Another time we rode out to the attractive suburbs of Vendado, where are many fine houses and extensive gardens, the greater part of them built in the old Spanish style, but some of the newer buildings after the fashion of modern American architecture. These last are less attractive than those which the Spaniard has evolved from his centuries of living in the latitudes of the tropics.
XXI
Cuba—The Fortress of La Cabaña
Havana,
December 2nd.
The candle end Captain MacIrvine held in his hand had burned so low that his fingers were scorching. My last match was burned up. We should have to grope our way out. Just at that moment a dim flicker of a distant light gleamed far down the low, narrow tunnelway. It came nearer, it grew larger; a man was there,—a soldier—yes, a Cuban officer, a lieutenant of infantry. With him were two ladies; one older than he, whose face, sweet, but oh, so sad! was furrowed with deep lines. Her hand trembled on her escort’s arm. The other woman was younger, quite as young as the lieutenant, and comely to look upon. “Si, Señor,” replied the lieutenant to a query, “I do have one box of the match. Take of them one half. Take of them all. I do know the way out.” He handed MacIrvine a box of small wax tapers. Tears were streaming down the elder woman’s face; the younger gave a sob. The three passed on and turned up the steep ascent to the left. We were in the pitch dark again.
FORTRESS OF LA CABAÑA
“Who is he? Who are they?” I asked. “He is the officer now in command of this fortification; they are his mother and sister,” MacIrvine replied, half divining my question. “He is of a prominent Cuban family. They were people of wealth. The family were at dinner one evening. A Spanish guard called at the house, sent in a card to the father, who was an eminent judge. He left the table and went to the door. He was arrested and brought here, hatless and in his slippers. When the family went to ascertain why he did not come back to finish his coffee, they learned that he had been taken to La Cabaña. They never saw him again. The Spanish authorities reported that he had ‘escaped.’ In fact, he was brought down here into one of these dungeons, and was walled up alive. These loose rock walls you are now looking at, filling these low arches along this passageway, all tell the same tale. Behind every one of these walls, one or more Cubans have been immured alive. Their bones still rot there.”