Evidences of the war increased as the journey lengthened. The potreros were lush with grass, but no herds grazed upon them; villages were deserted and guano huts were falling into decay, charred fields growing up to weeds and the ruins of vast centrales showing where the Insurrectos had been at work. This was the sugar country, the heart of Cuba, whence Spain had long drawn her life blood, and from the first it had been the policy of the rebel leaders to destroy the large estates, leaving undamaged only the holdings of those little farmers whose loyalty to the cause of freedom was unquestioned.
Food became a problem immediately after the travelers had crossed the trocha. Such apprehensive families as still lurked in the woods were liberal enough—Antonio, by the way, knew all of them—but they had little to give and, in consequence, O'Reilly's party learned the taste of wild fruits, berries, and palmetto hearts. Once they managed to kill a small pig, the sole survivor of some obscure country tragedy, but the rest of the time their meat, when there was any, consisted of iguanas—those big, repulsive lizards—and jutias, the Cuban field-rats.
Neither the lizards nor the rats were quite as bad as they looked or sounded; the meat of the former was tender and white, while the latter, although strong, was not unpalatable. To hungry men both were muy sabrosa, as Jacket put it. This was not the boy's first experience with such a diet; having campaigned before in the west, he was accustomed to the taste of juita, and he told O'Reilly how his troop had once lived so long upon these rats that it became impossible to surprise a Spanish enemy, except by approaching up the wind, as a hunter stalks his game. Jacket gravely assured his friend that the Spaniards could smell him and his brother patriots from a distance of five kilometers—a statement, by the way, which the American by this time was ready to believe.
Fortunately there was no shortage of food for the horses, and so, despite the necessity of numerous detours, the party made good time. They crossed into Matanzas, pushed on over rolling hills, through sweeping savannas, past empty clearings and deserted villages, to their journey's end. A fortunate encounter with a rebel partida from General Betancourt's army enabled them to reach headquarters without loss of time, and one afternoon, worn, ragged and hungry, they dismounted in front of that gallant officer's hut.
General Betancourt read the letter which O'Reilly handed him, then looked up with a smile.
"So! You are one of Gomez's Americans, eh? Well, I would never have known it, to look at you; the sun and the wind have made you into a very good Cuban. And your clothes—One might almost mistake you for a Cuban cabinet officer."
O'Reilly joined in the laughter evoked by this remark. He was quite as tattered as the poorest of Betancourt's common soldiers; his shoes were broken and disreputable; his cotton trousers, snagged by barbed wire and brambles, and soiled by days in the saddle and nights in the grass, were in desperate need of attention. His beard had grown, too, and his skin, where it was exposed, was burnt to a mahogany brown. Certainly there was nothing about his appearance to bespeak his nationality.
The general continued: "I am directed in this letter to help you in some enterprise. Command me, sir."
As briefly as possible Johnnie made known the object of his journey. The officer nodded his comprehension, but as he did so a puzzled expression crossed his face.
"Yes, I reported that Miss Varona had gone into the city—I took some pains to find out. Do you have reason to doubt—"