"Every Sunday and Wednesday," he continued, "the friends of prisoners are permitted to visit them here. It may not be next Sunday or next Wednesday, but on some Sunday or some Wednesday you will hear from your sister."
As he arose from his uncomfortable seat the old gentleman laid his hand upon the young prisoner's forehead, and muttered a few words that led Cristobal to believe him a priest in disguise, as in fact he was.
But Wednesdays and Sundays came and went, and Cristobal heard no tidings of his sister. The coming of the visitors, however, made an agreeable break in the terrible monotony. On visiting-days the prisoners' friends were carried across the harbor from Havana in row-boats, and after landing on the pebble-paved road at the base of the fortress, went up through the great portal, where a hundred Spanish soldiers were constantly on guard. There they were formed in line, only one at a time being allowed to approach the barred front of the vault.
Cristobal had spent three weeks of misery in his dismal cell, and one Wednesday afternoon he lay half stretched out on the cold floor watching the visitors and listening to their conversation. They brought all the comforts to their friends that the guards would allow—baskets of food, blankets to lie upon, books, clean linen, medicines—and every package was carefully examined by the guard before it was passed into the cell. He saw a well-dressed young Cuban step up in turn behind the bar with nothing in his hands but three long stalks of sugar-cane tied together. He could hardly believe his ears when the guard called,
"Cristobal Nunez!"
Cristobal sprang to his feet, and made his way up to the front. He was sure that he had never seen his visitor before, and he could not understand why the Cuban, instead of speaking to him at once, stood looking him straight in the eyes, as if he would look through him, and then looked intently at the sugar-canes—at the top cane, Cristobal thought, the one that was gnarled and bent.
"Your sister sends you these," the young Cuban said at length, handing the bundle to the guard for examination. "And be careful of your teeth, Cristobal. Our Cuban cane is tough and hard to bite in March."
The guard twirled the bundle of canes in his hand, and laughed derisively at the meanness of the gift as he passed it through the bars to the prisoner. Even some of the other prisoners laughed to think that one of their number was so poor that his friends could send him nothing but a few canes.
Being one of "the Yankees of Spain," Cristobal knew on the moment that his sister had not sent him sugar-canes merely for the sake of the sweet.
"Be careful of my teeth!" he repeated to himself, with the canes lying across his lap. "That means something, for Maria knows my teeth are all right, and able to chew most anything. And it was this top cane the Cuban looked at so hard—the crooked one."