Absurd and improbable as the commandant's story may appear, it would have had great weight against us with the fiscal, and considerably protracted the period of our release, were it not for the fact that the fiscal is on intimate terms with my companion's family. This fortunate circumstance, aided by the laudable efforts of my consul, who works wonders with his excellency the governor, enables us to be set at liberty without further delay. There is, however, some difficulty in the case of our black attendant, whom the authorities would still keep in bondage, out of compliment to stern justice; but we intercede for him, and he accompanies us from jail.
Crowds of people await outside and escort us to our studio, where dear old Don Benigno, his amiable señora and family, welcome us with joy. Wherever we go, we are lionised and loaded with congratulations and condolence. A kind of patriotic sentiment is mixed up with the public sympathy; Spanish rule being extremely distasteful to a Cuban, and any opportunity for expressing his disgust of an incompetent ruler being hailed by him with delight. All our Cuban friends—and, to say the truth, many of the Spaniards themselves—are unanimous in their disapproval of the commandant's conduct.
But I have not yet done with the commandant, as will be seen in another chapter.
CHAPTER IX.
A WEST INDIAN EPIDEMIC.
A Cuban Physician and his Patient—A Nightmare—A Mystery—A Cure—By the Sad Sea Waves—A Cuban Watering-place—Lobster-hunting—Another View of the Morro Castle—What 'Dios sabe' means.
Not many days after the events recorded in the last chapter, I am on a sick couch.
What is the nature of my infirmity? Neither I nor my companion can tell. Don Benigno, who comes to offer me his condolences, attributes the cause of my complaint to confinement in the close, vaporous dungeon of the Morro Castle, and his medical adviser, Don Francisco, who is summoned to my bed-side, confirms Don Benigno's opinion, adding, that the sudden transition from a damp atmosphere to the heat of a tropical sun may have contributed to produce my disorder.
After examining me in the usual way, the physician inquires whether my head throbs without aching; whether I am troubled with certain pains in my joints and across my loins, and whether I feel altogether as if I had been confined several weeks to my bed.
Marvelling much at the doctor's penetration, I reply that the symptoms he described exactly correspond with those which I experience. In short; Don Francisco is perfectly acquainted with the nature of my malady. Strange to say, however, he does not venture to give it a name, and stranger still, he leads my partner into our studio, where with closed doors both converse like a couple of assassins conspiring against my life. What passes between them is not revealed to me, but after the doctor's departure, my companion assures me I have only caught a severe cold, and that if I remain 'under cover,' I shall be perfectly well in six days.