BY WILLIAM BANKS, JUN.
t was a very hot day even for Cuba. Every living thing moved listlessly. The great Spanish flag, hanging from the tall slender staff just inside the gate of the fort, drooped like the wings of a tired bird. The sentries were almost gasping for breath. In the barracks the men grumbled and railed at the fate which had brought them from home and friends to fight in a country where fever thinned their ranks far more effectively than did the bullets of the insurgents.
On a slight hill about a mile from the fort a man and a youth were lolling lazily on the ground. The lad was about eighteen years of age, tall, well-built, and unmistakably an American. His companion, a native Cuban, was at least thirty years old, short, but with a frame denoting immense strength.
They had been watching the fort for an hour or more through a powerful field-glass, and following closely the movements of the sentries on the wall nearest them.
"Pah!" said the lad at last, "they're only a lot of boys."
The man smiled at him meaningly, and the lad blushed.
"I know," he continued, hesitatingly, "that you're thinking I'm just a boy too; but," proudly, "I'm an American."
"So," answered the man, softly; "and had I a few score such lads as you in my command I'd strike a great blow for Cuba to-day."
"How, Captain Marto?" was the eager question.