"I pray the persons who have compromised me to pardon me, as I pardon them. My death will not change the destinies of Cuba."
Then as the executioner bade him be quick, he exclaimed:
"Adieu, my comrades! Adieu, my beloved Cuba, adieu!"
Thus died a man, as brave in his last hours as he had been during all the strange fortunes and vicissitudes of his adventurous life, who had sacrificed everything for a principle which seemed to him dearer than all the material benefits which the world might have conferred upon him. The Spanish leaders destroyed his body, but they could never destroy that far more precious thing, the spirit of freedom which he had instilled in the minds and the hearts of the Cubans, and which was to live after him and at last lead Cuba to victory.
CHAPTER VII
LOPEZ had failed. Such was the obvious judgment of the world. Upon the face of the matter, his expedition had ended in disaster and utter tragedy. The first serious attempt to achieve the separation of Cuba from Spain had come to naught. It had been completely suppressed and its promoters had been destroyed.
In a broader, deeper and more significant sense, however, the enterprise and sacrifice of Lopez and his comrades had splendidly succeeded. That valiant pioneer of Cuban liberation had indeed "builded better than he knew." For his enterprise marked an epoch in Cuban history; the most important since Columbus's discovery of the island. The abortive attempts at emancipation, which had been sporadically but feebly active since the days of the emulators of Bolivar, had by Lopez's efforts been marvelously and effectively resuscitated. The movement which had been nurtured by the "Soles de Bolivar," but which its members had been unable, because of smallness of numbers and lack of funds and of leadership, to make much more than a cherished ideal—for the attempts at revolt had been still-born, choked almost on their conception—had under Lopez been imbued with lusty life, and was never again to languish. A force had been set in operation which could not and did not cease its action until, though many weary years afterward, the end which Lopez had foreseen was attained, and Cuba was securely placed among the independent nations of the world. We say that Lopez "builded better than he knew." That was literally true because his plans were merely for the transfer of Cuban sovereignty from oppressive and reactionary Spain to liberal and progressive America; building upon the foundation thus outlined by him, subsequent bolder spirits constructed the triumphant edifice of complete independence of which he had not so much as dreamed.
The immediate results of the Lopez expedition were prodigious. It is not easy, at this time and distance, to appreciate fully the tremendous sensation which was caused, not only in Cuba and in Spain, but, to a considerable extent, throughout the world, or at least, throughout that most important portion of the world which had its frontage upon the Atlantic Ocean, and which possessed more or less direct interests in the countries of the Caribbean Sea. For a full appreciation of this, it is necessary to take into consideration certain circumstances which are now almost forgotten.
We must remember that down to this time the world at large had been profoundly ignorant of Cuba, save in the most general and external manner. Spain, as we have already indicated in these pages, had long pursued a persistent policy of secrecy and isolation. Cuba was not allowed to know much of the outside world, and the outside world was not allowed to know much of Cuba. A strict censorship was maintained over information both entering and leaving the island. Marked inhospitality was shown to travelers and visitors to discourage them from penetrating the island or acquainting themselves with the real condition of its affairs. Practically Cuba remained, so far as its social, economic and political conditions were concerned, a terra incognita. The world knew almost nothing of its natural wealth and its inestimable resources, its potentialities of greatness.
Now, in the baleful light of a great tragedy, the island was suddenly thrust forward into the world's most intense publicity. From being a minor colonial possession of a decadent power, it was transformed into one of the foremost international issues. The eyes of two continents were fixed upon it, while the hands of those continents involuntarily reached for sword hilts in preparation for a decisive conflict which might shake the foundations of the civilized world.