A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM

The boys huddled together at an obscure part of the deck and Harry described to them what he had seen below decks.

“There are two eight pounders and two rapid fire guns with their noses poked against port holes that can be opened at a moment’s notice. And besides these, there is an arsenal of small arms like rifles, pistols, swords, and cutlasses. Everything seems to be in apple pie order and all ready for use. If we were living in the days of the old pirate ships, I should say that we were likely to fly the black flag at any moment.”

“What do you make of it, Hal?” asked Bert.

“I tell you I cannot make anything of it. It is beyond me. The only thing we can do is to keep our weather eyes open and watch for developments. It is certainly a ship of mystery and the captain does not apparently propose to enlighten us as to her character. But he seems to be an honest man, and I think we are perfectly safe in leaving all to him, and I believe that sometime we shall know what we are up against. In the meantime, however, as I warned him, I shall make every effort to get off the ship, or to notify some passing craft that we are on board safe and sound, so that word may be carried to those on shore. They must believe that we are drowned by this time, particularly if they have picked up the wreck of the yacht.”

“Let’s go aft and take a look over the cabin while the captain is asleep. All’s fair in love and war, you know, and we are certainly entitled to find out all we can about our surroundings, particularly in view of Hal’s investigations below.”

The boys strolled leisurely aft, taking care not to arouse the suspicions of any one about the decks. They entered the cabin. All was still. The sun shone brightly through the port holes and lay in a wide beam on the big map that the captain had been studying when the boys turned out of bed.

“Let’s have a look at this,” said Bert, quickly approaching the table as he spoke. “It may tell us something of our destination.”

The boys gathered eagerly around.

The map was a hydrographic chart of the Caribbean Sea. Cuba and Porto Rico appeared on a large scale. The boys studied it in silence and finally Mason shook his head in despair.

“That does not tell much,” he said. “We may be going to Cuba or Porto Rico, but if we are, why all this secrecy and those firearms?”

“They may fit in together more closely than you think,” said Harry, who had been studying the map thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?” asked Bert.

“I do not mean anything yet. Let us wait. Speculation and guessing will not solve this mystery.”

“Look here,” said the Midget, who had been browsing around the cabin. He had lifted one of the cushions from a settee and disclosed beneath a locker which contained a number of flags of different colors and shapes.

“What are those?” asked the boys in chorus.

“They are signal flags. Now let’s find the code and then we can signal some passing ship.”

“Here’s the code,” announced Harry, who, as soon as Mason had spoken had gone to a little book shelf on the wall of the cabin. “But how are we to get the flags up without attracting attention?”

“Easy. We will make up our signal and then take the flags necessary to show it and conceal them where we can get them at any moment. Then when we sight a vessel we can bend them onto the halliards and have them aloft before anyone can interfere. It would be a minute or two before they could haul them down, even if they discovered them at once, and in that time it is likely that the other ship would have read them. Anyway, it is worth trying.”

“I think you are right,” said Harry. “Nothing venture, nothing have. Let’s make the signal.”

He took the code book from the shelf and opened it on the table.

“In the first place, it is necessary to know what you want to say before you pick out your flags. Now what shall the message be?”

“Say we have been kidnapped by a pirate ship and want assistance,” suggested the Midget, wisely.

“Nonsense,” replied Bert, “we don’t want to say anything about the ship. We have nothing against her, nor her captain. Didn’t they save our lives? All that we want is to be taken off and if that is not possible to have word sent home that we are all right, and then we can see the thing out comfortably. In fact, I for one, would much prefer staying aboard if it were possible to get word ashore. We do not know what interesting adventures may be in store for us aboard this strange craft.”

“Well, anyway, let’s frame a message.”

“It’s got to be short, for we cannot use any more flags than is absolutely necessary, as we may be discovered before we can get them up. How’s this: ’Report Hamilton, Mason, and Wilson picked up from wrecked yacht off Cottage City by steamer Mariella. All well.’”

“Fine,” said Mason. “Hal, your massive intellect astonishes me more and more each day.”

After some discussion, the boys selected the proper flags and laid them to one side. The problem of getting them aloft then presented itself.

“There must be halliards already bent for the use of signals,” said Harry. “I will go out on deck and have a quiet look for them.”

He returned shortly from his inspection.

“Everything is ready for instant use,” he reported, “but we must have the flags bent onto a separate piece of rope so that all we shall have to do is to fasten the rope to the halliards and send the flags aloft. And then we must also stow the flags somewhere where we can get at them easily as soon as we see another vessel.”

“Leave that to me, captain,” said Mason, saluting with a grin. “Right under my bunk is a place. All you fellows watch where I put them, so that if I am not with you when the ship comes along you can do the trick. No telling when a man of my fiery temper may be put in irons on a ship like this.”

The boys carefully stowed away the flags after they had bent them in their proper order to a spare piece of rope which Mason picked up on deck. They now felt that they had done as much as lay within their power to relieve the anxiety of the folks at home, and all that remained was to keep a sharp lookout for a passing ship. They arranged watches so that one of them should be on deck during all of the daylight hours, and all hands were to keep their eyes open through the port holes and from such other points of vantage as they could take at all times when it was light enough to see a passing ship.

This satisfactorily off their minds, the boys took more interest in a survey of their prison ship, for so they had begun to look upon her, although each one of them had made up his mind that he would like to see the adventure out.

That night before dinner they met the captain again in the cabin. The maps were still lying on the table.

“Do you see this big island here, boys?” he asked. “It looks big on the map, but it is a very small spot on the face of the earth, and yet its people have suffered more misery, injustice, and oppression than the world will ever know.”

“Discontented people always quarrelling with their government are usually unhappy. They bring most of their misery on themselves.”

Harry spoke carelessly. He was not much interested in the wrongs of Cuba. He was surprised to see the captain’s eyes flash again with that fierce fire that had marked them when he first defied him.

“Discontented, is it,” almost shouted the captain. “And do you know why, boy?”

“I am sure I do not, Captain Dynamite, except that it is apparently born in them.”

“Yes, that’s the way most of the world, ignorant of poor Cuba’s trials, looks at the matter. Statesmen have investigated and reported back to the halls of Congress and Cuba and her wrongs have been laid away in the dusty archives.”

“Look,” he said, pointing again at the map, and involuntarily the boys gathered closer around him and peered at the parchment. “That land, as God made it, was the fairest that the eye ever looked upon.”

Captain Dynamite paused for a moment and seemed to grow more calm. He seated himself with his elbows on the table behind him and deftly rolled a cigarette with one hand. The boys, interested now because of his intense feeling, waited for him to continue.

“Youngsters,” he said finally, “let me give you a little piece of history of these ‘discontented’ folks and perhaps you will regard their condition with different eyes and hearts. Your text-books at school have undoubtedly told you that Spanish rule in Cuba began in 1511, when Diego Valesquez subjugated the peaceful natives, and the Spanish methods of conquest made a record that lives to this day.

“See this island here,” said the captain, pointing to Hayti. “At that time almost uninhabited, its wild shores and hidden inlets served as places of concealment for buccaneers. These pirates of the Spanish Main not alone indulged in the adventurous pastime of smuggling, but they attacked and plundered Spanish trading ships and even made forceful expeditions upon land, ravaging cities and towns. They were encouraged in their depredations by other nations unfriendly to Spain. Henry Morgan, one of these buccaneers, who was commissioned as a privateer, was knighted by England in 1671 because of his prowess as a legalized pirate.

“In 1762, Havana was besieged by the English and the Seven Years War began. The British were successful and under English rule the ports of Cuba were opened to free trade and an era of progress was inaugurated. But it was short lived, and in 1763 Cuba fell again into the hands of Spain, England trading the island for Florida. The two first governors under the new Spanish regime were liberal, just, and progressive. They were Luis de Las Casas, appointed in 1790, and the Count of Santa Clara, who succeeded him in 1796.

“It was about 1810 that the general discontent of the colonist with the tyrannical home government resulted in the formation of political societies whose purpose was to plan insurrections in the hope of wresting the island from Spanish rule, as did Buenos Ayres, Venezuela, and Peru. There was no open revolt for ten years, when the revolutionary leaders proclaimed a governing law, and after two years of turmoil the king yielded to their demands. But as Spain’s promises were made only to be broken, other insurrections soon sprang up among the colonists. One of the most important revolutionary movements of those days was led by Narciso Lopez, a Venezuelan. This was in 1848. He was unsuccessful, but escaped with many of his followers to New York, where he found many sympathizers and practical aid. The United States government frustrated his attempt in 1849 to return to Cuba with a small invading force. A year later he reached the island with six hundred men, but was forced to take to his ship again, and with a Spanish gunboat close astern, made Key West and disbanded the expedition.

“By this time the Lopez revolution had gained much fame and many sympathizers in the United States who, while they were not inspired with the patriotic sentiment that stirred him, were strong admirers of his courage and determination. With a small band of four hundred and fifty men, and with Colonel Crittenden, of Kentucky, a West Pointer who won his title in the Mexican War, as second in command, Lopez started for Cuba from New Orleans the next year. On landing, Crittenden and one hundred and fifty men remained near the shore to guard the supplies, while Lopez, with the rest of the little invading army, marched inland. Both parties were discovered by the Spaniards, surrounded, and after a desperate resistance, completely wiped out.”

“Do you mean that Lopez and Crittenden were both killed?” asked Bert, who had listened to the captain’s recital with intense interest.

“Lopez and Crittenden and every man jack of the expedition,” replied the captain, solemnly.

“Who was the next to try it?” asked Harry, whose eyes shone with excitement.

“Up to this time the grievances that inspired the Cuban colonists to revolt were mostly of a political character, based upon that bone of contention that inspired your own revolution against the British taxation without representation. The little island to-day pays to Spain every year over $20,000,000 in revenue. In 1868, a lawyer named Cespedes declared independence of Spanish rule on a little plantation at Yara. He had back of him only one hundred and twenty-eight men, but in a few weeks after his declaration ten thousand men gathered under his leadership. A republican form of government was established, with Cespedes at its head. General Quesada commanded the poorly equipped but determined and patriotic army. Until 1878 the insurgents held the field with about fifty thousand men. They constantly met and vanquished the Spanish forces under the Count of Valmaseda, but the resources of the Spaniards were greater, and finally the Cubans were disintegrated, but still maintained a guerilla warfare, constantly harassing and defeating the Spanish forces sent against them. But neither side made any progress toward the end and at the end of the year both were ready for a compromise, which resulted in the treaty of El Zanjón. At this time the Spaniards were commanded by General Campos, and the insurgents by Gen. Maximo Gomez that grand old warrior who still holds the field for Cuba against the forces of Spain I kiss his hand.”

Captain Dynamite, as he mentioned the name of Gomez, rose to his feet, bowed solemnly and reverentially, and lifted to his lips an imaginary hand.

“Fighting, still fighting for Cuba,” he whispered as he resumed his seat. After a moment’s pause he shook himself as if awakening from a dream and continued his narrative.

“That treaty promised Cuba representation in the Spanish Cortes, or congress, but while it was kept in the letter it was broken in spirit. The government obtained control of the polls and the deputies, or representatives elected were always government tools or sympathizers. So poor Cuba, after her long struggle, was no better off than before, and in 1894 Jose Marti, at the head of a new insurrection, set sail from New York with three ships, men, and munitions of war. But the United States authorities stopped them. Marti then joined Gomez in Cuba and was killed in a skirmish. He was succeeded in command by General Gomez, who still fights on with a hungry, ill-clad handful of men against the best of Spain’s army. One hundred and forty-five thousand men have been sent against him but he still fights; he still lives to fight, although he is over seventy-five years old.

“I have told you of the dogged determination, the splendid patriotism of the men who are fighting to lift the yoke of Spain from poor Cuba. Surely there must be something more than mere political wrongs to inspire such a spirit. You have heard of Weyler ’Butcher Weyler’ they call him, and he is proud of the title. Frightened by the courage and resistance of the insurgent army, Spain looked about for a man capable of crushing the indomitable spirit of the rebels. In Weyler she thought she had found the man. He arrived in Havana in 1896. Among his first acts looking to the pacification of Cuba was his order of concentration. You have heard perhaps of the wretched ‘reconcentrados?’ They are the product of Weyler’s order. Under this policy nearly a million peaceful Cubans, farmers and dwellers in the country, have been driven from their homes into nearby cities and their deserted houses burned to the ground. These people are mostly women and children and old men non-combatants. In this way Weyler sought to stop the aid that was being given to the insurgents in the field. From the ‘pacificos,’ as they are known the rebels could at any time secure food, clothing, and shelter.

“Concentrated in the towns, without food or money to buy it, and many without clothing, these reconcentrados quickly became the victims of famine and disease. A part of Weyler’s order of concentration provided for the gifts of ground to cultivate, and the Spaniard’s answer to the charge of inhumanity is a shrug of the shoulders and the reply that the reconcentrados starve because they are too lazy to work. ’We give them the land,’ he says, ‘and they will not till it.’ True, they gave them land, but no seed to sow and no tools to reap and they have no money to buy them. Everything they owned is in the heap of ashes that marks the spot where the little thatched cottage once stood. Thousands and thousands of human beings are herded together like cattle, with no means to feed themselves, and, unlike cattle, with no one to feed them.

“Why, I have seen I have been told by those who have seen it of little children with the skin drawn like parchment over their bodies. And boys, when you think that among these poor victim’s of Spain’s pacification policy are the wives and children, sisters and sweethearts of the struggling insurgents in the field, is it any wonder that the spirit of independence will not down in the Pearl of the Antilles?”

That the captain was a man of feeling and education there could be no further doubt in the minds of the captive boys. That he should have taken the trouble to thus enlighten them on the subject of Cuba’s wrongs was a compliment to their understanding which was not lost.