to an inch where he was
required to post himself, everybody was in position and entirely hidden
from sight a full minute before the leading couple of the cavalry came
into view round the bend of the road leading to the ruined bridge. But
no sooner did that leading couple appear than two whiplike rifle reports
snapped out from somewhere in front of them, and while one rider dropped
forward and collapsed on his horse's neck, the other flung up his arms,
tossed away the carbine which he was carrying in his right hand, and
reeled out of the saddle to the ground with a crash, while his horse,
tossing up his head, wheeled sharply round and dashed off to the rear,
dragging his dead rider by the left stirrup. The next instant another
pair of scouts swung into view, when again out snapped that ominous,
double, whiplike crack. This time one of the two riders, dropping his
carbine to the ground, clapped his right hand convulsively to his breast
as he swiftly wheeled his horse and galloped off; while the horse of his
companion, rearing upright and pawing the air furiously for a moment
with his fore hoofs, fell backward with a crash and lay dead, pinning
his helpless rider beneath him: whereupon the remainder of the party
wheeled their horses, and, dashing in their spurs, took to precipitate
flight.
Shortly afterwards, doubtless in consequence of the report of those men,
another reconnoitring party, consisting of half a dozen brilliantly-
garbed officers, approached, evidently with the idea of inspecting the
nature of the defences of the estate, and ascertaining its weak points.
But Jack would have none of it; the moment that they came within point-
blank rifle range he opened fire upon them with his sharpshooters, and
only three of the half-dozen were able to make good their retreat.
Meanwhile the main body of troops gradually debouched into view upon the
plain--a motley crowd of infantry clad in rags so effectually bleached
and discoloured by exposure to rain and sun that it would probably have
puzzled their own officers to name the various regiments to which they
belonged; about one hundred cavalry; and three batteries of field
artillery: the whole accompanied by an enormous number of baggage,
ambulance, and ammunition wagons, water carts, and nondescript vehicles
of every imaginable description, and an immense lowing, bellowing, and
bleating herd of captured cattle, sheep, and goats, many of which seemed
to be half-mad with terror. Mounted officers in scores dashed
frantically to and fro among this medley of men, vehicles, and animals;
and finally, when the herd of cattle was at length separated from the
main body and driven off, a detachment of some three thousand men, and
one battery of guns, with a proportion of the wagons and other vehicles,
halted on the plain, with the evident intention of attacking the estate,
while the remainder of the body went forward.
The attack began immediately. A puff or two of white smoke had revealed
to the reconnoitring parties the lurking-place of those who had fired
upon them, and they had of course pointed out the spot to the
artillerymen as that upon which they were to concentrate their fire;
with the result that immediately the guns were wheeled to action front,
they opened a hot fire upon the bamboo coppice. But, as on the occasion
of the previous attack, no sooner had the reconnoitring parties
withdrawn than Jack moved his sharpshooters from their cover of bamboo
to that of a line of artfully constructed earthworks, which, while far
enough removed from the bamboos to be perfectly safe from the artillery
fire which he felt certain would be immediately opened upon them,
equally commanded the road leading to the ruined bridge, and enabled him
to effectually check all endeavours to reconnoitre that point of
approach. The result was that after the bamboos had been fiercely
shelled for some ten minutes, without producing a single casualty among
the defenders, another reconnoitring party, believing that that
particular patch of cover had been pretty effectually cleared, boldly
galloped forward, under cover of the continued shell fire, to examine
the spot which, from the resolution with which it had been defended,
they felt convinced must be one of the keys of the position. And there
is little doubt that they were as much surprised as disgusted to be
received with a volley, from a totally different and not easily
discernible point, which caused them to again retire precipitately,
leaving nearly two-thirds of their number behind them.