mercilessly, and the slippery ground fairly steamed, so rapid was the evaporation. By noon we had reached the top of a hill, and here we rested and partook of several crackers each and a bit of the beef, washing both down with water from a spring, which I first strained through a clean handkerchief, to get clear of the insects and tiny lizards, which abounded everywhere.
“I can see a house ahead,” announced Alano, who had climbed a palm tree to view the surroundings. “We’ll go on and see what sort of a place it is before we make ourselves known.”
Once again we shouldered our traps and set out. The way down the hill was nearly as toilsome as the upward course on the opposite side had been, for gnarled roots hidden in the rank grasses made a tumble easy. Indeed, both of us went down several times, barking our shins and scratching our hands. Yet we kept on, until the house was but a short distance off.
It was set in a small clearing; and as we approached we saw a man come out of the front door and down the broad piazza steps. He was dressed in the uniform of a captain in the Spanish army.
“Back!” cried Alano; but it was too late, for by pure accident the military officer had caught sight of us. He called out in Spanish to learn who we were.
“He is a Spanish officer!” I whispered to Alano. “Shall we face him and trust to luck to get out of the scrape?”
“No, no! Come!” and, catching me by the arm, Alano led the way around the clearing.
It was a bad move, for no sooner had we turned than the officer called out to several soldiers stationed at a stable in the rear of the house. These leaped on their horses, pistols and sabers in hand, and, riding hard, soon surrounded us.
“Halte!” came the command; and in a moment more my Cuban chum and myself found ourselves prisoners.
CHAPTER IV.
IN A NOVEL PRISON
I looked with much foreboding upon the faces of the soldiers who had surrounded us. All were stern almost to the verge of cruelty, and the face of the captain when he came up was no exception to the rule. Alano and I learned afterward that Captain Crabo had met the day previous with a bitter attack from the insurgents, who had wounded six of his men, and this had put him in anything but a happy frame of mind.
“Who are you?” he demanded in Spanish, as he eyed us sharply.
Alano looked at me in perplexity, and started to ask me what he had best say, when the Spanish captain clapped the flat side of his sword over my chum’s mouth.
“Talk so that I can understand you, or I’ll place you under arrest,” he growled. And then he added, “Are you alone?”
“Yes,” said Alano.
“And where are you going?”
"I wish to join my father at Guantanamo. His father is also with mine," and my chum pointed to me.
“Your name?”
Seeing there was no help for it, Alano told him. Captain Crabo did not act as if he had heard it before, and we breathed easier. But the next moment our hearts sank again.
“Well, we will search you, and if you carry no messages and are not armed, you can go on.”
“We have no messages,” said Alano. “You can search us and welcome.”
He handed over his valise, and I followed suit. Our pistols we had placed in the inner pockets of our coats. By his easy manner my chum tried to throw the Spaniards off their guard, but the trick did not work. After going through our bags, and confiscating several of my silk handkerchiefs, they began to search our clothing, even compelling us to remove our boots, and the weapons were speedily brought to light.
“Ha! armed!” cried Captain Crabo. “They are not so innocent as they seem. We will look into their history a little closer ere we let them go. Take them to the smoke-house until I have time to make an investigation to-night. We must be off for Pueblo del Cristo now.”
Without ceremony we were marched off across the clearing and around the back of the stable, where stood a rude stone building evidently built many years before. Alano told me what the captain had said, and also explained that the stone building was a smoke-house, where at certain seasons of the year beef and other meat were hung up to be dried and smoked, in preference to simple drying in the sun.
As might be expected, the smoke-house was far from being a clean place; yet it had been used for housing prisoners before, and these had taken the trouble to brush the smut from the stones inside, so it was not so dirty as it might otherwise have been.
We were thrust into this building minus our pistols and our valises. Then the door, a heavy wooden affair swinging upon two rusty iron hinges, was banged shut in our faces, a hasp and spike were put into place, and we were left to ourselves.
“Now we are in for it,” I began, but Alano stopped me short.
“Listen!” he whispered, and we did so, and heard all of our enemies retreat. A few minutes later there was the tramping of horses' feet, several commands in Spanish, and the soldiers rode off.
“They have left us to ourselves, at any rate,” said my chum, when we were sure they had departed. "And we are made of poor stuff indeed if we cannot pick our way out of this hole."
At first we were able to see nothing, but a little light shone in through several cracks in the roof, and soon our eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. We examined the walls, to find them of solid masonry. The roof was out of our reach, the floor so baked it was like cement.
“We are prisoners now, surely, Mark,” said Alano bitterly. “What will be our fate when that capitan returns?”
“We’ll be sent back to Santiago de Cuba most likely, Alano. But we must try to escape. I have an idea. Can you balance me upon your shoulders, do you think?”
“I will try it. But what for?”
“I wish to examine the roof.”
Not without much difficulty I succeeded in reaching my chum’s broad shoulders and standing upright upon them. I could now touch the ceiling of the smoke-house with ease, and I had Alano move around from spot to spot in a close inspection of every bit of board and bark above us.
“Here is a loose board!” I cried in a low voice. “Stand firm, Alano.”
He braced himself by catching hold of the stone wall, and I shoved upward with all of my strength. There was a groan, a squeak; the board flew upward, and the sun shone down on our heads. I crawled through the opening thus made, and putting down my hand I helped Alano to do likewise.
“Drop out of sight of the house!” he whispered. “Somebody may be watching this place.”
We dropped, and waited in breathless silence for several minutes, but no one showed himself. Then we held a consultation.
“They thought we couldn’t get out,” I said. “More than likely no one is left at the homestead but a servant or two.”
“If only we could get our bags and pistols,” sighed Alano.
“We must get them,” I rejoined, “for we cannot go on without them. Let us sneak up to the house and investigate. I see no dogs around.”
