we are entitled to participate in whatever he wins. Yet, amigos, this is not all. My nephew, caballeros, has been accused, by one of this party, during his absence, of being not only a contemptible thief, but a traitor and coward. Now, as these are three ‘blasphemous vituperations’ which are not to be found under any head in my prayer-book, and never were chargeable on the blood of our family, I insist on immediate justice to my kinsman. Let that cowardly scoundrel repeat and prove his accusation of Téodore, face to face! You, señores, shall stand judges. Every thing shall be fair. To-night, my boy shall be found guilty or purged of the baseness imputed to him; and, moreover, I apprise you now, that if he is innocent, I shall to-morrow restore him to liberty. His voluntary return was a voucher of honesty; and I doubt whether there is a clever man among you who does not agree with me. Stand forth, Gallego, and charge this youth again with the infamy you heaped on him while he was away.”
But the sullen wretch bowed his head, with a hang-dog look, and rolled his black and bushy skull slowly from side to side, with an air of bullying defiance. Still he remained perfectly silent.
“Stand forth, Gallego, once more, I say!” shouted Don Rafael, stamping with fury and foaming at the mouth; “stand forth, imp of the devil, and make good your charge, or I’ll trice you up to these rafters by your thumbs, and lash you with a cow-hide till your stretched skin peels off in ribbons!”
The threat restored Gallego’s voice; but he could only say that there was no use in repeating the charges, because the case was prejudged, and all feared Don Rafael and his parasite to such a degree that it was impossible to treat him with justice. “Yet, look ye, señores, if I can’t talk, I can fight. If Don Rafael is ready to meet me, knife in hand, in support of my cause, why, all I have to say is, that I am ready for him and his bastard to boot!”
In a moment, Rafael’s knife was out of his belt, and the two sprang forward in a death-struggle, which would doubtless have been a short affair, had not the whole party interposed between the combatants and forbidden the fight. In the hurly-burly, Gallego took to his heels and departed.
The scoundrel’s escape caused some alarm in the camp, as it was feared he might leave the island, and, turning king’s evidence, make the waters of Cuba too hot for the band. Accordingly, all the canoes and boats that night were drawn up on the beach and kept under double watch.
When order was restored in the rancho, I asked Don Rafael to explain the “three accusations” that had been made against my fair fame; when I learned that I was charged by Gallego with having felled him in the boat, with having shipped voluntarily in the privateer, and with returning in the Cara-bobo’s boats to rob the rancho of its valuables!
The first of the allegations I admitted to be true; the second had been disproved by the privateer’s boatmen; and, as to the third, I at once insisted upon the party’s taking torches and accompanying me to the graveyard, where, I told them, they would find—as, in truth, they did—the valuables this villain had charged me with stealing. On our way thither, I recounted the manner in which I detected his infamy.
Nest morning we divided into two parties, and taking the dogs, proceeded in chase of the dastard Galician. He was quickly tracked by the hounds and caught asleep, with two empty flasks beside him.
A drum-head court-martial at once convened for his trial, and it was unanimously resolved to chain him to a tree, where he was to be left exposed to the elements until he starved to death. The passive and silent fit had again come over Gallego. I implored that the sentence might be softened, but I was laughed at for my childish pity, and ordered home to the rancho. The command to chain him having been executed, the Spanish outcast was left to his terrible fate. One of the men, out of compassion, as he said, secretly conveyed a case of gin to the doomed man, and left it within reach, either to solace his departure from the world, or to render him insensible. But his end was speedy. Next morning the guard found him dead, with six empty bottles out of the case. His body was denied the rites of sepulture. It was left lying in chains as he perished, to rot in the sun and be devoured by the insects generated from his decay.
CHAPTER VI.
When these dreadful scenes were over, Don Rafael took me aside with the pleasant news that the time for my liberation was indeed arrived. He handed me one hundred and twenty-five dollars, which wore my share of the proceeds of our lawful fishing. “Take the money,” said Rafael, with a good deal of feeling; “take it, young man, with perfect confidence;—there is no blood on it!”
My preparations for departure were quickly made, as Bachicha was in the cove with his craft ready to take me to the mainland. I bade a hasty adieu to the gang; and perhaps it is rare that any one ever abandoned the companions of several months’ intimacy with so little pain. Rafael’s solicitude for my character touched me. He had done all in his power to preserve my self-respect, and I was, therefore, well disposed to regard the good counsel he gave me at parting, and to believe in his sincerity when he pictured a bright future, and contrasted it with his own desolation and remorse.
“I have recommended you, hijo mio, to a friend in Regla, on the opposite side of the harbor at Havana, who will take care of you. He is a paisano of ours. Take these additional ten ounces, which are the fruit of honest labor. They will help you to appear properly in Havana; so that, with the care of Bachicha and our Regla countryman, I don’t despair of your welfare. Adios! para siempre!”
And so we parted;—and it was, indeed, an adieu for ever. We never met again, but I heard of Don Rafael and his fortunes. The new enterprise with the pilot-boat turned out successfully, and the band acquired considerable property on the island before the piratical nests along the coast of Cuba were broken up by cruisers. Rafael had some narrow escapes from the noose and the yard arm; but he eluded the grasp of his pursuers, and died a respectable ranchero on a comfortable farm in the interior of the Queen of the Antilles.
The light winds of summer soon brought us inside the Moro Castle, past the frowning batteries of the Cabanas, and at anchor near Regla, within the beautiful harbor of Havana. I shall never forget the impression made on my mind by this delicious scene as it first broke on my sight at sunrise, in all the cool freshness of morning. The grand amphitheatre of hills swept down to the calm and lake-like water with gentle slopes, lapped in the velvet robes of richest green, and embroidered, as it were, with lace-like spots of castle, fort, dwelling, and villa, until the seaward points were terminated on the left, by the brilliant city, and on the right by a pile of majestic batteries.
This grand and lasting impression was made almost at a glance, for, at my time of life, I was more concerned with man than nature, and rarely paused to dwell on the most fascinating scenery. Accordingly, I hastened to Regla with my letter of introduction, which was interpreted by Bachicha to the Italian grocer, the friend of Rafael, to whom I was confided. Il signore Carlo Cibo was an illiterate man of kind heart, who had adventurously emigrated from Italy to furnish the Havanese with good things; while, in return, the Havanese had been so pleased with his provender, that Carlo may be said to have been a man “very well to do in the world” for a foreigner. He received me with unbounded kindness;—welcomed me to his bachelor home;—apologized for its cold cheerlessness, and ordered me to consider himself and his “casa” entirely at my disposal as long as I chose to remain.
I was content to accept this unstinted hospitality for a few days, while I ran over the town, the hills, and the paseos; but I could not consent to dally long eating the bread of idleness and charity. I observed that my friend Carlo was either the most prudent or least inquisitive man I knew, for he never asked me a question about my early or recent
