"By taking yonder fort by storm," was the quiet reply.
The youth's father was a prisoner in the fort, and the incidents which led up to his capture may be here described. For five years Mr. Hinton, a native of Pennsylvania State, had resided with his son Ben in Havana, where he carried on business as a general merchant. His wife had died while on a visit to her old American home. Among Cubans Mr. Hinton was well known as a sympathizer in their cause. Immediately on receipt of the news in Havana that General Antonio Maceo had taken the field he decided to lend his active aid to the Cuban leader. Not wishing his son to share in the dangers of a struggle in which he knew that the Spaniards would show no mercy to any who took up arms against them, Mr. Hinton had suggested that Ben go back to relatives in America. This proposition the lad stoutly opposed. Ben knew by heart the stories of the brave efforts which the Cubans had so often made in their attempts to throw off the Spanish yoke. The names of Maceo, Gomez, Marto, and other revolutionists were held in high estimation by him, and, with that intense love of freedom inherited by every American boy, he had determined, long before he knew his father's views on the subject, to strike a blow in the coming struggle for Cuban independence. His father was at last compelled to consent to Ben's accompanying him.
Accordingly, one evening Mr. Hinton, Marto, and Ben left Havana secretly. By travelling at night, and lying concealed during the day in the huts of natives, and sometimes in the woods, they reached the outskirts of the province of Puerto Principe. Here, at the little village in which Marto was born, thirty natives joined them. Marto was elected captain of the band. Feeling somewhat secure, on account of their numbers, the band travelled through the country by day, taking the most direct route for Maceo's camp. But one morning they were suddenly surrounded by an overwhelming force of Spanish soldiers. With desperate courage, Captain Marto, Ben, and some twenty-five men cut their way out of the cordon of soldiers and sought safety in flight.
It was not until the Spaniards gave up the chase that any one noticed that Mr. Hinton was not with the party. Poor Ben was in a frenzy, and, but for Captain Marto and a couple of men restraining him by force, would have rushed back to the scene of the conflict to seek for his father. Wiser counsel prevailed, however, and towards evening a man who joined the party brought comparative happiness to Ben by the report that he had watched from the woods a party of Spanish soldiers marching along with an American prisoner in their midst. The description of the prisoner tallied so closely with that of Mr. Hinton as to leave no doubt of his identity.
Then Marto, who loved Mr. Hinton as a brother, had determined that, at whatever cost, his American friend must be rescued.
"Why," he had said to Ben, "I dare not go to Maceo without him, and I would not if I could. Tho General is expecting him, and will give him a command as soon as he arrives at the camp."
"Which," Ben had answered, gloomily enough, "will never be."
"Which," Marto had retorted, somewhat testily, "must and will be."
Two days after the fight they located the fort which was the headquarters of the soldiers who had attacked them, and it was this Ben and Captain Marto were watching when our story opens. The band had spent three days in the neighborhood, but as yet had not even succeeded in letting the prisoner know that his friends had not totally deserted him.
The fort was a very rude affair, the walls being constructed of two thicknesses of logs with earth packed between. An earthen embankment ran around the inner side of the walls, and at such a height that when the soldiers appeared on it their bodies from the waist up offered a splendid target to an enemy. Some two hundred and fifty men formed the garrison, and they were quartered in a huge two-storied log barracks in the centre of the enclosed ground. In front of the barracks, and about twenty feet from it, was a small hut, in which Ben and Captain Marto, by the aid of the field-glass, had learnt Mr. Hinton was confined.