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Read Ebook: Yule Logs: Longmans' Christmas Annual for 1898 by Henty G A George Alfred Editor
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Ebook has 338 lines and 112882 words, and 7 pages
PART I
THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK
HIGH POLITICS
MEN AND MASTERS: WORK AND WAGES
THE STATUS OF WOMEN
EDUCATION
RELIGION AND THE CHURCHES
LONDON AND ITS GOVERNMENT
RAILWAYS AND INVENTIONS: FORECASTS AND NOVELTIES
PART II
THE SOCIAL FABRIC
CROWN AND COURT
SOCIETY
RECREATION, SPORT, AND PASTIME
FASHION IN DRESS
LETTERS AND JOURNALISM: DRAMA AND MUSIC
HEROES AND WORTHIES
PART I
THE NATIONAL OUTLOOK
HIGH POLITICS
The parallel is followed up in the doggerel lines:--
The Marquis Bo-Peep Herds the Liberal Sheep-- If he only knew where to find them. Will they ever come home And--please Home Rule and Rome-- Bring their Irish tails behind them?
We haven't hauled down the British Flag , But we've chosen the other alternative-- We've hauled down our Mis-instructions.
Instantly the man stood aside, touched his cap respectfully, and motioned them to enter.
As they did so, a third person attempted to pass the guard in their company, but was seized on the threshold.
"Is this hombre of your party, se?or?" asked the guard.
"Certainly not," replied Carlos. "I never saw him before."
So the intruder, who was evidently of Spanish blood, was ignominiously thrust back, and as he slunk away he muttered words that boded no good to Carlos Moranza, in case they should again meet.
In the meantime the young Cuban, accompanied by Carl Baldwin, made his way to the balcony where the agent of the Junta had just finished reading of Garcia's victory. As Carlos touched him on the shoulder he turned quickly and frowned at sight of a stranger. Again the lad whispered his magic formula, and in another moment the agent was embracing him with the fervour of a life-long friendship. Then he led his guests to a private room, where for half-an-hour he engaged Carlos in earnest conversation, of which young Baldwin could only understand an occasional word.
When our lads finally left the building and regained the street, the latter asked curiously, "What was it all about, old man?"
"He said," replied Carlos, "that the Spanish cruiser now in port is here for the express purpose of escorting us to Havana, and that, as soon as we are outside Key West harbour, she will place a guard on both tug and scow."
"Hm!" remarked Carl Baldwin reflectively; "we can't allow that."
"I should say not," agreed Carlos Moranza; "only I'd like to know how we are to prevent it."
"Just you leave it to me, and I'll show you the trick," rejoined the young American.
"Hello! what do you mean, sir, by following us?" cried Carl Baldwin, seizing the stranger's arm as he spoke.
With a muttered oath the man wrenched himself free and darted away, but not before the gleam of a street light had revealed his features to Carlos Moranza.
"Let us hasten, then, before he returns."
"I don't believe he will dare do that. He is too badly scared."
But the spy did return, and, crouching in deepest shadow, became convinced that those whose business he was so anxious to discover had passed beneath the wharf. As he dared not attempt to follow them through the impenetrable gloom into which they had disappeared, he sought a hiding-place, and from it watched with infinite patience for them to again come forth.
As a result, the submarine boat was allowed to drift down the harbour with the ebbing tide, until she came abreast the great black hull of a man-of-war. Then she imperceptibly sank beneath the surface.
On the following morning the Spanish spy, weary and cramped with his long vigil, was amazed to see an utter stranger emerge cautiously from beneath the wharf he had been watching, and walk quickly away. For a moment the spy was undecided as to whether he should follow this person or seek to discover where he had come from. Then choosing the former course, he followed Professor Rivers at a respectful distance, until he had the vast satisfaction of seeing him meet, near the custom-house, the captain of the tug that was avowedly bound for Havana.
There was a connection then between those who hid beneath the wharf and the suspected tow anchored in the harbour. Undoubtedly a store of contraband goods was concealed under the wharf, and an effort would be made to convey them on board the tug before she sailed. What a reward was in prospect for him could he but discover it!
A little later the spy, with two companions, all armed, occupied a skiff that made its way cautiously through the dark spaces beneath the wharf he had watched so long. Suddenly between them and the outer daylight two men appeared one after the other. Both slid down one of the piles supporting the pier and dropped into the water, or at least the exulting spy thought they did so as he hastily urged his boat in that direction.
To his amazement and disgust, when he reached the spot where they had disappeared, he could discover no trace of them. Neither was there a boat or a hiding-place into which they could have gone. The man was furious at being thus baffled, and uttered many a fierce Spanish oath. Finally, convinced that further search in that direction was fruitless, he pulled out into the harbour to watch the mysterious tow that still lay at anchor. As he drew near to it he saw its captain come off from shore alone. Then the guard from one of the revenue cutters was withdrawn, anchors were lifted, and the tow began to move slowly down the channel. It was certain that no one save the captain had gone aboard, nor had any cargo been taken in except a few tons of carefully examined coal.
That night the spy boarded a swift passenger steamer bound for the same port, which at sunrise of the following morning passed beneath the frowning walls of Moro Castle in company with the tow he had come to watch.
Carl Baldwin, to whom everything was excitingly novel, viewed with delight the grim Moro with its tall lighthouse tower, the white Cabanas fortress, the tinted, flat-roofed buildings of the city across the placid basin, the quaint cathedral spires, and the thousand other curious features of Spain's chief stronghold in the New World.
Carlos Moranza, filled with conflicting emotions at again approaching his native land under such strange conditions, gazed in silence, but as though hoping with the very intensity of his vision to pierce the crowding walls and discover the prison of his beloved sister.
At this very moment the Spanish spy was regarding, and triumphantly recognising, all three of the Americans through a glass levelled at them from the deck of the steamer on which he was a passenger. Thus it happened that, as the captain of the tug was preparing to go ashore and make formal entry at the custom-house, after having successfully passed examination by both health officers and port authorities, two barges filled with soldiers dashed out from the mole and headed directly towards the new arrivals. One of these took possession of the tug, while the other, in which sat the exulting spy, ranged alongside the dumping scow.
For nearly an hour the soldiers searched every compartment and corner of the two vessels, even overhauling the coal in the tug's bunkers. When there was no longer an unexplored crevice, even the spy was forced to confess that there was no person aboard unaccounted for in the tug's papers, and that he must have laboured under a delusion as to what he had seen. He was bewildered, mortified, and angry, and was rendered furious by the ridicule heaped upon him by the officer to whom he was obliged to report his failure to discover anything that would justify a seizure of the tug.
This craft the Spaniards would have been glad to possess, but when its captain went ashore and announced his desire to dispose of the dumping scow, the authorities only laughed at him, and referred him to General Weyler, who happened at that time to be absent with an expedition to the interior. This was gratifying information, as it afforded an excuse for remaining in Havana harbour until he should return.
With the earliest twilight of that evening they returned to the tug and held a short consultation with her captain, who had used his eyes to such good purpose while on shore that he was enabled to direct them to a place from which he believed they could gain the city streets. This was most important, for though in the darkness they might have landed anywhere along the quay, they would still have been shut off from the streets by a tall and stout iron fence, the gates of which were always guarded, and at sunset locked for the night. This is in accordance with a regulation that not only forbids any vessel to enter or leave the port of Havana between sunset and sunrise, but also prohibits all communication between the city and its harbour during the night.
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