When Santiago Fell: or, The War Adventures of Two Chums

“You are not so young as you would like to make them imagine,” laughed Alano’s father shortly. “Besides, if left free, they would be afraid you would carry messages for your father. I think the best thing we can do just now is to let Jorge go into town, pretending he is half starved and willing to do anything for anybody who will give him food. By taking this course, no one will pay much attention to him, as there are many such worthless blacks floating about, and he can quietly find his way around the fort and learn what prisoners, if any, are being kept there.”

This was sensible advice, and, impatient as I was to catch sight of my parent, I agreed to wait. We rode back to where the others had made their camp, and Jorge was called up and duly instructed. The black grinned with pleasure, for he considered it a great honor to do spy work for such an influential planter as Captain Guerez. Possibly he had visions of a good situation on the plantation after the war was over; but, if so, he kept his thoughts on that point to himself.

Jorge gone, the time hung heavily on the hands of all; but I believe I was the most impatient of the crowd, and with good reason. Alano noticed how uneasily I moved about, and soon joined me.

“You must take things easy, Mark,” he said. "Stewing won’t do any good, and it will only make you sick, combined with this hot weather, which, I know, is about all you can stand."

“If only I felt certain that my father was safe, Alano! Remember, he is all I have in the world. My mother has been dead for years, and I never had a brother or a sister.”

“I think it will all come out right in the end,” he answered, doing his best to cheer me up. “They won’t dare to – to – ” He did not finish.

“To shoot him? That’s just what I fear they will do, Alano. From what I heard at Santiago de Cuba, the Spaniards are down on most Americans, for they know we sympathize with you and think Cuba ought to be free, or, at least ought to have a large hand in governing itself.”

When nightfall came most of the others lay down to sleep. But this was out of the question for me, tired though I was physically, and so I was left on guard, with instructions to call one of the men at midnight.

Slowly the hours went by, with nothing to break the stillness of the night but the hum of countless insects and the frequent note of a night bird. We had not dared to build a campfire, and in consequence there was no getting where the smoke drifted and out of the way of the mosquitoes.

At midnight I took a walk around to see if all was safe. The man I was to call slept so soundly I had not the heart to wake him up, so I continued on guard until one, when a noise down by the road attracted my attention.

Pistol in hand I stalked forward, when I heard a low voice and recognized Jorge. The negro had been walking fast, and he was almost out of breath.

“Well?” I inquired anxiously. “Is my father there?”

“I think he is, señor,” replied the guide. “I go to prison-fort – da have six Cubans dare an' one Americano.”

“My father!”

“I talk to some men, an' da tell me prisoners come in last night – some from Rodania, udders from udder places. Americano in a prison by himself, near the river. I swim up close to dat prison – maybe we make hole in wall an' git him out.”

“Could we do that, Jorge, without being discovered?”

“Tink so, señor – work at night – now, maybe. Swim under river an' come up by fort, den dig with machetes – make hole under fort.”

“If only we could do that!” I cried; and then, struck with a sudden idea, I caught Jorge by the arm. “Jorge, if I go, will you come and show me the way and help me?”

“Yes, señor.”

“Then let us go at once, without arousing the others. More than two might spoil the plan. Go back to the road and wait for me.”

The guide did as directed, and I turned back into camp. Here I awoke the man previously mentioned, and told him I was going off to meet Jorge. He but partly understood, but arose to do guard duty, and I hurried off.

I felt that I was not doing just right in not notifying Captain Guerez and Alano, but I was impatient to meet my father and was afraid if I told them what Jorge had said they would want to delay matters. As events turned out it would probably have been much better had I been guided by their advice.

A short but brisk walk brought the guide and myself in sight of the town. On the outskirts the campfires of the Spanish soldiers burned brightly. These we carefully avoided, and made a détour, coming up presently to the bank of the stream upon which the fort was located.

The river was broad and shallow, and as it ran but sluggishly we might have forded across, but this would have placed us in plain view of the sentries, who marched up and down along the river bank and in front of the prison-house.

Disdaining to undress, we dropped down into the stream and swam over, with only our faces out of water, and without a sound, to a spot behind the building opposite. We came up in a tiny hollow, screened by several small bushes, and crawled on our stomachs to the rear of the wing in which the guide said the American prisoner was incarcerated.

I had a long and broad dagger which I had picked up the day previous, and Jorge had his machete, and with these we began to dig a tunnel leading under the wooden wall of the fort. Fortunately, the ground was not hard, and soon we broke through the very flooring of the prison. I was in the lead, and in great eagerness I poked up my head and gazed around me.

“Hullo, who’s there?” cried a startled voice, in English, and my heart sank completely, for the prisoner was not my father at all.

CHAPTER XXVII.

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!”