I expected that another examination would be held the next day, or, at the latest, within a week; but I was doomed to disappointment. No one but the jailer came near us, and he only to bring us our bread and water and occasionally a stew of ill-flavored meat and potatoes, reeking with garlic. Of this both of us tried bits of the potatoes, and sometimes mouthfuls of the meat, but it was all we could do to choke them down.
“How long is this to last?” I asked Mr. Raymond one day, as both of us walked up and down the narrow cell like two caged animals.
“God alone knows, Mark,” he answered. “If there is no change soon I shall go mad!”
“It is inhuman!” I went on. “A Christian would not treat a dog like this.”
“They are very bitter against us Americans, Mark. Now the United States have declared war against them, they must realize that Cuban freedom is assured.”
Another week went on, and then we were taken up into the prison yard. Here I saw my father,—thin, pale, and sick,—but I was not permitted to converse with him. We were placed in two rows with a hundred other prisoners, and inspected by General Toral, the military governor of Santiago and surrounding territory. After the inspection we went back to our various dungeon cells; and many weary weeks of close confinement followed.
One day a curious booming reached our ears, coming from we knew not where. I heard it quite plainly, and called Mr. Raymond’s attention to it.
“It is the discharging of cannon,” he said. “And it is not a salute either,” he added, as the booming became more rapid and violent.
It was not until long afterward that I learned the truth, that a fleet of Spanish warships commanded by Admiral Cervera had been “bottled up” in Santiago Bay by our own warships under Admiral Sampson and Commodore Schley, and that the Yankee gunners were now trying what they could do in the way of bombarding Morro Castle and the ships which lay hidden from them behind the mountains at the harbor’s entrance.