The Lion and the Unicorn

by Richard Harding Davis

The young men at the carriage window had ceased smiling and were listening intently. One of them stepped out and stood beside the carriage door looking down at the shivering figure before him with a close and curious scrutiny.

“Eight months in prison!” echoed the police sergeant with a note of triumph; “what did I tell you?”

“Hold your tongue!” said the young man at the carriage door. There was silence for a moment, while the men looked at the senator, as though waiting for him to speak.

“Where were you in prison, Mr. Arkwright?” he asked.

“First in the calaboose at Santa Clara for two months, and then in Cabanas. The Cubans who were taken when I was, were shot by the fusillade on different days during this last month. Two of them, the Ezetas, were father and son, and the Volunteer band played all the time the execution was going on, so that the other prisoners might not hear them cry ‘Cuba Libre’ when the order came to fire. But we heard them.”

The senator shivered slightly and pulled his fur collar up farther around his face. “I’d like to talk with you,” he said, “if you have nothing to do to-morrow. I’d like to go into this thing thoroughly. Congress must be made to take some action.”

The young man clasped his hands eagerly. “Ah, Mr. Stanton, if you would,” he cried, “if you would only give me an hour! I could tell you so much that you could use. And you can believe what I say, sir—it is not necessary to lie—God knows the truth is bad enough. I can give you names and dates for everything I say. Or I can do better than that, sir. I can take you there yourself—in three months I can show you all you need to see, without danger to you in any way. And they would not know me, now that I have grown a beard, and I am a skeleton to what I was. I can speak the language well, and I know just what you should see, and then you could come back as one speaking with authority and not have to say, ‘I have read,’ or ‘have been told,’ but you can say, ‘These are the things I have seen’—and you could free Cuba.”

The senator coughed and put the question aside for the moment with a wave of the hand that held his cigar. “We will talk of that to-morrow also. Come to lunch with me at one. My apartments are in the Berkeley on Fifth Avenue. But aren’t you afraid to go back there?” he asked curiously. “I should think you’d had enough of it. And you’ve got a touch of fever, haven’t you?” He leaned forward and peered into the other’s eyes.

“It is only the prison fever,” the young man answered; “food and this cold will drive that out of me. And I must go back. There is so much to do there,” he added. “Ah, if I could tell them, as you can tell them, what I feel here.” He struck his chest sharply with his hand, and on the instant fell into a fit of coughing so violent that the young man at the carriage door caught him around the waist, and one of the policemen supported him from the other side.

“You need a doctor,” said the senator kindly. “I’ll ask mine to have a look at you. Don’t forget, then, at one o’clock to-morrow. We will go into this thing thoroughly.” He shook Arkwright warmly by the hand and stooping stepped into the carriage. The young man who had stood at the door followed him and crowded back luxuriously against the cushions. The footman swung himself up beside the driver, and said “Uptown Delmonico’s,” as he wrapped the fur rug around his legs, and with a salute from the policemen and a scraping of hoofs on the slippery asphalt the great man was gone.