Arrested, Imprisoned and Deported

(continued) ...... a rough demand was made at the door. I glanced hopelessly at the barred window, seized my revolver, only to realize the madness of resistance, and hesitated, trembling, until a second thunderous demand nearly burst the door from its hinges. Colonel Trujillo and his valiant myrmidons entered as if bearding a tiger in his den when I withdrew the bar, but grew wondrous bold when they found no resistance intended. Said the bewhiskered Trujillo, with a malicious grin of recognition, and tone and manner suave, "General Blanco, sir, wishes to hold conversation with you. To a gentleman as yourself it is needless for me to say my sergeant is prepared for resistance; but a coach is in waiting if you care to come quietly." To the coach I went, as one in a dream, forgetting that I was compounding the secrecy of my arrest by such surrender.
       I was taken to the cuartel at the Punta fortress, and within an hour was before some semblance of court martial. Colonel Pagaleri fortunately presided; he showed me much consideration during my examination. I answered all questions frankly; denial was futile, but my heart sank as charge after charge was substantiated by the seizure of the despatches I had risked so much to secure. A letter from the Government to President McKinley, a full list of the rebel forces in eastern Cuba, the official offer of their co-operation with the United States, and three maps I had myself prepared, I felt would seal my doom.
       I asked, as my right, that the British consul should be notified of my arrest. "Spies have no rights but the rope," sneered the portly comandante, and I was taken out "incomunicado." My prison chamber was dirty, but the rats broke the solitude; it was at least airy, a large grated frame opening seaward. No bed was provided, but rodents and dirt were forgotten, and I sank on the floor worn in body and broken in spirit, at this sequel that meant failure of all I had tried to accomplish.
       I knew nothing of my impending fate. From my window I could see La Cabana fortress, and as the bloody executions of that death ditch recurred to me, I wondered how I should face the rifles of the firing squad. Below my grating the black waters of the bay surged against slimy rocks, and hungry sharks showed occasional fins, as they hunted for morsels expelled by the foetid sewer at Los Fossos. My bars were loose and rusty; but escape from La Punta meant a horrible death below. After retreat sounded, the guards in the courtyard chattered noisily, and interesting snatches of my impending fate were served up for my special delectation. I had accepted those despatches without thought, but I could not now face the penalty with fortitude. Spain could not have been blamed for dealing harshly with me. At such a crisis other countries would have shot me without compunction, and in such a war, life is but of individual value.
       On Wednesday morning the "Olivette" passed my bars. Scanning her decks, I saw that she was crowded down with Americans; merchants, Red Cross workers and correspondents leaving the Island. Before my capture. General Lee was preparing to sail, and I suddenly realized that with my secret capture no one would know of my plight, and I might rot in prison before I could communicate with the outer world. But my disappearance had been rightly attributed; Lewis, McReady, and Bryson had made inquiries, and assured themselves of my capture before they sailed. Long cable messages were sent to England, the British Foreign office was notified, and Lord Salisbury at once wired Havana for full particulars. Mr. Creelman Mr. Massingham, Mr. McKenzie, Mr. Broadhurst and other prominent journalists in London kindly interested themselves in my behalf. Mr. T. P. O'Conner, M.P. and Mr. J O'Kelly, M.P. who had tasted Spanish prison in the last war, brought my case before the House of Commons, and the authorities in Havana soon found they could no longer keep my incarceration there a secret.
       But I was not anticipating help from the British Government. When one is identified in quarrels of strange nations, the consequences must be borne. I had frequently gone beyond my province in Cuba, but the Spanish authorities decided to avoid complications by quietly shipping me a prisoner to Puerto Rico. Sir Alexander Gollan was then informed that I had been expelled from Cuba; he reported it to London, and the incident was apparently closed. Fortunately there were some friends who were not satisfied at the Consul General's terse report of my expulsion. Only two boats had left Havana; one to Key West, the other a transport bound for San Juan; and when it transpired that I was not on the American vessel, and that Colonel Perez and a guard were seen taking me toward the Spanish transport, fresh representations were made.
       In the stifling lower hold of the transport Buenos Aires, with a negro murderer named Hernandez, and several hundred yellow-fever convalescents, my condition was not enviable. When we reached San Juan, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Bronson Rea, then in Puerto Rico, I obtained a change of clothes. At this time, though, The British Government were demanding the release of my friend, Freeman Halstead, correspondent of the "Herald," and also a British subject, then in Morro Castle, under sentence of nine years' imprisonment as a spy for taking photographs of San Juan harbour. Governor-General Maccias, having no wish for further complications over one of Blanco's prisoners, refused my landing and I was rushed off to the Buenos Aires again, and sent to Spain.
       Shut below in that filthy transport were over a thousand invalid soldiers, to a man, yellow-fever convalescents. To be invalided from Spain's army was to be an invalid indeed, and the poor wretches packed in the sorry bunks were too weak to move. They vomited and defecated where they lay, and the condition between decks may be imagined, but not described. At night those who had died were carried out and dropped over the side; but the thought of repatriation in their beloved Spain buoyed up the men wonderfully, though many died directly they reached the shore. When I was first conducted below, some of these poor fellows reviled me as they lay in their misery, "Yankee pig," "mambi," and "nanigo" being among the most complimentary appellations. Seeing that one young soldier, after a fit of retching, was hanging exhausted over his bunk, I gently laid the limp form back, and readjusted the blanket, thinking nothing of the incident. His comrades witnessed this simple act of common humanity. No more gibes were cast at me, and before I had divined the reason of the change, a few petty services to the stricken men had gained me the friendship of every soldier below decks,
       The disembarkation at Cadiz was a memorable sight. On the starboard side, steam launches, gay with bunting, brought out high army officers in resplendent uniforms, diplomats, and a vast crowd, to welcome officers and officials returning rich to Spain. The port gangway led down to large floats manned by Red Cross helpers, who lifted the emaciated forms of fever-stricken soldiers from the terrible hold, placed them temporarily in clean uniforms to save the comments of the crowd on the wharf, among whom were country people, wives and mothers and fathers, in the last extremes of poverty, waiting to see their dear ones. They had walked fifty, sixty, and seventy miles to greet the returning heroes. They waited on in suspense and gave pitiful cries of horror at the wrecks Cuba had sent them. It was inexpressibly sad. As I watched those silent tragedies, tears blinded my eyes, and I forgot my own distress, impending imprisonment as a spy, possible deportation to North Africa, and the anxiety of my friends to learn my fate.
       The chief of police assured me that I should be sent to Africa on May 1st, and there was some excitement among the crowd of sight-seers when I was taken ashore. The advent of a "Yankee spy" had been heralded, and with minds inflamed by the spectres of manhood from Cuba, their jeers and expletives aroused neither my wonder nor resentment.
       On the day before the formal declaration of war, though, I was released upon the demands of the British Government. The charges formulated against me for bearing arms against Spain were withdrawn when the Spaniards found that I must be sent to England for trial under the Foreign Enlistment Act, when impolitic truths of their rule in Cuba might be evolved. Being captured before a declaration of war, the designation of spy could not be sustained, and I was ordered over the frontier, with a warning never to return to Cuba on pain of death.
       Chaperoned by two celadores of police, ordered to see me over the French boundary, I arrived in Madrid the next day, finding nothing to indicate the war on hand, except that the great daily papers had three of their columns devoted to it. I was considerably more amused than flattered to find one-third of a leading column devoted to my presence in Spain. It seems to me to be an inexplicable editorial vagary to give an equal space to the manifesto of President McKinley that involved two nations in war, and to one who, as the papers themselves remarked, was extremely ignorant, for he spoke execrable Spanish ...

(to be continued)