The dumb language was instantly comprehended, and two men carried the unconscious negro into the hut, while others took charge of the horse and conducted Walter inside. The lad found the small abode crowded with insurgents, who had come in to escape the drenching rain, and the air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes and the smell of a stew seasoned with garlic, which was cooking over a lire in the rear. A constant flow of conversation was kept up, of which he understood only an occasional word.
Poor Carlos was in a bad way, and by morning it was easy to see he could be removed only with difficulty. Yet he was cheerful, or tried to be so, and smiled when Walter came to him.
"I have news for you," he said, in his broken English. "Your warships fight, bang, bang, bang! down by the water, at Aguadores and udder places. Think ships go up by Guantanamo Bay, maybe. If sailors land, you have a chance to join them—not so?"
"I just hope some of our boys do land, and that right away!" cried Walter. "Can't I get somebody to show me the way to the seacoast?"
"Gilberto, my brudder, show the way. But not to-day. Maybe to-morrow or next day—when it is safe."
Gilberto had just come in; a stout negro as short as his brother was long, but a rebel fighter to the core. He, too, could speak a little English and said he had been a sailor.
"Sail from Santiago to Philadelphia twice with ore," he said. "Very nice country, America; me like de people. Only werry cold in winter; no like dat—make go dis way." And he gave a shiver. Later on, Walter learned that the entire district was rich in minerals and that large quantities of these were shipped from Santiago and from a near-by town called Baiquiri.
The day passed slowly, and so did the next. In the meanwhile the Cubans came and went. They were a detachment of Garcia's army, the main body of which was located many miles further northward. They were watching the seacoast and trying to communicate with the American ships of war, which could be seen on fair days lying in the offing. They knew that once a landing was effected by the Americans, Uncle Sam would speedily supply them with what they so greatly needed—clothing, guns, and ammunition. Once these were obtained, they felt that they could secure their independence. They had yet to learn that the trained soldiers of Spain could be conquered only by the equally, or better, trained soldiers of the States.
On the morning of the third day, and while they could distinctly hear the sounds of heavy firing in the vicinity of Morro Castle and the Estrella battery, Walter and Gilberto started off, each on horseback. The youth felt once more like himself, for the Cubans had continued to give him drinks of herbs which had entirely banished the lurking fever in his system. Before leaving Walter heard from the negress Josefina. She had escaped injury, and fled to the northward, there to join a great number of women and children, the wives and young people of the insurgents.
The course lay along a stretch of tableland and then up the side of a small mountain. At one point on the mountain top there was a clearing, and here a distant view could be obtained of the ocean to the south of the "Pearl of the Antilles," as Cuba had often been termed.