– so we can catch a few hours' nap.”
We proceeded around the field with caution, for the plantation house was not far away. Passing a building where the grinding was done, we entered a long, low drying shed. Here we struck a match, and by the flickering light espied a heap of dry husks, upon which we immediately threw ourselves.
“We’ll have to be up and away before daybreak,” said my chum, as he drew off his wet coat, an example which I at once followed, even though it was so warm I did not suffer greatly from the dampness. “We would be sorry fellows to give an explanation if we were stopped in this vicinity.”
“Yes, and for the matter of that, we had better sleep with one eye open,” I rejoined. And then we turned in, and both presently fell asleep through sheer exhaustion.
How long I had been sleeping I did not know. I awoke with a start, to find a cold nose pressing against my face.
“Hi! get out of here!” I cried, and then the owner of the nose leaped back and uttered the low, savage, and unmistakable growl of a Cuban bloodhound!
CHAPTER III.
IN THE WILDS OF THE ISLAND
To say that I was alarmed when I found that the intruder in our sleeping quarters was a bloodhound would be to put the fact very mildly. I was truly horrified, and a chill shook my frame as I had a momentary vision of being torn to pieces by the bloodthirsty animal.
My cry awoke Alano, who instantly asked what was the matter, and then yelled at the beast in Spanish. As the creature retreated, evidently to prepare for a rush upon us, I sprang to my feet and grasped a short ladder which led to the roof of the shed.
“Come!” I roared to my chum, and Alano did so; and both of us scrambled up, with the bloodhound snarling and snatching at our feet. He even caught the heel of my boot, but I kicked him off, and we reached the top of the shed in temporary safety. Baffled, the dog ran out of the shed and began to bay loudly, as though summoning assistance.
“We’re in for it now!” I groaned. "We can’t get away from the dog, and he’ll arouse somebody before long."
“Well, we can’t help ourselves,” replied Alano, with a philosophical shrug of his shoulders. “Ha! somebody is coming now!”
He pointed through the semi-darkness, for it was close to sunrise. A Cuban negro was approaching, a huge fellow all of six feet tall and dressed in the garb of an overseer. He carried a little triangular lantern, and as he drew closer he yelled at the bloodhound in a Cuban patois which was all Greek to me, but which Alano readily understood. The dog stopped baying, but insisted upon leading his master to the very foot of the shed, where he stood with his nose pointed up at us.
There was no help for it, so Alano crawled to the edge of the roof and told the overseer what was the trouble – that the dog had driven us hither and that we were afraid of being killed. A short conversation followed, and then my chum turned to me.
“We can go down now,” he said. “The overseer says the dog will not touch us so long as he is around.”
We leaped to the ground, although I must admit I did not do so with a mind perfectly at ease, the bloodhound still looked so ugly. However, beyond a few sniffs at my trousers-leg and a deep rumble of his voice, he offered no further indignities.
“He wants to know who we are,” said Alano, after more conversation. “What shall I tell him?”
“Tell him the truth, and ask him for help to reach your father’s plantation, Alano. He won’t know we escaped from Santiago de Cuba without permission.”
Alano did as directed. At the mention of Senor Guerez' name the overseer held up his hands in astonishment. He told Alano that he knew his father well, that he had met the señor only two weeks previously, and that both Alano’s father and my own had thrown in their fortunes with the insurgents!
“Is it possible!” I ejaculated. “My father, too! Why, he must be still lame!”
“He is,” said Alano, after further consultation with the newcomer. “My father, it seems, had to join the rebels, or his plantation would have been burned to the ground. There was a quarrel with some Spanish sympathizers, and in the end both your father and mine joined the forces under General Calixto Garcia.”
“And where are they now?”
“The overseer does not know.”
“What of your mother and sisters?”
“He does not know about them either;” and for a moment Alano’s handsome and manly face grew very sober. “Oh, if I was only with them!”
“And if I was only with my father!” I cried. My father was all the world to me, and to be separated from him at such a time was more than painful. “Do you think he will help us?” I went on, after a moment of silence.
The overseer agreed to do what he could for us, although that would not be much. He was an insurgent at heart, but his master and all around him were in sympathy with the Spanish Government.
“He says for us to remain here and he will bring us breakfast,” said Alano, as the man turned and departed, with the bloodhound at his side. “And after that he will set us on a road leading to Tiarriba and gave us a countersign which will help us into a rebel camp if there is any around.”
We secreted ourselves again in the cane shed, and it was not long before the overseer returned, bringing with him a kettle of steaming black coffee, without which no Cuban breakfast seems complete, and some fresh bread and half a dozen hard-boiled eggs. He had also a bag of crackers and a chunk of dried beef weighing several pounds.
“Put those in your bags,” he said to Alano, indicating the beef and crackers. “You may find it to your interest to keep out of sight for a day or two, to avoid the Spanish spies.”
The breakfast was soon dispatched, the provisions stored in our valises, and then the overseer took us up through the sugar-cane fields to where a brook emptied into a long pond, covered with green weeds, among which frogs as broad as one’s hand croaked dismally. We hurried around the pond, and our guide pointed out a narrow, winding path leading upward through a stony woods. Then he whispered a few words to Alano, shook us both by the hand, and disappeared.
“He says the countersign is ‘Sagua’ – after the river and city of that name,” explained my chum as we tramped along. “You must wave your hand so if you see a man in the distance,” and Alano twirled his arm over his head.
Stony though it was in the woods, the vegetation was thick and rank. On every side were the trunks of decaying trees, overgrown with moss – the homes of beetles, lizards, and snakes innumerable. The snakes, most of them small fellows not over a foot long, at first alarmed me, but this only made Alano laugh.
“They could not harm you if they tried,” he said. “And they are very useful – they eat up so many of the mosquitoes and gnats and lizards.”
“But some of the snakes are dangerous,” I insisted.
“Oh, yes; but they are larger.”
“And what of wild animals?”
“We have nothing but wild hogs and a few deer, and wild dogs too. And then there are the alligators to be found in the rivers.”
The
