Inquisitive sentinels, Mauser rifle in hand, walk here to turn intruders back, but by exercising discretion glimpses may be obtained of tiny balconies ensconced in nooks and crannies high up in the wall and overlooking the sea and the twinkling city. Perhaps a peep may be had into the odd habitations within, with dusky senoritas gazing out through a curtain of flowers and vines. This is a different San Juan from that which promenades in the plaza: but not less interesting.
All this Roderic Owen saw, nor was it the first time he had wandered through the streets and byways of the strange old city.
How vividly these scenes brought back to his mind the days and nights of the past, when he had lived in a glow of love's young dream—still, why need he sigh—the experience through which he had passed, bitter though it had been, must have taught him a lesson, and since Love had again taken up an abode in his heart, he could profit by it to forever debar the little demon Jealousy from entering this holiest of holies.
He wandered over the whole city.
He even found means to enter some of the forts that frowned so ferociously, and yet were but hollow mockeries, mounting few modern guns.
Here were evidences still of the damage inflicted by Sampson's fleet many weeks before—Spanish dilatory tactics had allowed dismounted guns to lie where they had fallen, and Roderic was of the opinion that it must have been rather warm around those regions at the time.
There was something of a bustle of preparation in the city, since it had become known that General Miles and an American army had landed on the south shore of the island.
Still the Spaniards did not expect to make a desperate resistance like Blanco had declared Havana would show.
When the Yankee army reached San Juan and the terrible battle ships appeared again in the offing doubtless they would gracefully submit to the inevitable and yield up their arms.
Meanwhile there was the usual bluster and braggadocio as to what they meant to do with the Yankee pigs once they were induced to enter the trap which the Spanish commander had so cunningly spread.