"Yes, yes, my boy, all is well so far as we have gone, but what will she do in actual service? How will she behave in face of an enemy? Is she capable of single-handed and successful attack against a fleet? Until these questions are answered how may I know whether my lifework is a success or a failure? To solve them I would willingly engage a navy in single combat; but where may I find one willing to accept my challenge?"
"Why not in Cuba, sir?" suggested Carl with a sudden inspiration.
"Cuba! Cuba!" repeated the Professor slowly, as though bewildered by the idea thus presented, and then he plunged once more into abstracted thought.
After waiting a few moments longer, and seeing that his guardian was disinclined for further conversation just then, Carl Baldwin departed to tell his friend of the seed he had planted. To his dismay he found Carlos standing as though petrified, and staring with bloodshot eyes at a telegram evidently just received.
"What is it, West? What has happened?" inquired young Baldwin anxiously.
"Read that," replied the other huskily.
With this he extended the message, which was signed by the president of the Cuban Junta or War Committee, whose headquarters were in New York City.
"General Moranza captured by treachery and shot by order of Weyler. His daughter seized, imprisoned, and held for transportation to a penal colony. May God help you in this hour of your affliction!"
"For my father's death I grieve not," cried the young Cuban. "He died for the cause he loved, and may be avenged. But for my sister, my own little Catina, in prison, at the mercy of those brutes, and consigned to the living death of a convict! How may I bear it? What can I do? Tell me, my friend, for I am going mad."