BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.
cell in the great Morro Castle of Havana was a strange place for a boy of fourteen; but there sat young Cristobal Nunez on the cold stone floor, his face hidden in his hands, and bitter tears trickling between his fingers. He was a small boy for fourteen, and not dark, like the Cubans, but fair as any sunburnt American boy.
He was not alone in the cell, for it was a great damp vault twenty feet wide by a hundred feet long, with an arched roof of stone, the lower part of a storehouse standing just within the outer wall of the fortress. He was only one of the 108 political prisoners confined in that unhealthy vault, where was not a cot for them to lie upon, nor a chair or bench to sit upon.
"Cheer up, my son," said a well-dressed elderly gentleman, one of his fellow-prisoners, stooping beside him, and laying his hand kindly on Cristobal's shoulder; "these dark days must have an end; and tears, at any rate, will do no good. You are young to be engaged in this business."
"I am not engaged in this business, señor," Cristobal quickly answered, brushing his hand across his eyes and looking up. "I am no insurgent; I am a Spaniard, a Catalan, and know nothing about rebellions. And it is not for myself that I shed tears, but for my young sister, who is alone on this strange island, with no one to take care of her."
As he spoke of his sister the young Catalan again buried his face in his hands, and his little frame shook.
"This is strange," said the gentleman; and he seated himself on the floor beside Cristobal, and kindly drew the young Spaniard's smooth cheek against his shoulder. "If you are a Catalan, and no insurgent, how do you come to be here?"
Though the cell was crowded with prisoners, there was no danger of interruption, for each was amusing himself in his own way. Some played games with strange Spanish cards, on which were pictures of swords and men and horses; some read books, for no newspapers were allowed them; some sang brave songs to keep their spirits up; and others, sickened by the bad air and bad food, lay stretched upon the stones, groaning.